The tournament page says wait mode will be turned on "when possible", which is quite vague. Personally I'd prefer it to be either permanently on or off.

I thought wait mode had been discontinued?

I was in several tournament games that were badly delayed by wait mode, where the occasional CD by a disgruntled player with 1 SC left would have been much less problematic than the waiting.

It is alive and well in some tournament games. NMRs are alive and well in others. It is making the planning of how best to deal with people who go silent and look like they may well miss the deadline difficult, to say the least.

You can at least tell if it's switched on in the relevant game though. It says so in the game description.

I presume you're not the TD in the tourney in question?

Nope.

Interesting point about it appearing in the game description. You learn something new every day! The trouble is, as it can be turned off and on, there is no certainty whether the state (off or on) of wait mode you go to sleep to will be the same as it is when the phase actually changes.

Well that would be incredibly frustrating, yes.

I think it's a pain in the neck, personally. I see the merit behind it, but it is badly abused.

I think it would be very useful if Wait for Orders was changed to an Auto-Pause as a stop-gap to allow the phase to not go through until the TD can come in and resolve the issue.
The TD would treat the WFO abuser as an NMR. Two violations and you are treated as a CD.

This is far preferred to me. I had a game rolled back by 2 phases due to NMRs....and much preferred to playing forward in a tournament in which NMRs are a significant factor.

Wait for Orders is nonsense. Why have a different, more relaxed rule for a game which is supposed to be a competition. Rubbish!

Because its a tournament and the effects of an NMR and CD has more far reaching influence. It also can have a large effect on more people. TD and players put alot of effort into running these things and trying to come up with methods to maintain the integrity of the tournament is important.

It's the apparent inconsistency that I'm objecting to. If there is no wait mode, that's fine. If wait mode is there from start to finish, that's fine. If wait mode is turned when a TD happens to be about to see a problem developing, I don't think that works.

If I recall correctly, Wait-for-order (WFO) was made available as an option early on, but it was badly abused and created a big mess for players and for the mods. It just didn't work. So we have made it so that only mods or TDs can turn it on. So, normal games don't have that option unless they asked for it before hand or have an agreement with the mods in terms of how it will be used and so forth. For tournaments, that's mostly up to the TDs how/if they want to use WFOs. This way the TDs have control over what's happening and they are responsible for what's going on in their tournament. Some TDs do not have the ability to activate this option themselves, in which case they ask the mods to do it. So unless there are some exceptional circumstances or directions from the TDs, WFOs do not get turn on by the mods and are not on by default.

Mods, if I'm wrong, please feel free to correct me.

To your point, Octavious, WFOs should not be turned on willy nilly. I agree there should be consistency from the TD, which is why they have a lengthy form to fill out when they want to run a tournie on webdip to clarify what they will do, what they won't do, and so forth. If a TD is being inconsistent, then that should be raised to the TD in private and if it continues, let us know about it and maybe don't play in their tournie next time. Kestas and I want the TDs to have the leeway to make things work in their tournie and not put additional burdens on the mods (and have people blame them for what isn't in their control).

If there are issues with TDs or a tournie, please let the TDs and/or mods know.

NMRs and CDs are a scourge. I thought players were screened for reliability. Obviously, there was no screening for skill and I understand they even let in a carebear or two.

I would imagine the next round will be more competitive. This round is like the Olympic medal qualifiers... just coast through the easy competition to the next round.

Oct, the answer to your original question is that the tournament director is flawed in his inability to always be checking. My original goal was to turn it on only when I was worried about a possible NMR, so that I could keep close track of who abused it. I'm still keeping track, but I've also started leaving it on in games that keep needing it. My intention was to replace anyone who abused it twice, but we've had a slight shortage of subs, so there's been some added leniency there in some cases, but I'm still tracking abuses and replacing when things get too bad.I can turn it on in all games now if that would provide people comfort.

Zane, to answer you, yes, I did screen for reliability. Sadly, even people who've been reliable in the past can decide to suck instead. It's very unfortunate.