Hello,

As some of you may know, Beren and Deadman have stepped down from running the Clan League with immediate effect. One of these immediate effects is the fall of http://clan-league.westus.cloudapp.azure.com/ meaning the CLOT that has made games is not able to function.

This means the league can't function, as a result, Clan League has been deemed suspended. This isn't a bad suspension in the sense that Clan League is going to hell and won't come back. It's merely an suspension to the league, to give time to make a new Clan League council that can oversee the reigns to ensure the league functions correctly. To ensure everything is done in proper order and not a complete mess.

This is a community event that requires community input, I highly hope anybody with a interest in the future running of the Clan League will join https://discord.gg/yzhbJN and partake in the discussions. People with CLOT programming skills for example are highly welcomed.

The goal of the new special discord server, is to organise the future running of the clan league and just keep all ideas in one place.

It's important to stabilise things and come up with a organised fashion to lead the league for the remainder of CL10.

TO BE CLEAR: Players should play out all their started games, results will count, the current season will be continued after a pause.

Thank you and I hope to see you there!

Edited 6/27/2018 20:37:11

To be clear: players should play out all their started games, results will count, the current season will be continued after a pause.

Edited 6/27/2018 20:32:15

Would clan league pages hosted on http://clan-league.westus.cloudapp.azure.com/ still be accessible?

Any idea if money is needed to maintain the CLOT? If so, I have a steady income of zero. The clan league would have to run on donations and or ads.

I'm not familiar with CLOT but I read about the basics of it a few years ago. If there where examples of how to implement the CLOT framework, then I might be able to pick it up.

I know some programming languages that'll be needed to maintain the front end (the visual) of websites; I have very little experience with the back end.

I don't know if money is an issue. I know they put a lot of time into developing the CLOT, but I am not sure what the maintenance of it is.

It seemed to me it was more political. That was the way it was for me, after years of running it. I got sick of everyone complaining and whining no matter what you do. I spent more time defending the CL than preparing it. And you always have people trying to game the system. Back when this started (I think I started in CL3), we didn't have these sorts of issues. People just saw it as a way to have a great competition. Now people look for any way to skirt the rules.

The biggest trouble is since we have run this on our own, we can't impose big penalties for cheating. Fizzer could do that (suspend an account). The most I could do is kick someone from the CL, but what control did I have over them making an alt and coming right back? None. We were policemen with few tools.

Edited 6/28/2018 03:36:13

@DanWL: unless the infra utilization is truly absurd, which I doubt it is, money shouldn't be the blocker. If it is, lmk and I'd be willing to chip in.

The CLOT framework is really just a number of API endpoints (query game, create game, delete game, validate token I think are the chief ones). The meat of building a CLOT isn't the Warzone interfacing (Fizzer's API endpoints are straightforward enough that it should take very little code on your end- you can find an unmaintained reference implementation in Python at github.com/knyte/wl_api or within the CLOT code on github.com/fizzerwl) but building out and maintaining your service on top of that.

My guess is that your current knowledge of JavaScript should be more than adequate for the task, although the scale might be bigger than you're used to.

(I didn’t know where to post that, but I guess the topic is somehow related to the rebuilding of CL)

In the hope it doesn’t become an uncomfortable taboo, I think I shall bring a few precisions regarding the « ONE! affair » mentioned by Deadman in his yesterday resignation message. Beren and Deadman chose not to disclose the names of the involved players, but to save a bit of the sleuths time, and because the situation raises interesting questions, I think it’s worth sharing the story :
In brief, during last CL9, one of our players, Wick, found himself unable to continue playing Warzone, due to professional and family obligations. He requested to be subbed out, and, if possible, to have another person playing his moves in his current games. We eventually decided that he would finish his 1v1 games, but that I would get his credentials to play the time-consuming Final Earth games together with Beren, before getting officially subbed in the 4 next games.

So in case you wondered, now you have the individual names.

We had a discussion on the topic with 89thlap (and some Wick creative inputs) on the clan discord, and I find it interesting to copy-paste part of it (with their permission) so that anybody can get a bit of context and food for thoughts on the issues of cheat accusation and rule enforcement.







Edited 6/28/2018 14:52:19

While the 1st priority is to get CL back up, reports on Discord indicates that this is well underway. Therefore, let's have fun with morals!

First, let me start by stating one flaw with password/login shearing. This option is not available to everyone. For example, if I gave someone my login, they would be able to look up reports of other players. Secondly, forcing/asking players to give up login is something I am always against. While unlikely, this could results in stolen member accounts etc. Therefore, in my view shearing accounts for the purpose of subbing out a player mid-game, gives an unfair advantage. (The alternative, of using alts to play, requires lvling such alts which is an inconvenience I don't want to require anyone to use). Besides, keeping track of who is who is already hard.

From the screenshot, you somewhat indicate that you were operating in a 'grey legal' zone. Let me be frank, and say that for your clan, as well as the other clan's that did the same thing, that such as zone was clearly not present based on previous scandals from past CL. Let's call cheating cheating, and move on to enforcement. (The 2nd post here clearly lays down the rules https://www.warzone.com/Forum/301786-clan-league-10-division-official-thread ) CL 9 had the same rule https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1P43KefXKdljuE2F8ZHSIQUrh9PHJ5co3oteiZ6E_8FA/pubhtml#

Quite a few clans have been involved in 'scandals' now. In fact, so many that we are facing the issue where suspending clans or players, we might end up going towards only a few clans may end up playing. Yet, simply letting them go unpunished is not an option. I suggest that a clan receives a 1 Place punishment if they are cheating like this. Main point is that this prevents a cheating clan from winning anything. (This sound better to me, then to perform a point punishment at least) (Think of it as Fizzer removing ladder trophies from cheaters.)

Edited 6/28/2018 14:58:52

Congrats Outlaws on winning CL9 !

Thx for clearing that thing up malakkan.

TBest, your idea of the 1 place punishment would lead to Masters and One going down 1 place so Masters still won CL 9. So your idea would need to be corrected to going down behind the first non rules breaking clan. That way Outlaws would have won CL 9 and not Masters or One.

But that's just to correct it. I don't want this to escalate into a debate of possible punishments, nor i will say that i meant the above ruling 100% seriously and vouch to give Outlaws the win. We didn't deserve it back then, as simple is it.

Now it's the time to think about the future of the league. If that is safed, there were already ideas to put in an independant panel für ruling issues. That's probably what is needed and was a part in breaking MotD's and Beren's neck in running the league. It's just hard to focus on running the league, if u have to deal without those things as well.

An independant rules panel saves a lot of problems towards a preferably treatment of certain people. Not that i want to discredit MotD or Beren, but that TJC issues raised for some people concerns, that there might have been a softer decision cause Xeno is part of Masters. I don't think that that's the reason, but more the other things they stated in their statement and the fact that those things were beeing allowed by them in CL 8. Also it's ofc understandable to try avoid boots, so if u sub in a player it's understandable that some took over the ongoing games, since boots are always kind of meh. But if the ruling forbids it, it can be as understandable as it is, but then u shouldn't have done it. As 89th said at least ask for permission to the CL panel and/or publically. F.ex. if the other clans in that Division would have accepted it there wouldn't have been a problem. Anyways those questions of a preferably treatment will always offer an attack surface against the organizers, whether it's true or not. It showed on the TJC case and it showed in the 101St/Outlaws decision. This could have been avoided with an independant panel.

So all that talk should show, that i think that's the way to go for the future. How many people and who should sit in such a panel is another story, which will be dealt with if the time is right.

Again i don't want a discussion about these things now, since that time will come later, if CL continues. I just explained and gave examples why an independant panel for ruling decisions should be implemented if CL continues and than it safes the organizers from burning out, which if i unterstand it right kind of happened to MotD/Beren and Chris before them. It shows that we need to protect the organizers from those things. I think that's our responsibility as a community!

For now, let's hope someone is stepping up.

Edited 6/28/2018 15:53:10

I'll say this:

A rule that everyone is strongly incentivized to break is a bad rule. Because then rule-breaking (and drama) is guaranteed.

Thus,

Forbidding people to take over their team-mates account when they have disappeared is a VERY BAD RULE.

Clans want to do well, and they don't want to tank because of lame boots. So, of course you'll want to step in and and cover your team-mates absence. As a result many clans have broken this rule, and it's produced a lot of drama.

A far, far better rule would be:

If your team-mate disappears then you can step in and play for them. But - you must publicly fully disclose all the details at the time, i.e. who has left, who is playing in their stead, and which turns you came in. You have to declare this both in the public chat in the game + mail to the CL organizers. In addition, the usual rules apply wrt to max tourneys you can play - e.g. if you are already in 3 tourneys then you can't be the one who steps in to play.

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tl;dr: letting people step in and save their clan when their team-mate disappears, but having to declare this publicly, is a much better setup.

As long as we're doing confessions, I discussed games with players that were not part of my team (and was aware of other clans doing the same). I became aware at the beginning of Clan League 9 that some players viewed that as unfair or cheating, and immediately stopped doing it. If this is considered cheating, I can discuss it with the next manager.

Edit: Removed the first part of the post because we didn't actually save QB from boot. He played his own moves.

Edited 8/10/2018 03:57:57

To keep the confessions going, here's yet another story.

Last season, due to personal circumstances, i was unavailable for a while. I was playing 2v2 Final Earth with Timinator. Since i blew all my 7 vacation by the end of march, Deadman committed a turn or two for me.
That should've been the end of it, but unfortunately it wasn't. Timinator and i ended up discussing our games with Deadman. This has happened in our game against ONE!, our game against Lynx and our game against French Community.
We all regret this and decided the issue should come to light. For anyone interested, i have screenshots of the skype conversations. If you want to see them, PM me on discord or send a mail.

"Oh father forgive me for I have sinned"

Let's all love each other

I have a confession to make as well.

I multi-accounted this tournament in CL2 and may have screwed CL irreparably in the process.

https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer/Tournament?ID=3338

Of course, I booted in 80% of the games, so me multi-accounting probably worsened our chances in all honesty. But it's possible all this account-sharing and clan collaboration would not have happened if I didn't multi-account that tournament.

We didn't do any filling in, which is why we are in B. Summer went MIA and we just bit the bullet (along with losing our fair share of solo games, which we have continued to do). But I do wish we had a subbing system then. It makes more sense to have a solid competition.

Edited 6/29/2018 05:29:39

Wow! Though this is not the time to write this, I can't stop being amazed by all these things.

In response to so many players breaking the rules and cheating, with the rule maker also among them, I don't think the rule is a Bad rule. It is just that players thought that it is better to break than to play by them, because there is not enough punishment. I say this because, I have broke some rules (ladder, forum voting, reporting and coin games) just because they'll just end up with a warning and I can get away with writing "I understand". We can discuss of this punishment later and I think, since players do it for "Clan Tag" the clan also needs to receive some sort of punishment.

CL is becoming more of "Cheaters League" and not as "Clan League", so Clans needs to have some duty as a whole to stop such events. If a player thinks he/she is being affected, even when they play fine by rules-but the cheaters in their clan bring the entire clan down, I feel it is good for them to change to a clean clan. It is just a game and why they want to be in same clan as cheaters? I agree, there may be some more players who did this and not confessing here, but I trust this is all of it(or is it?). Sometime sooner or later, all the violations needs to be made public-since I feel many are still in dark of these(with main things being shared/discussed only on Discord).

My opinion is to keep the rule as "Don't login to another player's account and don't let anyone to login to your account". Any bending of this rule will be misused, and for special cases like players going inactive- instead of giving login to others or a single player playing for entire clan, if the opponent team and clan agrees, the ongoing games of these players can be remade. There are substitutions for future games and I think it comes to risk management while forming a line up.

Personally I feel, there should be limitation of number of games to be remade or else, someone can stack games and suddenly can go inactive. We can't surely say this will prevent cheating, but with bigger punishment and with remake of games for genuine reasons, it solves the grey (or gray?) areas.

P.S: As a Punishment for AG for starting all this, that too from CL2, I suggest we make him the scorekeeper of Div.A forever ;)

Edited 6/29/2018 05:47:14

I m not honest, but I m moral.

He broke the rule but not for cheating , just for avoid a boot .

Nothing to punish there. The rule is in place to avoid that the top players of a clan play all the games bg themselves.

well good job for getting this thread completely derailed for the 2046th time

My personal opinion:

Rule breaking

Quite disappointed since the rules are quite clear:

(CL9 screenshot)
There is no grey area here.

How to not get corrupted:
Let me show you what kind of insight Xeno gained:

Really this is an online game, the goal should be to enjoy playing our games together. Your score at the end of CL really should not be as important that you screw over values like fairplay for it.

Real life VS online gaming

Real life always takes precedence over online gaming from my point of view. So if someone has issues that prevent him from playing there should be a way to mitigate damage to his clan. I can perfectly understand why people try to prevent boots since they take the fun out of the game.
Conclusion: There should be a way to handle these cases that makes every one happy.
Ways to do this would be acc sharing, make-up games. Other ideas?

For future seasons: acc sharing

I believe collaboration on games can be quite exciting! To share strategies and thoughts is fun. Since this is Clan League there are good arguments to allow it.

Clan League 10

Lets finish this! I know there are many motivated players and hope we will pool our ressources to make it happen. =)

Next Clan League Panel

Clan League should be set up in a sustainable way, i.e. the burden of organisation, CLOT, template pruning, has to be shared. And good management should include a clear succession.
I would like it if everyone interested in running it or helping to run it would post here.
Ollie once said "its a thankless job" I need to disagree. I am quite thankful to CL panel and many other players as well.


EDIT: As for disclosure I apreciate it and think thats the right way to go.

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so far, GL & HF!

Edited 6/29/2018 11:29:39