Post is kinda related to Panjabi's EQL request post, but I didn't want to take over the subject as its not eql related. http://www.quakeworld.nu/forum/topic/6960/104594/is-it-possible-to-admin-new#104594

I don't know how to make people show up to play their games..
Does anyone have any ideas on how to make sure we have people that sign up for things actually show up?

Everyone has stuff that gets in the way of quaje.
Even with the best intentions; to many of us drop off or don't show up for games. Or we don't signup at all because we don't know if we will have the time.

It's hard to punish people that don't show up or don't try to play their games as well.
Say we start removing individual people that can't hold a deadline would we end up with less than half of our players pretty fast?
And in the long run, would they be more or less inclined to sign up for the next one if they got kicked/ or other penalties?

And how would we organize this for clan play? How many clans would we end up with if entire clans were removed? Or would really strict attendance rules make it easier for those players that wants to be active to put pressure on the less active?
If we had strict attendance rules - would the people, that intend to show up, perhaps not sign up because they don't know if they will?

I dunno about you guys, but for me Quake has been going in kind of a loop between very active and not active at all. I've played a lot in a couple of the last EQLs and then almost nothing in the last EQL. Life just gets in the way.

The biggest problem for me was that an EQL night usually meant more hours of waiting for us and/or them to teamup than actually playing. What could've been an effective hour of QW becomes three hours of waiting and/or mixing while waiting, and too often it ends with no «official» match at all. As a div99er, knowing that most of those games is 2x20 minutes of ass whooping anyway, wasting three hours a night waiting for MAYBE that to happen isn't very tempting. Which means people feel less bothered to show up anyway, bad circle etc.

A place for scheduling that is not an IRC channel topic would be useful. Maybe a signup page or something. So people could check that during the week and see, hey, this Wednesday we have 2 teams with 4 people signed up for 8-10 pm, enough to play, the coming Sunday we have 5 teams with at least 4 signed up players from 8-12 pm, let's get some games etc.

This would of course mean that IF you sign up to play AND you check and see that there's enough signups for a match, you need to show up. But also, if I've signed up for a Tuesday night and see that only two other people have done it, I don't have to sit there waiting and can make other plans. Might need a sign up deadline.

The IRC channel based scheduling doesn't work very well imo.

This is a problem that cannot be fixed in QW for one simple reason - too few players.

The only way to make people show up for their games is to have severe penalties if they don't. Getting removed from the tournament and all tournaments in the future from that specific organizer is a good way to go, but in QuakeWorld that would mean the tournament would most likely die due to not having enough players to play in it.

So, unfortunately, this is an unsolvable problem. We can only hope that people get their shit together and actually show up. When I know I have a game, I cancel everything in real life to be able to show up. Others might get a call from a buddy asking them to go out and they simply go out and stop caring about the tournament. Mind set is different between people, so we can only hope :-)

Agree with Andeh

it's kinda obvious that you can't really do anything about it.

You could maybe impose some penalties and restrictions on new and very active players who miss out on agreed schedules - but then again they aren't a part of the problem to begin with. It's the old and unmotivated players that are a problem, but this can't be changed. We may get disappointed with them for inactivity and lack of commitment but there's no solution to this.

Sure, I also don't get the people who first say 'I'll play' and then just vanish completely from IRC, email e.t.c. Was a common situation during a lot of recent drafts and last EQL and Thunderdome as well (which is still fucking not finished - for the first time ever). Some recurring phrases were "no one knows where X is" or "no one has seen him for weeks" or "can't contact him since X'. Why is it so difficult to devote 5 minutes of your time to just login and say "hey, guys, sorry, plans changed, I can't play in this tournament anymore"?

But then again - you encounter such behaviour IRL, too, it's not exclusive to QW . Just the way some people tick. Quite a few, unfortunately.

Maybe I am a little "stupid optimistic" here. But in the words of the late, great John Lennon: "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one"

Sadly, i know nothing about computing stuff, i have my dear friend raket or other 020/0200 members coding my cfg's. BUT to the point, IF some qw souls on fire manage to get a signup for a 4on4 cup/tourney going on shortly after QuakeCon, I believe that miracles can happen. I can only speak from experience:
2014 i made a comeback to the quake scene after 12-13 long years. Hooked up with my first teammate ever from 1997!(raket) and started clan 020. We got together a solid team and EQL19 was coming up, i was really suprised to see the activity and all games that got played. And following that came EQL20, which was even _more_ active with over 70 games played!!!

Now here is where i think things went wrong afterwards: Both EQL19 and EQL20 was played during the winter. With a year between them. After EQL20 it felt like EQL21 was kinda "squeezed" in too soon, and to close to varmer wheater. Also, (not blaming anyone, just my opinion) i believe that things went down a little crazy with the voting for TB3 or more maps. When the voting went down everybody thought there was gonna be just one division. And i think i can speak for most of the div1 clans that they wanted just TB3, hence; only one game was played in div1. But in div2 it was pretty active, (cough cough a certain epic clan divided into 5? teams prolly all voted for TB5/6, still, not pointing fingers, ocoini should be called Sir Ocoini).

Now: I really believe that QuakeCon can get some people back. And please, clans: recruit players from div99. For EQL20 I "stole" most of the swedes from div99 too start 020's B-squad 0200. My only demand was: chat with us, play with us and if chemistry was nice you was in, no matter skill.

Now i know people dont like too "get raped" a.s.o but with a positive mindset you can do other funny stuff. I played every single game against FOM in EQL19/20 with one mission: kill Milton once. If i did it. I WON THE GAME!
I dont really know where im going with this, just trying to keep up the spirits and maybe inspire some people too recruit. Me and raket talked the other day that when the next 4on4 tourney happens, we will only allow players who wants to play _everybody_, no matter the rape. There's always something to learn. Either way, I'm out, Feel free to join #020 on IRC and talk to me or raket or another one of our members if u wanna join. https://020.dm2.se/ Thats out homepage where you find all members, talk to anyone online.

Quad, Love n Harmony. /aikon