ENDED Free Rider World Cup 5 - Prizes Out!

So that's it guys. The Qualifiers is finally over. We had a bit more than 3 days to get the best ghosts possible, and I have to say that it was a crazy round indeed.

First of all shoutout to everyone who joined. The amount of engagement that we got was crazy, I didn't expected that much. Around 70 players signed up for the contest (a record by far for a ghosting contest) and although not everyone completed the track (only 48, which tied with the record from last year), most people tried. So, shoutout for the effort that everyone put on doing their ghosts on the track.

And talking about the tracks, big shoutout to Apocolypse that made a really cool track for use. Yeah, there was that one part that got some complaints (we'll talk about that later on this post), but most people liked the track overall. The detail was great, the ride was mostly cool, it wasn't that easy, it wasn't that hard, so I think it was a great round to start the contest. We got 4k plays on the track, nearly 100 votes, 90% of approval, got in the Hot tracks and later on the Trending page (even hitting the top once), so that was cool as well.

Now let's quickly talk about that tube. First of all, I never read the word tube so many times in my life. If there was a section for trending topics on the forums and the game like Twitter has, we would have the word "tube" probably in 1st place on the trending topics because pretty much every contestant talked about it. It was like 70% of the comments saying "the tube is too hard", "ruins the flow", "poorly made", 20% saying the tube wasn't that bad and like 10% saying that the tube was the easiest part (crazy stuff if you ask me). The point is, that it's more my fault than it is Apocolypse's. He didn't know what else to add and asked me for help and I made a quick sketch of an upwards tube similar to what he did on his track for the Ghosting Battle Contest 2. I said that the execution wasn't that good, but that he could use an idea like that. After he added the detail and the last part I totally forgot that the tube was pretty much still the same and focused on changing the ending that was way harder (it had another tube, lol), so we kept the tube. Yeah, I agree that it ruins the flow a little bit, but if you guys expect to do a perfect ghost on the first try you guys are in the wrong contest. I feel like it was interesting that there was a part where you had to be a bit more technical and skilled to pull it off, although I feel like the placement could be better, so I apologize for that. I still think that it was something that could be beaten in 3 days with some effort. Also, that tube at least gave us a funny rant from Zycerak, lol.

Let's talk about the round then. We have a great battle for the first places and RedOrBlue ended up taking the crown with a time of 31.13, despite having some mistakes on his ghost (which shows that he could improve his ghost even more). This is the player to be beaten. Legendary work by BoostButt with a really impressive ghost (31.23), showing that some of the new ghosters didn't come to play. Same case for Sharkfin/Cerulean, that recently got his Legendary Ghoster medal and the last 2 Ghoster of the Month awards and did a great job with a 5th place with a 31.40 ghost. He didn't improve his ghost at the end, so I feel like we will still see more from him and many other ghosters. It's just the Qualifiers after all. Some OGs did great as well like mudkip with an epic tie for the 2nd place with BoostButt (with the time of 31.23). Great job! Last year's 3rd place on the Free Rider World Cup 4 and 2nd place on the Ghosting Battle Contest 2, Madara, got a great time (31.37) an finished 4th place. With Anonyymi out of this contest (he already had told me he wouldn't participate since he'll be busy, has a trip planned for the next month and stuff) and Noob also not participating, Backtwice created some hopes for Finland getting a good 6th place in the Qualifiers with a time of 31.53. Will Finland succeed again and take its 5th World Cup home? Or is it time for a change?

In 7th place we had one of the best ghosters from the last year, Chaos-Fallen with a great 31.67 time. One of the players on the rise lately, DrChill finished with a 31.77 ghost in 8th place. spruce that made a nice "comeback" with some great ghosts lately got the 9th place with a solid 32.27 using the dumptruck account. Zycerak came in the last day out of nowhere and completed the top 10 with a great 32.33 ghost.

Great job by Uniior in 11th place with a 32.40 time and also to RadiumRC with 12th place and a 32.97 ghost. Great ghoster adversitas got 13th place with 33.17, that was the same time that Giampitek got. Impressive time, good luck to you on the contest! 15th place was to NotVeryGood with 33.43, Pie42 took the 16th place with a 33.50. Stevie.T seemed to go easy and made a solid 33.73 that granted him the 17th place. The creator of the track Apocolypse got 18th place with a 33.83 that he got like in the first hour of the track posted. Interesting time for sure. Symantec got 19th place with 34.10 and I fot 20th place with a 34.17. When I made the ghost deathless I felt like it was enough, so I didn't feel like it was necessary to improve. CHARREDLIZARD21 got a 34.37 time using his DeezNutsForPrez account and finished in 21st place.

we_are_number_one got the 22nd place with a mobile 34.40 ghost, followed closely by Wolf777 (23rd) with a 34.43 mobile ghost. Great job guys! FRHD isn't that easy on mobile in my opinion. Kanvo was the 24th with a 34.77. Kazman was the 25th with a 36.13, followed close by weem (26th), that did a 36.27 ghost on his WheelieMaker account. HafiSyah did a great job cutting over 15 seconds of his ghost on the last couple of days and getting the 27th place. White_Panther showed some great determination ghosting until the end and getting the spot in the last hour of the contest with a 28th place. He did a 37.47 time. Cynic came to the contest closer to the end but still manage to advance to the Group Stage getting the 29th place with a 37.60 ghost. scoutrules managed to get the 30th place with a 38.03 ghost, Unadvertised did a great job improving his ghost and getting the 31st place with a 38.17 ghost. The last one that qualified was awesomeman82 that got the 32nd place with a 38.53.

Big shoutouts to Coated_Badger that got a 40.17 time, but lost his spot in the last hour by for White_Panther. So much respect for YourAverageIndian, YourKidding and dantexpress that kept trying until the end as well. Great work guys! Great effort as well from albatr0ss and BoppityBop that tried a lot as well. Shoutout to RandomEntirely, AidenEpic, ItsYaBoiAndy, BenAbraham65, Wayward, PossiblyMe, xMichaelFTW, G-raffe and holmrrhy (solid effort, man) for the constant effort and for completing the track as well. Also, for everyone who signed up and tried, even if you didn't complete the track.

The last shoutout goes to a_drain that improved his ghost to 37.73 (that would be enough to qualify) almost in time, but he missed it by like half a minute. Here's the screenshot of his ghost (in red) at the right time (in green 23:00 = 11pm, that is when the round ended for me). Crazy effort, man. I know that it hurts, but we can't make that exception, since it happened before (same thing happened with ei8ht in the Qualifiers last year and with Madara on the Group Stage last year. Also with me on the 2nd World Cup.). So we can't make that exception. Great work, though. If someone quits, we might put some of you guys again in the contest, as it happened in a couple of cases last year.



Here's the Final Standings again:



Seeding will be done in the next 22 hours by Eryp and BrandonBishop50, so expect your groups soon. New round in 22 hours. Let's go!

 

PS: I'm doing some commentary as I do every year, but CHARREDLIZARD21 will be adding some commentary about the rounds as well. So you guys can expect something from him as well.

 

alright guys here are your groups:

seeding was done in pots; top 8 times from the qualifying round comprised pot 1, next 8 pot 2, next 8 pot 3, and the worst 8 qualifying times comprised pot 4. one person from each pot was randomly put in each group (using a random number generator), and that's how we got to where we are. the seed you are is in the left most column. the first matchday will start when i publish the track in ~20 hours from now. it's a track made by spruce with some changes by me, and is a cool cross between rocky offroad and jumps.
i know we said we wouldn't be doing seeding this way originally (in fact we said we wouldn't be including qualifying times at all), but i decided to reverse course on that since i think you should be punished for getting a poor time on the qualifying track, Bwahaha. just kidding. we just thought it'd be the easiest way to seed players w/o biases, and it worked out pretty good this way. that said i totally get if anyone is particularly upset about this change and would have tried harder on the qualifying track had they known their time would be this important, so i'm willing to change this. i'm just not doing it right now cuz it's like 1 am for me and i am tired. i'll do it tomorrow before i publish the track if people desperately want that to happen