Mar 3 Discord thread on refunds
2025-06-16 14:43:44
This is the info thread about how we wanna do refunds, as promised here: (internal link to announcement)
We'll try to accomplish this with a multi-stage formula. This formula is not set in stone yet, and we'd love feedback on it!
First, some definitions:
- A junior is a player who is either under 20, or less than 26 and enrolled in higher education.
- A top player is defined as being in the top10 on minesweepergame.com or minesweeper.online (trophy ranking) as of 2025-03-03, or top10 in our (to be announced) qualifier tournament.
- Europe is defined as: Every country in the EU and/or the Schengen area (no overseas territories), as well as the UK. If that doesn't include your country, read on before you protest.
Also, before we get into the numbers: These are maximum amounts. We can only refund money we have. We realize that for some of you, guarantees will be necessary in order to decide whether or not you can afford to come; more on that later.
Max payback amounts: At first, people are eligible for the following amounts paid back:
- 0.1€ per km traveled. At least 50€, at most 900€.
- 50€/night
You can only get refunds for money you actually spent in that category. For example, if you'd be eligible for 50€ of travel costs, but paid 29€ for your plane ticket, you'd get back 29€ - even if you paid some more for a hotel.
Continued in replies!
(editor's note: this will be prettified once more urgent matters are dealt with)
Paying out works as follows: For every stage listed, we try to pay it out fully. If we can't, we pay it out proportionally, as described by the stage. If we can, we go on to the next stage, try to pay it out in full, rinse and repeat. For the second wave, if there are new claims, we'll spend the available money on getting those claims paid out to the level of the first wave, stage by stage. Then, we'll continue the payout process as if everyone had made their claims immediately, and as if we hadn't run out of money in the first wave. If all of that's confusing, there will be an example later. Stage 1: every junior participant gets up to a flat 30€ of their travel costs. If there's not enough money, everyone gets an equal proportion. Stage 2: every junior participant gets up to 10% of their travel costs. If there's not enough money, we calculate the percentage we can pay out for everyone, and do that. Stage 3: every participant (including juniors) gets up to a flat 30€ of their travel costs. If there's not enough money, everyone gets an equal proportion. Stage 4: every participant (including juniors) gets up to 30% of their travel costs. If there's not enough money, we calculate the percentage we can pay out for everyone, and do that. Stage 5: every junior participant who is a top player, and from outside europe, gets up to 200€ of their travel costs. If there's not enough money, everyone gets an equal proportion. Stage 6: every participant (including juniors) who is a top player, and from outside europe, gets up to 100€ of their travel costs. If there's not enough money, everyone gets an equal proportion. Stage 7: every junior participant gets up to 50€ of their accommodation costs. If there's not enough money, everyone gets an equal proportion. Stage 8: every participant (including juniors) gets up to 50€ of their accommodation costs. If there's not enough money, everyone gets an equal proportion. Stage 9: every participant gets the remainder of their travel costs. If there's not enough money, everyone gets the same proportion of the remainder of their travel costs. Stage 10: every participant gets the remainder of their accommondation costs, limited to 100€/night. If there's not enough money, everyone gets the same proportion of the remainder of their accommodation costs. Stage 11: every participant gets the remainder of their travel costs, limited to 1200€ instead of 900€. Our reasoning: Stage 1,2: Juniors come first. If this is all the money we can raise, we need to put it where it will make the most difference. Stage 1,3: We want to make it attractive for as many people as possible to attend. These won't make a huge difference for people who come from far away, but if we stop paying out here, we can't really do much for them anyway. On the other hand, it's a noticeable discount on a vacation for people close by. Stage 2,4: However, we do wanna make a difference based on where people are already. Stage 2 being at 10% means a max payout of 90€ for juniors who are far away. That makes a difference, but is less likely to break our bank. Stage 4 is where people from everywhere are gonna start to see a real reduction in their travel costs. This stage is meant to make traveling to Madrid around that particular weekend a bargain for people around the world, for the low "price" of participating in the WCH as an added bonus. We also lowkey expect to run out of money in this stage. Stage 5: If we get here, we've given everyone a significant incentive to come, and can shift our focus to getting young top players in particular to the wch. Stage 6: And top players, in general. Stage 7+: We don't expect to get here, but if we do, we refund as much as we can. Let's see how that works out in practice: We have 420€ to work with. Participating players are: - Alice, a junior from 300km away who paid 35€ for travel - Bob, a player from 3000km away who paid 870€ for travel - Carol, a junior from 12000km away who paid 1500€ for travel - Dan, a player from 1450km away who paid 180€ for travel - Erin, a junior from 1720km away who paid 130€ for travel First, we calculate max amounts. - Alice gets 0.1€/km. But that's just 30€ - so Alice is eligible for up to 50€. - Bob is eligible for up to 300€. - Carol would be eligible for up to 1200€, but that's over 900€ - so Carol is eligible for up to 900€. - Dan is eligible for up to 145€. - Erin is eligible for up to 172€. Now, we try to pay out stage 1 in full. - Alice is a junior and gets 30€. - Bob is not a junior and gets 0€. - Carol is a junior and gets 30€. - Dan is not a junior and gets 0€. - Erin is a junior and gets 30€. -> 90 paid out, 330 left, balances: 30/35, 0/300, 30/900, 0/145, 30/172 stage 2: - Alice gets 3,50 - Carol gets 90 - Erin gets 13 -> 106,50 more paid out, 223,50 left, balances: 33.5/35, 0/300, 120/900, 0/145, 43/172 stage 3: - Alice gets 1,50. Now all her travel costs have been refunded, so she won't get more. - Everyone else gets 30€ -> 121,50 more paid out, 102 left, balances: 35/35, 30/300, 60/900, 30/145, 73/172 stage 4: - Bob gets 261 - Carol gets 450 - Dan gets 54 - Erin gets 39 -> wait, that's too much. So this is the last stage we can pay out. We'd want to pay out 804, but we have 102 left. We can afford to pay 30*102/804=~3.806% of everyone's travel costs. - Bob gets 33,11 - Carol gets 57,08 - Dan gets 6,58 - Erin gets 4,94 -> 101,71 more paid out, 0,29 left due to rounding errors as this is an example, final balances: 35/35, 63,11/300, 177,08/900, 36,58/145, 77,94/172 Does that fairly take the player's differing needs into account, and use the limited budget in a good way? If now, what would you improve? Let us know! Also: additional conditions for funding might apply. For example, actually participating, and playing at a certain level (this wouldn't be too strict - something like sub100 sum on either MSG or MSO, or 1000 trophies on MSO. If you think that's still too strict, let us know). So, about guarantees. If we don't limit how many people can get funding, and don't limit how much funding people can get, and don't know how much money will be available - how can we guarantee anyone that they'll get any money refunded? What if you were counting on your stage 1 30€ as a junior, but at the last moment 100 people sign up, and now you only get a few euros of that? This is where registration comes into play. There will be a registration form where you officially register for the WCH, specifying whether you're a junior, where you're from, etc (be aware, we might ask for verification on those things). And there will be a soft deadline. After that deadline, we will calculate how much money people would get based on available funds right now - and that amount will never go down. If players register later, they will still get refunds like everyone else, but only to the extent possible without touching the existing guarantees. So, past the deadline, everyone will have a lowball estimate to work with. It'll be a lowball estimate because - players might not show up, increasing how much everyone else gets - players might not need the full amount they're eligible for - donations might come in For calculating guarantees, we'll assume that travel costs = eligible travel costs. We'll also stop at some stage so that people who register late aren't too terribly impacted. Perhaps in the middle of stage 4? None of this is set in stone, please leave your feedback here!