I don't think an official 'World Champion' title is wise, unless we can arrange to have it LAN. It would create to much bad feeling, frustration and drama.
A between season cross division fun cup or something could be interesting/fun. But attempting to official endorse it as World Champion feels wrong.
Still, giving a 'world champion' title to someone after playing vague laggy games is not that good.
That is what I was trying to tell you previous days. But hey, since most believed it was fine idea - I gave up:) But believe me, it's not just me or Fana who are not supporting this idea.
"Season champions"; plural. There can only be one champion; in the ENSL (and all other tournament organizers worth comparing to, such as ETF2L), that means the winner of the top division played on European servers.
Either this "world championship" is a set of fun showmatches, in which case it should be clearly labeled as such and with no prizes, or it is, in reality, the championship-deciding playoffs of said season.
Jimmis convinced me in the end by saying it would be a more like a Fun showcase America vs Europe thing. But you have a point, at the moment it is nowhere saying that it is in fact a fun showcase with just strong and vague 'World Championship' name.
If you guys wanted to cooperate with Americans/Australians/whatever on creating league setups, I would instead suggest that you work together on creating the software solution; give each organizer a copy and then let everyone set up their own league.
Then each region would have their own leagues (ENSL, ANSL, ONSL, for example) which could then cooperate on creating fun events like "world championships" and whatnot.
That's how it works in all other competitive communities, that's how it worked in NS1, and that's how it should work in NS2.
The demand from UWE about letting everyone in shows how idiotic they are .. ENSL HAS NEVER EVER excluded a team that wanted to play in a season at least not in my time.
We had the Koreans Argentinians but they had to agree to maybe play with a ping disadvantage .. it is so they dont have a league so they can play .. but on the other hand the others do not have to suffer!
And yes the outcome of those games mostly were clear .. but both sides had fun, one just by being able to play a competitive game .. the others by crushing them ;D !
SO OFC everyone will be allowed to play!
But if you try to CATER TO EVERYONE you will fail miserably.
YOU CANNOT PLEASE EVERYONE ... this should be known!
So try to get the best deal for YOUR ppl and if someone else sees it and can live with some things that might not be great for him .. well then he is welcome to join.
I know that sounds kind of "racist" or whatever but if you want success get a strong core and the stuff around will grow by itself and all the ping issues wont be there cause they never knew anything else! .. You join you play on my turf .. that is how it is.
Or maybe UWE can fly in all the teams for Seasons .. i mean they got a lot of money from preorders and never delivered a game so they can probaply afford it.
So once again NICE that you try and care but if you overdo it noone will be happy and all you get is complaints and whine and flame and rage. Cause the internet is full of egomaniacs and everyone will try to get the best deal for himself ... and you are left in the middle!
Also, yes, what EisTee says is true. The ENSL has always allowed anyone to register and play in tournaments. The only rule was that all matches had to be played on European servers, unless both teams agreed to a different server; because it is a European league and that is the only fair solution.
Is there a fundamental problem with a single software solution, compared to many? I am not seeing a huge different between lots of different league setups and ENSL (or NSL eventually) running an EU and US league.
I can identify several problems with a single-website-solution, without even having to give it much thought:
- Adds another level of management, now you need a group of people to oversee and manage the interaction between the different "leagues".
- Issues with the "ownership" of the league, and perceived bias; at least I know that if the roles were reversed, if this was an american league adding a european branch, I would not feel comfortable with that at all.
- Now you have multiple champions, instead of a single tournament-wide champion. How does that even work? It doesn't. NSL.eu champ, NSL.us champ? Sounds terrible.
- Instead of a defined regional community, now you have an international community with all the problems that brings with it.
There's a reason why none of the other, enourmously larger competitive communities have done it that way in the past; and that reason is simply that it is a bad idea. As a small community, we should be even more wary of attempting to reinvent the wheel. So if the larger communities, overflowing with cash, haven't succeeded at something like this, what does that tell us about doing it in this community?
If somebody still wanted to go through with creating such a league, which is a terrible, terrible idea, they shouldn't hijack the ENSL for that purpose.
What I'm trying to say is: There's nothing stopping you from creating a truly international NSL, but don't touch the ENSL in the process.
YOu do realize that like NONE of them actually organized a single contest?
So .. yeah would have been smarter to ask ppl who have been there the old shool admins that used to run the league when it was actually going really well!
I dont mean to say the current admins are abd or anything .. but well some experience is always a good thing!
Considering how much NS2 is smaller than the kind of games I guess you're talking about, why don't you consider being international helps us reach the critical mass we need to have a weight/influence on the "culture" of the game ?
Besides, as far as I understand, here is how it went : as you know the latest ENSL seasons featured extra-European teams because of the lack of teams. So we simply did not change that and it's going to stay for this Season 1. Now if the USA and other countries want to run their own league, nothing is hindering them. Actually it would be less troublesome since we wouldn't have to deal with it. But the fact is : there is only one league now. So letting everyone participate in it seems the nicer thing to do right now.
-It appears that organisation like MLG and ESL already do this. The ESL uses different top level domains but this makes no difference technically, its still the same software.
-Issues with ownership are down to control. Someone overseeing it who is part of an EU or US clan is clearly bad. Aslong as it is someone mostly neutral running it and a US/EU focused head of each league, it wouldnt be a problem.
-The multiple champions seems rather petty. If you win ENSL you are still just a regional champion, its no more important than being NSL (EU) champion, I am sure anyone capable of winning would also be capable of recognising that.
-This all comes down to the community(s) and how they are integrated/managed. I dont think it is any where near as bad as you are making out. There are a lot of opportunities and pitfalls when considering one large community.
Now im done playing devils advocate, I think the best we can do in the current situation is someone fix the bugs on ENSL using Ruby on Rails (if someone can be found) and for the ENSL to run a league for the US teams this season, so it supports and encourages growth in the US competitive community too.
Im not entirely sure what would be best, seperate organisations or one central, but its not nearly as clear cut as some of you are making it out. Either way, we all agree that ENSL is amazing and it should continue what it does best, generally being awesome, exciting and great for competitive NS2.
Yeah huhuh .. we already said that .. and that is GOOD!
Not one person here says to exclude someone.
As should be everyone is welcome in ENSL and always has been.
But the idea of making it a worldwide league is the issue.
TO change it to a NSL that is where the trouble starts .. as long as it stays ENSL ppl will know ok this is a european thing so no matter where i am from i will probaply have to play on a european Server.
If they do not realize that then they are not smart enough to even play NS .. NS1 i mean ofc .. i cant say about NS2 .. probaply not a lot of brain needed there :) !
I dont think the intention was EVER to make one single giant mega league.
Just seperate leagues under one system, which is being done by ENSL now anyway, so its mostly irrelevant. The whole world champion thing after that is a bad idea in my opinion, but the general idea has merit.
MLG and ESL host international LAN events. Other than that, they are clearly European (ESL) or American (MLG).
I don't think you will ever find such a person in a small community like this. Tournament organizers in the past have always been participants themselves, that's the way it will likely continue.
Admittedly this isn't a major issue, but it is an unneccesary annoyance. I just jotted down whatever immediately came to mind. I obviously didn't make an exhaustive list of issues either.
What benefits?
I don't understand this argument. Why should we strive to be some sort of NS2 superpower? The ENSL has always been, and should always be, about organizing good, fun, competitive games, period.
The only reason we accepted the special rules during the last seasons of play, was because the non-European teams weren't good enough to get to the final anyway -- it didn't make any difference. Even then, there was still a lot of complaining and frustration amongst the teams. [Edit: I am talking about the top division here, I never had any reason to take interest in the lower divisions]
As I have said in previous posts; I have no issue with letting other teams participate on european terms; or even letting them have their own divisions during the first season as a stop-gap measure until they get their own leagues. What I disagree with, is (1) The idea of turning the ENSL into some sort of global superleague, which isn't needed nor wanted and (2) Organizing online cross-continental tournaments without them being clearly marked as fun "showmatch" type tournaments with no prizes.
Oh cmon Eistee! I've helped running 2 seasons and was very proactive in the last :) Also noway is amongst us, but he was not on the meetings though. http://www.ensl.org/articles/401
I was against many things, but these new ppl.. I just rather agree, than argue as they think I'm the one who is acting stupid there :) Also, I'm not the league admin, just a regular guy.. you know ^^
I still think that going for skill-seeding of all signed up teams into the divisions and if required making two groups per divisions (as we have many teams on the similar skill levels and placing them into one big divisions would prolong the season for too long) is much better than separating International teams giving them just one division to play in and giving EU skill-seeded divisions.
But that is my point of view and I don't know how many of current admins would support me.
Most people singing up here are expecting to play fun season without prizes in more relaxed environment. Not with UWE and their 60 second rules along rofl hitreg instabans. Hugh has announced multiple times that when he's casting something it will be on his terms. Even low pings are expected as playing against local opponents.
As everyone here have posted ENSL has always accepted clans from external regions to join. Even use of brains and making NA teams their own division has been applied which is reasonable in this case since they don't yet have their own league.
If you want to make some sort of wold champions league I don't really see a problem. You have your coders ready who are willing to create a completely new site. Just don't try replacing ENSL with that. I can just agree with nEisTee so I don't have to agree with fana. And I still think you're underestimating what you now call 'winter break'. Teams die during this harsh time!
PS. Dear swalk
You should try to learn writing in
a way that does not make it hard to
read and annoy people if you want
to be taken seriously. Start by
forming proper sentences and when
you good enough then you can start
even using high level techniques
like paragraphs. Stop being stupid
and trying to form frigging columns
like this. Most people just skip it
and it's annoying if you are in position
that makes one expect you have
something important to say.
This is ENSL, if you really want to make a global league please make a new site/league system for it and don't destroy all that ENSL did for NS1 scene.
Also we're community ran website and should remain as such, whatever UWE is talking to you about, you should make clear that they will not have a say how things will be run (no UWE forced bans or 60sec rules).
AS always .. I LOVE VARTIJA !! not only for his amazing picture.
Yeah bHack .. i am sorry i could not mention every admins history to be accurate .. and since you have been agreeing with me you can feel excluded from my comment about unexperienced Admins.
And yeah you know why 250 de ping got first place?
I FORCED THE TEAMS TO PLAY THEIR MATCHES IN AMERIKA .. SO THERE ARE EVEN PINGS !
Yes .. I HAVE BEEN THERE .. i tried to unite things a little cause game was not big enough in europe alone ... AND AS I SAID .. ALL I GOT WAS ABUSE !
See i think making Groups according to location is a good idea for now but i also think that you cannot really skillseed the rest for now .. what are you going with ? .. there is no previous Seasons so how can you really know how good they are .. you would have to guess!
And guess what you guess someones skill... YOU WILL PISS PPL OFF !
And hey just make random groups and then crossplay afterwards you have a pretty good idea where everyone stands.
And then you can actually make different Divisions and maybe Groups in those Divisions.
But as we have established you have tried to be the voice of reason in the admin forums anyway.. so you are still good bHack 8) !
Do ppl actually read Adminforums again without being spammed to do so?
Much Love to vartija! and Greets to the rest from the obviously BEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD ---> AUSTRIA !
From what i understood on the admin meeting our concept was to have several EU divisions and one NA division (depending on the number of teams, of course). At the end of each season we had something like a final between the best EU teams and another (obviously smaller) final between the NA teams. So we would have an EU top team and a NA top team.
The "champions league" idea should be more like an event where people have fun playing the game against strong opponents (like the whole beta events/cups/tournaments stuff). Because we will ALWAYS have the problems with ping, strange coin toss rules, etc., which make the games unfair/not entertaining(?!).
The UWE support was just for game servers but this is not our only option to get servers.
I don't really understand how this is relevant, but I'll bite:
I played with Inversion because at the time, it was the best choice available to me. I played with the implicit understanding that I would have to suffer the ping disadvantage. The same is true for ryyyan playing with Archaea.
If we wanted to draw a parallel, it should be the same in the ENSL: Non-european teams should be allowed to play in the regular divisions, like it has always been, but would have to play with the ping disadvantage.
For the first season, however, I don't mind having a separate American division to sort of "jump start" the US community, so that they can get their own tournaments organized in due time.
I think people should look at the big picture. There are alwyas pros and cons.
The way I see, UWE wants a world wide league/cup/whatever. ENSL would make the european division. It would make the most sense (since ENSL's site is the only decent one - thx jiriki) to grow this world wide league/cup/whatever's site out of ENSL's site (with a decent webmaster, at least as good as jiriki was for ENSL).
As for cross continental play - well it sucks, i know it. The solution for this, could be continental divisions, and (since UWE shows support towards live events) the finals could be played live at a LAN with the division winners, with all the fuckin shiny things.
Ofc, people can yell 'well **** off, Europe has 600 teams, USA has 300 teams, and africa has 3, than africans can get in easier can't they?!'. And since it would be a valid point, here is my solution: multiple EU and USA divs (only when enough number of teams sign up).
Things will always change, whether you like it or not. ENSL has a chance to become great, keep an open eye, use your brain. Stop looking at cross continental play, we have a solution for that (given UWE's support and perhaps even 3rd party contributors), one every 3-5 months could even attract more players.
Thank you so much for giving me the chance to bash on UWE!
Lets analyze the Situation shall we?:
1.) If you have any kind of pride you will be angry with the Gamedevelopers! Why?
Because they promised a game AGES ago .. made you pay for it even before that and delivered
.. well for now a heap of crap!
2.) So now we want to have a League!
To be successful we better distance ourselves from those people! Why?
Well a smart person will have certain expectations of UWE by now.
So he sees this is run by those guys i can expect: False Promises, Bad situation handling and other things
3.) So ok we managed to have our own League .. we build on a formerly strong and GREAT community!
Good job there ... we decide to disregard input from ppl that have MORE experience! WHy?
Cause we are NUTS? IDIOTIC? Whatever ... Yes i am mixing in some sarcasm !
Basically the conclussion i want to lead you to is simple:
We let UWE have any kind of SAY in ENSL and IT WILL BE A HORRIBLE PLANECRASH !
And i personally will ask for my donation back because even if that is spent a long time ago:
I WILL NOT EVER HAVE GIVEN MONEY TO A COMMUNITY THAT ASSOCIATES WITH THOSE KIND OF PPL !
At this point it does not amtter if they actually made a good game .. which i still doubt ..
What they have done up until now is just REALLY FUCKED UP !
So any smart person will not want to part of a league run or influence by those ppl!
And if NS2 is even a bit like NS1 then only smart ppl should be able to play competitively with success.
So .. STAY AWAY FROM THOSE PPL!
If they want to pay for servers and prize money .. GREAT .. JUST make clear YOU HAVE NO SAY HERE .. NOT EVER !
I don't think they would want a 'vote' in the organizing, quite simply they don't care or don't have the time. I think us getting them new players is more than enough.
