I am very excited to announce the creation of PHILA Pinball. This is a regionally-based event with qualifying across eight different locations in the Greater Philadelphia and a Match-Play Finals taking place in a single location on November 4, 2017.
Key Highlights:
Each of the eight locations has three machines for qualifying.
Play the machines as many times as you want, and take a picture with you and your best score.
Submit your scores, and we’ll add you to the scoreboard.
Your best eight machines across all your submissions count towards your total.
Top 32 play in the A-Division Finals, and everyone else is invited to play in the B-Division side tournament.
Dates:
September 22 to November 1 - Qualifying
November 4 - Finals at PinCrossing in Linfield, PA
We are hoping that this event gets people playing pinball in and around Philadelphia. We have lots of places with a growing number of machines and an increasing competition scene.
Organizing a multi-location event is something new for the Philly area. I know that TiltForums is great for good conversations and feedback, so if you have any thoughts or advice, please let us know!
The location with that pin has a series of very eclectic machines. I didn’t pick that machine but I’ll take responsibility for it being in the mix. I will admit that I don’t know much about Millionaire, so I’ll ask an ignorant question about why it it’s not a good pin.
Thank you! Players will move up. This is the line I have in the current Rules Document:
“Finals Absences
Any absences at Finals in the Top 32 will be filled in order by the qualifying position outside of the Top 32 of those in attendance during the Final Tournament.”
If you think better clarifications is needed, I’m happy to make it clearer.
I wrote to IFPA with a clarification question yesterday on whether they would count or not. I know that the gentlemen who organize the Tri-State event in New York seem to count everyone in the standings (see International Flipper Pinball Association for their tournament where only the top 24 [or so] made A-Finals). I’m happy to report back with their ruling when I hear back.
Not true. Players who put up qualifying scores but don’t make the finals are eligible to be included in the standings, and count towards the WPPR base value. With this being a selfie league, though, none of the qualifying games will count towards TGP.
This would be worth 0 WPPRs, as it wouldn’t be an open event. (I’m assuming that A qualifiers would be excluded from also playing in B.)
That doesn’t pass the smell test, IMHO. Players that don’t participate in a meaningful game can’t be included in your results. All those unverified scores are just for seeding purposes, and don’t mean jack squat to the standings.
“Any qualifying format that includes “unverified” results where a TD, league official, or authorized scorekeeper is not present to record their score, will not have the qualifying portion included in the TGP calculation. The IFPA will classify these qualifying formats as strictly for seeding purposes, with only the finals format counting towards the TGP calculation.”
The only impact unverified play has a tournament is TGP related. Besides that, it’s treated as a straight up Herb. Players have to play in at least 50%+ of the qualifying games to be included in the final results.
That was my call and potentially my bad. I’m also curious about why you think we should reconsider. Depending on the reason, I’d switch it now before we get too far along in the tournament. Thank you for any info you can share.
Josh, this is exactly my point. NONE of those unverified/selfie games qualified them for anything. Seeding doesn’t equal qualifying. It makes no sense to say that my next event, everyone will be seeded in the knockout tourney according to their current TX SCS ranking, and then be able to include every player with a TX SCS seeding who doesn’t show up.
It qualified them for the top 32 of the finals of this event…Unless I’m missing something?
This is exactly how we handle our selfie league. If I qualify in 3rd and miss finals, I’m listed outside of the A finals group but higher than the B-level finalists. In our league that’s 5th place.
Your example of using SCS rank to seed players isn’t comparable because you’re using data outside of actual games being played for that particular event as the seeding process.
I realize that is what the event description contains. But I thought that aspect of having unverified results count toward qualifying was outlawed during the Super League nerfing.
The Super League nerfing had nothing to do with unverified results. Remember that those results were “verified” by FLR, who was the official TD for the event.
The specific issue with Super League has to do with players not realizing they were actually competing when they were playing random games of pinball inside Modern Pinball. We offered the chance for Modern to send us sign up sheets every month showing players actively agreeing to have their scores counted as part of Super League, and they rejected that idea. Without that proof of interest, we heard too many stories to not want to blindly acceptance these “competitors” any longer.
Unverified qualifying tournaments run in exactly the same way as verified qualifying tournaments. The ONLY difference is the TGP calculation regarding to the time/machines used for that process.
I think Millionaire is totally fine as a qualifying game for a selfie league. I would not want to play it in a head to head format, but that won’t be a problem for you. I really enjoy the selfie league we have here in Seattle. I hope this works well for Philly!
Thanks for the feedback that we’ve gotten so far, and thanks for the clarification on who can be counted in standings.
From a “meta” point of view, one of the things I’d like to try to hyping up the current standings by taking a current snapshot of standings once a week and to promote the current high scores, both as a way to acknowledge the current leaderboard and to hopefully generate some buzz around specific locations.
What have other leagues done in this regard to keep things “fresh” over a long qualifying period?
To the points being raised about accountability of games, it’s my interest to be as transparent with scoring and scores being submitted, so I’m taking each picture submitted and posting it to a Google Drive location so people can verify themselves should they have any questions.
Just wanted to share an update on this thread. Since we have a large volume of machines, I’ve created a few supporting pages with data from the NeverDrains site to create a “Top 5 High Scores” on each machine consolidated into a single page, in addition to showing a “Player Matrix” which shows each players and machine in a grid to highlight what position they are in.
The goal of this is to give people a simple way to compare themselves to others in the standings, to highlight locations they haven’t played yet, and to help them see at-a-glace where they might improve their scores.
I just wanted to send an update that we’re in the middle of the Winter 2018 Season of the PHILA Pinball regional league and to spread the word that qualifying is still open.
We have 33 machines at 11 different locations, and you can play and post scores any time these locations are open. It’s Best Game qualifying, and your best 8 games count. Top 32 will qualify for A Division Finals, and everyone else is welcome to play in the B Division Side Tournament.
Here’s a (slightly over the top) promotional video for the PHILA Pinball League Winter 2018 Season.
Entry fee is only $10.
It’s Best Game qualifying, and your best 8 games count. Top 32 will qualify for A Division Finals, and everyone else is welcome to play in the B Division Side Tournament.
