The reason that people aren&#039;t &quot;stepping into leadership roles&quot; is twofold. First the IDL doesn&#039;t give them a chance to. Take Nero last season. He wanted to cap again and wasn&#039;t allowed to as I remember. Not that I necessarily want Nero as a captain, but the point stands that IDL doesn&#039;t exactly foster leadership mentality, during the season or in the off season. Second, leadership roles in the IDL suck ass. Ladna has found this out firsthand, I have been a pretty big advocate for IDL and a relatively active supporter of the league with both my time and money. And what, I get criticized for things I&#039;m contributing, Ralph is criticized for trying to make the IDL more competitive with less teams and franchising, Ladna is criticized for putting up an awesome stats interface and site because...it requires all IDL servers use his software. In the IDL leadership equals criticism and hassle with marginal payoff if any. I don&#039;t really like any of you enough to suffer that for another season.<br /><br />Giving new guys a hard time is part of doom from what I&#039;ve seen. It happened to me when I started and happens to most players who are new to our community from what I have seen. I know that I&#039;m one of the people who engages in this hazing but that is because I don&#039;t really feel like it drives off new talent. I mean list the people...Legion, Mistopher...um...Mention? I feel like, first of all, none of those people are new players and none of them have the intelligence to realize that I say the same things to Denny that I say to them. <br /><br />The competitive spirit of this league is dead because over the last few seasons people have been put in their place so soundly they have given up. Xen, Tai, Mantis, DG, and even bones have realized that if you want to win IDL you need to stack teams, take advantage of the gimp captain and be smarter than either myself or Ralphis. Most of them have decided it&#039;s not worth the hassle or are incapable. Both are pretty devastating to the drive of a player in my opinion.<br /><br />Additionally the league probably needs to be a little more forgiving to people like caboose and cha0tix and LB for all their IDL shenanigans and realize that active players who enhance IDL should be given the benefit of the doubt. I feel like IDL would be fun in different formats. The 9 week 3v3 on maps some douches choose has lost it&#039;s appeal to me. I know it&#039;s still a challenge for some people but out of the last three 12 week seasons I can&#039;t even count 5 games I thought were any good for my team. Let&#039;s play 4v4 one week or incorporate SmartCTF maps or start midseason draft back up. Have people go to zdplayers and skulltag and get the people who are active and interested to come play. Draft lottery, forum polling and a serious invective for all captains to take trading more seriously are all needed components our league is lacking. I&#039;ve been on the team that picked last or next to last 3 seasons in a row I think and I&#039;ve not only made playoffs I&#039;ve won a couple times. Some teams don&#039;t need a high draft pick and some teams do. We need a league that recognizes that and does the appropriate thing (see Denny v Ladna, 2009) in those circumstances. <br /><br />The reality we&#039;re in right now is that none of the people involved in IDL right now want to do this. The four most involved people that I can think of are pretty much ready to quit this game because it&#039;s just a bunch of pussies and hassle. I would say that if people want to keep this going they need to start contributing. Step up and captain, start games in #idl, throw out ideas on the forums, bring in new people to the community. From what I can see there won&#039;t be an IDL next season if people don&#039;t start putting forth the effort.