How long did it take you to set that forum up? What's different from a clean SMF installation? Is this what you do for a living? Do you have a major in web development? What's your favorite food and why is it hamburgers? And most importantly, are you on crack?

Kins,

Spoiler! View

 

"Would you say the German team is in a little crisis?" ....

I'm afraid that lowering the playoff requirements may only be a temporary solution until the next drop in activity arrives.. Still better than doing nothing at all I guess.

Take a peek into my brain then, Scot!

Well yeah fada, big threads about leagues/schemes usually end up like this. Some good points and suggestions, a fairly healthy discussion, some newfag trolling, then some classic Komo posts and before you know it the thread goes in circles without anything happening in the end. Tbh I never expected it to be different this time around.

To MI: It appears to me that you like to avoid posting in this kind of threads but imo they're heavily relying on you to make some sort of statement. I'm pretty sure you've read this thread already but I don't get why you can't drop a short message, even if it's something like "guys I'm too busy to change anything right now, let's talk about it when I got more time". People can talk all they want, if there's nobody to make decisions it's fairly pointless.

Sorry fada, I ignored that because I don't see how paying real money to play in the top league (sort of like 'pay to win', except you don't actually win) would be healthy for anything but MI's bank account.

Also, if you're saying this thread is not about activity and motivation to play leagues, what else is it about? Thought I made a good point in my last post.

Berria:
I don't think I'll play W:A again anytime soon, the point in time when I would've continued playing has long passed and tbh I've grown tired of all the discussion here.

Let me add just this, my thoughts about the actual root of the problem.

When I started playing this game it was out for a good 1.5 years and roping was already well established. When I saw these guys go crazy in Ropers and Warmers I instantly wanted to learn how to do it myself, to be able to compete with them. So I practised roping like 6 hours/day in order to become just nearly as good as them. After a while I found out about leagues and registered for cl2k div2 - that's when I realized just how bad I still was, so I went back to practise. Of course I also played public Shoppers etc, but the amount of time I spent just roping in Singleplayer was far greater. That's how ambitious I was.
There was no easy way to become a real part of the competitive community. You basically had to earn your right to play in Warmers with certain people. The community was full of elitists and fairly hard to access. But to me that wasn't an all-negative thing - I had an incredible amount of fun trying to build up a reputation and to get the community's recognition/acknowledgement. There was a (distant) goal to work towards. It's sort of how the real world works.

Nowadays it's all just so different. I don't think I would've sticked around for too long if I had started playing W:A in 2013/14. And I know many others wouldn't, either.

I didn't write all this because I want that feeling back (of course I do), but because I honestly don't think that today's newbies have an ambition and excitement anywhere close to what I (or 'we') experienced back then.

W:A has been on Steam for a while now, WormNET activity hasn't decreased (not significantly at least, I don't know the actual numbers), yet the league is having an all-time low. I rest my case.

About a decade ago the Worms franchise arguably 'died' (to some of us, anyway) because Team17 didn't listen to the older players/fans and gradually made their games more casual. While this may or may not have generally worked out for T17, it made the games after W:A a lot worse to us, because we were trying to get the best competition possible out of 'our' game.

Am I the only one having a deja vu here? TUS is the most casual 'league' I've seen in all this time. You get trophies for pretty much everything, there are as many cups as FTN did tourneys (too many = less appeal to win one, hint hint), activity is generally more important than maintaining a high winrate, the noobs even get their own stupid scheme added to our league (scheme-wise).

But it's all been said before and I honestly think it's way (way) too late to go back. Personally I'm done with this game, not because I don't have the time to play, I'm actually playing plenty of other games, it's just that W:A has lost its appeal. I don't have the urge to play league games anymore, mostly because it's worth jack shit winning a league nowadays. And money won't change that.

And ropa is right. Some of us were talking about the problems we have with this league. Definitely more than once. Nothing ever changed - because we were the minority in numbers. Now everyone is crying how poor the competition is because we were the majority in skill. Karma?

Just my two cents. No actual offense intended either, it's just how (I think) it is.