As mf says, first we need teams, then comes the ladder.
Though if you have a team, feel free to get onto <a href="http://www.ausns2.org" target="_blank">AusNS2</a> and add some of us on Steam to get in on some scrims. Or we can add you to the Australian PUG group in the meantime so long as you're willing to play as a team in a semi competitive environment.
FYI.... I havent forgotten about AUS :) <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=123167&st=0#entry2007342" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...=0#entry2007342</a>
I completely disagree with your sentiment on "Teams first, Ladder later". No one has any interest in starting a team if there's no ladder to play on. Groups of friends that could form teams do exist, but how do you expect them to form a team unless they have a reason to? If they already do exist, without a ladder how do you expect them to know how to find the already existing NS2 community to start scrimming? Other than accidentally stumbling across your AusNS2 tag and bothering to look it up. You really need a ladder to exist as quickly after release as possible to drum enough interest from the "groups of friends" who are playing the game ~right now~ before they lose interest. Refer to my <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=123373" target="_blank">my esports thread</a> for my full thoughts on the issue.
Australia's gaming community as a whole is pretty small, as well as being disadvantaged by a range of issues. The community is fickle and is forced to be this way to establish a large enough community to sustain itself for a long period of time. Unfortunately, the flavour of the month (year) is still League of Legends and Dota 2 (and is unlikely to change) and with the release of Black Ops 2 later this month...
Banking on players loving the game enough to form teams and find the community of their own accord is short sighted and frankly not setting the bar high enough to set up the thriving community I know you all want. At best you'll end up with 8 teams who will get stomped by the existing 4 veteran teams and will give up without the ability to regularly scrim other teams of the same skill level.
Unfortunately for Australia I'm not sure there's much we can do...thanks to League of Legends, e-sports sites like CyberGamer are slowly dying, we don't have the player base to sustain multiple thriving communities. Unless UWE does something to make their game BIG EVERYWHERE there will be no worldwide attraction for a swarm of Australians to give up their known and loved for something new with no sustainability.
JektJoin Date: 2012-02-05Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited November 2012
The same point a ladder with 50 teams signed up is. To generate competitive interest and long term investment in organised team play from the public community.
Not saying a ladder is the best way to handle this, because I don't know. Although one requirement at least is a centralized location for people to set up scrims and pugs. A forum without this capability will be ultimately useless.
Obviously the ladder would be locked to begin with until there are enough teams to start playing games, but you need the ladder to be available to start promotion and to get people thinking "Hey maybe I should start a team to join X ladder I heard about". I don't know if you've used CyberGamer before but this is the premise they work under, and new games will always get a huge influx of interested players forming teams as well as existing teams from other games joining the new (locked) ladders.
Maybe I'm just pessimistic about people's willingness to come and find our community without the help of an already existing ladder service. Times have changed since the NS1 days where what you're suggesting was the norm because there was no alternative, and because no games had in-built ladder and ranking systems. Kids these days expect the game they buy to include everything they need without resorting to creating, joining and sustaining their own community. I just don't know how well our old methods hold up any more...
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Head over to www.ausns2.org
Australia has ALOT of players, but we need leaders to start more teams. When we get to about 8, we'll look at creating a ladder.
Though if you have a team, feel free to get onto <a href="http://www.ausns2.org" target="_blank">AusNS2</a> and add some of us on Steam to get in on some scrims. Or we can add you to the Australian PUG group in the meantime so long as you're willing to play as a team in a semi competitive environment.
Welcome to NS2!
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=123167&st=0#entry2007342" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...=0#entry2007342</a>
Australia's gaming community as a whole is pretty small, as well as being disadvantaged by a range of issues. The community is fickle and is forced to be this way to establish a large enough community to sustain itself for a long period of time. Unfortunately, the flavour of the month (year) is still League of Legends and Dota 2 (and is unlikely to change) and with the release of Black Ops 2 later this month...
Banking on players loving the game enough to form teams and find the community of their own accord is short sighted and frankly not setting the bar high enough to set up the thriving community I know you all want. At best you'll end up with 8 teams who will get stomped by the existing 4 veteran teams and will give up without the ability to regularly scrim other teams of the same skill level.
Unfortunately for Australia I'm not sure there's much we can do...thanks to League of Legends, e-sports sites like CyberGamer are slowly dying, we don't have the player base to sustain multiple thriving communities. Unless UWE does something to make their game BIG EVERYWHERE there will be no worldwide attraction for a swarm of Australians to give up their known and loved for something new with no sustainability.
Edit: There are 6 active clans now.
To generate competitive interest and long term investment in organised team play from the public community.
Not saying a ladder is the best way to handle this, because I don't know.
Although one requirement at least is a centralized location for people to set up scrims and pugs. A forum without this capability will be ultimately useless.
Maybe I'm just pessimistic about people's willingness to come and find our community without the help of an already existing ladder service. Times have changed since the NS1 days where what you're suggesting was the norm because there was no alternative, and because no games had in-built ladder and ranking systems. Kids these days expect the game they buy to include everything they need without resorting to creating, joining and sustaining their own community. I just don't know how well our old methods hold up any more...