@abge: it's called making them the GameMaster, and has been discussed on the dev forums, for some time i think...

orathaic - I suppose it's a league in that all past GR is thrown out the window and everyone starts as equals. It's a very small subset of the webdip community, that's how it's a league. There's more than one group of people, so the result is more "winners". Anyway, your question suggests that a league, in your opinion, significantly changes the game from diplomacy to some other sort of bastard child that allows others to excel, other than those that excel at the typical game?

Yes, even GR changes the game play, you know well that having a number (25372 in your case) changes how other players behave towards you.

the 'original' and 'classic' rules never mention any rating system like D and GR, and PPSC and WTA are two very different beasts, and a league is not about playing your best and winning one game, it is about playing your best and winning the best league position - this specifically entails different behaviour.

That is my opinion. If you're playing a league expect the other players to behave as if the result of any one game isn't as important as their overall league performance.

Call it a bastard child if you like, but that's what it is.

I don't see the advantage of playing in an anon league to be honest...

OK, I didn't read all the banter, so I apologize if I repeat anyone. Here's my two bits:

I play in the leagues to learn and form relationships with great diplomacy players. I'm familiar with TheWizard, LG, Babak, djbent, Crazy, Ora, Aldy, TrustMe, Thucy, texasdelux.... all from the leagues. I've learned how they play and they've learned how I play. It becomes and even MORE mental game that way.

Having said that, I could have made 2 extremely controversial moves this last year that I decided against:
There was a game I could have easily thrown to Aldy and one he could have thrown to me. It was still early, but would practically let us both walk into the premier league together.
Later on, the same situation happened between Crazy and me (she already had promotion nearly locked up, and would with my help). Eventually it came up in a general sense, but it felt far too meta for both of us (and I even emailed the mods who agreed with me). I'll be frank... the motivation for me to even ask was GR. There are some HIGH CLASS individuals in the league, and winning one of those games solo would make my GR rocket.
However, it was dropped and never reconsidered... so, yes, even someone like me who battles against meta (though there is always some type of meta in tourney's and it is acknowledged and accepted) was tempted this last round.

I do not know if I support anonymous, but I think that having 2 or 3 games full of people is worthwhile. Maybe have a 'championship' series of the top 7 players of the top group play a series of 3 games for the overall championship and those 3 games are the only anon games played?

damn - I was hoping to start this thread orth - grrrrrr... =P

Here is the proposal I wrote out in the Primiere league Global tab, then sent to Alderian two weeks ago:

The current proposal, with suggested changes included is this:

Two main leagues instead of the current structure.

Premiere League is 21 people or maybe 28 (3 full boards per round); still 4 rounds (so 12 boards total) with some system of randomized placement of players across the 4 rounds. scoring stays the same. debate on anon and non-anon pending. ( I did prefer anon myself, but can see the very sound reasons for non-anon as well and I think most prefer non-anon).

League A: same as above with 28 or 35 players.

Minor (B) Leagues: any number of B Leagues with 7 players each. These are minor leagues that allow newcomers to then have a way of working their way up into the A Leagues. you basically have to earn your way into the A League.


Then here is the kicker - at the end of each season, there are a specific number of awards besides the usual winner, 2nd, 3rd etc.

you can also have best England, France, Germany, etc... to the player who got the most SCs with each of those countries. you can also do other 'prop awards' like they do (and we did) in real FtF tournaments. ie: best sport; best comeback; best stab; they "Huggys" award for nondetachable alliance; etc etc... with 21 players (or even 28 if that seems better) you can have a genuine tournament modeled after the FtF tournaments.

So that's the proposal...


as you can see, its very close to yours... comments to follow

so I've read most of the comments so far, and I think abge and ortha put together the arguments very nicely and I agree with most of what I read form them. Drag is off his rockers as usual =P j/k I just disagree with Draug and his 'logic'.

here is the simple truth - LOTS of top players have left the leagues (MM is a good example). and LOTS of the players from the current primiere league will also leave if the structure stays the same. so Draug, if you want to get promoted because of attrition go for it.

to those who claim it takes too long to get promoted - yes it does. it took me 3 or 4 seasons, I basically had to top my league each time... you can do it too. the new system makes it faster and easier for the BEST players to play in a league.


my personal favorite system would be with 35 players... 5 boards. ONE league per year of 6 games... then the secondary league can be also like 35 or whatever... then for every 7 new players that want to sign up during the middle of the year, they play in a 'minor' league whenever 7 are ready... so you can get them into the system... the top ones get promoted etc.

personally, I agree with MM that anonymous will get the BEST result if what you are looking for is a true competition of talent ... if the goal is to have the best measure of pure talent, then anon is the way to go... i can see why non-anon has some value too, it builds a real sense of community - but it also creates its own problems that MM described so well.


Here is the thing... I personally believe what I am proposing (and what Ortha put in the first comment) is a much better structure. this is pretty much the structure of most FtF tournaments. we can have a truly top-rate tournament right here on this site.... that measures true skill in a round-robin format.

if the current structure is not amended, I will leave the leagues (hopefully in 1st place, maybe 2nd or 3rd) I know I wont be the only one either... others will also be leaving... so Draug, if THAT is how you want to get to the premiere league, you may get your wish.


and the idea of starting a brand new league is not that unappealing either - maybe that's how we should go.

sorry for the rambling - its way past my bed time and I'm really tired...

But it still puts too many players as premier. And the best Germany awards would punish those who didn't hapeen to get a repeat nation.

@Babak - I don't need attrition. I won two games in one season. Only the fourth player to do so. I earned my A league slot. And if you don't like Meta, go play in anon tournies. The leagues involved Meta and that is the attraction.

And Bank, this is a league, not a tournament. Leave. Ibdont give a fuck. I and others will leave if it goes anon. Guaranteed. We have shit loads of anon tournies. Only one non-anon league however, so go play your anon crap elsewhere. Face to face isn't anon and neither should the leagues be anon.

Babak, not bank...

@Babak

Correct me if I"m wrong, but you agreed that with the other changes, the League could stay non-anon, correct?

Why do we want to turn the leagues into an annual tournament. What Babak properest is just a tournament and we have shitloads of those already.

Draug you want to make this personal? you caught me on a bad night so go F*** yourself ;) happy now?

with that out of the way - lets talk about the actual tournament. just as I'm sure the thing will go on just fine without me, it will also go on just fine without you as well. my main point of contention is NOT with the anon/ non-anon factor, though I think that ANON is a much better form of the game. if it was POSSIBLE to do FtF anon, I'm sure Calhammer would have done it... but by its nature, FtF has to be non-anon.

if you are interested in a PURE skill test. ANON is the way to go. when you get your ratings up to where MM, myself, or Wizard are, then you can come talk to me about how much you love non-anon... fact of the matter is, every non-anon game, we have to fight extra hard for the same result and that reduces the pleasure of the game. I'm sure you dont give a crap about the pleasure other people get out of the game because you are a selfish prick (I mean that in the nicest way possible) but the point MM raise and I re-raised is that this IS a factor in the decision making of the best players on the site on whether they join a particular tournament (or league) or not.

none-the-less, the BIGGER point is that meta-leaguing is a serious issue, and it detracts from the league and the tournament. go read the current rules, it even says that meta-gaming within the league is supposed to be illegal... but it has become so prevalent (and its natural for it to do so, because meta-gaming is the logical and most intelligent thing to do) that it has turned the leagues into a meaningless set of games rather than a real measure of skill.

my point, and the system ortha and I both propose is a better method to measure SKILL in this game - which is usually the point of tournaments.

its obvious you and I stand on opposite sides on many issues... that's fine. in the end, the TD will decide, and the rest of the community will vote with its feet.

abge - I did. I conceded that I'd play in a non-anon league. those would probably be my only non-anon games on the site.

but I still prefer anon if it was able to attract the votes of more people.

Mad Marx, I think, said he would not play non-anon even if the changes were adopted.

I like the 35 player Idea Babak. Very nice. I was thinking of joining the Leagues this year but after reading this. I dont know.

I basically agree with Babak on everything in here, and I also read every comment.

I do not agree with Babak AND Draugnar about making this personal and trading insults, do these in PM's if you wish, that doesn't help the discussion and is potentially harmful for the otherwise civil and good (necessary?) discussion.

And just since Babak pointed it out... "when you get your ratings up to where MM, myself, or Wizard are, then you can come talk to me about how much you love non-anon".... I pefer non-anon a great deal. This is what the game is meant to be and anon is a variant as PPSC is. FtF is never anon and BIG part of the fun in the game is that you come to respect/know/whatever-you-want-to-call-it other players. I don't know Calhammer personally nor have I read a statemant of him on the issue, so I don't know if he would have preferred it to be anonymous, but judging of characters is a big deal of diplomacy and happens in every FtF game all the time.

Babak & Draugnar no need to make it personal.
I can assure that BOTH of you are fucking clowns and a joke of a player.

Yep, we both are fucking clowns. Now that is out of the way.

The issue here is that Babak and MM want the leagues to be a tournament.. Babak even uses the words interchangeably. Well, the leagues are leagues and not tournaments. If youvwant a tournament, go play one, but stop trying to change the leagues into one.

I think there should be just one major contest instead of leagues + GFDT + the masters.
starting as league format with 343 players.and 49 leagues
top 2 from each league advance to make the final 98
then we proceed with cup format
14 games. winners advance to next turn. if a draw happens the games are replies till there is a solo.
the same happens in the next round of the cup (2 games x 7 )
top 7 players by result advance to the final.

Hmmm, appears I don't care enough to keep up, but a few more thoughts on how my comments on league differ from GR:

There is debate about GR including PPSC games, and gunboat and World Map, etc. So, the league would be diferent than GR in that it's just about WTA games with people that aren't going to NMR and CD (at least not nearly as much)... It's totally different than GR...

Draugnar, I mainly dislike metagaming and I especially dislike playing with others that know each other better than I know them and they then are much more likely to ally up and gain an unfair advantage.* This is why I like non-anon, it's still about judging character and all the stuff Wiz brings up, but it's limited to just that game, so no matter who joins everyone is (theoretically) starting with a clean slate and on equal footing, or at least as close to that concept as is possible... I'm honestly a bit surprised you don't like that, it turns the game into something more poker-like, playing "by feel" works well, you must read people with limited info, but now I'm rambling way past my bedtime...

*I have no problem with others liking metagaming and enjoying the leagues, that's great, have fun, there are lots of other variants on this site, leagues is another option for like minded people...

Well, if I have to choose one to agree on this thread it will be abge. The league quality is falling year by year in the way I see things, so we need to consider some changes. The idea of doing it almost like a FtF tournament, just add the divisions to make it a league system, seems really apealing to me, but I think it has to be kept non-anon, so it keep some similarity with FtF too (there is a lot of metagaming on FtF tournaments, and it´s part of the game).

But maybe we should start a new league and let this old one for the ones that like the actual format and don´t want to change nothing.

thank you for all the comments.

@ riphen - yeah 35 would be great if we had 70+ players. but it might be a bit too much. maybe start with 21 or 28, then 'expand' the league in following years

@ Wiz - you, of all people, know why I was in a bad mood last night... lol. but point taken, i'll attempt to be a bit more mature and civil in my take-downs =p on your anon v non-anon point, i simply disagree. my perspective is that if Dip is played as a purely skill game, then anon is superior to non-anon. but, in the end, i can respect the differences there... and just as I can accept i'm in the minority on the WTA v PPSC discussion, i can also accept being in the minority on the anon v non discussion. As for Calhammer - remember that the pure form of the game, 7 players are playing... 7 who have not played each other... the fact that in RL, it just so happens that its almost impossible to get 7 strangers to play does not take away from the 'pure' form of the FtF game. you are right there is some skill to 'reading people' as well, but then you are, by definition, including meta-gaming into the process... so it becomes less of a 'pure' skill game.

@ Draug - first off, apologies for being offensive and if you took offense.
second, of course the League is equivalent to a tournament. you are making this distinction as if it exists. its a style of tournament, but its still a tournament. and yes, I'm hopeing to provide ideas to improve it and make it the best tournament/league it can be.

also - if you want to quibble over definitions - name me ONE league in professional sports (where you find such things) that have only 7 teams? or for a more apt comparison, 2 teams that play each other 4 times! these ideas are meant to help improve the experience as a whole - not just help you or me get better results.

@ hellalt - umm.. that would take like 5 years to play out I think. an element of practicality has to be included.

@ MM - your point about metagaming is absolutely accurate. it simply takes away from the game.

@ rdrivera - maybe this is the best solution. but so far, aside from Draug, are we seeing a lot of resistance to changing the leagues?

maybe its not such a bad idea... I really would love for us to have a 'definitive' tournament to measure pure skill which would be inclusive of the vast majority of the top 50 players on the site. that is what I thought the league was accomplishing until this year... although the warning signs were there last year as well for me (if anyone remembers the babak v ivo thing)

I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I understand and agree with Draug on the league vs tourney idea. From someone who is still ingrained in sports, there is a very big distinction between the two:
A tourney is something you enter to beat everyone senseless and come out champion.
A league has levels to pit opponents with similar skilled opponents... and it is a competition... but the goal isn't to win everything, but to enjoy the game you like to play.

I'm not suggesting we actually do this... but think of it this way. If the games cost 0 , and GR would not be affected by league games... would you be more lenient to playing them non-anon? That is how I'd best represent the difference between league and tourney play.

Wasn't the best suggestion in this whole thread Draugnar's first one?

Keep the leagues the way they are and let those who want a more FtF-like tourney/league move on and start a new one.

Let's say it would split roughly half/half. wouldn't that be perfect? There won't be D leagues any more, so all the P-A-B-C structure would remain unchanged, and the new format would have around 21-42 players, which would make for one to two sets of "league".

Couldn't we join both?

I concur with Draugnar/TheWizard

@fortknox: of course, there wouldn't be anything wrong with joining both

I don't mind trying to fix things, but I don't want to so alter it as to make it a completely new beast. It needs tobstay non-anon and we need to play the same group multiple times. So, if we make groups of 14 players who play 4 games, you have to play someone more then once and will roughly play everyone twice on average. If we have the majority move up or down and male all but winner and maybe second get demoted from premier, then we reduce the metagaming at the top and get people playing for their interests to climb quicker.

@FK, So the only difference between a tourney and a league is the attitude players take towards it? You can't control whether someone is joining a league to crush everyone else or if someone is joining a tournament just to have a good time. That was not valid at all.

I've consistently explained why knowing who your opponents are on webDip is too much of an available advantage and a discredit to the validity of the tournament/league/whateverthefuck. Having access to everyone's past games, knowing who's worked with who, being able to see online times, its a giant cache of information useful to the game that I don't think belongs in an online competition. In FtF you only have your own experiences and maybe a ranking list to go on, so it does not compare.

I stopped playing the league because it was entirely "hey, let's make sure we both advance." types of alliances and the most blatant retarded metagaming I've ever witnessed. I'm not even sure Anon would fix that, but its the best shot for it.

@Wizard, Which format would move on and which format would remain the original? Non-ANON is more like FtF than ANON is.

I mostly came in here because I saw "tournament officiators should be admins of those games." For the love of God YES PLEASE.