State of the Union address (what really went wrong with competition)

[Shane]

I'd love to hear from some players in those clans why you would choose not to play for lesser clans?

Alright time for a history lesson:

[FV] [SOS] were just clans that invited me in, I was fresh out the zd threshold at the time so it seemed like a good idea at first, later on I grew to resent my fellow players.

[C] Icedcoffee came to me with no idea who I was and basically asked me to leave SOS to start a clan with him, I did and it fell through unfortunately, but from there I pretty much became a part of Spak and theres that story and what not.

After I realized Spak was mostly about trolling and making short lived clans it got pretty dull and so I dipped out of there.

<PRO> and [X] were basically clans with little ties to most of the clan members and therefore did not interest me for long.

I got used to R and pretty much half of the playerbase before I even joined, it's not a clan that I wanted to join just to feel like the best but I joined primarily because I feel closer to the members and I can form even better memories with a group of people I can easily get along with. When Jenova said I could join, well it's not like I could refuse.

[Ænima]

I still think a doom currency (limited reputation pts) would add quite a dynamic of incentive. You might need someone with accounting skills or elaborate coding experience to sort out the system well. Trick is finding a way to expend the currency. "I'll give you 20 of my credits if you add this item to my mod." Make a bunch but don't hand it out so much or it loses the value.

Provides incentive:
to work on projects, allowing mod community to flourish
for enhanced forum posting
for long-term goals
to help other players
for legal betting pools
to learn the nature of economics
for planned events
on community contribution



sadly someone(s) would have to oversee conflict in trade and keep an eye out for fowl play. There's a number of drawbacks to it but it cant be impossible

See, the problem with this is that there's no real or perceived value to it (perceived being what really matters). And in order to make it seem valuable, you have to put it to constant use (which is why nobody gives a shit about pennies anymore). But in order to encourage people to use a new currency, it has to seem valuable in the first place. Which ... is kind of a catch-22.

We've tried this sort of thing years ago with "Skullcash", and it really didn't go anywhere. People don't care about making "Doom money", they'd rather make real money. Besides, why should you have to pay this "money" to be a part of projects and event-planning? Isn't that what reputation is for? :p

---

Sorry if that was a bit of a rant. Honestly, it's not a bad idea, it's just that it can never be properly implemented, and even if it was, it would never really be used.

[Watermelon]

Money is a cool idea but the Open Source issue means we just can't do it without insane cheating. The only viable option is ZD, which everyone significant is banned from.


I think an unusual angle that most people didn't think about is how unlagged and lagger compensation is contributing to a player skill decline. There's no punishment for terrible internet, and people just teleport and cap. I notice all the new offensive players have terrible shots, but cap because they teleport. Then when it comes into a clan situation in 3v3 where their teleport powers are diminished, they lose and discouraged as people shit on them all the time. This can't be stopped because most old school players that kept Doom alive earlier and used only ethernet are gone. The new players all use wireless from mom/dad's money and can't afford their own. This is not their fault, but sadly is part of the problem and cannot be remedied unless someone wants to donate a million dollars towards Doom players. I propose a harsher solution, but this would most likely axe all the teleport laggers and leave us in a worse situation.


The port fracture split whatever was left.


The top remaining clan only plays LoL now and has degraded to the point where it's life-support is one really good runner. The remaining clans are dying from inactivity and can't compete with a clan that never plays and somehow beats them every time, or are recruiting multiple tranny/furry/useless weight in exchange for better players.


The atmosphere is horrible in this game. Everyone fights with one another and griefs one another if they lose, even R has gotten into that mode which I think is pretty bad considering it's supposed to be a tight group of friends.


Maybe this is a good insight into why I'm done with the clan scene. I suspect it'll just be priv, then duels, then dead. And of course, I don't care:
Doom -- like an old man -- is ready to die. And I'm fine with it. It had a good run.



The exclusive mod era is right around the corner.

[Cyber']

What people are failing to realize is this: Summer had a great run, fall didnt. Think about it for a bit. Spring and fall are always the low points.
A lot of us are focused on school and exams, so "nothing" you guys do will force them to put doom as a higher priority than school / work.

Just wait for around January before everyone gets back into activity. That's what PRO is doing.

[Reaku]

I think for the most part, a lot of the problem came about when maps, mods, and even some of the game modes started going stale, creating some stagnation in the competition flow, with nothing really new being cranked out to compete with each other, players found it hard to actually stick around more to also compete. Really, without maps and mods, there are no players, without players, there are no maps and mods, the cycle kind of got interrupted about half way through, which is what we're experiencing right now. simply, we need something fresh to raise from the dirt for once, it's been a few years.

[Shane]

I don't think maps are the real issue, we play the classics for the simple fact that we know them well enough to compete on them.

The top remaining clan only plays LoL now and has degraded to the point where it's life-support is one really good runner.

Do you mean R? Or PRO? Well at this point I think it could work for both...

What people are failing to realize is this: Summer had a great run, fall didnt. Think about it for a bit. Spring and fall are always the low points.
A lot of us are focused on school and exams, so "nothing" you guys do will force them to put doom as a higher priority than school / work.

This is quite obvious, I'm only stating my point towards those who want to treat this like it's the end of doom as we know it. Because it's not, and more than likely won't be for a very long time.

[Luke]

Money is a cool idea but the Open Source issue means we just can't do it without insane cheating. The only viable option is ZD, which everyone significant is banned from.

What's the problem with putting some money together and give it out for free using and OS software? You aren't making money with the software but with a tournament that uses the software.
I mean... if so, the Doom2 tournament at the QuakeCon 2013 broke the OS license of Zandronum...
However, I think none will come to sue a bunch of players of a very old game. :)

Doom -- like an old man -- is ready to die. And I'm fine with it. It had a good run.

No. Ducking. Way.
You've to walk on my body for that.

[Yellowtail]

I mean... if so, the Doom2 tournament at the QuakeCon 2013 broke the OS license of Zandronum...

...except QuakeCon 2013 used Odamex...?

[Ijon Tichy]

And nothing in the GPL prohibits making money. Nor does anything in the sleepycat or BSD licences prohibit making money. They're concerned with protecting the source code and/or allowing freedom to developers; their intent is not in economics.

[Luke]

I mean... if so, the Doom2 tournament at the QuakeCon 2013 broke the OS license of Zandronum...

...except QuakeCon 2013 used Odamex...?

Isn't it OS as well? (I thought they used Zandro, whatever: balme Catastrophe for uploading the final match saying to play Doom with Zandro in the description.)

And nothing in the GPL prohibits making money. Nor does anything in the sleepycat or BSD licences prohibit making money. They're concerned with protecting the source code and/or allowing freedom to developers; their intent is not in economics.

So it's cool to have a tournament with a prize pool in case we decide to do it?
Rhetorical question, yes.

[Fluffles]

A simple ELO tracking ranking system will likely help popularity, would keep people determined to get better :)

[Torr Samaho]

And nothing in the GPL prohibits making money. Nor does anything in the sleepycat or BSD licences prohibit making money.

Odamex has no problems with the licenses and money making. The BUILD license in (G)ZDoom / Zandronum is different though.

[Ivan]

A simple ELO tracking ranking system will likely help popularity, would keep people determined to get better :)

ELO for FPS doesn't make sense to be honest. It should be something unrelated, and even if related should be renamed. This isn't a game of pure strategy.

[Luke]

And nothing in the GPL prohibits making money. Nor does anything in the sleepycat or BSD licences prohibit making money.

Odamex has no problems with the licenses and money making. The BUILD license in (G)ZDoom / Zandronum is different though.

Then again, same question but not rhetorical this time: is there the possibility to origanize a tournament with a prize pool of real money without violating any part of the license protecting Zandronum?

A simple ELO tracking ranking system will likely help popularity, would keep people determined to get better :)

ELO for FPS doesn't make sense to be honest. It should be something unrelated, and even if related should be renamed. This isn't a game of pure strategy.

True that isn't a game of pure strategy but is also true that you could apply the ELO ranking system to pretty much any competitive game; I didn't take the time to read again the details of such ranking system but if I remember correctly it gives/takes points to/from the player depending from the result of the match and the current ELO ranking of the opponent.
It's used in many non strategic game as CS:GO and Dota 2, it would make its use in Doom as well in my opinion; how to use it for Doom it's another matter and I don't have any clue about it since I don't know anything about coding and statistics.

[Danzoa]

A simple ELO tracking ranking system will likely help popularity, would keep people determined to get better :)

ELO for FPS doesn't make sense to be honest. It should be something unrelated, and even if related should be renamed. This isn't a game of pure strategy.

QuakeLive has an ELO system, and it's also an FPS game and it actually works really good, because that way they get ranked with people of their own skill levels, AKA if we could get an ELO system on Zandronum, the lesser good people could find people of their own skill levels, and wouldn't quit playing just because they keep getting wrecked by all the good players, and trust me that's the reason we lose so many people to MM8BDM and stuff, their reason for not playing duels usually goes "I'm not good at it, it's not fun" Etc. Mainly because others probably beat them and call them noobs because they get 5-25 or such scores.

[someoneelse]

I don't think so. Like, the rank system was what turned me off Zdaemon. Also, most of people play their silly mods that aren't really comparable to "true" competitive, and I think system like this making them kind of shown as permanent noobs wold kind of repel them. And I don't think it in a good way. Zandro thrives on mods and modders.
Also, I don't think we need more e-peen dramas. Damn, a rank like that won't show that you're, like, middle-skilled player, human brain doesn't work like that, it will most probably just make you feel you're crap even more than losing 25-5 with a pro.

[Torr Samaho]

Then again, same question but not rhetorical this time: is there the possibility to origanize a tournament with a prize pool of real money without violating any part of the license protecting Zandronum?

I am not a lawyer, so I can't give you a definite answer on this. I would guess that just distributing price money to the winners should be fine with the BUILD license (didn't check FMOD), since you are not making any money. But for instance streaming a Zandronum match on a website with advertisements would mean making money and may be prohibited by the BUILD license. Better ask somebody with experience on licensing issues to find out what you can and cannot do.

[Jenova]

I think people just need to play priv more. When I play priv, I see people call randcaps, and them immediately call it again if it picks a "bad" player. This is pretty dumb, completely misses the point of random captains, and doesn't give players a chance to improve.

@Shane:

Your point about mod-clans is pretty dumb. They can make clans and scrim if they want to.

[Cyber']

Mods will live, but competition will continue as long as people will go along with it. I'll repeat, it's simply because of school and other stuff that take priority. I've seen this last year and the years before. Wait for winter break for school. It'll be active again.

[Samurai]

On a positive spin, pub ctf activity has increased a lot over the last couple of weeks.