To allow for direct feedback that will be looked over and reviewed by both admins and Community members wishing to voiced in on Grifball League operations, we will be running this thread for all ideas, comments, suggestions, complaints and concerns regarding the League. This is the thread that we will be checking for any and all feedback regarding any changes, updates and policies that go into effect.
Along with this I will be editing the main post to reflect current event topics for people tuning in to see what some of the main topics currently on tap are. Feel free to join in, discuss and collaborate while being mindful and respectful towards one another.
Current Topics
12.22: Weekly Performance Discussion Thread 12.20: Registration of all players to their teams on Grifball.com
I agree that that this would be a good rule to institute at some point, but that this rule probably shouldn't be put into effect this season. Seeing as how it has never been a written rule in previous season's it would just serve to make things more complicated this year. I think the previous policy of "highly recommended" should stay in place for the remainder of the Winter League and then be instituted into a rule before Spring League '09.
On another note I think Phoenix and Moocow are doing a good job of instituting new rules and processes to try and make the leagues run smoother, but I think some of the ways the changes are instituted and the way certain things are handled are what tend to rile up the community the most.
One suggestion I have is to try and make sure ANYTHING a team needs to know is posted somewhere on Grifball.com rather than in the Rooster Teeth forums. It seems like the teams that aren't consisting lurking the forum (aka. most rookie teams and a few legacy teams) seem to be at a disadvantage when it comes to rule changes, scheduling, etc. I also believe there should be a "Contact Commissioner" button on the front page that allows a team to message a commissioner with any problems they have without have to locate the commissioner's Grifball and/or Rooster Teeth username.
The rules section really needs to be updated after the season (or during) to reflect the current rule set for just about all aspects of Grifball rather it be the game itself, rescheduling, forfeits, etc. These rules need to be enforced and something that is emailed out to each captain before the start of the next league with a reply from the captain stating that he fully understands the rules and the repercussions (which should also be in the rules) from not following said rules. This reply can be via email or if possible some form of automated reply on Grifball.com, or can be built into the sign-up process.
A short weekly newsletter posted on Grifball.com and/or sent out to all captains could also be of use. The newsletter could contain all important changes to rules, schedule, etc; as well as clarification of any rules/processes that may have come up in that week.
All of these are just some suggestions and some of them may be WAY more trouble than they are worth, but they are all things I think could help Grifball. Overall, I think that the experience needs to be made a little easier to people new to the league, and those that don't realize that Grifball.com is a part of RoosterTeeth.com, and the up to the minute news is all located in the forum...of course a big ass banner could be permanently slapped across the top of the Grifball.com homepage that says to check the forum for all up to the minute news, and that everyone needs to be a little more observant and realize that the forum is where the daily operations of Grifball is ran.
I agree it is a good rule but it should have been a rule from the beginning. What we have to take into consideration is: expansion of the league, keeping people who are banned out of the league. With the expansion of the league, there is a need for some type of integrity. If maintaining a list of players on grifball.com helps the admins keep track of whatever they need to, then I see no problem with that.
I believe required registration of all players to a team would be of benefit to the league. This season marked the beginning of the CAG Grifball Franchise, exploding the CAG roster from 1 Team w/ 6 Members to 2 Teams w/ 13 Members. When creating both teams I required all members to register on Grifball.com, both for stat tracking, and to assist in recruiting.
Of the 13 active players, Project Tanked, Crymeth, Kazink, and Nirvana Froot are not originally of the Cheap Ass Gamer forums (though they are now), and were recruited through the contacts with other teams CAG has made over 2 seasons. Their registration on Grifball.com for stat tracking in conjunction with scrimmaging helped me as a captain determine if they would be of benefit to either team, in addition to getting in contact with them outside of XBL.
Now, not everyone is trying to see over multiple teams, but I imagine most captains would like to look up the history of a player before adding them to their roster, particularly mid-season when they possibility of them having already played for another team is much greater. While there is little currently in place to help their background checks, I believe removing the option of leaving a team once a player has played in a league game for that team would be beneficial, with the option to leave a team restored at the conclusion of each season.
I understand that while it has not been a league requirement to register for a team since the beginning, I'd like to remind everyone that we aren't exactly playing on the original Winter League 08 court either. The league itself is a learning process, particularly with new commissioners each season. Things are changing constantly, whether its with Grifball.com, The Grifball Gametype, or the Grifball Court. I can see both sides of the argument, but at the end of the day, if you want to succeed in the league, you learn to adapt quickly (those who were around for the Gametype change can vouch for this).
As far as I knew I thought it had always been a rule that you had to register with Grifball.com. Registration with RoosterTeeth.com for access and use of the forums though was optional though recommended. I clearly remember waiting almost 40 minutes to start on of HHDDVVDDBVD's games to give the other team time to get a member registered to GB.com last minute so that they were legal to play in the game.
Perhaps some of the confusion around this idea is stemming from the fact that we are lumping registration for GB.com and RT.com together. As I stated I thought this issues of where you actually had to be registered was in the rules but a glance though them didn't render an example with specific wording to that effect. The rules just mention things about players being on your roster. I suppose I always assumed that a teams official roster is what is listed on their GB.com team page.
I also just spent the last 1.5 hours going through roughly 4 hours of audio and many GB Explosion transcriptions to see if I could find some mention of this issue there but didn't find anything.
Regardless, I would also support having it in the rules that a player must be registered on GB.com, leaving registration to RT optional still but recommended. I know when I was captain one of the first things I did when a new team entered the lobby for pre-game was check their GB.com roster against the players that showed up to makes sure they were listed. I'm not really sure how you'd handle someone playing on a guest account only.. but that's the only snag really I see.
I like the idea about the "Contact a Commish" button (even though it could potentially create a huge influx of traffic for whomever is commish at the time) though I would suggest perhaps extending/changing the idea slightly. Perhaps instead of a button to their message box a link to the WelCom thread would accomplish the same purpose? Both Phoenix and MooCow seem to answer questions when they appear there quickly and if it's a more general question Highlndr and myself are normally around to get answers out quickly.
I thought somewhere before I found a list of League Admins and officials to know. I looked and I couldn't find where it is. Perhaps that can be added back somewhere to the beginning of the WelCom thread with turning peoples listed name into a link to their member page or to their email for quick messaging.
Back When I was captain of solar, I always double checked names, because I did not want my team playing players that werent registered. It just doesn't seem right for people to be able to play if they arent registered and grifball/com, because otherwise, how are we going to know if they are legal?...
It never was a rule. More of a "you should do this" thingy. A portion of players were guests when I first started playing ... I made my feelings known about guest players. And there is no way to track a guest account (I have nothing wrong with splitscreen players) and it could be a new person each week for all we know :P Also guest 1 might be guest 2 next week so you couldn't say "watch out for guest 1, he has amazing hammer skills" like you could say for menZ. They could even switch contollers inbetween rounds if they could actually cause that kinds of confusion.
The counter arguement was that they couldn't communicate well with their team.
I don't understand how it would help see the history of a player. All you can see is how many games they played in and some basic stats. However, removing the option of leaving a team is a good idea for when you have already played for them, but I see that being a difficult endeavor for Ben, and would probably be extremely problematic.
The thing is, I don't think most people are upset with the rule itself. Just that there is little reasoning being put forth to explain why it should be done as well as not even a mention of its enforcement anywhere else in the forum or on grifball.com. The problems this change could fix (playing for more than one team) is barely a problem at all, and is already easy to fix simply by looking through a team's linked games.
It helps me as a Captain to get an idea of how a certain player averages each game, and since I have more than 4 players on my roster, to help determine which of my players will play against a certain team, based on statistics. For example, if a player that I am potentially considering recruiting is averaging 2-3 goals per game, or 40-50 killls per game, I'm more inclined to give them a shot for my team over someone who averages less. For opposing teams, I take the time to look at the stats of their roster, see how often they play certain players, and determine who on my team would be suited in a match against them.
As for players who play on more than one team, you're right, it isn't that big an issue when we have 1-2 highlighted cases each season out of hundreds of players, but at the same time I see no downside to having new players take 5 minutes of their time to register for the aforementioned reasons.
I guess you could say the argument comes down to whether we want "the man" to be able to watch over our every move, but I consider player tracking to have more benefit than handicap, even if it is restricted to strategy and not to prevent cheating. On the other hand, I think there is the running presumption that only the Captain needs to register, as if the Captain will play or at least host every game. I've played in every Cheap Ass Gamer matchup, and I'd say more than once have I gotten in contact with a player on the team that was not the captain in order to establish a match, mostly due to their Captain not being able to make it to the game, or they had a gamertag that had questionable spelling (I'm not interested in trying every combination of I, l, or | when sending an invite).
Even then, that doesn't really validate registering every member, but again, I don't see a reason not to, the effort to perform such a task is negligible.
Now that I think about it, the rules of Grifball state that you need a Gold XBL Account in order to play in the league. Technically, Guest accounts are not Gold Accounts, so why would they be allowed?
It helps me as a Captain to get an idea of how a certain player averages each game.
which can be easily be thrown off by any number of things including commentating for SDNG or by having one really good game and then being benched for any number of reasons. Also players may not average well (using myself as an example as I know me) but normally the reason I get on a slot on a team is one DR Waffles (Hi dr waffles. I swear I wasn't host. Really I had no blood splatter.) hates me for. My sword kills the bomb carrier in clutch positions. The fact that I'm not horrible at tanking doesn't hurt either.
Just pointing that out >.>
Now that I think about it, the rules of Grifball state that you need a Gold XBL Account in order to play in the league. Technically, Guest accounts are not Gold Accounts, so why would they be allowed?
The reason I was given (not by any official mind you) was: There was no reason not to allow them since the base player had a gold account. Not only that but you need a gold account to play on live so the Rule about it is redundant (unless the rule is you have to have a gold account to sign up to play in the league which would be different I suppose).
I think that as long as we have bungie.com links for each submitted game, then it cannot be that hard to track players used. Also, guests should be allowed, but they also should count towards the 8 player maximum for a roster per season.
Oh my god, HotShot didn't sign his posts up there!
which can be easily be thrown off by any number of things including commentating for SDNG or by having one really good game and then being benched for any number of reasons. Also players may not average well (using myself as an example as I know me) but normally the reason I get on a slot on a team is one DR Waffles (Hi dr waffles. I swear I wasn't host. Really I had no blood splatter.) hates me for. My sword kills the bomb carrier in clutch positions. The fact that I'm not horrible at tanking doesn't hurt either.
Just pointing that out >.>
I'm sure each captain will interpret the stats differently when they review them. In any case, I consider them to be more helpful than having nothing else to go on aside from getting them in a custom game against several teams.
The reason I was given (not by any official mind you) was: There was no reason not to allow them since the base player had a gold account. Not only that but you need a gold account to play on live so the Rule about it is redundant (unless the rule is you have to have a gold account to sign up to play in the league which would be different I suppose).
One could argue that if someone is willing to play as a guest, they acknowledge and inherit the liabilities that come with the position (split-screen, no voice). At the same time, one could also argue that the connection benefits of having two players on the same console are an unfair advantage (but the effects of this are theory at best, except in Pwnguin and Samurai Jenn's case, where it's fucking law. :) ) I think the overall issue is establishing a sense of uniformity across the league, in that all players are required to register and have gold accounts, that all accounts can be looked up, their stats tracked, and contacted in the event that a captain cannot be reached.
*for those that read my journal I've had a nap and feel much better*
I found the following in WelCom's journal where a compilation of questions that had been asked the group were collated.
Q: Should I get all my team members to sign up on the Rooster Teeth forums? Is it necessary? Does it really only mean we would each get one of those cool grifball.com stat doohickeys? A: A Rooster Teeth forum account is not required, though it is recommended. Your team mates do, however, have to register on Grifball.com to show up on your team roster and that is required.
This particular journal is dated May 30th of 2008.
This was posted publicly as well and was understood to be the accepted answer for this question. Where and when the deviation occurred I have no idea.
*off to work.. be back in 4 hours to pick this up again*
so you are asking every team to go through and search every game played for a possibility of someone breaking the rules? 5 other teams playing 10 games in a season is what 50 games? And someone would have to search through GB.Com for the links to search if a captain wanted to keep track of all the other teams. I spend enough time with the upkeep of my own team let alone trudge though all the links of every other team in my division.
I think it would be easier if there was a system in place to maintain creditbility and integrity of the players and rosters without searching through bungie.net everytime I want to check on a teams roster.
There are more cons than "having new players take 5 minutes of their time". For one, MooCow mentioned that this would be a forfeitable offense. So, because the rule has only been made public to those who spend a decent amount of time on the forums, don't you think there will be many teams who don't have all their players on grifball.com? There's no need for this to warrant a forfeit. I can see more problems arising from this rule/discipline than benefits.
Quikthnkr himself said it was not a rule in Spring League. I realize the WelCom was made before summer league, but at no point was there any public announcement of a change.
And how did you get that from my response to you? I am saying there should be an easier way to track players instead of spending my time going through 2 websites to check on players. But I supposed I would be slightly jaded seeing that a situation like this has happened to both SHS and HLC in the past. And I dont think my team needs help winning any games thanks :D
also, did you see my posting about division 4 and getting the forfeit factories out of the division? I suppose you may have missed that. Do some reading before you make yourself look silly.
Someone had to do it, right Thumee? And who better than you.
HotShot, while reading this thread, I also was reminded of that rule, that players are required to have a Gold Account. And yeah, I think it was more of a heads-up to players thinking they could play with Silver rather than a heavily enforced rule.
Now, the problem with pointing out how rules can be broken is that it gives people ideas. I know 90% of the people in this league aren't interested in doing anything wrong, but there are some out there who are always looking for a way to get a leg up on the competition. When you explain why certain rules need to be enforced, it enables people to find a way around them. I do see that enforcing people to register on GB.com is a step towards cutting down on ineligible players, but it's definitely not the end of it. When you're dealing with anonymous people over the internet, there's always a way to get around things.
