vartijaMost people singing up here are expecting to play fun season without prizes in more relaxed environment. Not with UWE and their 60 second rules along rofl hitreg instabans. Hugh has announced multiple times that when he's casting something it will be on his terms. Even low pings are expected as playing against local opponents.

As everyone here have posted ENSL has always accepted clans from external regions to join. Even use of brains and making NA teams their own division has been applied which is reasonable in this case since they don't yet have their own league.

If you want to make some sort of wold champions league I don't really see a problem. You have your coders ready who are willing to create a completely new site. Just don't try replacing ENSL with that. I can just agree with nEisTee so I don't have to agree with fana. And I still think you're underestimating what you now call 'winter break'. Teams die during this harsh time!

Still it doesn't seem like ANY of you numbnuts understand.
There will be NO world league. Was never planned.
Bad wording with Champions League I guess.
THE LEAGUES ARE REGIONAL AND NOT CROSS CONTINENTAL.
There will be more than one league though, compared to the old ENSL NS1 times.
ATM. we have 2 leagues in ENSL with the americans. Please do read instead of assuming.
When the league winners are decided, there will be held a world cup to have some fun seeing who is best/most lucky whatever you wanna call it. It's not impossible beating equal level teams on non-native servers. And you all make it sound like it's the end of the world to play a world cup once the seasons are over.
That will only promote this community into getting bigger. I'm not trying to replace ENSL, only grow it.
And as previously stated, UWE will have nothing to do with rules or organizing of this thing. So there will be no "rofl hitreg" instaban situations.

Oh shut the fuck up Eistee. You're a johnny come lately so you don't understand that a lot of us were happy to pay, up front, for a game we didn't ever expect would be released. NS1 was free but it took up a lot of our time and it was fun.

You are BEYOND naive if you thought that 3 guys taking your money on the promise that they would deliver a finished product was going to end well. Against the odds, it has ended well for those of us that just wanted to support UWE.

What needs to happen now is for us to agree that ENSL needs to stay as ENSL. If UWE wants a world champion, they can fly the winners of various leagues - or whoever the fuck - to SF to play at LAN.

The problem we have at the moment is the number of teams and the impending Christmas doom. I think we should make a quick starter cup of some kind that happens before Christmas and will give us a chance to look at seeding.

If we want to start a season now, we need to look at how many widely accepted "good" teams there are, set them as seeds and random the rest of their group. One seeded team per group, playoffs, finals, done.

In a few words: it suppose to be a regional champions match USA div1 winner vs EU div1 winner... BO5 or w/e. That's all they wanted. That's what jimmis and swalk want =)

sublime
The problem we have at the moment is the number of teams and the impending Christmas doom. I think we should make a quick starter cup of some kind that happens before Christmas and will give us a chance to look at seeding.
The number of teams are looking fine. But could definitely have lots more.
http://www.ensl.org/contests/115
Christmas wouldn't be a problem, there will be a 2 week break for christmas and newyears.
Last games before christmas is december 16th.
Games starting again january 6th.

Seeding is already being looked at and discussed, and we have a pretty good idea about how it is looking.
We will release the division seedings when signups closes on monday, then if any teams have a question about their division seeding. They can contact me.
All this will be up on the site soon for you guys.

Also, I would like to make something clear.
UWE's engagement in this have and will make no changes to our plans for this.
All this was already planned by us before UWE offered their support.
Hope it's clear that UWE's involvement in this will be very minimum, if any casters miss the gamestart, it's their fault. Players are the first priority.

Edit: happy?

Vartija is right swalk - you really need to press enter TWICE.

I wouldn't mind just having a double elim cup with a round robin group stage now, that would run over say three or four weeks, and then starting S1 early in 2013. That way you get a good tournament now before Christmas + lots of data for seedings; and you avoid the Christmas break issue.

@webmaster

In case you don't find anyone (or anyone trustworthy/level-headed person) I can offer myself. But I'd be rather happy if you find someone else, that's shit tons of work to keep up continously.


@ENSL-direction

ENSL is and should be in the future a community driven league for european players. I am fine with having teams from other continents in it, so they can play (like having an US-div), and if you mix them into a EU division, have european standards (servers and times).

I see where the arguments are coming from, but I stronly recommend NOT having a cross-continental finals / whatever. If UWE wants a EU-div1 champion vs US-div1 champion, that should be a separate showmatch and by no means carry any ENSL champion titles with it.

Don't get me wrong, I love to see giving other teams the opportunity to have a league to play in as long as they didn't manage to form their own league, and promote ENSL and NS2 on a wide range, but I share Fana's concerns.

Also please don't get too drunk of super high goals already, i.e. no need to aim for super-league, world-wide league all built into ENSL site or form it into a different league setup. Focus. Some talk about a chance to get ENSL super big, but that's more a chance to ruin ENSL's real potential - being the best driven league environment for whole europe.

Don't be disappointed if ENSL only caters european players at one point, that doesn't mean that it won't get global attention. Or did no one of you watch american or korean leagues from other games? ;-)

blind, no one ever talked about the ENSL championships being cross-continental. The "Champions League" thing, was bad wording and got misunderstood bigtime.
However, your suggestion with just taking div 1 teams from US and EU won't work, as we will might have a 3rd AUS League.

First off:

Sublime once again you are DEADWRONG .. not surprised there.

I was not one of the idiots giving them money .. CAUSE I KNEW IT WOULD NOT COME TO ANYTHING USEFUL !

I prefered to sepnd my money on this community .. and more than the fucking NS2 cost .. because to me that was worth it.

And for the rest:
By now we have started to go in circles ... if anyone has not understodd how it is supposed to be now he is probaply named Sublime.

Basically everyone gets by now that:
There will be GROUPS .. !not Divisions! .. for the first Season. And after the Group Stage you can have Crossplay between the European Teams! (Cause america will only have one group and have their "champ" right away)

When you are done with the Crossplay(double Elimination style like Fana mentioned sounds good) you got your ENSL champ. So everyone will sooner or later get a challenge.

Obviously you got to split up the supposedly better teams in different Groups so you got the best chances of actually getting the best possible Final.

And after all that is done .. you can go ahead and have a "Fun"(which wont really be fun to play i guess) EU VS. US Game .. as it had been before in NS1.
This game as mentioned has no TITLE whatsoever.

I think this is what the conclussion of all this talk is and everyone can agree on that?

HINT: This would have been smarter to be talked over in the ADMIN FORUMS .. and consult ppl that have been there .. like .. yeah .. ok .. i mention him .. Fana .. damn that was hard .. or jiriki.

Greets EisTeeAT !

Haha fucking retard. Read my post. You've just repeated exactly what I said.

Yeah i was summing up .. thought that was obvious .. cause ppl are saying that in every possible way for about 40 posts now.

I am trying to get this to an end you know!

But if you refer to the comment about not understanding ppl being named Sublime .. that is just me getting a little jab in on the side :) !

But i still love you Sublime .. cause you are entertaining :) !

Greets !

EisTeeAT
Basically everyone gets by now that:
There will be GROUPS .. !not Divisions! .. for the first Season. And after the Group Stage you can have Crossplay between the European Teams! (Cause america will only have one group and have their "champ" right away)

When you are done with the Crossplay(double Elimination style like Fana mentioned sounds good) you got your ENSL champ. So everyone will sooner or later get a challenge.

Obviously you got to split up the supposedly better teams in different Groups so you got the best chances of actually getting the best possible Final.

And after all that is done .. you can go ahead and have a "Fun"(which wont really be fun to play i guess) EU VS. US Game .. as it had been before in NS1.
This game as mentioned has no TITLE whatsoever.
You're not quite right eistee.
There will be 2, maybe 3 LEAGUES if the austrailians join in as well.
Each League will be split into DIVISIONS based on level of play.
We have NOT worked out how the "world cup" or whatever the fuck you wanna call it, is going to play out. As we will might have 3 leagues, and not just 2. If we had just 2 leagues, the obvious choice would be to let the two champions of these leagues go on to the world game. But if we have 3 sets of champions(3 Leagues, austrailians), we will need to find a solution to decide the final of these games.

This topic served it's purpose, jiriki replied.
But it got way too derailed, I'm locking it.

I'm opening this as this kind of concerns me and what to do with the website. There's no point closing this, as this discussion is relevant for future of ENSL.

To be honest, its not my business if you want do intercontinental league. However you'd still have to organize competition by region. Apart from some half-serious cups like Word Cup, international leagues are generally a bad idea. You could do NSL with like American and European division with seperate staff from both regions. Ultimately I don't think americans would want some European trying to run their shit, and neither would euros like such. Ping difference, time zone difference and bit of a cultural difference.

Presented as one-organization, several leagues its not a bad idea, and could be the one securing ENSL's future. And like Fana: if swalk and co. want to do NSL real bad, there's not much we can do to "stop" them. All that will happen is that ENSL will die, and be possibly taken out of internet if nobody else will continue this. Even then, my gut feeling is that swalk and etc. have a bit of idealism of how this is going to turn out.

My "farewell" wish is that all matches, frag movies, forum posts, cups, drama etc. would be stored in the next evolution of this league whatever that might be. If that's NSL with PHP, its fine by me.

If UWE's supports depends on ENSL becoming NSL, then NSL might be the best idea. Otherwise we'll probably be stomped by some other league and then ENSL will decay and disappear.

Since the thread was closed, it's been explained to me that the "champions league" will be just one match, and that it will be a simple showmatch. As such I have no problems with it, although you could have avoided wasting a lot of time on this crap by just explaining it properly to begin with. I assume it will eventually be given a more appropriate name that doesn't just confuse people.

With regards to the NSL suggestions; I will reiterate what I said earlier: If anybody wants to make a global NSL, that's their prerogative, but there's no reason to bring the ENSL into that.

Jiriki: I don't think there's any reason to think the ENSL will decay and disappear anytime soon, even if people should decide to try to make a global NSL. If the current organizers decide to move on, others will take their place eventually. The ENSL has been the natural gathering point for the European community for the past six years, and will continue to be so for the forseeable future as well.

the latest thing about the nsl is that the "champions league" match will be called the "natural selection cup" or something similar. So no crossplay league or anything else. Just some round robin to know who is playing in the final. The ENSL will still be the ENSL and thats it. The biggest issue with all of this was the idea to name it "Natural Selection [League]" because it isnt a league its just a tournment.
You can relax now ...

I might still be freakishliy drunk from last nights class reunion .. but :

DONT MAKE DIVISONS --> MAKE GROUPS IDIOTS 8P !

FanaSince the thread was closed, it's been explained to me that the "champions league" will be just one match, and that it will be a simple showmatch. As such I have no problems with it, although you could have avoided wasting a lot of time on this crap by just explaining it properly to begin with. I assume it will eventually be given a more appropriate name that doesn't just confuse people.

With regards to the NSL suggestions; I will reiterate what I said earlier: If anybody wants to make a global NSL, that's their prerogative, but there's no reason to bring the ENSL into that.

Jiriki: I don't think there's any reason to think the ENSL will decay and disappear anytime soon, even if people should decide to try to make a global NSL. If the current organizers decide to move on, others will take their place eventually. The ENSL has been the natural gathering point for the European community for the past six years, and will continue to be so for the forseeable future as well.
The idea behind NSL was never to have an actual global league.
The idea was that the NSL will consist of 3 leagues(maybe more if this becomes big enough); Euro(ENSL), America(ANSL), Austrailian (AUNSL).

So in case it does get big, the ENSL community would be playing in the sub league of NSL, under the sub league name (ENSL).
This is just the idea for now.

I think we can all agree that the platform for competetive ns2 could be better. I mean, this site is great, but the site is at a point where if NSL would become a reality on another site, the ENSL page would potentially die off anyway. Since the european community would meet in the subsection of NSL.

Another thing I would really love to have for NSL is to have as much information about the NS1 time, so all match data, champions, movies, drama. etc. Would be awesome to have all that on the NSL site from the different old leages(not just ENSL).

swalkSo in case it does get big, the ENSL community would be playing in the sub league of NSL, under the sub league name (ENSL).
This is just the idea for now.

I think we can all agree that the platform for competetive ns2 could be better. I mean, this site is great, but the site is at a point where if NSL would become a reality on another site, the ENSL page would potentially die off anyway. Since the european community would meet in the subsection of NSL.
That's what you say, but this is not actually for you to decide. The ENSL is the ENSL. If the players prefer to play in the original rather than some new NSL construct, there isn't anything you can do about it.

Fana
That's what you say, but this is not actually for you to decide. The ENSL is the ENSL. If the players prefer to play in the original rather than some new NSL construct, there isn't anything you can do about it.
You are right, only time will tell.
But it's likely to happen if this season is successful.

Actually I think that if there will be multiple leagues out there, it's in each clans interest to participate in all of them.

Some guys just never learn from history:

DIVERSITY IS STRENGTH.

Multiple communities mean MORE players, not less. It also means a wider range of playing culture (tactics, mods, ...). Imagine you walk through the louvre and only look at Mona Lisas.

With the NSL construct you will just create less diversity, but on the other hand create a single point of failure, and I mean that from the social (conflicts) as well as the technological side.

Despite not having the time (and PC for that matter, since the engine still sucks) to compete, the 'fear' to have a "champions league" or "playoffs" via internet is also very real and I can understand the arguments. YES, swalk I read your posts. But it does not matter that you say "that would just be a fun game" and all the bla bla.

It's only a matter of time before some admin decides "Hey, Logitech wants to give the America vs Europe winner free stuff - just let them!". And then all leagues are royally fucked. Such games should be carried out by another entity, with no connection to any of the leagues.

So how can we come to a compromise?

I like the idea of bringing the communities closer together (as someone mentioned with the bar on top of the website, for example). Cross-post stuff. Link each other. Advertise livecasts from the respective other leagues. But for fucks sake, don't force them all into one community (regional divisions do not matter in this, it would still be one entity!).

You say equal sub-leagues, but who exactly will be running the over-arching NSL?

It's an offshoot of ENSL no matter which way you spin it and you can't just handwave it away.

In other words:

"Ultimately I don't think americans would want some European trying to run their shit, and neither would euros like such. Ping difference, time zone difference and bit of a cultural difference."

Fana, I think my overt pessimism in the last post was because of difficulty of finding a new webmaster. In hindsight, it wasn't that well thought post.

Honestly, I don't think its a bad idea to organize this "NSL by ENSL" global league. You can run this for 1 season and see how it turns out. But my advise is to get all the feedback, time and experience before starting to turn the whole organization into international thing.

I'm not going to lock into any answer, and out of Stetson its hard for me to say whats the best option. In any case us running the American side for longer period is an over-stretch in any way you put it. Mu is right about it. In any case, even american division will need American guys who are supported by the american teams and their members. There's no other way.

I must say I don't have the proper time to put enough thought or current knowledge to give you guys the right answer. But be easy on it, and respect the opinions of those who have been around in ENSL much longer. There's a lot of accumulated wisdom over the years.

Yea I think you hit the nail on the head Jerky. Basically we should take the credit for participating (running if you're an admin) in the first ~official NS2 league. Publicity-wise.

I don't know if you guys noticed, but we DO have american and austrailian division admins, referees, casters etc.
The leagues only benefit from this, cross-league referees etc.
What jiriki said is how we are approaching this.
We are not changing ENSL, ENSL is hosting the first season of NSL to try this out.
And to be honest, the ONLY negative feedback we have gotten from this, is from a few old ENSL'ers.
Everybody else loves it.

Yea I'm really feeling the love for it in this thread...

In my opinion, you basically sold out to UWE and hugh by doing this. After all the crap from the previous tournament, you should have left UWE out. Trying to then make an NSL style name out of it is also idiotic, let the Americans form their own league if the game actually draws that many players. Considering you have already lost more than 50% of the playerbase since release, your just wasting your time trying to make a global league out of something that will be lucky to have even a single regional league.

TLDR get off Hugh's dick and dont sell out the ENSL. I'm more pissed you sided with them after all that happened then any of the NSL bullshit, I honestly thought you had more sense then that Swalk.

Don't worry we took the decision after a 4 hour talk on teamspeak with all active admins. You can start insulting every one of us one by one.

Dont feel bad doing it either, have some of you even been around the NS2 scene before making those choices? I understand whats best for the game and all but considering how many people have been put off by previous incidents, Id say your doing more harm than good.

defnotdragonConsidering you have already lost more than 50% of the playerbase since release...

I'm sorry, what?