TWEL Season 10 - Cash Prizes

[Mythril]

The squad that just won TWLD isn't even on the TWDD ladder because they haven't played a TWDD in so long. The #5 basing squad in TWBD has an 834 rating. If these are signs of a healthy and active community, then I'm playing the wrong game. Like Turban said, I took over TWEL to generate interest and to revive a league that's been proclaimed 'dead' (even though it's been ran 9 times up until now with full brackets) by some people. Players don't participate in leagues because there's no reward and once you create a reward they begin whining about there being a reward. This thinking will lead to nowhere - leagues that are considered "dead" and "not worth playing in." The craziest quote has been "only 10 people play in twel." Only 10 people 1v1 duel anymore? That says a lot about a zone that was once more predicated on individual skill than pure squad dueling.

Should be a fun and competitive season.

[Shaddowknight]

RE: making money on the game.
It's actually a SSC Network rule:
Profiting - Subspace is a free gaming platform supported by volunteers, and as such it is forbidden to monetarily profit from the game in any way, particularly the selling of player names or squads.

Now, offering prizes is not the same as making an agreement between two players to do something in exchange for funds.
Go play bingo at your local Fire Hall once. You win money, it's not the same as income made from your job.

While it still probably could fall under that SSC rule, the intent of the rule is quite obvious. If anyone would like to talk to SSC op's to complain about TW breaking a network rule by offering money prizes for events, by all means go ahead.

[Reckful]

This thread confusing as fuck. All of you want the game to be more active and when one of you (mythril) whos is not even a staff member steps up and donates his own personal money to attempt to bring some activity and revive old league its met with you idiots nitpicking him apart. Could you all stfu and appreciate effort for once holy shit if your gonna cry over this just leave our game already your just bringing the community down.

[Dreamwin]

This thread is making me sick.

Best of luck to you Myth! I believe in you.

PS. Only legit member in TW Council is Zizzo.

[Turban]

shots fired.

[Crescent Seal]

To clarify, upwards of $100+ will be coming from my own pocket to support the cash prizes.

If this is the case then I support it. Just make sure to heavily advertise the league beforehand and during the duels so people actually show up to watch/play. I think it should be made clear that this entire event and its cash incentives are purely targeting current and retired veterans. This is definitely not for pubbers or casual players so it makes sense why they are so against it considering they have donated money to the game too. If looked at from that perspective then it makes sense to revive interest in the competitive player base but they shouldn't only feel the need to play whenever a cash incentive is offered. Lets just see how much of a turnout this league gets and move forward from there. The effort to do something is appreciated.

p.s. lol @ tw council

[Turban]

i will get some zoners going on friday when the TWEL season starts. we will have to do more than that, though, if we want this to be a success. alternatively, we could send a newsletter email to our players about the new TWEL season starting, with cash prizes, and about the draft tournament happening somewhat soon.

[Shaddowknight]

And who's not so say some leagues should be left dead? I do not beleive this will increase overall activity or perform anything that would improve the zone overall. That's my personal opinion, and don't see why time and money is being spent on it.

[Turban]

you would think differently if you were a competitive player in this zone.

TWEL used to be the pinnacle of solo competition, at around 2003 - 2005, and before that you had elimination arenas packed with solo players trying to get their name out there. unfortunately, mostly because of poor managing, the population in both competitive leagues started to dwindle. we still have our fair share of competitive players, and most of our newer population have never truly experienced the competitive side of this game. it would only be beneficial for the zone to increase the overall competitiveness as it gives the players a reason to log in, and to improve. we can't solely focus on the public players and event players while ignoring the life force of the zone: our competitive players.

"our competitive players are like the blood in our penis that keeps us erect; without that blood we'll be flaccid and ready for the impending doom" - turpin

[Turban]

.. and that quote is now officially the gayest thing i have ever written on these forums. good job.

[WillBy]

This thread is making me sick.

Best of luck to you Myth! I believe in you.

PS. Only legit member in TW Council is Zizzo.

So qan, M_M God, and Demonic are not "legit member[s]"? Read before you post please.

[Turban]

they aren't our player representatives, which is what dreamwin meant with his earlier post.

[Ricko]

If we can get TWD, TWL, TWEL and TWDT all running effectively throughout each calendar year then this is only a HUGE bonus to the zone; the issue is that for years they were all very badly run and left to just die out rather than be worked on and had effort put into them.

What has made this game last as long as it has, honestly, is the fact it used to be so damn competitive that so many players stuck at it for years on end just to try to become the best. Why do players lose interest now? Because very little has been worked on in each of our leagues that made the zone so competitive. Yes we have issues with marketing/websites etc that is stopping us picking up new players but we also have issues in game - pub settings and the competitive leagues. All I have seen lately is huge steps forward in each league to bring them back up to speed which can ONLY be a good thing for the health of the zone....we are well on our way to fixing the state of the competitive leagues and that's one leg of the tripod of trenchwars sorted out, negativity about this stuff from completely non-competitive players helps in no way at all.

[WillBy]

Perhaps in the original post you should have noted that you were paying for some of this yourself, Mythril. $165 of donation is much better, and if players are willing to co-sponsor a league, there's nothing wrong with TW donations matching them. But money hasn't been necessary to the (varying) success of other leagues, so pardon us if we have some questions.

You're getting complaints for advertising the money prizes, which TWLM didn't. Moreso than TWEL, it's those sort of expenditures that we have to watch. So where are you getting the donation money from? "Cash Events" seems perfect, as Weekend Event cash prizes aren't common.

The reason for this though, is that money is better spent on things to bring new players into the zone, rather than making people continue to log in. If you read back over older threads, you'll notice plenty of posts regarding player turnover rates. The fact is, the game doesn't survive solely by vets continuing to play. If this were true, we'd have similar population levels compared to "the good ol' days". Which leads to my next question, what incentive is there for pub players to signup for TWEL? I don't think there's any pretending (despite the lack of repeat champions, as Mythril stated) that few players are genuine contenders for the title. More than TWL or TWD though. And what of the chance for new players to be recruited into squads, as turban said? I would be pleasantly surprised if any of our vet squads will recruit someone solely for their TWEL performance. So again, what incentive is there for pub players to signup for TWEL? Perhaps you have something with these pub bucks prizes. Maybe the players who actually play pub will compete if they have a genuine chance of winning.

But in order to get there, the pubbers have to sign up! What are our TWEL staffers doing to encourage our fresher talent to join the competitive dueling scene? TWDT is being zoned constantly, TWD/TWL have squads recruiting people into the community, but with pub duels as sophisticated as the currently are, perhaps you should consider something more. As stated above, pub bucks prizes would be a terrific way to arouse the hungry pubber.

But more importantly, we need active advertisement in the public arenas to get players to ?go duel and signup. If you would like staff's help with this, you should perhaps ask instead of insulting our SysOp-declared (Not self appointed) Head of Support staff (i.e. in charge of <ZH>s) and Staff Communication Officer (the person in charge of communicating between the player base and staff).

TL;DR Read the Italic Underlined

[zidane]

I think staff puts a bit too much focus on pub players and not enough on the existing player base of competitive players. The reason why tw has been the most popular zone for all these years isn't because of pub (it's because of TWD). If staff had the mindset of pleasing the existing players years ago maybe the population wouldn't be in such steep decline. the truth is new players don't play this game... if we looked at a chart of new players vs. old players who have quit, it would be quite the one sided affair.