I have a couple of points, but I wanted to start off by saying<br /><br />[center][b][size=7]THANK YOU[/size][/b][/center]<br /><br />Good lord thank you.&nbsp; We deeply appreciate players and community members willing to volunteer their money &amp; expertise by hosting servers for us.<br /><br />[hr]<br /><br />[size=5][b]Stability[/b][/size]<br /><br />I groan so loudly when I hear this.&nbsp; TT has hosted IDL for [b][u]YEARS[/u][/b].&nbsp; Montreal has hosted a handful of PCTF games.&nbsp; You really can&#039;t compare stability at all until more games are played.&nbsp; &quot;Oh I connected and didn&#039;t spawn into a wall, woo&quot;.&nbsp; I&#039;ve personally had connection problems on Montreal, and I know a ton of other players have too.&nbsp; It turns out ZDaemon is just a piece of shit, and the Internet is a cruel, harsh wasteland that devours packets like LB devours dollars coated in chocolate syrup and stripper juice.<br /><br />[size=5][b]Placebo Effect[/b][/size]<br /><br />I&#039;m actually willing to bet one... [b]MILLION[/b] dollars that there is a huge placebo effect and confirmation bias happening with regard to Montreal&#039;s connection quality for two reasons:<br /><br />[size=4][b]You need a double-blind study[/b][/size]<br /><br />The only way to compensate for confirmation bias and placebo effect is to conduct a double-blind study.&nbsp; This is how real trials are run.&nbsp; No one will do this, therefore no one will ever prove me wrong.<br /><br />[size=4][b]This is pretty much the definition of confirmation bias[/b][/size]<br /><br />&quot;God I hate TT, any server would be better.&nbsp; Oh look another server.&nbsp; Hey, this is better!&quot;<br /><br />::)<br /><br />[size=5][b]Real-World Results vs. Geographic Parity[/b][/size]<br /><br />It&#039;s extremely easy to game &quot;real-world results&quot;.&nbsp; I don&#039;t deny that for some players it&#039;s easy to guess what their best server will be:<br /><br />&nbsp; - mikehail: hates east coast servers<br />&nbsp; - xenaero: gets raped by TT sometimes<br />&nbsp; - mantis-x: whines about TT whenever he gets a chance<br />&nbsp; - euros: hate TT (and freedom)<br /><br />But what about MassVC?&nbsp; What about Prime?&nbsp; What about Reckless, Doomguy, Rust, Saber, Blair, Dev, Gilga, Oath, X-Ray, Dr_Noob, Armour, Climhazzard, Shakal, Higgs, Junior, Xyltol, Killforce and Legion?&nbsp; These are all top-3 players, and I don&#039;t even know where half of them live, let alone what their connection quality to TT and Montreal are like.&nbsp; I certainly am not going to Sherlock Holmes their connections to try and guess when they are torrenting and when they aren&#039;t, and I don&#039;t believe that a board that can&#039;t even fill mike&#039;s board seat this century will do it either.<br /><br />So while I agree in principle (that figuring out where people live and making a map sucks) I don&#039;t see a different workable solution.&nbsp; The current system of &quot;please host servers for IDL&quot; and &quot;if both captains agree they may use a non-default server&quot; is really as well as we can do.<br /><br />[size=5][b]Shenanigans[/b][/size]<br /><br />I know this isn&#039;t really an issue, but I wanted to say this as a PSA.<br /><br />IDL has seen a lot of new faces over the last couple of seasons, and these new players have been privileged to play in the era of [b][u]NO SERVER DISPUTES EVER[/u][/b] (along with other huge improvements made to IDL since Season I - IDL is ever evolving for the better).&nbsp; So it may seem silly that teams can&#039;t choose to use a different server if a player&#039;s lagging out, or that there has to be a default server, but this is to prevent one team from jewing another team.&nbsp; Imagine:<br /><br />&quot;&lt;RussianDumbass&gt; hey Nostar, I know we agreed to play on TT, but I am pinging *** to it.&nbsp; Let&#039;s play on Montreal&quot;<br /><br />TurSKA is fucked less on Montreal, so this is something Rus could do to try and force the game to be played there, and it&#039;s precisely why IDL has no &quot;fallback if a player is pinging&quot; rule.<br /><br />These things are in the interest of fairness, and they go a long way towards protecting teams and ensuring that IDL maintains its competitive credibility.