New League Season

The problem with most suggestions, is that they are based on the assumption that clans will field enough players on specified times. This never happens in real life. After like 2 months we finally had 2 scrims scheduled for today ... both of them were cancelled. As usual.

If clans can't even manage to scrim once a month on a time they decided on, they surely won't manage to have clanwars on a weekly basis according to someone else's schedule. I think if a new league does come, you should really take this into consideration before deciding how to do it.

The only thing i can agree on was annoying, was the change of rules in mid season. But it was obvious from the first half that this was necessary. If they hadn't changed it we'd all be complaining about the sucky rules that did not got changed eventhough everyone knew something needed to be done for the league to have any chance of survival. The core problem here was that the league was not perfect from the start. It never became perfect, far from it, but no one gave it a real chance anymore. All the clans were just insulting eachother all the time, fighting over the most unimportant stuff you can think of.

Also what's the problem with our clanleader being in spectator? They're referees for god sake. BSID also had referees, so did other clans. They were chosen for their personallity, not because they belong to a specific clan.

And the season was declared foul for many reasons, one of them being no more interest in the league from the clans. With all the clans fighting on every forum and chatroom, what was the point. No one was enjoying it anymore.

None of these are reasons to say we shouldn't try a new league. They only point out how stupid we behaved in the past.

 

lol lotsa drama

Anyways if there were 6 clans I don't see why it couldn't work

 

First off, your leadership is never discussed. You ignore it here. You erase it on the league forums.

There were indeed unforeseen problems that are not your fault. No one is, or has ever blamed you for those. Do not hide behind those. There were foreseen problems in all the seasons that multiple people have brought up, and was ignored repeatedly. Those can be placed on the league officials. Every time that is brought up, people like to hide behind the unforeseen problems and ignore the others. Even before 2.2 was released, I posted about not even thinking about starting the league, and instead pushing the organized PUG, like dubee and I have been suggested TOO many times before.

Season 2, structurally, was pretty good. The rules format worked and the rules were clear. I could still find some glaring loopholes, including one where a team that had won no games would end up the winner of the league (I always laughed at that one). But still, the format worked. Format does not need to be changed. One problem is lack of teams, which would hopefully be fixed by doing the PUG, once again, the PUG.

The other problem with the league is indeed, you. I went into the first season as one of the few people who was trying to help the league, and apparently (from what people tell me) one of the few people who respected you (outside the referees)(even though you used beta testing as a recruiting tool, while we were trying to keep noobs out of it). You still refuse to admit you tried to cheat by changing the rules when you thought no one would notice. When I caught you in the act, you told people it was just a joke between you and me. There was no joke, you got caught and you refuse to admit it. If you don't think part of the problem with the league has been a lost of any respect for the league leader, especially respect from the clans that would participate in the league, then you are absolutely wrong.

What you have done correctly is evident in the second season. You did listen to many of our suggestions and made corrections. The scoring format is beautiful, and practical, good job to whoever worked that out.

Listen to these suggestions now. Do not start a league until some sort of organized PUG has taken place. You have lost all respect from several of the clans, you need to share your power with at least one other person that people can agree on. I'm not talking administration rights, you obviously do not want to give up any of your power, I'm talking decision rights. I particularly think Knight Templar was a particularly level-headed thinking person when I tried to get anything done in the league. Problem is what he thought often seemed to be contrary to what you thought and only after constant pressure would you sometimes even consider it. He also may currently be too closely associated with the league, depends on what the clans think. Thirdly, do not start the league until a organized PUG has taken place. Fourthly, I would make no major changes to the format of the previous league.

How many clans are ready? How many clans are willing to participate in Evan's league?

 

Nebajoth is interested in running the new league as administrator (with me as commish) KnightTemplar is too busy with real life to do any empires stuff.

Drama Drama Drama

I think the idea of a PUG is a good one. Getting people to make clans has always been the weak link. The structure of season 2 was pretty good. The rules were even pretty good.

The big problems with season 2:
- Not enough clans
- Clans wouldn't schedule matches because they couldn't agree on times and/or field enough members

Suggestions for those 2 problems?

 

*Points to his previous post*

 

peggle melted my gfx

 

Honestly, just try to get the PUGs underway instead that way you would generate interest amongst the pubbers to join a clan afterwards which would mean increased membership in the small clans and a better season 3 if it ever comes.

 

At this moment there are 4 actively scrimming clans and 1 active but "blah blah weeks notice" scrimmable clan.

EPIC
JPL
CW
MAD
BSID

Afaik, rjw and Nerf and the like aren't really up to scrimming standard yet, but I know a lot of good pubbers looking for a clan that might wel be able to give them a boost or even form their own. I reckon EPIC might give the league ago, but I'd prefer to find out what happened in the past so I have a better idea what we're letting ourselves in for.

 

Then make a goddamn appointment on our forums

 

Your in for a huge defeat if bsid plays
backing up my clan that ive never had the chance to wear the tags ingame for


YEAH IM IN BSID
WTF IVE BEEN HAXED

 

Hi,
I now host the empiresleague.com domain on my Dreamhost account, having transferred it from RampantAndroid earlier this month. You all need to stop obsessing about Evan, since the next incarnation of the league will not rely on any official from the League to declare wins/losses for anyone.

The league website will fulfill the following functions:

#1 A place to check the progress of the PUG (using the map from S1)
#2 A place to shit talk other clans (there will be an official blog for each clan to bitch from)
#3 A forums to shit talk each other, and request matches by PM or forum post
#4 A place to request a neutral video-taker, including making specific requests for, say, KT.
#5 A place to download the "official" league server cfg
#6 A place to download captured footage of competitive games

We will not run a limited season, even if the "scoring was good", until we have moar clans. Just keep scheduling matches and adding points in an open-ended system, until its common-sensically time to reset (one clan has an overwhelming lead, or we have enough clans to start a real season). Clans will compete or not compete with rules of their own devising (although league rules are available if you want something you can agree on quickly), with team numbers of their own choosing and common agreement. All of that metadata will be recorded and added to the description caption for the download link. There is no official League format for matches. We will provide recommendations, but nothing binding.

There will be no arbitration. At all. Ever.

The clans choose whether a match was "valid" (definition: recognized by both parties). Matches where one clan pussies out will still be posted for the world to see, under a different website tab ("Pussy-outs"), and the empires-watching audience can decide who "really" won on their own.

This is a good system, IMO, as it gets us back to basics. An excuse and place to challenge other clans for scrims.

And on top of that, we will implement the PUG that Opie and Dubee have been promoting so hard. This not only gives us something to do while the league builds, but keeps tempers from flaring in a too-high-stakes occasional-league-match format.

Thanks for your patience,
and please keep the flames to a minimum here. I promise the empiresleague will be constructed of flame-retardant material that will take the scorching heat of your wit. Lets keep the empiresmod forums clear of them.

 

I'm not entirely sure i understand it.

Is it:
1) The league forum will mainly offer a place to hang out in and check the scores, while clan matches are just organized by the clans
2) There will also be a pug for non clanners but not much is known about that yet ?

 

We will run a PUG, of format TBD. Your suggestion sounds interesting, above. This seems to be the consensus on what people want.

We will put in place the NEUTRAL, UNARBITRATED infrastructure (basically just host it) for clans to optionally set clan scrims and post results in an open-ended season for an indefinite time. I realize this is vague. Intentionally vague is better until we have moar clans. If/when we get moar clans, we'll see if people want limited-duration properly-scored league format again.

 

As long as Evan and the other incompetents that ran the last league stays far away from any leadership position, BSID is most likely in. Sounds good, Nebajoth.

 

The season 1 game board was terrible because the maps represented such a large geographic area that it defeated the purpose of strategy and the gameboard itself as a result.

so instead of having the game board represent the entire empires world (which doesn't make sense storyline wise anyways) we should have the board focusing around Jekotia and adjacent territories like so:



that way the territories will be smaller because its being distributed through a smaller area of the game world.
hell, if we want to add even more territories we could just use some of the more polished custom maps (arid, for example)

 

There aren't really any "leadership positions" in the new league. There are referees, but feel free to request one you like. All referees will honor a request by either team to not be involved. That means you have to be careful to choose someone the other team will approve of, and can't just pick a friend. But it also means you can disqualify Evan from being involved in BSID matches in any way.

But lets put away the pitchforks and torches pls. I promise to make a place in the new empires league website where you can totally trashtalk specific referees, so save it for there.

I should probably put a giant web 2.0 flashy button link, on the front page, to Evan's profile so you can all leave your comments thar. :D

 

I agree, but wonder how much work it will be to recreate the game board. Care to chime in, CB?

 

remove evan entirely

 

I don't see what difference that would make, except to diminish the pool of available referees.

 

I don't have Flash anymore, and I don't have the source for the map anymore. It might be backed up on the server somewhere, but I wouldn't know.

How it worked:
I took the map (with borders already on it), and created a polygon (zone1, zone2... zonex) the same shape as each zone. The default was grey with 50% or so transparency. I then created a text overlay for each zone so that it would not be affected by the zone colour.

There was an external PHP page that queried the database for who owned which map, and what their corresponding colour was. Flash would open this page and parse the relevant data. It would then iterate through every zone on the map, changing colour depending on ownership. Finally, it sorted all the clans by name, removing duplicates, and turned that into a legend.

It's not exactly hard, but quite tedious.