Welcome to the Global Doom Association (under new management!)

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Zakken
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Welcome to the Global Doom Association (under new management!)

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Post by Zakken » Sat Dec 09, 2017 5:42 am

What is the GDA? What does this “new management” mean?
As I’m sure you’re all aware, Dragon discontinued his GFA tournament earlier this year. He did, however, have something else planned for next year, which is the Global Doom Association (GDA). I didn't know much about how it would work, except that it would feature a variety of gamemodes across multiple tournaments, but in the end, Dragon decided to can that idea as well.

Seeing as how Zandronum's lone CTF tournament organiser gave in, I decided to take the helm of the GDA, and I'll seek to fulfill the hopes of the Zandronum CTF community for our own homegrown high-profile tournament series.


That's a cool story and all, but how do you plan on making things actually successful and sustainable this time?
This is probably the most heated question right now, and one I'd spent many months mulling over, because while I very much wished to host a tournament that everybody loved for years now, I also wished to do so in a way that doesn't take a huge toll on my stamina. Seeing Dragon himself crumbling over all of the stress and pressure from IFL and GFA reinforced the idea that the most important thing in a tournament, after the satisfaction of the players, is the comfort and well-being of the organisers.

With that in mind, I've decided to assemble a management team of my own from scratch, so we may distribute tasks among ourselves, should the workload of the GDA get insurmountably high. I'll still be in charge of about 80% of all operations, but something or another will be entrusted to one of my fellow admins. As of right now, this is what the team looks like:
- Zakken (management lead)
- IdeIdoom
- OurHero

We'll be looking to keep everything as transparent and informative as possible, as to maintain a healthy relationship between us staff and our players.


I was told the GDA would have multiple gamemodes. Will you keep it that way?
No, for two reasons. The first reason is that, simply, I'm not interested. CTF has been my bread and butter in Doom since 2010, and that is the one side of Doom competition I want to partake in and help grow the most. To divide my time between multiple gamemodes, most of which I don't even like, is time and effort I'd be very irritated to spend.

The second reason is that CTF in general is the only gamemode with a largely active, faithful competitive crowd, with servers getting upwards of 24+ players when Dragon hosted his nightly CTF tournament recently. It is a community that holds great potential in Zandronum, but one that has yet to see a good opportunity to shine since the IDL died in 2014.


Are you looking to compete with the WDL?
Not really. The WDL is an amazing league with equally amazing talent and competition, and I hope it only continues to grow. On the other hand, I'm sure it would please the folks who primarily play Zandronum a great deal to have our own home-grown tournament as well. Having more options to compete this way would encourage more people to keep playing, which could help Doom CTF grow even more long term, and hopefully reattain the peaks we had half a decade ago.


How will the GDA work?
For the most part, it will work in similar fashion to the WDL, with some key differences here and there. I'll go on full detail on the ruleset and format on the sign-up thread. Some things worth highlighting right now are:
- Two stages: group stage and knockout stage. The group stage is slated to last for 3 weeks, while the knockout stage is planned to be in session for another 2 weeks, making for a relatively low-commitment total of 5 weeks for teams that make it all the way to the final match;
- Projected for 4 or 6 teams, but can accommodate for more. Each team has a captain who will draft three players in an auction draft, making up for 4-man teams in 3v3 matches;
- Group stage matches are best of 3 in predetermined maps, knockout stage maps are best of 5 in homefield maps selected by each team.
- The WAD to be used will most likely be wdl2017.wad, as I see no necessity in creating a separate competitive standard wad when the one employed in WDL is already largely accepted by the community;
- Default servers will be NJ FC+, but teams may agree to play in other servers, as long as they meet CTF standards (points, time, DMFlags, etc.).


This sucks, Zakken. Bring Tendency back >:(
Tendency is a lot of work to manage all participating teams at once in a single weekend for an entire evening. The 1 match per week model popularised by IDL, WDL, ZCL and IFL is a good enough middle ground between administration workload and player commitment.


When do sign-ups open? I also have more questions to ask...
Sign-ups open on the 11th of this month. Further questions may be asked in this thread or on IRC at #zgda.

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