Why are there so few V competitions?

[Nightmarjoo]

Title says it all. Since I started being active on this forum, over the past few months I've only seen a single competition for vanilla. I'm ashamed to say I didn't get very far in it before giving up (not getting a prayer book has that kind of effect on a paladin...), but I certainly would like to see more V competitions.
I guess the competitions for variants are nice because they encourage people to play those variants, often for the first time. But still

[Roch]

By my calculations, Vanilla competitions account for almost 20% of the total (I'm going all the way back to the beginning). That seems o.k. to me considering the number of variants vying for a chance to shine. Personally, I've been very happy with Nick's choices -- I hadn't played a single variant before happening on the competitions page here and taking the plunge. I may not like every comp, but more often than not I find a new-to-me variant in a comp that bowls me over.
Nick has a tough job with so many coders/players to please, but I think he does a great job as our benevolent chooser. And I suspect he'll consider your request in choosing the next comp (in fact he often solicits suggestions for comps on this site). And no, he hasn't paid me for this post ;-)

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Nightmarjoo

Title says it all. Since I started being active on this forum, over the past few months I've only seen a single competition for vanilla.

There are other people who feel the same way, but it is a balancing act. Since I took over (a bit over a year ago) there have been 4 V competitions out of 20 - so, again, about 20%. The rapid pace of V development in that time has probably inhibited me a bit from using it for competitions, because it is sometimes not clear which version to use.

Given that V3.1.2 is about to come out, the next comp will probably be that (and probably a mage). New Hellband is out and should have one soon, new FA will be out in a couple of weeks, but V does get priority if there's anything approaching a good reason.

On reading the competition rules I see that I've said I will always ask for savefiles for the next comp, which I haven't been doing. However, I'm happy to accept a savefile any time (there is some advice about these in the rules, too), and I think on reflection that asking every time is a bit of a waste of everyone's time and space (unlike my other posts ).

Thanks for voicing your opinion - all discussion is welcome.

[PowerDiver]

Originally Posted by Nick

Given that V3.1.2 is about to come out, the next comp will probably be that (and probably a mage).

Can you hold off a bit until someone can offer a non-virgin savefile to use as a basis? Preferably one in which MB9 has everseen status as well as all cursed flavors., and the big 3 weapons. That's necessary to set up your autoinscriptions and squelch settings at the start of the game, so that you can do them once and backup the comp and play multiple times without undue annoyance.

I detest virgin savefiles.

Should the comp start say around DL40 or DL50?

[PowerDiver]

D'oh!

I just realized savefile breakage is with respect to 3.1.1, not with respect to the nightlies

[Nick]

Originally Posted by PowerDiver

Can you hold off a bit until someone can offer a non-virgin savefile to use as a basis? Preferably one in which MB9 has everseen status as well as all cursed flavors., and the big 3 weapons. That's necessary to set up your autoinscriptions and squelch settings at the start of the game, so that you can do them once and backup the comp and play multiple times without undue annoyance.

I detest virgin savefiles.

Should the comp start say around DL40 or DL50?

Well, the current competition has 18 days to run - I'm sure you can play a full game for the monster memory and then get a mage to the right level. I'll be looking forward to getting a savefile from you on, shall we say, February 8th?

[PowerDiver]

Does anyone care what race it should be?