Let me say first that in no way is this an attack, criticism or anything else towards past, present or future commishes, admins etc. Many of my opinions are formed from personal experiences, some from attending such panels as the one Burnie participated in at PAX ” Now What? Keeping Community Engaged” etc.
I – like almost everyone else – have broken the #1 rule of Grifball a few times because I’ve lost my temper, had too much to drink or whatever other reason there is to vent and be mean to other people. It comes with XBL where there is no physical laws preventing you from saying anything you want to one another person.
However the community decides to interact, there needs to be distinct and decisive leadership for the community. One structure that was tested and is somewhat effective in the Grifball.com system was the commissioner, 2 administrators and multiple committees for the 2 levels of competitive play (pro & ammy).
Rebuilding the league at this point means that the leadership needs to focus 90% of its energies on the ammy teams, players and recruitment. As with any type of sport, participation will die off if you don’t invest the time in bringing in new blood.
Our fansites were doing a good job of that to some extent. The layman terms articles, the insights, the gossip columns, the highlight reels, the how-to articles and videos, the stats – all of these contributed to the excitement and building interest in the league. That needs to be revisited, talent pools merged and a true structure formed to focus its attention on recruitment and retention.
For the administration and players of the league: We all have to start somewhere! If you like, love or hate the gametype – it’s not all about us! Other people play it for their own reasons and mutual respect needs to be given to that. Sure – some people say it’s lost its luster because of the drama, the difficulties in scheduling, the host arguments etc. But guess what? All you’re doing is playing for bragging rights. There are no prizes – and there won’t be unless we were to get sponsorship from Mountain Dew, Dr. Pepper or any other company willing to contribute to our league. That, however, is unlikely to happen if they were to check out the epic amount of flaming, trash talking and personal, biased, and unfair attacks that are prevalent in the forums & in-game.
The more the league declines, the less interested RT will be inclined to provide the “FREE” service to our players. We need to rethink things, redefine who we are as a community and build something more than just 20 team pro/ammy combined league. If we could rebuild, get back to the 170+ teams and 2 divisions of play (Leagacy/Pro & Amateur) then we’d have something to be proud of, something that other communities could respect and something that RT would continue to support!
How about it? I know Adam is working on some plans to rebuild the league, I know there are people out there who still want to contribute as much of their time to the gametype and community as they can! We all have commitments, some more than others and no-one should be judged upon how much or how little they contribute. Every positive little contribution will help, and every negative thing will diminish the productivity of the league as well as its reputation. If past experiences can be put behind us, cancerous aspects of the community can be removed or adjusted to have a lesser impact, then we still have a fighting chance of maintaining a fun league of one of our most heavily favored game types.
Feel free to leave comments! I’ll be happy to collect them and forward any positive suggestions to the current administration. You can also email me at highland@grifballhub.com or RT message scotsmanusa.
Have a good one & Happy Hammering!
Posted in 
I agree. I would like to see more focus from the administration to keep the Ammy League running properly.
They should be concentrating more on ammy. The Pros already know how things work and really only need 1 person keeping them in line. The Pros are the players that will want to stick around for long time to come. The new players are the ones we need to concenrate on encouraging them to continue to play, even if they have a terribe season. Also try and keep Pro quality teams out of Ammy. If a team has more than one player who has played in Pro, then they should be bumped up.
Well the administration could easily focus more on the ammy league… If any of them were actual amateur league players. ( Adam, Melvin, and Shadow are the ones I’m referring to) I think Shadow is an admin, I can’t remember.
Scratch that, I”m not sure if Adam is an actual “admin” of either league.
I`m the admin of the Pro League. Shadow and Melvin cover Ammy, with Melvin doing the majority of the decision making and shadow being more of a “work slave” type admin. The issue with promoting an Ammy player to admin is the fact that there are so very few Ammy players that are active enough in the community to really know what they’re doing. It isn’t the admin’s role to recruit and befriend the players, it’s the admin’s role to ensure that the league they play in is functional and organized. In this regard I believe the Amateur Admins have done a fantastic job.
Recruitment falls on the shoulders of the commissioner and the community. It’s a mistake to put the blame on anyone else.
The Amateur League seems to be in quite a disarray from reading things this season. It seems there were more forfeit factories than ever. I could be wrong (I am saying right now, I didn’t do a thorough fact checking), but regardless, it doesn’t matter how many teams we get, if they are not going to be committed.
That is the larger problem at hand. We need people to cut down their bullshit, and learn to just have fun. I don’t care if you’re the king at grifball, so that gives you the right to talk down on others – because it doesn’t. People need to embrace the new people coming in.
If we had more of that, things could get back on the up and up.
Double post, but, I have to say that I really liked being the Ammy Rules head. People actually came to me with questions and concerns when they had them, and I answered what I could, and sent the others to Caleb at the time. I’m just wondering if there is some sort of communication block or something, because I don’t see a lot of teams really talking on the boards or anything. That would help too.
I agree with Bobby on the fact that people need to learn to have fun while there playing. Yes, grifball is a competive sport, but there is a time and place for it. You should always try to have fun playing Grifball. A great example of this is Green Army Jr, we have only won two games through two seasons and we still going strong, and having fun while doing it.
Oh ok Adam, that’s a great point. Then you would be correct in the regard you speak of.
In response to Bobby.
I think for most amateur players, they need to be encouraged to chat up the forums.
My best example would be at the beginning of the Ammy League thread, the first post just usually says “discuss”. I think a more thorough explanation of what you discuss on the thread would encourage people to post more.
if the leagues were to be “rebuilt”, and if people/sponsors actually wanted to support it properly and interact and play the way it was meant to be played,
then the bullshit needs to stop. Like in my previous post on another article, take a look at the MLG teams. they don’t fool around and pull the kind of crap that happens on the regular in grifball. Stuff like that would cause controversy and their sponsors get cold feet for backing a cheating team. So that means no proxy’s, no bypassing through computers with AV/Firewalls that check every packet that comes through, none of those tricksy planned or intentional DMZ’s or port forwarding that guarantee a specific player to get the advantages of host every time.
Yes, we know there are players who do that. No, there is no point in trying to deny it.
Just play the way you played when you first signed on to xbl; either direct connect to your router/modem or wireless. I say we start bringing something back that i feel has been missing for a while in GB, and that is honesty.
I myself use a wireless connection to my router. i get 20mb DL and 6 up. I have never and don’t plan on (honestly i don’t see the point; its just a game we are playing and i don’t feel like increasing my pc’s security risk to win a GAME.) running through a proxy, bypassing through my pc, DMZ hosting or port forwarding my 360.
What about the rest of you? do you care enough about the future of this game to be honest with the community with what kind of setup each of you have running?
I know its kind of straight to the point and blunt, but since i’m being honest i don’t think the league is going to last much longer, overhaul or not. Let’s say we do recruit new blood into our community. Once that fresh meat finds out the kinds of shenanigans that go on with the majority of league player’s connections, the process is going to sprial down again and we will be right back here.
I’m not sorry if i disrespected anyone who happens to use the tactics i described earlier, i just hope we can all learn from our mistakes if we decide to see this through.
I’m not going to ramble. There are two things that will get me back to playing grifball and two things only. I suspect that this is the same for a lot of people who have recently quit…
Lose the Neutral Host requirement (at least for regular season).
Go back to set schedules.
A grifball game lasts, say 20 minutes on average. There is absolutely no reason that anyone should go through days of scheduling headaches, show up at game time and then wait around for an hour for a host to show up. It’s not fun and it’s not necessary. Perhaps the top ten teams TRULY care about who has host or not. Perhaps the top ten teams TRULY care that everyone has a similar strength of schedule.
The only way that I will ever play competitive grifball again is if I show up at my assigned time and play the game then and there.
Anything else is a waste of my time.
@Penguin
I disagree with abandoning the required Neutral Host for the season and playoffs. If anyone has pulled host before and actually used it I’m sure you have seen how ridiculously one sided it is. The pro league is full of competitive players that play to win. Competition is what keeps most pro caliber teams playing, hoping to win the championship. Just look at MLG for example. All those teams play very seriously and try to win the event. They all play on the same connection so games are all about the players and showing off their skills. We aren’t able to gather everyone together to play the whole league on LAN and even if we could I doubt Grifball would ever attract the audience MLG does. Neutral Host is about as close as we can get to making the league fair and about the skill of teams and individual players. If we abandon required Neutral Host for the Pro League games then Grifball will lose it’s competitive edge. The road to the championship will become a lot easier. Every team will just simply recruit an unstoppable host puller.
I’ve never run into problems when it came to finding a Neutral Host for my teams games. Usually the team we were playing had a host lined up or I would have to find one. It takes about 10 minutes tops for me to get a host into the game. Teams simply have to start being less picky about what host they want to play on. It seems we have teams in the league that only play on hosts they get “range’ on. That’s got to stop it’s just ridiculous to worry about how well you or the other team connects to a host instead of the actual cleanliness of the game.
Anyways…
The survival of the Grifball league does not depend on one person. I believe it’s the entire communities job to recruit new players and keep them interested in the game. If we all do our part to recruit players we should have no problem increasing the size of the league and number of teams. However that’s not all we have to accomplish. We have to also provide an entertaining and exciting environment for these new players and teams. Most of the Pro players have been around for awhile and keep coming back next season. New amateur players lose interest in the game too rapidly for one reason or another. Whether it be a bad season, lack of activity, or bad sportsmanship shown by the other competing teams all of these and more result in players leaving the league.
With that being said I think a great way to resolve the issue is to do the following…
1. Get players more involved. Posting in the forums and getting these new players into your pickup games is a great way to keep them active and interested in coming back next season.
2. Keep the amateur league fun and competitive. Every team should have a fair shot at winning the championship. This can be done by keeping all the pro caliber teams in pro.
3. Promote sportsmanship and encourage new players. Trashtalk can be found everywhere in the forums. Most of it is harmless but there is times when it crosses the line. Captains should try to be a role model for the rest of his/her team. If a player is being a douchebag in a game or lobby to another player/team then the captain should have a talk with him/her. Granted captains can’t always control their players because the player refuses to cooperate or the captain just doesn’t give a damn. That’s when disciplinary action should be taken depending on the severity of the situation. Personal attacks should not be tolerated and harmless trashtalk should be ignored. If you have a problem with a certain player the best thing to do is avoid him/her.
4. Always have fun. Stay calm even if your team loses. It’s just a game there’s no reason to get angry after losing. I know it can be disappointing sometimes losing in the playoffs or having a terrible season but you can’t win all the time. Just try again next season.
@ActiveHate
I agree completely. I mean look at us (Green Army Jr.), we’re not the greatest team in the Ammy league, but I’m sure we’re one of the teams who has the most fun playing and could really care less whether we win or lose. While everyone likes to win, it’s always a good idea to show good sportsmanship and not be a sore loser. I wish more people would just play for the fun of the game, not to win.
@Taco
Yeah you guys are a great example of showing good sportsmanship in the amateur league. You guys were also mentored by Tex and the rest of Green Army. Which in turn helped you guys quite a bit with staying active and interested in coming back to the league next season. If more of the pro teams helped out amateur players and their teams I’m sure we would be able to keep the amateur players coming back for multiple seasons.
In regards to increasing the size of the league…just think if we all would just recruit 1 person. Whether it be a friend or some person you met in matchmaking. If everyone recruited 1 new player the league would literally double in size. Small things like this have huge effects when it has the entire community supporting it.
I brought up an idea for ammy in the forums pretty much with the idea of division leaders “captains” so to speak which would have no power and would be a voluntary/appointed position to give closer and special attention to each division preventing forfeit factories.
New teams don’t always know to go to Melvination or Adam. They don’t always know they can reverse a forfeit reported on them for b/s reasons. They don’t always know where to find people to get them back a roster of four or more if needed to play their matches. The knowledgeable need to help guide and coach the new.
Players in matchmaking are always asking about ways of joining league. I like seeing at least our bios giving a general direction to head or recommending whoever to ask you questions or for direction in joining. Grifball.com needs a larger more eye-friendly link about JOINING while the link needs updating.
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Seems the only reason people want to abandon NH is because they don’t want to have the least bit of patience in getting a NH. If you don’t like waiting, help your captain find one.
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@Calinorte You can DMZ your Xbox’s IP and it will not compromise your computer’s security whatsoever. You shouldn’t need to worry about your xbox’s security since there aren’t any files or credit info people would want. Your credit info is stored on xbox.com if you’ve got cards saved.
@Youralreadydead
You’re right most new players/teams don’t know what to do in those situations. That’s why it’s imperative to get all new players active on the forums. All the rules and news gets posted on the forums. If the amateurs paid more attention to the forums they would be more informed.
I agree with most of what has been posted here and would be willing to become more active. If anyone ever needs anything, feel free to email grifballaxx@gmail.com and I will help in any way I can.
@youralreadydead
i know that, (although since data is transmitting to your PC, you still run the risk of being attacked by some kind of malicious file. it doesn’t always have to be after CC info) but the whole point of DMZ hosting/port forwarding provides an unfair advantage over players who don’t know about it/don’t know how to use it. that alone is basically grounds for cheating.
Think of it like steroids in professional sports: Just because its easily accessible doesn’t mean it is right to use it.
@Cali… (please don’t take this as a personal attack – but venting at you since you brought it up lol)
Port forwarding/dmz settings are completely normal, and should NOT be considered cheating in any way shape or form. I would have to disable port forwarding every time I played if that was the case since I use port forwarding and uPnP for bit torrents.
If someone doesn’t know about dmz/port forwarding then it’s something they can learn and it shouldn’t ever be frowned upon for someone to use it.
Saying it’s like a pro sports person using steriods is ignorant and just downright ridiculous.
@Cali
It simply removes any firewall or security restriction between whatever you’re DMZing (typically your Xbox) and incoming traffic from the outside world. There is a reason Bungie recommends an Open NAT. This is one way to do this.
You don’t Improve or give yourself an advantage, rather just lessen possibilities of negatives in match quality. This also usually only applies to when using routers. This is why direct connecting is usually the better option – everything acts like a DMZ since there is no security involved.
Also, your computer is never involved whatsoever with the DMZ as long as you’re only putting in your Xbox’s IP.
I recommend all NH doing this. If ANYONE at all that has no choice and has to use a router wants to port forward, DMZ which is highly recommended, or just anyone that typically has lag issues can contact me on Live (Y0ur3AlrdyD3ad) or RoosterTeeth @ Yeager0486 for help.
I say basically have a vote from every player registered on grifball.com for whatever options are available and let it go.
The only other problem I had was with all the drama, people being jerky and stupid. I think if you banned more people from games and RT forums for periods of time then maybe people would learn how not to be douches and play nicely.
Pro Scheduling always sucked and when NH was required it was pulling teeth because no one was ever happy with host or you waited 2 hours for someone and then reschedule. ( Been there too many times. )
Overall, I always liked how the league was run but I preferred one night a week to play 2 games and be done with it.(Without having to wait 2 hours for a host or a team to show up.)
[...] has been written regarding the causes of this decline, and I this there is a consensus that the decline was mostly [...]