I had to take a small break from mapping to read this thread, which unfortunately still doesn&#039;t have many of the &quot;newer&quot; talent posting on it. This means that most people are still not truly being encouraged to be a part of the discussion. Why not use a welcome message whenever you join #idl? Have it say &quot;Welcome to #IDL! Home of the International Doom CTF League&quot; and then a quick link to this thread as a &quot;Latest news: Rules Discussion going on now&quot; addition, or put it in the topic. Or you can put a bot in the channel that lets out a link to the forums every hour or some shit. Just do something so that it&#039;s accessible to all.<br /><br />Now, on to the actual discussion. There are many good reasons to play or not play in the IDL. Personally, the latter makes more sense to me at the moment due to personal circumstances (the major one being my connection quality nowadays), but there&#039;s still plenty to address in this regard.<br /><br />[u][b]I. League Format[/b][/u]<br /><br />The 3v3 with a fourth player still seems reasonable, and by far the best format to play CTF if it can be helped (4v4 is great, but only in a handful of maps). Each player&#039;s contribution to the team in any given game is that much more important when it&#039;s 3v3. With 4v4, you can cover up some deficiencies with raw power (more guns/bodies/obstacles). This format should not change, IMO.<br /><br />What needs to be done away with is the franchise system and the excruciating length of the season. ~3 months is a long time to try and keep motivating yourself to play the game. The longer a season goes, the higher the chances are that there will be scheduling conflicts and so forth. A holiday falling on a match deadline, like Saturday or Sunday has happened before and will keep happening as long as the season drags for 1/4 of the year.<br /><br />[u][b]II. Maps[/b][/u]<br /><br />The maps in this league, and in Doom CTF in general, are pure garbage. If it&#039;s true that &quot;comprehensive&quot; playtesting or discussion is performed prior to making a map official, then I&#039;m afraid the &quot;effort&quot; put into that just doesn&#039;t cut it because the maps always end up playing the same. I could go on and on about what I think constitutes great map design, but I don&#039;t think I really need to (not that much ;)). All I know from personal experience and outside input is that the dynamic and style of a great majority of maps is stale and one-dimensional.<br /><br />What does this have to do with advancing the skill and quality of a competitive league? A lot. I understand that adding new skills to your game takes work, and maybe people just don&#039;t want to work hard. At least with the alleged community-based map voting into the equation next season, people will choose their own fate instead of being made to play in a toilet bowl.<br /><br />An interesting little fact I&#039;ve noticed since starting the SmartCTF project and heavily playtesting it (3v3 with 10+ people rotating between maps and at times for ~2 hours on some nights) is that some of the players named in this thread as being of a &quot;lesser&quot; skill tier have grasped the concept extremely well and are quite good in reality. Don&#039;t get me wrong, the top quality guys still rampage through the maps, but it&#039;s not a guarantee anymore.<br /><br />It&#039;s a great sight when a team that has Roscoe, Legion, or Strangle can beat a team with big names. Maybe it&#039;s just the fact the maps allowed them to exercise their true strengths rather than SSG defense or rocket spam in a corner facing one way for 10+ minutes.<br /><br />[u][b]III. &quot;Politics&quot; - Myth or Real?[/b][/u]<br /><br />Now we come to the part of the discussion that is largely ignored. You want to know why the IDL isn&#039;t attracting as many new players by the boatload? Want to know why it&#039;s still a largely underground/elitist group of players? Yeah, politics. Now now, don&#039;t get your panties in a twist--this is quite simple, so let me explain.<br /><br />No amount of in-game bind or [IDL] tag spamming is going to do much good to get people interested compared to say, two packed-to-the-16-playerlimit servers publicly advertised on the ZD master. Why? Because let&#039;s be frank here, people get on their computers to play ZD and refresh the entire server list and usually go for what&#039;s packed. If someone sees the ridiculous activity and life in the IDL servers on a typical match night, [b]they&#039;ll want to join the server![/b]<br /><br />Why is it that IDL still happens in private and unadvertised servers? Is there a [i]truly[/i] good reason for that? If you say &quot;Oh, so that maybe 2 or 3 guys who were idiots and got themselves banned can play&quot; then I&#039;ll say you&#039;re a moron. That&#039;s a nice notion: Keep a couple guys in at the expense of attracting many more.<br /><br />Now, this isn&#039;t some sort of attack on Ralph, because although we&#039;ve had/have differences on certain things, we&#039;ve been able to work together (IDL coming into existence to begin with is a prime example) for the good of others. However, it strikes me as selfish and counter-intuitive to keep this silly &quot;underground&quot; and secretive crap going. Bottom line is if you want the league to grow and get a good variety of players, this has to change.<br /><br />Ralph doesn&#039;t host servers or the site, so I&#039;m sure it can survive without him absolutely having to make everyone else share his burden. Or as an alternative (because we all love options!), have one of the official servers BE advertised on the master, that way Mr. Vickers and Co. can still be bailed out by everyone else while there&#039;s still *some* form of public visibility for the league on the screens of every ZD addict that refreshes the list countless times a day.<br /><br />That&#039;s really the one glaring thing everyone seems to not want to talk about in terms of &quot;politics.&quot; I&#039;d provide more, but unfortunately, the DE forums are dead (so the many examples of other shenanigans are gone) and I&#039;m getting too old to remember all the details.