Tournament Deposits?
…Whatever next…!
Mahjong Time have just introduced a system to try and discourage non-attendance at online tournaments; a deposit that will be refunded upon completion of the tournament. If you fail to turn up, that deposit is forfeit. Awesome idea or a tax on the muddle-minded?
http://mahjongtime.com/mahjong-news.aspx?newsId=708&PageNr=0&catId=1
The problems of non-attendance at online tournaments is something most of us understand and have experienced. It has become a mild joke when a player soars ahead after sitting on a table of bots. Mahjong Time are planning on tackling this head on.
In an upcoming Hong Kong tournament players will have to pay $3 to enter the tournament of which $2 will be returned if they turn up. It’s great to see the online clients finally tackling this issue. Up until now, bots at tournaments have wreaked players’ online experiences.
It’s certainly a good solution! However, is it enough? $2 are pennies to lose compared to missing out on the last few minutes of a World Cup match and possibly seeing England score the winning goal (in my dreams of course…).
Perhaps we should be naming and shaming the “Mahjong Hooligans” (see Adrie Van Geffen’s discussion on Mahjong News)? A little dunce hat over their profile pic perhaps? So you know who is to blame.
But is that even fair? Internet problems are something beyond any of our control. And mahjong clients haven’t yet proven themselves to be very stable either.
Also, some of us are inadvertent hooligans. We sign-up, fully intending to play but then just forget… Making us pay a deposit is not going to help us not forget. We need the clients to help us not forget! I wouldn’t mind paying a few pence for a text message sent to my phone:
“Gemma, stop what you’re doing – It’s Mahjong Time!”
…Now that really would be perfect.
Anyway, I only hope that MJT’s experiment is successful and that we finally find an answer to our online problem.
