TWDT Format Discussion

[beam]

After speaking with a bunch of people, I have decided to push this back for now. Summer has historically been a period of inactivity for the zone and with the world reopening, this will likely turn into one of the slowest summers we've ever had. At this time I have no planned date for when we will resume TWDT and no details on whether this format will be scrapped.

In the meantime we will be pivoting to TWEL and myself and Dwopple will be hosting a dueling tournament. I will post the details in the next couple of days but for everybody who was around for the previous tournaments it will likely be very similar to what you are accustomed to.

[ronaldinho]

In the meantime we will be pivoting to TWEL

Huge allow 1v1 not like last time please

[ronaldinho]

62 players signed up at the moment and I logged on around like 2:30pm est today with 74 players online, including bots. We’re seeing maybe up to 120 players online at most once or twice a week with an average of around 95ish players any given night. Agreed with Rab, can it for now and hope the game picks up again some time after the summer. Definitely need to consider an alternative for TWL as well, assuming we have the population for anything like that in the future. The game had a nice small resurgence with covid lockdowns, but now that things are starting to return to normal, it seems the game is just continuing on the same downward trajectory as it was pre-covid.

In 2017 I believe the zone was not far from death, when Henri Saari was operator of the leagues he only had shitty ideas, then when Mythril agreed to be his number 2 to take things in hand the population grew and only grew up to the coronavirus, little by little. The famous virus helped but the population revival started before. And no wonder the activity is low now, not only is the weather nice but I think many have overdosed on subspace.

[Flew]

In 2017 I believe the zone was not far from death, when Henri Saari was operator of the leagues he only had shitty ideas, then when Mythril agreed to be his number 2 to take things in hand the population grew and only grew up to the coronavirus, little by little. The famous virus helped but the population revival started before. And no wonder the activity is low now, not only is the weather nice but I think many have overdosed on subspace.

How about you overdose on my nuts

[Unlimited]

We having a league or what?

[Ardour]

[Vehicle]

ROFL.

I only watched Narcos season one and then I got tired of the love story. Otherwise good.

There will be TWDT, my guess is that it won't be this summer though.

[Ardour]

[saiyan]

Ardour you might have to update your sig... Creature is now the singular bonafide 0-ship scrub 1998-2021...

Imagine ditching your team to go play with ease and turban and losing all 3 leagues cuz youre absolute garbage. Your massive vagina lips made it really difficult for your teammates to get anything done and I tried to warn turban but he insisted he was somehow going to carry despite you providing nothing lmao.

I thoroughly enjoy typing ?find Creature and seeing nothing, never come back you absolute bum ass clown. Congrats on winning donkey of the century.

[saiyan]

And yes, I'm angry. You're upset at that fact that an old man who was looking for a casual zone to retire in somehow gets higher rated than you in every ship nearly instantly and you start spewing lies about him to minimize him every chance you get. Absolutely sickening, I can't even imagine being that much of a loser.

We are NOT cut from the same cloth my man and I guarantee if I played TW for my entire life you would have lived on the bottom of my shoes for your entire life..

[maketso]

Can we go back to normal TWDT and have captain rivalries like Saiyan vs Creature, Ogron vs Pressure vs Mikkiz, Dreamwin vs Ogron, Ease (thunder) vs Stayon (dice), racka vs world
These are the only thing keeping this game interesting

[Ardour]

Nah I think I still deserve my sig...

I can imagine getting to play with Ease and Turban and pulling them down so much that they lose everything pretty well actually.
Creature got the opportunity to do that which makes him a winner. I am jealous of him. If I got to play alongside all those 3... oh my... jizzing in my pants at the thought. What a dream.

[ogron]

In 2017 I believe the zone was not far from death, when Henri Saari was operator of the leagues he only had shitty ideas, then when Mythril agreed to be his number 2 to take things in hand the population grew and only grew up to the coronavirus, little by little. The famous virus helped but the population revival started before. And no wonder the activity is low now, not only is the weather nice but I think many have overdosed on subspace.

The game was in pretty decent shape in 2014, then someone DDOS'd the zone for months. 2015 still had a solid TWL, but the game definitely spiraled downwards in 2016, which was the worst TWL i've ever played by far, to the point where it was decided running TWL in 2017 or 2018 was not appropriate.

TWDT, however, was very successful and the 4 seasons run across 2016 and 2017 were strong.

2018 the game was completely dead for the first 10 months, then someone ran a meh Basing Cup and the worst TWDT season i've ever played with the weakest field of players, but there was definitely a glimmer of hope as the population picked up after summer.

Mythril then sounded the horn of Gondor and decided to run TWDT and get tons of veterans back, and there was a great TWDT season at the start of 2019. Then another great TWDT. He was so successful the game was in good enough shape to run TWL again.

The game's resurgence occurred before the pandemic.

Covid then supercharged it. There were more TWBD games played in 2020 than in 2003.

The 2020 and 2021 TWLs were very strong, as were the TWDTs.

You don't need covid to have a successful game. You need strong league ops and people willing to rally veterans, and a focus on winter seasons -- the game has always struggled in summer, and people need a break.

2019 proved that.

well run leagues in winter 2021/2022 can absolutely be a success.

[Vehicle]

There were more TWBD games played in 2020 than in 2003.

Can I get the actual numbers? I don't doubt you, that's just crazy to think.

I hope you're right about a post-Summer resurgence. I've been rather inactive the past few months (life gets in the way of spaceships) but some days I miss everyone telling me how bad I am.

[ogron]

Can I get the actual numbers? I don't doubt you, that's just crazy to think.

Sure, here you go:



Keep in mind, games played ≠ quality of leagues. The 2005 TWDT was so bad they canceled the league for 3 years. Meanwhile, the 2016 and 2017 TWDT seasons were quite good.

Those numbers actually have very little relationship to, say, TWLB difficulty. Even when there were 12 teams, 6 made the playoffs with the #1 and #2 seeds getting the bye, meaning the main challenge is almost universally the quality of the Semi-Finals and Finals teams, which has been static for decades:



The amount of Top 100 all-time basers on the 4 teams in the Semis/Finals is around 25 to 30, regardless of year.

That said, the regular season is often much better and more fun the more active the zone is. While 2017 TWDTs were very good, the 2019 and 2020 TWDTs were even better thanks to way more players playing way more games and signing up in greater numbers.

I guess my point is mostly that you can do a lot with good league ops, strong signup outreach, and winter scheduling. You can't have 2018 activity numbers and succeed, but you also don't need 2020 activity levels, either.