[Kevin Sevcik]

I'll chime in as having though of this idea and prematurely discarded it as well. We figured it'd be too difficult to pull off consistently. Mostly because you're at the mercy of other teams sitting there looping balls. We figured hanging off the tower with a looping mechanism would leave us too exposed to being mangled by other teams. Clearly we didn't follow that thought through and examine how we could mitigate that problem. Very clearly 469 did; the wedge system and those vertical supports make this obvious.

At no point did we think to discard the idea simply because it was too good. Once the GDC allowed it in Update #2, we considered it fair game, but ultimately discarded it.

Fundamentally, trying to guess the GDC's intent/philosophy for the game and design to that is going to be pointless and frustrating to you on an annual basis. The GDC often isn't sure what their opinion is on certain matters. To co-opt Rob's argument above... Did anyone stop to consider that the GDC may not have originally considered this idea strategy and didn't know what they thought of it? And then the Q&A's on it came in very early in build and they had plenty of time to consider it, decide, and notify teams of their decision. And at a point when it wouldn't cripple a team that made that design choice.

So, it's much better to read the rules as written, find your strategies, and the ask a Q&A if any of them look too good to be true. As long as you ask an appropriately general question, the GDC is prompt about answering and others aren't going to leap to your exact design solution. There's really no risk in the whole process as long as you make sure your Q&A actually covers your design, but is couched in general terms so the GDC doesn't fire back with the standard "we can't comment on specific designs".