TM2 teams

[AlexKF]

So over the years TM has always had a large number of teams, each one being created for the fun and competition between players through tournaments and communities.

Personal experience with teams

Thinking back 4-5 years now, when I first joined the game, I saw how many teams were out there yet none of them were official, just lots of different forums, admins, sites, players, tags that held a team together, which i guess is normal. After a few months in the game I decided that I was going to make my own team and started to plan and think about how I was going to manage the team and what we were going to do. I wanted players to be loyal, active and passionate about the team, because this was the experience I would have wanted when I first joined a team some months before, yet never received from the team leader. When I made this decision there were different issues that I encountered and I think are worth discussing now, in sight of TM2 being released in a few weeks.

Problems I encountered:

1. Connecting with other teams - I always loved the idea of having many teams getting involved in big events where hundreds of players of different skills and talents would be able to get involved, but because it took lots of time and effort to connect with other teams it rendered the organization very difficult. Maybe some of you remember the 2010 Christmas Event I organized with another 6 teams, this was a very long and time consuming process. My ideal case would have been a forum thread/site/info section/in game page where there was a list of all the official teams in TM, with lots of details about it such as:

- Team Name
- Team Founder/s
- Founded date
- Number of members
- Team objectives
- Moderators
- Contact info
- External links
- Competitions participated in
- Competitions won/lost
- Server names/links
- Catch line
- Membership application rules

Not sure to what extent people think this is a good idea but there were several reasons to why I thought it was:

- Increases networking (after all, this is a MMOG)
- Facilitates communication between teams
- Simplifies organization
- Saves times
- Allows comparison between teams


2. Comparing teams - So when I was looking for a team I would have to go to the different servers/sites/members and speak to them. I guess many people never did that and just joined a team in the server they would normally play in, but generally speaking, when you join a team, 9 times out of 10 you will be wanting to be competing against other teams, and what better way to do and keep track of this than allowing all players to compare all the teams on TM! Speaking in reference to the ideas (and i'm sure you guys can think of many more) that would allow the comparison a fair and useful tool.

In summary, I guess this thread is a mixture of team philosophy, suggestion and discussion stimulator.

The idea is to have teams networking together, so in TM2 I hope this will be an important feature that will be developed, as it is, ultimately a community based game which teams are best at.

I hope I have made sense, probably not Any comments? Criticism? Suggestions?

[Crazilix]

.....I love you <3

[Romain42]

I guess Nadeo's answer will be "it's up to the community", but since i'm not in Hylis' Brain let's wait a statement from him.

Anyway, lots of your comments are relevant and i have the feeling that most of players chose a team kinda randomly... And if you want to get something accurate, you've often to create your own team.

Maybe you heared about TM-Teams, it was a nice project that could have provided a basis to a "social network" for the teams. I believe this site died because it was too much encyclopedic and not enough living, thus the issue is probably to attract team captains and make them active on the network.

- Increases networking (after all, this is a MMOG)

I think we've to be cautious with that. Any social network has to be, above all, useful. I doubt networking for the sake of the network is really useful.

- Facilitates communication between teams

Hard to say at this point. I think if teams really needed such a tool, they would have been more interested in TM-Teams. I believe the "competing teams" usually know one another through the big competitions organizers (mostly ET/ESL). The matter may be pretty different for young/little/no-competing teams, though.

- Simplifies organization

Organization of what? I belive if you want a friendly match, it's easier to go straight to your opponent team's forum.

- Saves times

Or waste it. Depends on lots of things.

- Allows comparison between teams

Provided that all the teams seriously entered all the informations you want to gather.

Before to make a first step, i think anybody who wants to build such a community website should make a serious investigation, see the leaders of lots of teams (and several types of teams : old or young, competing or not, big or small, hyperactive or almost inactive) and see what are the needs that are the most mentionned.

[banjee]

here in america we have a sport called football, not the same as yours everywhere else. however, there is much hype and excitement over this sport and regularly there are people who make rankings of the teams such as how they think that they will perform against other teams based on the players and past games. it would not be a bad idea for someone to put together a website for teams to register and then be ranked based on team members and other criteria so that when they decided to challenge another team they could choose one with the same skill level or higher to try to improve their ranking. perhaps this could lead to not only an individual ranking ladder but also an unofficial team ranking ladder on this website.

think about that for a couple minutes

[AlexKF]

Anyway, lots of your comments are relevant and i have the feeling that most of players chose a team kinda randomly... And if you want to get something accurate, you've often to create your own team.

Yeah, I agree with you. I think its normal and often makes sense to join a team 'randomly' (i guess most people would not be too bothered about the extreme details of the team) generally because you have had a good time racing with them or other good experiences. But lots of people won't bother making a team and would prefer to join an existing one, so the suggestions I made would benefit them.

Maybe you heared about TM-Teams, it was a nice project that could have provided a basis to a "social network" for the teams. I believe this site died because it was too much encyclopedic and not enough living, thus the issue is probably to attract team captains and make them active on the network.

Nope, I've not heard of that. I think this is a good point to make - having an offsite 'social network' for the teams probably won't work. I think this narrows down the location to either an in-game page/feature OR somewhere on the official TM site. Maybe rewarding teams who fill in all the details would encourage them to be filled in

- Facilitates communication between teams

Hard to say at this point. I think if teams really needed such a tool, they would have been more interested in TM-Teams. I believe the "competing teams" usually know one another through the big competitions organizers (mostly ET/ESL). The matter may be pretty different for young/little/no-competing teams, though.

As we just saw that the TM-Teams was separate site, thus making it less user-friendly. So maybe there were teams who would have liked this tool, but because it was 'difficult' to get into it was never successful. However, in any case, having a list of emails of all the admins of each team would surely facilitate communication between teams, rather than having to manually go in servers/sites/forums and find them. Anyway, I guess the big competitions would definitely bring teams in competition, but then again, stuff like ESL is more focused on a single man team (correct me if i'm wrong though).

- Simplifies organization

Organization of what? I belive if you want a friendly match, it's easier to go straight to your opponent team's forum.

Organization of big tournaments involving more than a few teams. Although, now that I think about it maybe TM players are not so keen on 'massive' tournaments, involving 100s of players? Personally I love those sort of tournaments, but hey, maybe i'm in the minority

- Saves times

Or waste it. Depends on lots of things.

Once the actual 'system' is complete not much time would be needed to run it. Only each team would enter their details in 5 min, which i'm sure any team can spare. Also, If you are looking for a team with specific details you want it saves time.

- Allows comparison between teams

Provided that all the teams seriously entered all the informations you want to gather.

I agree. However, as i suggested above if there was a small reward if all details were filled in (im quite there there will be virtual money for mania planet right?) then teams would be encouraged to sign up. Another alternative would be simply saying that all fields are required to enter the team to the system, otherwise it will not be submitted.


Also, another idea could be that teams would be tracked on number of hours played. So the system would automatically update the total number of hours the team has complete in 3 days, 1 week, 1 months etc. This would allow players to see how active it was - xfire has this feature, as im sure lots of you know, but then again, it can be a pain having to open it up, sign in *another site to register, another site to enter a shed load of personal details*.

[AlexKF]

it would not be a bad idea for someone to put together a website for teams to register and then be ranked based on team members and other criteria so that when they decided to challenge another team they could choose one with the same skill level or higher to try to improve their ranking. perhaps this could lead to not only an individual ranking ladder but also an unofficial team ranking ladder on this website.

Yep. This is also a reason to why having this system would be useful to teams.

I think that having an official team ranking/stats etc would be great. Again, it goes quite well with Florents/Nadeos thinking about having mania planet as a strong community, and this feature, useful, not only in TM2 but in SM and QM- but i'm sure that its already been thought about.

[Romain42]

stuff like ESL is more focused on a single man team (correct me if i'm wrong though).

ESL organizes lots of tournaments and there is diversity (solo/team).
And ET organizes only the GC as a solo competition, all other ones being all team competitions.

Although, now that I think about it maybe TM players are not so keen on 'massive' tournaments, involving 100s of players? Personally I love those sort of tournaments, but hey, maybe i'm in the minority

I think you're not. Even on United (paying version, far less played than Nations), there are about 80 teams at each UL, each team gathering about 10 players in average. In Nations, the STC or ESL gather even more players, i guess.

Also, another idea could be that teams would be tracked on number of hours played. So the system would automatically update the total number of hours the team has complete in 3 days, 1 week, 1 months etc. This would allow players to see how active it was - xfire has this feature, as im sure lots of you know, but then again, it can be a pain having to open it up, sign in *another site to register, another site to enter a shed load of personal details*.

It would prevent newbies to join famous willing to decline teams.
But it may have a perverse effect: a team who wants to recruit could ask its players to connect and remain offline (even afk) in order to make the counter run.

[AlexKF]

Oh come on. Seriously? Man, i guess that's the reality Still, to counter that the system could make a anti-afk (which already exists) so its all good (maybe).

[Bramble]

The ET tournaments are all team competitions apart from the GC and the odd fun cup.

The last United League (UL8) had 71 teams taking part spread over 12 divisions. If you assume that each team has say 10 players, then that's about 700 players taking part in the competition.

I think there probably are places that address some of the things that you want, you just haven't found them. Some of the ranking based ideas you were talking about used to be available at TM-Rankings.com, a community site that awarded different points depending on how players did in various competitions (ET ones, ESL ones and many others). It also attached the players to their teams and had pages for different teams listing their achievements along with solo achievements of the players.

I've got no idea what the status is of tm-rankings though, or if they'll be back for TM2.

[AlexKF]

I think there probably are places that address some of the things that you want, you just haven't found them.

Yeah, agree with you. However, I have been very much involved in the TM community for the past 4-5 years and I find it strange (and a little embarrassing) that I never heard of it. Did most teams know about it/use it?

Still, I am more and more convinced that having an official system made within the game would be the best, having it as a feature, and I think that having a major role of mania planets virtual money would make it far more fun and addictive, also forcing the team to work together, for example:

- To found a team you have to spend 2000cc (or whatever the mania planet currency will be) to get it.
- Each member has to pay 100cc to join.
- Each war against other clans would cost 200cc + 50*each player participating.
- Each time could buy an inventory for 800cc where tracks, skins, avatars would be kept.
^ The inventory could have levels, each level costing more cc
^ The intial level would only offer space for skins, them avatars, then tracks etc etc eventually team news.
- Adding a track to the team's inventory would cost 80cc to the player.
- Adding a skin to the teams inventory would cost 75cc
- Sending out a message to all members of the team would cost 150cc to the team

Note: there would HAVE to be something that would take months/years to get to, an objective, that all players have to work together to get there. Maybe team levels? Or... in game team rankings? Not sure.

I've got no idea what the status is of tm-rankings though, or if they'll be back for TM2.

I checked up on them - there was a post on their twitter account saying the site was down for development (maybe something to do with TM2? Not sure.)