[quote=&quot;MassVC&quot;] Fewer Teams?[/quote]<br /><br />I don&#039;t think the issue in this matter is based upon just the number of teams competing in the league. If we have a deep draft, we should absolutely stick with 12 teams. If we have a less-talented draft, we should simply go back to 8. When it boils down to it, it just depends on who signs up. I&#039;m good with 12 if the talent is there.<br /><br />[quote=&quot;MassVC&quot;]Make the best players captain?[/quote]<br /><br />I&#039;ve been quoted several times on saying we shouldn&#039;t allow players who wouldn&#039;t ordinarily make an IDL starting-roster captains, however, I don&#039;t think making the top 8-12 players be captains is the answer either. The reason is because then you&#039;d have to develop some sort of ranking system and a lot of it will become a popularity contest. Out of last season, there were easily 20+ players who could be good enough to cap skill-wise, but since you all think being bad but having great leadership equals great captain, I suppose that&#039;s important too. Either way, I don&#039;t think we should be allowing players to cap who basically end up becoming &quot;coaches&quot; and never actually play; That much should try to be avoided. I do also understand the difficulty of finding dedicated/skilled captains and in short, I&#039;d be more than happy to be a captain again. I just want people to understand if they&#039;re willing to allow me to be captain, my hours will be gay this season - but I&#039;m willing to play earlier games on the weekend (probably not much earlier than 8pm or so though) :p<br /><br />[quote=&quot;MassVC&quot;]Franchising?[/quote]<br /><br />No. We don&#039;t have a dedicated enough community anymore to realistically achieve this. <br /><br />[quote=&quot;MassVC&quot;]A straight draft?[/quote]<br /><br />I&#039;ll be straight to the point here: LEAVE THE DRAFT SYSTEM ALONE - IT&#039;S FINE AS IT IS.<br /><br />Something else to consider:<br /><br />I know we&#039;re not exactly in the state to pick and choose who we want available in the draft but it&#039;s time we start coming down on players who flake on their teams. A captain should be aware that a player has that tendency and might want to avoid them but if the talent is there, the risk could pay off with a very healthy reward. I&#039;m tired of hearing people whine and bitch and say it&#039;s 100% a captains fault if they take a player who tends to do that: yes, it is their fault they picked that player but when a player is given the info ON THE SITE when the GAME IS SCHEDULED and the captain MAKES AN ATTEMPT to contact them and make them AWARE, then that is not their fault. I&#039;m not saying any as of now should be punished for this but if it&#039;s to happen next season, a captain should have a say-so in it. Instead of trading that player away for no-showing, he should have the right to deactivate that player with The Commissioner&#039;s approval for the entire season. Naturally this would be handled case-by-case. Just a thought though.<br /><br />The other thing is with rules. I won&#039;t argue with Ralphis, the trade between EBL and SPE was totally illegal by the rules currently enforced. However, I was never trying to say this was a case of defining &quot;a trade&quot; because we all fucking know what it is. Here&#039;s my logic: you idiots changed the draft order two days before the draft (and even then the changed orders made absolutely zero sense) so I figure since we&#039;re all about changing long-term IDL rules on the fly, why not get rid of that stupid unwritten rule that says you&#039;re only allowed 3 trades per season as well as the rule stating you can only trade once a week. So guess what, I pushed for it and it just so happens the description I used for wanting the trade became about defining &quot;what a trade is&quot; when all I was saying was change the current rule because it&#039;s dumb. I do understand why it&#039;s in place but I think at the very least, we should make some sort of addition at the trade deadline that allows a player to make multiple trades in that final week or something along those lines. If the board and Bones are serious about considering this, I&#039;d be more than happy to offer more suggestions on how that rule could be modified.&nbsp; <br /><br />Nobody is arguing that this was one of the IDL&#039;s tougher seasons. We had a ton of forfeits, sloppy games, disorganized teams and witnessed the IDL Bible of Rules and Contents get shredded. But after talking with guys like Mike about this for hours at a time, I&#039;ve come to accept that it was still a successful season. We still had a good masterbowl, guys like Killforce and Mobius got playing-time they probably wouldn&#039;t have seen if we bumped back down to 8 teams, Chewy came back and overall it still functioned. Bones could have easily said fuck it and quit, leaving the IDL to basically die but he didn&#039;t. It was a harsh lesson learned for Bones as well as the rest of us but I think this Winter season could be good if had some more veterans step up and play again. But I&#039;m realistic as well, people do have lives and certain things before DooM come first. I&#039;m hoping we get more sign-ups and more veterans back. The truth is guys, I think aside from a few tweaks in the rules and the possible addition of an adjustable 8-12 team league depending on the sign-ups, the IDL structure is fine. There&#039;s no need to change the draft system, there&#039;s no need to rank captains and there&#039;s no need to ask Rott to have sex with himself on live T.V.<br />Long story short: the IDL isn&#039;t in need of any drastic changes. <br />We just need to do a better job of making sure we gets games played and not be so quick to make a team forfeit, ENFORCE DEMOS and work with each other to make this thing work. That&#039;s really all I can say.<br /><br />So, I&#039;ll say this in closing:<br /><br />DooM is in a tough spot right now. It&#039;s not dying but it&#039;s not exactly alive and kicking as some of us older guys can remember how it used to be. We have to make the most of what we have and hope we get more older guys to come back, too. I don&#039;t think there&#039;s anything wrong with us going into public ZDaemon or Skulltag servers and recruiting guys. If it can get one guy interested and possibly drafted, it has paid off. LB got me to come back from the brink of quitting again after being inactive for a year to give IDL a try and with my busy schedule, I&#039;ve still managed to find time for it because it&#039;s awesome. I&#039;m willing to go to pub servers and do it and I hope you guys are, too. Advertising doesn&#039;t hurt, if Kilgore gets mad about it - oh well. Just don&#039;t do it openly in IRC or on the ZD Forums if you&#039;re afraid of what could happen. So yeah Mass, that&#039;s how I feel.&nbsp; <br />