In this column I would like to raise a few questions concerning the 5on5 versus 6on6 debate as I think there are some, to me, very important points that haven’t been brought into light yet.
First of all, as I’ve previously asked in a comment, how can people be so certain they “know” what the community wants? On the Internet it’s very easy to be anonym. There’s no real control over anything and there are very ways to find out what people actually want.
I believe most people use the number of comments and the polls as prime examples.
First of all I’d just like to say that I’ve never really trusted online polls as most people don’t answer them seriously. You may say that since this is such an important matter to most people they would want to show their real opinion this time, but the fact still remains – on most polls, perhaps on this site especially, if there is a less serious alternative it almost always wins. And still the poll is very even. When this is written the poll on Crossfire shows only 59% are sure they want to keep 6on6.
Then we have comments. The post by ClanBase has when this is written generated 968 comments. The ClanBase Open Cup had 300+ signups for the 6v6 cup this season. If we assume everyone plays by the rules and only play in one clan the whole tournament the number is at least 1800 players, we all know there are many more. If we too assume all the comments in that post are negative towards 5on5 (which isn’t true) and also assume no user has written more than one comment in that post (which isn’t true either) we still have well over 800 players who haven’t written anything about this subject.
I believe the truth is that there are, as usual, a few loudmouths that get most of the attention. If you examine it closer you will note that more than half the comments are written by only a handful of people. Furthermore, people tend not to write comments if they agree on the decision.
My point with this is just to remind some people that it’s very hard to be sure to know what the community thinks about issues like this and that perhaps you shouldn’t be so hasty to think you have the whole community in your back.
Now let’s look at the history. I don’t know how many of you remember the debate there was about removing the XP bonuses. To those that don’t, I’ll remind you: A lot. The scene wasn’t as large as it is now of course so the number of comments might the fewer but in relation to the size of the scene the debate was huge.
I don’t have any numbers here either, but the general feeling you had back was that perhaps that decision wasn’t supported by a majority of the community either but was only chosen by the dictators at ClanBase.
How is this relevant, you may ask. It’s relevant because I think it shows that the scene has always been opposed to all kind of changes, no matter how good they have turned out afterwards. If you think really hard, would you say ClanBase has been the kind of organisation that makes hasty decisions and make radical changes every season? I’d say not.
Personally I think they have been very moderate with changes. It took many seasons for the community to remove the XP bonuses and even more to add the prone delay. And if you think even more carefully, can you remember one decision ClanBase has taken that you think was wrong, now that you know how it all turned out?
Another interesting thing I haven’t seen much written about is why we went for 6on6 to start with. I will go back to loooong ago, back when Return to Castle Wolfenstein was just getting a competitive scene. I was given a history lesson by
Cash the other day and he told me they actually started out playing 8on8. They noticed this wasn’t really working out the way they wanted to and switched to 7on7. Still the servers were too crowded so teams generally started embracing 6on6.
Remember the scene had little to no organisation back then and I don’t even think the game had a community page. The discussions that were where made on IRC and forums.
My point with this is, first of all, to illustrate that when the RtcW players took the decision to play 6on6 it was not after a thousand comments and 10 polls to ensure this was what the community wanted, but more like 6on6 was as many players you could have on one team without crowding the server. I’m not saying that we should change the team size in RtcW or that 6on6 isn’t working out for them – it seems it’s working out just good.
However, when Enemy Territory was released and people started playing that in clans there wasn’t any discussion at all about the team size – they picked the same as they had in RtcW and stayed there.
My point with this is as following: Perhaps 6on6 isn’t the ultimate way to play ET, but just the way players are accustomed to. “Don’t fix something that isn’t broken” has been a common argument from the Nay-side. But what if 6on6 is broken, what if change in this case can also be spelled improvement? Just because we have played 6on6 this far does not mean it’s the best way of playing. Just look at XP-bonuses, we played with those for several seasons as well and that didn’t make it “right”.
Finally I would like to make a pretty controversial statement. One that has been said before and that probably will be said again: If the “community” would have made all the calls in this game with polls and flaming on Crossfire nothing would have happened. We would still be playing with XP-bonuses, prone and 10 mines. Sometimes the leaders of the community must make controversial decisions they know are right to move the community in a way they feel is right.
It was the same when Sweden had the debate about women’s right to vote back in the 1920’s. First of all, the question wasn’t raised by the people. There were no public petitions or anything that created this debate. It was the government that came with the proposal and organised the vote which came to be one of the most even in Sweden’s history.
The same can be said about the entire history. If the majority would have made the calls we would still be back in a feudal society with no electricity.
First of all, as I’ve previously asked in a comment, how can people be so certain they “know” what the community wants? On the Internet it’s very easy to be anonym. There’s no real control over anything and there are very ways to find out what people actually want.
I believe most people use the number of comments and the polls as prime examples.
First of all I’d just like to say that I’ve never really trusted online polls as most people don’t answer them seriously. You may say that since this is such an important matter to most people they would want to show their real opinion this time, but the fact still remains – on most polls, perhaps on this site especially, if there is a less serious alternative it almost always wins. And still the poll is very even. When this is written the poll on Crossfire shows only 59% are sure they want to keep 6on6.
Then we have comments. The post by ClanBase has when this is written generated 968 comments. The ClanBase Open Cup had 300+ signups for the 6v6 cup this season. If we assume everyone plays by the rules and only play in one clan the whole tournament the number is at least 1800 players, we all know there are many more. If we too assume all the comments in that post are negative towards 5on5 (which isn’t true) and also assume no user has written more than one comment in that post (which isn’t true either) we still have well over 800 players who haven’t written anything about this subject.
I believe the truth is that there are, as usual, a few loudmouths that get most of the attention. If you examine it closer you will note that more than half the comments are written by only a handful of people. Furthermore, people tend not to write comments if they agree on the decision.
My point with this is just to remind some people that it’s very hard to be sure to know what the community thinks about issues like this and that perhaps you shouldn’t be so hasty to think you have the whole community in your back.
Now let’s look at the history. I don’t know how many of you remember the debate there was about removing the XP bonuses. To those that don’t, I’ll remind you: A lot. The scene wasn’t as large as it is now of course so the number of comments might the fewer but in relation to the size of the scene the debate was huge.
I don’t have any numbers here either, but the general feeling you had back was that perhaps that decision wasn’t supported by a majority of the community either but was only chosen by the dictators at ClanBase.
How is this relevant, you may ask. It’s relevant because I think it shows that the scene has always been opposed to all kind of changes, no matter how good they have turned out afterwards. If you think really hard, would you say ClanBase has been the kind of organisation that makes hasty decisions and make radical changes every season? I’d say not.
Personally I think they have been very moderate with changes. It took many seasons for the community to remove the XP bonuses and even more to add the prone delay. And if you think even more carefully, can you remember one decision ClanBase has taken that you think was wrong, now that you know how it all turned out?
Another interesting thing I haven’t seen much written about is why we went for 6on6 to start with. I will go back to loooong ago, back when Return to Castle Wolfenstein was just getting a competitive scene. I was given a history lesson by
Cash the other day and he told me they actually started out playing 8on8. They noticed this wasn’t really working out the way they wanted to and switched to 7on7. Still the servers were too crowded so teams generally started embracing 6on6.Remember the scene had little to no organisation back then and I don’t even think the game had a community page. The discussions that were where made on IRC and forums.
My point with this is, first of all, to illustrate that when the RtcW players took the decision to play 6on6 it was not after a thousand comments and 10 polls to ensure this was what the community wanted, but more like 6on6 was as many players you could have on one team without crowding the server. I’m not saying that we should change the team size in RtcW or that 6on6 isn’t working out for them – it seems it’s working out just good.
However, when Enemy Territory was released and people started playing that in clans there wasn’t any discussion at all about the team size – they picked the same as they had in RtcW and stayed there.
My point with this is as following: Perhaps 6on6 isn’t the ultimate way to play ET, but just the way players are accustomed to. “Don’t fix something that isn’t broken” has been a common argument from the Nay-side. But what if 6on6 is broken, what if change in this case can also be spelled improvement? Just because we have played 6on6 this far does not mean it’s the best way of playing. Just look at XP-bonuses, we played with those for several seasons as well and that didn’t make it “right”.
Finally I would like to make a pretty controversial statement. One that has been said before and that probably will be said again: If the “community” would have made all the calls in this game with polls and flaming on Crossfire nothing would have happened. We would still be playing with XP-bonuses, prone and 10 mines. Sometimes the leaders of the community must make controversial decisions they know are right to move the community in a way they feel is right.
It was the same when Sweden had the debate about women’s right to vote back in the 1920’s. First of all, the question wasn’t raised by the people. There were no public petitions or anything that created this debate. It was the government that came with the proposal and organised the vote which came to be one of the most even in Sweden’s history.
The same can be said about the entire history. If the majority would have made the calls we would still be back in a feudal society with no electricity.
In Rtcw there was 5on5 thing too, but as I heart it wasent very good, so idea was left behind.
So question is why change something that works, or maybe ET didint work as 6on6? If it didint then what was so bad or what was wrong in 6on6? Only one reason I can think of is that its hard to get 6th player to the lan.
5on5 is still ok, some teams will play 5on5. But in my team there was 6 players or even 7 and its just impossible that we kick one player because we wanna play 5on5.
In 5on5 there is only one problem, giving up one player :(
Then there is that "well we have 3on3 why not 5on5"
Well 3on3 and 6on6 are totally different tactics and teamplay style thats why we have 3on3 and 6on6, but what is 5on5?