Introducing: The Flight Club!

[MagneticDuck`]

When I come to altitude, my prime directive is to help people play good games.

The type of game that challenges people and provides reward. The type of game where strategy goes beyond basic mechanical technique and the art of killing less skilled players. The type of game that really makes you happy, even if you loose.

Unfortunately, it's not always possible on the pubs. Don't get me wrong, I like helping newbies out, and think it's nice to have experienced players and new players mix. However, even counting with the presence of experienced players, there is no assurance that games in pub-land are useful or interesting to people who already has a basic skill set in terms of mechanics and technique. Most of the time, people abandon all hope of playing a good game in a pub server; sometimes they even forget what a "good game" is to begin with. Now, I have nothing against spending a bit of time relaxing with alcohol and 2d cartoon planes, and I'm not going to judge people to spend all their time in altitude doing the latter, but remember my single objective in altitude: to help people play good games.

And while we may turn to altitude's ranked play system for a source of good games, playing is not always possible in ladder. Whether justified or not, a lot of people are a bit intimidated by ladder; the need to wait around until 10 players all decide to play, the need to commit around 10 minutes of your time (under the threat of being banned) to altitude, and the (perceived) stress of watching your ratings go up and down, to name a few, are things that make ladder unappetizing for your average Joe who comes online outside the typical ladder hours.

There are plenty of times when decent players who want to play good games are online, playing half-rate games in pub servers. All they need is a little.. push.

How am I so sure of this?

In the last few days, I've organized little captain games on WH's private server. I spend an amount of time recruiting players from the pub servers, level 60 and up, and, starting with 3v3, put together tbd games that work like this:

• Everybody joins the server, and the game enters a 'lobby' state, similar to ladder.
• Two captains are chosen, who are more or less proficient in English. They take turns choosing players to join their respective teams, and then the teams are locked.
• A random map is chosen, and I broadcast a message saying that the game has started when all players are in teams.
• The teams can change a bit during the game, if an even number of people join the spectators, or somebody leaves.
• The game plays until it ends, upon which we decide whether we want to keep the teams, or remake them.
• ...and the cycle continues.

This is different from ladder because there is no stress, less wait, and you don't have to worry about committing your time. And obviously, it's different from the pubs where teams are mixed up, stacked, filled with newbies and completely disregarded by players in general.

It's a middle-ground between the pub servers and ladder, and it's been a great success so far!

I've done this during parts of the day when normally games are half-assed on pub servers and ledlow's, and the result is that people have played good games, and liked it.

It's not a replacement for either the pub servers or ladder; it's intended to be an alternative to pub servers for people over level 60. A bit like dojo, but more structured. Elusive and I are going to make an automated system for this, but for now, it's not too difficult to do by hand.

To resume all of this:

In response to the general lack of good games outside of ladder in Altitude, I'm organizing something called "Flight Club" which will serve as an enjoyable but rewarding middle-ground between the pubs and more organized competitive play. Our proof of concept model has worked, so we're making an automated server.

[Soneji]

First rule of Flight Club...oh, never mind.

[MagneticDuck`]

First rule of flight club is don't talk about fight club.

[Mango777]

Magneticduck, players are only recruited when you are online right? Well if that is the case many players won't have a chance to join.

[tomato man]

I would like to play/join the flight 666 club. And all the tbd lovers should!
It's a good idea that can help keeping tbd "alive" while growing new tbd players!
Expecially because i noticed 90% of ladder players just like to play ball and have a deep "hate" for tbd. This is a cool idea MD, as you said, less wait, less stress can help building a new tbd communuty or at least i wish so.

[Kafka]

Might want to throw on a tl;dr line at the end of that lengthy OP

[MagneticDuck`]

Originally Posted by Kafka

Might want to throw on a tl;dr line at the end of that lengthy OP

Done, makes sense to add a more solid conclusion.

[Captain Awesome]

Hey, it's me, Captain Awesome. That is a great idea, i'm on board!

[MagneticDuck`]

I'll start writing the server-side code when exams finish up for me. Cheers.

[MagneticDuck`]

We had some more nice games in flight club today, thanks to all the great people who participated!

Incomplete list of people who have participated in flight club so far:

dominic
apache
tesseract
magneticduck
demvrage
jonus
fluffy
beanstalk
flameNL
goldenboy
MAD(Ahab)
wuwuwuwu
X alex X
thundersoar
brantastic

Looking forward to seeing more people join us! Be sure to spread the word.

[Alexx]

Originally Posted by MagneticDuck`

We had some more nice games in flight club today, thanks to all the great people who participated!

Incomplete list of people who have participated in flight club so far:

dominic
apache
tesseract
magneticduck
demvrage
jonus
fluffy
beanstalk
flameNL
goldenboy
MAD(Ahab)
wuwuwuwu
X alex X
thundersoar
brantastic

Looking forward to seeing more people join us! Be sure to spread the word.

It was very fun! Once you get enough people you can easily play for hours. I really like that it is all fun, but at the same time we all are trying to play to win, make plans, and suggestions on the playing while in flight club! It is an AWESOME idea/game that I think should be implemented into a server(s) specifically for flight club. I love the idea of team captains too! All in all, this is a very fun, but slightly competitive! AMAZING!

[Soneji]

What time of day is this usually happening?

[MagneticDuck`]

Originally Posted by Soneji

What time of day is this usually happening?

Right now, since we don't have an automated server, it happens whenever I'm online and I can convince enough players to join.

Since right now I'm not online a whole lot (starting today), flight club will happen when either somebody else uses their own server, or exams for me finish up and I write the flight club automated server.

In the past it's happened at around 12:00 GMT time, more or less. Don't quote me on that x)

[x76]

Great fun. Good idea.

[tomato man]

ggs today, had lot of fun, wish we can do this again in next days!

[Oyster]

I've been a flight club member for a few days now and have enjoyed many ggs. Ty guys for organizing this. TBD is much more enjoyable when you play cptn's mode