I don’t know if you were referring to me, but my thinking that correspondence games shouldn’t be counted is definitely not something I’m saying because I want to win, considering I’m pretty sure no one now has as many active games as I do.
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By all means, _Sofiam deserves an award for sheer amount of games played all the time 
I’m just sad that there are so few dan games on OGS (it’s a wasteland in mid-high dans). This event was supposed to make people play more live games to try to win a prize. Trying to get people to join OGS and play there because they can win an event. But seems like once again, the event won’t achieve that purpose.
That’s why I’m asking for rule change. I want OGS to bring in new players.
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You are definitely the stellar example of “playing for the sake of playing”, not “winning for the sake of winning”. 
The spirit of the challenge is “play more”. I think we should encourage more games, corr or live, and have that count more on our collective ogf conscience than “what counts”.
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Yeah, if the spirit of the tournament is to get people who play on OGS to play more, of course rules shouldn’t change.
I do remember talks of trying to bring players that usually play on Fox, WBaduk, IGS, Tygem, etc to come and play on OGS instead (which I think would help since no high dans are active). Just the current rules of the event do not help to achieve that.
Hence why I was hoping Clossius would change to get increased activity not just reward players that were active in correspondence games in January and Feburary.
Saying that games that started in January and Feburary count, makes it less interesting for people to join the event in March (which also mitigates the impact of having the event in the first place).
If we compare that to games that start and end in March, would push players from all servers to join and compete. Faster queue times (which is OGS’s big issue) and increased activity on the server rather than simply rewarding players that were already active.
That being said, it’s Clossi’s tourney so he can do whatever he wants. Just don’t expect an influx of players/streamers on OGS
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If your goal is to get people to play more, there’s no need for prize money. Bragging rights suffice.
Otherwise, what happens is the following: people start thinking about first prize, and what its net value is in terms of money/time in the rational sense. $125 for, let’s be generous and only take 100 live games, is going to take at least 25 hours, so you’re getting at most $5 per hour played. If you’re playing correspondence, let’s assume you start and finish 100 matches within said month. Your games average 250 moves, so you need to make about 807 moves a day. Let’s suppose you spend 3 seconds per move (looking at each position, clicking, waiting for server response etc.), that adds up to about 68 minutes a day or 35 hours a month. Now you’re considering what job you could do to earn something in excess of $2.86 per hour. Of course I didn’t take into consideration the odds of actually winning first/second/third prize, because you can already see where this is headed.
My gripe isn’t with the event or its rules, it’s the “incentive”. If you want people to play more, make it more interesting for them to play (more), don’t indirectly pay them to do so. That’s counterproductive.
If everything went to charity regardless, I’d have less of an issue with this.
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Even a TPK sloth with no ambition like me gets competitive, and this event is making me itch for more games. (it doesn’t show in my record, but I prefer live games and I plan to have a decent entry this year)
I can’t imagine it won’t make at least some dormant OGS citizens more active, hopefully long-term. More players is more players, win-win.
My personal gain from this will be more live rengo and I’m happy with that. 
My guess is no dan (or hardly anyone, tbh) will change their go server routine over a 100$ (max) prize, to be honest. Would really a strong player hop on OGS (if it’s really that bad here as told elsewhere…) over a small monthly prize? Honestly, I think not. But if there’s a yearly March Go month? That I could see happening.
It’s the PR that Go is so sorely missing. Scores of new players, surely a dan will grow in there, sooner or later. Maybe more.
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In my eyes, 100$ (max) to do something we supposedly all enjoy is a nice cherry on top, but not the whole cake.
I don’t put a cent on a scale opposite my every action, but I understand other views exist. Fair point.
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Nothing to do with what you think, it’s a simple exercise in game theory.
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The way I see it is that every single go server gets free publicity from streamers, which OGS has very few of (cause no one wants to watch a stream where half of the time you’re waiting for a game). So OGS is behind on that.
If you ask players why they play on Fox (the most popular server at the moment) is because the games are instant. You don’t spend time waiting around. You click “play”, you have an opponent. That factor alone keeps players. OGS is also behind on that.
Now, when it comes to correspondence games, OGS is amazing. I think it is THE most popular go server for correspondence. Bar none.
The only way to make OGS more popular and successful is to bring people over there and give them a nice experience in live games. So any effort that does not contribute to making OGS a better live-game server won’t really bring more players (cause everyone who wants to play correspondence is already on OGS) and, therefore, is doomed to fail.
I wish I could recommend OGS for live-games, stream on it or even play on it myself, but it’s too painful right now to do so. Was hoping this event would help OGS out, but doesn’t seem like it. Sure, OGS players will love it, but you don’t help fix OGS’s issues
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I need to stress out that that’s your opinion, you might be wrong.
That something isn’t to your liking isn’t necessarily “doomed to fail” and it weakens your argument when you appear just set against something on principle.
And surely OGS won’t attract more players if there’s so much debate on the insignificant technicality of who gets 25$ over an uninformal, fun event. Where’s the welcoming, where’s the enthusiasm? Just mainly gripes over how to be exact and maximum efficiency.
That’s just boring.
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No, BoneSaw is necessarily correct. Read her post carefully and make sure you understand what her argument is.
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Prisoner’s dilemma will never understand loyalty, and that’s its loss.
Why do I even bother with you, as if I don’t know your track record.
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So why aren’t players going on OGS? No new players won’t join a server because there’s an argument on 1 forum thread…
Ask any dan player why they’d rather download a chinese client that needs to update, has no good review tool, no tournaments and a worse interface instead of going on OGS. Especially when they already use OGS for tourneys. Ask any dan streamer why they don’t play on OGS. You’ll get the same answer.
Reason is that there are no live games. The queue takes too long. That’s a fact. Now, the only way to increase the queue time is to have more players playing on OGS. Hence making an event with cash prizes interesting. Players (funnily enough) wanna play. Waiting’s boring. You can make events to promote correspondence, but you will reinforce the notion that “ogs isn’t a server for live games because waiting times are too long”.
Unless, of course, you think the lack of players is due to something else…
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Clossius announces a “play more games” challenge.
Correspondence is allowed and somehow this is an argument that absolutely, surely, 100% current OGS low rank corr enthusiasts will exploit the “February corr game loophole cheat code” and that’s that.
Why do you take that for granted? Why not even consider that, you know, people will probably play live games as well and you’ll maybe get faster matches?
To me it shows that the focus shifted on “10 people will use their February corr games to cheat us out of 25$!!!” and not that most probably more people will play, corr and live and blitz and whatever.
It’s weird that nobody thinks a dan might say “wow, Go month over at OGS, let’s check the fish there!”. Aren’t dans curious, like mere mortals?.. Are they superior beings that need guarantees that money AND fistfuls of games will be at the end of the road to pay a visit? That’s not a nice thing to imply about dans…
Really, you as a streamer, would you change servers (not for an event and then disappear, really give it a chance) for a small cash prize? If a server wasn’t to your liking, part of your routine, shortcomings and all? I’m seriously asking, because I’ve never seen it be so simple. There are always much more variables than that. Where’s one’s subscribers, what they are used to, who else is there, collaborations etc.
It’s not as simple as “show the money, dans will flock”.
A successful event is a successful event. It builds audiences. But I don’t see enthusiasm in this being a successful event, I only see demand to be “exactly this thing bar nothing”.
(I’m probably wrong, but maybe, just maybe, some dans have “cool kid syndrome” and prefer to play where the cool kids are and not where they’d like to. Like if they are not attached to Fox or whatever they are losing out. I might be harsh, or some people might be afraid to stand out and do their own thing. Who knows. But that’s a discussion for another day.)
P. S. Fox is the gambling one? I don’t care who’s there or how fast matches are, I won’t go there on principle.
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No. You got me wrong.
The event (since not everyone starts the games at the same time) doesn’t give even playing field for everyone. Players that are playing somewhere else have no incentive to go and play on OGS. Why would you do it? There’s an event going on, sure, but most people are playing correspondence. I’ll stick to Fox.
If you make it “all games that start and end in March are counted” then you incentivize people to create games during that period of time, allowing live players to go on OGS and have a better experience. Hopefully gaining players.
Me, as a streamer, would join the tourney because I like OGS. Sadly, there are no games. But I’d challenge a bunch of people in beating my number of games. Playing viewers, friends, etc. Promoting the event. Making a “let’s win this challenge!” (I’d do it even with no money on the line). But, last time, after 21h of stream in 3 days, viewers pointed out that I was already 20+ games late on the #1 player (and that’s despite playing super blitz simuls). Hell, I wasn’t even in top 5 because some players had stacked up correspondence games. So, no interest in continuing. Back to streaming on Fox. People watch streams to see games and events. Sadly, that event (since you must use correspondence to win) offers very poor content (can’t win with live games) and most of the time, you’re watching a matchmaking screen. The only way a streamer can justify that and have entertaining stream is if they are trying to win an event. Otherwise, it’s just boring.
It’s not as simple as “show the money, dans will flock” indeed. But you need to promote live games for players to play live games and be interested in OGS. This event doesn’t do that. Sad.
Yeah, Fox has gambling. If you don’t like, both WBaduk and IGS offer 5x faster queue times (if not more! I never wait more than 2-3s for a game. OGS takes easily 2-3min when there’s high activity. For higher dans, it’s even more. And when you get a game, it’s a ? player who’s ddk…")
While OGS has absurd waiting times for live games, you won’t have streamers interested of playing there and so it’ll continue being a wasteland at higher ranks. The ONLY reason a streamer/player would go there is if there’s an event that they can win going on. Was hoping this could be it, but apparently it isn’t.
I hate having to use a virtual machine to download a client that needs to update, that I can’t use fully because it’s in chinese, where ranks are busted and where there’s no real review system. I want OGS to be great. But, if I want to play go, OGS simply isn’t an option. There are no live games! And, apparently, no incentive to have more live games in the near future either
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I think you are overestimating it. IIRC among last year’s winners, only Leiye and I played a significant number of correspondence games. In my case it was “only” about 50%. Most of the games played for the WDC were live.
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(I mean to quote the whole paragraph, only taking the first sentence for convenience)
I lack the perspective of a content creator, but I understand what you’re saying.
I would welcome a live challenge, for the reasons you mention but also because I genuinely enjoy live games. I plan on enjoying the one we’re getting as well.
I would love one. Cause I think OGS can be great. I thought that was the goal of the tournament. I just recall playing a truckload of games (as many live games as humanly possible) and then being told I’m super far behind. Then you go to the correspondence and see people with the limit of challenges open, go to their profiles and see an absurd amount of ongoing games. Was quite depressing.
Maybe indeed it’s just my view that’s skewed, but it felt really bad to be struggling to have live games and seeing people with 30+ ongoing games in correspondence. So I went back to playing on Fox instead and got back the amount of viewers that I lost for trying to stream live games on OGS (no waiting for games REALLY helps).
From content creator perspective, you lose viewers on OGS. I can cope with that, but having that plus an uneven playing field (even if you don’t try to hack the system, if you already have 30 correspondence games when the month begins that are halfway through means you get 15 free games at the end of the month. And some people have a lot more than 30 going on at the same time (which isn’t a bad thing, just gives them a massive advantage. They need to play less moves than you to achieve same result)
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Iirc there was a separate reward for 100 streamer games last year, but I don’t remember what happened with that.
I don’t think many people reached the 100 threshold overall, so it was few really active people competing, not lots of 100s outshone by corr stacking.
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