Ol' West GST Summer 2021

Howdy partners! The rest of the staff team and I are very excited to be bringing back the Gang Spar Tournament. We've been working diligently these past few months to bring back the GST experience and now we feel we've got enough done to finally go public about it. I'll proceed to explain as best as I can what's new and how we're planning to deliver this event to you.

So, What's new?

• When GSTs are hosted

There will be 2 GSTs per year, one hosted sometime during the Summer and another one hosted during the Winter

• The GST Arena

This is the arena for this Summer's GST

• Viewing the event.

There will be 2 different ways to view the event.
1- In-game through the Show Room:

Within the GST lobby you'll find the entrance to the 'Show Room'. Here, viewers can enjoy the entire event live from the comfort of their viewing chairs. We've crafted an immersive viewing system that will allow players to see either the entire GST arena
at once, or action close-ups taken live straight from the arena which will focus closely on one of the players currently participating in a match.


2- Via Twitch:

Through the eyes of a Staff —who will be commentating over the event— you'll be able to experience the action live straight from the arena. The staff will be in stealth as the matches go down.

• The match system.

For this revamp of GST we've changed around the rules a bit.

This year's GST will use a simple double elimination system. This means that throughout the event there will be two on-going brackets. The Winners Bracket and the Losers Bracket. If a team from the Winners bracket losses, they fall down to the Losers Bracket. The winning gang from the Losers Bracket will have a second chance at winning the tournament when they face the winners of the Winners Bracket at the end of the tournament. Since it's double elimination, if the gang from the losers bracket loses against the gang from the winner's bracket, that would be their 2nd elimination and thus they'd be out of the tournament. If the gang from the winners bracket losses that would've only been their first loss and thus there'd be a second match to decide who wins the tournament.

Each match of this tournament will occur in a best of 3 fashion. The GST arena has been divided vertically in 3 different sections, each representing a different round of the best of 3. The first match of the best of 3 will occur in the top-section of the map, the second match in the mid-section and if the two teams have tied at this point the third match will happen in the bottom-section. Each section is encased by invisible barriers that will keep the players from traveling from one section to another (E.g. for match #2 players can only traverse the mid-section of the arena).


This is the leaderboard we'll be using for the GST itself and it outlines how the gangs will progress through the brackets.

• The teams.

Gangs this time around are formed of 8 members with the possibility of having up to 2 substitutions if members of your main 8-player rooster are not present. Gangs that require more than 2 substitutions will be disqualified. It is important that you pick your substitutes beforehand and have them be ready before the GST starts. Substitutions can only be done before a match starts, not whilst a match is happening. If a player is to disconnect or become unavailable whilst a match is on-going, the match WILL NOT be stopped by staff.

To keep things fair, we've also implemented a ping limit of 1,000ms. Any player who surpasses this will be immediately removed from the arena with no chance of returning to the current round they were in. They can, however, join the next match in the best of 3 if there is one.

• The gameplay.

All participants will be able to choose between these 3 unique guns which they'll be able to use during the GST.

GST Rifle:


GST Shotgun:


GST Dual Pistols:

Before each match the gangs will be warped to a room in which they will be able to choose TWO of these items to bring into the GST arena with them. They will NOT be able to use any other items. Each gun has unique statistics that will benefit or hinder the user in different scenarios.

A fun mechanic we're introducing will be place-able crates. Each spawn will have 15 crates the players will be able to carry around and throw (by using the grab button). Once thrown the crates will act as a shield of sorts given it will have a certain amount of health it can take before it is destroyed. But to balance things, the crate can also take damage from the guild that placed it.



To avoid any confusion, each team's bullets will have a small glow that will help players know which bullet comes from which team. This year, the colors we're using to represent the teams are purple and white.

• The qualifiers.

Gangs this year will be able to qualify from either winning Gang Spars or placing 1st in Battle Arenas. The qualifiers start on June 8th, 2021 12:00 AM (Server time) and will end on June 18th, 2021 11:59 PM (Server time) (You can use the time at the start area as reference). Getting 1st place in Battle arena will grant your guild a point into the qualifier Battle Arena qualifiers. Similarly, beating a gang in Gang Spar awards your gang 1 point towards the Gang Spar qualifiers. The top 5 gangs with the most gang spar qualifier points and the top 3 gangs with the most Battle Arena qualifier points at the end of the qualifier deadline will be invited to participate in the GST. Something we must mention is that, if you are qualifying through, say, Gang Spars but then your gang wins a Battle Arena, your previous qualifying score for Gang Spar WILL BE WIPED OUT. This is to avoid having the same gangs qualifying from different categories. Please be aware of this as staff will not restore any qualification scores.

We will have leaderboards throughout the qualifiers that will display the gangs with the most scores for each category.

• The rewards.

Please read this next section carefully as it may cause some confusion.

Although during the GST matches each of the GST items will be their own item with their own stats, after the GST is over, these items will be turned into skins to be distributed as rewards.

The Purple/White GST Rifle will become .45 Rifle skins.
The Purple/White GST Dual Pistols will become Vicious Handgun skins.
The Purple/White GST Shotgun will become Pump Shotty skins.

Players who participate in the Gang Spar Tournament will receive 1 Horseshoe on the first round of every gang they go against. On addition to this, these are the rewards for the top 3 winners of the tournament:

1st Place:

- 1 Hat and 1 Accessory of their choice out of 3 sets that will be provided by staff.
- $30,000 Gralats
- 5 Horseshoes
- 1st place trophy item showoff
- 1st place trophy furniture (this will have the year/season GST was won)
- All GST Gun Skins (white and purple)

2nd Place:

- 1 Hat and 1 Accessory of their choice out of the remaining 2 sets that will be provided by staff.
- $15,000 Gralats
- 3 Horseshoes
- 2nd place trophy
- 2nd place trophy furniture (this will have the year/season GST was won)
- 2 of the GST Gun Skins (white and purple)

3rd Place:

- The last Hat and Accessory from the remaining set that will be provided by staff.
- $8,000 Gralats
- 1 Horseshoe
- 3rd place trophy
- 3rd place trophy furniture (this will have the year/season GST was won)
- 1 of the GST Gun Skins (white and purple)

• The rules.

We expect all of the participants to follow these rules exactly as they are presented here.

- Regular rules still apply for every participant of the tournament, this means instances of harassment, racism, USDing etc. all still very much apply and any participant who breaks any of these rules will disqualify their team from the competition as well as being punished accordingly as they would be outside of the event.

- No form of hacking will be tolerated. Any member who uses any sort of hacks to gain an advantage in the tournament will get their gang disqualified from the event as well as being immediately jailed.

- No form of glitch abuse will be tolerated during the event. Everything and anything from glitching into areas a player is not supposed to be in, to doing any sort of animation glitch will not be tolerated in the event and will get their gang disqualified.

The GST Event itself is scheduled to happen June 25th, 2021. If we make any changes to that date we will keep this thread updated.

FAQ

Q: Will there be a way to test the crates or the GST weapons before the tournament?
A: Not prior to the tournament. Prior to each match, each gang will be warped to a separate level where they can try out all of the guns while they ready up. It would only be for a few minutes though.

Q: Will the substitute members of each gang receive the same rewards as the main rooster?
A: Yes. All the teams will be required to submit a rooster to staff before GST which will contain all of the members for that gang. That being said, it should also include the subs. This rooster is what will be used to rewards the winning gangs.

 

Good job and thanks to the west staff team. You guys been doing a lot of good updates recently.

Good luck to participants hopefully it isn't full of era peeps but oh well, itll be fun to watch.