Lots of players in NS are semi active and can't play at all hours of the day, they use this excuse to not attempt competative.

This is my solution, it is tried and tested by my clan. We reached the finals of our division this season and we will continue to improve.

It is aimed at long term.

The general idea is you have a large number of players, >20 people, some active to form a 'core', some semi active to keep pcws happening. The theory is, if you have enough people in the team, if at any time a player in the team wants a pcw.. they can find atleast four other people from the team to play with! (then get a merc)

Rules to make it work:

º Players MUST idle on irc when they can play.
º Players MUST sign up in the pcw list if they want to play.
º Commanders need to organise pcws.
º Inactive players still need to be kicked.

There are channels for finding games such as #ns.search (quakenet), #findnsscrim (gamesurge)

You can organise the games in advance, eg. make a topic for "pcw @ 18cet" for today or "pcw weds evening" for weds evening? Depends when you want to play.. people WILL sign up.

Warning:
This method doesn't produce immediate results for pcws but the increase in overall activity of the clan will help lots.

You're the man Lump! I love your passion for keeping NS alive.

no

this is how to make your clan work: get 8-9 players that are old enough to be free of restrictions regarding the use of a computer, and who are mature enough to not rage at least too often. then make sure everyones cellphone number is in the other team members' knowledge, and just call people to get on the computer

and about 5% of the populatoin can do that... so lets not do anything else and wait for ns to die.. GOOD IDEA

If you'd bother to read the whole post you'd realise you're not saying something relevant to the situation i'm resolving. You're just talking out your ass.

dude, that worked well in levitacus!

the thing with small clans is.. once a player leaves for reason X, the team suffers... and unless you have a good level of activity in atleast 5 people.. not much will happen leading to a clan dieing... it happens to about 30% of clans in under 2 months.. they just die.

The problem is that there are just not enough people to form such large clans. And if they are formed, there is usually a shortage of clans to scrim against.

Have one player who is going to organize scrims, recruit new players, get you on the server and just generally keep the wheels greased and prevent disbanding after a month.

There aren't a shortage of players... trust me.

If a clan is dependant on one player it puts a lot of pressure on that player to have... no life. LOL. Especially if the rest of the team is ambitious.

Every clan that succeeds has someone driving them on though. Knife had bobbi. Lessthanthree had myself. Terror had mustang. Exigent had pain user etc etc. But yeh, they don't get to have a life

I had nothing else to do when while I was waiting to be 18 though.

Knife had bobbi!?

###### you.

FANA WAS THE LYNCH PIN IN KNIFE AND TEAM NEWROPE AND NINELEGENDS AND HE EVEN HELPED ENCOURAGE LESSTHANTHREE :]

Damn straight.

Hell, the only reason <3 ever did anything was because I fueled your ragemachine with great bursts of antagonism.

Credit where credit's due: That was me and swirl plz

no you all deserved the credits

I'm sure you lot can see how the large team idea would work for a less ambitious team.. even for an ambitious team if they have 2 or 3 75% active leaders?

Kudos to lump on at least trying, however. Whether you agree with him or not, the effort should be appreciated.

- Shockwave

To be honest a big part of the problem is the many pubbers refusing to try competitive because of the general "clanners are evil elitist ######s, so Im not goint to be any part of it" rubbish going arround now.That kind of attitude is somewhat fueld by claners (like myself) who go on public and open up nice big bottle of whine.
The funny thing is that when you actually get one of these guys to try an organised match they almost instantly retract everything they said about pubs vs competitive.

My point is that to keep organised NS alive new players must constantly be drafted so pubbers need to be encouraged to try competitive rather than the opposite.
This also means that clanleaders shoulden't be afraid to pick up some unexperianced (in competitive terms) players from public to train them up instead of just shuffling arround the existing batch of active players.That's where Lumps big roster system comes in handy too, you can have all the players you want and some new faces as well, after all, most of the time at least one of your prime squad wont be available anyway, so you may as well use this opportunity to give the new player a go. They get to know (and hopefully pick up interest in) cometitive play while you get to have your pcw/scrim.

To sum up:
If you're a CL, dont be afraid of new players
If you're a clanner, dont whine on pubs (or if you have to be an ass at least dont wear your tag)
and to all those pubbers out there, dont knock it till you try it.

I would have put the emphasis on the second line of your summary. To me it looks like the clan scene is the one looking for help, and therefore the onus to change is on you, not the pub scene.

I tried clanning a couple of times, but quit both times due to an intolerable level of vulgar abuse and racism I had to suffer through ( which wasn't directed at me, but that makes it no less offensive ). I've tried clanning, gathers etc and I still prefer pubbing any day.

God, I really love casual racism.

the problem is that pubbers think they know how clan games work and therefore dismiss them


well at least one of the two is looking for help, too bad that only solves half of ns's problems at best

I've been pubbing for a long time now, and I am interested in joining the competitive scene, although I recognize that what skill I had thought I had is really so-so (or worse )in the competitive world. TOmekki, so what is so different between a clan game and a highly organized pub game (which is what I do)? The problem with me joining competitive is time. I'll be starting undergrad in the fall and at my particular institution, I will be without time guarenteed.

P.S. I have had a lot of people complain about my rates. I did a search and tried to fix them, but still not great. I see everyone else fine, which makes me think is a cl_updaterate problem. I can get ~60 kb/s upload speed, so what is a good updaterate for that? My ping is always great <60

It's a common excuse for getting owned. Just like someone saying "lol lag", "lol reg", "lol wtf u bs hacker turn off ur cheetos mother ######". Ignore them.

Good raters are (for example)
rate "20000"
cl_cmdbackup "5"
cl_cmdrate "100"
cl_updaterate "50"
cl_lc "1"
cl_lw "1"
ex_interp "0.08"
ex_extrapmax "1.2"


Either you have some seriously baby thin skin or you've been talking to the wrong people -- in which case it's time to use the ingame mute functionality or just hud_saytext 0. I prefer pubbing to gathers as well, I don't particularily like either however.

Read the initial post.

I'm asking about the difference between scrims and competent, skilled pub play.

the problem with huge clans, is that you could boost the competitive scene even more if they were 2 smaller clans! although i guess this needs more of them to be core players. still, i guess its the best way to make something out of semi-active players. my clan for a long time had a core team of 5 and then 5 or so semi-active players of which one would normally be around to fill the spot.

theres no such thing as competent, skilled pub play. the nature of pubs is that theyre public. meaning anyone can join. meaning idiots/noobs will join. if you lock up the server, get on vent and ready then it isnt a pub anymore.

on the other hand, scrims between low (mediocre) level teams arent that far from pubs in terms of skill, coordination and the behaviour of players (mm1).

i guess im not the right person to give a proper answer because when i say competetive or clan game or scrim or whatever, im thinking about games between nl, <3, sauna, knife, insane, wb, whatever the best clans i played against or with were when i played in clans.

those games, granted they werent really that serious and competetive, were still light years ahead of pubs. its ridiculous to start thinking about the differences because everything was different, except the maps and the weapons

I like how tommeki only considers prem games as worth while.

I think he's talking a complete load of bollocks btw, even at a low level the organisation behind the rounds is far superior to public.



No it wouldn't, I've had smaller clans and they die and don't play half the time, we're almost acting as 2 clans right now but we have a much higher chance of fielding six at any moment



What the buggery are you on about.

There are morons in the clan scene.
There are morons in the public scene.
There are morons in the forums.
There are morons in the devs.

Saying the comp scene needs to change its attitude is a load of turd.

I've suffered intolerable levels of ###### talk on publics and I've seen masses of public players judge the comp scene based on a MORON public player they IMMEDIATELY assumed was clanned .

I probably came off more confrontational than I intended to be. You know I put a lot of weight on the competitive scene and do what I can to help it when I can. There might be morons everywhere, I'm certainly not looking for a utopian social experience when I play NS, however I tend to shy away from groups that are overly accepting of racism, no matter how casual. I don't get offended or upset over it, it's just a personal preference of mine, and one I don't need to justify.

My suggestion that it is the clan scene that should be motivated to change still stands. I know countless people who would consider clanning if they saw something done about the level of abuse dished around. Take any of the high profile shoutcasts we have advertised here. I really feel for the random NSPlayer who joins the event to see nothing but vulgar spamming of voice text and presenters of the shoutcast partaking of vulgar racist slurs. I've had people PM me afterwards asking how we can put such events on the front page of the forums and I always reply by saying that the benefit of promoting the clan scene far outweighs the negative experience some people take from it.

Perhaps you don't want people who take offense to some language, but I think you do, and I think many in ENSL agree with me on this.

Take this topic:

http://ensl.zanith.nl/forums/viewtopic.php?t=268


I agree with the final point. The majority of competitive players are relatively friendly and amiable. A minority of clan players are not, and these players are generally allowed to run amok with their offensive behaviour and are often encouraged by those who should know better. I do believe that if the ENSL took a position to try to prevent such behaviour there would be more interest in joining up.

don't you find southpark, family guy, the simpsons, futurama, monkey dust, jam, brass eye or anything along those lines amusing? Afaik they are quite popular and the levels of abuse/racism they dish out is off the scale.

I'm a big fan of most of the shows you have listed. I like South Park in particular for its clever depiction of popular culture and the way it uses satire and exaggeration to make valid comments. I think it is great that such a show can still be shown on US TV. The day that shows like South Park get censored will be a sad day for freedom of speech, something I care very strongly about. I don't think any words or ideas should be banned from use in general, but private organisations get to set their own terms of behaviour and I personally am turned off from organisations that allow casual racism. I see no contradiction here.

I don't quite understand what shoutcasts have you granted as racist, but i can agree with all the smurfs in HLTV nowadays, flaming goes all around. Then again, when there was those few HLTV's where you couldnt spam ######, a huge revolt ensued.

I have yet to see a racist remark that I thought was serious other than a former TeamUK and the spray they used in an official against Germany. Most of the time I see satire and exaggeration. Caps is a bit of a give away...

I am suprised at the amount of freedom that's allowed in the ensl forums though.

there are some tasty clanner stereotypes, such as:

americans still thinking that dropping the n-bomb is so shocking that it's funny (zzz, only south park can still make it funny)

english guys moaning when we get fragged (we're just bad ok)

finnish people never playing with the same nick for more than 2 hours (i had the whole of teamICE on my friends list at one point, but got so confused as i couldnt tell my mustafa dahlian's from my puppi's from my m-IRC warriors that i've removed everyone but scale and hopsu)

everyone hating the french because tutu really does whine that much

germans and russians having incredible e-stamina and being able to compete with koreans for game time

swedes moaning when they play on a non-swede server

norway is populated by people like monk and fana

YOUR TURN

That's a compliment, right?


No doubt, and "we" are grateful for that (the new hltv is awesome), but it does seem like whenever the competitive vs. pubber argument comes up, you always jump to the pubber side of the argument. I not saying that's how it is, but that's what it looks like.

clanners should know better?

HMMMM

If we want the scene to live we need to stop caring about winning so much.

We honestly need to do what lump is doing and make farm teams.

v3 before its inactivity used to hold pugs for pubbers, we did this ~4 times i think, it was really good, infact at least 2 from every game would try and join the comp scene after such a pug, if this was done on a grand scale there would be no issue at all.

Tbh i am regularly one of the clanners who whines on public alot, I only have one memory where i was really really beyond normally nice to my team on a public game, i suggested stuff calmly and it worked so good, we should do that more often.

Another thing that has added to ENSLs slow death is the lack of gather these days, I don't care what you say Fana, gathers where good at keeping the scene going, you could still play a comp game without having to have your clan on line and waiting 45min to get a clan to play.

And jiriki should be noted for his efforts to try and get pubbers into comp play, for example he sorted out the ensl public server which is a good way to attract pubbers.

I think farm teams and pugs is the best way to go tho, why did nL never make a farm team for instance? I think you guys would have made a good job of that. LTDM did it. In fact in my entire time of comp ns (not long really i know) i have only seen 2 farm teams. Two. LTDMs and 'is a pubstar'. Lumps current project will pay of well if he gets more pubbers involved. (Ill happily go on servers and ask pubbers if you wish lump)

I think ENSLs blueprint of 'GatherCups' really needs to be tested, its only ever been talked about,and i really think that could be interesting.

Can I ask a simple question?
The Public and Comp scene couldn't have always been this divided? How did people let it get to the stage where most pubbers hate comp players? Is it due to community such as yoclan who tell ppl that all clanners are bad? or is it people like Smood who spam these forums with propaganda about how lame and racist etc clanners are, or is it the more likely event, that idiots like a.A ( no offense ) or Sublime who really make pubbers feel second class and give us such a bad stereotype? Was it the use of scripts which some pubbers see as hacks?

pitchfork was the farmclan also...which was alive more then one year....


x-man

they were the only competetive games of ns i ever had. they were also the only fun games of ns i ever had.


no it isnt. its practically nonexistant.

So you expect us to believe that you never had fun at NS at all until you played in a premier league clan. If you believe this yourself, then you are delusional. Sure, it may seem right now that in comparison to the pinnacle of your play, your early days of NS were crap, but at the time I bet you really enjoyed yourself. And you need to realise that the same is true for pubbers today. When you try on this condescending "I've seen the light, fear yee all who stand before me" attitude you just sound like a 13 year old who hasn't realised what the passage of time actually entails for the experience of any social outlet.




I'm not sure that is fair. I have spoken in defence of the clan scene on countless occasions in public. I often voice up to speak against someone accusing a skilled clan player of cheating, I defend the practice of scripting in public. I also make it very clear that the types of HUD cusomisations that are prevalent within the clan scene are perfectly acceptable and that we, the dev team, keep them out of consistency checks by design. In fact, I usually get accused of being too supportive of clanners. I like to think that I am being objective and that my opinions come down on both sides of this discussion. When the discussion is about which form of play is better, I make no bones about expressing my preference for public play.

i never had the experience "wow, this round was actually really fun" until recently, like last winter or so. of course there were occasions that i mightve found fun or funny but overall it was either frustrating or boring or both. i played for like 2-3 years with this stone-age computer that could get 25 fps at best. it was ###### horrible. then i upgraded and started playing in all kinds of teams and got to hear more shouting than i think i ever will again in my life. the only reason i sticked around was cause i wanted to get good. you could see in every good player that they were enjoying the game.

also, thanks for the analysis about my attitude but you missed. im not trying to convert anyone, or be concescending (at least in this case). if you have fun playing with your pub mates on your pub server then by all means continue doing so. but please excuse me for wanting a little more dedication and socialization and more good games and stuff. (oh that mustve sounded too concescending aswell i suppose. ###### me)

as for the light, maybe its as moomin put it: theres only so much you can do in ns before you hit the ceiling. perhaps this game would never even have had the chance of going cpl

I don't believe you.

I think you've just forgotten how much fun NS was for you in the beginning. It's like an ex-girlfriend, you only remember her bad points after you dump her.

Also, I don't look to socialise when playing games. Sure, I like my gaming experience to be social to a degree, and I have made a few friendships over the years, but I don't go online to satisfy the need for human company.



A game doesn't need to be in the CPL for a clan to work. And the lack of CPL participation is not at the core of the high player turnover Lump is discussing here.

I'm not very good and I still find NS entertaining. I do find competitive play more fun only because everyone knows what they are going to do. Then again I don't find the waiting an hour to scrim to be very fun. There are plenty of times when I've pubbed where I kind of grit my teeth but I even find those moments to be fun.

I think one of the key things as far as making a clan work is to get 10+ semi-active people and hope that 6 of them can play on match day. Also make sure your matches end before 10:00 PM so no one misses Battlestar Galactica.

no. it was a new experience, it was interesting, it seemed like something that had real depth in it. i remember tons of amusing occasions, but they dont always guarantee a good round. the only rounds where i actually enjoyed every second were with saunamen (its third incarnation to be specific).


hah hah. and youre telling me i sound condescending. part of all the clan thing is that you goof around and try to entertain one another when youre waiting for the other team to get ready. im not saying the relationships i had with my team mates were more or even as important as real life friends, but they were pretty funny guys. and i had fun playing with them, instead of every single other team ever (pubs, other clans, gathers, you name it).


did i ever say that

Not everyone started out as a pubber. I would never have even touched this game if it wasn't for the fact that a bunch of my real life friends started a team and asked me to come play with them. You should know better than to crystal ball like that.


Yet you have no problems bringing the flamethrower when "we" talk about our preference of competitive, even though we have a lot of experience with both, while your experience with competitive is very limited.

comp play can't be judged properly from gathers and mixes.

If you stop caring about winning the point of comp play is defeated. If you say "we need to stop caring about winning so much, or organized play will die" you're still likely to kill off the community entirely because no one cares about what they're working so hard to accomplish.

The point is to solve this problem by introducing players into the environment, rather than trying to weed them out with immediate impossibly-high-level tournament play.


That would be nice. I'm sure there are more interested players in the community, but without captains, I can't do anything for them.

in america if you can own it up on the <BAD> server then you can play competitively

leading isn't as important as finding games.. in a losing situation someone will take charge anyway.



hate to be a nag but you're talking to yourself mate.

He didn't say anything like that, the words "so much" were used in the sentence.. you may need to look them up and figgure out a meaning before posting pointless replies.

I hate to be a nag but a sentence should generally start with a capital letter and end with a punctuation mark, groups of punctuation marks should be in multiples of three or in singles, and 'figgure' isn't a word.