Proposal - Event Registration System

[Durandal]

So after having had a few days to observe this crazy and awesome event, I think its become clear to everyone that despite it being a wonderful idea that there are two problems which no amount of FLHooking or good spirit can fix.

1: The engine.

Everyone spends a lot of time complaining about how poor behavior is ruining the event without thinking about the mechanical issues behind it. FL is physically incapable of tracking who fired the CD that detonated the person's mine resulting in death by munitions that they dropped. FL is physically incapable of checking whether someone has already died two hours prior. FL Is physically incapable of correctly detecting kills on ships with long death fuses when multiple people are shooting at them.

All of these issues result in gross discrepancies in the points awarded to both sides.

2: The people.

I find it harder to blame the community than most. This is a competition and people want to win. If this were an FPS, all sorts of underhanded behaviour would be both expected and embraced by both sides. It'd be ugly, it'd be cutthroat, it'd simply be the way things worked. I absolutely do not condone planetdiving or self nuking or shooting your own allies, but I can understand it. That being said, you can't babysit people 24/7 and these things are going to happen.

That's why I'm proposing an event registration system for large scale events such as these, a mountable item that FLHook can track (maybe a copy of the regular ID participating in the event) handed out after being approved on the forums.

Who would be in charge of approving these? I'd say anyone with a name who isn't a shade of blue really. This doesn't need to be an admin restricted job. Hell, it would even give the Angels something to actually do. Admins, moderators, angels, and maybe devs would be in charge of handing out these IDs thus ensuring that everyone (okay, a large majority at least) of the people participating are responsible individuals who understand the rules and mechanics behind the event.

Now for the pros and cons - at least the ones that I can see.

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Pros:

1.) Point denial.

People would be much less likely to deny points by self nuking, planetdiving, or shooting their allies.

2.) Bugged kills.

Having read the rules to apply for an event ticket, people would understand that for a point to be gained by shooting a capital ship that they need to cease fire after the explosion has begun.

3.) Newbies.

People who are completely new to the game and do dumb things such as reengage and by proxy feed the enemy team kills would be unable to participate in the event. Which brings us to 4.

4.) Community involvement.

Such a system may encourage new players to read the forums if they want to get in on the action, win money, help a side win, and feel like they're actually participating in something bigger and greater than their own roleplay.

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Cons:

1.) Work.

This is the biggest hurdle I see here. There would be a lot more work involved even if this wasn't limited solely to the admin team. Duplicate IDs or event tickets would need to be created, distributed securely, and then removed once the event is finished.

2.) Participation.

The extra hoop to jump through might discourage otherwise good people from joining up, with less of an open system resulting in more tryhards and less casual players.

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All in all, I'm probably thinking too big here and giving Discovery too much credit. I suppose we should just enjoy these events for what they're worth and spend less time thinking about how to make them better, forcing the game to do something better when it already wasn't meant to do that very thing to begin with.

I just thought I'd throw my proposal out there and test the waters. Be nice?