The Grand Melee - Announcement and Discussion

Some time ago, the secretive Order of the Sheep teased us The Grand Melee, an Age of Empires II: DE happening in Hannover at the DreamHack LAN event, from the 15th to the 17th of December.

We are now happy to deliver the full message to you.

Settings specifics
The whole event will be played using the DWL game mode, also known as 9 villagers start game mode. It will allow for quicker action, while keeping the openness and strategic diversity of the standard RM mode.

Main event
The Grand Melee main event will consist of a single elimination bracket, featuring a total of 8 players.
15th of December
Quarter finals best of 5
16th of December
Semi finals best of 7
17th of December
Third place match best of 7 and Grand final best of 9

Participation
Firstly, as per their performance in the RedBull Wololo: Legacy tournament, Liereyy and TaToH has been granted an invitation to the main event.

Secondly, the other 6 participants will have to come on top of the entirely open qualifiers happening on the 3rd and 4th of December. The registration is already open and you can sign up here on start.gg

Prize money reward
The monetary reward will amount to a whopping $100,000 split between the 8 main event players as followed:

1st place: $40,000
2nd place: $20,000
3rd place: $14,000
4th place: $10,000
5th to 8th: $4,000

Where to watch?
The whole event will be streamed on Twitch at: https://www.twitch.tv/theorderofthesheep

On top of that, the qualifiers will be completely open to broadcast, so you can catch them live at your favourite streamer’s channel on the 3rd and 4th of December!

Details for the broadcasting policy of the main event will be announced soon. Stay tuned...

Join the Discord server now!
Chat with us and get all the latest updates regarding The Grand Melee at https://discord.gg/vT9NWJJtp5

You can also use this announcement thread to discuss about the tournament and to send your questions and feedback.

See you soon!

 

That match-up did happen recently, in Warlords (S-tier), but ACCM won convincingly (3-1).

Not just that, he literally won all 5 tournament matches against DauT this year, 2 of which have been S tier tournaments.

It is unfortunate. But as far as I know F1Re waited for more than 30 minutes to get a response from Yo. So it is not the nicest solution, but if the rules say that you only have to wait 15 minutes, F1Re did act according to the rules.

Obviously fine according to the rules but kinda ironic considering that F1Re has a looong history of delaying those qualifiers by abusing every break he can get.

 

It is unfortunate. But as far as I know F1Re waited for more than 30 minutes to get a response from Yo. So it is not the nicest solution, but if the rules say that you only have to wait 15 minutes, F1Re did act according to the rules.

According to Yo, he was not even mentioned in the group chat. I think a spamming to Yo, or reaching Lyx personally on steam would be better approach.

Of course communication is bad on Lyx’s side and better solution can be done compared to having a live participant as a translator. But it doesn’t excuse the organizer from say, better checking from the admin, and/or asking for replacement communicator when someone is signed up by a representative.

 

Why are we trying to play six consecutive best of 5s tomorrow? Nobody wants to watch that much aoe, not casters, not the most diehard fans. Players definitely can't be happy with that. Another odd decision but can't say it's surprising at this point.

 

Can someone remind me why the old method of player seedings of the top players being done by the top players themselves was retired? I felt it was a quite good method overall.. especially when compared to the other attempts at grading players.

Feel like there's a couple of reasons, linked to each other, which stand out:
1) From a competitive stand point, having team mates and opponents rank each other doesn't sit well. Would be all too tempting (and easier than expected) to have a team work together to give each other favourable seeds, or try to manipulate the seedings to give themselves a nicer draw. For all we may say 'but the players wouldn't do that', there's no guarantee and it feels like it weakens the competitive integrity of an event;
2) Following on from that, the stakes have never been higher, which means the temptation and potential reward for playing unfair is higher than ever before. AoE2 is not exempt from cheaters, dishonesty or other underhand behaviours.

 

Not just that, he literally won all 5 tournament matches against DauT this year, 2 of which have been S tier tournaments.

Obviously fine according to the rules but kinda ironic considering that F1Re has a looong history of delaying those qualifiers by abusing every break he can get.

Don’t assume things buddy. 1st and last time I will talk about it. I did wait way longer than the rules would even ask me to. I won’t even mention why I didn’t actually played vs lyx, and why I didn’t take the aw back. And long time ago I used to be hard to deal with. LONG TIME AGO. Im trying to do things better for quite a while. And I won't accept being intimidated or even worse.

 

Don’t assume things buddy. 1st and last time I will talk about it. I did wait way longer than the rules would even ask me to. I won’t even mention why I didn’t actually played vs lyx, and why I didn’t take the aw back. And long time ago I used to be hard to deal with. LONG TIME AGO. Im trying to do things better for quite a while. And I won accept being intimidated or even worse.

 

Don’t assume things buddy. 1st and last time I will talk about it. I did wait way longer than the rules would even ask me to. I won’t even mention why I didn’t actually played vs lyx, and why I didn’t take the aw back. And long time ago I used to be hard to deal with. LONG TIME AGO. Im trying to do things better for quite a while. And I won't accept being intimidated or even worse.

I can understand your point but for me as a fan is just sad to see. Mastermind Lyx brings alot of fun to the game and there is always a high chance he delivers high quality conent.
Didn't you have electricity problems in the past? Did people thread you the same way?
And can Lyx not use an translatorprogram for basic words?
Adminwins/Defloses are the worse and in any professional activity this should always try to get avoided.
This incident should bring some solution to the future or is Mr.Yo forced to translate forever - I bet there is a nice person in the community that would translate for Lyx.

 

Why simply don't the Chinese use a translator like google translate? It's not difficult... They depend on Yo for their whole lives to translate and register for competitions. I think they could do this, most players in the world use this feature to communicate in international tournaments.

 

Why simply don't the Chinese use a translator like google translate? It's not difficult... They depend on Yo for their whole lives to translate and register for competitions. I think they could do this, most players in the world use this feature to communicate in international tournaments.

You mean Baidu translate

 

Why simply don't the Chinese use a translator like google translate? It's not difficult... They depend on Yo for their whole lives to translate and register for competitions. I think they could do this, most players in the world use this feature to communicate in international tournaments.

Tbh, last time I recall someone Chinese using google translate, it was Tim and his message was literally like: “On behalf of China’s 1.2 billion population of grass you and your family.” It was to Viper or Pkz in 2014 but forgot what it was about. Huge lols were had since there were other messages too. I don’t know if google translate has gotten more accurate these days.

 

i don't think "more than 30 minutes", according to twitch"Lyx was waiting for Yo to finish his game to translate for him" . i went back to check Yo's game, the game last 36 mins(in game time), in real time it's 21 mins. So, actually it's less than 21 mins.

Not sure how many minutes exactly, but F1Re himself said 40. There is a first @ Yo after F1Re posted his recs of his finished match at 15:31 GMT. Then Yo's first reaction is at 16:11 GMT.
They discussed after that, but there was no documented communication between them for 40 minutes after F1Re finished his game.

I still don't want to say that I am taking a side, and potentially F1Re could have done it differently, but it were more than 21 minutes.

Like several people said here and we already said on the Discord server yesterday, there should definitely be a backup person to be available to schedule for players. Yo does for some, Bad Koala does for some. But as they both are top players, things easily can go wrong.

 

I'd like to add some details.
YO's job may be harder than you thought. He need to log in and log out constantly to check in and schedule for lyx, vivi, jibatong and himself. This is a screenshot just before yo started the 36 in-game-min game. He saw the winner F1RE not updated in the bracket, thus deciding to finish his match first. Video source v(dot)douyu(dot)com/show/yVY8Ww66AnrMLOz9?ap=1. I can understand he doesnt want to schedule for lyx while playing. He did draft for jibatong in Silver League while playing lierrey in dark age the day before yesterday but this is a tourney game.
The idea of using translation software is not viable in my opinion because you need to read the large handbook which is impossible to get through if its in broken Chinese. You need a translator, better with AOE knowlege. For one thing, if not for YO, Chinese players wouldnt correctly set the 2min stream delay.

 

Why are we trying to play six consecutive best of 5s tomorrow? Nobody wants to watch that much aoe, not casters, not the most diehard fans. Players definitely can't be happy with that. Another odd decision but can't say it's surprising at this point.

For players' and casters' sake, I hope some of these will be recorded games...

 

Is Yo the only guy they know who speaks English? Can't they find another person? It's very kind of Yo to do all the translating, but I think it is also extremely unfair and comfortable of the others to solely rely on Yo when he also has to play his games and focus on translating at the same time.

 

I'd like to add some details.
YO's job may be harder than you thought. He need to log in and log out constantly to check in and schedule for lyx, vivi, jibatong and himself. This is a screenshot just before yo started the 36 in-game-min game. He saw the winner F1RE not updated in the bracket, thus deciding to finish his match first. Video source v(dot)douyu(dot)com/show/yVY8Ww66AnrMLOz9?ap=1. I can understand he doesnt want to schedule for lyx while playing. He did draft for jibatong in Silver League while playing lierrey in dark age the day before yesterday but this is a tourney game.
The idea of using translation software is not viable in my opinion because you need to read the large handbook which is impossible to get through if its in broken Chinese. You need a translator, better with AOE knowlege. For one thing, if not for YO, Chinese players wouldnt correctly set the 2min stream delay.
View attachment 204536

Your post should make you realize that what Chinese players are asking from Yo is not reasonable.

 

Your post should make you realize that what Chinese players are asking from Yo is not reasonable.

That is very true and sad. While a person might enjoy play from lyx or vivi, they are not capable of dealing with competition matters from hearing the news, signing up to communication with admin/opponent. This, they must find an agent to help out. The sad fact is that they can hard find someone who is all of being reliable, consistent and trustworthy as peer top players like Yo and Koala.

An even sadder fact is that, after the generation of Yo, vivi, lyx, we probably won’t be able to see more top players from mainland China anymore in this game, at least in a long period of time.

 

Your post should make you realize that what Chinese players are asking from Yo is not reasonable.

Nobody is asking anything from Yo, and lyx never blames Yo for his decisions. From what i know, they are friends and Yo is eager to help since he's more reliable than a random viewer.

 

Not sure how many minutes exactly, but F1Re himself said 40. There is a first @ Yo after F1Re posted his recs of his finished match at 15:31 GMT. Then Yo's first reaction is at 16:11 GMT.
They discussed after that, but there was no documented communication between them for 40 minutes after F1Re finished his game.

I still don't want to say that I am taking a side, and potentially F1Re could have done it differently, but it were more than 21 minutes.

Like several people said here and we already said on the Discord server yesterday, there should definitely be a backup person to be available to schedule for players. Yo does for some, Bad Koala does for some. But as they both are top players, things easily can go wrong.

you said you are not taking a side, but all your quotes are from what F1Re said.

F1Re did all that for what?! $200 more! How pathetic! this man's reputation only worth $200.

I just ask you one question: if it was you, would you waiting Yo to finish his game(it's Yo vs a 2200 elo, we all know it will not last long), or just take a win in this way?

 

Is Yo the only guy they know who speaks English? Can't they find another person? It's very kind of Yo to do all the translating, but I think it is also extremely unfair and comfortable of the others to solely rely on Yo when he also has to play his games and focus on translating at the same time.

I think BadKoala also speaks English, and has been a translator from time to time. Vivi's English also is... an event on it's own. Other than that, I'd assume there must be fans as well. It's a bit odd that Yo needs to do it all on his own.

 

I think BadKoala also speaks English, and has been a translator from time to time. Vivi's English also is... an event on it's own. Other than that, I'd assume there must be fans as well. It's a bit odd that Yo needs to do it all on his own.

In Warlord Qualifier, Bad Koala was supposed to be the translator. He had some incidents and couldnt play. He messaged vivi but vivi was sleeping and missed the check-in. Fans who keep an eye on the matches from 8pm to 3am? People have their own stuff to do.

 

Don’t assume things buddy. 1st and last time I will talk about it. I did wait way longer than the rules would even ask me to. I won’t even mention why I didn’t actually played vs lyx, and why I didn’t take the aw back. And long time ago I used to be hard to deal with. LONG TIME AGO. Im trying to do things better for quite a while. And I won't accept being intimidated or even worse.

This is much appreciated and I don't think I had any recent example in mind. I didn't say anything else than that it is ironic though and this point still stands.

 

you said you are not taking a side, but all your quotes are from what F1Re said.

No, it's based on messages on the Discord server and Screenshots from their personal conversation, which we don't need to share.

 

No, it's based on messages on the Discord server and Screenshots from their personal conversation, which we don't need to share.

and the answer from my simple question?

 

It's always funny how these stuff always happen to F1Re, Capoch,... A different ethic than Jordan_23 or Villese for sure.

 

Seriously is no one else casting the qualifiers than the pick me girl who talks about plugging holes?