The summer time has historically been a period of inactivity in the NSL. We'd like a break between now and Season 5, but don't want the league to shutdown completely. Another Nations Cup is on the docket, along with several draft tournaments. If there are ideas for competitions you'd like to see or things we can do to pass the summer, let us know here.

Lots of nightcups. A week or two of signups, should be friendly to spontanious mix teams/new teams.
Formats depending on number of signups, could be DE, SE or league style group play and playoffs.
I don't know how closely you work with UWE these days, but if you could get them to advertise the the signups for these sorts of competetions, we could bring in new teams.

I'd prefer a league format with perhaps 2 default days for games a week, which can be negotiated between teams +/- 3 days or forfeit. It could even be 1 Map instead of 2 and open up all the divs under a single league. I personally dont like cup nights, it takes way too long and anyone with a social life, wife or kids may struggle to commit for 4+ hours. Nation cup as always is exciting though, and I agree with Swalk we need to push for the biggest amount of advertising in game, on the website and through social media as possible. Especially with a nations cup, this could capture a lot of public players imaginations.

I'm on the Community Development Team. Definitely will be able to utilize the main social media outlets, through Wasabi, and we'll have a better chance of advertising the going ons of the league.

One night cups and mini tournaments work best in my opinion. Enough to keep people interested but not too much of a time commitment that people can't enjoy summer.

SammyG says

One night cups and mini tournaments work best in my opinion. Enough to keep people interested but not too much of a time commitment that people can't enjoy summer.

Maybe we can do a poll to determine what format people will find the easiest to commit to, loads of games crammed in one day/night in a cup, a mini tournament (I suppose it was span a week?) or something a bit longer which can vary in format with perhaps 2 games a week. The last one seems good to me because people won't really need to find pcws over the summer to keep their team alive. But of course we don't have to pick just 1, night cups can be thrown in when ever.

I think it's harder to make teams commit to 2 weeks with games scattered all over, than to commit to 1-2 days in a weekend during this time of year. I think it's best to keep the formats so they can be finished in a few days. You can do this in alot of ways, splitting teams into skill based groups, alá the season. Doing double elimination or even single elimination if you wanna make it even shorter.
I personally enjoy group play the most (when it actually matters, sorry couldn't help myself), but DE and SE take alot less commitment and I think that those formats suit this time of year better due to the fact. But indeed, try out some different things. Summer is the time for it.

While I know it's probably not gonna happen, I'd personally like to see "best of X maps" tested on a more widely scale. The summer cup had 4 matches with the "best of 3 maps" format, and none of them were extended plays, all 4-2 or 4-0 results. If you put "best of X maps" in a DE or SE tournament, it would be obvious if it is truly problematic. I think it isn't. Only really really even teams would ever reach an extended play and in most cases it would be decided quickly after that. If teams reach extended play during a season you can let them play it another day if they wish, in these sorts of competetions it's quite different. "Best of 1 map" would likely bring alot of extended plays compared to "best of 3 maps". I think it works best as "best of 3 maps", which is comparable in length to "best of 6 rounds". It's one map longer than the usual league games(unless it's a 4-0, then it's decided after 2 maps), with the possibility of playing until it's truly decided who the winner is, if teams are playing tie after 3 maps. But "best of 1 map" would probably suit a DE or SE competion better than "best of 3 maps" due to the fact that it's usually shorter. The format fits NS2 better since the races are asymmetrical and complete balance can probably never be fully achieved. It's simply the fairer way to decide a winner. Right now the coinflip can be a deciding factor with "best of X rounds", we've seen so many matches with teams only winning with one of the races, it happens on all skill levels. In those cases the coinflip are the deciding factor and it's sad to watch every time it happens. All those potentially epic games. cut off too early, decided by a coin. It's no fun to win that way and it's not fun to lose that way.

please, no more essays. It hurt's my eyes.

nightcup

Swalk pls post TL;DR, LOL.

It might fun to do a draft tournament. Spread it out over like 2-3 weekends? The Aussies always seem to have a blast with it and it makes me really jealous that I'm not Australian :(

Draft tournament sounds fun . why not!

something needs to happen, and imo the playoffs need to be cut down next season. The gap is way too big between the end of the season and the next official match of what-ever-format for alot of teams!
4 week break isnt really that great to retain alot of players/teams.

The teams that make it into the playoffs are playing at least 2 pcws a week so making them commit to 2 official matches a week seems legit to me?

tldr; ns has no feel with out any official games for majority of teams

Adding to what Skyice said.

Shorter season to ensure holidays don't screw us up again, and that seasons end BEFORE christmas/new years/summer.

Rather have more of these "off season" activities than dragging out the seasons for so long, seeing how some teams are "disappearing" when me move further and further to the end of the season. We might even have a season with more teams surviving in the end for a change.

If we do a draft tourney or one night tourney we could try to convince some pubbers to join them. Let comp grow! :)

Please, any mini tournament would be nice, not even gathers are played now, Only few rpugs per night, and its too late for euros to participate.

yes, get some shit up plsssssssssssss...Night Cup?Nations Cup?

gogogoogogogogo

The next events will be announced once the season concludes at the end of June.

I think you should announce something sooner rather than later. It's the minority that are still playing the season, the majority are waiting. At least for us in RadicaL, there haven't been any incentive to play because of this waiting period. We have not played a single game since the quaterfinal. Official matches bring incentive to play, if there aren't any upcoming alot of people won't bother practicing.

You don't need to have everything set in stone to get some signups for a nightcup or something similar going. I don't really have an overview of when all the season matches end, but I think it would be best to have the first competetion as soon as possible after the season. Which means the signups should be up during the playoffs. I don't know, just my opinion.

If you plan on doing nations cup, make sure there is also something for regular teams. At the last nations cup, alot of the regular teams suffered from it by not having a competetion targeted at them. You could have two competetions running side-by-side one cup-style and one season-style or both season-style. I think I'd generally prefer the latter, but as it is summer and people are going on/off holidays, cups might be preferable. Cups are also more friendly to inexperienced teams that want to try out competetive due to not having to commit over a longer period of time, the tricky part is reaching out to those teams.

Swalk for head admin plz

swalk was such a great admin when he was running things. /s

lol trolls