Mei got scammed like an idiot and now hates the Turks. Where do we go from here? Well, that’s exactly what we’re going to address in the 1st piece of content since the new server was established.
A disclaimer before we get too far into this and I get a shitton of pings asking stupid questions (but I’m sure you clowns won’t disappoint in this department): none of these are concrete plans or guarantees. This blog post will highlight my personal plans and some potential avenues/ideas for the future.
Now let's get started with the actual content. I’d normally have a witty sentence or a better transition here, but I can’t think of one so I’ll just put some random joke below and edit this later.
As ATDL is obviously mainly a tournament-focused community let us begin here. I did say earlier I was going to start a tournament soon to promote interest in the new server, but I am honestly glad I backed out on my word for multiple reasons. Yes, this is 100% on me for jebaiting yall, but let me give the rationale on why I didn’t continue on without it other than just “I didn’t want to”:
The initial plan was to host a tournament that would be in the middle of a minor and a major, basically allowing for a shorter format with 2 divisions. A short tournament to promote server interest, that began growing issues as soon as its conception. This 2 division split would then cause the same rift that happened in Season 6: that a fair amount of the player base would complain about not being able to play core or that they were only facing players much better than them. Dota players complaining, what a shocker I know. But given this initial tournament is meant to garner interest and activity, it doesn’t make sense to actively make a format in which a significant portion of potential patrons would not be privy to.
The next reason which may seem trivial to most of you, but is important to me is simply that: I actually need to focus on schoolwork, shit is a lot more involved now that I’m back to in person studying. I don’t think I could provide a good experience if I wasn’t involved with the whole tournament from start to finish (look at any ATDL tournament where I left early), so I want to properly give my all to this community, and not a half-assed excuse for a tournament.
The final reason is delaying the tournament closer to that of a summer beginning would allow for a larger player base to join, simply due to the extra free time. Granted we have a ton of geezers and NEETs in the ATDL community where free time is the least of their concerns, but again it’s a case of maximizing turnout for our 1st tournament back.
Now that that’s out the way, let’s get onto the more positive stuff. What are the plans for the future? I said above I am pushing the initial launch tournament closer to a summer release. Without a date certain, I will say that when this tournament happens: it will be a full season guaranteed. Possibly different format, but divisions and choosing your own teams will be included for sure as it’s what you guys wanted so we’ll be passing on a minor.
This tournament should be named Season 8, but maybe a new name to go with the new server? I’ve also been thinking of getting into rebranding again to symbolize the new beginning and a potential shift to allow us to venture into other games, but I’ll discuss this some other time.
There should also be another tournament this year ending before Christmas as that time of year is prime and easy real estate for tournaments so it may just end up being 2 seasons this year. But let’s cross the 1st tournament before thinking about the 2nd one.
The next major thing is the discussion of tiers. I enjoyed the divisions of Season 7 the most, where we allowed the ranks to go higher the later the tournament went. This allowed for a natural progression of players to improve their skills in the ranked setting after practicing with teams, whilst still acting as a barrier for higher-ranked players to just swoop in and disregard the current player base of that division. I also want to create an environment that is comfortable for me to attract the players from other Dota discord servers whom cater to lower-ranked players.
So for the next major, beta and alpha players will probably see a similar structure to Season 7. But for Alpha+ players, I am considering bringing back 5 man immortal teams for you all as many of ATDL’s player base has ranked up. That being said, this will not be a free-for-all, I want to avoid five 7k players from stomping five 5.6k players. How this exactly will look is debatable, and whether it will actually be 5 man immortals teams is another thing. But the goal will be to make Alpha+ the least limiting of all divisions to accommodate the proper highest tier of play.
That’s the majority of the competitive side of things. I am still on the look out for sponsors that will not affect ATDL’s current systems too much so if anyone has any suggestions on who I can contact, please tell me. And as for content, I would like to do more video segments: but that requires the playerbase’s involvement so I doubt that would happen. I would be happy to trial stuff if you guys are interested though so, please tell me if you guys are interested.
That should be it. Nothing too in-depth here, more just a reminder that these blogposts are the most consistent piece of ATDL content.
- Mei
