The EQL 4/4 tournament will start approx. shortly after New Year's Day and will include 5 new maps:

- ctl4 DnBase
- ctl5 Ogree's Keep
- ctl6 Slime Memories
- ctl8 Grim Dungeons Revisisted
- naughty2

All the maps except for ctl8 are on the main servers already (foppas, pangelas, WGs, some Russian servers and Polish Asters too) but the map will be there soon.
There will probably be the "toss rule" when selecting a map: first you toss one map, the opponent does the same. Then you pick a map out of the remaining 3.
The two most popular maps will also make it into EQL tb5 stable map pool just to avoid map discussions once and for all so this is your real chance to influence the proccess!! (every seond EQL you will have tb3 so do not whine; EQL Pro on tb3 is probably also on the way)
The main issue now seems to be the tournament formula as the game is on constant decline which showed in the past EQL.
Options:
- clanbase: regular clans participate in the tournament (just like in a regular EQL event), preferably with division system based on skills/experience. The playoffs then follow. All should be clear to this point.
- draft league: There will be a couple of captains who are the best in the business, so we won't have any STACKED teams. They will choose their teams through the draft and then train their teams to compete. All participants are divided into categories based on skills/experience. Then the division/s and playoffs follow.

Captains for each team will be chosen by admins and will draft in worst to best seeded order - after the best captain has picked, the worst captain picks next.
Captains will be responsible for organizing their own teams.
Every available player must play atleast 1 map per team.

Please share your comment and save the whine for some real drama.

P.S. A hypothetical draft WILL NOT exclude div3 players but you need some basic TDM skills to attend. So if you're a real freshman in 4/4 this may be a liitle too hard for you.

Thoughts/Questions:
* Too short signup period, especially if it's a draft league that's gonna start just after new years.
* What's the timeframe for EQLro? If you don't know then perhaps someone else does...
* Maybe a clan based league but with group games + playoffs would be something to consider? (Smackdown style but with custom maps)
* Where's the website?

- The website will be there as soon as Zalon finds time to start it up. Ofc the signups are dependent on it.
- I cant tell anything on te EQL timeframe yet

The clanbase formula is to discuss here. It all depends on the number of teams signed up. If there are not too many, we can have one big division where every team play another twice or two smaller divisions where teams would be seeded and some playoffs system that would follow.
When it comes to draft league there would ofc be captains selected on general prowess, experience and TDM skills. The rest would be put into adequate categories as well.

I like it, though I like both options, cant decide :-S

I'd love to see a draft league although am fearing that a lot of inactivity would be induced... :s

If the people doesn't have time to play normal EQL games how they would have time to learn 5 new maps?
It is a bit too late to bring new maps for qw.

you play them, playing a round on naughty takes the same time as a round on dm2.

For many players it takes weeks of nonstop practice to significantly improve your map-skill on dm3, while it takes 5 minutes of practice to significantly improve your map-skill on a map you've never played before.

Ofc its harder to go from semi good map skill to good map skill compared to going from zero map skill to basic map skill
Its called diminishing marginal utility.
During the first 10 hours of playing a map you will learn alot whereas during the last 10 hours of thousands of hours you will just repeat old stuff.

But i see no point in arguing over new/old maps again. Those who are interested will play and those who arent will idle.
Lets just leave it at that.

this would be fun! I vote for the "draft league" version for the change, and after having a fun experience with it at the most recent qhlan.

I'm guessing the other 3 maps will be tb3

Seems like a very rash decision to add maps to a stable map pool from such a limited selection and all 'new' maps . The 2nd most popular of these might theoretically be less popular than some other maps that aren't eligible for consideration. I like the idea of a stable map pool, it certainly helped get aerowalk and ztndm3 accepted more by the duelling community, but committing to something off the back of a single tournament and a few mix games feels like it is throwing away some of the work from the past 9 years. Or did I misunderstand and the map pool just includes these new maps but also has some others (i.e. more than 5 in total)?

Probably a debate for another thread though, so I'll leave it there.

Well, there won't be more than 5 maps in this tourney: ppl are reluctant to new maps in general so adding even a couple more may be just too much for many of them. 5 maps just seem fine.
As for some old maps like cmt maps: admins have decided that they're done for and new blood is needed.
Imho one of the most unfortunate decisions towards introducing new maps was the unstable map pool. Who wants to master them if there are still another new maps every second season?
But as I've said, this is not the topic for this and I dont want to touch that with a 40 foot pole.

Trying two new things same time in inactive scene will more likely to be failure. So imo do not mix these...

Those things (kenya league and eql pro and other stuff) do not collide imho. The more QW, the better . Just stay positive and be acitve!

Maybe there is a reason that the scene is inactive (a level playing field, fresh maps, new teams to play etc). Maybe a tournament like this wouldn't even compete over (exactly) the same player base. However i guess such a reasoning would contradict the statement that "the two most popular maps will make it into the stable EQL5 map pool". I wonder though how cemented that statement is with the (rest of the) EQL staff?

ctl6 is a great map, it was a good idea to upload it on x4ffa, now i know where are the items. dunno ctl5, and 4, i would like to see them on x4all

Can any of you guys make a sort of a banner for EQL Kenya ?

I voted for draft league, because it was fun too see on qhlan. If those team are really active then is another issue.

I wonder why it's so much harder for div1 guys to learn new maps.

I don't think it is, but div1 players are typically better at old maps, so the difference is more marked in their skill level (comparing say tb3 and some brand new map) than it is between weaker players who aren't that great at tb3 to start with.

You are still using the built-in poll on the forum for important scene decisions. This was also the case 1-2 years ago when all the map pool drama was at its peak, if I recall correctly.
No credibility can be given to this type of poll, since anyone can vote (including those not playing qw), fake accounts et cetera.

At least make it an open vote system in the sense that you can see who is voting what (afaik this was tested on some other website, but not used).

how do i change my vote :\

Any news about the Kenya tournament and when it begins? I am in.

^^ www.doodle.com was used last time for an unofficial poll by blAze.

The issue in this situation though is that IIRC the methodology adopted was to only allow votes from nicknames registered to play EQL. And of course if this vote is about team structure then it is unlikely you know what players are registered until the format of teams has been decided. In fact in general the problem is that normally you want to have rules/structure announced before, not after you decide whether you want to participate in a tournament.

There is no easy solution so I suspect the poll here is just to get a general (limited) feeling from the community, the admins can then announce the structure and then people can choose whether they want to play. I'm not even sure if an exclusive poll is the best way to go, maybe you should get to choose "Which of these formats would you be interested in playing in?" so they can chose both draft and clan formats if they want. That way you get to see how many players might be alienated by a decision either way (e.g. say you get 100 votes, 50 vote for both formats, 20 vote for clan only, 30 vote for draft only, then you know that going clan format would alienate at least 30 players compared to at least 20 players for draft format). To avoid tactical voting of only one choice in cases where they have a preference, you'd hold people to their choices so if they voted for draft only, they would not be able to play in clan format. Haven't fully thought this through so might be a crap idea and still has the issue of making sure only players genuinely likely to play in the league vote.

^^ www.doodle.com was used last time for an unofficial poll by blAze.

The issue in this situation though is that IIRC the methodology adopted was to only allow votes from nicknames registered to play EQL. And of course if this vote is about team structure then it is unlikely you know what players are registered until the format of teams has been decided. In fact in general the problem is that normally you want to have rules/structure announced before, not after you decide whether you want to participate in a tournament.

There is no easy solution so I suspect the poll here is just to get a general (limited) feeling from the community, the admins can then announce the structure and then people can choose whether they want to play. I'm not even sure if an exclusive poll is the best way to go, maybe you should get to choose "Which of these formats would you be interested in playing in?" so they can chose both draft and clan formats if they want. That way you get to see how many players might be alienated by a decision either way (e.g. say you get 100 votes, 50 vote for both formats, 20 vote for clan only, 30 vote for draft only, then you know that going clan format would alienate at least 30 players compared to at least 20 players for draft format). To avoid tactical voting of only one choice in cases where they have a preference, you'd hold people to their choices so if they voted for draft only, they would not be able to play in clan format. Haven't fully thought this through so might be a crap idea and still has the issue of making sure only players genuinely likely to play in the league vote.

Amazing and fun gameplay last night on custom maps, Cheers! to everyone who where there to be part of it ;D *Epic lava fail to be continued*

looking forward to this tourney.

When do signups begin?

As soon as Zalon starts up the EQL Kenya site (which should happen anytime). Sorry for the delay, just summon up your patience.

When it comes to the maps, ctl8 definitely takes the cake so far: gunplay at YA and at Penta is really a helluva of fun . Looking forward to next mixes.

ctl8 mixes from yesterday - http://upload.foppa.dk/files/ctl8mixes.rar

It was a hell of a qw night. We had some pracs on all the EQL keyna Maps, and all I can say: those maps are a good choice.
naughty2 is maybe a bit big, but I really would like to see how those maps will evolve and which tactics will proove to be successful.

http://upload.foppa.dk/files/DibVsAmiKeyna.7z

hf watching

Hope we will have some good pracs on those maps.