HoN Tour Update

[S2]The_Thrill (S2Games eSports Director)
------------
Community,

We have seen and heard the many requests from our players for more information on HoN Tour. You must understand we have not been unresponsive in providing said information because it is fun for us. To the contrary, S2 staff and I wish to provide you with as much information as we can! However, when information is given publicly many members may take that information as promises and if that information is to change, the backlash can be more devastating than silence ever would have been. Keeping that in mind, I will attempt to provide you with as much information as possible so that you can discuss amongst yourselves the details I provide; and if you have questions you may ask them in this thread if done so in a calm and professional manner.

This update is current as of 2/2/2012.

HoN Tour is going to be amazing. I'm serious. Envision, thousands of gamers being able to compete on an almost daily basis for cash and prizes. Teams of five held to a higher standard, competing against one another to move themselves up from event to event where the prizes grow as well as the competition. Top teams compete against one another while underneath them the foundation of competition grows more quickly than ever, creating new top teams, new competitive environments, and new drama. A multi-event season stretched over a period of four months featuring online and offline play. This is the future of competitive HoN. This is the HoN Tour.

Web Development:
We have gotten a dev site up for members of S2 Staff to view and comment on as we continue to work on its front end. Our art and coding teams have been doing an exceptional job and expect to have more functionality before the week is out. I cannot give a pinpoint time on when this website will be available for public view, but our main focus right now is getting our teams signup portal finished so that team captains can register themselves and get their teams going. This will likely be finished in the coming two weeks. We are currently working on populating our FAQ page to answer as many of the common questions we can think of to avoid additional threads being created. On the back end, our coders are working with BeyondGaming staff to ensure that the sign up process is as painless as possible.

Format:
During the HoNor II tourney we ran a Swiss format; HoN Tour will be a mix of standard brackets, group play and Swiss tournaments based on the event you are playing in. There will be an additional points system as well, points for teams who place in the top "x" teams that can go toward your overall ranking. These will be instrumental in determining things like seeding in higher events as well as potential to be invited to future offline events. Currently we are determining issues related to international competition as it relates to server selection, match times, and rescheduling.

Rosters:
Team rosters have also been a hot topic for us and it is very likely that we will enforce roster locks on teams throughout an entire season. So when your team signs up for its first event, you will be locked with those players throughout the remainder of the season. We will allow substitute players for each team, with a maximum number of players on each roster. There will be a minimum of 6 players required for each team. These rules are to protect the integrity of the game (more official subs means less unofficial ringers) and try to make sure each match starts at its designated time (if Kobe Bryant gets sick the LA Lakers cant just reschedule.) We are going to treat HoN Tour as a professional organization, and teams/players will be held to many of the same standards professional athletes are held to.

Prizing:
For prizing, we have had many discussions on what exactly to do. Options have ranged from every player receives equal percentages to doing the math and breaking it up based on matches participated in. But the overall consensus is the best and most efficient way to disburse funding is to payout the captain of each team and allow them to distribute funds to their teammates. This takes a lot of pressure off of our payment partners and allows the players to hold their team captains responsible. (Yes, we are aware of the situation that occurred after DYA in Singapore, but this is a topic still under deliberation.)

I cannot give you guys an exact launch date, because there is a lot that must be considered when you are dealing with online international competitions. However, we will continue to make HoN Tour our focus until it is ready to launch.

I will make updates to this post as we continue to make progress.

Regards,

Phil