In order to start some debate I have created this post. Please try and contribute no matter where on the ladder you are with respect to your standing in the Quakeworld.
It would be nice to hear from all the Div1/Div2 players who have gone inactive.

EQL6 has just completed and unfortunately as we are all aware there was a great deal of inactivity.

So what were peoples gripes? What can be done to improve the league format for EQL and indeed other tourneys.
What do people want? Can the Div1/Div2 leagues be revived?
Maybe Perhaps create new clans with the remaining players and try and have best players spread evenly between these clans.
Leading to closer matches and less on sided games?? I dunno..

It is important to remember that the QW population are getting older and real life starts to take over.
This is going to affect overall activity. As we have seen the past two months the activity levels appears to have hit an all time low.
Is this just a blip or the signs of more trouble down the line.

So lets hear your suggestions. Before time runs out.

Some comments so far from News post on qw.nu main page:

2on2/4on4 ladders sounds pretty interesting. Although rules regarding inactivity/playing games could get complex.

There was talk of the 2on2/4on4 ladder before. Used to be one here http://ladder.nqr.nu/

yeah, I haveto agree with most of them, shorter tournaments!
we will hopefully do that in the upcoming EQL tourney (after summer?)

One way might be to NOT allow div5 and better players in rookie-divisions.

Take Bloodpunch for example. Picke is ~div3, dape played rookie last time and has improved and doesn't fit in rookies imo.
Jimo and Slimbo are rookies, fine there. Riosatiy is more like div5?

Just took these as example, no offense. But cmon, the rookiediv startet just so it would be only lowskill rookies right? Because new players are bored when they get totally raped. Without newcomers, quakescene won't continue to exist.

My 2 cents..

Same applies for div5, Rambo shouldn't be in there. BTW for NQR I've seen recowski in some rookie team, you must be kidding.

Agreed on this. I would not be familiar with all these players but I think having maybe one skilled non rookie player on the team can be okay. As long as they are not div4 or higher.
They bring a balance and organization to the team. In last Rookie league there was some very close games. And yet some of the players were far from rookie. However it was the balance that made it work and therefore I think it can work.

Also you can have a player completely new to the game but who has played at a very high level in another game. So they can imbalance but yet technically they are still rookie. So its about keeping balance.

When rookie teams are decided at the end of the week. It will be up to the NQR admins to decide on whether a team are allowed in Rookie.

Thanks for input fog.

Funny thing is that the problem with inactivity doesn't seem to be that significant in those lower divisions?

the problem this year was there was no input in terms of reviews or write ups in any of the divisions, so peoples interest waned after the initial excitment.

maybe the top 3 division need to be made into a premier league and the botton 3 into division1 or something, and then run a knockout competition alongside it. This means the the best players wont loose there div1 status if they change teams and should make for some interesting transfers and maybe a more active and interesting scene.

I think it without a doubt has to do with the playoffs beginning like 2 months after the group games were finished? no wonder everybody went idle before playoffs begun then..

In my clan (oblivion) there was too much inactivity at the time and I didn't even find out that we were in playoffs until after easyriders got WO against us, how was I to find out if eql.nu was down? I don't always hang around on qw.nu I don't even understand how we could go to playoffs since we lost most of our group games?!?!

Yeah, sounds good johnie.
What about appointing a Development person for some of the divisions.
Someone who just tries to organize players who have no clan into clans who are short players.
They will know each of the teams very well and can act as a liaison person between clans.
They can then help push teams to get matches played and then write up reports.

I have done this with Itsinen in Rookie league and jonnie did so for div 5 which were two league that saw fairly decent activity as the players knew what was going on. Perhaps its time for Div 1-3 to re-organize a bit and get someone to help coordinate this.

True - we aren't told to care.



What?

Season was too long, especially for the amount of clans that div2 ended up with. There was no pressure to get the games played at a time when at least 5-6 of div2 clans were still semi-active. I dare say Ballistic was easily one of the most active clans when I decided to drop out. I had joined Bst only days before EQL start and still managed to play almost 100 4on4 games with the team in a couple of months before becoming exhausted by the fact that out of all the time I had put into qw, we had only played 2 official 4on4 games and 3 official 2on2 games in NNQL. I had patiently been waiting for three weeks for either an EQL or NNQL opponent to actually play. There was hope of getting a game against either LS or USSR, but something seemed to always come up. Both me and Creature spent a lot of time trying to organize our remaining NNQL games, and at times it seemed like it would work out. It never happened and I simply decreed that this kind of qw is not worth my time.

I'm not saying I would come back simply because the season was made substantially shorter, but it would certainly weigh heavily in that decision. My main motivation is to find a nice 4on4 team, practise ~regularly and play many official games. This season was all about prac wait prac wait prac prac wait wait prac prac OOH official, prac prac wait wait wait superwait zzz /quit

Shorter seasons might also see more oldschoolers [like me :] come back for a season, because you're not committing yourself to months on end. And maybe they should be more like tournaments. And based on these tournament results, you could have one prestigeous tournament per year for ultimate glory

And about ideas like "Well, just spread the best players evenly among the top clans and things will be fine and dandy" - i don't think they will work. What's more boring than being assigned a team when you've had players you have played with for several years?

Shorter seasons ftw!

I have seen that before with teams just practicing and practicing all the time. Instead of just playing the games.
They wont play until they feel they are fully prepared at which stage teams have gone inactive.
So say you shorten the league length. What is the solution kick teams that are inactive ? Would that just kill the league as well.
Or change format slightly to reduce the number of group games. and then you enter knockout stages quicker ?

Trust me, we were looking for official games. We were simply a bunch where most of the active players demanded a lot of activity from the clan and therefore we pracced and pracced, mostly against div3 and div1 teams though.

what i meant by "premiership" was div1/2/3 merge and create one division. This may encourage more ppl to come back playing because of the new setup and also encourage div1/2 players without a team to maybe to join a current team or get one setup. If you feel you would get owned in this sort of division setup try your hand in the tranfer market and strengten your team, or you better get some prac in.

div 4/5/6 could merge and make a similar division setup

If you finish top of the league you win it. no play off's there should be enough games that everyone would be satisfied. if there is interest we could also have a "cup" ie top 6 playoff against each other to win the cup so in essence you could do the double.

We definity need some sort of change of direction as its obvious that the current one isnt creating any interest. This league system works fine in most sports so I cant see any reason it shouldnt in qw.

I'm just speaking for myself now, but i'm dead tired of all these half-a-year long league competitions. If you ask me i'd like what johnie proposed, but done Smackdown style.

Then you ask "But...didn't NQR do that the previous seasons with their gold, silver and bronze cups?"

Yep they did, but then it was EQL at the side and i'd rather have a Div1/2/3 cup and a DivRestOfTheClans cup than their three tier system. The more the merrier.

No it's not. E.g. Don't allow ekclip to play or don't put his team into division rookies.

Thanks for the reply JohnNy_cz. I am just trying to coordinate players in to teams. I have talked to a few teams now and am trying to make sure they will have enough players so they can remain active. If they don't then I will try and get them players that have no clan.
I am not an NQR Admin though and to be honest I just put this list up here because to be honest if I dont there wont be a Rookie league. Simple fact.

The reason for this post was to try and get some debate going so that someone who is in the know will try and coordinate the top few divisions.
Coz lets face it Div 5-6 saw good activity this year. Unlike the top tiers which I was hoping we could try and fix for the long term future of QW. And apart from the people on this post, this is all people have to say. Not much really which is a sad indictment for the game. Its sad coz the past few months when screen shots were posted after matches there was always drama and whine and yet they wont give feedback now

As for ekclip, I don't know him to be honest. You are probably right there. Just as well I'm not an NQR admin That was not my concern though. Once I have helped get players for the Rookie clans and ensured we have a few teams, then my job is done. The NQR admins will then look at those players as they do and decide if they will have to be Div 5.

By the way what division would ekclip be ?
Are all the other players from BloodPunch non rookies ? I guess dape is not Rookie either ?

Would be nice if the community just expressed what they want and where we should heading. After that I give up....

Hey niomic. I understand and can empathize with your clan. I've seen this happen myself and all players and clans are coming from a certain angle. With some debate and feedback hopefuly we can improve things for everyone. Well we can try at least anyway

Make a schedule and enforce it. No walkovers, no delays, just kick out of league. This might mean that teams can't always field their best lineup, but that's not only a bad thing as it will make the results a little less predictable.

Minimize number of uneven match-ups. It's just the nature of the game that a relatively small edge in skill results in big score difference and luck factor is very small. You need to make 4-5 divisions in the current scene I guess. This is very hard for the admins, but essential.

It's ekcip not ekclip, and it's just PICKE backwards . He told me yesterday he is more div3, and yes he's really good.
Dape is pretty good too, he would fit better as "one skilled player" in a rookieteam than Picke (ekcip).

The rest is more or less rookies. Sectoid haven't played for a long time, but rookie? I dunno.

i though this was about what shape the league should take, not a moan about who is a rookie or not.

Well, picke and dape.
Picke is a pretty good player ~div3 i should think.
But haven't played that much 4on4 games, but he's getting better and better.

Dape, qw - then q3 - now qw player, and yes, he's not that bad neither.

I think bloodpunch should "consider"putting together 1 rookie team, and one more skilled team to play in div3.
They are still ~div4 team with this lineup

Picke is quite good @ e1m2.

Please stick to the topic people.

nooo, let's just talk about how good picke is

hah let's discuss pickie.

and johnny, wtf is your problem with recowski, he isn't good? I mean, he's my friend but he just isn't good, and with the fact that he hasn't played in a while + he plays from a laptop does it for me.