Local Tournament to Test Pilot “Judge Drones”
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA – In a recently well received announcement, the tournament organizers for the Arlington Attack Grand Tournament (AAGT) announced this past Friday that they would be part of a national effort to test-pilot Warhammer 40K Judge Drones.
“We’re excited to announce our pilot program, with which we hope to use to build the trust and integrity around our GT, and any others who decide to follow in our footsteps,” commented Barry Morales, tournament runner, organizer, and head judge for the AAGT. “Over the past couple years, we have been noticed time and again that one of the key factors of a player having a bad experience at tournament can be due to bad judging. To help prevent this, we have judges to help with rules disputes or edge cases or two during an event. Considering these judges are also human, you’re gonna run into problems.”
Barry continued by then going into his vision. “Let me continue by going into my vision. From no other precedent the world has seen, and definitely not stuff like Blade Runner or Black Mirror, we came up with the idea of Judge-Drones. The tournament organizer can’t oversee everything, and puts a lot of trust into his or her judge team to be where they need to be at the right moment, and with accurate calls. So, rather than make a tough decision regarding a “he-said, he-said” scenario while running about from table to table, Judge-drones give us the full picture of all the tables at once, and allow us to ensure that at every step judges are held just as accountable as players on a Twitch stream are. We’re dubbing it the ‘Drone Zone’, and we’re very excited to see it in action.”
While the community as a whole displayed positive feedback towards the announcement, BTE! Reporters decided to actually interview more than one person this week for our report. It was decided unanimously among our staff that the best commentary on the new pilot program would be from the world’s most well known, humble, and cool LVO Judge: Salty John of TFG Radio. This decision was definitely not made because Adam “Latin Gandalf” Solis of TFG Radio was unavailable, reported to be guiding some newly trained 40K judges through the Mines of Moria on a quest.
“Who the hell are you guys and why are you talking to me?” said Salty John, when we approached him during his reenactment of the Battle of Trafalgar, where he was cast in the starring role of Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson. “You’re here about the what?…..oh my God that Drone-Zone thing?” Salty sighed, looked visibly pained for a moment, straightened his royal admiral’s uniform, and then continued. “Honestly, it’s dumb. You can’t expect judges to fall in line with this and then continue to want to volunteer their hobby time to help judge an RTT or bigger. It’s lame, and it’s even more lame that I have to explain this to you.”
“Look at the internet, like, anywhere on the internet. Cheaters and bad sports are utterly eviscerated on the internet for their behavior.” he continued, quite incensed, his royal reenactment medals shaking as he spoke. “You want to put up videos of people in authority making judge calls via a drone and expect the internet to be understanding if they make a mistake? I’ve got 200 different meme ideas right now on why that’s a bad idea. In addition, it’s completely treading on my freedom and ‘tegrity to think that 40K will allow itself to sink into a police state that easily. Not to mention the cost! Tournaments barely have like 6 chess clocks on hand and now you’re asking that they have high tech drones? Dumb. What about training in the use of drones? One drone loses power or is steered wrong and WHAM you’ve got a table full of broken models. So dumb.”
Salty John declined further commenting and asked BTE! Reporters to leave, as he had to resume his role as a dying Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson watching his fleet defeat the Franco-Spanish opposition. BTE! Reporters were deeply moved by his performance, and there was not a dry eye in the crowd.
That’s all the news we have for today! And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
