Hi Karel and all,
Thank you for having the discussions and providing some kind of positive direction on how to handle the choice of venue for 2020.
Here are my thoughts:
1. Accommodation and Player AttendanceThis is the biggest situation. In order for the Gasny plan to work, we need to make sure that there are enough accommodations for the players and they are within easy reach. From what I read last week, there were apparantly 45 places "available" but very spread out, some of them are not too far, but some of them may be further out and require cars to collect the players each day. After Lafungo's checks, it turns out that a number of them may have already been pre-booked, and the available places may only be as small as 15!? Even if it was 30... this number could shrink to 15 or less very very quickly. There are possibly French families and maybe elderly who will visit the countryside for their summer holidays and might book things early. Therefore these places which are not big hotels could disappear quickly, and only the remainder will be left between now and summer. Also, as money is an issue for everyone, not everyone will book today straight away either, some players will wait longer or even be lazy then suddenly it is too late. This is also up to the players to sort themselves out and be disciplined a bit, but if the room availability is too low then it will result in one thing. We will end up sleeping in the hall. There will be some and probably quite a few out of the total number that are happy to sleep in the hall, but for many of us, especially travelling from overseas and considering our ages not all being 20 - 25 anymore, it is probably not feasible. So we will need to rely on the rooms at accommodations.
So as an
action point we will need to have an official confirmation for every single accommodation and every single room, of how many rooms they truly have available on their booking, and in their history (they will know this by looking back at their records from the previous years), what month their rooms usually sell out by on each year. They can definitely tell you "You need to book by [such and such Month] or it is possible our 1 or 2 bedrooms will be taken". This information is also needed so that we don't get to March and they say "oh yes... we are very sorry... we did have 2 rooms free yesterday but they have just been taken now". Then the promised number of rooms will suddenly change, and we are stuffed.
Due to communication difficulties also, if we do go to Gasny we will need help in arranging these accommodations if necessary. They might need to make some reservations or something in advance to hold rooms for everyone. Also some players may stay in groups of 2, 3, 4. So we need to know which rooms will be suitable for that. It will be very difficult for anyone not speaking much French to acquire something via the internet or telephone, just in case something goes wrong, and anyone is stuck in the countryside with suitcases.
Definitely if it turns out that there are not enough accommodations (less than 45 like Adrien originally thought), and only more like 15 or even 30 (which is likely to go down fast too as locals plan their summer country holidays), then the accommodation side is not suitable. A few won't mind camping and sleeping on the floor in the venue. But just in case the numbers grow big it could be possible this happens. If it ends up that we have 40 - 43 players, taking out those that will sleep at the venue on the floor, we might just, just... scrape getting by with 15 - 30 available rooms. But this is very borderline. But if a huge number of players from France travel which is likely, maybe a small amount will stay in accommodations, then around 30 or so from overseas, we need to be ready.
So it needs an absolute confirmation. Not a vague answer from any of the accommodations like "yes it should be ok", and we just accept that when it might not be.
Other than that, on a positive note, I am sure that the accommodations will all be very nice and provide everything that is needed. But there is also the transportation to get there, and make sure players don't get lost on the way. Not talking about Aron missing a train because he wanted a cigarette again, but well that could happen too. But it is easy for one of the overseas players who hadn't been to France much to take a wrong turn somewhere. There is time to plan for this anyway, but just need to think about that after the accommodation situation.
2. Internet connectionI am not a major technician when it comes to streaming, but you guys know what is required, and those who set up Alphen have provided the particular statistics to check so it can match with the minimum requirements. Apparantly the issue was on the upload side and if the stream cuts out now and then, which La Suze did a lot then it is no good. It doesn't mean that Gasny will be like this, but it is possible. If it is the case then it isn't suitable. So if thorough testing can be done and if it doesn't cut out at all like La Suze used to then that is positive. My sister and several others kept writing to me during La Suze CDMs "can you ask them to fix it, i cant see anything, it keeps cutting out". Eventually I just ignored their messages because there was no way to fix it. The 4G connection practically never worked (for me and some others). I don't mind going without that for a week. But maybe others need it. Again, it will probably work perfectly well in Gasny, and La Suze venue just had bad luck, but we need overseas players to test that as well. Going back to the streaming, players will want to watch around the world. I know some of our folk are not bothered with that but the quality and connection is important. Imagine if it was AGDQ, and the stream cut just a few times only in the whole week? Not every 20 minutes cutting out even. What would the viewers reactions be? Think of the far end audience when doing the testing. People want to watch us compete, and more will. If anything, it will get people talking about the venue which they will see on the camera too. This could put Gasny more on the map, and lead it to some growth for the future
Alphen already has an established base as an esports venue and growing.
3. Conclusion and IASMK DecisionDefinitely agree with the IASMK goals. Basically with the accommodation and internet issue, we need to get an "absolute and definite" answer and situation for it to work on every room etc. We can not leave some of the results to be "yes, this should probably be ok". It needs to be clear and cut "yes or no", "good or bad". February will be plenty of time for Adrien and Jeremy to look into this. Thanks in advance to them for their work and investigations to follow, it is very appreciated. In terms of the final decision, I would still consider a voting method at the end only on one condition. This is if the definite results back from Adrien and Jeremy are very on the borderline of passable where it might be a risk if we go to Gasny. If the results are all 100% proven to be Blue Skies and Green lights, then that is great. The IASMK can decide from there accordingly. But if it is in the middle, then a community vote might be fair then as a last resort. However this would need to be generated in a very fair way where there is no issues. Probably an e-mail vote with a maybe 2-3 people closely managing this and only previous and recent CDM competitors (maybe those who have been present in at least 1 of the last 3-4 years for example) can take part in the vote as they will have had experience on what the recent CDMs are about and the important requirements are. Again IASMK can decide on a fair process here if it comes to that.
The
last resort vote will enforce Karel's point if it comes to this situation: "It is important to stress that this is not going to be a dictatorial decision."
But before that, please also write all of your thoughts here carefully. Again the final line from Karel's post: "There needs to be agreement within the IASMK and if there is significant community feedback we can adjust accordingly."
Sorry for the long post as well, you get the idea. We look forward to hear the final answers from Adrien and Jeremy within 4 weeks and to have a great CDM together at one of the venues.