[quote author=Ladna link=topic=173.msg1532#msg1532 date=1266874140]<br />[list]<br />[li]Expanding to 12 teams[/li]<br />[li]Repealing the franchise system[/li]<br />[li]Making the season shorter or longer[/li]<br />[li]Changing from 3v3 to 4v4 (or some other configuration)[/li]<br />[li]Setting up a system to pick the maps for the season, like community voting or something[/li]<br />[li]Banning games that aren&#039;t 3v3 (so 3v2 or 2v2 games aren&#039;t allowed, any team that can&#039;t get 3 players on forfeits, meaning double forfeits are possible)[/li]<br />[/list]<br />[/quote]<br /><br />Well, some of the stuff I&#039;m immediately in favor of is banning games that aren&#039;t 3v3 and community map voting (even though you guys can be pretty dumb, we can also be pretty dumb :) ).&nbsp; The other things are really huge changes that need to be carefully thought out.<br /><br />Regarding number of teams, maybe we could base the number of teams by how many players sign up.&nbsp; I think this season we had around 6-8 free agents (counting LB), which is at least 2 more teams.&nbsp; But then again that means we&#039;re out of options when it comes to players dropping out, etc.&nbsp; On the other hand we could have gone to 5 player teams and made this season 4v4.&nbsp; Of course, changing the number of players in a game changes the way maps are played and thus how they&#039;re selected, so this isn&#039;t as simple as it looks from the start.<br /><br />Another thing I want to talk about re: maps is that there&#039;s a really fine line between maps that are &quot;super offensive&quot; and maps that are &quot;too big&quot; or &quot;standoffs&quot;.&nbsp; You can probably call MAP12 (THIRTY4 MAP13, Charge, Megaarmor, Plasma, etc.) super offensive -- most games go to 5 flags there -- but I guess a lot of people hate it because it&#039;s impossible to defend against a 200/200 runner.&nbsp; I don&#039;t mean to complain, but this puts us in a difficult position when picking maps.&nbsp; If we do open up map voting to the community, this kind of debate is gonna blow up, and players are gonna call each other retards for not understand obvious things about Doom.&nbsp; Then again, maybe that debate is healthy, I don&#039;t know.&nbsp; I do know that when you start thinking about the way maps play and what makes maps &quot;super offensive&quot; or &quot;grinds&quot; or &quot;trick&quot;, it requires a lot of thinking and sometimes even play testing (which the board actually does!).<br /><br />The franchise system is a weird beast.&nbsp; I think it&#039;s produced some really strong teams, and I think that IDL is better for it.&nbsp; On the other hand, it really jews unpopular or unskilled or inexperienced captains: no high quality player wants to blow a season on a captain like that.&nbsp; You can point to FLS and say that if a player of Whiteboy&#039;s caliber wants to play with a player like Ladna, then surely the system works... but that&#039;s probably owing more to White&#039;s sense of fairness and competition.&nbsp; If IDL had its way he&#039;d have been on Shakal&#039;s team and Chaotix wouldn&#039;t be in the league (according to the rules and the way things are supposed to shake out).&nbsp; I realize that this screws players like me, but unless we force players to play for captains they don&#039;t like or don&#039;t want to play for, I don&#039;t see a way around it.&nbsp; Maybe we should just call them pussies and make them play, I don&#039;t know.<br /><br />We did approve multiple/alternate servers for next season.&nbsp; We felt that it was unfair to make such a big change for this season, but next season expect quite a few different servers to choose from.&nbsp; The IDL &amp; server admins will figure out the details, but it should work and be a lot better next season.<br /><br />I know there&#039;s an age-old debate about people who spend their time/money on things in ZDaemon being taken for granted, and I guess on one hand that&#039;s true.&nbsp; But really what kind of person does things so they get thanked - if Nostar and I hadn&#039;t started TotalTrash in Season 4, IDL would&#039;ve been screwed.&nbsp; We both like IDL, so we put a bunch of money into it.&nbsp; JKist wanted to help us out and run some ZDDL servers, so now he&#039;s the sole supporter of TotalTrash.&nbsp; I like stats and I like automation, so I spent a lot of time creating ZDStack and revamping the IDL site.&nbsp; I guess my point is that I do this stuff because it supports things that I like, and if I didn&#039;t do this, IDL at some point would have been screwed.&nbsp; So yeah, I think IDL owes me, Nostar and JKist a big thank you.<br /><br />But I think being taken for granted shows how successful our efforts have been.&nbsp; We&#039;ve been solid enough that people expect that TotalTrash will be around and functioning.&nbsp; The IDL site works well enough that it&#039;s a hub of information for players and, dare I say fans!&nbsp; While I did put in this effort basically for myself (and I expect that Nostar and JKist have done the same), it is gratifying to be so important in the competitive ZD community.&nbsp; <br /><br />So what this all boils down to is that I don&#039;t think that we want to be thanked and worshipped and all that.&nbsp; But on the other hand we don&#039;t owe you guys anything either.&nbsp; When it comes down to it, TotalTrash and IDL.org work the way that we want them to.&nbsp; I have a better connection to TT than any other server set, so there&#039;s no incentive at all for me to play on or run a different server.&nbsp; And while I understand that this isn&#039;t the case for a significant number of players, at the end of the day I don&#039;t care at all.&nbsp; JKist, Nostar and I run TT because it&#039;s beneficial to us and stuff that we care about.&nbsp; If you guys want a different server then you&#039;re welcome to do the same, but it&#039;s not our responsibility to go out of our way to do something that doesn&#039;t benefit us at all.&nbsp; In fact, because I have a disadvantage against some players on non-TT servers, it would actually hurt me to spend time on a non-TT server.&nbsp; Why would I ever do that?<br /><br />But that&#039;s not to say that I&#039;m a big asshole who&#039;s hoarding connection quality.&nbsp; I&#039;m just not going to spend my time &amp; money on servers that make life harder for me.&nbsp; You guys are totally welcome to do so.&nbsp; Beast &amp; Jenova run servers (honestly I haven&#039;t looked at non-IDL servers for a long time, so I don&#039;t even know what&#039;s running anymore) and we&#039;ll probably use them next season.&nbsp; Sorry for making another word-you-to-death post, but I wanted to kind of clear the air regarding servers and TT.&nbsp; I think that anyone who does anything in this community does it for themselves and that&#039;s the way it should be.&nbsp; Otherwise you&#039;re gonna be waiting around for a payoff that won&#039;t, and shouldn&#039;t come.<br /><br />And finally I know there&#039;s been some talk about the board being closed and secretive and pawns and whatever.<br /><br />[size=5][color=red][b]THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TO BE HEARD[/b][/color][/size]<br /><br />Post, OMG post what you think about this stuff.&nbsp; Hopefully this thread explodes to gargantuan size, and we get all sorts of good ideas about ways we can improve IDL.&nbsp; At this point there&#039;s no such thing as a bad idea, so just throw stuff out there; us on the board all worry that we&#039;re out of touch with the player base, so we really want to hear what you think.&nbsp; I mean, I won&#039;t be the one going around saying, &quot;remember that thread back in February where we were asking for ideas and opinions, and you didn&#039;t post anything?&quot;, but if IDL goes a way that you didn&#039;t want it to go and you didn&#039;t at least express a preference here, then you&#039;ll probably feel like you missed a chance to weigh in on IDL and what you think of it.&nbsp; We&#039;d like to hear from captains too, because a lot of IDL rests on their shoulders and we&#039;re always looking for ways to make their lives easier.