State of the NAFtion

[Warpstone]

Ah yes, the gremlins got fixed a couple of months ago - it was in the newsletter!

(noted: the Media position grants an extraordinary skill to shame the ignorant )

[Pipey]

2) Archive and shutter the current ranking system. The DB itself is not robust enough to handle problems like variant-rankings. To sort or delete Streetbowl, Beach Bowl, Deathbowl, Spacebowl (I kid on this one, but one day you know it's going to happen ), you need meta-data that accounts for non-standard features. It's also profoundly pointless to have a system based purely on frequency of play as a large component of the scores themselves.
Build a new system based on:

* recording tournament meta-data. It will give us the abilty to filter based on common variations as well as other common rules factors such as custom stars/tables, game effects, pitches, etc. It's a pointless excercise to identify pure strains of Streetbowl let alone Blood Bowl, so just record variations and expose these options as filterable form that the individual users can use to satisfy their preferred criteria.

* make the default ranking based on performance over one calender year. You can still access lifetime stats or stats for a specified time period using filters, but turn the default view into one that reflects current and active players.

* introduce a decay factor on lifetime scores. If you don't play Skaven for 3 years, your lifetime ranking for that race shrinks by a factor of K (5% or even 15 points) until you reach starting ELO. Of course, your highest ever ranking will be recorded as well ("kids, I used to be the #1 Goblin player of all time...").

* integrate tournament management functionality in the backend reporting system. Kill two birds with one stone by making TOs only need to record data once! There's no reason why I can't input round 2's results directly into a web interface and then have the server spit back a round 3 swiss fixture list.

Most TOs reinvent the wheel for their events in order to accommodate concepts that have arbitrary variations (i.e. bonus points of different amounts). That's trivial to deal with if we're account for at the start of a new ranking system. Further, it allows us to record a more comprehensive story of what happened at the tournament (i.e. who scored the most TD, CAS, etc. is an easy tally when you're recording the entire tourny data set anyway).

* Regarding the programming, I know at least one of the NAF coders and he's an extremely competent guy. I sincerely think that he, I or a team of volunteers could collaborate to make the above rebuild happen. The problem though is direction. We're not getting it even we offer our time. You can't keep putting lipstick on a pig and that's about all you can do with the current infrastructure. You need Pippy and/or Lycos to make the call that current code is insufficient and spec out a more robust replacement.

The longstanding variant BB problem needs to be fixed and is top of my agenda, as discussed. Totally agree.

Different ways of viewing the current ranking framework (i.e. filters etc.) are always popular. The addition of the Coach Page, the race vs. race grid etc. are all interesting additions. Filters to view results in different ways e.g. over a period of time, against coaches of a particular nationality etc. are all great ideas. More of this can only be good.

I disagree that people should lose points for not playing with a particular race over a period. This is isn't the ATP / PGA rankings. If people don't want to play a team for a while then so be it. If people don't want to play tourneys for a while so be it. As much as this might 'crack down' on the hardcore guys who get a high ranking then never play that team again, it runs the risk of discouraging the casual player who might only play one or two tournaments a year. For me the rankings are an imperfect system, a bit of fun and a something else to chat about on forums or over a beer at a tourney. They're very important don't get me wrong (people love them!), but I think we should be aiming at something which enhances the tournament experience for everyone, not necessarily a perfect system to identify the very best coaches.

[stanrichardson]

Pippy, I agree with most of what you say

BUT how about an active/inactive status. Teams say active for say 24 months from the last time they were used. After thatthey become inactive.

This way people can filter and take what they want frim the rankings.

Just my 2 cents

[spubbbba]

The problem with the NAF rankings is that not enough games are by most coaches to give any kind of useful indication of skill level. Maybe doing a combined ranking with racial factors included like FUMBBL does would work? After all winning lots of games with amazons at low TV is much less impressive than winning with goblins or flings.

Otherwise at top won't necessarily be the best players, just the best who also go to a lot of tournaments.

[Shteve0]

Here's an idea from left field: drop the gifts, make the NAF totally free for members. Have voluntary donations, maybe host a paid league manager (for like $30 a year) or charge tournaments a nominal one-off fee for logging their results (again, like $30 a time).

I can't imagine that the NAF in its current iteration can realistically argue it needs a lot to cover costs, and it would surely benefit more from an increased registration base. About the only major outgoing cost is the mailing software, and surely there are most effective aftermarket solutions for that out there. Then what, site hosting? What else?

[robsoma]

i think id rather just carry on paying my nominal £5 per year thanks.

[Shteve0]

You'd rather pay to be part of a ranking and community organisation with fewer members than an otherwise identical free one with potentially many more members, even if you can make voluntary contibutions to the latter version?

"You just keep thinking Butch, that's what you're good at!"

[robsoma]

Well considering that I use the STAR system for my league and attend a number of tournaments a year, yes I would rather spend £5 per year on membership instead of $30 dollars for the league and then whatever increase to tournament costs as each tourney has to pay $30 to register results! Lets say its an extra $1 per event cost, I attend more than ten events a year, that's me already out of pocket.

Just because you don't use the league software or attend many tournaments doesn't mean that those that do should cover your subscription each year?

Keep thinking butch? Really?

[Shteve0]

Lol! You're suggesting that the existing scenario, whereby people who don't get the opportunity to attend tournaments by accident of geography subsidise your membership, is somehow more acceptable?

My apologies, it appears I mistook your naked self interest for something approaching misplaced benevolence. God forbid that someonw who gets so much use out of their membership be asked to pay £7 ($10) in a year instead of £5 just so that new players can be encouraged to sign up to the rankings system!

Incidentally, NAF members in NZ pay almost double the rate of those in the UK, and last year we had exactly one NAF tourney in the country. I think you'll find that's not uncommon outside of your little bubble.

[robsoma]

Why be a member of an organisation if you a) do not like the gift that you receive for joining and b) do not attend tournaments? There is nothing that says you must be a member of the naf to be able to play bloodbowl?

[Shteve0]

Unfortunately, that's the issue we're trying to generate solutions for in this thread - and the general consensus is that the NAF has too broad a remit and too narrow an appeal. The number of people who regularly attend tournaments is not going to magically increase overnight, and it seems likely that without the dice takeup in non-tournament goers will fall; a combination of these factors will probably tell in a significant drop in non-EU membership over the next 24 months.

If we want the NAF to emerge strongly from this existential crisis, we need to generate ideas and then act on them; and fair play, to sann in particular, that two of the ideas I posted up earlier in the thread (instructional youtube videos for n00bs and the naf linked sigs) have already been implemented. That said, the single biggest factor in the NAF's future is going to be how it draws in membership. The question I asked earlier is, for what purpose does it need to generate revenue, other than (in the main) dice and a newsletter mailer? I think that's a fair enough question.

[spubbbba]

Why be a member of an organisation if you a) do not like the gift that you receive for joining and b) do not attend tournaments? There is nothing that says you must be a member of the naf to be able to play bloodbowl?

Isn't that the crux of the discussion?
If you don't attend NAF tournaments and aren't particularly interested in the dice now offered then what use is the NAF to you?

Without the block dice I can see membership taking a sharp drop and the organisation become irrelevant to the majority of Bloodbowl players.

[Long_Bomb]

@ Shteve0: I've got to say I would prefer to keep things the way they are as well. Paying for membership has a number of advantages. You also came across quite rude just because someone disagreed with you, it may well not have been intended that way but these things do not always come across the way they were intended on the internet.

[robsoma]

My point being if you don't attend tournaments and don't like the free gift, there is nothing you can do to make people join. Frankly the idea of making it free for those who won't use the services and then increasing subscription for those who do simply to balance the books is stupid.

There is nothing wrong at all with the way the naf is currently run, it is a voluntary organisation for a game, that is all. I frankly do not see why a very verbal minority take the situation so seriously, apart from those parties clearly have nothing better to do with their time apart from moan and post self opinionated rants.....

[robsoma]

@ long_bomb I think we can all agree that shteve0 and others are clearly intending to be rude and abusive in their posts, frankly they have been given the benefit of the doubt waaaaay to many times...