Further PvP/Ladder

I too think the pros of test outweigh the cons. Keep in mind, we'd still play on live servers and people would see us play, and freedom could be used as the fall-back server.

My biggest worry about test is getting people on to test. That can be solved by pointing people in the right direction via the free-agent thread(s) or any other advertising threads.

I of course haven't asked anyone on CIGAL because I haven't been on yet. If how many showed up the past few weeks is any sign of how many are interested in continuing I would say it's not looking good.

I personally am not interested in leading a team. I am not good enough that I should remotely be trying to teach others. Our team started supposedly to be more about having fun and not worrying about winning so much and to really just have a team some less experienced people could join being all the other teams filled up so quick. It didn't take long before competiveness became more important than learning or fun.

I doubt the people that quit because they got frustrated at not winning are gonna come back. The last 3 weeks of matches we faught short handed and almost entirely d6 players. I will see if any of the team are interested I suppose or they could even express their own interest here.

As an individual I am always up for more organized pvp. If CIGAL doesn't continue I am sure someone will feel sorry enough to let me warm their bench I guess.

I'd like to point out once again that our team was the only one with no internal drama.

dUmb had no drama.

I wouldn't mind trying to make/lead/ or join a team for the ladder, but there's too many crap to factor in.

Giving how shallow the PvPers pool is, the more competent able PvPers will most likely be spread among the top 2-3 teams. Leaving whatever amount of team(s) form behind them to scrape the bottom of the pool to be somewhat competitive. Now that wouldn't be a big problem since giving time some can grow to become top tier challengers. But (going base on my experience with CIGAL) people seem to lack patience or lose interest pretty fast if the team that draft them fail to produce positive results. Plus history have a ugly trend of repeating itself, meaning people are all for the ladder now only to have it barely able to sustain itself a few weeks later. Anyways I'll be in the wait and see bench.

So, migrating away from back-and-forth jawing would certainly be helpful. =P

I'm relatively indifferent, personally, whether we're playing Test or Live. This Ladder would be less carebear in it's set-up, but at the same time, for it to have any chance at being successful, we'd still need to cater to new players to a certain extent. Live seems to better facilitate that. A lot of people don't peruse the forums, for one, and everything being located where most kids are already just seems the easiest way to make it happen. But, I'm not pushing strongly either way.

As far as concerns about a some teams being stacked in a way, there's absolutely no getting around that. Something to consider, though. There will be people moving back and forth from teams, and let's be honest. You need to start somewhere. If a team you're leading isn't necessarily going to dominate EVERY other team isn't a reason to throw in the towel before this has even started.
For one, when playing teams that are right on your level, you can expect fun, close, competitive matches pretty regularly.
Next, people improve, and clearly, as we saw with D6, they certainly will.
There are also people kinda floating around who weren't involved with the League but have some ability, but just weren't there at the time or whatever. Without the constant 2-nights a week for matches, this is in a way more lax. Anyway, just my piece.

I agree with Vex regarding the whole Test vs. Freedom thing. I think that you're more likely to get interest if it's on live. New people tend to shy away from the test server thing. And yeah, I look forward to getting it handed to me a few times. That's why you guys pvp right? Competition keeps it interesting. I really hope this pans out. I am really looking forward to it.

Right, I'm not sure why you're concerned. Do you plan on being a bottom rung?

It'll work itself out. Some players/teams will be better than others. When there's a swing/shift a #1 team can now be at the bottom. These things can/will happen in time.

If you'd like to propose an "EVERYONE wins" suggestion, we could just all go PvE. That's not realistic, is what I'm telling you.

What Reaver said. It's not an ego thing at all. We play with people who we like to play with. I can guarantee you that my team would quit the game instantly if we were forced to split up.

Not to mention, all splitting up good teams would do is make a bunch of mediocre teams, rather than some good teams/some decent teams/some less decent teams. The whole point of doing a ladder over a league is to make for a more casual experience and allow people to play where they want, when they want.

Yep, basically, if you were to remove them, it'd just leave a void filled by another team, or groups teams currently doing a little better.

Can't change that. It'll always be that way. Not to take away from the fact that any team has the capacity to become one of those teams.

Someone's gotta win, and someone's gotta lose.