TWL PROPOSAL

[Turban]

Can anyone explain to me why the hell if I hit "Edit" or "Reply" all i get is a dam black box that I can't type in? This is annoying.

you have to go to settings located in the top-right corner. in there go to forum settings located under my account and scroll down a bit. in the miscellaneous options change the message editor interface to enhanced interface and save settings. that should fix it, i think.

[Turban]

looks like we're straying away from the main topic of this thread. after skimming through most of the posts, here's my input:

i completely agree with rules third point. we have a bunch of players working behind the scenes to improve the zone features, they are the true heroes of this zone. they absolutely deserve some recognition and perhaps even rewards for their hard work. unfortunately we do seem to lack real leadership in the zone; while M_M God is doing a fantastic job, he's not capable of doing everything by himself. we need the right kind of people delegating the work for those who are capable of fixing things and making sure that the projects don't go astray. mostly everyone that has previously been on staff knows how hopeless it sometimes may seem to get anything done. in my eyes the current is like an ant colony without a queen overseeing the workers, the last thing we should do is add layers (features) to the ant-hive without approval. that's only going to make things more complicated and unpleasant for the rest of us, even if your intentions are good. with some clear directions things might actually turn out to be good. have patience, good sirs.

hopefully the recent changes in the staff structure has started to break that age-old mentality we've had for several years. after hearing from someone that the new structure is actually starting to work, much to my surprise, i was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt. to be honest, posting ideas may actually help to motivate some staffers/players, but of course nothing will actually change if there isn't a single person delegating the work and making sure we focus on fixing things one by one. we will never be able to fix anything if we try to fix everything at once. really simple.

as eph stated earlier, several of us ex-staff members burned out rather quickly because of the old staff structure. if you wanted to help with something specific, but weren't a coder, you basically had to work your ass off to get promoted to the position where you would have the power to actually make some changes. it could take you months, or even years, to finally get to promoted to that position. it's a small wonder we even have some old players remaining in staff, climbing that ladder was definitely not worth the effort. however, if things actually have changed and upperstaff is more motivated to fix the things that are broken then i'm willing to give staffing a second chance - assuming that you guys still want me back. i also promised to help with this new marketing thing that staff is working on, thanks to a request by M_M God, but to be honest that kind of thing isn't really my forte. hopefully things will turn out to be okay.

there's a problem with the aforementioned 10 player limit that was suggested earlier in this thread. we probably don't have enough active players to support that and it would result in several poor "showings" by teams. even with bigger rosters, admittedly because of improper captainship, we had some squads not showing enough players almost every single season. i think this would start to happen more often with a smaller roster size + with more squads even if saw an increase in competitiveness. it's not like we can go and select the right types of captains for a squad; everyone should have the right to manage a squad even if they aren't capable of doing it properly.

i would like staff to focus, without a shadow of doubt, on making TWD more newbie friendly. this is something i wanted to work on when i was a twd operator, but that position didn't really allow me to make much rule changes and my opinions didn't matter much to the upperstaff. i completely agree that we have some higher priorities that would require fixing before even considering this one, but it should still be rather high on the priority list. if we can get new players involved in the "competitive side" of the game and making them enjoy their time on a squad, then they will surely play the game for a longer time. hopefully old squads will have enough common sense to give the new players an easier time rather than stomping them every single match, unfortunately that's too much to ask when considering some peoples ego. i'm hoping that more squads will be created once the zone is back up, especially squads that will work as a training grounds for the new players. now is the best time to work together for a greater cause, trying to return the zone back into an active and fun one it once was in the past. assuming we have enough people helping out with this project then we really don't even need the help of the staff. having multiple newbie friendly squads would be ideal for our zone; if those squads can compete against each other then there'll naturally turn out to be some kind of friendly rivarly between squads. winning is more fun than losing and playing against players with the same skill level is probably the fastest way to improve your skills, especially coupled with the opinion/tips of a seasoned player.

if we can get enough new squads created then i will look into hosting a newbie TWD cup with 4/6/8 teams participating. it wouldn't be anything too serious, just some simple fun for the new players to experience some competitive play. it would need have some strict rules just in case, such as forcing the squad captains to add at least 4 new players (out of 5) to the game, to make sure the competition would remain fair. it would be a rookie tournament with scheduled games. games would be best of three and played in TWD arenas with a round-robin tournament setup, ensuring that every team gets to play against each other.

our main problem is the new players. alluring them is a team effort that could easily be ruined by a couple of trolls. what we need is ways to keep them entertained and having some of the new players on squads would be a good place to start. that alone wouldn't be enough though, way more would need to be done if we want to have a healthy environment for the new players. can it be done? probably, but its going to require a lot of hard work from both the players and staff.

staff also should try recruiting back the motivated players who left staff due to either burning out as a result of the old staff structure or because of some disagreements with certain upperstaff members. lately there has been several questionable recruits by staff, which really gives me tells me a lot about the current staff situation and the problems they face. it seems to me that staff is running out of capable volunteers that have the potential to do stellar work and are technically forced into doing bad recruits to support all parts of the zone. please start sorting out any problems some players may have with certain members of staff (mostly seems to be some conflicts with demonic) and try getting those players back into staff if they still want to help the zone. i know that there's at least five great old staffers who would want to rejoin if things truly are better within staff. there's absolutely no reason to rejoin if staff is still in the same mentality - nothing will ever change.

several members of the trench wars council are lacking in both experience and knowledge to be called the true representatives of our zone. while it's a good thing to have a wide variety of players, there will surely be times when some members will not have the expertise to know whats actually good for the zone. make sure to discuss things thoroughly and list the pros and cons of the changes. either way, we do have to remember that this is meant to be a test run for a new system - it's not going to be smooth sailing from get-go. staff will probably not give them absolute power to ensure that they won't break the zone, but that's fine to be honest. we do need the council to get that ball rolling as fast as possible, once the zone is back up, or else they'll most of their credibility. nevertheless, if this turns out to be a success then more people will apply for the position in the future. good luck.

just my two cents in the morning, hopefully you got my point. looks like it ended up being a lengthy one with some off-topic shit. fuck. sorry.

tl;dr: things are broken, but with the right attitude we should be able to recover the zone. focus on one thing at a time if you want to succeed. がんばって!

[Rule]

1. Get the zone up and running
2. Restructure and improve staff, create stable and strong structures: via TW council, recruiting more people who care about the game to help out, and giving existing staff clearer guidelines to follow. Create a system of accountability where everyone knows their roles.
3. Reward people for enhancing and contributing to the game - whether it be players, staff etc
4. Improve events and the leagues - focus on building key areas that matter to the majority, ignore and put other issues and events on the backburner.
5. Improve the way the game is marketed, get an enthusiastic larger focused team to do it. Make TW a more friendly place for new players.
6. Improve existing squad structures, and hold people accountable
7. Kill off aliasing and mass trolling. Promote competitive but friendly spirit for league play. Work on creating a system that allows way more newer players to be involved in TWD and TWL. Rewrite TWL and TWD league rules.
8. Basically a repeat point - Get more and more people who care involved with improving the structure of staff, the zone and leagues.
9. Listen and give respect and thanks to existing staff members like MM God and team who are still giving their best to improve the zone (instead of pointing out every flaw, mistake etc). Basically re-motivate the people who spend hours and days of their time to keep this free game running.

[Godzero]

Deth,
As I said, a few minor changes have been made but clearly the zone is not ready to face the music. We just keep wanting to make improvements to the 'product' without fixing the factory that the product is manufactured in.

What good does it do to improve a product if your Purchasing department doesn't have the money it needs to buy the raw materials to even make it? What good is improving the product if the Shipping Department is allowed to walk into the Sales Department and make changes at will? What good does improving the product do if anyone in the company can sign for incoming shipments and takes the stuff and stashes it under their desk? What good does improving the product do if we have employee turnover that rivals McDonalds?

Many of the ideas for improving the product are great. But everyone seems to think that this is going to make a difference. It won't. We have a clear history that it won't. None of the ideas posted in this thread matter at all if you have someone decide to make a 11th hour change the day before the playoffs without testing.

Throwing out new ideas is easy. Fixing the broken processes is not. Take the simplest of things; keeping a list of current staff members posted. We can't even get this right. Instead of assigning a single person that can be held responsible we allow 4 different people to update it. And none of them communicate with each other. Now consider who runs Pub (Kyn). Instead of having Kyn have full control (and responsibility) you have many others who can make changes at will; and again without Kyn even being in the loop.

And on and on...this is how most of the zone operates. A complete diffusion of responsibility. The staff culture fully support this, it actually encourages it by forcing each staffer to learn everything from the ground up. So you might have a guy who is a marketing wizard but if he wants to ever get in a position to help the zone he has to first be a ZH, then host a bunch of badly run and poorly attended events. Then maybe, just maybe, and as long as he doesn't burn out first, after a year or so he might be in a position where he can have SOME control over marketing. But note that even after if finally gets into position, at any time 2-3 other people might also be able to make marketing decisions.

So I have zero confidence that grassroots ideas for changing the TW product will have any meaningful impact on the zone until HOW the zone does stuff is fixed.
eph

Not sure what the average player can do to fix the factory. We aren't the "factory owner", and we aren't the "foreman", and most of us as you mentioned don't want to be burnt-out, minimum-wage grunt workers just to possibly get a shot at changing something about the product/business many painful years later.

As far as I know, through regular players there are no elections/impeachment processes to replace those with the ability to change these things, and willingly choose not to deal with the headache. Nor is there any voting to change these things directly, and especially not quickly.

All we have is the new council (our HALF "workers union"), and none of them (at least from what I've heard/seen) have shown any interest in changing anything extremely fundamental to how the zone/staff operates from what I have seen so far, just the usual "make this change to pub or TWL".

It is a shame your ballot for the position in the council was withdrawn for w/e reason Eph, you might have stood as a sole "voice of reason" in the group. Now you are stuck in more of a "write to your local congressmen and hope they actually give a shit" type of position. But you never know, maybe one of them is secretly a revolutionary and could really get behind some of the ideas for your cause (tw's cause). Guess you/all of us could PM them, and see what happens when they finally get a few first meetings in after the server finally comes back online, assuming they can make any real change at all.

[Ephemeral]

Deth,
As I said, a few minor changes have been made but clearly the zone is not ready to face the music. We just keep wanting to make improvements to the 'product' without fixing the factory that the product is manufactured in.

What good does it do to improve a product if your Purchasing department doesn't have the money it needs to buy the raw materials to even make it? What good is improving the product if the Shipping Department is allowed to walk into the Sales Department and make changes at will? What good does improving the product do if anyone in the company can sign for incoming shipments and takes the stuff and stashes it under their desk? What good does improving the product do if we have employee turnover that rivals McDonalds?

Many of the ideas for improving the product are great. But everyone seems to think that this is going to make a difference. It won't. We have a clear history that it won't. None of the ideas posted in this thread matter at all if you have someone decide to make a 11th hour change the day before the playoffs without testing.

Throwing out new ideas is easy. Fixing the broken processes is not. Take the simplest of things; keeping a list of current staff members posted. We can't even get this right. Instead of assigning a single person that can be held responsible we allow 4 different people to update it. And none of them communicate with each other. Now consider who runs Pub (Kyn). Instead of having Kyn have full control (and responsibility) you have many others who can make changes at will; and again without Kyn even being in the loop.

And on and on...this is how most of the zone operates. A complete diffusion of responsibility. The staff culture fully support this, it actually encourages it by forcing each staffer to learn everything from the ground up. So you might have a guy who is a marketing wizard but if he wants to ever get in a position to help the zone he has to first be a ZH, then host a bunch of badly run and poorly attended events. Then maybe, just maybe, and as long as he doesn't burn out first, after a year or so he might be in a position where he can have SOME control over marketing. But note that even after if finally gets into position, at any time 2-3 other people might also be able to make marketing decisions.

So I have zero confidence that grassroots ideas for changing the TW product will have any meaningful impact on the zone until HOW the zone does stuff is fixed.
eph

[Dethdefire]

So lets do ahead and walk through this. We invest in the ideas that are presented in this thread. The season goes well and then, a day before the playoffs, someone says 'hey lets make a 30 second change to the configuration'. The whole thing turns to shit since we haven't really fixed anything; just more good ideas sunk by having a horrible change management process.

The issue has never been that there aren't enough good ideas. 'Good ideas' are a seductive smoke screen that keep the players attention diverted while the truly broken underlying processes remain unaddressed. If we don't try to fix the broken underlying processes (things like how staff is organized, how people are held responsible for their decisions, how we make changes, how we plan, how we hire and promote staff, etc.) then throwing more and more 'good ideas' at the wall only means that they will not stick or be successful.
Council was a good first step but much more work remains to improve the zone processes. Council needs to do something, the rest of the staff needs to also become elected positions or some other way to ensure that dead wood is removed and people are doing the right things, change management needs to be fixed. If this kind of stuff was actually addressed you might find that some of those who previously ran TWL well might consider coming back. Then the time would be right to throw out league improvement ideas. But anyone who thinks for a second that simply tossing out a new idea is going to make TWL a success is clearly ignoring history. (And I mean RECENT history, how could it be any clearer?)
eph

I don't feel like any of us are suggesting one single idea is going to make TWL a "Success." I do think what most of us our saying is that without adding not only more squads but also competitive edge to TWL it doesn't really matter what is going on with staff. In my opinion the underlying issue is the lack of TWD participation, which has really nothing to do with how staff is ran. If TWD, potentially the suggested twl roster limits and the suggested double bracket are properly addressed then TWL will certainly benefit from it. I think at best we believe that with changes such as these, along with properly trained staff as you suggested, we will see noticeable improvement the next TWL season. That in turn would certainly be a good start and put us in a position for future growth in TWL. From what I have seen, not including the council, there has been several changes with how staff is being ran compared to what it was when I last played.

[Ephemeral]

So lets do ahead and walk through this. We invest in the ideas that are presented in this thread. The season goes well and then, a day before the playoffs, someone says 'hey lets make a 30 second change to the configuration'. The whole thing turns to shit since we haven't really fixed anything; just more good ideas sunk by having a horrible change management process.

The issue has never been that there aren't enough good ideas. 'Good ideas' are a seductive smoke screen that keep the players attention diverted while the truly broken underlying processes remain unaddressed. If we don't try to fix the broken underlying processes (things like how staff is organized, how people are held responsible for their decisions, how we make changes, how we plan, how we hire and promote staff, etc.) then throwing more and more 'good ideas' at the wall only means that they will not stick or be successful.
Council was a good first step but much more work remains to improve the zone processes. Council needs to do something, the rest of the staff needs to also become elected positions or some other way to ensure that dead wood is removed and people are doing the right things, change management needs to be fixed. If this kind of stuff was actually addressed you might find that some of those who previously ran TWL well might consider coming back. Then the time would be right to throw out league improvement ideas. But anyone who thinks for a second that simply tossing out a new idea is going to make TWL a success is clearly ignoring history. (And I mean RECENT history, how could it be any clearer?)
eph

[Dethdefire]

I think there would have to be some kind of incentive for the amateur playoff's to be appealing. Maybe in some way allowing the winning team of the amateur playoffs a spot in the TWL playoffs? Im not sure how it could be implemented with the league not being single elimination though. The only logical way would be to postpone the regular playoff season tell the amateur season finishes. Or maybe have the amateur season played within 1-2 weeks by having the amateur semi finals and finals on the same weekend/day?

I meant the "amateur playoffs" not "amateur season". Can anyone explain to me why the hell if I hit "Edit" or "Reply" all i get is a dam black box that I can't type in? This is annoying.

[Dethdefire]

The idea is so that people will see it's more competitive so will not want to bench on a squad knowing they won't get played even vs the newer squads....it's about spreading the talent about. Also the points system promotes top end teams trying harder and lower teams trying harder constantly throughout the season in every match....isn't TWL about bringing out the competitive side in everyone?

I find it strange so many people are willing to stack on squads and get no game time.....from what I can gather some squads have a lot of people that dislike eachother.

What are people's thoughts on splitting out the playoffs as 4 in the top end go to TWL playoffs, bottom 4 go into an 'amateur' playoffs? This format seemed pretty beneficial for the zone IMO.

I think there would have to be some kind of incentive for the amateur playoff's to be appealing. Maybe in some way allowing the winning team of the amateur playoffs a spot in the TWL playoffs? Im not sure how it could be implemented with the league not being single elimination though. The only logical way would be to postpone the regular playoff season tell the amateur season finishes. Or maybe have the amateur season played within 1-2 weeks by having the amateur semi finals and finals on the same weekend/day?

[Ricko]

I very much dislike the idea of awarding more points for absolutely crushing newer squads. Most vets will view these matches as a waste of time, and many new players will be quite discouraged by this. Another problem is that all of those benchers on Fierce/Pandora will stay benched instead of getting a turn against the weaker squads. How is that possibly a good thing? That means even fewer people get to participate.

The idea is so that people will see it's more competitive so will not want to bench on a squad knowing they won't get played even vs the newer squads....it's about spreading the talent about. Also the points system promotes top end teams trying harder and lower teams trying harder constantly throughout the season in every match....isn't TWL about bringing out the competitive side in everyone?

I find it strange so many people are willing to stack on squads and get no game time.....from what I can gather some squads have a lot of people that dislike eachother.

What are people's thoughts on splitting out the playoffs as 4 in the top end go to TWL playoffs, bottom 4 go into an 'amateur' playoffs? This format seemed pretty beneficial for the zone IMO.

[Jessup]

Hey Deth, glad you are at least liking the concept. I doubt it would be too hard to follow who played in what game seeing as matches and players used all get recorded onto this site. I wouldn't mind seeing a 10 roster limit either like you are suggesting but if that happened I'd like to see the squad limit then increased from 8 to 10 squads in TWL. More people being able to participate and/or improving competition is the main goal here. The whole 2 to 3 power house squads dominating is getting a bit boring and predictable.

One problem we had on Paladen this year was getting 5 players to show every week. We managed but barely and that was with 15 so I do worry a bit how a 10 player roster limit could work out. Savanger had a nightmare situation with their no shows , also cougars got disqualified , I think there was even a basing squad disqualified too? Still ,both your scenario and mine even with the added stress it would put on players to show up could be a viable option as many of these twl benchers on top squads are very active good players, then mix in new players on the lower tier squads who will be stoked to have a chance to play in twl. Roster of 10's I think by no means would be a definite fail.

I like these ideas everyone is working on to make things better. Some new change(s) would be fun at least... and hopefully improve things in the end. Also if there is a change , of course (we)/ someone would need to write the rules up and post them to twl or twd site. I'd assume this would be one of tw councils big tasks along with the twl ops/staffers. Anyways.. it is fun to talk about new ideas.

[Dethdefire]

Skimmed this thread, especially the last page. I like ideas about making changes for more inclusiveness in the twl format to spark interest. Not sure how any of it would work out though. Things just naturally seem to repeat themselves and the same people will play together or a very similar variations of top players will. I just had a little idea though that crossed my mind. How about a rule that says all players on a twl division roster must be allotted playtime in at least 2 games or something. How a squad deals with a written rule would be up to them as long as it was followed. Subbing a player out fast could be an option for example but still ...I think it could lay a whole new foundation for TWL where a new strategy is made where focus on how to use your whole squads roster would have to be thought out rather than just a top 5 or top 8(TWLB) scenario. Having 10 or more players basically bench out a season in spec seems restrictive and if we are looking at the idea of inclusiveness I thought it may be an idea to kick around. It would excite more new players too as they would have a real chance of playing in a match.

Just a thought..

Before any new changes can take place having the sscu server would be nice too...lol D I know you guys been working hard on it... jking around there

I think that this is a great idea but I wonder how difficult it would be to implement and kept track of? I was also thinking that making a roster cap of 10 players, per TWLD and TWLJ league, and leave the entire 25+5 TWL roster open for TWLB for each squad instead of just a 25+5 cap for all leagues like we have now could potentially create more TWLD and TWLJ squads. Basically, squads wouldn't be able to stack 25 players for one league but if they have multi-league players they could be on the roster for both leagues, taking one of the 10 spots in both leagues. The overall problem is that if all these players have been content benching who is to say any of this would convince them to create another squad.

[Jessup]

Skimmed this thread, especially the last page. I like ideas about making changes for more inclusiveness in the twl format to spark interest. Not sure how any of it would work out though. Things just naturally seem to repeat themselves and the same people will play together or a very similar variations of top players will. I just had a little idea though that crossed my mind. How about a rule that says all players on a twl division roster must be allotted playtime in at least 2 games or something. How a squad deals with a written rule would be up to them as long as it was followed. Subbing a player out fast could be an option for example but still ...I think it could lay a whole new foundation for TWL where a new strategy is made where focus on how to use your whole squads roster would have to be thought out rather than just a top 5 or top 8(TWLB) scenario. Having 10 or more players basically bench out a season in spec seems restrictive and if we are looking at the idea of inclusiveness I thought it may be an idea to kick around. It would excite more new players too as they would have a real chance of playing in a match.

Just a thought..

Before any new changes can take place having the sscu server would be nice too...lol D I know you guys been working hard on it... jking around there

[Shortwood]

I think splitting up these teams would be a great idea; It would reanimate TWD, too.

Top players with leadership skills in "player" positions should start their own squads.

[Mighty]

Well, from my point of view, we should really take action against squads stacking players, especially now that the zone is dying. Players from top squads should equally divide up instead of being idiots man. This isn't an issue for me considering I haven't participated in TWL this season, but if i did, trust me my dudes, I would rip through these stacked squads and show you guys that they arent really as tough as they seem. I remember when staff implemented a rule saying something about how players have to play twl games in order to gain rings, this clearly hasn't worked at all considering players who bench on fierce/pandora are still getting rings regardless. That rule should be taken more serious and staff should really do something about that in order to get the best experience from TWL.