Suggestions for making TWD alive again

[Fork]

There has been several discussions about this topic, and these types of threads rarely bear any fruit for a few reasons.

We do not have unlimited resources at our disposal. This severely decreases the amount of steps we can take in our current situation. short-handed. The amount of volunteers we have has been steadily going down in the past 10 years, and it is unlikely that we are suddenly going to stop the bleeding of resources and recover. We need someone to grab that leadership mantle and reignite the burning passion our community once had.

I could come up with a hundred improvements to the leagues, impromptu, however it would be a wasted effort and it would only overwhelm our developers that are on the verge of leaving due to outrageous demands by individuals. We are limited to the amount of projects that can be done, and I have several ideas myself to improve the TWD activity and competition, but it is unlikely that any of them will happen in the near future.

I will make a better post once I get to work, not going to bother writing an essay on this phone.

If we had the right leadership- we would use that donated money to get coders to implement the best ideas- twd is pretty much the main part of this game- if u made this more addictive: you will see an increase in population which automatically makes a better twl. The biggest obstical in improving the games population is the staff in control of change. I wish the systops would communicate to everyone about their visions/ ideas and we could all comment and adapt those ideas to suit as many people as possible. Do the systop ops even hav a vision? Wheres the dev team? If no dev team, why havent the systops told everyone about the situation and asked for more devs? Whats the plan with the donated money? This should be communicated to everyone because it looks like staff arent interested in improving this game. The game is getting more boring/ populations clearly dying and higher staff cant be arsed doing anything scared that if they alter anything- everyone will quit (when this is the wrong attitude completely as nothing will ever happen)

[Turban]

There has been several discussions about this topic, and these types of threads rarely bear any fruit for a few reasons.

We do not have unlimited resources at our disposal. This severely decreases the amount of steps we can take in our current situation. We are short-handed. The amount of volunteers we have has been steadily going down in the past 10 years, and it is unlikely that we are suddenly going to stop the bleeding of resources and recover. We need someone to grab that leadership mantle and reignite the burning passion our community once had.

I could come up with a hundred improvements to the leagues, impromptu, however it would be a wasted effort and it would only overwhelm our developers that are on the verge of leaving due to outrageous demands by individuals. We are limited to the amount of projects that can be done, and I have several ideas myself to improve the TWD activity and competition, but it is unlikely that any of them will happen in the near future.

I will make a better post once I get to work, not going to bother writing an essay on this phone.

[Jerome Scuggs]

'twd cup' would be awesome

[Summa]

Here's my suggestion:

Reset TWD every 2 months and let different squads compete in different cups.

For example:

Reset the TWD ladders after 2 months (starting in January) and by the end of February invite top 8 teams to participate in a TWD Cup. Then make a small tourny where #1 plays #8, #2 vs #7 etc., like an elimination tourny. The winner of each league at the end earns the title of a TWD Cup Champion with the corresponding medal on the TWD site (use a different color than for TWL, let's say green). This should finish by the end of March.

After this, TWD runs as normal again. Host TWDT in April and make it end by the end of May.

In June and July, people form new or old squads in TWD and start qualifying for another big event, namely World Cup. Only the teams from TWD can compete in this event. Top 10 teams make it into this world cup. Then divide the teams into 2 groups, seeded by #1, #3, #5, #7 and #9 in Group A and #2, #4, #6, #8 and #10 into Group B. After that, each team plays against all others in that group (4 matches) with the top 4 advancing to the semis. The winners of each league in the end are crowned World Cup Champions and receive another medal on the TWD site (let's say orange).

After this, in mid September, start the qualifying period for TWL. This should be done by the end of October, with only top 5 squads qualifying for it (since TWL is meant only for the best of the best). They play 4 regular matches in November (no pre-season, it is useless) and have the semis and the finals in the first 2 weeks of December, with the last weekend before Christmas being reserved for the All-Star Match. The corresponding winners ofc get their medals as per usual (yellow for LJ win, red for LB win, blue for LD win).

Something along those lines would keep the people interested in TWD constantly, with things to do and events to qualify for. Might actually add a few other events in between, which would take place during weekdays to spice the things up a bit, but this is the main path that TWD should be on.

I think this is a nice thought if you believe the current system of TWD and TWL is fine as it is, and still functioning properly. I, personally, do not. I think it is outdated and needs to be reworked at a very basic level. To me, this would be shining shit and calling it gold. These events would be nice, but they are a novelty. It is like dressing a turd up in an expensive Tux. It is still a turd. Again, this is all a personal opinion. I think your idea is fine if you assume that the current relationship TWD and TWL have is fine. This would bring novelty, and potentially inspire people to try for something (assuming you put a carrot on the end of that stick other than just a pat on the back). However, that is not my belief. So I simply disagree with your premise, not your ideas.

[Summa]

Will say the same thing I said when I was dean of staff, and the same thing I said every time I was involved in TWL.

TWD in its current conception was designed to filter squads for TWL and provide daily competitive play. It was a good tool then. Why? Because there was an abundance of squads and players that needed the filtering. Today that is not the case for the most part. All you have to do in most cases is meet the game minimum and go approximately .500 (if that) and voila, you're through. There exists no reward, incentive, or level of competition to TWD and thus players put a lot less into it and are less active. It is a failure to re-design a league model that matches current times for a variety of reasons. So how do you solve this? Well in my opinion there are only 2 options considering we would require the work load to be light as staff production (for whatever reason) probably is not capable of a large scale project and a complete re-work of its systems.

Option 1: This one is very simple: Separate TWD from TWL. Make TWD its own league with its own rewards and re-define the qualifications for TWL to be something not entirely based upon TWD statistics. Then do a separation of medals for TWD championship medals and TWL championship medals, maybe some other stuff as well. The natural drawbacks I see to this are that there would basically be some form of tournament or championship going on at all times versus once a year which may diminish player interest in the game or the even worse result could be people not caring about TWD and since it has little to no impact on TWL now, abandoning it altogether.

Option 2: This one has a lot more wiggle room, but probably requires more work and a lot of definite and confident decision making (which I think there might be a lack of generally speaking): Merge TWD and TWL even closer together. That is to say make TWD have more of an impact on TWL than just qualifying you for TWL. There's a couple of simple ways I could think of this going down, although they are not fleshed out since it is no longer my job to flesh them out.

Scenario 1:
- Step 1: Convert TWL to a point system, rather than Wins-Losses; make it so wins give x points losses give y or 0. (could even do point based on margin of win/defeat if you wanna go wild)
- Step 2: Change TWL to a 2 round system. This would have to either elongate the individual days or the overall duration. However a point system in a 1 round system is hard to do. If it is at least 2 rounds you could do something like 2-0 = 3 pts t1, 0 pts t2; 1-1 = 1 pt each.
- Step 3: Generate some metric by which games played and placement in TWD standings at the end of qualification give certain teams a reasonable amount of points before any games are played in TWL. If there is incentive for both placement and activity as well as an increased impact on TWL; perhaps it would push up activity.

Scenario 2:
This one has less clear steps for me, and probably would be far too much work to actually accomplish; but it's a thought experiment so who cares. You want to merge TWD into TWL essentially. You would restructure the entire league structure of TWL; specifically getting rid of the every Sunday only system. You would push it more toward a Best of 3 or Best of 5 series played over the course of the week. This would give squads with a more consistent and active player base a boost, and TWL a more TWD-like feel. It would also increase player activity during the middle of the week as they would have to be present for TWL games during the week; which would presumably increase TWD games played and also encourage more time spent playing rather than just marking 1 day on your calendar.

These are pretty much all of my thoughts from a couple years back that I can remember. I made a huge well thought out post about it in staff forums or made a big stink about it in a staff meeting a long time ago, but I don't recall all of the specifics anymore. If people actually take this thread seriously, I would suggest you consider first before you post: "Is my idea realistic for a low man-power, low-production, volunteer only group to accomplish competently and within a reasonable amount of time?" Because many people make grandiose assertions and plans on the forums and spout nonsense that can never be accomplished.

[mtine]

Here's my suggestion:

Reset TWD every 2 months and let different squads compete in different cups.

For example:

Reset the TWD ladders after 2 months (starting in January) and by the end of February invite top 8 teams to participate in a TWD Cup. Then make a small tourny where #1 plays #8, #2 vs #7 etc., like an elimination tourny. The winner of each league at the end earns the title of a TWD Cup Champion with the corresponding medal on the TWD site (use a different color than for TWL, let's say green). This should finish by the end of March.

After this, TWD runs as normal again. Host TWDT in April and make it end by the end of May.

In June and July, people form new or old squads in TWD and start qualifying for another big event, namely World Cup. Only the teams from TWD can compete in this event. Top 10 teams make it into this world cup. Then divide the teams into 2 groups, seeded by #1, #3, #5, #7 and #9 in Group A and #2, #4, #6, #8 and #10 into Group B. After that, each team plays against all others in that group (4 matches) with the top 4 advancing to the semis. The winners of each league in the end are crowned World Cup Champions and receive another medal on the TWD site (let's say orange).

After this, in mid September, start the qualifying period for TWL. This should be done by the end of October, with only top 5 squads qualifying for it (since TWL is meant only for the best of the best). They play 4 regular matches in November (no pre-season, it is useless) and have the semis and the finals in the first 2 weeks of December, with the last weekend before Christmas being reserved for the All-Star Match. The corresponding winners ofc get their medals as per usual (yellow for LJ win, red for LB win, blue for LD win).

Something along those lines would keep the people interested in TWD constantly, with things to do and events to qualify for. Might actually add a few other events in between, which would take place during weekdays to spice the things up a bit, but this is the main path that TWD should be on.

[Jerome Scuggs]

-pass a law making twd mandatory

[mtine]

Got any? Then please post them in this thread. We need to start them wheels rollin' again, else it's bye-bye TWD.