Participation Requirement for TWL

[Jones]

Now that said, I am sorry that you think this is the largest issue being dealt with, I really do. People are making the biggest deal out of it, all the while I am fixing the JD and LJ arenas that have been broken for 5+ yrs and fixing their spawns, trying to get TWLM fully functional again, and trying to tweak bots to look for specific kinds of lag spikes that I know people who are cheating tend to give off. All of those seem important to me, idk about you.

you are definitely not prioritizing the biggest issues right now and that is removing 'ricko' from sweets twld roster on the history page at twl.trenchwars.net

[Soilderz]

I really see no idea in changing this anymore, it should've been done years ago, now the 'harm' has already been done. Just let it go

[Ephemeral]

The problem here is that TWL head-op has one of the highest turnover rates of any position in staff. Having done it once before, and having done DT 3x before; it is a position that burns you the fuck out. No matter what you do, someone will always bitch and hate it. In order to have a multi-year plane; you need to have someone who's going to be there for multiple years, and quite frankly no TWL op ever has.

Having annual turnover does not preclude having a multi-year plan and priority lists. But I think there is something much more damaging at work underneath all of this and it actually has been eating away at TW for years. Leadership is about sorting through large, complex inputs and prioritizing them properly. Instead TW leadership has evolved into much different, something that quite frankly looks very much like the American political system. By expecting, even encouraging, constant change there becomes the appearance of improvement.
But good leadership is not being able to say ‘hey, I listened to the people and got a few singular things done’. It is about laying the foundation for good things to happen moving forward for years to come.
Suppose you just purchased a great 15 acre property for your retirement. You could just go throw up a single room cabin for now and then spend decades ‘adding on to it’ without any real master plan. After 25 years what you end up with is a cluster fuck house that might not even be sitting in the right place on the property. Every single time you try to go do something you have to peel back the layers of short-term thinking that went into the current cluster fuck. As years go by everything becomes more and more difficult and costly. I am sure you recognize this as the current state of TW (and its league subsets).

As for your stance against a participation requirement; quite frankly I just don't see your case. "You can't quantify participation"? Watch me, sorry but this is a competitive league which requires you to participate in competitive play in some way in order to even be considered participating. Whether that's coording or something like that, I don't particularly care; but do something.

I do believe that there is value in defining what it takes to receive a medal but it important to keep it very ‘broad brush’ and simple; ‘if the leadership of a squad feels player X deserves one, they get it’. And of course this is accomplished by roster limits now. Each squad leadership should have the freedom to define and control this, we don’t need highly defined qualifying participation rules.
Consider this situation. You have a Player X who supports the team in Season10 with huge league activity and participation but ultimately lose in the finals. In Season 11 you have the same core group of players but Player X has IRL reasons that you know will impact his activity level, perhaps he has been called out for military duty or school. But you decide to consume a valuable roster spot by adding him in hopes he can at least some game time logged. Your squad goes on to win the finals without Player X ever logging a single minute of league game time. IMO it is completely up the squad leadership to make these kinds of decisions and exercise control over them.
But by highly defining and quantifying participation you are restricting each squad’s leadership ability to run the squad as they see fit. I don’t think that squads needs these kinds of hoops to jump through when the only issue being ‘fixed’ are outsiders opinion on who on YOUR team deserves a ring.
You state that “it's absolutely retarded that we hand them out for people throwing up pom pom's and high fives”. But why should the league, or anyone else, feel like YOU are handing out rings? I think that the decision for ‘handing them out’ should be a squad leadership call and they earned the right to do so by winning.

I do have experience writing rules, as I wrote the TWDT ones from scratch (not the best, but functional); so if you got suggestions (since you haven't ever posted them in the 2 times I have been a TWL op) lay them on me and I will defend the rules or re-write them. I am not allergic to doing work, but if you got a problem then point it out specifically otherwise I can't work on it.

My first thread about changing the organization of TWL rules was in 2006 and I am pretty sure that I followed up each year after that. I know for sure that in the third week of June 2011 I submitted a draft in this forum for consideration that reflected the organizational changes that could be made. Here is a copy of that 2011 draft.
The issue is simply this, the rules blend both the ‘law’ itself and the ‘punishment’. This results in constant bending of them along with the application of subjective interpretation. Not only is this simply unfair to the staffer who has to handle the game, it makes the rules nothing more than ‘guidelines’. By simply de-attaching the punishments you make the rules much clearer. But even more importantly, you allow room for to make decisions based upon a case-by-case basis without making the rules themselves look like they have been compromised. A perfect example is a court system in which the trial only determines if the law was broken and to what degree. But the sentencing is a completely separate process in which various factors are taken into account that determines the actual punishment.
The current blending of laws/punishment into a single body of rules only serves to make them a joke. Everyone knows that there is going to be interpretations and everyone knows that there will be endless drama and appeals throughout the season.
And as a side note, TWL rules epitomize not having a multiple year vision and plan. The Season 2 rules (LOL @ Cripples being disqualified from Season 2 playoffs for playing 3 sharks at once!) have just been constantly tweaked season after season by each group running that years league instead of anyone stepping back and fixing the organization.
All that said, nothing can changed a week before the season starts. This season will be run as it always has been, with a few people spending endless hours trying their best to make it a good season. It is not their fault that putting lipstick on a pig is a stupid idea.
eph

[Dreamwin]

Due to inactivity the following squads will drop off the table next week:
- Dudgeon
- Sweet

Unless things change, we're set to have 8 eligible squads.

Wat r u talking about? It's fking holidays.

PS. These new forums are HORRIBAD.

[Dreamwin]

Wat r u talking about..? It's fkin holidays.

[Burnt]

1. Since any change will be imperfect and controversial, I think it's best to let it remain the way it's always been. If you're on the TWL roster at the end season and your squad wins, you get the medal.

Option 1: In this circumstance players would either be required to have played a minimal amount (1 or 2 games with a minor kill/death/time req) or to have spectated multiple TWL games for their squad. By fulfilling this requirement in 1 league, they would be eligible for all medals that their squad earns in TWL.

This option is dumb because showing up if you're not playing or being a possible sub is quite useless so there's no reason to give a person credit for that. It's much more useful to be active in TWD to help your squad get practice in.

Option 2: In this case, all players on a squad's TWL roster would receive all medals that the squad earned. However, there would be a TWD games played requirement for players to be eligible to be added to the TWL roster. This requirement would have to be fulfilled before you could be added to the TWL roster in the event that you switched squads during the TWL season. The TWD games played requirement would probably be in the range of 5-15 TWD games.

This does almost nothing since if a player is on a TWD/TWL roster for 3+ months, they will almost certainly be in a few TWD games anyway. Even players switching squads during the TWL season would have to be on the squad for over 2 months to win a medal so it seems kinda pointless to make them play TWD games before they join the TWL roster since they would play those games eventually anyway. They could just sit afk in ?go twdd and get added and subbed to get their TWD games in anyway.

A middle road, which is far more fair, is that not only to players need to show up to earn credit, but they need to play at least one match. Even if that means the (C) subs a player in for a few seconds then subs them out, they technically played in the match.

So if you get subbed in for 30 seconds and go 0-0 you deserve credit? You're going to have players begging to be subbed in when games are already virtually over just so they can get medals.

In regards to your "free rings do nor harm" pov, they diminish the overall activity of the zone. If players actually need to contribute to earn something that they care enough to whine significantly about, it theoretically should at least minimally encourage more activity in all leagues and the zone. If it doesn't then it doesn't; oh well at least some effort was given to boost activity and give something to only those who deserve it.

If a captain decides to add a person to their TWD/TWL roster because that player is active/good/friendly/whatever enough, then who are staff to say that person doesn't deserve credit for being on the squad? It's also important to realize you've already made if more difficult to get medals by lowering the roster limits, is it not enough to stop there?

2. Players listed at http://twl.trenchwars.net/?x=history are not the same as those listed in the arenas and those who got medals. Unless we're taking away medals from those who already got them, the lists on twl history should be synced with those who got medals (which i believe are the same of those in the ?go twld/j/b arenas.)

3. Can someone move my LD medal from the name Static Burn to the name Burnt? I'd like to have all my medals on the same name.

[Summa]

And I have brought up other possible solutions for years, including the absolute dumbass way the rules are laid out. Even to the point of doing a complete rewrite of those rules and communicating it for consideration. Yet every year the bitching and multiple rematch games happen due to rule shortcomings. So your position is that fixing icons is more important and higher priority than this?

The problem here is that TWL head-op has one of the highest turnover rates of any position in staff. Having done it once before, and having done DT 3x before; it is a position that burns you the fuck out. No matter what you do, someone will always bitch and hate it. In order to have a multi-year plane; you need to have someone who's going to be there for multiple years, and quite frankly no TWL op ever has.

Now that said, I am sorry that you think this is the largest issue being dealt with, I really do. People are making the biggest deal out of it, all the while I am fixing the JD and LJ arenas that have been broken for 5+ yrs and fixing their spawns, trying to get TWLM fully functional again, and trying to tweak bots to look for specific kinds of lag spikes that I know people who are cheating tend to give off. All of those seem important to me, idk about you.

I do have experience writing rules, as I wrote the TWDT ones from scratch (not the best, but functional); so if you got suggestions (since you haven't ever posted them in the 2 times I have been a TWL op) lay them on me and I will defend the rules or re-write them. I am not allergic to doing work, but if you got a problem then point it out specifically otherwise I can't work on it.

As for your stance against a participation requirement; quite frankly I just don't see your case. "You can't quantify participation"? Watch me, sorry but this is a competitive league which requires you to participate in competitive play in some way in order to even be considered participating. Whether that's coording or something like that, I don't particularly care; but do something. In regards to your "free rings do nor harm" pov, they diminish the overall activity of the zone. If players actually need to contribute to earn something that they care enough to whine significantly about, it theoretically should at least minimally encourage more activity in all leagues and the zone. If it doesn't then it doesn't; oh well at least some effort was given to boost activity and give something to only those who deserve it.

Any suggested alternatives by those who voted other, please submit. Also if you have specific gripes let me know.

humid

[Reaver]

The point where ‘ league leadership’ thinks the best approach is to simply take suggestions in the complete absence of any comprehensive multi-year plan with well defined priorities.


For God’s sake we are fixing little ring icons? Really? How much time has been spent on this already? For icons!?! Look, I was on Cripples the very first season, we won the TWL basing tourney and nobody got any icons or recognition. I still get laid and make a good income.

Hundreds of Millions of people have played World of Warcraft and billions of hours have been wasted trying to get virtual armor with purple titles, it's ridiculous amirite? Sure we can spend a little time talking about who gets credit for winning the most important part of Trench Wars. I think the fact that so many people have logged into the forums to post and ironically claim "who cares?" is a testament that they do care (not pointed at you Eph, mostly pointed at the 5+ posts in the other thread of "who cares").

And I have brought up other possible solutions for years, including the absolute dumbass way the rules are laid out. Even to the point of doing a complete rewrite of those rules and communicating it for consideration. Yet every year the bitching and multiple rematch games happen due to rule shortcomings. So your position is that fixing icons is more important and higher priority than this?
eph

Nobody is stopping you from bringing that stuff up, I'll tell you right now that I'm not staff and haven't been for at least 4 years, and I'm the driving force behind this discussion about medals. I just haven't let up on it because it's absolutely retarded that we hand them out for people throwing up pom pom's and high fives. I agree something should be done about so many rematch games

[Ephemeral]

At what point does it make sense to ignore this just because other things could or should be fixed? Perhaps you should bring up those other things instead of trying to derail something else from being fixed. Things are only fixed when a problem is recognized. I'd be willing to wager that this has never been brought up before now and therefore has never been fixed. Before anybody wants to throw out the argument that this shouldn't be done because of past titles, stop. So we previously screwed up and gave out titles to people who never even showed up for a TWL match, we don't need to continue to do so. The problem that's trying to be fixed is to only give credit where credit is due.

At a minimum players need to be there for the games, and they need to !myfreq and the ref (or bot) needs to record that they were there for the match. This is at a minimum, it's such a watered down way of trying to only give credit where credit is due, but it's a step in the right direction at least...

A middle road, which is far more fair, is that not only to players need to show up to earn credit, but they need to play at least one match. Even if that means the (C) subs a player in for a few seconds then subs them out, they technically played in the match.

A middle-aggressive road, which is what I would do but would most definitely butt-hurt people who honestly wouldn't ever legitimately earn a TWL title is: The player has to play a full game in the respective division and show up for the remaining games to get a title.

The point where ‘ league leadership’ thinks the best approach is to simply take suggestions in the complete absence of any comprehensive multi-year plan with well defined priorities.

For God’s sake we are fixing little ring icons? Really? How much time has been spent on this already? For icons!?! Look, I was on Cripples the very first season, we won the TWL basing tourney and nobody got any icons or recognition. I still get laid and make a good income.

And I have brought up other possible solutions for years, including the absolute dumbass way the rules are laid out. Even to the point of doing a complete rewrite of those rules and communicating it for consideration. Yet every year the bitching and multiple rematch games happen due to rule shortcomings. So your position is that fixing icons is more important and higher priority than this?
eph

[Reaver]

Option 3 – This is a bad idea, just leave it as it has always been

Can you at least tell us who is pushing this idea so hard? Or what exactly it will ‘fix’? With so many other things that could, or should, be improved why anyone is spending time on this?
eph

At what point does it make sense to ignore this just because other things could or should be fixed? Perhaps you should bring up those other things instead of trying to derail something else from being fixed. Things are only fixed when a problem is recognized. I'd be willing to wager that this has never been brought up before now and therefore has never been fixed. Before anybody wants to throw out the argument that this shouldn't be done because of past titles, stop. So we previously screwed up and gave out titles to people who never even showed up for a TWL match, we don't need to continue to do so. The problem that's trying to be fixed is to only give credit where credit is due.

At a minimum players need to be there for the games, and they need to !myfreq and the ref (or bot) needs to record that they were there for the match. This is at a minimum, it's such a watered down way of trying to only give credit where credit is due, but it's a step in the right direction at least...

A middle road, which is far more fair, is that not only to players need to show up to earn credit, but they need to play at least one match. Even if that means the (C) subs a player in for a few seconds then subs them out, they technically played in the match.

A middle-aggressive road, which is what I would do but would most definitely butt-hurt people who honestly wouldn't ever legitimately earn a TWL title is: The player has to play a full game in the respective division and show up for the remaining games to get a title.

[Rab]

Dunno Eph but I had a feeling if medals didn't exist then Dice wouldn't either, so it can only be a good thing.

[Ephemeral]

Option 3 – This is a bad idea, just leave it as it has always been

Can you at least tell us who is pushing this idea so hard? Or what exactly it will ‘fix’? With so many other things that could, or should, be improved why anyone is spending time on this?
eph

[Pressure]

It's tough to speculate which option would work, but I think the best bet would be a variation that blends the two.

Also, another problem that I think needs to be addressed is the first roster cap/cutoff. How is it to be assumed that a 1-League squad needs 20 players? If it's a basing squad, at most it needs 20, sure. But no 1-league WB/Jav squad needs 20 players. Maybe 14-16 would suffice for a 1-league Jav or WB squad. The second/third roster cap (25/30) are reasonable, though.

[mtine]

Both options are sweet, thought there shud be a game limit for TWD on how many games us hud play for a squad be4 entering TWL. IE., u shud play 20 games be4 TWL starts to be eligible for a medal. Dis way, all those squadhoppers wud reconsider going to Dice 1 day be4 TWL starts and be loyal to a diff squad or just join Dice at the beginning of the qualifying period. Just a thought.

[veetee]

Only because it's christmas/new year break, so most of my players are travelling and will be back in the beginning of jan so that's when we will play.