Red Alert Global League - Discussion, Feedback, Development

[SoScared]

[align=center][/align]




Greetings Commander!

We should expect the next season to go a lot smoother, more efficient now that the hidden beta season is out of the way and we soon can set out feet upon a new season set to begin September 5th, shortly after the last summer month. As stated earlier the reason for the short in-between with Season 1 and 2 is to establish a stable routine with all future seasons going Sep-Nov and March-May. This way we'll have a constant 3 months of stable in-betweens. There will be introduced a Break Round after round 6 in order to give players a chance to take a breather or catch up on some delay matches in the middle of the season.

Also I've brought onboard a new official email adress, OpenRA.RAGL@Gmail.com, to deal with all official business of the league. This in order to continue the path towards making RAGL not a SoScared's league, but hopefully, eventually, an official league!



That's pretty much everything that has been decided for Season 2 so far. Everything else is up for discussion (a lively one I hope) to help determine what works well and what doesn't. I know there has to be a lot to be said so don't hold back - the more topics, praise and criticism we can get through properly the better the development of the league. Also, you don't want to miss out on having a hand on the wheel - should the league continue to grow and become something for players to look towards for many years to come.



Shoot!

[noobmapmaker]

First of all, I think for a first season it went really well. Largely because of your elaborate setup.

Some thoughts:

IDEA: Give the winner of the Recruit League a play off against one of the last from the Master League. If he wins: promotion to Master League. Lose: promotion to Minion. This to shorten the route for really strong players to the top.

CAN THIS BE MADE EASIER? One thing I didnt like alot during the season, but it's probably inevitable, is the arranging of matches. Even though its just 2 matches per week it felt a bit annoying to look up who I had to play against, send email and come to an agreement. Now this is not alot of work, but still it felt like a nuisance and also because I was always the one to instigate the contact My guess is that a large percentage of the matches that have not been played are because of two players awaiting their opponent to send an email and then forgetting about it.

It really is a minor nuisance that may not even be fixable (without alot of technical support) but lets give it some thought on how this can be done different ly.
For example: could it be possible to setup auto-emails for every week? Every week each player recieves an overview with a list of the matches of that week. This helps people reminding that its a new week and they can easily check who their opponent is.

PLAYING AHEAD OF SCHEDULE: Also I have played some matches in advance due to my vacation. I was unable to upload the match for a long time because the 64H server was updated per week. If possible please allready post all weeks in advance to facilitate early matches.

That also brings me to the question (that has been answered, but still): is it ok to play games in advance? Also if there is no nescessity?

RAGL TIMESLOT: Would it be nice to have an unofficial timeslot where people can just show up to play games? E.g. every day @18:00 GMT-20:00GMT its RAGL Hours! If you come online at that time there's a big chance that some people from your league are online and if they want to play you can play the games in advance.

MAPPOOL: Furthermore: would be happy to see more maps added to the official RAGL mappool.

And please do keep your informationthreads. Its very nice to have all the information centered and an easy place to find back the needed links, all in one place.

DONATE: And last but not least: hopefully again next season people are willing to donate some $$$ for the prizepool! SoScared has added a nice sum of money which is great, and I hope more people will help to fuel this awesome project.

[JOo]

i just recently developed deep concerns about competitive games (tournys , leagues ... ) getting streamed "live" ...

as this opens the doors for stream-sniping ... and even "with" a delay ... you could get advantage out of doing so ...

i know , i probably cant expect on evey openra-event that only "replays" get casted ... but
since there is "serious" money involved in the RAGL's ... im asking to add spectator rules ...

so therefor changing the line : "There are no specifications regarding spectators."

to something like : "Spectators (regardless who that person might be) are only allowed when "all" players in the match agree"

and as addition :

"Players may allow specific spectators ... but reject other spectators in the same game"
"Players do not need to justify themself for rejecting a spectator"

Exceptions could be officials , who can prove their identity by their "ip-adresse" which they beforehand made public to all participants of a tourny / league
(maybe via email) ... but this then should not give the right to stream the game "live"

im asking for this , because there could be the possibility that a player might be in direct contact with a spectator (family , friends ... ) exchaning information verbally
, sitting behind a screen right next to him , or eventually via VoIP ...

and this could lead to a game being compromised by playing unfair

[SoScared]

@NoobMapMaker



The contact process is indeed the biggest bulk in the league and is hard to improve significantly without direct involvement from league officials. One thing that might help slightly is to publish a weekly fixtures thread, perhaps for each division, to highlight the matches of each round. In turn the players could get weekly email notifications with a link to the thread. This is easy to do and could encourage player activity when more eyes and gossip surrounds each round.

The Failed Contact notice, as far as I can see it, is the most fair and practical way of punishing players' inactivity and documenting attempted contact per email. On several occcations players delayed their matches, instead of reporting failed contact, when they were unable to get hold of their opponent. This should be discouraged to weed out inactivity early in the season as opposed to mid or late season.



Playing matches ahead of schedule was always allowed and should be encouraged if people foresee a tight schedule ahead.



A RAGL timeslot sounds intriguing but I'm unsure if that should be officially announced with the league. It could bring fewer incentives for players to initiate contact directly which still would be the primary method of contact negating the disadvantage of timezones. I'd not be initiating it but if someone is advocating it indepentently from the league I'd fully support it.



I'll be insisting the RAGL to contain 10-12 maps tops. Players need to have the chance to get to know all the map should they want to prepare extensively for the season. The map pool should have some changes from season to season.

[SoScared]

@MicroBit

Agreed to everything you said.

As for streaming we could add a rule demanding streamers adding a minimum delay time for the match streams, e.g. 4 minutes. That's not 100% stream-snipe proof as you still could get a look on e.g. base layouts but should be enough to discourage stream sniping for the most part and streamers could still have a meaningful interaction with the viewers. This would require no-delay streams to restart their streams with new settings in the stream client, which is easy. Streamed matches without sufficient stream-delay would disqualify the match.

[noobmapmaker]

The contact process is indeed the biggest bulk in the league and is hard to improve significantly without direct involvement from league officials. One thing that might help slightly is to publish a weekly fixtures thread, perhaps for each division, to highlight the matches of each round. In turn the players could get weekly email notifications with a link to the thread. This is easy to do and could encourage player activity when more eyes and gossip surrounds each round.

The Failed Contact notice, as far as I can see it, is the most fair and practical way of punishing players' inactivity and documenting attempted contact per email. On several occcations players delayed their matches, instead of reporting failed contact, when they were unable to get hold of their opponent. This should be discouraged to weed out inactivity early in the season as opposed to mid or late season.

Agree. The failed contact notice is good. And in the end: if people dont take any intiatuve then you can do whatever but it wont help. Im in favor of the weekly fixture-email. Weeks pass quickly and also I sometimes thought "oh its wednesday allready, have to make contact before the week has passed".

I'll be insisting the RAGL to contain 10-12 maps tops. Players need to have the chance to get to know all the map should they want to prepare extensively for the season. The map pool should have some changes from season to season.

personally I would like to see the map pool be expanded, for variety both as a player and as a spectator. Preparing maps is quite essential but it would be ashame if it became somewhat like chess: if you dont play the right opening, you will fall behind in the midgame. But on the other side: more maps actually increases the chance that a player doent know the map well while the other has prepared. But ofcourse it is up to you!

Just a couple maps from the competition that come to mind:

Tandem - edited to make it a 1v1 map
Crossfire - with less ore and oil
Desert Rats
Ad Arma
Through Road
Remote Villages


Or a search in the resourecenter for inspiration with RA-mod + 2 players

[SoScared]

I really like Tandem as a high eco map but as you said still gonna need extensive editing to make it 1v1. Perhaps Kyrylo could edit it as he did Behind the Veil.

What's great about Crossfire is that with 4 spawns you could have unpredictable player positions, like Tournament Island. I'd love to see it with 12 -> 8 spread oil derrics and slightly less ore.

Desert Rats is a no brainer IMO

Off course, all of the above would have to compete with the current map pool.

Unfortunately I don't have the stats to what maps were played last season but I know Dual Vegetation and Forest Path was played minimally.

[anjew]

What's great about Crossfire is that with 4 spawns you could have unpredictable player positions, like Tournament Island.

i love this personally, 4p balanced maps like tournament island would be great