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Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 3:07 pm
by Marcus Hares
I have an idea for a series of tournaments and would love to have your feedback and input into it.

With the London Olympics just over a year away it got me thinking, how good would it be for us to hold our own Apterous Olympics?

The proposal would be to hold 149 tournaments over the space of 30 weeks beginning on Sunday 1st January 2012 and finishing the day before the actual Olympics start on Thursday 26th July 2012.

Apterous offers 160 different formats and the original idea was to have a separate tournament covering each of these formats but with further thought some of the foreign conundrum attacks would not be workable – for example, the Greek conundrum attack record is only 10pts meaning most matches would end up in a 0-0 tie and never get completed. Taking these 11 foreign conundrum attacks out, the number would reduce from 160 to 149 tournaments.

Each tournament would take place at a set time on a set date and entrants would all be playing at the same time meaning that most tournaments would be over within an hour or two. You wouldn’t need to commit to every tournament either – just dip in whenever the time suits you.

Tournaments would be held in double-elimination format – this is a format whereby you only leave the competition when you have lost twice. A simple way to explain this is to envisage a tournament with 4 players – player 1 vs player 2, and player 3 vs player 4. Let’s assume player 1 and player 3 win their respective matches – those two players would then proceed to play each other as they would in a regular knockout tournament. For player 2 and player 4 though, the tournament would not be over yet as they would play each other in a repechage type game. The loser of the match between player 1 and player 3 (let’s assume it’s player 3) would then play the winner of the match between player 2 and player 4 and the winner of that match would then play in the final against player 1. It’s conceivable for a player to lose a match and still win the tournament.

The reason I favour double-elimination for this series is that it would generate a clear 1st, 2nd and 3rd place and therefore virtual medallists and would generate a virtual medal table as well.

I would be in the room to oversee each tournament and announce the pairings.

Charlie has already given the green light for me to go ahead and organise this. I do appreciate it’s a huge undertaking and could send me into an early grave but I believe it’s an exciting idea and could generate a lot of interest amongst the players. Please leave feedback or input, good or bad, below.

Thanks for listening,
Marcus

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 3:34 pm
by Jon O'Neill
Nice idea. How about having "countries" where the player pool is divided up, to add a team element? Would make the medal table element more interesting I think.

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 3:36 pm
by James Robinson
Jon O'Neill wrote:Nice idea. How about having "countries" where the player pool is divided up, to add a team element? Would make the medal table element more interesting I think.
Yeah, it's an ingenious idea. Add the countries and you've got a winner there, Marcus. ;) :) :D :mrgreen: 8-)

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 3:39 pm
by Rhys Benjamin
I'll be happy for anything in English.

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 3:43 pm
by Ryan Taylor
Definitely like the topicality of it, like with the apterous World Cup was great. Have you decided on which events to do? Going by this page there are 34 events in swimming alone. Do you plan to do all 34 swimming events? Or are you just going to pick a select few?

My first thought was that 149 events is too many but considering the time period you're doing it over then it might work out. However, these 149 tournaments carried out in just under 7 months will presumably get a bit tiresome and people may lose interest especially because of this fact...
Marcus Hares wrote:You wouldn’t need to commit to every tournament either – just dip in whenever the time suits you.
...inevitably the people who are on apterous a lot of the time e.g. Innis, Gillard, me, Scott, Bayfield, you and quite a few others will dominate the medals table that you envisage. Here's just an idea (that I've not thought it through fully yet) that could keep the interest for the 7 months. How about you get all of the people who are interested in the AptOlympics to sign up to the event as a whole then what you could do is split everyone up into little teams (representing nations). The size of the teams will depend on the popularity of the events. Still with me?

Right, so you are now in a team representing a nation (the teams I should add, would be split on rating such as in a hierarchical list of 32 apterous users the ranks #1, #9, #17 and #25 would be together and then #2, #10, #18 and #26 together etc.). Then there should be a rule implemented meaning that every person in the team should take part in an equal number of events (or at least as close to equal as possible, there's bound to be discrepancies). This will mean that everyone will feel that they are contributing towards the ultimate goal of topping the medals table whereas if we are acting as individuals then we all pretty much know what the final standings will look like.

And for an event, only one person from each nation should be allowed to participate.

This sounds good in my head but obviously it's only just come to me and there are gonna be issues with it. Is it just a really shit idea and would it be hard to create?

EDIT: basically Jon summed up my thoughts as to how this should be done and did it much more concisely!

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 3:56 pm
by Michael Wallace
Topical tourneys are cool, but running something over such a protracted period seems to run the risk of it losing any sense of 'specialness', and instead I don't really see what this has over the daily duel. 149 'tournaments' across 30 weeks seems pretty optimistic - maybe reduce the numbers a bit? You've got a pretty small pool of players to start with so I don't think this will really spoil it. It also seems an organisational nightmare, unless I'm missing some cool tricks.

For the sake of being constructive, you could build on the Olympic idea by having some specially constructed tournament - a decathlon could be pretty cool, for instance.

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 4:11 pm
by Marcus Hares
I wasn't going to recreate every event in the real Olympics - "just" the 149 variants that apterous had to offer.

I like the idea of dividing players up into different nations - the top of the medals table would be predictable as you say Ryan if this was based purely on an individual basis, however the more regular players may feel like they are missing out if they are only allowed to play in a few tournaments when they would prefer to be playing in several of them, also this may cause a logistical nightmare trying to arrange who to put in which tournament and whether they have the time to play it, but the general idea of using different countries is exciting.

Last thing I would want to do is to shoot anyone's ideas down because all input is welcomed - I just don't want to make it more complicated than it already is.

Understand this has many similarities to the Daily Duel - the difference being that entrants would all be playing simultaneously.

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 4:14 pm
by Ryan Taylor
Michael Wallace wrote:Topical tourneys are cool, but running something over such a protracted period seems to run the risk of it losing any sense of 'specialness', and instead I don't really see what this has over the daily duel. 149 'tournaments' across 30 weeks seems pretty optimistic - maybe reduce the numbers a bit? You've got a pretty small pool of players to start with so I don't think this will really spoil it. It also seems an organisational nightmare, unless I'm missing some cool tricks.
Agreed, how about running it over a shorter period i.e. 3 months (which is still a very long time) and with 90 days I reckon you could get between 50-70 tournaments in this. Also I think the only languages you should use should be English, Spanish, German an Italian as these are what I'd consider to be the main ones. Eliminate all the other ones altogether (sorry Matt for Dutch and Nathan Stone/Karen for Portuguese). All the variants should probably be used in equal measure though as with this team idea you obviously select which person in the team should go for the Aegilops (Jim Bentley if he's in my team).

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 4:21 pm
by Ryan Taylor
Marcus Hares wrote:however the more regular players may feel like they are missing out if they are only allowed to play in a few tournaments when they would prefer to be playing in several of them
I would say I'm a regular player and I wouldn't feel left out at all. I'd quite like the idea of having say 3 events to compete in and given the 3 dates on which the event is held on for me to turn up and try and bring home the Gold for the team. Remember also that there will be other tournaments kicking about at the same time too. By letting everyone have the same number of events (+/- 1) everyone feels they would have had their opportunity to represent the Nation. Also thinking way ahead now, if you go through with the Nations idea then the groups should decide who is going to do what event and submit their line-up of which team members will do which events in secret to the Event Organiser. This will add a bit of tactical-ness to the proceedings as it might mean sacrificing oneself in an event that you think Innis Carson may have been selected for. The tournament system on apterous would definitely have to be used.

I'm getting more excited about this event than the actual Olympics. Then again, I am only going to watch archery and football.

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 6:41 pm
by JimBentley
Ryan Taylor wrote:All the variants should probably be used in equal measure though as with this team idea you obviously select which person in the team should go for the Aegilops (Jim Bentley if he's in my team).
Dunno where you got that idea Ryan, I'm not all that good at it (I just play it a lot)!

I think it's a great idea anyway, Marcus. I can't quite envisage exactly how the formats are going to work just yet but that's probably because I've not really thought it through properly. Anyway, I'd be very keen to take part. The only thing that has to be an absolute must is randomly assigned nationalities for each player, that was the coolest thing about the apterous World Cup.

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 6:49 pm
by Ian Volante
I'm not sure about the team idea, depends how reliable other members of it are. Can you tell I'm an only child? I'd also cut down a little on some of the weirder variants, much as I like them! The scale of this is huge. Actually, buggrit, make it as big as possible! In please.

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 11:15 pm
by Adam Gillard
I think there should be an individual medals table first and foremost, and a countries medals table second and rearmost. I also think that people should be allowed to play in as many events as they like. After all there's an individual medals allocation for each event. As far as timing goes, if it were to be foreshortened then it would make sense to do away with foreign 9 rounders or anything that is likely to end up with ongoing tiebreak conundrums (Spoilage Numbers Attack can end up like this too, but I suppose Spoilage conundrums are (slightly) more solvable than certain foreign ones for most people). The whole Apchrous Limpicks thing is a great idea though.

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 11:33 pm
by Jon O'Neill
Adam Gillard wrote:I think there should be an individual medals table first and foremost, and a countries medals table second and rearmost.
This shit be whack. The Lympix ain't about repping yoself, it's about reppin yo enz, yo.

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 11:42 pm
by Adam Gillard
Jon O'Neill wrote:
Adam Gillard wrote:I think there should be an individual medals table first and foremost, and a countries medals table second and rearmost.
This shit be whack. The Lympix ain't about repping yoself, it's about reppin yo enz, yo.
Then how do we decide who (and how many people) represents each country / team?

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 6:48 am
by Ryan Taylor
Adam Gillard wrote:
Jon O'Neill wrote:
Adam Gillard wrote:I think there should be an individual medals table first and foremost, and a countries medals table second and rearmost.
This shit be whack. The Lympix ain't about repping yoself, it's about reppin yo enz, yo.
Then how do we decide who (and how many people) represents each country / team?
By seeing how many people sign up before a certain date and then create pools.

But, I had a lengthy chat with Marcus last night/this morning and it seems he will be doing the 149 events and focusing mainly on individuals although said that you could be assigned a team. Still I think assigning a team second and rearmost is a bit pointless since the "team" bit is effectively redundant due to the fact that different people will contribute vastly varying amounts to the team (one person from my team could win 50 medals, I could then win 1 medal, would I feel satisfied?).

I want this event to be an event with the whole emphasis on the team factor, a unique selling point of the tournament, never before been done on apterous before but sadly I think I'm on my own with this one. I love the idea that a player of lesser quality who doesn't play apterous a huge amount can still have the same effect on a tournament as the top ranked players who play a lot. A lower ranked player may not be the best Countdowner but they could end up being a real whizz at Omelette or something. They could then really want to represent their team in Omelette type variants and possibly pick up a bronze medal or even more for the team, feeling like they have contributed to the whole process.

Once you have your pools of players, it is just a case of deciding what number of events you are going to do and also, I would limit the entrants (like a swimming pool has 8 lanes and whatnot). Ideally, if you get 64 players and you split them into 8 groups of 8 people. You could then make 32 events (evenly spread over different formats) and within each team of 8 the team would assign and decide which 4 events people want to do. Only one person from each team could play in one of the events so you'd decide to have 8 places available (played straight knock-out style) and hopefully these would be filled with representatives of the 8 different countries.

Also with this group system, there is no reason why not to have an individual medals table. If it did happen that there were 4 events for each person to take part in, then the best players can potentially win 4 Gold medals and due to the nature of the events you would hopefully get an individual medals table that would not be dominated by high rank players as is the case with almost every single other tournament that is ran. It's The Usual Suspects.

The above is just an example with ideal figures, however what you should do is when the sign up date is closed you can then decide upon how the groups are to be split/size of groups and the number of events. I don't see the point in running a Hebrew 9 rounder and a Hebrew 15 rounder when so very few people know the language. It's just boring. And pointless. (Not Hebrew itself, but the idea of running an event for a stupidly complex game that will attract a turn out of 2 people).

The advantages of doing it this way:
  • - Everybody is on a level playing field
    - People receive a fulfilling feeling by being an integral part of a team
    - There is an added element of tactics
    - Players who don't usually shine have that opportunity to now
    - It should in theory provide a more exciting climax to a tournament
    - Individual achievements will also be recognised
    - The tournament can be run over a shorter period (maximum 2 or 3 months depending on figures)
    - Either a knock-out or league table can be used to decide each event
    - When all entrants and line-up are confirmed then using apterous' tournamnet system will make things easier
    - Event event can run from the Opening Ceremony until the Closing Day of the Ceremony (this will please the most people)
    - By cutting down the 149 events it eliminates obscure variants and obscure languages
    - By cutting down the time period it increases interest
    - The less time the tournament takes; the less work you have to do
    - If somebody doesn't turn up throughout the whole tournament players can receive byes
    - It's FUNNER!
The disadvantages:
  • - With tournaments not being "rolling" then people who miss the sign up date will unfortunately not be able to sign up once the tournament has started. This is the case with any tournament though and it is just tough. They can wait another 4 years until the next one!
    - Some players would want to try and sweep the medals table and feel excluded by the "cap" (however, under your format, what's the point in Player A playing in all 149 events and winning 7 Gold, 5 Silver and 11 Bronze when Player B could play in 6 events and win 6 Golds. Clearly Player B has done better but the individual table would not show this. Under the system I envisage this factor is eliminated).
This is of course JMO and I'm obviously going to be adamant about how you should do this tournament as I (shock!) think it's definitely the best and most exciting way. Please try and see the positives in doing it this way rather than be set in on your initial idea.

Seems like I'm the only one who thinks it should be done like this though so maybe I'm on the completely wrong side of the track. :cry:

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 7:28 am
by Jon Corby
I'm going to run a paralympics afterwards, for all the spackers. I'm expecting a high turnout.

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 8:04 am
by Ian Volante
Jon Corby wrote:I'm going to run a paralympics afterwards, for all the spackers. I'm expecting a high turnout.
In plz.

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 8:48 am
by Matthew Tassier
I think it's a great idea Marcus and also think that you are mad to agree to run it.
I like the opportunity to dip in and out, taking apart in whichever events you fancy and are free for. As there will be less than 200 participants in total each person could be allocated a country (randomly/by ability/by order of appearance) and go out to do them proud.

Ryan's tournament sounds fun too, maybe it could be run in assaociation with something else (World Athletics Championship??) or run it during the actual Olympic fortnight?

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 11:08 am
by Michael Wallace
Jon Corby wrote:I'm going to run a paralympics afterwards, for all the spackers. I'm expecting a high turnout.
If it was limited to people with actual disabilities, I'd be well up for that. (Yes, I know you were joking, but still.)

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 12:20 pm
by Karen Pearson
Personally I prefer the team approach. I am never going to win a normal apterous tournament but I like the idea of being able to win a gold medal in an event for my 'country'.

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 1:15 pm
by Chris Hare
Brilliant idea, Marcus.

I think I’m going to agree with Ryan on the teams, though. My thoughts are these:

- Split the entrants into teams (of t, say)
- Teams to elect a captain
- Give each team a number of entries into each competition (n)
- Split the competitions into groups (as they are on the in-game menu), so Group 1 would consist of Standard 15, Standard 9, Standard Letters Attack, Standard Letters Attack, and Standard Conundrum Attack; Group 2 would consist of the same, but with Speed; and so forth.
- Permit each team member to compete in a maximum number of competitions in each group. (If there are five competitions in the group, set the maximum to be three, perhaps. Foreign language variants would have three competitions per group, so maybe set the limit to two for those.) This means that teams have to decide where to best use their specialists or higher-ranked players, and gives a chance at glory to people who aren’t Innis or Adam.
- Make the team captains responsible for submitting to the organiser a list of their entries, probably in sets before the beginning of each week’s competitions.

Obviously, t and n can only be decided upon once the number of entrants is known.

Medals tables can be done for teams and for individuals; I don’t think anyone will complain violently about not being allowed to take part in all 149 tournaments (and if they do, they’ve got too much spare time).

The problems I can foresee with this are:

- Drop-outs. Perhaps allow teams a limited number of “substitutes”, which can be made only prior to the beginning of a competition, so long as this doesn’t violate the maximum-number-of-games-per-person rule.
- Complexity of administration. This is mitigated by having the team captains as the means of communication from the teams to the organiser; all the organiser has to do in that regard is check the submitted entries for compliance.

The benefits, as I see it:

- Improved opportunities for lower-ranked players to win medals (and, ultimately, the tournament). This should improve participation.
- Team medal tables should, in theory, remain competitive for longer, which would help keep the interest of the non-diehards.
- Reduces the commitment required from one player to excel in the individual medal table. The rules above provide a cap of about three-fifths of the total number of tournaments, which is still plenty if all 149 options are used.

I think dropping “obscure” formats from the event is a not-so-good idea. Certainly, very few people play Portuguese Letters Attacks, but that doesn’t mean that the people that do shouldn’t be able to get a medal in them. It’s not as though anyone’s suggested playing BlindBulletHyperGoatBlitz in Finnish.

Just my two penn'orth.

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 1:28 pm
by Ryan Taylor
Chris Hare wrote:...
Agree with most of this but I still think the events would need a little refinement.

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 1:32 pm
by Adam Gillard
Chris Hare wrote:Brilliant idea, Marcus.
[...]
My thoughts are these:
[...]
[give] a chance at glory to people who aren’t Innis or Adam.
Awful idea, Chris.

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 3:14 pm
by Joseph Krol
I would be up for this.

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 4:11 pm
by John Gillies
Karen Pearson wrote:Personally I prefer the team approach. I am never going to win a normal apterous tournament but I like the idea of being able to win a gold medal in an event for my 'country'.
I completely agree, Karen. The team approach would generate a bit of camaraderie and banter, and give lesser mortals like myself more of an incentive to sign up and take part.

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 9:12 pm
by Marcus Hares
I hadn't envisaged a team element when I thought this series idea up - it's definitely worth exploring as a few people seem to like the idea.

Having said that, 149 tournaments will already be a huge undertaking to organise - defining certain people to play in certain tournaments at certain times on certain days wasn't something I had thought about and seems like a real big admin headache (basically for me) - much as I'd like to think everyone would turn up when they should it's just not going to happen. Far better to let people just dip in and out of the series as and when they feel like it. An itinerary of events would be drawn up well in advance so if there are certain formats that suit you better all you need to do is mark them in your diary and show up (if you feel like it). There would be no pressure on anyone to compete, and also no exclusion to players who want to play in more tournaments than they are allocated to. I want to make this series as inclusive as possible.

Ok so the "usual suspects" will probably top the medals table - but that's no different to a regular Olympics, you will expect USA, China, Russia, Germany, Great Britain etc to do well in that as well. There is already a level playing field by allowing anyone to compete when it suits them - if someone chooses to play in more tournaments than someone else then it's not my place to stop them.
Karen Pearson wrote:Personally I prefer the team approach. I am never going to win a normal apterous tournament but I like the idea of being able to win a gold medal in an event for my 'country'.
Karen - of course you have a chance to win a gold medal in an event - in fact you're very likely to win more gold medals than most with your foreign language prowess.

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 9:44 pm
by Ryan Taylor
Marcus Hares wrote:defining certain people to play in certain tournaments at certain times on certain days wasn't something I had thought about and seems like a real big admin headache (basically for me)
This wouldn't happen. If all the events are set up from the start (OK so the apterous home page could be cluttered if you use the tourney system) then you can set every event off at the start of the tourney. People will then be able to see who they have to play in their events and start playing the games. If each event is just spanned over say 2 months then using 8 participants as the examplea and a knockout style, the total number of games per event would be 8 games and the most that any one person is going to have to participate in in a single event is 3 (1st round, semi-final, final/3rd place play off). If people can play in like 4 events then the absolute max number of games you are going to have to be in is 12. 12games in 2 months is hassle-free.
Marcus Hares wrote:much as I'd like to think everyone would turn up when they should it's just not going to happen
If people don't turn up then it's just a bye for the player they were meant to play. Simple solution.
Marcus Hares wrote:Ok so the "usual suspects" will probably top the medals table - but that's no different to a regular Olympics, you will expect USA, China, Russia, Germany, Great Britain etc to do well in that as well.
It's an online word game.

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 9:45 pm
by Gavin Chipper
What's with every post being a whole fucking essay in this thread?

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 10:00 pm
by Marcus Hares
Ryan Taylor wrote:
Marcus Hares wrote:Ok so the "usual suspects" will probably top the medals table - but that's no different to a regular Olympics, you will expect USA, China, Russia, Germany, Great Britain etc to do well in that as well.
It's an online word game.
I know Ryan, I'm not likening it to the real Olympics, just that you don't penalise the bigger players just because they're better.
Gavin Chipper wrote:What's with every post being a whole fucking essay in this thread?
Sorry Gavin, are we boring you?

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 10:02 pm
by Gavin Chipper
Marcus Hares wrote:
Ryan Taylor wrote:
Marcus Hares wrote:Ok so the "usual suspects" will probably top the medals table - but that's no different to a regular Olympics, you will expect USA, China, Russia, Germany, Great Britain etc to do well in that as well.
It's an online word game.
I know Ryan, I'm not likening it to the real Olympics, just that you don't penalise the bigger players just because they're better.
Gavin Chipper wrote:What's with every post being a whole fucking essay in this thread?
Sorry Gavin, are we boring you?
No but it it means I have to set aside special time slots just for reading this thread!

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 2:11 am
by Innis Carson
This is a cool idea. I'm leaning towards Marcus's ideas, specifically about having each whole event happen at a specified time so that all games are played concurrently. That's what it was like in the old Aptobashes and it added a certain atmosphere and excitement that long, drawn-out tournaments don't really have, and it's a shame there haven't really been any of that style of tournament recently. It would definitely create a problem with the whole team thing, since people not showing up at the specified time could completely ruin a team's chances of winning, but I wouldn't be too bothered if the team aspect didn't happen or wasn't given much emphasis. I like the idea of people getting to play all the formats they enjoy, rather than being assigned by their team to ones they might not necessarily like as much for tactical reasons.

But I'll happily take part in this in whatever form is decided.

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 9:21 am
by Adam Gillard
Innis Carson wrote:I like the idea of people getting to play all the formats they enjoy, rather than being assigned by their team to ones they might not necessarily like as much for tactical reasons.
Prophetic comment on Aptathlons?

Also, where's it all at with this now, Marcus?

Re: Apterous Olympics Idea

Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 9:52 pm
by Marcus Hares
Adam Gillard wrote:
Innis Carson wrote:I like the idea of people getting to play all the formats they enjoy, rather than being assigned by their team to ones they might not necessarily like as much for tactical reasons.
Prophetic comment on Aptathlons?

Also, where's it all at with this now, Marcus?
This will still be happening, albeit a condensed version of what I had first envisaged. All the formats will still be covered and I'll post details over the coming weeks, the series will begin in May and finish in July.