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The random thoughts of a bored worker during his lunchbreak 050414
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Things have been rather quiet on the coverage front recently so I thought I?d write a little piece about future NQR projects and what?s going on in the NQR HQ.
Most of you will know about our 2 ?new? projects. Firstly, we?ve got NQR North America (site). Def & co are running a 10-team league for North American teams. It?s nice to see the Yanks and Canucks getting their 4on4 fix without having to play whining Euros on UK servers for a change. There are even some brave European players mucking in with high pings to help the North American scene, such as Purity, HangTime and Sassa. One non-North American that has caught my eye however has to be Zip from the Confederacy team. Zip is a Brazilian and has been playing with 150ms in the tournament. Despite this significant handicap he holds #3 position in the overall fragrank with an impressive average of 89 frags. It?s a shame that we will unlikely see him pit his wits against the likes of Dag and Griffin with 13ms on both sides.
The second new project is the NQR Ladder (site). The ladder was conceived by myself as a replacement for the long-departed AdMortem. For those who don?t recall, AdM was a ladder site designed and overseen by Akke, Slime & Dag, and it was an enormous success. The NQR Ladder aims to pick up where AdM left off, and so far it has been going well. Activity is high, with several games being played every day and many different maps being tried out. Our coding genius, aap, is currently working on a map stats page that will present us with some hopefully very useful information on what maps are popular.
Apollyon recently posted an interesting article on the Smackdown website about him hating the divisional structure. NQR has also come under fire this season due to inactivity. I can accept that perhaps the current ?conference? structure does not help remedy situations where clans are idling, but I think it is a little trite to blame the league for idling clans. Last season was on the whole very succesful and divisions 2-4 were very active, with 1 & 5 not far behind.
Some are claiming that divisions like 3 & 6 are idle because of the conference structure. But that doesn?t make much sense to me, because divisions 4 & 5 are doing OK. People will point to division 2 being the most active, but even that is behind schedule in terms of fixtures, and if the structure is the reason for the activitiy, why is division 1 lagging behind so much? It?s true that division 1 has always been less active, but last season division 1 was a lot more active at this stage of the campaign.
Whatever the reasons for lower activity and fewer games, it?s clear that the NQR crew will need to carefully consider the structure for NQR9. Perhaps a return to straight divisions could be on the cards; with divisions of (for example) 12 teams, we could see a good number of games and divisions not being too affected by idle clans. On the other hand, there would be more divisions (probably something like 8) and the scope for misplacing teams would be higher than it is now.
One possibility that has occurred to me would be that all clans wishing to play in NQR8 that hadn?t participated the season before should have to register with the ladder site and play a certain number of games to prove that they are active enough to compete. Some clans are certainly taking the mickey with their inactivity this season and I can?t think of too many other alternatives to ensuring that we only get clans who are serious about playing their games.
Within a couple of months it is inevitable that discussions will begin over the NQR9 map pool. Speaking as a player, I am really not that fond of this season?s pool. I do like TB3 and as a purist I think those maps offer the best gameplay for 4on4. However, variety is the spice of life and I enjoy the challenge proffered by other maps. E2M2 bores the pants off me with its linear style and I would like to see E2M2TDM modified slightly and put back into the pool if we are to keep E2M2 at all. Certain things about the TDM version are certainly better; lower water level, extra entrance to quad, YA placement etc, but I did not like the fact that RA was so chaotic with the lift up there (although the lower entrance to that area is a good idea) nor the fact that you were effectively trapped in YA/RL area if enemy had quad ? there needs to be a route out from YA/RL towards the water/mega as in the ID version.
A 7 map pool would not be out of the question. It would of course require teams to eliminate two maps each for decider situations but it would allow us to offer a nice mix of TB3, CMT3 & CMT4, an id map (E3M7?) and a newwer custom like Schloss, Grim or one of Link?s TDM maps. When it comes to deciding all of this, I think the ladder?s map stats will be very useful indeed. So please, I encourage all clans to try out the TDM maps as well as CMT1, 2 and 5 and give us feedback: we want to know what maps should be considered for the next season.
Next season should also see the new website at last. Aap has come on board after his excellent work coding the ladder site and our plan is to have the site ready for the Summer Cup so we can do a public beta test before NQR9. Speaking of the Summer Cup, we are open to ideas and suggestions as to how we should run it. Last year?s was plagued with walkovers and inactivity, so a straight knock-out does not seem like such a good idea. The idea with which I am toying at the moment is to have a Champions League-style group stage followed by smaller playoffs (like Smackdown but with smaller groups, i.e. 4/5 teams). This would allow allt eams to play a few matches and then hopefully the more active teams would be able to play in the playoffs for glory.
Hopefully I will be able to write some coverage of NQR8 in the coming days, watch this space as they say. Remember, the NQR crew always welcomes feedback on the league providing it is presented in a thoughtful and constructive manner. We want to know what you think needs to be done to improve and build on the biggest league in Europe.
Peace out and happy fragging!
//gaz
25 comments |
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i dont think div4(a) is doing so ok.. there was 8 games for 7 weeks first.. okay
enough, but nbb drops out first week. so 7 games in 7 weeks. we play by the plan
and ask poff to arrange our game and they say they're gonna drop or whatever not
arraging it anyway.. so 6 games in 7 weeks. then looking at other clans, killaz
in suits - 2 lost games in 5 weeks and both wo. so i guess it's 5 games in 7
weeks for us.
and as for pracs or ladder, they are not as interesting as
official nqrgames and therefor not played with much interest if played at all.
so i blame nqr for making us
inactive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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Last season was perfect indeed but this season something is wrong. One thing
that was not mentioned yet is that it started late. Too late i think. After the
success most players were eager to proceed with the next season almost outright
but NQR just would not start for weeks. We would see much more activity if it
had started 3-4 weeks earlier when people were more motivated. Well, let's see
what next season brings. In the end it is the players and teams that are
inactive. A league might not be perfect but we cant blame inactivity on the
leagues' only.
Oh and i said that i hate what the division idea has turned
into in some people's minds not the idea itself.
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| gaz - .*** |
050414 @ 15:35:07 |
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We couldn't have started any earlier. Firstly we had to wait until the end of
January for the playoffs to be finished and then we had to prepare for the new
season. We were lucky to start when we did. |
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| andy - .*** |
050414 @ 16:32:29 |
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gaz sucks!!!! |
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isnt something wrong when ppl ask for ladder game and then state the preferred
division? :)
We (thangodrodrim) have played 2 games vs ssc and play and
lost both, but i see the ladder as a way to practice cmt3 and e2m2 for the
coming nqr games |
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| strife - .*** |
050414 @ 23:52:29 |
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Mistakes were obviously made prior to this season, hence the lack of activity.
My very personal opinion is that it is because of the mappool. Removing CMT4 was
a huge mistake and this might kill the scene all together. Another factor was
the autotook-stuff, I think. Ppl dont like changing their configs. The ladder
seems like a good idea and maybe that is how the QW-scene will look in the
future... whats left of it anyway. Overall activity seems to have hit
rock-bottom. |
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| fix - .*** |
050415 @ 00:00:37 |
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gestapo shit might have took some of the players yes..atleast we are playing
totaly cheat free now! or are we...clocks and everything :# |
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| strife - .*** |
050415 @ 00:26:47 |
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Always nice to replace one cheat with another. |
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| pg - .*** |
050415 @ 01:07:00 |
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Bagheera is also playing in NQR NA. Next season I expect more international
players. Hopefully more from Brazil. ;) Who could not love their laughs...
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| sassa - .*** |
050415 @ 02:03:12 |
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"On the other hand, there would be more divisions (probably something like 8)
and the scope for misplacing teams would be higher than it is
now."
>its still not good with 8 divs.. 5-6 is good aslong as you
have atleast 12 teams in each div.. if there are more teams then make
conference! dont make another div just because there are more clans.. clans will
have more teams to play praccs vs because of the "no I will not play div2 they
are too good etc"
u dont wanna see any ".spam div7-8," that contains 24
teams.. rather have ".spam div4-5" that contains 2 conferance in each div = 12x4
teams, see my point?
"A 7 map pool would not be out of the question."
>tb3+cmt3 seems all good at the moment.. cmt4 sure is not a good
4on4 map, we should intruduce schloss/grim rather than take that one in! imo
dont make the map pool bigger than 5... if u do that then do as the ladder and
take all maps in and everyone can choose their own homemap? just my
thoughts!
"One possibility that has occurred to me would be that all
clans wishing to play in NQR8 that hadn?t participated the season before should
have to register with the ladder site and play a certain number of games to
prove that they are active enough to compete."
>Best idea so far!!
keep em comin!
Gaz wrote: "We couldn't have started any earlier.
Firstly we had to wait until the end of January for the playoffs to be finished
"
>Well dont make the playoffs that long! make them
shorter
nice article and I like alot of the new ideas!! GL! |
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| ananen - .*** |
050415 @ 04:26:12 |
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(We want to know what you think needs to be done to improve and build on the
biggest league in Europe.)
Good start would be that you try to get brains to
every admin. ? or kick the most nerdiest nolifers out. Listen to ppl before
making judgement etc.
Try going out atleast 2 days a day, u know fresh air?
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i think there is lots of activity though, just check out the ladder! |
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Activity down = World of Warcraft.
Although it should start to get
better now that many are reaching max level. |
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| fix - .*** |
050415 @ 10:33:32 |
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agreed max, WoW has added its own spice to this soup. |
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| gaz - .*** |
050415 @ 10:43:25 |
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ananen I don't think you can call us no lifers when you are making troll posts
on the internet at 4 o'clock in the morning :D |
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| Link - .*** |
050415 @ 13:22:30 |
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Ultimatly, in the end, you will end up with what I have suggested all the time.
Your problem is that you need to find this out for yourself, before you
understand it. I am not gonna say I told you so, coz that really is a waste of
time :) |
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| Link - .*** |
050415 @ 13:26:49 |
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And one more thing, about maps: The only difference between e3m7 and e3m7tdm is
that you will not get an easy map lock, because of the 2 new "escape" routes. We
all know why clans like SSC and GO etc DO NOT want e3m7tdm: because their
maplock-rapes wont be as hard. There is no way in hell you will get acceptance
for e3m7. This is why e3m7tdm was made. Kind of ironic how the e3m7 clans do not
want e3m7 to be more popular, by playing e3m7tdm instead: They want rapes. Sad. |
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| sassa - .*** |
050415 @ 15:22:49 |
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Link, my old clan Fnu liked e3m7TDM and trust me, we LOVED e3m7!! |
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| gaz - .*** |
050415 @ 17:28:40 |
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Link who actually made the change to the TDM maps? Any chance of getting an
E2M2TDMb? I'd also like to see an E3M1TDM to test out in the ladder :D |
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| sassa - .*** |
050416 @ 14:12:24 |
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you shouldnt change e2m2tdm!!
its good as it is! |
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| Link - .*** |
050416 @ 15:28:11 |
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I made the designs, Qurnel did the work (Zaka did e1m3tdm). Open a forum thread
about what to change on it, so that all those who knows the map (and like it)
can give som feedback: Start a healthy debate ;) |
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| mushi - .*** |
050416 @ 22:03:12 |
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maps: not allowing CMT4 was a mistake. the scene needs 1/2 more maps that are
completly acceptable by the scene; and i think remaking the tdm versions of some
maps could be the answer.
activity: i think there are divs with very
few clans :( if some clans go idle that kinda ruins the div, with the avalanche
effect.
new rules: now that the season is at mature state, Ii totally
AGREE with the rj scripts blocked and auto tooks disabled. Admins did well to
firmly say NO! congrats
just my thoughts.. |
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| ocoini - .*** |
050419 @ 00:38:45 |
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tb3 in div1, sad.. :( |
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| lavos - .*** |
050419 @ 08:17:21 |
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"I think the ladder?s map stats will be very useful indeed"
If u will use
ladders map stats, when u are going to decide maps for nqr9, plz remember that
SSC is the only reason why e3m7 is popular at those stats :)
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| gaz - .*** |
050420 @ 12:37:29 |
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That's why we have the "Most played by these clans:" stats as well :) |
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