We have lots of people standing by to try and rework this site into something alot better.
We really need to get in contact with jiriki for this to happen.
Anyone out there able to reach him?
Look, I got only one guy ready to do web admin work, but he doesn't know any rails so he would like to do whole website from bottom to up in 2 months with PHP. Its better than nothing but surely wont help you right now.
Help me find a new webmaster guys, mailing me doesnt really help.
Well I have a whole team of web designers that would love to re-make the site. Basicly do a mash-up with www.ns2hub.comwww.ns2stats.org and www.ensl.org + more. ENSL would then be called the NSL, because it's changing from european to worldwide. Though past history of ENSL would be brought over for newcomers to be able to watch the legacy of NS1.
They would obviously need alot of time to do this, but they need access and permission for this.
I personally don't think "going worldwide" is a good idea. The americans will get their own setup in due time, and it'll work best if they run it themselves, be it through already established organizers like CEVO or a new american NS2 entity.
We should be looking to ETF2L for inspiration; no need to create grandiose plans for world domination.
If that doesn't discourage you from still going through with this, I don't see why it should have anything to do with the ENSL. If you want to create a new global league, just do that then.
I cannot believe i am saying this .. but i agree with FANA ... For now ofc you will get Teams from EVERYWHERE ... cause americans are smart and wait till there is actually a game that might be playable!
But for sure Americans will get their own league going because the Ping issue will NEVER Fade(<-- see what i did there) away. So going worldwide for now will in the end be a lot of work for .. well not much ... and if Americans want to come here they will no matter what it is called! .. I honestly beklieve the Americans are not so good at reading anyway so ;)!
Oh and .. Jiriki is ALWAYS online in Steam .. cant be so hard to get a hold of him swalk.
Last time it took me a few minutes to get reply from jiriki via facebook. I don't think that's the problem.
If someone will be going to redo entire web in php - than I believe there is nothing to do with the current state of the website. (later on you might want to merge the new website in php with the old DB).
Ruby on Rails generates some parts of the code itself, rather than require for someone to manually code everything (that what you have to do in php). And that is a tricky part - to understand that code in order to make any changes on it. That was my first impression.
Thanks for your replies guys. Feedback is always appreciated.
However if we do this, ENSL will get support from the devs, can't go into specifics yet. Cause nothing is official yet.
Having regional seasons with a global champions league afterwards is the current plan.
However, just creating another site is impossible to do for the first season or 2-3. And ENSL is the best site we currently got.
I know Arga from ns2hub, have a good web development team, who would love to make this happen.
Ping issues will be rather moot, since they will not exist in the division plays. And only the champions league, and we will have proper rules for server choices in the champions league. So Europeans don't play against americans on a west coast server and so on.
Though some of you seem to be against this, it will be the future of NS2. As UWE's motto says; Unite the world through play ;)
"Proper rules for server choices" don't make any difference at all. It is impossible to have fair matchups and good games when one team has to play with a ping disadvantage. There are three very distinct reasons for this:
- Between equally skilled teams, the ping advantage will decide the outcome of the match, unless one team gets lucky/unlucky or one team has practiced a lot playing with high ping. These things do not make for good competitive gameplay. They make for crappy, random, joke matches that nobody cares about. If both teams are equal in skill, and neither team gets lucky or manages to pull through with a cheese strategy, the games will continue to be tied until finally, you run out of time and you have to bring out the coin to decide who is given the server choice in the tie break. How do we feel about coin flips deciding tournaments guys?
- It is not fun for the players. It never feels fair when you lose one of these matchups, because you always feel that somehow you got cheated, that somehow it wasn't fair (and you're usually right).
- You will not have proper games between equally skilled teams in such matchups; the team with the ping disadvantage will always have a huge incentive to use cheese strategies because it is the only way they can hope to win any of these rounds.
I really don't understand how this can be a discussion at all. There has never been, there never will be and there can't ever be a serious ONLINE worldwide/cross-continental tournament in an FPS game. The only sort of games you can have with that setup, are "funny" showmatches such as "Team Europe vs. Team USA" or similar setups; where everybody knows that it is just for fun and not serious.
I really appreciate the effort you are putting into organizing ENSL NS2, Swalk, but this is a really bad idea.
I don't understand the issue ; as long as we can, divisions will be made with teams from the same region and only "special matches" should involve ping-problematic matches.
Oh well, I remember the games vs. Argentinian, Korean and American teams and they were not brilliant experience at all for both parties.
100+ping difference (and sometimes almost 200) and Time Zones are the main issues. Even if you apply all sort of rules to make it a 'fair' play, it's not the same (playing same map both sides on two servers or w/e).
Separating those teams into division is one of the option, but than you would need referees from that areas, etc. Manageable, but doubt it will work out in a long run though.
Especially when it comes to a league. For 'one of' games I believe it would be fine.
And if we will have only one Korean team? A few Argentinian? There is still ping issue between Argentina and America I'm afraid. Correct me if I'm wrong. Oh well, poor Koreans will be left out as well, or have to struggle with ping and time zone issue within the EU/NA division :)
I'm not against it, but there are issue to look into.
Yes there are issues but if they only have one team on ENSL this means they wouldn't have many teams if they made a local league ; so what do you prefer : having a league with a ping disadvantage or no league at all ? :-/
Sorry to hear that you don't like idea about the seasons ending with a world championship decider.
However, if we want the support from UWE, we will have to let every region into this. And trust me, we want that.
I'm not saying that pings arent an issue, but saying that this is impossible, or not a good idea, I do not agree with that at all.
The main part of your time in the league will still be playing regional games.
I don't understand why you wouldn't want a world championship.
It's good to find out who is currently the best in the world and have all the regional leagues at the same place.
Even if pings are a slight issue. But it's an issue that can be dealt with in several ways, to make it as fair as possible. Jimmis was talking about a system of getting more points for winning on a non-native server, however, I haven't set myself totally into that system yet, and it is something we have to work on during the season I guess.
Thank you again for your support and flaming.
huhuh is willing to work on the code, at least give it a shot.
Ricaz or swalk's team? wants to do a new website in PHP. I'm open to discussion about this. I have no objections given following constraints:
- The webmaster is dedicated to keeping the site up, just making one isn't enough.
- It retains old information (matches, files, forums etc.)
In the end I think it'd be easier to use existing RoR than using PHP just for the sake of maintainability. I really don't see point making the wheel from the scratch. I think refactoring and learning Ruby takes less time than making everything from level zero.
Also I agree with what Fana said, cross-continental leagues etc. are a bad idea. Better to make separate.
I might be "online" randomly on Steam but its mostly by accident, and I'm not on for long or available for long.
Lies jiriki .. everytime i am online in Steam so are you !
And since i am online like once a wek you must be online like 24/7 just so we would be online at the same time ! HEHE XD !
Oh and swalk .. Great that you are this motivated but as ppl alrdy said bad idea for several reasons ...
BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY:
YOU GET HELP FROM THE DEVS?
You mean the guys that took 10 years for a NS2 that was supposed to come out like 5 years ago? .. oh and is it done by now? or is it still a beta?
Rely on help from those guys and you can also rely on me being sober when i play NS ... NOT GONNA HAPPEN !
Greets EisTee !
Oh and .. Using paragraphs might actually be a good idea .. even when it is random thoughts !
I would love UWE support, and I know exactly what's on the line if we get it. HOWEVER: If the option is between (1) having a great league with good, fair games, without UWE support and (2) having a crappy league with frustrating, bad games, with UWE support, I know what I would choose every time. You shouldn't get distracted by shiny things; playing the game is what we're here for.
I have already explained to you why it is impossible. In plain English. If you want to try to refute the points I raised; I wish you good luck, because it simply isn't possible.
It doesn't matter that the main part of the league is regional, when the matches that matter, the ones that decide who can call themselves "champion", are not. If those deciding matches are a ping-debased crapshoot, the entire league will be a joke.
No, you will not actually find out "who is currently the best in the world", that is the problem. If all the cross-continental matches were played on LAN, that would be the case. If they are played online, it will either be decided by luck or random bullshit like coin tosses.
Well congratulations to Jimmis for making the worst suggestion I've ever heard. This ranks up there in stupidity with the people who suggest matches should end after 30minutes if one team hasn't won by then, and the winner be decided by points or some other arbitrary value.
1-world league is a terrible idea. Have you ever played cross-continent, swalk? Instead of being a stooge for UWE why don't you try explaining how much of an excruciating fun-depleting experience it is.
Also, do you really expect the americans to act as basically an admin sub-team? Such a large difference in timezones and even getting everyone on the same IRC network will probably fail. It's going to look like the euros from across the ocean are dictating the terms and conditions of play. If I was an american I'd be up in arms over it.
At the end of the day, competitive communities are based on actual community networks and the leagues/tournaments fit around them. It's fucking suicidal to try and crowbar ridiculous ideas from a prescriptive role in order to allow a games company to promote their game and for a few european admins to feel jolly that they control the world (until you pay the players wages :D)
Not liking the idea of cross-continental play at all. My worst experiences in competitive NS is from playing Americans/Canadians, just thinking about it makes me upset :(
I was arguing about Champions League from the beginning, and they didn't believe me that the part of community will not like it. May be with different name, it would be accepted, but in the way it is presented now - not a chance.
I already did mention my previous experience playing against someone with ping advantage and than vice versa. And you can't say 'oh well, at least that's what we can do, rather than not doing it at all'. This assumption is not weighted properly at all.
That's why all the big tournaments have got a regional qualifiers, which most of the time are still LAN tournaments. And then for the 'championship' games you obviously will go and play on LAN versus your opponent.
That's also understandable why we can't have it, and with the options we left out it's better to judge wisely before signing up for something, that you have no experience in.
ENSL was always a community driven league for community. And I don't understand why this is not happening now.
We will not rely on them, their only demand is that we let everyone in.
They will only give us support, they will not take over or control this league.
The community will run the league.
Yes, there are already plans set in motion to have seperate US/AUS admin/referee teams.
I have played against both americans and austrailians.
And to be honest, as long as you meet on a good middleground, the ping issues are not that much of an issue.
Neither me, or this league are in control of UWE. All they did was to offer us stuff as long as we let everyone in. In return I told them they could cast it all they want.
That is a pretty good deal. They promote the competetive side of the game which helps the community grow.
If everyone is playing in the same league, that also promotes comp community growth. This community deserves to get big.
Trust me, I am not doing this for fame or money. All I did was practically to take the initiative to get gathers, and now the league running.
And Fana, the world champions will not be the only champions, every single divison winners will be champions.
I know you will change your mind when you get more details.
Anoter name is no problem. Suggestions?
The only way ping wouldn't be a problem in Europe/Australia/US/Korea matches would be that all the matches are played on a server where everybody has 200 ping.
We did that some seasons ago as none of the teams would agree to play when the other team has an advantage. Playing on 200/200 pings is horrible, playing with 300/50 pings is even more horrible.
I make/develop ns2hub and thought I would chip in...
I agree with the thoughts expressed here that a single combined league is a bad idea. Expanding ENSL slightly doesnt need to require a single global league, I would rather simply see ENSL or NSL run two leagues. One US and one EU. People can play fun cross region games if they want between seasons or for practice, but the league focus should always be on the region and crowning one team EU champ and one US champ.
I like the 'idea' of a mega site with ENSL/ns2stats/ns2hub, but after thinking about it I think it would be far too difficult to do and would end up making a mess of things that already work very well.
I have been thinking for a long time about how I can bring more attention to ENSL/ns2stats with ns2hub and I am soon moving to a 'metro' style interface on the main page, with tiles for the most popular/common features on ns2hub and a tile each for ns2stats and ENSL.
I think perhaps it would be easier to manage if sites/the NS2 community just worked to help support/promote each other. ENSL and ns2stats are fantastic community resources and people should a) know about them, b) use them and c) be excited about them. On this front, while talking to swalk, we had a potential idea:
What if ENSL (or NSL) / ns2stats and ns2hub all shared a Wordpress Adminbar style bar at the top of each site. It would like to each site, so that it is easy to navigate between them and could probably be put to far more use than just that by super clever web stuff. I knocked up a quick example here: http://ns2hub.com/images/collective.jpg
Either way the most important thing is that ENSL gets back on its feet and sadly I cannot help with that. Learning to use the Yii PHP Framework is a full-time job for me right now! :-/
I don't think you're doing this for "fame or money" (what fame or money?), but it seems clear that you don't understand the gravity of the problem at all. If this was simply a case of letting US/AUS/whatever teams participate if they wanted to, either in their own regional divisions or in the regular divisions on European servers, I wouldn't have a problem at all.
The problem starts when you want the ENSL championship to be decided by high ping matches that will turn the entire league into a joke. I don't think I'd want to participate in that at all; every time we tried it in NS1 it was a miserable experience.
It seems you still don't understand. This world championship will be played after the season champions are decided. Guess you could call it the world cup.
The fame or money thing was more so directed towards Mu.
Something like this will be put in play whenever possible.
Also, Fana, I find your comments on this quite hilarious. I mean, you have an american player on your team. And you've played in an american team before.
I wanna make sure this is clear, we ARE running seperate regional leagues. Now we have EU League and US League. And I hear rumours about austrailians joining as well. So 3 Leagues with own divisions, and 1 world cup.
And all division winners will be in hall of fame. Not just top divisions. Everyone works hard to win a division.
Does this solve the problems you had with this?
