How many clans could we realistically scrape together? 10? 15?
And then we would still have the problem with skill difference that would make alot of the matches deathly boring.

I would gladly admin another EQL season but I seriously dont know what format would be best for such a small scene.

Nostalgia and my warm feelings towards the general EQL concept aside, I honestly think what Link is aiming for is a better and more suited companion to Salvation than EQL atm.

But by all means, if you got the energy, go for it! I will at least find some chaps to sign up with.

So very unpresice! I said I was probably too lazy to learn 5 maps for a one day tournament, and I have problems signing up for something I'm not sure I have the time or energy to commit wholeheartedly to. But then again, I feel it is a step in the right direction for duel tournaments, so I will probably sign up. Just make a god damn news post about it! Can't even remember the URL...

And yeah, I agree with you. I think in general, duels / 2on2 / ffa (dmm3 / dmm4 modes, where you don't have to spend most of your time with sg) are much more appealing to new comers than 4on4. And to me, duels are still QW strong point over other fps, not 4on4. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't make an effort to make 4on4 more appealing to newcomers as well, which is one important essence in this post. This post is mainly about 4on4, so let's stick to that?

Our active clan site: http://suddendeath.nu

I miss clan games too. Gimme a league a SD will sign up!
I think there's potential in those recently released 4on4maps, CTL5 and what's their name? Forgot. But they're great, the little I tried.
Link: I thank you for waking up the slumbering scene. The thread was a nice read and got me thinking again. Next step?

Rikoll: I was trolled by mushi who made me write a whole text and after two days realised he was not able to post news on qw.nu

But as you said let's stick to tdm.
One thing I really like about salvation is that some div1 players are nice enough to play with div2, and teaching them stuff.
Frankly, if I didn't have Ganon saying "now we have to do this, so then we'll be able to do that, and then comeback/maplock", then did what he said, and realise, wow, shit, it works ! I'm not sure i would have sticked to playing tdm.

on #kelts.qw they are trying to get some mixes running, but without better players as captain it's usually random ffa...

So we maybe just need more players not trying to be the best, but just willing to share their skillls ?
Every week i play 1on1/2on2 with handicap against rookies because they need players ( and because I like them and their will to play), sure that won't get me any better, but at least i have some fun and so do they !

That is a great idea. Teams with players of mixed skill will, at least as an alternative to the draft, be an arena where also the lesser skilled and/or rusty players (like me) can try - and learn - some 4on4. I dunno how fun this will be for the better players tho ...

I miss clan games too. But afaik there aren't many (any?) clans on my skill level (rookie).

Ok nice to see some reactions here...was what I was hoping for

Hooraytio: you are not reading my posts. Skill difference solved with the HANDICAP feature. Let me ask you: If you know that you are going to win 600 - 3 over a clan, would it not be cooler to set handicap to at least 80% or something? I mean, better for all to win 350 - 150? at least then the loosing clan can get some grasps over the tactics of the 4 v 4 teamplay and see some light in the end of the tunnel? They know they are gonna loose anyway but if they get to play their strange home map and some handicap the elite clan can manage to LIVE WITH THAT in order to get that snowball rolling? Just a thought Also in a ladder system you can play as many games as you want vs the same team, so if you want to only play equals then just play the same 3-4 clans over and over again. Omg where are Gods of Hellfire! 40 games in NQR 2 ladder and 38 losses...legends!

Also 4 v 4 helps get more players than 1 v 1. QW duel is the rawest skillset, I agree, but you will get more players for duel also if you get more teams. And i completely agree with Rikoll and Dimman: The 4 v 4 concept is more than just playing, its about working together and improving, getting the feeling of improvement. The recent example of this was Rikoll2...which i left like a noob lamer: Marv and Robo were really good teamplayers and when we finally got on teamspeak things started to really work out: never lost 1 single dm2 prac and the feeling of teamplay was strong. Fucksake even won a dm3...lol. That is what a team is all about. As soon as the (sorry for speaking the fucking truth) ffa-mix-style finns got on the team suddenly the teamplay was absent and the REAL fun of 4 v 4 went away. I quit 4 v 4 mixes YEARS ago, so i quit...sorry

About how many teams/players we can attract: First of all, when i believe in something, i work my ass of to make it happen. Players who know their qw-history knows this. That will take you a long way. Secondly: what is 100% sure is that nothing will happen unless you try. So lets try.

And the ladder i am suggestion is a result of experience on the subjects of :

- how to get activity
- how to solve the _not solvable_ map issue
- variety
- scheduling-problem = gone

I pretty much did it all; played vs the best teams in div. 1, played in div. 6, discussed zillions of sentences on the map issue, argued with everyone there was to argue with, been doing content for players, made news updates, organized LAN events, worked with mappers, worked with coders/programmers, been to lots of QHLANs, been spawnraped, have been spawnraping, etc etc the list goes on and on. To sum it up i will quote Hooraytio who said yesterday:

"Link, we are not even oldtimers anymore, we are dinosaurs". ROFL laughed my ass off

But anyway, if you want to know what I had in mind for the ladder, i can tell you, i wanted to keep it for myself until some coder showed up

BPS: next step is:

Need a coder

those usually go @ €80/h where I live.

Well I wouldnt mind....but i prefer a qw dude....to get that qw-discount

Hi Link,

Ready to join Campbusters again?

LoL Hagge get Bro and Eta-Beta plz

This tourney has open its signup:
http://qwenya.tourney.cc/
I dunno why it's so under the radar, but anyways, thought it could need some light here. Go signup!

Oh, didn't know. Signed up now

So here is my idea for the qw 4 v 4 ladder, with some arguments why.

The previous ladders...

NQR 2
NQR-CMT 2
NQR 2005/2006 ladder

... were nice ladders and had activity. Summer-ladder 2006 and summer-ladder 2011 failed immensely; 6 games played and 11 games played.

NQR 2 had a nice point system but it had some flaws. When you won a game you got 10% of the points of the clan you played. After a while clans started to speculate whom to play: better to play vs a clan that was higher in the rankings so you can get more points! Ofc the more you played the more chances you got to win games and in turn get points, but you ultimately had to win a game to gain points, you would not get points just to play. Gods of Hellfire from Belgium (prakka, Jjonez and the boys) played most games of all; 40 games, and lost 36 (!) They should definitely have gotten some more points just for their amazing contribution and activity (ok so times were different back then). Also there was a playoff with the top 16 teams and the top ladder teams all tried to avoid spot #1....because Zetor (acid rock mazer hib...omg omg) held spot #16. That was a bit lame: "we need to stop playing games now or we will be #1" Almost every clan around these days were in this ladder.

NQR-CMT 2 was the follow up from NQR-CMT (CMT maps) and turned into a ladder and that was a good choice. The ladder was really simple and you got a point for each map you won. That was it. It worked out pretty well and you got a lot of games played on the customs (plz...where are those demos?) for those who thought it was fun to play those maps. Some good clans and elite players attended.

NQR 2005/2006 ladder spawned from autumn 2005 to spring 2006 and many maps were allowed, but it was a TB3 ladder; 90.39 % of the maps played was TB3. And of course the teams who wanted to play something else risked to not get to play their map because the other clan just gave WO on the kenya-map (znappe ftw!). This ladder also had the 1000 point at start system and you got more points if you did well vs a higher ranked clan.

So what can we learn from this? What was good and what was not so good?

If we look at where we are now and what we need to do to get more activity, i would say you need to reward activity. Not saying just play a lot, loose big and get high in the rankings anyway, but you need to reward activity some. In the NQR 2 ladder you had a lot of clans who played like 5 to 10 games, loosing all, gaining no points, just standing still at the bottom with 1000 points. Question is, would these clans play more if they got some points just for their activity? At least I think there is a better chance they would...if rewarded. And I dont think the concept "gain more points if you beat a higher ranked clan" is all that good for the activity bit, that was made so that you would not turn all the good clans down, and just go play equal or lesser good clans.

What i liked about NQR-CMT 2 was that you got equal points, whomever you played. If you just won your map you would get 1 point anyway. So the points given in each mach was 2-0 or 2-1. That spawned activity for a lot of teams; play a lot and win your map and you are guaranteed a good stack of points.

And then the never ending map issue:

At first the map issue was about "what maps are the best suited for 4 v 4". Then the CMT project came along and took the arguments away from TB3 being "good maps for 4 v 4". So then the issue was not about if a map was good or bad anymore, from a layout/items point of view. Then it was "we want to play what we know, we dont want to learn new maps, dont matter if TB3 were not made for 4 v 4, its what we know and what we want to play". And it's this last argument that is the best one: You want to play what YOU think is most fun, may it be TB3 or kenya, really dont matter.

The procedures on how tournaments/leagues chose the map-pool also have been different; all maps allowed, admins chose it, or admins made clans vote over some options. Did not matter how it was done, there was always whine, no one ever agreed 100%. So back in the days it was easy to just go with TB3 only also, because you would always get enough clans and some others could just make a kenya tournament/league if needed. To sum it up the whole scene never agreed 100%. I agree that for top elite games TB3 is the best, even though i enjoyed very much watching clans like SR, CMF and FS have a go at CMT maps, you had some very interesting and good games with these clans on customs (omg demos?).

If you run a debate over this now, what maps to include in the ladder, you will get those who say "all maps" and those who go "not too many maps". But since you can not really say "that map is better" when it comes to kenya, because it comes down to personal taste, then you will fail to make the right decision no matter of the two choices you pick.

So here is my suggestion on how to "solve it":

On signup, clans/teams must pick/vote 5 maps (5 too much? maybe 4? 3 too little I think?). Clans would ofc not choose the same 5 maps, so you will get a decent amount of maps in the map-pool. The main thing here is that the clans get to play what THEY want. The argument for having all maps in the map-pool was so that everyone got their home map, but by choosing 3-5 maps of your own solves that. Also i want that every map is allowed, that means every custom map ever made also. And if i get some q3 players to join if the q3-map is ported to qw, then we do that as well. Even dm4 / dm6 dmm3 should be allowed if someone wants that. Everything possible to get more players. If things get too lame it will be sorted out naturally anyway, as you wont get any games played because clans will refuse to play. 4 v 4 on end, start, endif, povdmm4 will not have a long life no matter how lame clan you got

And TB3 can not be allowed on signup, because you need to prevent a TB3 clan just sitting a WO on the kenya. But that dont mean that TB3 is over and out in the ladder;

TB3 could be decider map. Or, the 3 most voted/picked maps on signup could be decider. I am not sure what option to use here, so this needs to be debated...so debate

Pointsystem:

I like the old NQR 2 ladder for this, 1000 points on signup. If you look at the NQR 2 ladder you will see many teams almost equal in the table, at least it looks that way and thats a good thing to get some extra games played. I also like the simplicity of the NQR-CMT 2 ladder. Then i want to add points for activity and it could be something like this:

1000 points on signup
100 points for playing a game
125 points for map victory
075 points for game victory

victory = 100 + 125 + 125 + 75 = 425 points
1-2 loss = 100 + 125 = 225 points
0-2 loss = 100 points

If Gods of Hellfire had this system their 36 losses would have given them a minimum of 3600 points

This can be tweaked, not sure if the format is correct, debate here also plz You could put in all sorts of parameters, maybe like you get 150 points for a map victory on a map that is not played a lot or you get it because the clan you are facing got a 100 % record on it. Anything is up for debate really.

The main issue however is to get activity, whatever it takes.

A ladder would probably be nice to get some clan games going again and i think it's a shame that the "clan culture" risk getting lost since the introduction of the draft tournaments.

To actually increase the player base however i think more focus on pure rookie tournaments is necessary. We did it with the re-launched Ignition tournaments a year ago and what was lacking was the continuity (which I'm unfortunately to blame for). It should be annual rookie tournaments, primarily 1on1 or perhaps even FFA and then introduce the players to team deathmatch with 2on2 tournaments etc. A key thing when running the rookie tournament is to target new audiences instead of the same old Q3 crowd etc which has already been done automatically from when the QW exposure at ESReality was at its peak.

However, the holy grail would be a ranked matchmaking system ala SC2's ladder where anyone could sign up and start gibbing against equals. Once such a thing is rolling the effort to maintain it would probably be minimal (apart from the purely technical maintenance) while the service in terms of matching would be as good as it gets with algorithms running the show instead of the admin's hunches regarding skills of the players etc.

I agree that 2on2 is a good option for rookie tournaments, it gives you some teamplay feeling while having weaponstay, so you don't end up playing 20 minutes with the boomstick !

Almost all the old NQR and EQL sites are accessible via eql.quakeworld.nu and nqr.quakeworld.nu so you can all go back there and see the exact same discussions over and over and over about these issues.

Fact is that we have tried many of the ideas posted in this thread. What did we end up with? TB3.

The reason we are now stuck with like 100ish active players isnt because we lack new maps, there have been plenty.
We have played CMT1-5 and other maps as well. Somehow they didnt stick.
The reason is that other stuff take over in peoples lives plus the fact that when kids start their "online career" or whatever they play the newest and hottest games, they dont look back on what was hot between 96-99 and think "hey imma check that out".

Over the years we have added a few, and i mean _A FEW_, younger guys but for the most part the guys who are still left are OLD by online gaming standards.
Heck, even new games with millions put in to development and marketing fail miserably in terms of number of players.

It is bullshit that we scare away the few new players that do come, it is the game, its format and looks that makes them uninterested in the first place.
Why would someone around the age of 15-20 play qw when all their mates play bf3, cod, mw?

Realize that we, for the most part, have the players we have and make the best of whats left.
Alltho, calling some old qw friends wouldnt hurt. I know there are ppl who used to play and only need the smallest of pushes in the right direction to play another season of salvation or eql.

Yes, because people don't want to play maps they don't know how to or have any willingness to even trying to learn them. Remember that one somewhat recent match of TVS on some CMT-map where their opponent didn't even play, just stood on the spawns and waited for the round to end for 20 minutes. And then there are always the threats of players not playing if there are any other maps in the map-pool than TB3.


I agree on the last part, but for the first part I totally disagree. With ONLY so much variation in the scene and players being too good at the game, we will scare any newcomer away because they will not stand a chance in any of the games in the first 1-2 years, even against mid-skilled players.


It's also good to realize checking the amount of signups for tournaments and notice it decreasing every time. Just look at the amount of signups in salvation. The scene definitely needs more comebacks / new players to fix the situation.

Why did you end up with TB3 then? What happend to NQR-CMT after NQR-CMT 2 was over? As i understand it the NQR-CMT 2 ladder got a fair amount of games played? No admins who bothered to promote a NQR-CMT 3? Or some other 4 v 4 kenya?

"It is bullshit that we scare away the few new players that do come, it is the game, its format and looks that makes them uninterested in the first place."

Ye the game and the format, what is that? I know one ting for sure, it lacks variety. Every night on IRC its: "mix now plz! 6/8" ... oh and the map is 90% of the time dm3. It's ok if you have given up Hooraytio, but I have not.

The potential of QW never reached its peak...and the community is to blame.

I want to change that, because i believe in something. You dont...but hey, I dont blame you, I can understand why.

Another season of salvation? You still want to promote a mix-league instead of trying to get some steady teams instead? Why cant these 16 teams instead form 16 CLANS? And if you look at the signups, some players did not get drafted.....so in reality we already now could have 20 CLANS?

Imagine if we had a ladder with 20 clans now and the best teams doing 90% handicap vs the lesser good on TB3. CAN YOU HANDLE THAT IN THE NAME OF ACTIVITY? Then you wouldnt have "mix now plz! 6/8"....you would have "ladder now plz! any team is ok!".

Just saying.

You and me think differently

Well just because a few players and clans refused to learn new maps doesnt mean that the idea of new maps was refused by the whole scene.
Players have been standing still on dm2 as well, cmf-tot for example where tot tried to play for 2-3 minutes. This doesnt mean that dm2 was refused by the whole community.

Admins of 4on4 tournaments have tried different solutions, like forcing a few new maps or used an extended map pool for those clans who wanted it. In the end both players and spectators enjoyed tb3 the most.

How many players have started because there are 5 maps in the 1on1 tournaments instead of 3 like it used to be way back?
How many players didnt start to play qw 4on4 because there only 3 maps?
Noone can answer this but i think other aspects are more important, like tournaments, coverage, FAQs, friendly players etc etc.
In reality I think that the number of maps play a very small role when someone decides to play qw or not.

I have never been in the top and lost more 4on4 games than Ive won but im still playing. Sure I dont like to lose but I like the game.
When I started I never won anything in terms of 4on4. You dont have to win to think its fun to play.

Variation in maps doesnt matter really when it comes to attracting new players and getting even matches, a new player will get pretty much owned by me on skull.bsp. And I dont even take part in the 1on1 tournaments. For a new player tb3 and tb5 are new and varied maps. These maps are only well known by players who have been playing for atleast 1-3 years. You cant change the fact that most of us are too good for a newcomer. Handicap and new maps just makes an illusion that a new player would eventually have a chance at beating us in 1on1 or 4on4. But in reality it would take practice and time, just as it should be. In the end the best players will be best on every map. It doesnt matter if there are 3 or 9.

I agree that we need more players if we want to continue playing, but it might be too optimistic, unrealistic even, to hope that we could attract hundreds of entirely new players to this game.

And I havent given up, I just dont believe that new maps and handicap solves anything. I think it is more realistic to bring back old players than attracting new ones.

(Edited 2013-02-01, 10:50)

Seriously, playing with handicap fucks too much with the game. You have to rethink every thing you do in terms of killing sg enemies, number of hits with rockets to a guy with 200/sg etc etc. Why would a good clan want to learn bad habits for the sake of not hurting a bad clans self esteem?

But by all means, launch a ladder with your system and see how it goes.
I will try to wake up Chosen and participate. So there you have one clan to start with.

I have a suggestion. The eql/nqr/duelmanis/watever tournament database admin gets all the emails of the "contact" column. when the ladder has an estimated date to launch, send an email to all those chaps, promoting the ladder, nquake and hopefuly other tournaments. Hopefully some will join and maybe bring friends. BAM!

Im quite excited with this.

I may have another suggestion. something we did in Mofo's teams (mofo had 2 or 3 teams).
The players for the teams were chosen based on their availability. There was a mofo team for "early night" players, and one for "late night" players. That increases the odds of meeting our teammates during the time we are online. It was genius, worked very well for 2 or 3 seasons
Then the suggestion is: for the ladder, the players that don't have a team to play with would signup to get a team, telling if they're early or late night players. then we have an organized list of players. Next these players are put together in teams. BAM! the birth of clans.
I suggest a google spreadsheet to do this, fed by google's surveys/questionnaires.

also, i agree that we need more rookie tournaments. 2on2 is a good idea.


BAM!



edit: sneak peek of example availabity table. since we were a clan, we get timesheet for every day. for my suggestion, a simple early/late night is enough imo.

So what suck the most Hooraytio:

Playing with handicap or a kenya home-map?

Think the elite can handle one of these things to get more games played?

Mushi:

We got that problem in Rik2: Always 3 guys who can play...and the 4th 5th and 6th dudes only show up sunday night

So good idea.

Ive always played the map the opponents choose so thats not a problem. Handicap is out of the question for me.
But you have to ask the elite I guess, Im just a middle player.

Like I said, I am not against anything. I just have a different opinion on what makes us stay and what makes new players come.
To raise the interest we need to focus on coverage. We have a great product: intense deathmatch action with great players. We need to spread texts, videos and live matches with commentary. That would make a lot more in terms of contributing to the scene than new maps would.
In terms of variety you could start adding new weapons as well, but I dont see that happen because its just as flawed as saying that new maps equals new players.
The weapons are as new to the newcomers as the maps are.

I agree with you. I just want to open the floodgate to any option available to get the most out of it...freedom of maps is just one of those options. Lets not make a big debate out of the maps....we done that before

Personally I think that maybe outsiders look at our scene as a little narrow minded...only doing a few maps for every playmode? Not sure, but maybe it also helps to be more optional in every way.

Rookie tournaments, FFA and coverage is of course the way to go.

But I think we also need to show that we got a healthy CLAN scene, and not mix-scene, that is why I think this ladder is good.

Another idea for the ladder:

As this ladder in general is a "prac-leauge", since you gain points even if you loose, then i want to implement something new: Every team should be allowed a STANDIN if needed. That way you even got more chance of getting games played. So on the player list when reporting a game, the standin-player, whomever it was, will not get his frags registered in the fragranks, but your team will ofc get all the frags and the points. This way you dont have to wait around for that 4th player if there is some hazzle about it (sometimes there is).

continue this thread here if you got suggestions and feedback:

http://www.quakeworld.nu/forum/topic/6008/93121/4-vs-4-ladder-give-feedback#93121

+1