29 US Fight Nights
- Thread starter Donteventrii
- Start date
Igotoparties
Legend
soskanky said:
Yeah I doubt that's gonna stay lol.
Willyshatner
Legend
US 29s are now dormant (as far as anyone can tell). We haven't had any games the past 3 fight nights, and for the 3 fight nights before that, games were sparse and uninteresting. There has been a lot of speculation and blame as to why games have stopped. Despite the many factors that may or may not have contributed to our bracket going inactive, we simply cannot sit here and say things like 'it was so and so who ruined the bracket' or 'such and such action made games stop happening.'
Everyone is to blame here, and it isn't because we allowed banned items to come back or hunters to exist. It isn't because good players decided to play on one faction without supporting the other faction. There are really two things that have caused games to stop. The first one is the incessant whining about things that some players do not like, combined with the negative treatment of players in games. The second thing is the fact that everyone has forgotten why we twink in the first place. People have gotten so divided over what they think is wrong vs what they think is the ideal road to a perfect bracket, that they have decided it just isn't worth it to show up for games anymore.
People are simply too selfish to do what's actually best for the bracket. At some point people have to realize that there are only 20-40 people who actively play the bracket. With such a small 'community' it's easy to create dissent amongst everyone with even the slightest forum drama. Nights where we struggle to get even a game started, two or three people not showing up can make the difference between getting games and not getting games. Some of you would likely argue that you would rather not get games, than get games of the quality we have been getting recently.
I would have to disagree with that.
As someone who also plays in other brackets, I have noticed many differences between 29s and say 19s/70s. Those bracekts are healthy. They have constant activity. There is no forum drama. There is some playful trash talk, but it isn't detrimental. There are many different calibre of players within those brackets, and they all coexist. There are highly competitive games, and there are trash games.
Above all else, players show up for the sake of making games happen. For months now, our bracket has been treading a fine line between life and death. Game nights have for the most part been anything but high quality and consistently competitive on both sides. We have consistently turned new blood away with increasing hostility. Players have continued to insist that they know what's best for the bracket. They have gone to such lengths to theorize about things to the point of saying 'the bracket will die if we don't do something.' They they use this line of thinking to justify actions that are anything BUT good for the bracket.
Now we are at a point where all we can do is reflect on the things we did that were wrong. I don't think that 29s/39s will ever be the healthy and competitive brackets that 19s/70s are, for quite a few reasons. I don't think many of you are capable of sacrificing quality for the sake of quantity (initially) and then working towards quality once you've established a healthy bracket. I don't think many of you understand that you have to selflessly give to the bracket (which includes stowing the negativity indefinitely) in order to grow it.
I'll tell you right now that I have been in games @ 19 that are utterly terrible, but I am STILL willing to show up for games to make damn sure the bracket stays healthy. Seeing a total of 15 hunters in a 10v10 game might make some of you quit the bracket for good. All it makes me do is appreciate the games where there are few hunters, that much more. It makes me queue up after games like that just to try and get into a game without so many hunters. A lot of you don't think like that though. You've been in a game where there were zero hunters, and you enjoyed it. You think that a game like that is what everyone would enjoy. You insist that the only way to enjoy the game is to push for those sorts of games. Then you feel entitled to that sort of a game 100% of the time, and when you don't get it, you stop queuing.
You end up killing the bracket while you bathe in your selfishness.
RIP US 29s
Everyone is to blame here, and it isn't because we allowed banned items to come back or hunters to exist. It isn't because good players decided to play on one faction without supporting the other faction. There are really two things that have caused games to stop. The first one is the incessant whining about things that some players do not like, combined with the negative treatment of players in games. The second thing is the fact that everyone has forgotten why we twink in the first place. People have gotten so divided over what they think is wrong vs what they think is the ideal road to a perfect bracket, that they have decided it just isn't worth it to show up for games anymore.
People are simply too selfish to do what's actually best for the bracket. At some point people have to realize that there are only 20-40 people who actively play the bracket. With such a small 'community' it's easy to create dissent amongst everyone with even the slightest forum drama. Nights where we struggle to get even a game started, two or three people not showing up can make the difference between getting games and not getting games. Some of you would likely argue that you would rather not get games, than get games of the quality we have been getting recently.
I would have to disagree with that.
As someone who also plays in other brackets, I have noticed many differences between 29s and say 19s/70s. Those bracekts are healthy. They have constant activity. There is no forum drama. There is some playful trash talk, but it isn't detrimental. There are many different calibre of players within those brackets, and they all coexist. There are highly competitive games, and there are trash games.
Above all else, players show up for the sake of making games happen. For months now, our bracket has been treading a fine line between life and death. Game nights have for the most part been anything but high quality and consistently competitive on both sides. We have consistently turned new blood away with increasing hostility. Players have continued to insist that they know what's best for the bracket. They have gone to such lengths to theorize about things to the point of saying 'the bracket will die if we don't do something.' They they use this line of thinking to justify actions that are anything BUT good for the bracket.
Now we are at a point where all we can do is reflect on the things we did that were wrong. I don't think that 29s/39s will ever be the healthy and competitive brackets that 19s/70s are, for quite a few reasons. I don't think many of you are capable of sacrificing quality for the sake of quantity (initially) and then working towards quality once you've established a healthy bracket. I don't think many of you understand that you have to selflessly give to the bracket (which includes stowing the negativity indefinitely) in order to grow it.
I'll tell you right now that I have been in games @ 19 that are utterly terrible, but I am STILL willing to show up for games to make damn sure the bracket stays healthy. Seeing a total of 15 hunters in a 10v10 game might make some of you quit the bracket for good. All it makes me do is appreciate the games where there are few hunters, that much more. It makes me queue up after games like that just to try and get into a game without so many hunters. A lot of you don't think like that though. You've been in a game where there were zero hunters, and you enjoyed it. You think that a game like that is what everyone would enjoy. You insist that the only way to enjoy the game is to push for those sorts of games. Then you feel entitled to that sort of a game 100% of the time, and when you don't get it, you stop queuing.
You end up killing the bracket while you bathe in your selfishness.
RIP US 29s
OP
OP
Donteventrii
OG
The bracket was going great in early-mid August. When MB showed up, it was suddenly super serious, and no longer the carebear friendly bracket we had for months before.
Zuladin
Legend
1.Abuse of the AFK autoboot feature: We all got to elitist and by that i mean EVERYONE including even me to an extent although i didnt like booting people, we get rid of our new recruits. That 1.5k HP rogue/hunter/priest that we booted could of been another potential good player that we turned off of the bracket immediately.
2.All the damn drama: Seriously people it's a game, notice how i always say "eats popcorn" because it's hilarious, it's like watching a bunch of chimps throw crap at each other. How many of our 29s threads were blanketed with willy/dont post wars. So some new guy walks in and sees our thread is full of LOLUMAD posts, so they decide to leave. This ingame drama carried over the forums. Notice how all of our 29s threads on the official forums got banned, we were so infamous that we had a darn blue waltz in and post in our threads. It's plain ridiculous, and now well the bracket is dead, all of our threads were giant flamewars
3.Hunter Brigades/Stacked Teams:Willy i know your opnion on hunters and i'll respect it but until recently we had games with 1 hunter at best and everyone pretty much agreed that the games rocked. Suddenly the alliance(the horde to a much lesser extent but the horde had some hunter heavy games) got hunter heavy then the afk booting hit. Pretty much the horde fought the same alliance team every game and the alliance didnt have random pugs....the horde did thus leadin the horde to get crushed. The alliance had fulltime pro hunters(rubikz being the main one by a longshot no offense to anyone else) and the horde didnt. I hate just blaming the alliance here but well........you afk booted all of your randoms. Then the horde randoms left because getting steamrolled isnt fun at all. And those alliance hunters rarely played other toons or made a horde toon to balance everything. Fighting 4-5 hunters repeteadly isnt fun at all....you're not amazing anyone with your 1337 skillz brah. Pretty much the alliance randoms got "PTL'd" and this had somewhat of a bearing on the next item.
4.Vets leaving:This also contributed to the bracket's downfall, valotian,oknob,morten,bull(ones i can think off of the top of my head) left amongst others and they left because games got crappy, you'd think that might of sent some redflags up that "hey maybe something isnt working here" instead we kept pushing on,afking people and stacking hunters. 19s can get away with the prior not 29s we simply dont have the numbers. Really this is everyone's fault.
TDLR:read the damn post
2.All the damn drama: Seriously people it's a game, notice how i always say "eats popcorn" because it's hilarious, it's like watching a bunch of chimps throw crap at each other. How many of our 29s threads were blanketed with willy/dont post wars. So some new guy walks in and sees our thread is full of LOLUMAD posts, so they decide to leave. This ingame drama carried over the forums. Notice how all of our 29s threads on the official forums got banned, we were so infamous that we had a darn blue waltz in and post in our threads. It's plain ridiculous, and now well the bracket is dead, all of our threads were giant flamewars
3.Hunter Brigades/Stacked Teams:Willy i know your opnion on hunters and i'll respect it but until recently we had games with 1 hunter at best and everyone pretty much agreed that the games rocked. Suddenly the alliance(the horde to a much lesser extent but the horde had some hunter heavy games) got hunter heavy then the afk booting hit. Pretty much the horde fought the same alliance team every game and the alliance didnt have random pugs....the horde did thus leadin the horde to get crushed. The alliance had fulltime pro hunters(rubikz being the main one by a longshot no offense to anyone else) and the horde didnt. I hate just blaming the alliance here but well........you afk booted all of your randoms. Then the horde randoms left because getting steamrolled isnt fun at all. And those alliance hunters rarely played other toons or made a horde toon to balance everything. Fighting 4-5 hunters repeteadly isnt fun at all....you're not amazing anyone with your 1337 skillz brah. Pretty much the alliance randoms got "PTL'd" and this had somewhat of a bearing on the next item.
4.Vets leaving:This also contributed to the bracket's downfall, valotian,oknob,morten,bull(ones i can think off of the top of my head) left amongst others and they left because games got crappy, you'd think that might of sent some redflags up that "hey maybe something isnt working here" instead we kept pushing on,afking people and stacking hunters. 19s can get away with the prior not 29s we simply dont have the numbers. Really this is everyone's fault.
TDLR:read the damn post
Franchi
Legend
zul your sarcasm and /popcorn metters are broken, then again us 29's are having a bad week, probly not the time or place for jokes.
/equip funeral clothes
/play
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgw_RD_1_5I&feature=related
/equip funeral clothes
/play
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgw_RD_1_5I&feature=related
OP
OP
Donteventrii
OG
Zula your tone is undeniably annoying and negative. "dead bracket is dead, trollolol"? Why? It's not funny. It's sad.
dont well what about your tone ever since 29s well started up again, the raging in vent/constant wars with willy, that was very annoying and negative, i agree with most of the stuff you say you just say it wrong....and loud
OP
OP
Donteventrii
OG
It's extremely frustrating dealing with collective skill of 29s after months of average play. It's even more frustrating dealing with Willy who demands the Horde get better but doesn't apply the statement to himself. If I was right, and you agreed with me, then bully for tone.
Baelzhar
Legend
My two cents (as if anyone gave a shit):
Speaking on behalf of myself and some that do not post:
I would prefer to play my original Ally toon, but often times find myself queueing on Horde because they are either down or need help. I sometimes find myself queueing Ally, but generally after I inquire and receive "Horde's dominating Ally" or "The elitists aren't running in full - Ally needs toons".
In attempting to do the "right thing" for the sake of the so-called health of the bracket always leaves me on the shit-end of the stick.
Coupling the above with one or more of the following already mentioned in other posts, such as second-rate trolls, elitism, class-stacking, etc. makes for an extremely volatile mixture. Truthfully, 29s have not been even remotely fun for a long time.
I will say this as diplomatically as possible:
To those of you who were cool - I'm sure I'll see some of you on the other side as my XP goes back on and I find my way to 70.
To the rest: Congrats on the kill. troll/flame away before you eat shit and go fuck yourselves.
With best regards,
Baelzhar
Born 4/2007, 29 since 9/2007
Speaking on behalf of myself and some that do not post:
I would prefer to play my original Ally toon, but often times find myself queueing on Horde because they are either down or need help. I sometimes find myself queueing Ally, but generally after I inquire and receive "Horde's dominating Ally" or "The elitists aren't running in full - Ally needs toons".
In attempting to do the "right thing" for the sake of the so-called health of the bracket always leaves me on the shit-end of the stick.
Coupling the above with one or more of the following already mentioned in other posts, such as second-rate trolls, elitism, class-stacking, etc. makes for an extremely volatile mixture. Truthfully, 29s have not been even remotely fun for a long time.
I will say this as diplomatically as possible:
To those of you who were cool - I'm sure I'll see some of you on the other side as my XP goes back on and I find my way to 70.
To the rest: Congrats on the kill. troll/flame away before you eat shit and go fuck yourselves.
With best regards,
Baelzhar
Born 4/2007, 29 since 9/2007
Willyshatner
Legend
Rubikz is a good player. He could play anything in the bracket with just as much effectiveness. Calling him out because he played a hunter well, only shows that you expect other people to play badly so that you have a better chance at winning. What happened to stepping up to a challenge? Why is the onus on everyone else to just not play as well? Or to just not play a class they might be good at? That's the kind of mentality that spawns the forum drama and the incessant self entitlement that kills it for everyone else.
Like I said earlier, I have played in games at 19/70 that are completely stacked with one class. I have a screenshot of a recent game where there were 15 hunters between both sides. No one was complaining. No forum posts were created. People didn't afk out or stop queuing for the bracket. The bottom line is that if one bracket can flourish despite the overpopulation of one class, then so can all others. The line of thinking that our bracket died because of too many hunters, is a joke. Seriously:
http://img.photobuck...2411_082750.jpg
And the 19s are still a happy healthy bracket.
When we can't accomplish anything meaningful in a game because people refuse to work together, that has nothing to do with the individual skill of anyone. You can call me bad or mediocre or whatever you want to, but that has nothing to do with how well our team works together as a group. We don't have the foundation for what any skilled player would call 'group coordination' despite how many individually skilled players we have on horde. You can keep ignoring the issue in favor of personally attacking me, and it won't change a thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UzYKl-L2Eo
Like I said earlier, I have played in games at 19/70 that are completely stacked with one class. I have a screenshot of a recent game where there were 15 hunters between both sides. No one was complaining. No forum posts were created. People didn't afk out or stop queuing for the bracket. The bottom line is that if one bracket can flourish despite the overpopulation of one class, then so can all others. The line of thinking that our bracket died because of too many hunters, is a joke. Seriously:
http://img.photobuck...2411_082750.jpg
And the 19s are still a happy healthy bracket.
When we can't accomplish anything meaningful in a game because people refuse to work together, that has nothing to do with the individual skill of anyone. You can call me bad or mediocre or whatever you want to, but that has nothing to do with how well our team works together as a group. We don't have the foundation for what any skilled player would call 'group coordination' despite how many individually skilled players we have on horde. You can keep ignoring the issue in favor of personally attacking me, and it won't change a thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UzYKl-L2Eo
Igotoparties
Legend
What's super ironic about this whole thing is that the last fight night I showed up to was viewed as awesome by BOTH sides. When people were joining vent that night after games ended and were asking "Hey how were the games tonight" EVERY. SINGLE. RESPONSE. was "They were awesome, we had some really close games tonight. Wish they would have gone for longer actually." We even all shared a joke about the reason the games were so good was the noticeable "lack of hunters."
Personally I'm moving on to other projects because I'm bored of my 29 hunter, if you guys are interesting in setting up games I'll do my part and show up if I'm available. However, if I see pissing and moaning about my hunter I'm perfectly content to leave her in retirement and contribute to the bracket dying.
Personally I'm moving on to other projects because I'm bored of my 29 hunter, if you guys are interesting in setting up games I'll do my part and show up if I'm available. However, if I see pissing and moaning about my hunter I'm perfectly content to leave her in retirement and contribute to the bracket dying.
Ohai
OG
We moved to 4 nights right as school started up. If you have been playing for 3-4 years now, you realize this is just another phase of inactivity that we see EVERY YEAR. I honestly let my account run out and have no interest in going back. I have been playing other games, and hanging out with friends. If the premade happened, I would have come back. I'm still waiting on a headset anyways, but if there is interest in the future I would come back to play.
It didn't happen because of votekicks, it didn't happen because of drama.
The only thing that had some impact on this coming about a half a month earlier than in the past is the fact that alliance had a lot of REALLY well geared hunters, who knew what they were doing. Horde simply didn't. I really think a lot of nights I tried to play through it, but it was not nearly as fun as it could have been just because of the hunters hopping around mid stopping me from ever actually getting to play O.
And for the last time, stop fucking arguing with willy. He makes the statements he does because he honestly believes a team with 0 hunters can outplay a team with 3 on skill and the power of love alone. 9 times out of 10 that will not happen, especially with the skill level of a few of the top hunters (all alliance). He isn't even anywhere near your viewpoints, so a rational conversation can never occur. He doesn't think hunters are overpowered in a 1v1 or 5v5 situation. Its hopeless.
It didn't happen because of votekicks, it didn't happen because of drama.
The only thing that had some impact on this coming about a half a month earlier than in the past is the fact that alliance had a lot of REALLY well geared hunters, who knew what they were doing. Horde simply didn't. I really think a lot of nights I tried to play through it, but it was not nearly as fun as it could have been just because of the hunters hopping around mid stopping me from ever actually getting to play O.
And for the last time, stop fucking arguing with willy. He makes the statements he does because he honestly believes a team with 0 hunters can outplay a team with 3 on skill and the power of love alone. 9 times out of 10 that will not happen, especially with the skill level of a few of the top hunters (all alliance). He isn't even anywhere near your viewpoints, so a rational conversation can never occur. He doesn't think hunters are overpowered in a 1v1 or 5v5 situation. Its hopeless.
Ohai
OG
And now I'll look silly and go back on the "stop arguing with willy" statement to say 2 things.
Firstly, I'm sure there are a lot of people in 19s/70s that DO afk after high hunter (or whatever OP class) games. The difference is they have a couple hundred players in that bracket, and have the population to support shitty gameplay. Our bracket is small enough that a bad game means that one team stops playing, and the available pool of players there to replace them is limited. The upside is in a small community that we can limit things like hunters to keep everyone happy, but sadly there were a bunch of players that would rather not do that, and they all played for the alliance side.
Secondly, like him or not, Sam is one of a VERY small list of players who would actively call out what they were doing in ventrilo, and the ONLY mage to call his CCs. You might not like him, you might mute him, but if anyone horde side was trying to get people to play correctly via lessons and asking people to call things, it was him.
Willyshatner
Legend
We see phases of inactivity with new content patches, School started a month ago, so I highly doubt school starting had anything to do with games stopping just shy of a week ago. In fact when you say things like:
It probably has nothing to do with school starting up again. After all, how many people who play in this bracket are actually in school?
Votekicks and drama = less players here to play games. Less players here to play games = games not happening. Games not happening = dead bracket. Especially when you have such a small population to begin with.
Of course, it's all about the hunters. And Alliance just being better while playing their hunters. It couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that they could have played any class besides hunters and the outcome would have been identical.
I make the statements I do because I am a realist. I try to have the most accurate and realistic idea of what's going on, instead of trying to inject my own personal bias and feelings into a discussion like everyone else does. This means that even if I personally like or dislike something, I won't let that interfere with my point of view on it. For the record, a team with 0 coordinated players will never beat a team with any amount of coordinated players, regardless of personal skill. It just so happens that whenever a group of Detox or MB players is in a BG, they are very coordinated and playing against a very uncoordinated horde team.
It doesn't matter if they have 10 hunters on their side or none, the outcome would have always been the same.
Why do they have a couple hundred players? If every one of them knows that certain classes are OP and some games end up being class stacked, why would anyone bother queuing up for that kind of game play? The whole point I was trying to make is that there are dramatic differences between our bracket and those brackets. Differences that are determined by players who value getting games over being opinionated against certain aspects of the game (like hunters or GF weapons). They don't let their personal opinions get in the way of making sure games are happening.
Many of you in the 29 bracket have stated time and time again that 19s/70s are shit brackets, not worth playing. So while you sit here and say that only getting perfect games is appealing to you, your bracket is dead and other brackets are doing great because.... people are willing to compromise? Sure, I'll play in a 15 hunter game, and I'll stay in it all the way to the end, just like everyone else in that 15 hunter game did. I'll do that because I know that even though there are 15 hunters, it's still a close and competitive game. Even if it were a steamroll, at least it's over quickly. Even if we don't win, at least we're getting games. Even if games aren't perfect, at least I don't have to schedule my play time like a session with my therapist.
Do you see where I am going with this? Maybe the reason the 19s/70s brackets have so many players is because they aren't stupidly picky and obsessive over 'the perfect game.' Maybe at some point they realized that accepting a variety of games is much better than nitpicking each one until they die. Maybe they realized that the best way to 'control' the content of games was to have things like wargames and rated BGs when they really wanted 'the perfect game.'
It has never been about whether or not I like or disliked Sam. No matter how he treats people, he's still just another person and he'll realize that eventually. Maybe he'll learn to be more forgiving and tolerant. Maybe he won't. Regardless, the bracket is what we make it. People queue up when they decide that getting games is better than arguing about the quality of games they are getting. People enjoy games when they realize that overcoming a challenge is what makes games interesting in the first place.
I don't disagree that he occasionally calls things out in vent. I don't disagree that he tries to get people to do things to better the team. What I do disagree with is when he takes everything uber personally and rages at people. Calling Megumi a faggot in a game where we have a total of two hunters on our team, simply because he's playing a hunter, isn't acceptable in any circumstance. Constantly degrading people who aren't meeting your expectations is the absolute worst way to get them to meet your expectations. Even the military has learned that lesson and their boot camp drill officers don't do what Sam does.
On top of all that, I have never once had a conversation with Sam where he contributed anything remotely positive or rational. Any and every conversation has ended in negative and very irrational sentiments towards me personally, even if the conversation was never about me to begin with. The guy would rather attack me than have a discussion and that isn't an acceptable form of intelligence in any conversation.
I would gladly concede any valid points he has, if he were capable/interested in presenting them in a manner more consistent with intelligent discussion. At that point we could probably agree on a great many things, while agreeing to disagree on a great many more things.
However, I don't wish to go into a back and forth here, so I am done.