Ralphis know

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Quote from: Chain on Today at 02:09:28 PM
Oath hit the nail on the head, but also there's the issue of making an already-small demographic (classic Doom enthusiasts) smaller by taking a very successful event/league further "underground" rather than opening the floodgates to the public.

Operating under the assumption that you're saying that the move to Odamex was a move towards the "underground", I would counter that it is hard to be anymore "underground" than ZDaemon. A closed engine with a closed community and closed minded administrators who wouldn't release current 1.09 binaries to anyone who wasn't in their inner circle for almost half a year is not exactly an environment that fosters growth. Just take a look over there and see what it has become after they spent years driving out their most motivated contributors. It's a wasteland, a virtual clash of Mad Max and Idiocracy.

That's a discussion for another thread though. In my somewhat educated opinion, the problem with running a league like this now is a problem at a cultural level and an individual level. The culture of the current player base is different from those that were bred in the early to mid 00s. During those times, there were strong headed individuals hellbent on kicking each other's asses, Chaindude being one of them.

The culture of the game and community revolved around being the absolute best and, although I can't speak for everyone involved during those days, I believe that was the driving factor in this league's success. Additionally, many of these individuals were also very bright and personally driven when it came to the game. Chaindude, Nostar, Bones, Stall, (Tai), Hatred, Jenova, and other strong personalities lead the way for the league for years. Strong players and contributors like RottKing, Oath, Prime, Ladna, Turska, Sabertooth, Gyrossman, Fastidious, Chewy, Envy, Whiteboy, Dew, Rust, Xenaero, and more shared a lot of traits with the league leaders as well.

Today's players are softer. Today's players are selfish. Today's players don't show the killer instinct mentality. When the going gets tough, they quit. Today's players don't follow through on their commitments, always full of excuses. Though there were always players in this league that were of this ilk, the current crop of player "imports" are full of them. For every committed player like Legion who has paid their dues, three other players of similar origin are totally useless flakes who will ruin a game, team, and league without much thought.

I have my personal theories on why the overall player base took a turn in this direction over the years but they're irrelevant to the current situation. Even after the "old man" speech I just gave, I think that a strong competitive community is salvageable and that it can be built so that new players can experience their own "glory days", but it requires a lot of time investment, coordination, creative thinking, and vision - a perfect storm that requires the right minds. Maybe those minds are here, maybe I am blind, maybe we'll see them.

Or maybe we won't and the competitive Doom community will continue to inch closer and closer to extinction.

Regards,
The International Doom League Forums Team.