Trench Wars Leagues and what future holds ..

[Turban]

hey,

I will try to quickly go through some of the changes and plans that we have for the next season. This thread will likely be updated on the go, depending when I have the time to update it.

I would like to briefly mention that the head position is currently vacant and that we are looking for suitable candidates to run the next season. If the situation calls for it, I will return to the position and attempt to run it for another season with some additional changes and promises to keep, but to be honest it would be nice to have someone else at the helm to bring a breath of fresh air to reinvigorate the league scene. If you are interested in the most wanted position of all time, let me know as soon as possible.

We are currently pushing to make several quality-of-life changes to the league to increase its overall competitiveness, and you may expect some announcements to happen in the coming weeks and months, however I can not ensure that all of the changes will remain as it largely depends on who is in charge of the league in a couple of months, and more importantly on their vision of the league and its future.

Keep in mind that there is a number of changes that we may not be able to implement due to the way the site works, and how bots track statistics, but hopefully we can add at least some of them to spice up this season. These hopeful additions would include more detailed match statistics and details, similar to how TWD handles their match data, better individual player statistics and improved scheduling site for the squad captains. As starters, I will only list changes that are relatively easy to accomplish, as they do not require any (or only minimal) help from the our overburdened development team.

As starters, we managed to finish the rules for the next season mostly with the help of Ephemeral and bwp, although other other minor contributing members were Tsunami, Ricko, ffe and myself. We are currently working on uploading the rules as published document on Google Docs to allow instantaneous updating of the rules without the need of web access levels on the current website. This would make the updating of rules easier, and the access to the document would be granted to the Head of TWL to allow him/her to make any changes to the rules. There is currently no estimate on when we will fully complete this task, as it relies on our very limited developers, but at the very least we will have someone to add those rules to the website this month.
You may see the current updated rules by clicking this link.

As a side note, Undercut has finished a minor project which was to update history page to contain the last season winners to the website, and thanks to him that one will be updated during the same time as the rules get added to the website. He was also a great help updating the TWLD, TWLJ, and TWLB arenas to contain the last season squads.

On a semi-related note, last season we had a couple of faulty arenas which had a resolution limit, despite us promising a season with no resolution limits in several arenas, and that issue has now been solved. As of now, there resolution limits have been removed from every TWL arena, in terms of spectating a match or playing in TWLB and TWLJ.

We still need to discuss the future of TWLD and its current resolution limits. I would agree that now is a good time to completely remove the resolution limits, especially after weighing the pros and cons and considering the future of the zone -- it might be a good time to try out something new, although it would still be nice to hear the publics' opinion on this matter for the eleventh time; especially from the active players point of view. If we are to increase the resolution limits, or completely remove them, we would compensate by increasing the radar zoom to a more acceptable level to allow easier spotting of your team mates and enemies.

Home arenas are most likely going to make a return, but this time around we would have strict, clear guidelines for each team to follow when they are creating and submitting their squad arenas for the competition. There is a chance that we will have some map developer help to assist squads in the making of their maps, but more information about this will follow in about two months. This topic is still open for discussion and is subject to change.

Double elimination format for playoffs was a great success last season, despite all the scepticism, and will make a return this coming season with the same rules.

You can expect some changes to the ship restrictions in TWLB, which is likely going to be about limiting squads to one special ship, and more than likely adding stricter lag limits to Warbird, Javelin, and Lancaster.

Depending on the amount of squads that we settle with, we may or may not have double amount of games in the regular season. After hearing the players' opinions from last season, and this is assuming we decide to go with doubled amount of games, we will include all three leagues as last time we singled out basing from the changes.

We are trying to separate the qualification system from TWD, and are likely going to introduce a different way of qualifying for the next season. This will likely be done as an invitational, randomly seeded double elimination tournament to which the squads may register for, assuming they meet the requirements set by us prior to the announcement, and compete for a spot in the next season. The qualification tournament would use the same principle as TWEL used this season, which would be giving each team one week to complete their tournament match, meaning the tournament would last around four to five weeks depending on the amount of participating teams. The top teams of the tournament would qualify for the next season, and their ranking in the qualification tournament would determine their seed which would be used in the regular season schedule. That was the qualification changes in a nutshell, more details will follow in the coming months.

To make the league more exclusive, and theoretically more competitive, we may push to have a league with six squads rather than a league with eight or ten squads, but this has not been set in stone as of yet. It largely depends on the amount of interested squads at that time, and more importantly the state of the game with Steam being a possibility in the future. However, with less teams, we would be able to publish quality content with relative ease on both entertainment and statistical levels.

For the time being, I will be working with KATC, whom is the current Head of TWD, to make changes in both TWL and TWD to improve the competitive scene while making the game more fun.


To be honest, we can still greatly improve the league as a whole, and to make it happen it would be nice to get the public opinion on a number of things. To give an example, these are potential topics to discuss in this thread that are well within our power to change:

• revisiting the resolution limits in TWLD, and slightly increasing radar zoom to compensate the low resolution players
  
• reworking hall of fame section, adding new players and squads to the prestigious list
  
• ideas to improve the qualification format that we briefly proposed
• determining league size based on interest and how exclusive/competitive we want the league to be
  
• starting date to be determined, aiming to start it early to dodge major holidays conflicting with the schedule
  
• home arenas for squads
  
• normal or double amount of games in the regular season needs to be determined. if we have a low (6, or 8) amount of squads, the latter option is preferred
  
• squad size restrictions and other restrictions
• broadcasting and recording matches (players' choice)
• special ship limits in TWLB, and lag limits for special ships
• determining if it is worth to pour resources into fixing TWLM for the next season
• recruiting a team of Hot or Not writers for TWLD, TWLJ and TWLB
• latency, packet loss and spike med limits in all arenas

As a reminder for the few forgetful ones, the head position for TWL is currently vacant.

[Crescent Seal]

tl;dr version:

[Turban]

how you even find these vids

[Rough]

hey,

I will try to quickly go through some of the changes and plans that we have for the next season. This thread will likely be updated on the go, depending when I have the time to update it.

I would like to briefly mention that the head position is currently vacant and that we are looking for suitable candidates to run the next season. If the situation calls for it, I will return to the position and attempt to run it for another season with some additional changes and promises to keep, but to be honest it would be nice to have someone else at the helm to bring a breath of fresh air to reinvigorate the league scene. If you are interested in the most wanted position of all time, let me know as soon as possible.

We are currently pushing to make several quality-of-life changes to the league to increase its overall competitiveness, and you may expect some announcements to happen in the coming weeks and months, however I can not ensure that all of the changes will remain as it largely depends on who is in charge of the league in a couple of months, and more importantly on their vision of the league and its future.

Keep in mind that there is a number of changes that we may not be able to implement due to the way the site works, and how bots track statistics, but hopefully we can add at least some of them to spice up this season. These hopeful additions would include more detailed match statistics and details, similar to how TWD handles their match data, better individual player statistics and improved scheduling site for the squad captains. As starters, I will only list changes that are relatively easy to accomplish, as they do not require any (or only minimal) help from the our overburdened development team.

As starters, we managed to finish the rules for the next season mostly with the help of Ephemeral and bwp, although other other minor contributing members were Tsunami, Ricko, ffe and myself. We are currently working on uploading the rules as published document on Google Docs to allow instantaneous updating of the rules without the need of web access levels on the current website. This would make the updating of rules easier, and the access to the document would be granted to the Head of TWL to allow him/her to make any changes to the rules. There is currently no estimate on when we will fully complete this task, as it relies on our very limited developers, but at the very least we will have someone to add those rules to the website this month.
You may see the current updated rules by clicking this link.

As a side note, Undercut has finished a minor project which was to update history page to contain the last season winners to the website, and thanks to him that one will be updated during the same time as the rules get added to the website. He was also a great help updating the TWLD, TWLJ, and TWLB arenas to contain the last season squads.

On a semi-related note, last season we had a couple of faulty arenas which had a resolution limit, despite us promising a season with no resolution limits in several arenas, and that issue has now been solved. As of now, there resolution limits have been removed from every TWL arena, in terms of spectating a match or playing in TWLB and TWLJ.

We still need to discuss the future of TWLD and its current resolution limits. I would agree that now is a good time to completely remove the resolution limits, especially after weighing the pros and cons and considering the future of the zone -- it might be a good time to try out something new, although it would still be nice to hear the publics' opinion on this matter for the eleventh time; especially from the active players point of view. If we are to increase the resolution limits, or completely remove them, we would compensate by increasing the radar zoom to a more acceptable level to allow easier spotting of your team mates and enemies.

Home arenas are most likely going to make a return, but this time around we would have strict, clear guidelines for each team to follow when they are creating and submitting their squad arenas for the competition. There is a chance that we will have some map developer help to assist squads in the making of their maps, but more information about this will follow in about two months. This topic is still open for discussion and is subject to change.

Double elimination format for playoffs was a great success last season, despite all the scepticism, and will make a return this coming season with the same rules.

You can expect some changes to the ship restrictions in TWLB, which is likely going to be about limiting squads to one special ship, and more than likely adding stricter lag limits to Warbird, Javelin, and Lancaster.

Depending on the amount of squads that we settle with, we may or may not have double amount of games in the regular season. After hearing the players' opinions from last season, and this is assuming we decide to go with doubled amount of games, we will include all three leagues as last time we singled out basing from the changes.

We are trying to separate the qualification system from TWD, and are likely going to introduce a different way of qualifying for the next season. This will likely be done as an invitational, randomly seeded double elimination tournament to which the squads may register for, assuming they meet the requirements set by us prior to the announcement, and compete for a spot in the next season. The qualification tournament would use the same principle as TWEL used this season, which would be giving each team one week to complete their tournament match, meaning the tournament would last around four to five weeks depending on the amount of participating teams. The top teams of the tournament would qualify for the next season, and their ranking in the qualification tournament would determine their seed which would be used in the regular season schedule. That was the qualification changes in a nutshell, more details will follow in the coming months.

To make the league more exclusive, and theoretically more competitive, we may push to have a league with six squads rather than a league with eight or ten squads, but this has not been set in stone as of yet. It largely depends on the amount of interested squads at that time, and more importantly the state of the game with Steam being a possibility in the future. However, with less teams, we would be able to publish quality content with relative ease on both entertainment and statistical levels.

For the time being, I will be working with KATC, whom is the current Head of TWD, to make changes in both TWL and TWD to improve the competitive scene while making the game more fun.


To be honest, we can still greatly improve the league as a whole, and to make it happen it would be nice to get the public opinion on a number of things. To give an example, these are potential topics to discuss in this thread that are well within our power to change:

• revisiting the resolution limits in TWLD, and slightly increasing radar zoom to compensate the low resolution players
  
• reworking hall of fame section, adding new players and squads to the prestigious list
  
• ideas to improve the qualification format that we briefly proposed
• determining league size based on interest and how exclusive/competitive we want the league to be
  
• starting date to be determined, aiming to start it early to dodge major holidays conflicting with the schedule
  
• home arenas for squads
  
• normal or double amount of games in the regular season needs to be determined. if we have a low (6, or 8) amount of squads, the latter option is preferred
  
• squad size restrictions and other restrictions
• broadcasting and recording matches (players' choice)
• special ship limits in TWLB, and lag limits for special ships
• determining if it is worth to pour resources into fixing TWLM for the next season
• recruiting a team of Hot or Not writers for TWLD, TWLJ and TWLB
• latency, packet loss and spike med limits in all arenas
• Revisiting Ease & his paypal account for buying players to join Thunder to win him TWLB

As a reminder for the few forgetful ones, the head position for TWL is currently vacant.

You missed a topic, so I added one for you.

[kthx]

Just an abridged version here.

"Hey were going to go ahead and remove resolution limits anyways because we know better than every player ever over 500 polls and 100+ players"

What a joke.

[Rab]

The polls never result in keeping the res limit, it's always in favor of raising the limit by about 2:1

[Tiny]

http://forums.subspace.tw/showthread...esolution+poll - 2015 poll failed to remove limit

http://forums.subspace.tw/showthread...max-resolution - 2008 failed

http://forums.subspace.tw/showthread...solution+limit - 2011 TWDT failed

http://forums.subspace.tw/showthread...solution+limit - TWD 2011 failed

http://forums.subspace.tw/showthread...s-in-TWDD-TWJD 2010 twd failed


Why keep bringing this up? It is obvious people want a even and fair playing field and want to play the game how it was originally made. Newer is not always better. It seems like these votes keep happening in hopes of the people in favor of fairness will forget to vote and we can raise the caps. Come ooooon.


btw, this is all the polls on resolution I could find...may be missing some?

[Turban]

thanks for your input, and I'm well aware of the polls that we have had in the past, and even many of which we had in the recent times and even I have created two or three polls about the topic.

nevertheless, resolution limits will remain a touchy subject to talk about, especially when most of the seasoned warbird veterans are always going to be against the change, thus there remains a chance of these players boycotting the league if we go through with the change. this is all while the new generation of players seem to want the resolution limits gone for them to even consider challenging themselves in the league that at one point was the most prestigious title a team could earn.

admittedly, both parties do have their valid reasons to either keeping or removing the limits, and sadly there is is no decision that will please both sides.

we have several arguments about removing resolution limits being a bad thing, such as the competition shying away laptop users, and the games being a matter of who can afford to have the best monitor to get an edge over other players if we were to remove the resolution limits. there are some who argue that it would lower the skill required to play the ship, at least in terms of player reaction times, positioning and knowing when to play aggressive / safe, and even some who state that removing the limits will result in all games becoming a boring, drawn out battle of the endurance featuring ten players. all of these are by all means fine arguments, despite most being mere assumptions of what would happen if we went through with the change. no one is talking about how it would eliminate strays from the game, or increasing and promoting team play over individual performance, or even lowering the advantage some squads gain through third-party programs such as TeamSpeak and Ventrilo, or even bringing a breath of fresh air in terms of warbird players and population as the competition has became stale over the years.

as an added fact, we have ran two seasons of TWDT-D with no resolution limits, and it has been fairly well received by the players, even if some people have attempted to belittle the competition. in my opinion the past two seasons of draft league have been competitive, and there has been a good number of new warbird players stepping up and trying out the ship thanks to the change.

however, keep in mind that I am only strongly considering removing the limits if we are truly getting on Steam, which is still a good possibility, as in the long run this change would immensely help this zone. I prefer looking forward, and while we do have this stigma attached to our zone where most believe that change is bad, and people who make changes want to see the game fail, that is a big load of cow pie with no basis on truth or facts. I would not consider making any changes to the resolution limits if I truly believed this game had no future.

at the very least I will slightly increase the resolution zoom to give teams who do not use third-party voice communication programs a way to fight back as the increased vision would allow the players position better, find their team mates and locating enemies on time, thus promoting more team play and making the game less about luck.

another change worth considering is increasing the spawn radius to lower the chance of players getting spawn killed, even when it's a slim chance to begin with.

[Turban]

Just an abridged version here.

"Hey were going to go ahead and remove resolution limits anyways because we know better than every player ever over 500 polls and 100+ players"

What a joke.

nothing has been removed, and again it's something that I will seriously consider if we want to believe that this game has a future, and also if we want an already stale, downgraded league to start developing again after all these years. there was a long period of time where there was absolutely no resolution limits in TWLD, granted this was in the earlier days of the competition before the golden age, and most seem to have no recollection of that fact.

the limits may not be removed this season. it's still open for discussion, but again the only thing that will push me towards the change is an influx of new players, whether it's through steam or a successful marketing effort.

in the short run, limits should remain to please the current players while there remains a need to make minor changes to the league to lower the advantage some teams gain, and decreasing the random factor of each game with unlucky spawns, in terms of deaths and positioning, and perhaps even strays.

[Rab]

mb, polls aren't 2:1, they're pretty much 1:1
far from conclusive
especially as there's not many votes

The best argument for removing the limit is that we MUST remove it if we expect players from Steam to play this game.

Keep the current resolution limits (1440x900 / 1280x1024) -> excludes over half of Steam users (so is completely fkin stupid option)
Increase the resolution limit (1920x1440) -> excludes ~2% of Steam users
Unlimited -> excludes nobody

Source: http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

[Turban]

if my memory serves me correctly, we had numerous arguments in the past when we removed the resolution limits from TWLJ and TWLB, mostly by the same players who are afraid of any type of change -- for a good reason, given how often these changes have failed in the past -- and some of them even flat out said that it will ruin both leagues. however, as one can easily see, both of these leagues are doing fine and have shown signs of improvement, granted our overall population has continued to slowly drop over the years, and have now became the two most competitive leagues by a large marging in terms of competitiveness. granted, the so-called advantage people assumed players would get is on a much smaller scale in these leagues to even attempt to prove a point.

[Turban]

as per requests made by Ogron and Tiny, and some others, we have added medals to the winners of seasons 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 17 and 18 of TWLM in various categories such as Overall (S5 - S12), TWLM-J/D/B, Betting, and Stock (S12 exclusive). we are now waiting for someone to update the history page, and to save time I have already updated the HTML code so it should be easy to add to the site.

the medals were created by Ogron, and they can only be seen on the profile page of a player -- consider them as personal achievements of sorts, similar to TWEL and Attack Tournament medals. the roster pages will remain exclusive for TWL medals.

[Jones]

well, using res-resizer and 4300+ res is as good as any

[LF]

I don't play wb enough to care either way but I do think removing res limits is a bad idea. Warbird is already the easiest ship in the zone, and it would only be made easier/more boring if people were forced to adjust to R4 becoming the new R1 due to unfairly large resolutions. My 2 cents.

Also adding medals for all this pointless shit like TWDT and TWLM is just plain stupid. If these people so desperately require recognition then put their names on the particular part of the website in which they want to feel special. This is the same level of stupid as Dezmond trying to add "Attack Tournament" medals for an EVENT that I hosted in which like 30 people total participated. I say save the "medals" for TWL only. If you must add medals why not add medals for the winner of each weekend event while we're at it. Equally as important as TWLM and equally participated in/cared about.

Last but not least just a suggestion for TWLB. How about instead of a race to 15 minutes each game, instead just a flat timer of 30:01 minutes? Or even better 40:01 minutes? What I mean is that the game MIGHT end 15:01-15:00 but it could also end 29:30-0:30 or anything in between. Generally speaking 99% of LB games are decided considerably before the timer runs out. To play the full 30 (or 40) every game would see higher kill totals and generally more/longer participation. I can see the downside being once Team A reaches the 15/20 minute mark, that Team B would lose any incentive to give a shit since they have no chance to come away with a W. The solution to that could be that to qualify for playoffs it would NOT be based on W/L record but instead TOTAL FLAG TIME or even use W/L to get into playoffs then seed the teams based on TIME DIFFERENTIAL ONLY. That way even if you can't win that particular game you still have a reason to keep playing hard and getting every second of flag time you can get because it might make a difference between the #4 seed in playoffs and spectating. Probably needs to be discussed a bit but in my head right now it makes sense and seems fun.

[roxxkatt]

mb, polls aren't 2:1, they're pretty much 1:1
far from conclusive
especially as there's not many votes

The best argument for removing the limit is that we MUST remove it if we expect players from Steam to play this game.

a limit of 2048x2048 seems reasonable as well, and fits 99% of the population