We were short two EU servers at the beginning of Ladle today: Z-man's and uNk's. Hello Team and w0t moved their match to AoT UK since Rogue Tronners had a bye. Luckily, CT USA was up in place of uNk's server, so Team Unknown and Team Germany played their first match there. Team Unknown won the first match then a server dispute followed. Team Germany tried to move the remaining matches to the public uNk server. The reasoning, from what I can tell, is that this was the server they were supposed to play in anyway even though it was not prepared for Ladle (apparently Jip is on vacation). It seems Team Unknown never fully agreed to the switch and no one was able to RINCLUDE settings to the uNk server. At this point I was called to intervene.
We do not have a rule written out for this specific situation (but we will write one now). However, based on the rules we do have, I provided this opinion:
- There are no backup servers for the opening round of Ladle. The only way teams can move to another server is if they both fully agree. This is true of all rounds. Teams should only move if there is a critical failure of the server. In this case, CT USA was working correctly and the matches should have been completed there.
Disagreements continued and I asked the team leaders to meet me in #armagetron.tourneys. My opinion was that Team Unknown, having won the only match played, earned the right to advance. Team Germany's refusal to return to CT USA should have been considered a forfeit. Apparently this was unsatisfactory to Team Germany. Both teams had advanced to Light's server and occupied teams. The Germans suggested playing the remaining matches, but by this time is was very late, everyone was agitated and Redemption was waiting. Further complicating things is that Team Germany appeared to have members of Unknown and Redemption. With the Ladle falling seriously behind schedule I asked Team Germany to vacate the teams and allow Redemption to play Unknown. When they collectively refused I used my Ladle authority to suspend a member of Team Germany as incentive. This is not what my Ladle authority is designated for. The role of Moderator is to give authority to Team Leaders and slap scores in the event of a server crash. Outside of the respect I have in this community I have no authority to suspend or kick Team Members and for this I apologize to Team Germany. However, I think the greater good was achieved with this action. Ladle must go on. It is unfortunate we were missing two EU servers this Ladle. However, we are very lucky that kyle put up a Ladle server for us to use.
Later I would like to amend the rules to restate the above. There are no backup servers for opening rounds and teams must be in full agreement to switch servers in any round of play. If teams cannot agree, they must continue in the original server.