Initially, the entire event was going to be offline only
You spend a wall of text explaining why offline isn't appropriate then say this. Any credence in your previous arguments goes out the window.
Typo; initially it was going to be *online* only. My bad. Edited that post for clarity.
Without pointing out in detail every issue of the argument, you've claimed that offline is bad because it drives competition offline, then proceeded to try and justify why online should be the only way people jump, rather than explain what is so bad about offline. The general feeling is "I would do better online therefore everyone must play the way I play". It seems you have a very narrow view of what makes someone a "good" or "better" jumper.
I don't know how any fair reading of my post could lead you to this conclusion. This has nothing to do with how well I personally would do, since my times are excluded from competition from the whole event because I helped test/make the maps. The argument is simply that speedrunning jump takes place online in virtually every other instance, which you have made no effort to contradict, and therefore this competition should also take place online. I'm not "justifying" that "online should be the only way people jump." I am asserting the simple fact that the jumping community operates this way now.
Have you, or exile, or whoever made this decision, asked the people who donated to the prize pool for this free entry competition what they think? You seemed perfectly fine to throw up a poll to the community for a rather mundane decision to limit the scope of the grind for these stages, but have you even consulted the stakeholders of this event for something that will drastically impact who competes, and to what extent they will able to?
Donators weren't consulted for the type of maps made, the format/timing, the mappers, or any of the other aspects of the event. Thus far, there is zero overlap between people raising complaints and donators, at least in this thread. A poll was made for the stage duration because it was a straightforward question purely for the convenience of players, and there was ample time to make the decision. Not much discussion was needed (or happened) anyways.
Any attempt to bring this to a poll would have led to endless rambling argument, primarily by those with a direct personal incentive (conflict of interest!), as we see now. Inevitably, it would draw out at least through stage 2, probably through the rest of the event, completely removing any purpose to the poll in the first place.
Thank you for the feedback, I am very thankful for the communication between organizers and the community before making this change. I see that there is a leaderboard for people's top times and I couldn't help but notice that 3/10 for soldier and 7/10 for demo of the top 10 times were completed offline. Now my math by be wrong, but that seems to equal roughly 50% of the best times coming from offline runs. Now I may not be an expert in this field of study, but there seems to be some motivation for people wanting to run offline instead of online. Perhaps it's the lack of ping? How about not dealing with servers on the wrong map? What about a smoother overall experience?
I don't think I minced words about offline being a strict advantage over online. The point is not that offline is an inferior gameplay experience and should be shunned for the protection of the players, but that it is simply not the standard. If we accept that offline is so much better because of the lack of ping, the (already refuted) lack of servers, or the "smoother overall experience," why are the world records for almost every map (excluding all offclass, naturally) online? Why are such a disproportionate number of offline records explicitly tied to competitions with prizes? It gives an advantage, but one that is only really used when prizes are involved *because* it isn't how people play the game now.
Passive aggressiveness aside, how about instead of removing all of offline runs (which a lot of people would prefer over tempus), you make the perceived entry barrier to offline easier? Maybe have a step-by-step tutorial on how to install speedo or other plugins, or a tutorial on how to records demos, etc.\
The point is not that the barrier to entry for offline is unacceptably high (though after coaching a few people through installing/updating Sourcemod, it feels like it sometimes). When the community is effectively settled on one format, why would we want to have a competition that drives players away from it? The goal is to have a higher stakes, more directed version of normal jump competition, not to penalize players for playing the way they (and most everyone else) usually does. If there was some legacy contingent who swore that demo should always be played with buddha, they'd be getting the axe too.
"The inarguable advantage presented by playing offline (mostly for demo) drives most competition offline"
Bro what? Offline is just better, as you clearly state. So why are you making everyone now compete in a worse environment? What kind of logic is this?
Mostly addressed above, but playing offline is a competitive advantage, regardless of whether you characterize it as "just better" (e.g. more enjoyable) or not. If you only ever play the game offline jumping, that perspective makes sense, but it's important to remember that the vast majority of the community don't see it that way at all. It's not "making everyone compete in a worse environment," it's allowing the majority of the playerbase to compete in the *normal* environment without penalizing them.
If the concern is people hiding times/strats, how about requiring offline players to stream their attempts and submit their times within 6 hours of achieving the time rather than banning them outright? I'm not quite yet good enough to hope for a top 10 time in a competition like this, but if I were to participate, I'd really want to play offline.
That's part of the concern, and some sort of mandatory quick submission would alleviate it in part, if there's even a reliable way to date demos. However, that is only one of the concerns as the rest of this thread shows. Forcing streaming is unlikely since most offline mains do so because of bad internet in the first place.
Poll