[dtengineering]

Having competed at both first weekend (Portland) and fifth weekend (Toronto) regionals, I think it is perhaps not unfair to suggest that there were two very different games being played at the two tournaments.

In Toronto, for instance, our alliance scored 276 points in our first match and would have broken 300 had we made it up our partner's ramp at the end of the game. That was more than the combined total of all our matches in Portland.

In Portland ramps were quite dominant. In Toronto, the rack was quite dominant. In Portland, it seemed relatively easy to defend against all but two or three teams... and keep them from scoring ringers for the whole match. In Toronto, defence just slowed the scoring down a bit -- not to say that there wasn't great defense being played... particular kudos to 48 as mentioned above for playing strong, clean D -- but there were so many teams at Toronto that could punish you on the rack that it was hard to stop them all.

So when discussing the game of Rack'n'Roll, your impressions will be quite different based on what game you saw being played. I wasn't that impressed by the game on the first weekend (well... okay... the finals at Portland were pretty good) but by the final weekend it was evident that the game had evolved to be the exciting, dynamic sport that the GDC must have been hoping for.

My one real concern surrounds the match scheduling algorithm. I have already posted my concerns regarding this to another thread, so I'll leave it at saying that I really don't like being able to walk into a match, identify the "middle third" of the teams by number, and saying, "well... we'll NEVER have them for an alliance partner."

Jason