A whole new direction for CAL.

Personally i think CAL should start looking at this game as a whole. Thus CAL should appeal to everyone that plays this game. Thus CAL should have a CO OP league. With all 78 maps, and then CAL should have a Surfing League. THEN CAL should have a SHELLSHOCK league for those guys.

plz discuss





-NOOB 1st DAY LOLOL HAHAH

that's ridiculous :|

ya and we can just use pro-mod for those bhopping elitists.

or rather the ppl that need pro to bhop

or rather the ppl that need pro to bhop ;)

k-os

Personally i think CAL should start looking at this game as a whole. Thus CAL should appeal to everyone that plays this game. Thus CAL should have a CO OP league. With all 78 maps, and then CAL should have a Surfing League. THEN CAL should have a SHELLSHOCK league for those guys.

plz discuss



-NOOB 1st DAY LOLOL HAHAH

i actually 100% agree here. this would be one way to draw a lot of ppl to CAL. just because most of us dont play that style of HL2dm doesnt mean it's not popular.

Admins, need more of them for anything like this to happen. People wanted a killbox league, but there is no one willing to admin it.

ive always thought a cal free for all leage would be awesome

ive always thought a cal free for all leage would be awesome

No idea how you would even determine match ups with this. Also determining seed would be one hell of a lot of work for the admin. The CAL sytem has no way of reporting such a thing in terms of which players are 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc in a match or round. Also how you do would greatly depend on who else is in the match so there would be a huge randomess to it. In short its not really possible to run a statistically sound FFA league. It would be just like playing in a FFA pub.

ive always thought a cal free for all leage would be awesome

No idea how you would even determine match ups with this. Also determining seed would be one hell of a lot of work for the admin. The CAL sytem has no way of reporting such a thing in terms of which players are 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc in a match or round. Also how you do would greatly depend on who else is in the match so there would be a huge randomess to it. In short its not really possible to run a statistically sound FFA league. It would be just like playing in a FFA pub.

yah. it would be like who i best in a pub. it would be fun atleast

Like Para said, CAL becomes what Admin and players make it, not the other way around. The success of CAL and Warzone really comes down the people that make it actually work.
I would love to play in a killbox league, thank you.

WHO ARE YOU

OMG Phantom......you can't tell? ROFLMAO!

The misconception that there is no Killbox League because there are no people who are willing to admin it should stop. It is preposterous, and relies on an occurrence, maybe two. .
I’ll try to explain myself without sounding personal because I’m not. I see this as a phenomenon. Not a conspiracy.

Killbox players shun CAL’s society. Period. They don’t like it because it doesn’t like them. People who advance in movement enter a society that not only looks at other game styles as inferior to theirs but also names itself a “Leet” society. ..of “leet” players. An Elite. Better than others. I’m not saying there are evil people here on in CAL but unavoidably, people get easily sucked into this feeling of being better than others. Even if they don’t have anything against killbox and even regular killbox servers (wink wink) they still love it and prefer not to argue about it. Not really. Even if they don’t personally think they’re better than other for the most part people avoid conflict and don’t stand up to what they believe. Standing up for what you believe means more than words in forums or voting in forum polls. It means sometimes risking losing someone’s approval. This is human and even loveble but still, resulting from that is that things stay as they are as long as those in power remain in their own mindset and others leave it alone.

No admin here on in CAL will openly say “Killbox is inferior – we are the shit” but that doesn’t mean this way of thinking doesn’t exist. It does. And it’s well known.

Good people, real talented people, not by any means bad guys find themselves entering a society which more than anything resembles a College Frat. I mean this lovingly and not with scorn. But with criticism.
This is human nature and is not an evil thing. But if one wants to know why there is no KB league in CAL, or a KB (or CO-OP, or CTF or wth ever) section on this forum they should understand that unspoken “code” that is part of HL2DM CAL society's mindset (or L33ts as it were) does not allow it. Many won't like hearing this because it says something about them. but where you're done flamming ..after a while, you'll move on to another thread and it will still be true.

There are great many Low-G clans out there who don’t need to defend their performance as admins or abilities as adults in that respect.
There are killbox leagues out there also. One..maybe two. .


val

Val, as you know I personally dont like Kill boxes and especially I dont like low grav. I have and do play both on occasion, but it is rare. I would personally never stand in the way of a KB league, but I wont admin one either as my hands are already full with what I am doing. In the KB community, like in the classical style map community there are differences of opinion regarding what is considered a good map and what is not. I personally would like to see a KB league get started because I do think there could be enough people willing to play it to make at least a 1v1 kb league work. Would I be one of those people, probably not. I also think that there is enough variety of maps (thanks in large part to you) that we could find enough maps of sufficient design variety to make a league interesting every week and not the same old classic kb map that we have seen change only in color or a few props here and there but basically remained the same in overall design. I have not seen anyone step forward yet and say "I will be willing to admin such a league" Correct me if I am wrong, you didnt apply did you?

i belive the reasons for that are clearly explained in my post.
let's move away from persons and look if you will at the problem.

...or a KB (or CO-OP, or CTF or wth ever) section on this forum they should understand that unspoken “code” that is part of HL2DM CAL society's mindset (or L33ts as it were) does not allow it. Many won't like hearing this because it says something about them.

You could not be more wrong on this point. The reason no Killbox, ctf, or co-op section exists
in these forums is because I wanted to unify the community and not segregate it. I worded our site philosophy very carefully to ensure it encompassed this basic principle:

"HL2DMU is designed for all players with a good attitude, regardless of clan affiliation, skill level, play-style preference, and reputation."

I don't know how many times I have to reiterate this. I am also a killbox player and supporter. Go ask KBH how long I have been fragging with them. Ask yourself why I have been trying to get a killbox map pack finished for the site (the site Official working on it is MIA unfortunately, so it never got completed). Ask yourself why I have invited killbox players here to the site, and why I have killbox players as Officials also. I may not be a "killbox only" player, but to imply that there is an unspoken "code" in place here at DMU is simply ridiculous.

I will say it yet again: All hl2dm players are welcome here. We endorse freedom of speech so expect opinions contrary to your own, plus do not take them to be the opinion of the site. If you want to know where DMU stands on an issue, read our mission, objectives and philosophy please...

nowhere in my post did i personally attack or pointed anyone but simply described a phenomenon as i see it.
I think the U was built and is maintained still with the best intentions in mind. the problem in my eyes is not the U or how it's run.
so again to make it clearer for others who might read my post as personal or insinuative - it isn't. it is rather direct in talking about a phenomenon, a behavior, a state of mind.

I only meant it as a question, I sincerely dont recall. It was not an accusation or meant to flame you. I remember hearing that someone had said they would admin it, but I dont recall who, I guess I thought it might be you.

There must be more to this than I am aware of, because I know quite a few players that do play Killbox and there is that steam group with over 100 people in it so I figured that it was going to happen in the next season. Then it just kinda died.

BTW the "unspoken code" i related to a Society and not to the University in my post

Fair enough, and I am only clarifying the part that says that such a code is the reason there is no killbox section on these forums specifically, which is not true.

personally i dont think valar's post could have been more accurate. he is absolutely right. from my stand point most ppl that are avid CAL players, and by coincidence or not, are the ones that post here, look down on KB maps. but, with that being said, everybody has their own likes and dislikes as far as maps and playing styles go. i personally enjoy playing on EYE servers and listening to music while i play. i dont see how a KB section of CAL would be any different to govern then the normal section. I told Para. b4 i believe CAL should have many divisions for HL2dm. BUT, she is right in saying those low grav players need to step up and be willing to admin them.

I think the big reason most CAL players dont like KB/low grav maps is because it tends to take the movement part of the game out. you really cant bhop in low or semi low grav servers. also the strategy is totally different. BUT that still doesnt mean that that style shouldnt have a place in CAL.

How does a general tendency towards CAL DM play or even an underlying snobbery against Killboxes stop a Killbox league from happening in CAL? I don't understand the points made. If approval and participation of the larger group of DMU players here is required for a CAL Killbox league to thrive, it probably WON'T happen. That still does not explain why a Killbox league doesn't get off the ground.
If there were enough people and clans involved, no amount of High-Hattish vanilla DM superiority complex could stop it.
Its like supply and demand. There is a market or need, therefore, a service or product fills it.

The only coop map that I like is the 2fort version.

from a perspective from someone who used to only play killboxes adn logged many many hours on teh kbh/tsgk servers and then was encouraged to play in CAL and having 2 less than stellar seaons @
1v1
1 real win vs a cs player who quti after losing first round.
3 ffw yay more cs playrs.
5 or 6 pummellings. i still had fun.

and my first 4v4(wRw2 frankenstien team) here is my thoughts.

i agree there is an underlying attitude of players (in CAL or just in other servers) who dismiss the kill box as an aim only style of play, that is somehow inferior b/c there is less strategy and movement skill required.

i've learned that to try to convince people that they're wrong is maybe the most difficult thing in this life to do. or maybe not even wrong, but that there are people who see things different then they do.

people hold on to their convictions like pinless grenades.
i say let go and jihad the fuck out of us all
i encourage people to have a little fun once in a while, play 1v1's or team matches to test your limits.
allowing your opinions of what anyone else is doing can make you lose focuse on your own game.
finding that thing about this game that makes YOU happy is all that is really important.

on a semi-related note.
for us players who are semi sucky, want to play for only fun, and get contiuously stompped by other top teir playrs (cough pb) but still enjoy competing, but maybe want to compete without recieving a total asswhooping, can we get a scrub leauge going?

maybe that's a name that won't endear itself to people of medium skill level to play.....
but as is the aim of this site, i'd like to get a wider playing pool with lower level players, than an exclusive club of shrinking player pool.
tell me if i'm way off base like lou broc on acid...
would more people come to play if the competition was more varied? am i shamelessly trying to get a real win in cal??
i'll leave you with a final thought b/c the sleeplessness and the double espresso are at war in my head right now and i feel like i'm rambling...
did you have more fun winning a round 68-1 or 18 to 16?
are their even enough players to have a CS like CAL-M and CAL-O levels? i think not.
and that's what i'd like to focus on. the decline in participation, and what can be done to get more people to compete at different skill levels.

You are dead on Old Time. Different divisions like that has been discussed a few times now, but the lack of players just kills it every time. Personally I wonder if we shouldnt just go for it and have the winner of the second division move up and the loser of the top division move down each season. I think that's how CU does theirs.

There was talk of starting a killbox league. I only said I needed admins people can talk to me in IRC.

i talked to Para about starting a "b" division for CAL, would be fun for semi-nOObs like me, i haven't been playing all that long and all though playing against really good clans in cal is good for me, i would enjoy playing in a b division for a season and see how it goes. I applied to be a CAL admin, but there arent really any spaces open. if somebody would like to join me in starting up this B division i would love to do it. i think it would help ppl like me get used to match play, and get used to strategy techniques. also it would be a nice place for new teams that havent played in CAL get into the style of play. i think CAL would be greatly surprized at how many new teams would be joining if this was available.

i talked to Para about starting a "b" division for CAL, would be fun for semi-nOObs like me, i haven't been playing all that long and all though playing against really good clans in cal is good for me, i would enjoy playing in a b division for a season and see how it goes. I applied to be a CAL admin, but there arent really any spaces open. if somebody would like to join me in starting up this B division i would love to do it. i think it would help ppl like me get used to match play, and get used to strategy techniques. also it would be a nice place for new teams that havent played in CAL get into the style of play. i think CAL would be greatly surprized at how many new teams would be joining if this was available.

I think its a good idea, but how would we have someone qualify as a semi-noob?
We probly could do like, if they participated in cal the season before and look at their record and if its a negative record perhaps... I don't Know throwing out ideas.

all these ideas that everyone comes up with all have the same resolution everytime but nothing ever happens becuase everyone is to lazy and not dedicated enough to take a stand and follow threw with it, players and admins alike.... which is all you need to accomplish such things...

i talked to Para about starting a "b" division for CAL, would be fun for semi-nOObs like me, i haven't been playing all that long and all though playing against really good clans in cal is good for me, i would enjoy playing in a b division for a season and see how it goes. I applied to be a CAL admin, but there arent really any spaces open. if somebody would like to join me in starting up this B division i would love to do it. i think it would help ppl like me get used to match play, and get used to strategy techniques. also it would be a nice place for new teams that havent played in CAL get into the style of play. i think CAL would be greatly surprized at how many new teams would be joining if this was available.

i accept your invitation sir. i'll put together an app for CAL over the weekend.

edit: are there some guidelines somewhere for applying for CAL admin??? i'm not seeing anything on the CAL site.

i talked to Para about starting a "b" division for CAL, would be fun for semi-nOObs like me, i haven't been playing all that long and all though playing against really good clans in cal is good for me, i would enjoy playing in a b division for a season and see how it goes. I applied to be a CAL admin, but there arent really any spaces open. if somebody would like to join me in starting up this B division i would love to do it. i think it would help ppl like me get used to match play, and get used to strategy techniques. also it would be a nice place for new teams that havent played in CAL get into the style of play. i think CAL would be greatly surprized at how many new teams would be joining if this was available.

i accept your invitation sir. i'll put together an app for CAL over the weekend.

edit: are there some guidelines somewhere for applying for CAL admin??? i'm not seeing anything on the CAL site.

nice, it would be a pleasure to work with you. so CAL, now, you have 2 willing participents to get this going. tell us what we need to do. smile is on my face!!!

i agree there is an underlying attitude of players (in CAL or just in other servers) who dismiss the kill box as an aim only style of play, that is somehow inferior b/c there is less strategy and movement skill required.


on a semi-related note.
for us players who are semi sucky, want to play for only fun, and get contiuously stompped by other top teir playrs (cough pb) but still enjoy competing, but maybe want to compete without recieving a total asswhooping, can we get a scrub leauge going?

totally agree here and add...good players should be able to play on any style of map, not just the ones that suit their style of play; guess it comes down to personal preference in the end

...good players should be able to play on any style of map, not just the ones that suit their style of play

That is another myth. so many great KB players suck so bad on reg grav. is just how it is with some ppl. lazy asses like myself who never bothered learning bhopping doesn't mean are not "good" players. sorry mate but this is just wrong.

...good players should be able to play on any style of map, not just the ones that suit their style of play

That is another myth. so many great KB players suck so bad on reg grav. is just how it is with some ppl. lazy asses like myself who never bothered learning bhopping doesn't mean are not "good" players. sorry mate but this is just wrong.

soooo.....that would just make them great at KB's and that's not dissin' anyone who plays KB's?; I also said its down to preference too Valar, though I obviously take your points on board. Btw i dont bhop either, though I admire ppl who can and have taken the time to learn; i do play KBs and low grav too and found it difficult to adjust (like skul shock etc) but ultimately fun which is what games are all about IMHO

soooo.....that would just make them great at KB's and that's not dissin' anyone who plays KB's?t

no. because ppl who play Killbox don't call themselves L33ts and diss others and that's what i was referring to. there is no alienation around KB.

but ultimately fun which is what games are all about IMHO :

Very true mate. and here's for hoping others will embrase this attitude as well.

CellarDweller: Talk to me later in IRC or on TS and I will show you how to apply.

soooo.....that would just make them great at KB's and that's not dissin' anyone who plays KB's?t

no. because ppl who play Killbox don't call themselves L33ts and diss others and that's what i was referring to. there is no alienation around KB.

Depends on the players... ive seen plenty of those types in killboxes, not to mention every other style of map / play.

You get all types in all maps. The real issue I see is just a map. Why does everyone think that starting a killbox league will have some sort of positive effect. Its kinda like me saying hey I am going to boot up a lockdown league where we play 8 different versions of lockdown. I am sure the popularity of lockdown would lend to some people joining that league but I don't think many people would call it a step forward for the game. As we tried before I think the real deal is if enough killbox players would just participate in CAL and then a killbox map would end up in the rotation. But last time we tried that killbox players just did not show up or play. For which they cited alot of different reasons. I am all about diverse game styles in CAL.

real reason nothing new happens or changes: this game is not growing, there are and never will be any new players who have the will to deal with this community to become true compettitors. you can say what you want but this community hasn't had any growth for a long long while and I think we all know the reason for that.

real reason nothing new happens or changes: this game is not growing, there are and never will be any new players who have the will to deal with this community to become true compettitors. you can say what you want but this community hasn't had any growth for a long long while and I think we all know the reason for that.

In a way this is sorta true, I dont see as many new players as i did when i started playin this game =/

Off Topic: Hey pwn drop by in vent we havent heard from ya in a while

soooo.....that would just make them great at KB's and that's not dissin' anyone who plays KB's?t

no. because ppl who play Killbox don't call themselves L33ts and diss others and that's what i was referring to. there is no alienation around KB.

Depends on the players... ive seen plenty of those types in killboxes, not to mention every other style of map / play.

As have i.

real reason nothing new happens or changes: this game is not growing, there are and never will be any new players who have the will to deal with this community to become true compettitors. you can say what you want but this community hasn't had any growth for a long long while and I think we all know the reason for that.

this is true but there is some irony in that statement. we all keep saying, "oh this is a dying game, nobody wants to join". we have nobody to blame for this but ourselves. there are really 2 places you can play if you are a noob coming into this game. 1) locked private scrim servers, which they cant get into cause they dont know the server owners, 2) pubs, in which ppl from here go to ridicule them and poke fun, then post that here. the second option can be broken down into low and high grav, and KB's which again, as discussed ppl look down on. SOOO, my point is, the game is dying because we keep closing the doors to expansion. if i was just starting this game and heard of this site, came to it, read the discussions, I wouldnt come back to it. we all tolerate it because we have all become a second family to each other, but noobs that dont understand any of this will never get it if we dont welcome them. i think we need to ask ourselves, do we really want this game to grow, or are we just going to continue to keep those doors closed and bitch because nobody is coming in. expansion will never happen if we dont try, maybe a KB league wont work, maybe a B division wont work. we will never know until we try. a B division would be the best possible way i can think of to get new teams into CAL, and young teams into learning the team work style that you must have to succeed in CAL. Think of it as the "minors" in pro sports. draft picks dont go right to the big league(save a few) they go to the minors first and learn the pro style of the game. i would also hope that the B division wouldnt get filled with aliased A dvision players just so they can pwn and laugh about it, we will have to have some sort of ip address log to match against the A, so if you participate in the A you cant play in the B and vice versa. Im fucking sick and tired of hearing ppl bitch that this game is dying. myself and a few others HAVE stepped up to the plate to start these new divisions, and as far as im concerned, have been ignored.

comments

I dont see it as dying, but I do agree it's not growing. I think we have establishing something worth staying for, but in terms of bringing new players in, it's real tough.

I have thought a B division is needed for a long time, we always have a bunch of people sign up for 1v1 only to drop after one or two times of getting completely destroyed. The thought that there won't be enough people in the past may have been true but I think that even if it starts off slowly and has only 10 or so people playing in it would be fine. The following season word will spread from those who played in it and had fun this time. Admins will just need to keep an eye on whos playing and what the scores are, if we see someone who is winning by very large margins each time then they may just need to be moved up to A division in order to not defeat what we are trying to accomplish.

I also want to say that when I first started playing this game 3 or so years ago, there was quite a bit of noob bashing however today I really don't see it anymore to that extent. I make my way around alot of servers and I think the attitudes of most players is pretty good, so I dont think some of the posts here are exactly on target.
There are a number of servers that cater to newer players and they tend to be full, while the pro servers tend to be empty so by doing this B divison if we can get those play for fun type players into it, they might be able to advance their skills and move up to a higher level and that would be great for the game. If everyone could keep this in mind and help nurture some of these players I think it would be great.

Lastly there has been some growth in the game over the last year, its just been small and hard to notice. If you really think about it though there has been some good players who have made their way into cal and the upper circles of players that were not here the year before, so don't think the game is dead yet, it's just getting older and has a lot of competition from new games.

You get all types in all maps.

True. And to Valar there are douche bags everywhere. Or 'L33ts' as you call them. some claim stock is the only way to play some claim low grav kb is.

The real issue I see is just a map. Why does everyone think that starting a killbox league will have some sort of positive effect.

Because 35% of the community plays Killbox. I'd say 75% of the current Stock players started in Killbox and just moved there way over to stock. Making a killbox league would only speed this.

Its kinda like me saying hey I am going to boot up a lockdown league where we play 8 different versions of lockdown. I am sure the popularity of lockdown would lend to some people joining that league but I don't think many people would call it a step forward for the game.

lockdown is a stock map, There are plenty of different Killbox maps. Some use jump pads which Stock maps have yet to use at all. Jokes when you have plenty of people seriously willing to lend help and put in work to make it happen. The more admins we have the better. Valar put in work to get interest and you let it dry up. He is obviously still willing to get it to happen.

As we tried before I think the real deal is if enough killbox players would just participate in CAL and then a killbox map would end up in the rotation. But last time we tried that killbox players just did not show up or play. For which they cited alot of different reasons.

if you can really call that a 'Try' then it was an attempt to make it fail so you can say you tried it and don't have to worry about it.

That being said 2v2 killbox was tried in CU and worked for a season. Yet to be seen if they will do it again. But it was worth a try.

real reason nothing new happens or changes: this game is not growing, there are and never will be any new players who have the will to deal with this community to become true compettitors. you can say what you want but this community hasn't had any growth for a long long while and I think we all know the reason for that.

I am all about diverse game styles in CAL.

Then you should try to get the other 55% of the very active community in shell shock. They have a play made league which is shitty, and would jump on CAL. Shellshock is growing and growing fast. New players can jump in and own. Something that hl2dm has always lacked. Pubs are full 24/7 and doubling each day. Clans are starting everywhere.


So if Hl2dm really wants new players in League play. League play will need to be expanded.
1v1 must be open to new players all season long.
It was easy for me to get quake and UT players to jump into cal-1v1 but since the rosters close because of ko it will not expand. give ko the top division and get more admins.

1v1,2v2,4v4 needs a lower division and admins that are willing to go get new players and teams, and then stay on them and make sure they play. Cal admins say they thought about it and thought it wouldn't work.... Any hl2dm League that tried a upper and lower division got more teams then cal has ever had; Ildm and CU so when it was tried it worked and worked out well.

SS is the biggest form of hl2dm atm and there will be leagues popping up for it all over Cal should get out in front so the players get more exposure to the game in general.

KB also has a lot of people willing to admin a league, let them do it.

Let the league run on there own. Don't make them run all at the same time. They are all different. Should be different times. IE CU

Most important like any league keep the dead time to a minimum which has been the worst thing for league play in Cal, well for hl2dm. No other league has dead time like cal-hl2dm has had. I can only think of one reason.

a big reason for the "dead time" is most of the new teams and less experienced teams in the current CAL division dont know enough about team play and can't compete with the teams that are very good at this. SW, 911, flas, ewr. etc. when these less experienced teams are scheduled to play vs these top teams they know they are just going to get their asses handed to them so why even bother playing. yes experience against talented experienced teams is good but nobody likes to get their asses kicked all over the map, just not fun. with a B division these less experienced teams will get that time to grow as a team, and learn that important team style play. this can only HELP cal as a whole. I guarentee it will even if it helps just a few teams and draws a few new ones.

nino, get back on the horse.

and get your ass back in irc.

feel like you're banging your head on the wall?

here's some inspiration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3oeGwq9Qy0

Another thing in the league, especially the 1v and 2v divisions, a lot of newer people/teams don't have servers. We need a network of server owners to whom these people can go to if they need a server. Its one thing to tell them to go to #hl2dm. If they can't wade their way through the instuctions on how to get into IRC quickly or they have no clue anout it then how are they supposed to play? Also I have seen people come into IRC and ask to use a server and no one responds even though half the people in ther have servers. I have rcjoned my server for people on various occasions. If these new players can't get a server to play on, they give up and drop out.

I've always been all about being positive and smiley but before thinking of:

expansion, lack of servers, regrouping people, opening new leagues, putting diff playstyles in CAL etc....

The main issue, and the hardest to solve, is to find people devoting time and
that are mature and able to admins.





and good luck with that.

I've always been all about being positive and smiley but before thinking of:

expansion, lack of servers, regrouping people, opening new leagues, putting diff playstyles in CAL etc....

The main issue, and the hardest to solve, is to find people devoting time and
that are mature and able to admins.

and good luck with that.

Like 15 admins have applied to help 5 of which would be good for helpers. 3 Others have offered to start Killbox. SS has the person who created the plug-in and user-made league, plus the various other players who are very active. Many of which have 100+ hours of hl2dm game play. None have been looked into. But rest assured that Fearsome thought about it and then thought it wasn't a good idea.

I've always been all about being positive and smiley but before thinking of:

expansion, lack of servers, regrouping people, opening new leagues, putting diff playstyles in CAL etc....

The main issue, and the hardest to solve, is to find people devoting time and
that are mature and able to admins.

and good luck with that.

Like 15 admins have applied to help 5 of which would be good for helpers. 3 Others have offered to start Killbox. SS has the person who created the plug-in and user-made league, plus the various other players who are very active. Many of which have 100+ hours of hl2dm game play. None have been looked into. But rest assured that Fearsome thought about it and then thought it wasn't a good idea.

ty, well put. and i gave you an AMEN brotha. i cant say for sure about the fearsome thing, but i can say for sure many have stepped up, to no avail

Val asked me to read this thread and he bugged me until I did, then put a bug in my ear about the whole issue.

This is Psychopomp, I applied to become cal staff now maybe 2 months back? Part of my wish was to run the low grav/killbox league, the community group was once ran by Val and has now passed it on to me. Everyone knows that no one more than me would like to see some serious changes, not only to cal but the whole "L33T" society. It has always been my position that a REALLY good player should be able to play a good game, in ANY gravity, in ANY mod [shulshok,shelshock,pro] to think that this game is only played ONE way is a diservice to the community at large.

If you dislike different styles, that is different, but if you love the game as I do, and you would like to see it grow, having wider acceptance will only mke it better for everyone, including making the "L33T" style more prominent, more popular, etc.

At one point I consider starting forums with the name HL2DM Community College "For the rest of us". We can't all afford or want to go "l33t" but that doesn't mean we are of no benefit to the community at large. I spend a lot of time going back and forth in all levels of grav from 100 [MaX clan] to 600 [Team Veracity] and in between [MF clan] I have worked hard on getting to know a little bit about it all, I was admin at Skulshock for a while and although it is not for me most of the time, I became very good friends with very good people and some seriously good players. I believe I am more than qualified, in time and knowledge to be a cal admin for this style, however is my dislike of getting trampled by T.U.A [the usual a-holes] that prevents me from visiting the IRC channel [Directed to Fearsome in his comment come here and talk to me] No one ever contacted me from cal, after applying to the website. After OCT 1st, I will be available again as I use to be having finalized my move to Colorado [LOOONG move I know, but worked for the best]

I may not be the most popular person because of my outspoken nature and what not but no one can deny that I could be a successful admin, so please consider it based on qualifications and not personal choices.

Replies to [email protected], which is my traveling address won't have internet until friday.


Psych-O-Pomp

low grav... :S

My bad nino, didn't knew bout everyone applying. I'll make sure I know what i'm talking about before hopping on a topic regarding leagues next time. cheers

I believe I am more than qualified, in time and knowledge to be a cal admin for this style, however is my dislike of getting trampled by T.U.A [the usual a-holes] that prevents me from visiting the IRC channel

You could idle under alias and then only pm the necessary parties.

True, WT and I am doing more of that which is a shame for I always disliked aliasing, as many well know. I have no access to the IRC channel atm, typing from my mac

Just wanted to throw something in the discussion, hoping for a good outcome for everyone.

Psych-O-Pomp

low grav high air acceleration....im in. Its what i used to play

How do you decide who's in what division though? Tryouts? Like if I'm playing with a b player, but I am an A player, how do I decide which division to join?

I think this whole use IRC is bullshit. IRC is hard as fuck to figure out. Stop saying visit me on IRC because PEOPLE DON'T KNOW HOW TO.

"But we made a guide!"

I don't care. It was still hard to use the guide. Create a steam group where people can go. Fearsome, start using steam friends. Stop making people conform to you. I think that's a big problem too. People are also lazy. They don't want to go through 10928391023 steps to use a program once to talk to you about making a killbox league.

As we tried before I think the real deal is if enough killbox players would just participate in CAL and then a killbox map would end up in the rotation. But last time we tried that killbox players just did not show up or play. .

The thing is, you're still making people conform to you. They would still have to play stock maps in CAL. They are killbox players for a reason. They don't like stock maps.

badinfluence, if you contact me thru IRC(joking), thru steam (chemicalburn16) i will walk you thru setting up IRC. i finally got around to doing it the other day. it's not that hard. Which division you want to play in is up to you BUT you CANT compete in both. the B will be for new players or players that are not yet used to team play strategy. this isnt going to be a division of shitty players, just players that dont yet have the teamplay skills down yet. i.e. map control, spot calling, sticking together, TS communication, knowing your teammates playing style...things of this nature. the B division would be a place to learn these important skills needed to be competitive in CAL

I just have chatzilla for IRC. I said fuck all those other things like pidgin. I only use irc and steam now. I'm speaking for the new players though. They don't want to figure out irc just to play in CAL. The CAL website is hard enough.

Aye well IRC is a pain but you can go to gamesurge without going through the usual shite and log on to the java based client

i talked to Para about starting a "b" division for CAL, would be fun for semi-nOObs like me, i haven't been playing all that long and all though playing against really good clans in cal is good for me, i would enjoy playing in a b division for a season and see how it goes. I applied to be a CAL admin, but there arent really any spaces open. if somebody would like to join me in starting up this B division i would love to do it. i think it would help ppl like me get used to match play, and get used to strategy techniques. also it would be a nice place for new teams that havent played in CAL get into the style of play. i think CAL would be greatly surprized at how many new teams would be joining if this was available.

i doubt that many teams would join their aren't enough people playing this game to be having diff division, unlike some other games like css that have open, intermediate, main, and invite.

I think a B devision would be a fantastic idea. This would keep down the number of clans that play one season and go like 0-5 before quitting in disgust. I would love to be an admin next season anyway, but I would certainly admin this new devision with chem or whoever if needed.

Bidea is cool. but how do you determine who is a B team and who is an Ateam. what would stop some A teams from being on B teams...know what I mean. There are so many people with multiple accounts/ steam id's I think that would be a hard thing to control.

If there is a way, I say go for it.

Well you are supposed to register your Steam ID and real name. People using multiple IDs and fake names would be

it unfortunately would have to be a honor system, but if someone is obviously not a b player and gets flagged for it an admin could move him out of b division in 1v1, tdm divisions would be a problem to decide what to do. Lets just say that anyone sandbagging to the b division, if they know they should be A would be pretty lame.

im sure there is a way to log ppl by ip address not just steam id. I know LAN addresses change all the time, ISP's do this to stop ppl from running web servers at their house and taking up bandwidth BUT they dont change that often that a player using multiple accounts wouldnt have played another game in the A division. so his/her IP would show up in both leagues. YES, i know there are other ways around this as well, but if somebody wants to go to THAT much trouble just to be an ass and play in both divisions i guess they dont have that much else to do in their life.

also i believe there are way more than enough players playing HL2dm to hold this division. again, you will never know this until we try.

yeah server logs show ip addresses and any admin can type rcon status in console and get ip also

I live at two diff houses, so two diff ip's but u deffinetely can tell when im at one house with a 1000000000000000000000000 ping

I live at two diff houses, so two diff ip's but u deffinetely can tell when im at one house with a 1000000000000000000000000 ping

well yes, that is one of the ways around the ip address issue, but there's only so much we can do.

I think a lot of people know they are not A material, specially first season is so incredibly hard to survive, just learning the Cal system. This would give players a reason to grow as well, to eventually become A players.

If an A player wants to beat on lesser skilled players, they can do that in the pubs, like they already do.

A low grav/high velocity division would make me happy too, we would have to select a standard on what gravity and what velocity would sort of fall in the middle of the ones used out there. Same would have to be for the killbox division, what killboxes are most favored, at what grav, etc.

In that division you would not need an A and B team, so that would simplify the enrollment.

Just some thoughts..

POMP

We do not really enforce players use IRC even though it is a standard for CAL. Steam is a terrible platform this may not matter to you but IRC channels and their non intrusive design is why the leagues of nearly EVERY game use it and not steam. But if you want to be an admin yes in deed you must use IRC. If you can't be bothered to figure IRC out then why would I think you are going to go through all the hard work of learning how to admin a league? Part of which is joining multiple IRC channels the admins use.

All you need is java and an internet browser to use IRC.

http://gamesurge.net/chat

Type /join #hl2dm
and you off and running.

As for admins yep we are looking and yes I started talks about a killbox league and people are always welcome to discuss it. And just to set the record strait. There are exactly 11 denied applications (mostly people I have never even heard of many don't even appear to play the game) 10 accepted applications roughly half of which have gone inactive and 3 undecided. Even so we try hard to pick admins and its not easy, I think I have done a decent job with my judgment though only failed twice one quti less then a month into the job lol.

As for nino, if the killbox was an attempt to make it fail please explain how. We pissed off more of the competitive players doing it then anything else. Even other admins were against it. We busted out and made a whole map for it the entire plan was to help unify both communities. It just did not work but the players who compete played them even though they did not like them, the people who we took all the risk for barely showed up.

real reason nothing new happens or changes: this game is not growing, there are and never will be any new players who have the will to deal with this community to become true compettitors. you can say what you want but this community hasn't had any growth for a long long while and I think we all know the reason for that.

The competitive community can grow even if the game does not as noobs become better and are trained into competition. This is very possible and normal for a game. In fact in the late days of HLDM I would say it was really their hay day for competition almost everyone who played was competing in leagues and many attended LANs. If everyone here just went out and found 1 willing player and helped get them into the swing of things we would see tremendous growth.

Growing or not we are all still here, numbers are about the same as they were before TF2 came out, even though many predicted TF2 would mean HL2DM faded to nothing.

Growing or not we are all still here, numbers are about the same as they were before TF2 came out, even though many predicted TF2 would mean HL2DM faded to nothing.

QFT
Lets play and have fun with what time we have

whats so good about irc? ... steam is shit but still at least the chat is in game? imo msn is best

whats so good about irc? ... steam is shit but still at least the chat is in game? imo msn is best

IRC was made for people running 56k's so it uses the least amount of bandwidth.
MIRC is easy, fearsome's way is very easy, Steam, MSN, X-fire anything you can think of you have to add friends and can't see everyone. IRC anyone can join the room. And 70% of the players that are gonna join hl2dm at this point Know how to use IRC better then 60% of the HL2dm community.

Fearsome all cal did was add one killbox map to 1v1. That isn't gonna get any hardcore killbox play to join.

2v2 Killbox league worked in Clans United. For a season, Lack of admin updates killed it.

Also CU has a rule (idk If it is a write rule or not) that they only have 8 teams per division. If teams drop it's not that big of a deal other leagues in cal have had 6 or 4 teams in invite. Cal-p or Cevo-p teams play twice a season, Much like NFL.

Everyone else stop saying B division Lmao you sound so noob. Just look at any other league in cal if you are wondering how Cal-o/im/m/I/p work.

Again like with other leagues in cal, if one team is good or deserves to be inthe higher division the admins can just place them there.

Everyone else stop saying B division Lmao you sound so noob. Just look at any other league in cal if you are wondering how Cal-o/im/m/I/p work.

Again like with other leagues in cal, if one team is good or deserves to be inthe higher division the admins can just place them there.

how does saying "B" division sound noob, i dont understand that comment, please explain.

WT brought up a good point somewhere in this post about the top team from the B division moving up to the A and vice versa, i think that's a really good idea.

WT brought up a good point somewhere in this post about the top team from the B division moving up to the A and vice versa, i think that's a really good idea.

Good Idea, like look at the teaqms records from this season.

mirc is easy, i wasnt say that it was hard. but ppl dont run dialup anymore so bandwidth is hardly an issue.
i wasnt saying irc was bad, i just dont think it is excellent. i suppose the fact anyone can join is a plus. =]

I think I have done a decent job with my judgment though only failed twice .....

What? You mean you ARE actually human??!

Fearsome all cal did was add one killbox map to 1v1. That isn't gonna get any hardcore killbox play to join.

That was my point. It wasn't even a map that the hardcore kb players liked.

Everyone else stop saying B division Lmao you sound so noob. Just look at any other league in cal if you are wondering how Cal-o/im/m/I/p work.

Again like with other leagues in cal, if one team is good or deserves to be inthe higher division the admins can just place them there.

how does saying "B" division sound noob, i dont understand that comment, please explain.

WT brought up a good point somewhere in this post about the top team from the B division moving up to the A and vice versa, i think that's a really good idea.

Agree here m8 most ppl if they're honest don't want to be pwnd constantly anyway, I think it would provide encouragement to people who aren't at the top of their game yet . Would this not be a great opportunity to promote the game and lessen the leet image that seems to pervade sometimes (not saying that everyone is like that as there are some very helpful players at the top of their game) cue big straw

Everyone else stop saying B division Lmao you sound so noob. Just look at any other league in cal if you are wondering how Cal-o/im/m/I/p work.

Again like with other leagues in cal, if one team is good or deserves to be inthe higher division the admins can just place them there.

how does saying "B" division sound noob, i dont understand that comment, please explain.

WT brought up a good point somewhere in this post about the top team from the B division moving up to the A and vice versa, i think that's a really good idea.

"Just look at any other league in cal if you are wondering how Cal-o/im/m/I/p work."

it wouldn't be a 'b' division the teams that played in the top 10 would move up to Cal-m
the 'B' division would be the bottom level where new teams join, and if they don't make the top 4 or so, stay for the next season.

oh and KB and SS would be better entry level for css players

I brought this issue up, before the season, in late july and every season in sta.

1v1 would look like this

Cal - Main

Agim "Poor_Billy" Tepothy
Jorge "Infusion" Mier
Shaun "Ko-Tao" Rattray
William "Da11aS" Burwell
Carter "That guy" D'Arcy
Timmy "CoNfuSed" McCarthy
Jesse "ninojman" Bell
Zephyr "Zman.flaS" Cady


Cal - Open

Rudolph "Fearsome*" Sloup
L "Divinity" G
Steve " Punk" Guyer
Jarrett "Herbalizer" Marrone
jay "2snails." thomas
Richard "Chard" Hoffart
Sean "sype" Simmons
Kyle "Kyle^" Childress
Garrett "Gmpianoman" M
Ricky "Overkill" Hall
andrew "old time no.7" trexler
Ross "WT" Ward
Sean "BuckyKatt" Woods
Adam "zelmaN" Zelmanowicz

Looking at those line ups, no newbie is gona last two weeks in that open division. There are 4 or 5 people that probably would be moved up to the top division pretty quick but by then probably as many newbies would have dropped.

On another note
As Fearsome stated, we have been discussing the possibility of a killlbox division. One of the problems we are having is the fact that even within the killbox community, there are factions that prefer their server settings over others. IE EYE fans prefer their settings, TSGK prefers theirs and it can be just as contentious as regular vs KB fans.

So the question we have from the KILLBOX community is: What settings would give a killbox league the best chance at having good participation? What gravity, air acceleration, etc? It would have to be standard for all maps so that the server cfg could be set for the best compromise.

Please only respond to this question if you are a killbox player. Pomp if you could please put and announcement on the Killbox Steam group that this question is here and we need feedback. Valar, I would also appreciate your input as well.

For now Skull shock is off the table. IMO they could go to the CAL higher ups and get this started on their own. Right now for the DM division we have enough work with the possility of KB and B divisions as it is.

Nino,

thank you for your reply, but if you read my posts again and most of the replies we were talking about new players or semi-new players getting used to team play strategy. not sure why you used 1v1 for your example. BUT now that i think about it, if there is a division of this nature for team play why not 1v1 as well. I understand where your going with the B name as opposed to the standard CAL naming convention, but i dont think it was the name of the division that was the issue at hand, more of how it would work.

Look, IMO there is enough interest in starting this up, we can sit here and talk about it forever. I cant do anything until i find out about my CAL adminship, but I am ready and willing to get this going. Paradox has already offered to help me get to know the admin role and learn the basics if in fact i do get accepted. I dont know who the other apps are, I think Zman is one and he offered to help me, I think Cellar may have applied, i know this is something he would love to do as well. I have put a lot of thought in to this and I think a good name for the division would CAL development league, or CAL development Division. *CALdl or CALdd* because thats exactly what it would be. A division focussed on development of team play, map strategy, communication etc. the moving up and down Im not totally concerned about that yet because any team would be free to move up to the top division after any season if they feel they are ready, but if there is a team that is pwning every game i agree they should be moved up, but this will all be worked out in the division rules or mission statement.

Ok will do, ill have to get on someones computer.. but will post today, then afk for 3 days.

It is vital that we have a low grav/killbox standard, not everyone will be happy unless its their setting but like everything else, for competition they will simply have to adjust to the rules and standards. Ideally having a representative from most major Killbox/low grav clans who will then sit down and discuss the issues at hand. That is basically what I will post and perhaps encourangement for them to sign in the U and have them post it all here open for everyone to discuss, I am with Para in that ONLY killbox, low gravity players would input, we need to keep the conversation flowing and not derail it with how much you "hate killboxes" [example]

POMP

nino, when we have discussed this in the past... i always became confused about 'move ups' and 'move downs' between divisions.

as i recall, you told me the move ups/downs can happen during the ongoing season. but how does that affect the schedule/rankings for the divisions affected???

Say a new to cal team joins an open division and rapes from the get go. if they are moved up to the main division 3 weeks into the season, arent they going to be automatically handicapped in the rankings with no playoff potential at all? that always confused me. and maybe i misunderstood what you were telling me about move ups/downs.

I would assume teams couldnt be moved up mid season without causing lots of complications. It would probably have to be somewhat of an honor system...i mean if a whole bunch of pros really want to go beat up on new players to get some satisfaction thats pretty weak.....

I would assume teams couldnt be moved up mid season without causing lots of complications. It would probably have to be somewhat of an honor system...i mean if a whole bunch of pros really want to go beat up on new players to get some satisfaction thats pretty weak.....

well said my friend.

and even if the division only has 4 teams, so what? we will play each other, have a good time and learn. the NHL started with 6 teams.

Everyone else stop saying B division Lmao you sound so noob. Just look at any other league in cal if you are wondering how Cal-o/im/m/I/p work.

Again like with other leagues in cal, if one team is good or deserves to be inthe higher division the admins can just place them there.

how does saying "B" division sound noob, i dont understand that comment, please explain.

WT brought up a good point somewhere in this post about the top team from the B division moving up to the A and vice versa, i think that's a really good idea.

"Just look at any other league in cal if you are wondering how Cal-o/im/m/I/p work."

it wouldn't be a 'b' division the teams that played in the top 10 would move up to Cal-m
the 'B' division would be the bottom level where new teams join, and if they don't make the top 4 or so, stay for the next season.

oh and KB and SS would be better entry level for css players

I brought this issue up, before the season, in late july and every season in sta.

1v1 would look like this

Cal - Main

Agim "Poor_Billy" Tepothy
Jorge "Infusion" Mier
Shaun "Ko-Tao" Rattray
William "Da11aS" Burwell
Carter "That guy" D'Arcy
Timmy "CoNfuSed" McCarthy
Jesse "ninojman" Bell
Zephyr "Zman.flaS" Cady


Cal - Open

Rudolph "Fearsome*" Sloup
L "Divinity" G
Steve " Punk" Guyer
Jarrett "Herbalizer" Marrone
jay "2snails." thomas
Richard "Chard" Hoffart
Sean "sype" Simmons
Kyle "Kyle^" Childress
Garrett "Gmpianoman" M
Ricky "Overkill" Hall
andrew "old time no.7" trexler
Ross "WT" Ward
Sean "BuckyKatt" Woods
Adam "zelmaN" Zelmanowicz

I kind of like the way this looks but think there needs to be a third division, for totally new players, as a new player would still get stomped in this open division.

fearsome in open division has got to be a joke...

fearsome in open division has got to be a joke...

while it seems like a joke, I think he came up with that based on the standard that you have to have previously finished top 8 in the prior season. Considering it was a close battle with ties for the final 8th spot, I think the open would still be a pretty highly competitive division.

it is a bit of a logistical nightmare. standardizing the ratings/skill level for separate divisions. lets use team v for an example. a montage of different players from different clans entered their first cal season. team v had a 2v2 and 4v4 team with a fairly robust roster of players that fluctuated slightly throughout the season. but not every player rostered actually played a match. and some team v members have scattered and may be on different teams next season.

so, when we are discussing "new" to cal... what are we really saying? is team v now considered cal experienced regardless of who they roster next season? the team v roster (and other clans too) will have different players rostered from season to season. it really comes down to individual players doesn't it? and if so, what about a cal team that rosters half experienced cal players and half "new" players?

with team v, i didn't play 1v1 and didnt sign up for 1v1. if i sign up for cal 1v1 next season, am i "new" and destined to the "open" division?

with team v, i was rostered for 2v2 but played zero cal matches. how would that be assessed?

with team v, i was rostered for 4v4 and played only one cal match all season. how would that be assessed?

i dont have the answers, but im throwing these things out for more discussion. if the "assessment" is left strictly in the hands of admins... the admins are going to get hammered even more. yet, i have no clue how a points system could be instituted to determine player assessments.

nino, when we have discussed this in the past... i always became confused about 'move ups' and 'move downs' between divisions.

as i recall, you told me the move ups/downs can happen during the ongoing season. but how does that affect the schedule/rankings for the divisions affected???

Say a new to cal team joins an open division and rapes from the get go. if they are moved up to the main division 3 weeks into the season, arent they going to be automatically handicapped in the rankings with no playoff potential at all? that always confused me. and maybe i misunderstood what you were telling me about move ups/downs.

Check out the news From Dods Cal-o or Css Cal-o

Generally there after playoffs Champs get moved up accordingly and by the need of division's above. Same is done after preseason. Same Can be done by admins in the middle of the season. Now generally teams moving up from Cal-o don't keep there record when moved to Cal-m.

Punk you are right, That was just an example i was using to show how it would look, before and now. That is why I have come to think that the best course would be Follow Clans United and every 8 players you make a new division

Example for 1v1 ( chem just using 1v1 as an example) :

Cal - Invite

Agim "Poor_Billy" Tepothy
Jorge "Infusion" Mier
Shaun "Ko-Tao" Rattray
William "Da11aS" Burwell
Carter "That guy" D'Arcy
Timmy "CoNfuSed" McCarthy
Jesse "ninojman" Bell
Zephyr "Zman.flaS" Cady


Cal - Main

Rudolph "Fearsome*" Sloup
L "Divinity" G
Steve " Punk" Guyer
Jarrett "Herbalizer" Marrone
jay "2snails." thomas
Richard "Chard" Hoffart
Sean "sype" Simmons
Kyle "Kyle^" Childress

Cal - Open

Garrett "Gmpianoman" M
Ricky "Overkill" Hall
andrew "old time no.7" trexler
Ross "WT" Ward
Sean "BuckyKatt" Woods
Adam "zelmaN" Zelmanowicz

Now we know plenty players left and plenty will join, some will leave and changes can be done in season. And really if the game has divisions that work like this it would get more Quake, UT, Css and dods players to join and try. Need 1 or 2 admins per division to make sure everyone is active and such.

it is a bit of a logistical nightmare. standardizing the ratings/skill level for separate divisions. lets use team v for an example. a montage of different players from different clans entered their first cal season. team v had a 2v2 and 4v4 team with a fairly robust roster of players that fluctuated slightly throughout the season. but not every player rostered actually played a match. and some team v members have scattered and may be on different teams next season.

so, when we are discussing "new" to cal... what are we really saying? is team v now considered cal experienced regardless of who they roster next season? the team v roster (and other clans too) will have different players rostered from season to season. it really comes down to individual players doesn't it? and if so, what about a cal team that rosters half experienced cal players and half "new" players?

with team v, i didn't play 1v1 and didnt sign up for 1v1. if i sign up for cal 1v1 next season, am i "new" and destined to the "open" division?

with team v, i was rostered for 2v2 but played zero cal matches. how would that be assessed?

with team v, i was rostered for 4v4 and played only one cal match all season. how would that be assessed?

i dont have the answers, but im throwing these things out for more discussion. if the "assessment" is left strictly in the hands of admins... the admins are going to get hammered even more. yet, i have no clue how a points system could be instituted to determine player assessments.

This is the problem everyone is having with the idea, By thinking of it as a "B" or sub par division. It is Open or base level. And when you prove you are tops of the division you move up to the next level.

Now as with dod:source in season 3-5 Dod 1.3 died in cal so you had lots of Cal-I level players join the Cal-o division of Dod:source. They played in preseason in Cal-o won by over 500 points each match under new names and got moved up to Cal-M and some to Cal-I. Some came over under the same names from dod 1.3 Cal-i and got moved up on the spot.

Moves like this are the reason I played dods for 5 seasons even though I never really enjoyed the game. I could say, ok I want to create a dods team for cal for shits and giggles. I did that and season one having never played before. I Lead a team to 6-2 only losing to the two teams that played in the finals. Then all of the teams that made play offs other then mine moved up and my team was 8-0 in Cal-o and lost in Finals. Then I had so many players I created 2 teams One moved up to Main and went 3-5 the other in Cal-open went 5-3 and made finals.
Played for 2 more season under various teams. But had fun because the level of play was fairly even.

well i think the fact that a player can only play in one league, the main or the development should take care of who plays in what.

If we're discussing a complete overhaul of HL2DM in CAL there are plenty of issues to be addressed that have made CAL into a snoozefest for the past couple of seasons.

1. It's almost painfull to get 8 people in different timezones, with different schedules and different resposbility levels together at the same time. Why not switch down to a 3v3 league? Two less players makes for better play on most of the maps we use for 4v4. 4v4 has always seemed like a complete clusterfuck on most maps we play anyway and it's more difficult finding new maps that accommodate 4v4 play.
2. Limit the rosters. We've got teams with 12-14 member rosters when only 4 or 5 actually play anyway. Limiting the roster to double the team size (ie. a 3v3 team could only have 6 members) would give more people who've been riding the bench a chance to play, create more teams and make for more diverse levels of gameplay. A limited team will certainly have to be more committed to playing, but with separate divisions for skill levels more people will be interested in playing knowing they won't lose by 1,000 every match they play.
3. Have an admin whose sole responsibility is recruiting for CAL. There are more than a few clans out there that have no idea what CAL is all about and would possibly be interested in playing but haven't got a clue of where to start. The CAL recruiting admin would act as a liaison to help them become familiar with where to register, help them with server set up, maybe take them through the process of a CAL based scrim to show them what to expect. This admin needs to be visible, available, friendly and willing to help.
4. Enforce the rules. I understand that in the past we've made allowances for this and that, but with new teams participating it sets a bad precedent. Otherwise, "Well Team X was allowed to do it", will be argued from here on. With this will come some major headaches because there will be new issues and arguments that arise and the rules will have to be scrutinized and loopholes plugged to keep the peace, but it will make the league more efficient, balanced and professional in the long run. If there needs to be another admin just for this to ease some of the pressure on the division admins then so be it.
5. There is no "right" way to play HL2DM. Don't get me wrong, I despise low gravity, I hate killboxes, but if you look at what people are playing in the packed public servers it's a very different game than what we think of as HL2DM. CAL will have to develope some flexibility for the game to continue. Part-time players aren't committed enough to learn advanced techniques but may still want to play in a tournament of some sort. I don't have a solution here; maybe it's a killbox division, maybe shellshock, maybe something different.

The question at this point becomes about our community's level of commitment to the game. We can continue to have a half-ass league with a few teams dominating because their egos wouldn't allow any room for a loss furthering the lack of interest, or we can completely restructure CAL into a league for new players to not only have fun but to learn more about the game and generate more competition. CAL will not build/rebuild itself. It would take a ton of work on the part of admins, the community and the teams, but if you want CAL to continue things need to change.

Well said .

1. It's almost painfull to get 8 people in different timezones, with different schedules and different resposbility levels together at the same time. Why not switch down to a 3v3 league? Two less players makes for better play on most of the maps we use for 4v4. 4v4 has always seemed like a complete clusterfuck on most maps we play anyway and it's more difficult finding new maps that accommodate 4v4 play.

Agree wholeheartedly.

2. Limit the rosters. We've got teams with 12-14 member rosters when only 4 or 5 actually play anyway. Limiting the roster to double the team size (ie. a 3v3 team could only have 6 members) would give more people who've been riding the bench a chance to play, create more teams and make for more diverse levels of gameplay. A limited team will certainly have to be more committed to playing, but with separate divisions for skill levels more people will be interested in playing knowing they won't lose by 1,000 every match they play.

I was saying the same thing in IRC the other night actually. Poor Billy, if you need someone for your 1v1 team, I will be happy to partner with you.

3. Have an admin whose sole responsibility is recruiting for CAL. There are more than a few clans out there that have no idea what CAL is all about and would possibly be interested in playing but haven't got a clue of where to start. The CAL recruiting admin would act as a liaison to help them become familiar with where to register, help them with server set up, maybe take them through the process of a CAL based scrim to show them what to expect. This admin needs to be visible, available, friendly and willing to help.

A fine idea. A recruiter is always a good thing to have. Hmmm, maybe we could use one here too?

4. Enforce the rules. I understand that in the past we've made allowances for this and that, but with new teams participating it sets a bad precedent. Otherwise, "Well Team X was allowed to do it", will be argued from here on. With this will come some major headaches because there will be new issues and arguments that arise and the rules will have to be scrutinized and loopholes plugged to keep the peace, but it will make the league more efficient, balanced and professional in the long run. If there needs to be another admin just for this to ease some of the pressure on the division admins then so be it.

My experience in the corporate environment, and as a Board Member for various organizations tells me this is the best way to run things. Once you start being lenient, people tend to believe the rules are open to interpretation and are sure to get upset when disciplined.

5. There is no "right" way to play HL2DM. Don't get me wrong, I despise low gravity, I hate killboxes, but if you look at what people are playing in the packed public servers it's a very different game than what we think of as HL2DM. CAL will have to develope some flexibility for the game to continue. Part-time players aren't committed enough to learn advanced techniques but may still want to play in a tournament of some sort. I don't have a solution here; maybe it's a killbox division, maybe shellshock, maybe something different.

Agreed.

Rico, i cried a lil while reading your post. i never knew you could write such beautiful things.

Rico, i cried a lil while reading your post. i never knew you could write such beautiful things.

i don't know rico but his post is beautiful indeed.
i'm truly happy to see the direction this thread is taking and hope it infects hl2DM further and further.
It's great to see the community starting to coalesce.

Rico, i cried a lil while reading your post. i never knew you could write such beautiful things.

i don't know rico but his post is beautiful indeed.
i'm truly happy to see the direction this thread is taking and hope it infects hl2DM further and further.
It's great to see the community starting to coalesce.

Rico is EE's fearless leader, a scholar and a gentleman. and apperently a poet of sorts

I had always thought CAL was a bit, biased. Yes, I said it. There was no point in ever joining in 2v2 or 4v4 because who wins it every year? $W, VDuS, or flas. Nothing changed since season one. What's the point in joining to know you are going to get beat? The only solution that I had every thought to this was to split up the teams. Everyone knows everyone pretty well so why not split up VDuS or $W. These teams would be completely against it though.

I always tell my coach how many goals I scored in a hockey game. His reply was always but how many assists (Passing it to a team mate to score) did you get? I'd usually reply 0, but don't quti reading yet. I think if we did split up the teams it'd be on the better players to get their team mates to get them better. This was what my coach was saying. "I know you're good, but can you make your team mates better?"

I know that nobody will go for this, but it was just a thought anyways.

And on the point of getting stomped on, I believe it was old time who said that this was his first CAL season and he played 2 matches. He said he got owned but had fun doing it. I call BS on this because I know from personal experience that nobody has fun getting beat and beat and beat. If we did mix up the teams, it'd be like draft night where everyone got a chance. Speaking of this though, I think it'd be a keen idea to have a draft night then use those teams for CAL. Draft night was pretty much ALWAYS even in the ones I played. This, I think, would be the most fairest way to do CAL.

I had always thought CAL was a bit, biased. Yes, I said it. There was no point in ever joining in 2v2 or 4v4 because who wins it every year? $W, VDuS, or flas. Nothing changed since season one. What's the point in joining to know you are going to get beat? The only solution that I had every thought to this was to split up the teams. Everyone knows everyone pretty well so why not split up VDuS or $W. These teams would be completely against it though.

I always tell my coach how many goals I scored in a hockey game. His reply was always but how many assists (Passing it to a team mate to score) did you get? I'd usually reply 0, but don't quti reading yet. I think if we did split up the teams it'd be on the better players to get their team mates to get them better. This was what my coach was saying. "I know you're good, but can you make your team mates better?"

I know that nobody will go for this, but it was just a thought anyways.

And on the point of getting stomped on, I believe it was old time who said that this was his first CAL season and he played 2 matches. He said he got owned but had fun doing it. I call BS on this because I know from personal experience that nobody has fun getting beat and beat and beat. If we did mix up the teams, it'd be like draft night where everyone got a chance. Speaking of this though, I think it'd be a keen idea to have a draft night then use those teams for CAL. Draft night was pretty much ALWAYS even in the ones I played. This, I think, would be the most fairest way to do CAL.

ya, this will never happen. the big thing about being good at CAL is knowing your teammates style of play and talking to them in TS. in theory a good idea, just would never happen, plus everybody likes to play with their friends

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the point of a tournament is to win, right?
also flas has never yet won a cal season, and we've only been in 2 of them...so lol at including us in the "clans who always win and therefore have cal biased for them".

i think it would be good for cal to have more divisions. i compare it with a poulair sport like football/tennis /. its so populair because there is a competetion for almost every level off age/skills.most players know that they are not becomming(or are) a top player but it gives alot off fun and satisfaction in youre life when you beat the other team/guy from the same division.
cal schould have the for each world part(us/eu/..) its competetion with the same rules. with a good website where everything is binded.

i hope you guys can solve all the problems that comes with it,and get it alive and working.

good luck

The only solution that I had every thought to this was to split up the teams. Everyone knows everyone pretty well so why not split up VDuS or $W. These teams would be completely against it though.

I think if we did split up the teams it'd be on the better players to get their team mates to get them better. This was what my coach was saying. "I know you're good, but can you make your team mates better?"

I know that nobody will go for this, but it was just a thought anyways.

ya, this will never happen. the big thing about being good at CAL is knowing your teammates style of play and talking to them in TS. in theory a good idea, just would never happen, plus everybody likes to play with their friends

Well good players don't want to play with people that are not equal to them in skill, plain and simple. Nothing wrong with that, its just the way it is. They want to win so they need team mates that can all pull equally to win. Put someone with my suxzor skills on a team with SW or VduS quality players and they risk losing because I am a black hole of kills against my team when its like that.

Yes it would be nice to have teams more evenly matched because it would make the competetion more interesting but its not gona happen.

For my own sake I have tried to get help to get better. I do 1v1s and I get pummeled over and over with no feedback as to what I could do to improve so I don't learn anything so after a while you just kinda give up and learn to live with losing but it does get old. Also how to look at a map and map strategy is something the "pro" players know but its a lost art for us relative noobs and yet another stumbling block among many.

We have a few instructors but lately everyone is so busy and I don't see much happening with it and its starting to go back to the old way of you want to learn, go figure it out for yourself. We need people to start teaching not just individuals the skills but teams the other finer points of the game.

I really don't know what the entire solution is at this point but I do know we have to do something.

wow an intelligent, cool, even-headed discussion in hl2dm :O

wow an intelligent, cool, even-headed discussion in hl2dm :O

nice huh? its amazing what can be accomplished when sensible dicussions are had

If we're discussing a complete overhaul of HL2DM in CAL there are plenty of issues to be addressed that have made CAL into a snoozefest for the past couple of seasons.

1. It's almost painfull to get 8 people in different timezones, with different schedules and different resposbility levels together at the same time. Why not switch down to a 3v3 league? Two less players makes for better play on most of the maps we use for 4v4. 4v4 has always seemed like a complete clusterfuck on most maps we play anyway and it's more difficult finding new maps that accommodate 4v4 play.
2. Limit the rosters. We've got teams with 12-14 member rosters when only 4 or 5 actually play anyway. Limiting the roster to double the team size (ie. a 3v3 team could only have 6 members) would give more people who've been riding the bench a chance to play, create more teams and make for more diverse levels of gameplay. A limited team will certainly have to be more committed to playing, but with separate divisions for skill levels more people will be interested in playing knowing they won't lose by 1,000 every match they play.
3. Have an admin whose sole responsibility is recruiting for CAL. There are more than a few clans out there that have no idea what CAL is all about and would possibly be interested in playing but haven't got a clue of where to start. The CAL recruiting admin would act as a liaison to help them become familiar with where to register, help them with server set up, maybe take them through the process of a CAL based scrim to show them what to expect. This admin needs to be visible, available, friendly and willing to help.
4. Enforce the rules. I understand that in the past we've made allowances for this and that, but with new teams participating it sets a bad precedent. Otherwise, "Well Team X was allowed to do it", will be argued from here on. With this will come some major headaches because there will be new issues and arguments that arise and the rules will have to be scrutinized and loopholes plugged to keep the peace, but it will make the league more efficient, balanced and professional in the long run. If there needs to be another admin just for this to ease some of the pressure on the division admins then so be it.
5. There is no "right" way to play HL2DM. Don't get me wrong, I despise low gravity, I hate killboxes, but if you look at what people are playing in the packed public servers it's a very different game than what we think of as HL2DM. CAL will have to develope some flexibility for the game to continue. Part-time players aren't committed enough to learn advanced techniques but may still want to play in a tournament of some sort. I don't have a solution here; maybe it's a killbox division, maybe shellshock, maybe something different.

The question at this point becomes about our community's level of commitment to the game. We can continue to have a half-ass league with a few teams dominating because their egos wouldn't allow any room for a loss furthering the lack of interest, or we can completely restructure CAL into a league for new players to not only have fun but to learn more about the game and generate more competition. CAL will not build/rebuild itself. It would take a ton of work on the part of admins, the community and the teams, but if you want CAL to continue things need to change.

While some people are talking about a overhaul that is not what is in mind. Some changes happen every season and will keep happening but you cant compare anything if you change 10 things at the same time to decided if they were successful or not. If a Killbox league is in then that will probably be the focus of this seasons changes.

1 - of course less players is easier to coordinate. But its also less team play and less dynamic. This almost becomes pointless why have 2v2 and 3v3? If we were to look at this it should be along the lines of get rid of 2v2 and 4v4 and just have 3v3 so we can build 1 strong standard league like the euros have. But then again it still comes down to it hardly being a team play event. Also this issue is going to be worked against solving in several other suggestions.

2 - this sounds nice on paper but put it into effect and I do not see the gain. Who has a roster loaded with bench warmers? Not $W most of our players are inactive if the roster gets limited Toad and Micah get cut as well as all the others that show up once a season. And we recruit new active guys to fill the spots. And those active guys actually will sit the bench. If a player truely is active and wants to play they move to a new clan on their own much like moose did. If your clan does not operate like this then you might consider changing policy. The large roster allows people who do not really want to play to serve as back up in the event you cannot get enough players which helps with point 1 if you are willing to play a B player. It does not serve to sequester active players and prevent them from playing. Enacting this rule will most likely make solving issue 1 harder for our game.

3 - This is a good idea in fact it is what I brought nino in for cause I knew he would do this. And in fact he did. It is the talent any league desires most in him.

4 - This was really not a problem till this season when some people were dead set on trying to make it an issue. In order to pull it off a complete rewrite of the rules needs to happen which is something we are always working on. Even so it will be a game killer for issue number 1. Main reason we relax is to allow people to complete matches who otherwise would fail. Finals would be toast this season under these rules as well as a ton of other matches. And members of your team would be suspended. Even if we did do it given what happened this season because we are not lawers there is no way we could write them perfectly enough to stop what happened. When people are dead set on trying to get a match overturned or causing a problem they will pick away at anything no matter how well written and then an admin has to step in anyway and make a call.

While some people are talking about a overhaul that is not what is in mind.

Of course not. Popular opinion be damned.

1 - of course less players is easier to coordinate. But its also less team play and less dynamic. This almost becomes pointless why have 2v2 and 3v3? If we were to look at this it should be along the lines of get rid of 2v2 and 4v4 and just have 3v3 so we can build 1 strong standard league like the euros have. But then again it still comes down to it hardly being a team play event. Also this issue is going to be worked against solving in several other suggestions.

Why is it less dynamic? A match becomes more playable and less about a clusterfucked, spawn killing, "I CAN'T FIND A FUCKING WEAPON" mess in maps that aren't suited for 8 people.
2v2 could stay or go. That could be up to the CAL players to decide.
And you're right. Heaven forbid that we should emulate the euros. That craziness only works on foreign soil. Would never work here.

2 - this sounds nice on paper but put it into effect and I do not see the gain.

Of course you don't see a gain. Refer back to the earlier pic please. There's a few teams with 9-10 members that are all active players. Limit that roster to 6-8 = have several more teams.

Who has a roster loaded with bench warmers? Not $W most of our players are inactive if the roster gets limited Toad and Micah get cut as well as all the others that show up once a season.

Then your "once a season" people would have to form a team and actually play through a season if they were interested in playing.

And we recruit new active guys to fill the spots. And those active guys actually will sit the bench. If a player truely is active and wants to play they move to a new clan on their own much like moose did.

You recruit new active people to sit the bench? Why did he have to move on from sitting the bench when you could have limited the roster and allowed him to remain an $W member but play for or possible form his own team?

If your clan does not operate like this then you might consider changing policy.

My clan operates just fine, thank you. You seem to think that clan = CAL team. We're talking about teams here, and the more you can get to participate in CAL the more flexibility you have in how the league is set up.

The large roster allows people who do not really want to play to serve as back up in the event you cannot get enough players which helps with point 1 if you are willing to play a B player. It does not serve to sequester active players and prevent them from playing. Enacting this rule will most likely make solving issue 1 harder for our game.

You have a team of 14 and did not have a backup this season in at least one case, so a large roster didn't seem to serve you well.
Players cut from a team will find/form a new team if they are active and interested in playing. The season before this last, EE had almost a dozen players interested in playing. We could have put them all on one team and let most of them ride the bench all the way through, but instead we formed the Misfits. That made a new team for CAL, and gave them a chance to see what tournament play was like without having to sideline anyone.

3 - This is a good idea in fact it is what I brought nino in for cause I knew he would do this. And in fact he did. It is the talent any league desires most in him.

My bad. I should have known you had already thought of it and planned it that way.

4 - This was really not a problem till this season when some people were dead set on trying to make it an issue. In order to pull it off a complete rewrite of the rules needs to happen which is something we are always working on.

It was made an issue because it should have been an issue. No one else was willing to speak up about it. It looks bad when a game manager goes against the rules at the last minute to get into the playoffs.

Even so it will be a game killer for issue number 1. Main reason we relax is to allow people to complete matches who otherwise would fail.

Relaxing rules is one thing. Abandoning them for the benefit of saving face is another.

Finals would be toast this season under these rules as well as a ton of other matches. And members of your team would be suspended.

You just had to go there. Members? Grain was allowed to finish the season, so I'm supposing you found no evidence of hacks, although no one has actually come forward to exonerate him. I don't recall you investigating anyone else on my team. If you had something to suspend one or more of my teammates for then you should have done it. I would have had more respect for you for it than bringing it up now in an effort to keep people on your side in a time when CAL players are unhappy with the way the league is being handled.

Even if we did do it given what happened this season because we are not lawers there is no way we could write them perfectly enough to stop what happened. When people are dead set on trying to get a match overturned or causing a problem they will pick away at anything no matter how well written and then an admin has to step in anyway and make a call.

You don't have to be a lawyer to have well written, concise rules and then follow those rules. What happened this season is exactly what should have happened to point out the flaws in the system and where improvements could be made. Any society, even a lame ass gamer's society that exists on forums and game servers, must be allowed to speak out in order to effectively change how things are managed if they are unsatisfied. This season, although fueled by controversy and disdain for players/teams, was the most interesting ones I've been a part of. The excessive delay caused a dramatic loss of momentum, but there is no doubt that this season will be one that is remembered.

Whether or not you like my ideas or anyone else's ideas is secondary. The point of this thread (although it started as a joke) is that CAL players are bored with the league and changes need to be made - drastic changes if you are to see participation continue.

While some people are talking about a overhaul that is not what is in mind. Some changes happen every season and will keep happening but you cant compare anything if you change 10 things at the same time to decided if they were successful or not. If a Killbox league is in then that will probably be the focus of this seasons changes.

before discussing a KB league I think the main focus of our CAL league should the expansion and growth of our current style of play. I have put forth many ideas on how to do this, 90% of which have sparked interest in the community. If we dont offer new teams a place to really be able to compete and learn it's not going to help CAL at all. Teams like FF who just played their first season would be MUCH more likely to come play again if they knew they had a chance to win more than 1 game. If teams like that and totally new teams knew they had a division to play in where they could learn team play, map strategy, comminication, and CAL rules, while have competitive games where the scores were close they would play. keeping our current one division and then throwing in a KB division is going to do nothing for the ppl that currently play CAL and/or players looking to partcipate in the current style. Im not saying im against a KB division, in fact im all for it, BUT if we are only going to focus on one addition this year, and I think most ppl would agree with this, we need to a development (or w/e you want to call it) division. This will draw new teams, new admins, bring back players that have dismissed this league, and keep players/teams that are on the bubble as to whether they are staying or not. Think about this for a second, right now we have players that are pissed off at CAL and the way its run. They are pissed at getting killed every match. They are not satisfied with playing in this league because they cant get the important skills down when they are losing games 300-100. I would be willing to bet that if you looked over the schedule you would find that games that were between 2 teams that were equal in teamplay skill were played on time and those that were between 2 teams that were not even close to being similar in experience were either played late, or forfeited. As with anything in life if you dont offer your customers an attractive product they are not going to be interested in it.

Here's what will happen if you keep the current division the way it is and you just add a KB division. A VERY large percentage of the current players are going to say "screw this, its just going to end up like last season, im sick of it, i have better shit to do with my time" new teams that were thinking about joining either wont or will quti after 3 week when they are 0-3 and -250 KDR. you will end up with same 6 teams that are in the playoffs every season. in turn you will have the community thinking thats all the admins care about and shun it even more. Competitive players will do 1 of 2 things after they quti CAL. Go play in the warzone who is about to finish up a very successful first season, or go pubbing and put together scrims of their own. all the while peaking over the shoulders at CAL seeing if anything changed only to find out $W won again, and their is a KB division.

Here's what will happen if you make a development division and hold off on the KB division.
1) Current players will be willing to give CAL another shot now that there is a place they can learn the team play skills they are lacking and have competitive close matches at the same time. their teamplay skills will dramatically improve with experience and in turn will move on to the upper division, improving that division as well.
2)New teams hearing about this new division would be much more willing to join now that they have a "place to get started". New players and teams will not only have fun playing in a good competitive league but will start to understand what it means to play like a team, to communicate effectively in team speak or maybe even figure out that there is such a thing as team speak, how important it is to stick together and starve other teams of supplies, learn to use the death cam to a teams advantage, how to listen to sounds around them for clues. etc. this is my second season of CAL and im just starting to learn these things, BUT if i wasnt part of EE and didnt have the advantage of players with CAL experience in my clan, i would have been gone a long time ago. A lot of these new players dont have that luxury. they join CAL cause they think its gonna be a pub league with standings, and they get smoked their first two games and quti. they dont stick around long enough to figure out that its not that they are bad players, just the teams they are playing against have the skills i just mentioned. in a development division, they will be more willing to stick around and learn them.
3) the best form of advertising is word of mouth. every new player that joins in this new division will have 5-10 friends they will talk to about it. now instead of them saying, "forget it, dont bother, you will just get killed every game and the players are assholes" they will say "ya, its a lot of fun and we are having some really good matches, you should try it out" lets say that this division started with 4 teams that would move to this division from the current one, and 4 new teams looking to get into CAL. even if the new teams had only 6 players each and each if those players told 3 ppl about what they are doing thats over 70 ppl that may have never heard about CAL looking into it to see what its all about. and thats conservative estimate. it may seem crazy for us to think about but there are so many players out there playing hl2dm that have never heard of CAL before. and the ones that have heard of it assume its a pro league that they will never have a chance in.

SO, now, just by starting this new division you've not only kept a lot of good players you would have lost, attracted a lot more new players, sparked interest in the pub community but also you've made CAL an enjoyable place to play and learn.

Am I the only one that thinks this is a no-brainer?

While some people are talking about a overhaul that is not what is in mind. Some changes happen every season and will keep happening but you cant compare anything if you change 10 things at the same time to decided if they were successful or not. If a Killbox league is in then that will probably be the focus of this seasons changes.

SO, now, just by starting this new division you've not only kept a lot of good players you would have lost, attracted a lot more new players, sparked interest in the pub community but also you've made CAL an enjoyable place to play and learn.

Am I the only one that thinks this is a no-brainer?

makes sense m8 more than some of the posts:D

3 - This is a good idea in fact it is what I brought nino in for cause I knew he would do this. And in fact he did. It is the talent any league desires most in him.

Well you need to find someone for this job,

Finals would be toast this season under these rules as well as a ton of other matches. And members of your team would be suspended.

You just had to go there. Members? Grain was allowed to finish the season, so I'm supposing you found no evidence of hacks, although no one has actually come forward to exonerate him. I don't recall you investigating anyone else on my team. If you had something to suspend one or more of my teammates for then you should have done it. I would have had more respect for you for it than bringing it up now in an effort to keep people on your side in a time when CAL players are unhappy with the way the league is being handled.

Grain was never exonerated. It's still open issue in fact. But funny how everything started back when Luke got back around, not when Grain got exonerated, which was the supposed reason for the break.

I don't wanna waste my time advertising if the league could take a month break any time a $w isn't around for playoffs. Shame, without this long break we would have likely had up to 18 teams with 11 returning, 3 up starts and 3 or 4 new to cal. But now... 4v4 will be lucky to have 7 or 8 active teams. Thanks for a huge waste of time advertising for the start of the season that looked to be only weeks away when in fact it was months. And wasted time getting all the matches played creating some kind of buzz and momentum in hl2dm. From 57 matches with 3 forfeits to 14 matches with 5 forfeits, amazing.

A bunch of good points...

What he said. Instead of a killbox league we should start a cal-o and cal-m split league for all the reasons chem stated. As I've said before I'd be more than happy to admin this because I honestly think this is the best way to grow the game and have more teams in cal.

They (new teams) are pissed at getting killed every match. They are not satisfied with playing in this league because they cant get the important skills down when they are losing games 300-100.


(With a "B" division, new teams will) understand what it means to play like a team, to communicate effectively in team speak or maybe even figure out that there is such a thing as team speak, how important it is to stick together and starve other teams of supplies, learn to use the death cam to a teams advantage, how to listen to sounds around them for clues. etc. this is my second season of CAL and im just starting to learn these things, BUT if i wasnt part of EE and didnt have the advantage of players with CAL experience in my clan, i would have been gone a long time ago. A lot of these new players dont have that luxury.




SO, now, just by starting this new division you've not only learn.

As a relativly new person to league play, I can truly relate to these sentiments. I also have 2 seasons under my belt and we now have members of Khaos with that much time under theirs, but we are new as a team together and we need to work out the teawork aspects for our group as well.

I will say that yes I do learn a lot more from the close matches than from the 100 to 300 ones where I can't even think long enough or move 10 feet before Im dead. There is no way to learn because you don't have time to try anything to see if it is even mildly successful. It is very discouraging and I would be lying if I said the thought of saying "Fuck it I'm not doing this any more" hasn't crossed my mind.

Nino, I think you are a great person personally. You have a great personality and you will help anyone that asks if you can. Your motivational skills and enthusiasm are awesome.

I will give credit where credit is due but, no offense, I also have to call things as I see them.

Overall your ability to get teams motivated to play was a definte good thing and one that is needed. Dealing with 8 teams in 4v4 to start off makes this a whole lot easier than 50 in 2v2. Being a CAL admin is a volunteer position and its a pretty thankless job as you know. Some of us can't spend the time chasing teams down and convincing them to play. People join the league to play. If you can't be responsible and follow through with what you signed up for why should I hold your hand?

You may feel that you have greater experience running leagues (which I might add is less than stellar from what I hear) than Fearsome does and you may feel that you should be GM instead of him. Well its just not the case. The job is his and there is a heirarchy in CAL, he is in essense Ko's and yours and my supervisor. Like us Fearsome also has people above him. Do you blatently disregard your boss's decisions at work? I doubt it because you would not be employed there very long. I don't always agree with Fearsome either, but I sure as hell don't openly defy the decisions he makes and I don't question them on a public forum. I discuss it with him privately and we hash it out.

You are also to blame for disenfranchising the player base because you created a lot of the drama this season by posting in these forums about Aces suspension which created HL2DM Drama episode number 1. I wasn't even aware that he had been suspended until I read your post.

Then you openly rescheduled matches when they were suspended creating what I will call Drama episode 3. You found out that Ko and I didn't support your decision to do so. The community figured this out when Ko and I had to post that these matches should not be happening and that in turn made the league and the admins look bad because we obviously were not in agreement on the issue. Both Ko and I tried to engage you in a discussion in the CAL admin private section but you ignored us.

And as far as the 5 forfeits in 14, I assume you mean the playoffs. Well 3 of them were a result of the drama itself and the dishearting of teams. The other 2 were your own teams forfeits. The first was your team refusing to play in childish display of unsportsman like conduct. The second was your team insisting on the default time (knowing your opponent would have a hard time meeting it?) then your players not showing up when the other team had all of theirs ready. The only reason the playoffs are finally over is because I set a hard default to cut the shit from happening.

So I think this:

Well you need to find someone for this job,

Is probably a mutual feeling.

(Uncle Rico)....a time when CAL players are unhappy with the way the league is being handled.

As I stated above, this was handled poorly by everyone involved and we all share part of the blame. This has created a huge rift in the community that has truly been sad to witness. It will take a community effort to heal that rift. I am willing to work at it, are you?

Now to Fearsome: The community is calling for something to be done. It may or may not work but I think you agree we have to try something. We have some good people that have applied to help us. I have discussed this with you at length and I am here to help you any way I can. I suggest you, Ko and myself have a conference and make some sort of decision and start moving. I would suggest at this time that we immediately start an "o" division in 1v1 or 2v2 maybe both because this I feel is our biggest problem. We also should put someone in charge of developing a KB division and perhaps a committee of 3 or 4 members from the different KB clans to hash out the details of a KB league. I am willing to be available for any discussions or questions regarding the development of all of these divisions from an admin standpoint but also as a sounding board for ideas.



gogogo

The job is his and there is a heirarchy in CAL, he is in essense Ko's and yours and my supervisor. Like us Fearsome also has people above him. Do you blatently disregard your boss's decisions at work? I doubt it because you would not be employed there very long. I don't always agree with Fearsome either, but I sure as hell don't openly defy the decisions he makes and I don't question them on a public forum. I discuss it with him privately and we hash it out.

In any work environment where a company is failing in it's goal, the people need to speak out and openly defy what they see is wrong. If no one speaks out against mis-management then the company will continue to fail until it has to close.

Then you openly rescheduled matches when they were suspended creating what I will call Drama episode 3. You found out that Ko and I didn't support your decision to do so. The community figured this out when Ko and I had to post that these matches should not be happening and that in turn made the league and the admins look bad because we obviously were not in agreement on the issue. Both Ko and I tried to engage you in a discussion in the CAL admin private section but you ignored us.

The playoff suspension was more than long enough for an investigation. If after 3 weeks you can't reach a decision then you have a problem. That problem being that someone is desperately trying to find something that isn't there to keep themselves from looking like an ass or something else is going on. I'm even more in shock to find out that the matter is still considered open at this point. That's just pathetic.

And as far as the 5 forfeits in 14, I assume you mean the playoffs. Well 3 of them were a result of the drama itself and the dishearting of teams. The other 2 were your own teams forfeits. The first was your team refusing to play in childish display of unsportsman like conduct. The second was your team insisting on the default time (knowing your opponent would have a hard time meeting it?) then your players not showing up when the other team had all of theirs ready. The only reason the playoffs are finally over is because I set a hard default to cut the shit from happening.

I was the one using match comm for the flas match. I did not INSIST on default time. I told them to plan on Thursday, I wasn't definite about it and they had already said they were available most weekdays including the default. I tried to reschedule after I found out my team was unavailable and they refused. I'll take the blame for not knowing my team was away/busy, but I won't take all of it since the match still could have happened. Either way, we were willing to let flas have the FW without argument. They were more prepared and more motivated to play in the finals than us and they deserved to be there. Congrats to you flas members btw, you guys played a great season.

(Uncle Rico)....a time when CAL players are unhappy with the way the league is being handled.

As I stated above, this was handled poorly by everyone involved and we all share part of the blame. This has created a huge rift in the community that has truly been sad to witness. It will take a community effort to heal that rift. I am willing to work at it, are you?

The "rift" is nothing but a result of disatisfaction and as you are finally starting to understand the majority is speaking out now against what went on this season. We don't all share part of the blame. We merely pointed out things that should be questioned. Of course arguments will arise, that is how things are discussed and changes are made. As long as people don't get their feelings hurt and try to retaliate by other means, things can be settled and we can move on.

Now to Fearsome: The community is calling for something to be done.

Yep, but


Paradox, please don't take any offense to anything I've said to you. I'm merely making points. There's no need to take any of it personally. You've always been a helpful and considerate admin, available at any time for us players. My only criticism is that you are standing behind someone who is about to be bulldozed by a disgruntled community.

And we recruit new active guys to fill the spots. And those active guys actually will sit the bench.

When was the last time someone was recruited for $W? dot c?

And we recruit new active guys to fill the spots. And those active guys actually will sit the bench.

When was the last time someone was recruited for $W? dot c?

you're joking, right?

Insults like this are not necessary thanks.

http://www.hl2dm-university.com/forum/p ... p?f=8&t=19

My apologies, WT. My roflcopter flew too high.


Wait, you reposted it. You lol'd. I know you did.

In any work environment where a company is failing in it's goal, the people need to speak out and openly defy what they see is wrong. If no one speaks out against mis-management then the company will continue to fail until it has to close.

Abraham Lincoln said "A house divided against itself can not stand". I am not saying there should not be disagreement, just get together and talk about it like adults, not by stirring up shit and creating drama. More is accomplished through rational discussion than by arguement and inflamatory actions and comments.

The playoff suspension was more than long enough for an investigation. If after 3 weeks you can't reach a decision then you have a problem. That problem being that someone is desperately trying to find something that isn't there to keep themselves from looking like an ass or something else is going on. I'm even more in shock to find out that the matter is still considered open at this point. That's just pathetic.

OK Heres the facts about the time line of events, all backed up by the News on the CAL website and my fast DL server log (which I do not maintain myself, the host company does that).

August 11th - the playoffs were suspended
Somewhere in this time it was determined that non-cal demos were not admissible.
August 24th - I get Grain's CAL demos in hand after several attempts to submit them over the previous week. I did not get them to Ko and Fearsome until at least 2 days later.
September 2nd - Announcement that the playoffs would resume

So in reality until the CAL demos could be looked at, there was no basis for judgement. After the CAL demos were in hand, a week later the announcement came that playoffs would resume. Whether or not this has to do with Lukes schedule (as alluded to) I cant say because I dont watch his calender that closely. What its actual status is at this point I really do not know as I have not been informed either way.

The "rift" is nothing but a result of disatisfaction and as you are finally starting to understand the majority is speaking out now against what went on this season. We don't all share part of the blame. We merely pointed out things that should be questioned. Of course arguments will arise, that is how things are discussed and changes are made. As long as people don't get their feelings hurt and try to retaliate by other means, things can be settled and we can move on.

Again, a calm rational discussion would have been a much better choice, not creating drama on these forums and on IRC by flinging insults and accusations. Then yes things can be resolved and progress made once again.

Paradox, please don't take any offense to anything I've said to you. I'm merely making points. There's no need to take any of it personally.

One thing about being an admin, is that you must have a thick skin. Mine has grown considerably thicker over the past two seasons. I dont take any of this personally, I am just trying to have both sides of the story presented, because there always is more than one side of the story, not just one perspective.

You've always been a helpful and considerate admin, available at any time for us players.

Thank you Rico, I do not take my job as admin lightly and I try very hard to remain objective and to do the best I can for the league. I consider many of you to be my friends and I hope to continue to do what I can.

My only criticism is that you are standing behind someone who is about to be bulldozed by a disgruntled community.

Have you thought about why this is? I pride myself in a high level of honesty and integrity and in real life it is one of the things I am known for. I dont stand behind someone lightly and if I felt there was wrong doing I would not give that support. People are always quick to judge and first impressions are always the hardest to overcome. I will admit, I once had gotten the impression from others that $W were an elitist group of snobs that looked down on everyone and just went around pounding on pub players for the hell of it. I was intimidated by all of them because of their reputation. I even ran away from them when they showed up in a server.

Since becoming admin myself, I have worked hard to get to know all of the admins, ops and others as well as possible by talking to them and by paying attention in IRC. In the process I have found Conflict, Luke, DeathBringer and even Fearsome to be a cool bunch of guys (as well as yourself and others). This means that the impression I once had from other people was quite wrong. Fearsome doesn't talk much so its harder to figure him out, but I also know what the upper level admins and what others that have worked with him in the hl2dm world think about him. I will tell you that most people's impression is incorrect, at least from my point of view.

What I am trying to do now is to prevent this community by bulldozing itself by trying to keep the rational lines of communication open, to try and be open to ideas and to make progress on the things we can do to make CAL better. It isnt going to happen overnight and people need to be patient and help out where they can by coming to the table with a cool head and mind to be part of the solution instead of trying to create more problems and more drama.

But funny how everything started back when Luke got back around, not when Grain got exonerated, which was the supposed reason for the break.

I don't know how this rumor got started, but I wasn't ever on vacation. There was a period where I wasn't on steam, because I was busy with school. But I was always in contact in case I was needed for a match, which is why I ended up getting back on steam anyways :/

As far as killbox goes, I think that it plays better as a pub than with teams, but I tend to play more stock than killbox maps, so someone who is more accustomed to the latter may argue the opposite. These players also represent a large portion of the DM community, and they're highly competitive, so I don't see why they can't get their own league. A killbox only league might actually do pretty well, because those who are really competitive killboxers but not that great at stock will be able to excel in their field of preference. As far as mixing these two opposite styles of play though, I think it might start discouraging a lot of players from joining. So my suggestion is that we just have two leagues. One for killbox only, and one for stock. I think that would encourage the most players to join. What does everyone else think?

good idea, I don't see why killbox doesn't have their own league in the first place

I would play killbox and stock divisions, and I am all for it.

I am also very much in favor of invite, main and open divisions in 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3. I think 4v4 should be dropped as its plagued with issues from map designs to lag to scheduling. Also in Killbox I would prefer it to be 1v1 but thats just me, if there is a desire for teams in killbox then that should be considered. If the players are not there to support a divison or game type after preseason, things could be condensed and proceed. With out trying we will never know, lack of admins seems not to be a issue anymore.

I also think we should get away from problems that occurred last season and move forward not backward.

Abraham Lincoln said "A house divided against itself can not stand". I am not saying there should not be disagreement, just get together and talk about it like adults, not by stirring up shit and creating drama. More is accomplished through rational discussion than by arguement and inflamatory actions and comments.

I'm not creating drama. You may see it as drama, but it's merely discussion. Things got more direct after Fearsome felt the need to point fingers, and although some of my posts have been a bit "harsh" as Zman put it, they serve a purpose.
I don't know why you see a house divided. From my perspective most of us are now on the same page with what needs to be done to change CAL.

OK Heres the facts about the time line of events, all backed up by the News on the CAL website and my fast DL server log (which I do not maintain myself, the host company does that).

August 11th - the playoffs were suspended
Somewhere in this time it was determined that non-cal demos were not admissible.
August 24th - I get Grain's CAL demos in hand after several attempts to submit them over the previous week. I did not get them to Ko and Fearsome until at least 2 days later.
September 2nd - Announcement that the playoffs would resume
So in reality until the CAL demos could be looked at, there was no basis for judgement. After the CAL demos were in hand, a week later the announcement came that playoffs would resume. Whether or not this has to do with Lukes schedule (as alluded to) I cant say because I dont watch his calender that closely. What its actual status is at this point I really do not know as I have not been informed either way.

I'm really tired of re-living this. This Para, is drama, what you had before was discussion. But for the record, those are not complete facts.
8-11 Playoffs suspended
8-15 Dispute filed against Grain - the email we received asked for the demos from the match being disputed and he submitted those within the time alotted. (48 hours)
8-19 Another email sent from CAL requesting the demos from "the" match again. If I'm not mistaken, I'm the only member of my team to get this email. Not even Grain got it. Not until I logged into the CAL site did I see a completely different message requesting all the demos which was several days later.
I still have all these emails.
8-24 After several attempts to upload the demos to the CAL site, you got them from him via ftp.
8-27 We're asked for missing screenshots for our 2v2 team. All of which were previously submitted via CAL's site or emailed to you after each match, but we re-submitted all of them the same day if I'm not mistaken.
9-2 Playoffs resumed.
I'm not sure who is resposible for sending the wrong messages, but the delay is still unacceptable. Whether it's a person or CAL's message system we'll probably never know, but if the matter is still open without a decision, and the season went on anyway, then there was no need to suspend the playoffs in the first place. This horse is dead. We've beaten the absolute fuck out of it. Let's drop the whole Grain/delay/hax/ewRareassholes/omfg nonsense.

Have you thought about why this is? I pride myself in a high level of honesty and integrity and in real life it is one of the things I am known for. I dont stand behind someone lightly and if I felt there was wrong doing I would not give that support. People are always quick to judge and first impressions are always the hardest to overcome. I will admit, I once had gotten the impression from others that $W were an elitist group of snobs that looked down on everyone and just went around pounding on pub players for the hell of it. I was intimidated by all of them because of their reputation. I even ran away from them when they showed up in a server.

Since becoming admin myself, I have worked hard to get to know all of the admins, ops and others as well as possible by talking to them and by paying attention in IRC. In the process I have found Conflict, Luke, DeathBringer and even Fearsome to be a cool bunch of guys (as well as yourself and others). This means that the impression I once had from other people was quite wrong. Fearsome doesn't talk much so its harder to figure him out, but I also know what the upper level admins and what others that have worked with him in the hl2dm world think about him. I will tell you that most people's impression is incorrect, at least from my point of view.

My issue here is with CAL and the way it's been managed, not $W or it's members.

What I am trying to do now is to prevent this community by bulldozing itself by trying to keep the rational lines of communication open, to try and be open to ideas and to make progress on the things we can do to make CAL better. It isnt going to happen overnight and people need to be patient and help out where they can by coming to the table with a cool head and mind to be part of the solution instead of trying to create more problems and more drama.

What you are witnessing is not the collapse of CAL, you're seeing potential for renewed interest. If CAL were to collapse, there's not much that you could say or do to prevent it. Progress and change is painful, because flaws have to be pointed out, and sometimes in this process personalities collide. Stop trying to keep the peace. We're big boys and girls here.

And we recruit new active guys to fill the spots. And those active guys actually will sit the bench.

When was the last time someone was recruited for $W? dot c?

you're joking, right?

Err... No.

I would play killbox and stock divisions, and I am all for it.

I am also very much in favor of invite, main and open divisions in 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3. I think 4v4 should be dropped as its plagued with issues from map designs to lag to scheduling. Also in Killbox I would prefer it to be 1v1 but thats just me, if there is a desire for teams in killbox then that should be considered. If the players are not there to support a divison or game type after preseason, things could be condensed and proceed. With out trying we will never know, lack of admins seems not to be a issue anymore.

I also think we should get away from problems that occurred last season and move forward not backward.

yeah I think invite, main, and open divisions would be good for the league as it would keep a lot of new teams in instead of having them quti after getting pwned for three weeks straight in a row, plus a lot of other games have these divisions, it would make people take notice that HL2DM has a stronger league presence.

Agreed Rico, we should move on. And yes sometimes ideas clash in any discussion, but I guess the true metal will be tested in how we work through that difference and affect a positive result.

i agree the two game styles should be separated to two divisions.
i personally think any real Killbox match is 1v1 and no more than that. but at the same time, i don't see only Classic type Killboxes should dominate a KB league as there are also Arena style maps. in which case i do think a 2v2 is called for.

Appendix :

Killbox - is a medium to large ROOM. gameplay is mostly vertical. has lifts and or jumppads. dm_killbox_final is a Killbox.
Arena - is usually a detailed horizontal level. gameplay is mainly horizontal. dm_agora and dm_fragyard
are Arenas.

The only thing which links both styles is the 90-100% visibility otherwise they're totally different. and this is also the only thing which differentiates them from Stock style maps.

Thanks Val. <3

I am also very much in favor of invite, main and open divisions in 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3.

Until the recent expression of player interest for split divisions, there were serious doubts as to the viability of 2 divisions per format, let alone 3. I think we will start with open and invite, for the 1v1 league anyway, and go from there.

Likely scenario is: The initial invite division will be composed of the top 8 (playoffs) players from 1v1 s2/s3/s4 (omitting s1 as it was experimental in many ways). Top 3 from each subsequent open playoffs will then be moved to invite for the next season. Invite will also be locked to the specific steamid that was used at the time.

I think 4v4 should be dropped as its plagued with issues from map designs to lag to scheduling.

Agreed, though i think a player vote would be best.

Appendix :

Killbox - is a medium to large ROOM. gameplay is mostly vertical. has lifts and or jumppads. dm_killbox_final is a Killbox.
Arena - is usually a detailed horizontal level. gameplay is mainly horizontal. dm_agora and dm_fragyard
are Arenas.

The only thing which links both styles is the 90-100% visibility otherwise they're totally different. and this is also the only thing which differentiates them from Stock style maps.

Some arenas, like aim_arena or the tower arenas, have large amounts of vertical play while some killboxes, such as that circular tsgk box with only 2 levels (donut?) have almost no vertical play at all. Also, several arenas have lifts / bouncers / ramps, while some boxes have none, and visibility can vary quite a bit depending on the box or arena, with some having nowhere near 90%, often being under 50%.

I think the main difference is that most arenas were created according to the same principles as stock maps- designed for 600g, pickups precisely placed, emphasis on the same advanced techniques that would be used in any other standard map. Killboxes break that mold by being made for various differing gravities, having dense amounts of randomly placed pickups, and generally not lending themselves to the techniques that dominate stock maps or arenas (though theres obviously some overlap; air control is a pretty dominant technique in low g killboxes, far more than it ever is in stock maps).

i agree the two game styles should be separated to two divisions.
i personally think any real Killbox match is 1v1 and no more than that.

Really? I think that is a disgrace to Killbox style of play. I personally think it should be at least 3 vs 3. Why? Because Killbox maps are about hectic, nonstop, kill or be killed, gameplay. The strategy is shoot first and think later lol.

Although, I wouldnt go much more then 3 vs 3 because of lag issues and also keeping teams small enough so everyone can field a team for each match.

First off, CO OP league...yikes, but the killbox league was a good idea. The problem is that people don't want to compete. They lose a few matches and fade away. I, personally, got tired of scheduling issues. If you made the league to be held on specific days or times instead of a very gray default time it would be less stressful to the majority. Create regional divisions if need be. I have to plan ahead for matches. I need to know in advance. I can't go day by day and see who's on. Part of that is the age group in CAL. I'm on a pool league that plays on Sundays in the afternoon. People who play are there. It is important to them so they joined the league. CAL is chalked up to an internet maybe for most people.

As for Val...lol I see more people complain about hopping than vice versa. Low grav folks seem to spite a good straffe jump even in 150 gravity. They call people cheaters in frustration against players that have destroyed their otherwise 2.0 kdr in a safe environment. There is a society that checks their rank on a server every 2 mins and leaves when someone "good" comes along. It's still an elitist complex as much as any CAL player. I have gotten accustomed to losing and I'm damn good at it if I do say so myself. People shouldn't be so upset to see their tiny world shrink.

I like the idea of an open and invite division. Kind of like golf or tennis.

If I join CAL again I won't do it in hopes to be better than people... just to play all my matches. Easier said than done.

Low grav people complain about bhoppers, bhoppers complain about low grav, killbox players complain about regular maps, reg map players complain about killbox.... see my point?

We can go in circles and waste more time or we can get serious about the topics at hand, personally 3 divisions sound insane, maybe at first we can try the 2 division with the low cal/killbox division dividing if it gets busy enough, most killboxes are played at lower than standard grav.

I agree with Val that the killbox should be 3v3, it is about hectic crazinesss, can't sit and wait on a killbox, can't plan it out, thats the fun of it.

I hate the drama, thats what has made me want to leave all of this for a long time but I love the game and I care about what happens to the game. As for the latest LUKE rumour, jeez *I* saw him constantly on IM and we spent tons of time talking about the goffiest things during that period of time, I have all the crazy pictures and videos to prove it, so give it a rest, PLEASE!

POMP

As for the latest LUKE rumour, jeez *I* saw him constantly on IM and we spent tons of time talking about the goffiest things during that period of time, I have all the crazy pictures and videos to prove it, so give it a rest, PLEASE!POMP

And your bringing this up here? Why? I thought we were talking about CAL, not Luke.

answering to one of the zillion posts.. I'm done with that.. what I was trying to say and it backfire is stick to the topic..

POMP

move on

I hate the drama, thats what has made me want to leave all of this for a long time but I love the game and I care about what happens to the game. As for the latest LUKE rumour, jeez *I* saw him constantly on IM and we spent tons of time talking about the goffiest things during that period of time, I have all the crazy pictures and videos to prove it, so give it a rest, PLEASE!

POMP

"I hate the drama"
"Quotes rumor adding to drama."

Lol.

I hate the drama, thats what has made me want to leave all of this for a long time but I love the game and I care about what happens to the game. As for the latest LUKE rumour, jeez *I* saw him constantly on IM and we spent tons of time talking about the goffiest things during that period of time, I have all the crazy pictures and videos to prove it, so give it a rest, PLEASE!

POMP

"I hate the drama"
"Quotes rumor adding to drama."

Lol.

yeah seriously pomp what the fuck.... ?