The Mega Drive Championships

I can officially confirm that there are plans to host a tournament, in Nottingham, during 2016 to honour the 15-year anniversary of the Mega Drive Championships. Nothing concrete as of yet and further details will be announced in due course.

All I will say for now is we are looking to host it in the summer and are considering changes to the competition format to appeal to a wider number of people, although the games will remain exclusively Mega Drive and the same games you have all come to know and hate will be retained.

Questions, comments and opinions are not welcome, but will be considered.

how about moving to a world cup style format, with group stages leading to a knockout stage?

the plumb wrote:how about moving to a world cup style format, with group stages leading to a knockout stage?

We are currently looking at a variety of ways in which to work with the tournament structure - and this is indeed one of those ways we will be considering.

Hej guys

Awesome you are back. And I hope that I may be a part of a small german group of contestants for the upcoming event. (that will totally kick ass.. of course)

It would be cool If you can set a date as soon as possible, it makes it easier to plan a trip that way.

best regards Richard

two suggestions.
Look to the way the NFL works fixture wise. Despite being in groups of 4, you dont only play the other teams in your group (They have a 16 game season)

In NFL fantasy I'v noticed a lot of the leagues have a winners playoff and a consolation playoff.

Also, to break things up we could run various challenges? Or a guantlet, if you will.

I am afraid my understanding of NFL and the whole conference structures they have over there (born more out of necessity - distance travelled etc - than any great competitive edge, I thought) is very limited, so I shall have a study of the structure.

The structure we use will ultimately depend on how many members we secure. What seems like a good structure can fall flat on its arse as a result of too many or too few members. That is why it is so important we get confirmations in as soon as possible, so we have all the more time to really grapple with structure. With this in mind - have you managed to contact Pablo, Goat and Bell Bower? All of these gentlemen would be welcome back at the Tournament of Kings. I trust your powers of persuasion with Flint Stone...

I'm seeing Pablo and Goatman tonight, as they are up for supporting my band by coming to watch us play...

As for Bell Bower, I'm not in contact with him right now, but hopefully I can drum up some interest amongst the people I know now.

Flintstone should be a certainty

We could do with a more solid advertising push though, tbh

Yes - I am in full agreement with an advertising push - and we will be looking to do that far more when we have a date for the tournament. Without that - it is all a little too vague.

At the moment we are focussing on bringing together all the beasts from the past - reinvigorating passion and securing as many of the former members as we can. Goat, Pablo and Flint would be much welcome. Sorry to hear Bell Bower will not be returning - alas.

pablo and goatman are in, providing they have no other pressing engagments

the plumb wrote:pablo and goatman are in, providing they have no other pressing engagments

As I say, without us being able to give them a solid date - that is all we can expect of them at this stage, and this is good news! It will be good to have Pablo and Goatman back! It will be their first tournament since the 23rd Tournament back in 2011, which also acted as our 10 year anniversary tournament.

This is pure - to think that they could feature again in another anniversary event.

I swung by a market stall selling retro games the other day. Their megadrive titles were up at £7-£10.
I almost had a heart attack.

I remember when people couldnt give them away!!

I guess I ought to come along!

Commander Graham wrote:I guess I ought to come along!

Welcome Commander Graham!

I have been meaning to contact you - shall we arrange some Mega Drive action between me, you, Baron von Hooton and Princess Charlene?

Commander Graham wrote:I guess I ought to come along!

That's my opinion too

Lets be avvin you then?

Summer perhaps? Pick a Sunday in July and go for it? Heck it's not like planning a wedding for zool's sake

There are just a few issues for Mr Smith and I to sort out, we hope to have a date announced in the next month.

Hi all. A few of the irish lads are interested in coming along. 3 so far.

We recently had a street fighter tournament. If we wrote up a report would it make the website?

I am getting married at the start of July and will be out of action until mid July but depending on the date of the tournament I will come along

Martinoshea wrote:Hi all. A few of the irish lads are interested in coming along. 3 so far.

We recently had a street fighter tournament. If we wrote up a report would it make the website?

I am getting married at the start of July and will be out of action until mid July but depending on the date of the tournament I will come along

Greetings Martin!

Good to hear from you, and great to hear that a selection of the Irish lads are interested in coming over and participating at the next tournament! Currently we have no fixed date for the event, but hope to have this in place over the next few weeks or so. With luck, it should be on a date that allows you to come and take part, without impeding on any of the wedding plans.

Keep checking back on here (and on our facebook page) for updates on this, however I will also message you personally when we have the concrete date in place. Who else is interested in coming?

I am sure if you knock up an article regarding the Street Fighter tournament, it could be represented on the website. It is good to see Mega Drive Championshippery (I am of course assuming this tournament was on a Mega Drive - and not a SNES!!) is alive and well in Ireland!

My best.

Any dates yet?

We aren't supposed to be giving information away at this point, but it will be at the end of July.

Sunday 31 July 2016 will be the date of the 26th Mega Drive Championship.

The event will be held at the National Videogame Arcade in Nottingham city centre as part of their Sega weekend.

All are welcome to engage in 6-hours of the most intense 16-bit action in the known universe, in what we imagine will be the most awesome Mega Drive Championship to date.

Hi Dan,

It's nice you've been able to tie it in with another event.

Can you give us an idea of how this will be different to previous events, given the change of venue?

Looking at their web site, there is an entry fee to get into their arcade, will we need to pay this to use the area your consoles are going to be? Are we even going to use your consoles? Or is this Sega weekend a different arrangement to their normal entry system on their web site.

They seem to have a café, but it only serves drinks of various sorts and toast, thats it. Are we going to be allowed to have our own catering that we can chip in for, or is that out the window?

http://gamecity.org

Addressing some of the comments that have been made since the announcement of the 2016 Tournament and being hosted at the NVA.

Firstly the change in venue is just that, a change in venue, the NVA have no direct involvement with anything Mega Drive Championships related and the competition will be run and organised in exactly the same manner as before (e.g. North Korea style, but a little less cuddly). The competition will be run on our Mega Drives, using our games and by our rules. Nobody at the NVA has any involvement or influence over these things.

The Mega Drive Championship will be held in the free part of the museum, which also includes the cafe so people will be able to buy me and Chris coffee, however, anybody who wishes to wander around the numerous floors of video game history will have to pay to access this. It is actually a very worthwhile and interesting collection. We do intent to charge for entry to the tournament itself, however, this will be in the usual £5 - £10 mark per person to cover costs of trophies and food and is subject to ongoing discussions with the NVA.

The tournament structure will be changing to accommodate an anticipated increase in participation that will come from hosting the event in a central location. A league structure is impractical for this and we want everybody participating to have the chance to win the competition. We are incorporating some of the ideas used for the now defunct European Mega Drive Championships and we will be amalgamating the league and challenge competitions into something resembling more of a Mega Drive Olympics. A diverse selection of games will be used with each title 1-players, 2-players and group battles should see a constant stream of action. Instead of league divisions, a leaderboard will be used, and the player with the most points will become the Champion. We are still debating whether or not to keep a straight 2-player head-to-head knockout competition going at the event.

There is no parking at the NVA, however, there are car parks in Nottingham city centre and metered parking is often cheaper on Sunday, especially around Nottingham Trent University campus.

So when do you think, you will have a list of games that will be played?

The nine games for the 2016 Mega Drive Championship are:
World Cup Italia '90 - 2 players, head-to-head knockout
Sonic 2 - 1-player speedrun, Mystic Cave Zone 1
Golden Axe 2 - 1-player duel mode
Super Street Fighter 2 - 2-players, head-to-head knockout in elimination (not versus) mode
Streets of Rage 3 - 2 player head-to-head knockout
Mega Bomberman - Multi-player elimination
Virtua Racing - 5 laps beginner track, fastest single lap leaderboard
Micro Machines: Military - Multi-player elimination
Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine - 2-players, head-to-head knockout

We have planned for 6-hours of awesome at the NVA in Nottingham! As this is both a 15-year celebration of the original Mega Drive Championship in 2001, we have gone with mainly historic titles, but have revamped how the games are played in the hope of maximum purity.

Hi Dan,

Can I just ask, as I don't see it mentioned here, what time so we start on the Sunday?

AFAIK, the free part of the musuem is open 10:00-18:00 most days? (but open much later others)

Well, it only took me 15 years, but I'll be there lol

Btw, what games were used at the, last championships?

I was hoping someone would write an article about this galactic battle. Am I in for a big disappointment?