Just posted this on an EQL game comments thing but not sure if it'll be seen, so...

It seems obvious to me as I run a load of tournaments/leagues for the small (but growing rather than shrinking) community of Ultimate Frisbee players in my city, but the DRAFT LEAGUE was the best thing to happen to QW in the last decade, and if we alternated between EQL and Draft League formats then I think tons of players would stay interested in playing, new connections between players would be made, new clans would be formed, and so on.
I took the Draft League idea into Ultimate and it's like the best thing that's ever happened there too - I now run a weekly league and an annual weekend tournament in the draft format, which are very popular and which I'm convinced get the weaker players playing more, learning more, and staying with the game where otherwise they would've quit.

If you just stick to formed clans then things stagnate and more clans die than are born. Individuals are left not belonging anywhere and so struggle to play and quit as well. Draft format is based on individuals, so it is literally possible for anybody to sign up and play. I think the numbers shouldn't be capped - however many players there are, that number divided by 5 or 6 is the number of captains and therefore teams you have (6 players per team to reduce the chance of walkovers).

I think it could be a great thing and attract players back to the game, re-integrating them into the modern QW community.

The best thing in the last decade was the draft league. The worst thing was it not continuing.

+100000000 and counting

I believe plans have already been made to have a Salvation league after EQL has finished!

Plans by who? I´ve heard nothing about Salvation rebooting, and I´m the only admin still around in the channels.

Well now that you heard about it, get to work !

Yea, there is not even 10 captains atm so draft is dead until more div0 players will come back

you dont need div0 players for a draft, just take the ones that is best atm and so on.

Just make a list of players that are active now.

Feari
Kingpin
Bps
Carapace
MM
Pai

etc etc.. might have forgotten someone, but this is just an example.

Cara do u need help and with what ?

And also, the best players that is left (DIV0) they pick players last ofc.If there is not enough div 0 players for captains.

I don´t have the time to admin a draft at the moment, so my guess is that you will need an entirely new crew for the draft project.

There seems to be a lot of interest in a draft league, and let's remember that many div0s don't play in this EQL because they don't have full teams. They could definitely show up for a draft league where you don't need a full team to compete!

You don't need div0 players to be captains - the latest Ultimate draft league I've run here actually had beginners as captains - players all had bios with info about how long they've played, teams they've played for etc, so that the beginner captains could make relatively sensible and well informed picks. Sure their first round pick was important and would often have useful ideas and fill the biggest role in the games, but the captain had final say in everything. I imagine it'd be liberating for the div0 players to be able to just be players, rather than having the extra stress/hassle of being captains too.

Is the lack of a functioning website the only thing holding this back?

I agree, if lots of div 0 players are AFK, just go with the next best. We need the Salvation back. And we don't need a live video stream of the draft, if that's too complicated, do it on #quakeworld. I'm sure most of the signed up players will be there and follow it live. Topic and regular chat can be used to keep count.

QW needs Salvation for new players like me to stay. I play EQL now, but really, the only fun keeping me from quitting is from mix games, getting to play with different players, and better players, learning stuff, improving, winning, fragging - instead of being raped every time, like I and the other newbies are doomed to be in EQL and every other clan based tournament.

Yes - just use IRC and google docs, the draft doesn't need to be fancy

Why wouldn't we make the draft fancy :-) That's not a problem I think!

I can help out with something if there is a need.

The need is probably for someone to make it happen...

Let EQL finish first. Then we'll make it happen

Hurrah! Looking forward to it then

Just a comment since I see people discussing draft again but it'd be nice in the future if the draft league didn't segregate itself into different skill divisions either. That was the biggest mistake Salvation had. But hey what do I know, I've only been trying to push the draft idea since like 2006 and everyone thought I was fucking nuts. I've never seen it enhance a draft with a small number of teams, as it removes one of the biggest strengths of the draft which is putting the best and worst together (hopefully on the same teams). Sure maybe if you've got 100 draft teams then skill divisions make some sense but with just 10 or 20 I think it's a mistake. The strength of the draft is bringing everyone together and making teams near equal as possible. You don't need rockstar div0 players for it to work either. The IDL which has run many more draft seasons than Salvation has had average players captain and win the entire league! Sometimes leadership and the ability to make a team work is much different than game skill itself. Even the worse players can sometimes surprise you if given a chance, but without that chance they'll never rise to the challenge. Granted most growth will be gradual but the unpredictability of drafts also give them some of their magic. Hope you guys get it going again, loved watching the demos of the last few. I thought they produced the best QW matches in years.

I agree with the skill thing.