Im worried about the upcoming downtime during the summer because i feel that we loose 10 teams by the time we come back in September. So i have some questions;

-How long until the next season? Coming back in September is a massive mistake IMO and pointless. *edited since that wasn't needed - yalu*

-Why don't we have 3-4 weeks maximum and go into season 7? From the Luke-warm response to proposed activities is this really the way to go? Great ideas but they could be done in 3-4 weeks and only include a small amount of people.

-Is there still debate open for a new format? Teams disbanding and poor seedings mean teams were yet again forced to compete for months in a division which is wrong for them (i.e us in TAWific) How we haven't disbanded i don't know but it has sure been rubbish!
Division 2 was an absolute fail, playing the same teams twice when half could of played div 3 teams and other half would have had a good shot in div 1. How do the other divs feel?

-And when i put a condom on do i include the balls?

cheers

It's been already a couple of months since all our staff began to think about your questions. I'll leave the 'official stance' to Tudy but there are a few things that must be said from my view.

As you can notice on those forums, and looking at your message, you did. We've planned at least three different events. Which actually do not require to be in a NSL team (Nations Cup, Draft tournaments & Skulks with Shotguns). As far as I can tell, there will be also a Custom Maps cup that should be held before next season starts.

We all know Summer is the worst time for competition. It's been the same the past years and the overall playerbase generally reaches its lowest amount during that time. There's however nothing we can do. It makes a lot of sense that people are less available during summer, going out for holidays, seeing friends and/or working (talking about students also). And obviously, the weather outside helps to not stay in front of a computer in my opinion. That's why plenty of events will be organized with, hopefully enough motivation from players to make sure they'll happen. But we never know.

You pointed out the next season start. It can't be too early. It has to be on September, not sooner. People, basically, can't attend to anything official stuff before September for some reasons that I understand, it's quite the same in my very own case. There are good reasons that make us begin the upcoming season at that time, you got to understand this.

For the rest, I'll leave it to the other admins.

skyice says

-And when i put a condom on do i include the balls?

Of course! See it that way: When you have a banana, two apples and want to make a fruit salad, do you leave the apples out of the bowl?
Only exception are peaches.

skyice says

Im worried about the upcoming downtime during the summer because i feel that we loose 10 teams by the time we come back in September. So i have some questions;

-How long until the next season? Coming back in September is a massive mistake IMO and pointless. *edited since that wasn't needed - yalu*

A lot of folks have real-life activities going on in summertime. It's the time of holidays for example. What there is left of players in a single team is often not sufficient for a complete lineup. So going for an early season 7 would be a season of mercs and forfeits.

Which is, why in the summer-"break" tournaments working on the granularity of single players are more suitable, like the Nations Cup, the Draft Tournament or the smaller team-sized Skulks with Shotguns. (The Player's League was also in discussion. It seems, though, that noone wants to deal with the business of marking points once or twice a week.)

skyice says

-Why don't we have 3-4 weeks maximum and go into season 7? From the Luke-warm response to proposed activities is this really the way to go? Great ideas but they could be done in 3-4 weeks and only include a small amount of people.

Why browsing through the summer-break in 4 weeks is not wanted I wrote above. Here I can tell, why it is not even possible to squeeze the planned activity into such a schedule: manpower. When you helped me with the Newcomer-Tourney last year you had a glimpse on the workload it requires to organise a tournament.

Sure, a schedule with 1 tournament per week sounds great, but is not feasible. We need more time to organise things (or more people).

About the "luke-warm" response: the season is still running and the proposed dates still lie "somewhere" in the future. This community has a reputation of coming rather late than early to registration - I hope and expect more interest in the Draft and Nations-Cup as we move (especially, as we havn't started to advertise those events, yet).

Furthermore we only discussed events in the forums so far, which need a clear feedback: the Draft and the Nations Cup needs Captains. Skulks with Shotguns needs a lot of things, before it can hit the road. Which is why there are respective threads.

Having no threads for other events, doesn't mean, though, that they won't happen.

We hope to offer more. In addition of the above we have on our list a summer-cup and a custom-map-cup. Further, there will be a second Newcomer-Tournament. The teams already here do not benefit directly from the Newcomer, but it is of vital importance and most certainly bind the staffs attention for a non-negligible amount of time.

If you put all of this together (2-3 Drafts, Nations Cup, 1 or 2 SwS, Custom-Map, Summer-Cup, Newcomer) and add some vacation-weekends you can easily see, that our schedule is quite packed all the way to September.

skyice says

-Is there still debate open for a new format? Teams disbanding and poor seedings mean teams were yet again forced to compete for months in a division which is wrong for them (i.e us in TAWific) How we haven't disbanded i don't know but it has sure been rubbish!

Let's name the thing: "Did I hear ladder?", as there are not many alternatives for a seasonal format.

Since the beginning of season 6, the ladder-discussion was never forgotten from our side. How could, as there is simple and Vindaloo in the current staff, which formulated the most detailed ladder-proposal so far.

In fact we discussed the ladder-topic in more detail last week. I'm not going into this right here, right now. Wait for the front-page news coming this week.

skyice says

-And when i put a condom on do i include the balls?

Whatever makes your bird fly.

tudy says

Let's name the thing: "Did I hear ladder?", as there are not many alternatives for a seasonal format.

Who summoned me?

I think its time to implement the ladder system. There are teams that should and should not be in Div 1. Some teams disbanded due to being placed in a division too difficult to even have fun.

Could teams self report what division they feel they should be in, with moderator approval to prevent abuse?

Skyfish says

Could teams self report what division they feel they should be in, with moderator approval to prevent abuse?

What do you mean?

Skyfish says

Could teams self report what division they feel they should be in, with moderator approval to prevent abuse?

Every time this is done, teams would prefer to stay in a lower bracket where they win every single game over moving up and losing the majority of their games.

I forget where I saw it done, I thought it might have been the newcomer tournament. I don't know how it went with that personally, as I didn't keep track.
The teams would decide what div they should be in, but I think an admin team could ovverule it if they think they go too low or too high?

GORGEous says

Skyfish says

Could teams self report what division they feel they should be in, with moderator approval to prevent abuse?

Every time this is done, teams would prefer to stay in a lower bracket where they win every single game over moving up and losing the majority of their games.

GORGEous is completely right.
Often doesn't work and makes it less fun for most other teams.