PERSONAL HISTORY
How did each of you get involved with GameLeague? What was your previous experience in the Civ community "on and offline"?
Well I was one of the founding components of GameLeague, or at the time CivLeauge. My crude, but first, Civ2 Multiplayer Ladder and Tournament Page was the first site detiticated to Civ2MP, I think over 9 months prior to its release due to delays. Although I merged with Kent's CivLeague who had the backing of The Ultimate Civ2 site and superior code, the core of GameLeague remains my orginal Ladder formulas. Prior to CivLeague, I was merely a Civ2 player who occasionally used the variuos forums provided by the Civ2 sites.
THE LEAGUE
What is GameLeague's "philosophy": its goals etc.?
I like to think we are intuned with gaming public. We give the people what they want, and we do it for free. Battle.net, The Zone and others like this...they are big faceless companies who run massive organizations who have no time for the likes of us common gamers. GameLeague is run by three teenagers who enjoy the games we provide for. We can provide compromise and creativity where others offer none. Like a true Civer, I believe our goal is to expand and conquer of course! New games and new markets await us.
GameLeague covers a variety of games within the Civilization genre. What is the basis/reasoning behind this, and to date have you found it to be a workable lineup?
Initally, we covered only Civ2. This worked out fine since it was all that we did. Eventually we expanded into SMAC and CTP with only limited success. I'm not certain why Civ2 was and continues to be much more active than the other games, since they share the same platform, however I would have to guess that because of our strong tie to Apolyton we had many more civers who heard our message and not every civer got SMAC or CTP.
The "forumula" by which scores are calculated/recorded is always an issue at the top of the agenda for any multiplayer league... how did GameLeagues' forumula come about, and where do you see room for improvement?
Yeah, people always whine to me about the formula for the ladder. I designed it myself and its undergone many refinements since I orginally created it. People always say "Why not use blah blah chess forumla?". When's the last time you played a 7 player game of chess my friends? :)
This formula is quite fair. It allows you to gain points by playing a range of players from twice your worth to half of your worth. If you have more than double the points of an opponent, you will not gain anything by the win. This limits the amount of low rank farming you can do to gain ranks. The percentage spread has a clear pattern, but it is too complex for me to really explain here. The formula can easily be tweaked if needed, but this one has no real loop holes. The most complaints come from people who want to challenge someone who won't accept.
I cannot force people to play, and using the formula to force people into playing each other would drasticly limit the number of players you could play against, thus more frustration and less available opponents. Forced games are for the ladder tournament. Show up them.
FUTURE CHALLENGES
Where do you see as the challenges facing GameLeague going into 2000 and beyond? Is there anything else you would like to comment on in regards to GameLeague's operations?
The challenges we currently face is the games we provide for are aging and slowly losing their popularity. Attendance and activty for the games we currently host will eventually drop off. Its a long haul to Civ3, and we need to find some new territory to expand into, weither its new games, or the reivival of the popular "tribes" system which has been under construction since GameLeague was formed, we need to maintain and build up our members because they are the ones who make the league. With out them its just an empty website. We also have plans to create our own web-based strategy game, however this is still in the design phaze and no code has been made yet. In any case I invite all of you to try out the league. Its free, and its for you.
KENT "KWANG" WANG | CHAD DESHON (April 26) | INTERVIEWS HOME
