*Season 4* - In-game join now. Intructions, and other messy stuff.

[Falconeer]

We have to wrap this up. There's no way around it.

We can't get to 36, I am pretty sure we can't and to be honest I am more afraid of someone in the list of 32 eventually dropping than hoping to get to 36. And honestly, Blood Bowl League structure is so stupid that 36 wouldn't really be optimal at all. Even more uneven numbers are just headache material, especially cause the separated divisions running as different Leagues would be a pain for statistics and the likes.

I am closing at 32.

At the moment I am letting everyone in. IF we actually have more than 32 (meaning everyone who is supposed to join actually does), I think we'll have enough spare extra players  and time to make a fantastic Qualification Round! between the last 7 or so coaches to sign up, running a short League between themselves to qualify for the last four spots. It sucks, but I can't think of anything better at the moment. The added bonus of playing in the Qualifying Round is that your team, should qualify, would start S#4 with some money and possibly a few level ups. It's not so bad after all, I think.

So,

Situation as of now:

First 28, with a guaranteed spot.

1 - Falconeer
2 - Paelos
3 - Modern Angel
4 - Sky
5 - Gruntle
6 - Ginaz
7 - Sir T
8 - Comstar
9 - Bann
10 - HaemishM
11 - Proudft
12 - AndyDavo
13 - Teleku
14 - Reborn
15 - Llyse
16 - Megrim
17 - Avaia
18 - IainC
19 - Celer
20 - Lamaros
21 - Drogg
22 - Eldaec
23 - Ingmar
24 - Strazos
25 - Ruvaldt
26 - Ezrast
27 - Ironwood
28 - Ice Cream Emperor

Qualification Round! (it's a mix of newliness to f13 and late signup), (4 out of 8 will get through).

These players would compete for the last 4 spots available. 3 will be eliminated and will have a guaranteed spot in S#5. It goes without saying, should anyone of the 28 decide not to confirm his/her participation the list will be updated accordingly. Priority is given by the number, so in case, let's say, Modern Angel chickens out, Der Helm will take his place as a "guaranteed".

29 - Der Helm
30 - Carnifex 27
31 - Ulysees
32 - Longstrider
33 - Kail
34 - Merusk
35 - Sjofn
36 - Dusematic

I am sincerely sorry for the mess. It could have probably been avoided if I kept updating the list as we did in the previous editions so we could close it at a specific number, but I am not sure it would have worked anyway since we've always been ambitious and aimed for moar. Next Season will have a cap of 32 and the Qualification Round! will be official, so people will know in advance that if you sign up too late, or if you sucked in the previous League, you might have to face the horror of the bloody Qualification Round!. Again, sorry if things didn't go as smooth as hoped. Never meant to be a jerk to anyone, or to leave anyone out (should this actually happen).



How to apply for the League in-game:

*EVERYONE* IN THE LIST SHOULD APPLY NOW (regardless your position number)

How to:

1) Run the game, go multiplayer. If it's your first time creating an online account, please use the same name you have here on f13.
2) Go to the "Leagues" tab.
3) Click on "League Finder"
4) Search for either "f13 League  * Season 4 *" or under manager "Drew Falconeer". Make sure to join Season #4, not the Feeder League or any other League I am managing.
5) Highlight the League you want, and click "view League" (as far as I know, you have to "view the League", applying from the search tool doesn't work).
6) In the League page, choose your elegible Team from the dropdown menu in the lower part of the screen and "apply".
7) The password is: vanguard

You are set. I'll manage applications based on whoever keeps his/her word and I'll keep you all up to date here, especially those who might be involved in the Qualification Round!.

PLEASE, APPLY AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! THat will help understand what is going on, and will be useful to everyone. Once again, PROVIDE ME A VALID EMAIL if you haven't yet.
Also, let me know if you need to be invited to the Steam Group, by sending me a pm or an email stating your Steam, name.

I think this is all. Don't be shy, ask questions if you are confused or in doubt. As everyone knows, I am surprisingly friendly and pretty much always online on Steam. Name there to add me to your friend list is [f13] Falconeer.

Thanks everyone for making all this possible. I love it.

[Falconeer]

Before you all start yelling, 36 was a messy number anyway, even ASSUMING we could really be 36. So, Qualification Round! it is anyway, it's cool, for real.

[Sjofn]

Am I allowed to forfeit? I suppose not. 

[Falconeer]

Why should you want to forfeit? The Qualification Round! is perfect, giving you the thrill of the League without (eventually) committing you for more than a couple of matches (should you really lose as it seems you are planning to do). I think this is perfect for new players who are not sure if the League is for them or not.

[Modern Angel]

Are you calling me a coward?

[Falconeer]

No, Sir. I just thought who would have been the funniest to poke at. Ha.

[Modern Angel]

Your entire team is dead.

I actually sort of like this qualifying games stuff for the newer players

[Sjofn]

I'm not really going to forfeit. I even created an online account! Maybe eventually I'll make a team!

[Falconeer]

Remember to name your players, Sjofn. It's the best part of the game.

[Sjofn]

Oh, I will. I am almost mad at you for taking the feminist theme! Perhaps I will use it for fun anyway.

[Sir T]

I cant see my team on the list. Its still stuck in season 3 and I have no idea how to leave that league.

[Falconeer]

Oh, I will. I am almost mad at you for taking the feminist theme! Perhaps I will use it for fun anyway.

For sure! We can have a feminist feud, like what happened for real with the pro and anti porn wars!  

[Strazos]

I cant see my team on the list. Its still stuck in season 3 and I have no idea how to leave that league.

Go into Season 3 and have your team quit the league.

Also, Falc - Can I perma-confirm for league play, until I say otherwise? I don't like my name being so far down the list, and frankly, it would be unfair to other to have me play qualifying games if I'm using a returning team.

[Ruvaldt]

The Ex-Presidents of Doom have left the f13 Feeder League, been pared down to a lean and mean 1250TV, and applied for membership into Season 4.

Hail to the Chiefs...of Chaos!

[Sir T]

Thanks. Done. I even have a couple of cheerleaders now. Woo hoo.

[Sjofn]

Oh, I will. I am almost mad at you for taking the feminist theme! Perhaps I will use it for fun anyway.

For sure! We can have a feminist feud, like what happened for real with the pro and anti porn wars!  

This made me laugh out loud. Well done.  

[Celer]

Before I swap out for my feeder team, 2 questions about my current team:

1. Is there any kind of procedure for "mothballing" the current team (screenshots, etc)?
2. Can my current team then join the feeder league?

[Sky]

I'm going to continue being a pain in the ass about this. Qualifications that can allow experienced coaches oust newb f13 members from the league is a shit idea.

I'll try to stifle my commentary at this point, since I think everyone gets my protest by now. But it bothered me having ringers last season and now we have a lot of new f13 blood, which is the only reason we needed to pad the league in the first place!

[lamaros]

I done applied.

[Strazos]

I'm going to continue being a pain in the ass about this. Qualifications that can allow experienced coaches oust newb f13 members from the league is a shit idea.

I'll try to stifle my commentary at this point, since I think everyone gets my protest by now. But it bothered me having ringers last season and now we have a lot of new f13 blood, which is the only reason we needed to pad the league in the first place!

The problem, if you will, is larger than just 1 player slot at this point. What would you suggest we do?

[Paelos]

The problem, if you will, is larger than just 1 player slot at this point. What would you suggest we do?

We voted for postcount in that other thread!  

[Falconeer]

I'm going to continue being a pain in the ass about this. Qualifications that can allow experienced coaches oust newb f13 members from the league is a shit idea.

I'll try to stifle my commentary at this point, since I think everyone gets my protest by now. But it bothered me having ringers last season and now we have a lot of new f13 blood, which is the only reason we needed to pad the league in the first place!

Sky, I see your point. Still, in the Qualifier for this season there are not previous f13 League competitors, aside from Helm who participated in Season 1, vanilla BB. Then, except for Duse and Sjofn, everyone else could be more than experienced. Ulysees and Carnifex showed their interest in participating in the League right after S#3 started, so they have been waiting for this for a long time. Longstrider is a new entry, but he did the right steps to signup and he's been on f13 for a while according to his signup date and first message. Like you, I'd love to keep this "in the family", and this is what I am trying to do. Last year I kept AndyDavo at the very bottom of the waiting list even though he signed up way before the deadline and had helped us in setting up Season #2 just because he wasn't from around here. Eventually we needed his help again to get to 32, so even though he let us down by winning (ha), I am kind of thankful to him for being there and letting last season work smoothly (caps and punctuation aside). For this year, we had more applications than expected or than it's manageable with the stupid in-game tool, and we had legitimiate new people trying to get in the League asking for that way before the due time. If we could imagine that we would have had an overabundance issue I would have stated that anyone with a specific post-count from f13 would have gotten priority, but since I didn't.. I don't feel it's right to just cut off anyone. Hence, the qualifier feels to me like the best way to ensure that everyone who applied gets a taate of the S#4 League without cutting out anyone who could have been purchasing the game just for this.

Early morning English is tragic, but I think you all got the point. This solution is far from optimal, but given the League hard-limits, the nature of the League recruiting post, and timing of applications, I feel this is the fairest way make sure everyone can participate one way or the other.

Finally, I asked for help in finding a better way to set this up a few times, and even though I got some constructive input, none of the offered solutions felt resolutive, fitting, feasible, or anything less than a complication. Again, my apologies for not thinking in advance of the possible over-popularity and how to tackle it.

[Ironwood]

You're doing a fine job under trying circumstances.  Don't fret about it.  I, for one, appreciate it and I know everyone else does too.

I've now signed up and I notice something that hadn't penetrated my brain yet - My new wee shitty ratties are going to be up against teams that have played all 3 seasons.  I'm going to get fucking pasted.  The rerolls alone for Falcs team will end up with about 8 Ratty Deaths, I feel sure.

This is going to be fun.  Short Lived.  But Fun.                  <--------------  NOT GREEN.  SERIOUS.  NON-SARCASTIC.  I LIKE GRATUITOUS VIOLENCE.

[Falconeer]

Ironwood, the new teams vs. experienced teams is a horse that has been beaten to death at the beginning of last season. Funny thing is, out of 32 teams the winner has been a very experienced coach, for sure, but with the worse team in the League (meaning, not only hestarted at 1000 TV, but he suffered countless deaths during the season). So yeah, there IS going to be a difference between a new and an old team, but inducements and player skill can close the gap more than anyone could imagine.

Plus, the divisions will be made with a ranking system that makes sure you will have a fair amount of old, new, and newer teams in your League.

Finally, to partially overcome this issue, we created the f13 Feeder League a few months ago, where you could "train" a team up to TV1250, which is not only better than 1000, but gave everyone enough room to min-max those 1250 points. I am sorry you didn't know about this possibility, I guess it required some reading of this forum (or the recruitment post, where it says "Feeder League teams"), but you still have about 10 days to fiddle with it if you feel like it.

[Ironwood]

Settle down, I wasn't complaining.

[Ulysees]

I think the qualification round is a good compromise to be honest and I just want to add that I have not played against a human opponent yet so I am definately not going to be complaining if I have to sit this season and wait for next but the only reason I made an account here is because of the Blood Bowl thread and that was also the reason I bought the game, though I have been lurking for years (mainly in the MMO forum).

*edit* took out the bit asking for qualification stuff - must get new glasses!

[avaia]

Thank you, Falconeer, for taking on this thankless task.  Again. 

[Sky]

Look, I'm stoked that you're doing this Falconeer. It's great!

But what is the name of the league? F13. With all due respect to others, f13 members should take precedence. Even dusematic. When I'm going to bat for DUSEMATIC, it's srs bsns.

There's no way I can be convinced it's a good idea to have an outsider over a community member. I don't care how interested they are, how long they've been waiting. If people like duse, sjofn and helm aren't in the f13 BB league and want to be, IT'S NOT THE F13 BB LEAGUE.

Talking about how a non-community, non-participant won the last season is just rubbing sand in my fiddly bits. Yay, some random internet tard won, big fucking whup. I could get that from Auld World, I want to play the f13 league to play against a cast of known characters. If we need outsiders to pad the league to a format, that's fine. But it should never interfere with f13 members who want to play.

Just to reiterate, my disagreement with Falc about this does not for a second mean I don't appreciate the effort he's putting in.

[ezrast]

Thank you, Falconeer, for taking on this thankless task.  Again. 

Seriously. I don't know if it was the best idea either, but there's no sense in fretting more about the Qualification Round! since the decision is done. Falc, all the effort and thought you've put into running the league, keeping everything organized, and adding all the personal touches like the videos and player awards has been really great. As a relative newcomer to the f13 community (by which I mean I did not have a Waterthread account  ) I still haven't been able to game with most of the cats around here*, and it's great to get some games in, contribute to the fun, and learn a little about the people behind the avatards. So, thanks for making that happen.

*of course, the chances I do have I usually squander by losing interest in the game after a week, but only because I understand it to be a strict requirement listed in f13's ToS.

[Modern Angel]

Look, I'm stoked that you're doing this Falconeer. It's great!

But what is the name of the league? F13. With all due respect to others, f13 members should take precedence. Even dusematic. When I'm going to bat for DUSEMATIC, it's srs bsns.

There's no way I can be convinced it's a good idea to have an outsider over a community member. I don't care how interested they are, how long they've been waiting. If people like duse, sjofn and helm aren't in the f13 BB league and want to be, IT'S NOT THE F13 BB LEAGUE.

Talking about how a non-community, non-participant won the last season is just rubbing sand in my fiddly bits. Yay, some random internet tard won, big fucking whup. I could get that from Auld World, I want to play the f13 league to play against a cast of known characters. If we need outsiders to pad the league to a format, that's fine. But it should never interfere with f13 members who want to play.

Just to reiterate, my disagreement with Falc about this does not for a second mean I don't appreciate the effort he's putting in.

And with all due respect back, the only people who have quit the league mid-season have been f13 members, it took ages to get even this recycled forum and closing ranks in a community that can't even keep a guild in any MMO going longer than a month is probably not a wise idea.

Enjoy the fresh blood who don't have any idea what the fuck people are arguing about when the word Trammel comes up and realize you're the only one bent out of shape about this. Or don't, I'm certain an old hand would take your slot without a second's hesitation.

[Falconeer]

Sky,

I agree with pretty much everything you said. I want to state it again, I agree with everything you said.
Just, without outsiders we wouldn't have had the League the way we had it so far, and the added bonus is that some of the outsiders eventually became regulars, which is cool to me.

Again, I agree with you, but there was no way to do this otherwise, in my opinion. Other than just kissing "outsiders" goodbye and eventually having a crippled and non-working League, in S#3, S#4 and eventually S#5. f13 regulars still have priority, that's why I bumped down in the Qualifier pretty much all the new outsiders, and I told you about how AndyDavo joined as a filler last year (we had 31, dammit. What could we do other than accepting him?). Maybe I could have put in the rules something like "if you are new to f13 you will be put in a waiting list", but I didn't, and instead put this line in the recruiting post, for three seasons in a row now:

- EVERYONE can join, as long as you are from f13, meaning you have an account here. You can even make an account just for that but if you prove to be an imbecile before the League starts you'll be booted. You can invite friends from the outer world if you feel like it and as long as they are not complete muppets. They still have to join f13 and post here. Being new is not a problem, but this League works on participation, and just the right amount of trashtalk and cynical fairness. If you or your friends are not really forum people at all, maybe they can find a better League somewhere else.

I am not gonna backtrack from this, as my word is a bond to me. But you have a good point Sky, so I'll change the "recruiter" accordingly for Season #5. This one has been up for three Seasons and no one ever protested the quoted text since we always faced underpopulation issues, not overpopulation. This couldn't be predicted, I'd say.

That said, I hope none of the new participants will feel offended by any of this. Personally, I am very thankful for your participation and your contribution to the League. Be it f13 or just a bunch of good people, I think we've all been awesome so far and I am glad for every single participant that has been respectful, useful and fun to play with (except for NiX, you damn dropper).

[eldaec]

Silver Horde has applied. Somebody push a button.

[eldaec]

Out of interest, how are we running the qualifier?

Double elimination organised through feeder league matches might be a good scheme, you can get everyone two or three matches, no possibility of a 5 way tie, and introduces everyone who doesn't make the cut to the feeder league.

Also (and I don't mean this as a criticism, it just amuses me)...

*States we can't get 36*
*designs qualifier system*
*lists 36 coach names*
*is Falconeer*

[Falconeer]

36th name, Dusematic, appeared RIGHT AFTER I created the League and this thread (I literally edited the OP to put his name in the list a few seconds after posting, but it has all been written with 35 names in mind). I could have deleted and redone, but as I said I am not comfortable that out of 36 everyone will confirm. Having to do the thing NOW (because you were leaving in less than 24 hours), and feeling time was running out, I came out with *a* solution and thought it was much better to do the qualifier than to have a 36 teams League that couldn't be filled.

ALSO,

we can't actually run a 36 players in-game League. We should have done the "6 leagues of 6 teams" thing, then running the playoff as another separated competition. This is doable but a) it's a lot of trouble for me statswise. And b) it's less games per team, only 5 instead of 7, which in my opinion is way less fun. This all assuming that everyone would have signed up, which still has to be seen, since I am pretty sure I haven't received confirmation emails from everyone (as opposed to previous Seasons).

Things could be better, but they are not.

[Falconeer]

Details on the Qualification Round! will be posted in a few days, as soon as everyone will have supposedly applied in game for the League. We can't proceed until we know if actually all 36 join, or someone drops the ball.