[Andrew Blair]

Currently, my view on the state of the game is disappointment. What seemed to potentially lend to a fast paced, strategy dependent game(for better or worse) has, from the webcast's anyways, become, currently, another volume based game, but hugely shifted towards one side in most matches. I've been disappointed in the amount of rack scoring, defensive initiative (from what I've watched), and seemingly moderate use of ramps.

As for alliance scores, most are ~ 30 points or less, with a few that jump out, like 116's matches. However, there is not a good point distribution for everyone else- that 60 points is a big, attainable point raiser that doesn't seem to been attained often- though I concede that this is for a variety of challenging reasons.

At VCU, most matches I watched had a ramp bot for both alliances. If you started the match with a bot 12 inches up, and left the other robot to play defense for most of the match, then got them up with a liberal amount of time left, it appeared that ~80% of the matches could be won. With close to zero effort. Matches are slow, matches are clumsy, matches are kinda boring.

Now, I've gotten down on the regionals too much at this point. It's the first week, which always needs some time to get up to speed, and I think game dynamics are playing out in a different direction for alot of people than originally anticipated. And BAE and NJ seem to be having a better go at it as well. But in my opinion (after watching a large portion of VCU and a bit of NJ), we are not nearly up to the speed that we were at in 2005 during the first week. I'm confident that finals will pick up tomorrow!