Digital Paintball League has begun!

[Fryth]

http://www.fryth.com/dpl/

It's finally off the ground.

[RoyalBlood]

Ok ill just say this.  As much as everyone would like a lenient rules-free league, you need some strict rules for it to work without tons of conflicts.  For instance, if a clan doesn't have enough to play on the agreed upon date/time and didnt reschedule at least 24 hours ahead of time, they should be required to play shorthanded (provided they stay above 3) or forfeit.  This may sound strict, but really this is only to keep it fair for everyone.  If a clan can't accept and follow this, then they probably shouldn't bother joining the league to begin with.  Some clans are smaller and just want to play for fun and thats cool, but you cant be detrimental to the entire league and ruin everyone elses day just cuz you want to be included.  You follow?

The more we focus on those types of situations that could arise and have a plan for them now, the smoother it will run and ultimately the more meaningful and fun the league will be.

Also a map list (or at least a unaccepted map list) is a MUST.  This is easily the biggest source of conflicts and imbalance between clans and it would be wise to not make it the biggest source of conflict and imbalance in the league as well.

[beaver]

/me is stoked

[Eiii]

great...now i'm looking for a clan again.

[Fryth]

The rules are still being worked on, and I welcome suggestions.

Royal, I agree that the league needs structure. I simply don't want to provide too much structure. Rules about deadlines and forfeits are a good idea. Banning maps like arctic is a little touchier.

[RoyalBlood]

Basically, if you look at your rules page as it stands now, the entire first paragraph is flawed and Ill tell you why.

The league is here to facilitate matches played by the clans. As such, we are not here to impose a myriad of restrictions which WE think will make the league fun and balanced.

Right away you are lowering the quality of the league.  The league should be what you (or we, cuz I'm helping right?   ) think is fair and balanced.  Hopefully fun too, but if its fair and balanced that should take care of fun as well.  Thats not to say that you should say "You MUST do this, you MUST do that, you MUST NOT do this, etc", but at the same time you shouldn't let the rules be ran by the clans.  If you want every clan to have a say, everyone vote and form rules and restrictions before the league starts, not on a match-to-match basis.

DP clans have been matching for a long time and basically know what to do.

If you have actually played matches against most of the clans that play these days, you would know that this isn't true.  Clans know how to play, but most don't know how to properly match.  I constantly have clans asking me for 2v2 matches.  You need to have a bunch of rules (not really rules but just guidelines) for matching just to make sure everyone is on the same page.  This will mostly be common-sense that everyone should know and follow already, such as only one team joining their color and then the other team joins after everyone from the first team joins.  Everyone should know that already, but you will be surprised how many clans don't.  And thats not really a rule, its just something that makes matching more organized and run smoothly.

There are a few rules, such as minimum team size and map restrictions which we think are absolutely necessary.

You absolutely need rules dealing with format, but you also need rules that ensure competitive balance.  And thats where I think most clans/people don't regularly follow in non-league matching and don't even comprehend or understand to begin with.  Things like regulated maps will help to keep matches fair and balanced.  If each match, which is weighted equally, are unbalanced because each one is played completely differently, then you don't really have a league.  Its more just a ranking system and you might as well just run a ladder instead.

Otherwise, it is up to the clans themselves to play fair and balanced and have fun.

Again, if you leave it up to the clans themselves, it probably won't actually happen.  There will always be the clan that tries to bend the rules towards their favor.  The more you leave it up to the clans the more conflicts will arise.  And even if both clans completely agree to every stipulation in their match and both feel it was completely fair and balanced, that does not necessarily mean its fair and balanced with the rest of the matches in the league, which is the purpose of the league in the first place.

If a clan is found to be disruptive, it will be removed.

Nothing I can find wrong here, its the only thing in this paragraph that is right    But seriously, the only thing you need to be careful with is to not be too lenient on this.  Of course you also don't want to jump the gun and kick a clan out for some small and minor disruption.  If you outline specific and thorough rules to begin with, this will make it easier for clans to know how to act and what will or won't get them in trouble.  Then they will have no right to complain if they screw up.

[RoyalBlood]

Apparently my post was too long, so I had to cut it into two parts, lol  

Basically you want specific and thorough rules, restrictions, guidelines, ettiquite, etc.  Dont assume anything.  What you think everyone will know or follow already might not be true.  Of course no one wants any nit-picky rules and restrictions, but you gotta have every areas covered.

Also everyone needs to realize that if anyone doesn't like the rules or thinks they are too complex or whatever, they dont have to participate.  We aren't forcing them to play a certain way, we are just enforcing a fair and competively balanced system to ensure that every match has equal importance and significiance to each other.  Otherwise the league is meaningless.

Please, PLEASE, don't half-ass this.  Dirtytaco, Oddjob, and I were talking about a month ago about doing this and having it organized and sponsored by Prozak, Smurf, and DOM, since we were the only real clans of significance at the time.  Just the timing didn't seem right yet.  So if you think the timing is right now or at least you want to try it out, sort of like a test run, then I suggest you also us help organize it with you, assuming the other two still want to help.  I know I do.  I think a test run of a league is a great idea and I had been thinking of doing that myself.  The only reason I didn't push for it was because FourthX wanted to help and he suggested we wait a while till he got his servers up and running.  There are more servers out there now though, so we can still do it.  But we should take this league seriously so that we can keep doing seasons.  Which is another reason it should be organized by a group of people, so that it keeps going even if certain people might lose interest in it.  Also the better the league runs, that might help boost clanning activity and help the scene grow.  And finally, we can teach these newbies or lazy old-school players how to properly match and maybe it will stick in non-league matches for some clans, which would make the clanning scene all the more better.  And thats always a good thing.

[Blitz]

"As such, we are not here to impose a myriad of restrictions." I belive, for the most part, that this is a good idea. Too much structure could cause lack of participation, given the current status of the community.

[RoyalBlood]

Agreed, but if you have too little structure, you leave yourself open for potential confusion and problems.  So its important to have enough rules and structure to make the league run smoothly and with as few problems and confusion as possible, but without overburdening players with so many that they are afraid to participate.

But I had an idea for the league (whoever is actually doing it.)  Actually it's not my idea, Jballz came up with it a few months ago and I just revisited it today.  Here is what he posted originally.  

Which brings me to another point: there should be a specific set of DP League maps. Since the point of the league is for CLANS, ie, TEAMS, to compete, the matches should be on maps that encourage large teamwork: pforest, castle, etc. Then, we could have specific maps for each week.

For example, week 1: map1, map2 week2: map3, map4. Then the maps can repeat after a few weeks. Or, we could have a specific bin of maps that teams can choose from in matches - however, teams cannot choose the same map twice in a row for their map (merely in an effort to keep the teams more fair - if a team knows a map really well and can rock it, they shouldn't be able to play it every week - only every other week). The tiebreaker map could be handled the same way, I suppose.

This is an interesting idea for the sake of competitive balance and fairness.  It would depend on if we could agree on enough standard maps to use for the entire season.  But it would certaintly eliminate any potential cheapness or unfair play issues cause everyone would be playing the same thing.