1.0 Tournament Overview

The Gathering 2006 Quake 4 tournament is a 64 person tournament, using an action game from Raven and id Software; namely Quake 4. The championship tournament is of an individual format, consisting mainly of one-versus-one matches.
Quake 4 version: Latest available version compatible with the competition modification (atm. v.1.1.x).
Modification: Latest available version of Q4MAX (atm. v.0.73).
Maps: [TMP] The Lost Fleet, Phrantic, Galang, Monsoon.
Maximum players: 64 (can be extended to 128)

2.0 Tournament Structure

2.0.1 The tournament will be played on your own computer and over the public network on The Gathering.

2.0.2 The competition servers will be administrated and managed by the crew of The Gathering and the matches must be played on these servers.

2.0.3 The players will be seeded into groups of eight, eight groups in total. Group one will be considered the best players, group two second-best etc. Every player will have to go through a free for all round, a heat built up by one randomly chosen person from every group, eight persons in total. In each free for all round, the top four players will go to the double elimination rounds. This means that by the end of 8th FFA round, we will have 32 players in the double elimination rounds.

2.1 Rules of the Free For All Matches

2.1.1 A match in free for all is one 20 minutes round with no frag limit.

2.1.2 The map which will be used in FFA is [TMP] The Fragging Yard with power ups.

2.1.3 A FFA match can end in a tie.

2.1.4 The top four players in the round will go to the double elimination rounds, whilst the other players are eliminated from the tournament.

2.1.5 If a player disconnects under a match, the player is free to reconnect to continue playing. Sadly, the frags that the competitor had when disconnecting will be lost and only the final scoreboard is the one counting.

2.1.6 If the server crashes, the match will be replayed.

2.2 Rules of the Double Elimination Matches

2.2.1 A match in double elimination is built up by two or three rounds. A match ends when a player wins two rounds.

2.2.2 One round lasts 15 minutes, with no frag limit.

2.2.3 In the incident of a tie when the time limit is hit, two minute overtime will be played. In case of additional tie, additional 2 minute overtime will be played until a winner is determined.

2.2.4 Each match will use up to three maps. Each player chooses one map out of the map pool. In the incident of ties after two rounds, the third map will be selected as follows: If the competitors have chosen the same map in round one and two, that map will also be the third and final one. If this is not the case, the third map will be chosen randomly out of the remaining maps in the map pool. This could either be done by a coin toss, or by the IRC-bot SiaCo at #quake4.no at QuakeNET with the public command !decide “map 1” “map 2”.

2.2.5 The map pool that competitors can choose maps from is as follows:
[TMP] The Lost Fleet
Phrantic
Galang
Monsoon

2.2.6 A player looses in the upper bracket is not out of the tournament, but sent down in the lower bracket. If a player looses in the lower bracket, he or she is out of the tournament.

2.2.7 If a player disconnects under a match, the rules are as follows:
If the player disconnecting is the one with less frags, that player has lost the match.
If the player disconnecting is the one in the lead, the round will be played again.

2.2.8 If the server crashes, the match will be replayed. In case of a network problem, read 4.0.3.

3.0 Computer Setup - Clients

3.0.1 Since the game will be played on your own computer, no cheat-checking will be done other than the internal checks that Quake 4 is equipped with (pure servers and punk buster). Random, manual checks might be performed by the tournament admins as the tournament evolves.

3.0.2 Players caught cheating will be disqualified.

3.0.3 The players are responsible to have installed all the needed patches, Q4MAX, maps etc. on their computer so they can join the server immediately when the matches are scheduled. If the player can’t join the server in time because of this, he or she will lose on a walk over.

3.0.4 The players must take screenshots and demos of each game. A server setting will make sure that this is done client-side automatically, but the players must double-check this when the game starts and ends.

4.0 Tournament schedule

4.0.1 Competitors are required to be punctual for their scheduled matches. This means that if you are not on the server when the match is scheduled to start, you will lose on walk over.

4.0.2 The scheduled times represent the time of the actual match start, not the time when you are supposed to join the server. Please join the server within ten minutes of the match start. This will tell your competitor that you are actually ready to fight, and it will give you some warm-up time.

4.0.3 If a network problem interrupts the match, that match will be rescheduled to a suitable time. A network error is identified as no packets being able to reach the server from the client machine or vice versa (suitable program to check this: ping <server> in the command prompt). Please check this in good time before your match is scheduled and report any error as soon as possible so the Gathering crew can take countermeasures.

5.0 Other

5.0.1 The rules could be changed at any time if needed, so please stay updated.

5.0.2 The tournament admin has the final say in case of disagreements.

5.0.3 These rules were last updated Thursday, March 09, 2006 by Thorbjørn Hermansen aka HitMan (siaco[AT]catchgamer.no)