Rules for The Cell

The Cell is Althanas' free-for-all tournament. Players will be divided up into 4 or more groups, each in its own fifty-foot long, thirty-foot wide, thirty-foot high steel mesh cage. The winner(s) of each cage will then meet in the final round of the tournament. For those of you wondering, The Cell will take place on Corone.

I. Registration

Registration for The Cell is limited to 32 players. Registration begins on Wednesday, July 5th at 8:00 P.M. E.S.T. and ends on Monday, July 10th at 12:00 A.M. E.S.T. Multiple registrations are allowed, but players must clearly indicate in the registration thread that they are entering multiple characters.

II. Rules

- The Cell will begin at 12:00 E.S.T. on Thursday, July 13th. At that time 4 threads will be posted - each thread will be its own cell, each thread will have 8 players in it. The first post in each thread will be the same, and made by myself.

- Each cell thread is to be treated like any normal battle - all Althanas rules regarding powergaming and controlling other character's actions will be enforced. Also, The Cell will be judged like any other Althanas thread - the best three warriors, not the necessarily the three last-surviving warriors, will advance.

- The cells are made out of your standard steel mesh, meaning that yes, they can be broken through and players can climb the cell, fight outside of it, fight on top of it, tear off a piece of it and attack their opponent with it, and whatever else your devious minds can think about.

- Each round will last exactly two weeks, and between them will be a 3 day break. In order to earn full experience for the battle, players are required to post at least five times in their thread. The three players who earn the best scores in each round will move onto the finals.

III. Judging

I'll be judging all four threads. To reiterate, the three players with the best scores in each thread will advance to the final round.

IV. Rewards

All players in The Cell will receieve EXP, with the amount determined under the new Battle EXP guidelines. Each cell thread will be treated as if it were a normal battle thread, with the highest level character in that thread determining the flat rate. Using that flat rate, each character's EXP reward will then be computed against the score of the lowest winner in each thread. Complicated yes, but I'm willing to explain for those who need help wrapping their heads around the numbers.

Furthermore, each player who advances to the final round will get a bonus of 750 EXP, and the eventual winner will get a 2500 EXP bonus and a magical item that must be approved by myself.

With that done, the floor is now open for questions and concerns.

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Question from INDK: Does anyone know how the opening round of the Cell is going to interact with the late rounds of the LCC. This is an important factor in whether or not I choose to register for the Cell.

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There will be overlap, although like normal there will be a break after this round of the LCC, and at that time the Cell will still be going.

What I'm trying to say is that one won't really limit your participation in the other, especially since The Cell is meant to be much less intensive than the LCC.

Are players going to be limited to one of these four cells. Since the cells are breakable, it seems only logical that there could be spillover if there isn't an ooc restriction put in place on this.

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Originally Posted by INDK

Are players going to be limited to one of these four cells. Since the cells are breakable, it seems only logical that there could be spillover if there isn't an ooc restriction put in place on this.

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That's a great question. I was planning to post the layout eventually, but the cells are each located in their own ampitheater setting, and each ampitheater is 500 feet away from its closest neighbor. There will be guards surrounding the cages to prevent players from leaving, and while these guards are very talented, I do imagine they can be overcome.

This might be a dumb question, but I never participated in The Cell so I'm wondering about something. With four people fighting at the same time, I guess action can get somewhat hectic. Do we have to stick to a particular posting order? I ask this also because inactivity might play a part in this as well and I wonder if we can skip over the inactive member if he or she doesn't posts in a while.

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Originally Posted by Letho

This might be a dumb question, but I never participated in The Cell so I'm wondering about something. With four people fighting at the same time, I guess action can get somewhat hectic. Do we have to stick to a particular posting order? I ask this also because inactivity might play a part in this as well and I wonder if we can skip over the inactive member if he or she doesn't posts in a while.

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Yes, you will be allowed to skip over other players and there is no particular posting order. My advice to anyone in this tournament, though, is that the best way to play it is probably to start out facing someone else one-on-one, and then eventually move on to someone else after you defeated that person, or for some reason you guys broke off combat with one another.

Also, because you can break out of the Cell, there's a lot more room to work with then before, so you and your current opponent can move outside of the Cell and away from the other players.

Perhaps I'm just misreading something, but I have a quick question. Like Letho, I've never participated in The Cell (or any event here at Althanas for that matter), so I'm just trying to clarify...

Does the best individual warrior in each of the four-way matches advance? Or do the three best warriors in each four-way match advance? Something about the way I'm reading the rules is leaving me confused on only that point.

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Originally Posted by Abenaki

Perhaps I'm just misreading something, but I have a quick question. Like Letho, I've never participated in The Cell (or any event here at Althanas for that matter), so I'm just trying to clarify...

Does the best individual warrior in each of the four-way matches advance? Or do the three best warriors in each four-way match advance? Something about the way I'm reading the rules is leaving me confused on only that point.

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That's perfectly understandable. I should've clarified this earlier, but there are only 4 cells total, and with 32 participants that means there are 8 to each cell. The best 3 of each cell (and of its 8 players) will advance.

EDIT- You answered my question in the post before.

HOwever, you might want to change the forum description. It is a bit misleading by saying "four way dance"

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Originally Posted by INDK

EDIT- You answered my question in the post before.

HOwever, you might want to change the forum description. It is a bit misleading by saying "four way dance"

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Yeah, that was from an earlier plan. Thanks for the catch.

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Originally Posted by Santhalas

That's perfectly understandable. I should've clarified this earlier, but there are only 4 cells total, and with 32 participants that means there are 8 to each cell. The best 3 of each cell (and of its 8 players) will advance.

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So what happens to the final 12? One giant fight?

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Originally Posted by Letho

So what happens to the final 12? One giant fight?

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You got it. I know that I myself would much prefer to see a tournament that gets more hectic as it goes on versus one that settles down.

So... in the first one Dirks shot people that weren't active at least once a day or something like that... No inactive shooting or anything... right?

Another question. Who determines who is in which Cell and how will it be determined? Will there be Player's Choice once again to set the ranking and then the first four would each go into one Cell or is there another way to do it?

Are familiars allowed?

This is going to be crazy. I love it.

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Originally Posted by Osato

So... in the first one Dirks shot people that weren't active at least once a day or something like that... No inactive shooting or anything... right?

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No, there won't be, although I'll stress again how important activity is for a tournament such as this - only those players who have at least 5 posts over the two weeks will get EXP.

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Who determines who is in which Cell and how will it be determined?

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I'll randomly select using a computer program or dice roller.

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Are familiars allowed?

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As long as they were in your profile or you won/bought them in a thread, then yes.

Is outside interferance, from characters who didn't get a chance to register permitted?

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Originally Posted by Chelsi

Is outside interferance, from characters who didn't get a chance to register permitted?

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Yes, but you'd have to get past the guards first. Also, there won't be any substantial EXP for characters who interfere, if any. But if done well it would make the thread more exciting and unpredictable, which would result in better scores for everyone, I'd imagine. Also, if a player has a character interfere the interfering character's posts don't count towards the 5 required.

You have a really good description of the cage, but what about what is inside the cage? Is that up to us, can we create our own setting, or is it just a generic arena without anything of note.

Simple question: If you break the cage, get out with another combatant to have a little undisturbed duel, what type of ground will they be standing on? A regular field of grass and a couple of stones...or anything special?

Probably the concrete of an amphetheatre. With a huge crowd behind them, or amongst them. That would be my guess. O.o

I, too, would like to know where this cage is settled in. For some reason, I keep thinking that the Cell itself is taking place on raised platforms; the cage is on top of a wide pillar, and beyond the edges of this pillar would be darkness. This is probably not accurate, so I need some sort of context to draw from. Please?

Vitally important question for me...

What's the lighting situation, exactly? You said daylight by AIM, so am I to understand the amphitheaters and cells are outdoors?

Yes, they are amphitheaters set outdoors. The cells are essentially on your standard dirt ground, and surrounded on all sides by spectators, whose seats are at least as high up as the top of the cave.

I'll take it you meant "cage" there. Thank you, Matt.

ICly, is there any time limit on the Cell. Basically if a character doesn't die, he/she can't post a conclusion until everyone else does. Could they make an argument about the time expiring for the round or something like that should that happen?

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ICly, is there any time limit on the Cell.

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Is until the last person in The Cell yields, dies, or is so exhausted they can't continue.

IC, though, there will be a natural time limit of how long a character could fight - no one could go for that long, realistically.