Playoffs:
I'm v experienced in writing fair tournament schedules, so thought I could contribute here;
Someone suggested #1 from Div2 plays 3rd bottom from Div1, #2 Div2 plays 2nd bottom, #3 Div2 plays bottom team from Div1... I'd like to point out that this way of doing it would be technically unfair, as earning the #1 spot in Div2 should give you an easier crossover into Div1 (vs the bottom team), rather than vice versa. By the suggested way, the easiest shot is for the #3 finishers in Div2, who get to play the bottom team in Div1 - where's the justice in that?

The teams at the bottom of the divisions are more likely to be inactive than the teams at the top, so arranging these crossovers could be more effort. Someone pointed out that teams change loads between seasons, so the focus here shouldn't be on deciding who will 'qualify' for Div1 in the next season, but instead on giving teams and specs more exciting playoffs, with teams facing up against new opposition, and a Silver / Bronze award to fight for.
Because the bottom 4 teams from a div could be inactive, the top 4 from the div below should be included in the playoffs, so there will at least be exciting semis + final. The way I think it'd best work is:
A5-A8 = 4th last to bottom finishers from Div1
B1-B4 = 1st to 4th finishers from Div2

Round 1: quarters: A5vB4, A6vB3, A7vB2, A8vB1
Round 2: semis (winning teams adopt the 'A' number of their Quarter match): A5vA8, A6vA7
Round 3: final: A5vA6

Same could be done for the bottom 4 of Div2 + top 4 of Div3.

For Div1, the quarter finals were pretty much walkovers so we could get rid of them, but what if the 4th and 5th teams were really closely matched? I think that it's gotta go down to group performance really - as someone said, this makes the group stage more crucial & exciting.
Another way of adding importance to the group stage would be to have the seedings for the playoffs determined by it. Don't think this already happens, but:

1st seed, who has won all group games, should have earnt the easier route to the final. Similarly, 3rd seed should have an easier route than 4th seed. So:
Div1 semis: 1v4, 2v3
Div1 final: 1v2

Maps:
Don't mind, it's fun playing TB3 and getting into a groove, but I also like cmt4 and the idea of cmt1b / cmt5b is exciting in a way (though I wouldn't want the div1 final decided on a non-TB3 map really).

Specs:
Was a great season to spectate I thought, with good commentary on the later games. Would be better if the demos with commentary were uploaded sooner & for all games where there was any commentary I reckon, as I wasn't able to watch all games live. A new thing I'd suggest would be to have games with 'open commentary' - say there's an exciting group game and 20-30 people are watching it on QTV, but there is no specific commentator - everyone could join TS and get un-muted, so they can comment / chat about the game if they wish. This would be more fun than just watching the game & reading the console I think. Perhaps there can be a new 'open commentary' room on the TS server, where nobody is muted? Would probably need a few people to have the power to mute people if they become annoying... but most people I'm sure would just chime in with the occasional comment/question, or just go "aaaaaaah!" when a quadbore happens or something.

And for every cmt3 you played, how many dm3s have I played? 1000? 10 000? Don't get me wrong, I can play cmt maps, but at least in the last QNC the level of play was still extremely low and not much fun to play, I was basically just waiting to get to play a "real" map after that. I guess if some team would really own us in cmt it might create some motivation. But so far it has felt that the games are only tight on these maps because nobody really has any idea what they are doing.

if that post was supposed to make a point i absolutely missed it.

i actually applaud you for arguing this matter. many (most) of the hardcore pro-tb3'er won't even argue this point except for the usual "kenya sucks lol". they are not so vocal on a forum it seems.

still, it doesn't really change the point. if we want to get more maps accepted and players become proficient on them we have to *actually play them*. if we don't want to become good on new maps by playing them we won't attract any new players to this game.

there is no point in having relegation games between seasons and i will explain why.

1. promoting and demoting clans between divisions is based upon the notion that _every_ clan has the desire to improve and reach a higher level much like football or any other sport with divisions. this is unfortunately not true for the entire qw scene. just put clans that want to be promotedin a higher division. when enough clans that want to be division 1 has been placed there it is no point in promoting the top division 2 clans since they are probably too bad and dont want to be there anyway.

2. the bottom teams in each division are often in the bottom because they feel they are misplaced and have stopped playing already when season ends

3. even if a team ends up in the top of div2,3,4 etc it is unlikely that they would want to advance to a higher division. once in a while we see a team that improves each season and goes higher and higher (QK, Fusion(its players mainly from different lower placed clans)) but most clans are happy in their current division and might as well just lose the relegation game and stay in their preferred division.

4. many teams fold after ½-1 season and are thus not eligible for the relegation game anyway. what point is there to promote or demote a team that wont show up for next season anyway. also each season is at current separated by either christmas or summer and it seems like these two things fuck up the qw scene like nothing else. players disappear and show up months/years later and some come back to see their old clan has vanished.

5. too many new teams are formed each season. should all of them be placed in the lowest? should some team get a wildcard into division 1 or 2? the consistency of the qw scene is low. try to understand that.

with these 5 points in mind it makes absolutely no sense in having inter-seasonal relegation games between top and bottom clans. the obvious way to do it is to place all the clans in the most fitting division at the start of each season. come back when there are 15000 qw 4on4 players instead of 450 and maybe the relegation games will work in the real pro-leagues.

/Hooraytio

i agree with hooraytio about the relegation games between seasons is a bad idea for qw. Divisions has to be made out of the teams and players signed up.

Yo, if the last two posts were a response to mine: I agree! It's in the bit where I say:

"Someone pointed out that teams change loads between seasons, so the focus here shouldn't be on deciding who will 'qualify' for Div1 in the next season, but instead on giving teams and specs more exciting playoffs, with teams facing up against new opposition, and a Silver / Bronze award to fight for."

The teams totally do change loads, but having the Silver quarter finals played between bottom 4 / top 4 of divs 1 / 2 respectively would make for more exciting matches - the group games would count for more for a start (only top 4 make playoffs), then any QFs that get played will be between teams that haven't met before, and it gives a reason for teams at the bottom of a division to continue praccing / playing through to the end of the season.

A lot at the bottom of the divs are inactive, so a few of these crossover-type QFs will be WOs, but that's nothing new... the top 4 from the div below will advance to the semi finals which is fine.

I must've totally missed this topic, but I'd like to add my thoughts on last EQL.

-Big divisions are here too stay. Huge success!

-Too long? Not sure, maybe for some teams, but my team didn't have too much problems with it. Actually it worked out pretty good for us as some of us can only play on friday and saturdayevening, which are ofcourse horrible evenings. Because of this we played 1 match a week on average. So the length was really good for us and if it would've shorter we would never be able to play all our opponents. I agree looking at the overal EQL activity that it should've been shorter, but please don't force 2 games a week. That's just TOO much for most qw players.

-Coverage was poor, but actually that's the biggest problem QW has atm. There ain't no coverage except for zappater, but he has more things to do. I've allready told EQL admins i'm willing to do coverage for next season.

-Zalon mentioned a shortage of active admins. My experience with the admins was good tho, but I can imagine he felt the shortage as I got the feeling he had to do a lot. I'm really not able to admin as I don't have the time for it, but I hope some more people will join the current staff so they won't get fed up with.

-mappool. Fine with me. I don't have anything against Kenya, but I don't have loads of time so learning new maps is a very slow progress. I'd rather put my time into tb3. I agree with Zalons point about CMT3 and 4 that they have failed. They had their time, but people ain't playing it only when they are forced too.
If people come up with a really good map let me know. I know Stev is promoting cmt1b and i'm not against it. Still have to join one of those cmt1b pickups

cmt1b might be fun but i think it is too big and unintuitive... most of the rooms look unfinished and the layout isnt very nice...

It seems to flow quite well to me, and the vast majority of people pick up the basics easily in the first 2 or 3 games, and I've seen a LOT of people learn it recently. The qwstats say that over 600 unique names have played on it in the last 2 weeks, so I'd guess that's close to 400 people.

It may seem big to people unfamiliar with it, but you can clear it out in a thirty second quadrun as fast as any other map (except dm2), especially once you realise that the eponymous "silverdome" room gets you to any point on the map in seconds.

As to your other criticisms, how it looks is entirely subjective. Some people like how it looks, some don't. If you don't like it, change the textures or play with r_drawflat on and paint it whatever colour you like. QW isn't exactly known for its breathtakingly beautiful scenic vistas, so criticising a qw map for being unattractive seems ... odd.

"Unfinished" is something I don't really understand. Everything you need is in place. There are ramps for trickjumping to shave seconds off vital routes, item positioning is well considered, there are 8 spawns, each with a specific job to do at the start of the match, everything has a function and each room is visually distinctive so you constantly know where you are.

Most importantly, I feel it's a map where the better team will win in a competitive environment so no one can whine "lol it's not like they won on a real map lolol". There are lots of opportunities for ambushes and individual flair while still being heavily reliant on strong teamplay. That seems like a good recipe for a 4on4 map to me, and that's why I'm being such a douche pushing it here like I'm its pimp and I want a cut.

unfinished rooms and map layout isnt exactly about the colors on the walls

cmt1b is too big, try ffa or 5on5 there . If u bunny in 4on4, u will be backshafted And its just too fuking big for a walk. Cmon Stev, cmt1b needs ur help again

Nah, I don't think I'll need to defend the "too big" criticism any more now that a lot of people are starting to become familiar with it. It's just that there's more than one way into every room so people see all these corridors and mistake it for some vast, sprawling q3 map or something. when really it's just more interconnected.

Another point is that in (for example) dm3 you have fewer ways to get to each room, and everyone has to pass through quad to get across the map so people can't get lost, even if they don't know the map. In cmt1b it's possible to circle the entire map without passing through the same room twice, and I think that gives people a false impression of excess size.

If you just go /map cmt1b then /observe and float above it, you can see a 5-room configuration with one at each point of the compass and silverdome in the centre rather than the thousand kilometres of individual rooms that some people seem to expect.

u dont have to pass quad to get from rl to ra on dm3, have u ever tried rl->water->pent->lifts->sng->ra?

Let's try to stick a bit more on topic here people, which is What did you think of EQL9?