Guitar Hero tournament at AC.

You could have seperate tournaments for the different difficulty levels. Thay way, the scores could stay consistant, and you'd just have multiple winners.

I'll be in it just to play. I'm decent (Expert), I just hate waiting in long lines to play one set of songs (a la DDR at Otakon).

I've been a TO for a number of DDR tournaments so if you need a hand, I can pitch in.

Here's what I can come up with off the top of my head:

* No qualifier. Songs are way too long to have someone sit around for hours waiting for people to qualify and then find out that 25% of your contestants are no-shows. Best to wait until the actual event.
* Allow Hyper Speed only if both players agree on it.
* Play in Pro Face-off Mode so two players can play the same notes at the same time.
* If there's no fully unlocked savefile, use the Unlock Everything code: BYOROY RYRYRYRYRYRY. (I don't know if this unlocks Pro Face-off Mode, though)

* Anyone who signed up should play Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight on Medium (It's the shortest song at 2:37, and most players should have no problem with 292 notes, especially with time to practice if they haven't played before). If we get 3 TVs and move efficiently, that means roughly 32 players can play in an hour. For our sanity, we should cap it somewhere around there.
* Highest 16 scores move on to a seeded single elimination paired bracket. In the past, double elimination tournaments take away WAY too much time from the con. Each player picks a song on Hard difficulty, highest seed choosing first. The player with the highest score in each song wins the song. In the event of a tie (each player wins 1 song), a judge will pick out a tiebreaker. Best 2 out of 3 moves on. This should take about 40 minutes.
* The remaining 8 pair up and do the same thing on Expert difficulty (unless they mutually agree to play a song on Hard). I'd recommend that a player can't choose a song that he/she has already chosen. Same goes with the remaining 4. These two rounds should take about 40 minutes.
* If there's still a big enough crowd for the finals, it would be neat to let the audience pick out the last songs.

* I suggest we ban Freebird (over 9 minutes long) or make it only playable in the finals, simply because of how long it is... or even make Freebird THE finals. Same goes for War Pigs (7 minutes). I wouldn't be against banning Jordan either (1,801 notes) or saving it for forcing the finalists to undergo the torture of it.
* I don't know how failing goes (never actually managed PF mode in GH2), but the usual fair way in DDR is that the first person to fail a song loses, but if both players fail, the person who chose the song loses (because this usually means s/he was bullying his way with a few seconds of surviving a song and couldn't even beat his/her own challenge).

All in all, this means it'd be going for about 2 hours and 40 minutes if everything runs smoothly. It won't, so hopefully it can start early or wrap it up in 3 hours.

If you'd like assistance with running the tourney, feel free to contact me at .

EDIT: I'd also ban the use of killswitch-modded guitars!

Just a suggestion, from me.

You might as well consider banning downloaded (song pack) content. Assuming not everybody has yet purchased them from the X-box Live Marketplace, and would be a huge hassle wiping saved data [if possible...?] from one X-box 360 to another, not to mention completely discriminating the PS-2 version of GH2. And what of the song deferential between the two (PS-2 and X-box 360) versions, knowing that the 360 version has additional songs over the PS2?

Also, I could bring one of my T.V.'s, my X-box 360 and (360) version of GH2, along with a guitar - possibly two, if I can find a spare controller cheaper. I'll have a firmer answer when the Con gets closer.

~Zander Stealthpaw

I am all over this concept--I've actually been waiting for it for some time.

Personally, I would see it as Elimination style, at least initially: while the pool of players is much larger, have them do Pro-Style on the same song, same difficulty, then eliminate the lower scorer (or send them to a Loser's Bracket, but that's up to you). No qualifiers unless there's tonnes of entrants, as that really slows the process down, but would be necessary if you end up with like 75+ interested competitors.

(My personal tastes tend to lean towards a Hard and an Expert brackets, but I understand that's a logistical nightmare, and I certainly understand logistical nightmares.)

You may want to pre-determine the final songs for weeding down the brackets, just to add a small element of surprise. I've seen this in DDR tourneys left and right.

I can provide a PS2 with Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II. I can bring my SG as well, but I would highly prefer that I'm the only one who uses it in most cases--it's decidedly, ah, broken-in, and is steadily approaching the end of its life after hundreds of hours of play. Also have a save game for both games with most if not all of the songs unlocked. (I skipped Yes We Can; can you blame me?)

I call Thunderhorse on Hard. Bring it!

Count me in as a participant, but I may have to use a controller other than my own, since I've recently been experiencing a minor problem with mine. Whenever I strum upwards, the bar seems to spring back too much and causes a downwards strum. Is there any way to fix this?

Bah, I hate spreading bad news. Might as well get it over with, being that I have very little time to explain this.

Due to recent (personal) events, I'll be virtually ...UNABLE... to bring anything that's tremendously bulky. Since I'm catching a flight and hitching a ride with my tiger friend to-and-from Anthrocon, I just can't take along many things, aside the essentials. Sorry about this, as I would have brought such things if my car wasn't so unreliable and have no traveling companion... at least, that was my primary plan. Speaking of plans, mine are totally yiffed-up thanks to those said recent evets, but I'm thankful that I can still make it.

I'm still interested on participating, or better yet, help coordinate the event, that is, if this tourny is still on.

~Zander Stealthpaw

Okay. Here's the pretty-much-final rules, unless there's something I missed, or something that's really muggy. This is coming straight from the same sheet that'll be up in the video game room.

Guitar Hero Tournament
Rules

1.The tournament will be held from 3 to 5PM on Saturday in room 306. Within room 306 during the convention, there will be a sign-up sheet. Simply fill out your entry on the sheet in order to participate in the tournament.

2.Due to time constraints, the tournament will be limited to the first fifty (50) people who apply and show up. We will have more than fifty sign-up entries in case someone doesn't appear when the tournament is being held, but if we have more than fifty participants show it, it will work as first-come, first-serve with whomever signed up first gaining priority.

3.The tournament will be divided up into two sections. In the first section, everyone will play one song. This song will be Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight, and it will be on Medium difficulty. If this is a problem for enough people, we will change the song or difficulty to something that pleases the participants. The top sixteen (16) scores will move on to the second portion of the tournament.

4.The second portion of the tournament is standard bracket elimination. Players will compete head-to-head in Pro Face-Off mode on hard or (if both players agree) Expert difficulty. Hyper Mode is also available if both players agree. The players will play against each other, best two out of three. The player with the higher seed score will choose the first song, and the second player will choose the second song. Whomever has the higher score wins the song. In the event of a tie, someone from the staff will make a decision on the last song. Whomever wins best of three will move on, while the loser will be dropped from the tournament.

5.Freebird and War Pigs will not be allowed during the tournament, due to their length. However, songs from any version of Guitar Hero (besides the two mentioned) will be allowed.

6.The winner of the tournament is the last one still remaining after all the other players have been elminiated, and will win the prize: a copy of Guitar Hero 3, for whatever system they'd like, when it releases.

Rules of Conduct

During the tournament, one rule is largely in effect: don't be a jerk. This means being a bad sport, insulting other players, breaking equipment, or in part anything that the staff deems to be inappropriate. We will remove someone from the tournament if they are demonstrating poor conduct, and charge them for anything necessary, such as equipment they have broken.