As a personal opinion, I am not a spokesman of my squad here I would like to propose you consider enforcing a policy to ensure that the matches begun at scheduled times no matter who is online or not.
I do not mean of course to specific sittuations like we had last week where we had to change map or for any other technical reasosn. This we all understand cannot be sorted out in any other way.

I mean that in case all the technical side works OK, the match is launched at its specific time, that is 20:30 CET sharp.
I think it is a matter of respect to the players that show puntuality and show up at the server at 20:00 CET, not to have them waiting there 1 hour or 1 hour and half waiting to get organized and to collect all players as it happened in most of the trainings we did. The last day despite the map issues I saw a significant nunber of people showing up on the server one hour later than they should have been.

The prestige of a competition is also related to its rules and respect among players and keeping people waiting in the lobby wasting their spare and family time, just looking at the exciting multiplayer lobby screen while waiting for people that do not care much about it to join, is not a good thing.
Same goes for team leaders that need 1 hour to get their team organized. This should be done BEFORE the match.
People and teams should join in time and with all organization done so everybody knows his slot, team ect.
For this we do need 5 minutes and if people reeally joins at 2000 CET by 2030CET we all should be more than ready to go. Of course the server should be ready on MP lobby with the actual mision loaded so we can take slots, but not with the actual mission running for "testing" because that means we have to reassign again and waste time.

I have participated in many Tournaments in OFP (where there was no possibility of joining once the server launched)in the past and those were the rules. The match started at its specific time, no matter who is online or no, no matter if teams are organized or not. Unless of course there were technical reasons with the map.

We all have to get used to this and show up in time and show up with teams and slots organized, orthewise this looks like more a hallowing party rather a competition.

If we do not do anyting to correct this , please tell me a reason why I should show up on the server next Tuesday at 21:00 CET instead doing it at 2230 CET? (Edited by Furia, because I mistakenly placed the times in GMT with the CET tag)

Hi Furia!

I agree with you completely and this is the policy of ATC, I have nothing to say more because you said what I think too very well and we all agree, ast least all ppl I know and I was reasoning with

So this is what we have to do and will do, do not take as example testing because the testing were just for server and to get organized too

Last time I did launch the match at sharp time , maybe just five or six minutes delay, but the map didn't start for reasons unknown, as I explained we tested it and it worked pretty fine, and it worked after when I launched again the next day, it is still on server for you to try, so I do not know what I can do more than testing accurately the missions before the battle

In any case I add to the rules the following

"In case of technical issues we will try the best to solve them in due time, in case the delay results in more than one hour later than the official start time the battle is automatically postponed to the next week"

Do u think adequate?

Just a note, we did not take advantage of delaying as we finished 10 less but this is not the issue

As for our faction, we have in advance roster and roles assigned by mail since now

The issue is to respect rules and I am determined in making this clear as I did here

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=122&start=10

I'm really sorry for the inconvenience last week but I do not know what I've could done more

Sincerely

Nemesi

EDIT: just a remark but important!! Battle time is 21.30 CET (our local time for Italy Spain France etc. ) not 20.30 (20.30 UTC/GMT)

And please since taking slots when we are 100 trying to enter the server is a bit elaborate try to accomodate in TS and server slots about 20 min earlier (I recommend at 21.00 CET), also, try to download the map before the battle for a smooth start, thanks for cooperation!

Hello Nemesis.

I am very happy to hear you fully conccur with this idea and concept.
As I said I did not meant it for the last match since this was due to technical reasons, but you have to agree with me that many people showed up late so in case the map would have worked nice first time not all people and slots were covered mostly because the "relaxed" attitude of some people regarding the matches start times.
I belive that if given the chance of no technical problems we start launching the match at sharp time NO MATTER WHAT, people would begun to accomodate to get here in time. Would be a great benefit for all of us and for the competition.

Sorry for the mistakes on the posted times on my previous post. I am used to work in GMT/UTC/ZULU time and forgot to add that I meant those times.
As you nicely remind here, briefing time would be 20:00 GMT/UTC/ZULU and 21:00 CET and LAUNCH TIME would be 20:30 GMT/UTC/ZULU and 21:30 CET.
I'll be there!!

Once again I am really pleased to see we both share the same concept about this issue. Thanks!

Looking forward to see you on the battlefield.

LOL we will be there too ...

We will dine in Stary Sobor capital of the Sobor district, we booked the best restaurant there!

See you!