Revamping the DIHL

[Brando]

^ Agreed. BBA is nothing more than a means of gathering a group of people in a channel to join X pub game or X inhouse. It has no organization or an infrastructure as you said just simply "X player comes online" and joins the channel to see if others are online aswell, followed by them checking friends list and whispering for the status of games...Couldn't ANY wc3 channel be used for this? Most people who still play wc3 are in their late 20s and 30s and it's understandable that they don't enjoy change, which is still probably the #1 reason people are against the Discord switch entirely. I mean with a transparent staff running a Discord server for DIHL you could simply pop in a voice channel and ask when someones game will be done or check the various chats when the games have started (not to mention all the other incredible benefits that Discord provides as a whole). And when more people start downloading and USING discord as a way to communicate the need for an "official dihl clan channel" or anything of that nature is useless, since modern technology such as the recently successful and growing (Discord) has much much more options for the enjoyment and accessibility of others that a 15 year old game cannot provide . (It also doesn't help that a DIHL mod relieved of his duties for various violations is the chieftain of said clan).

Also I would like one question to be answered for those opposing this argument, what does a WC3 channel/clan provide that a discord cannot?

[Astros]

The answer is, people are lazy as hell and there aren't enough players. It's tough enough to get players to even download GProxy. Good luck getting everyone to get on Discord. How many even have an ENTgaming account? I agree Discord is absolutely the most efficient option IF there are more players. Considering everyone who plays DIHL is in clan BBA, there really isn't a reasoning to get on Discord if the purpose was to micromanage games.

[cashmeoutside-]

When it comes to BBA, It's worrying to me that the tone of Haz and Arty's posts are 'us vs them'. I hope that I'm just misinterpreting that.

I think I speak for everybody in BBA when I say that nobody cares about the clan itself. We'd all be happy to move to Clan DIHL or Clan ENT or anything else. What we do care about is finding the best way to have fun, competitive, fair, higher-than-pub-level Dota games.

To that end, I think it's important to hash out the benefits of using Discord as a communication platform and the benefits of using Battle.net as a communications platform.

The benefits of Discord are significant. It's mobile-accessible. And, it allows us to broadcast messages to an entire player base (with no limit to friends list). This will allow us to start and fill games a lot faster.

The main benefit of using Battle.net as a comms platform is that it's the status quo. Communicating with 95% of pub players is only possible using Battle.net. This is an important point because the league is still small enough where we often need to find 1 or 2 more players to fill a game. We currently solve this problem by messaging pub players with decent stats and inviting them to fill out the game. This works phenomenally well in most cases. However, it wouldn't be possible if the only way to join games is through Discord.

The solution seems apparent to me. We should move to Discord as a primary comms platform, but we should also design the game lobby mechanics to allow for decent pub players to fill out slots on a one-off basis. Hopefully, the league will grow to a size eventually where there's no problem filling games and then we can JUST be on Discord, but that's not the best solution right now.

Finally, I strongly agree with what Haz said in his last post: Last but not least, it is the players' league, not ENT's, not BBA's. Every single member of DIHL should have an opinion and should be given a place to be heard and respected.

[HazarDous]

When it comes to BBA, It's worrying to me that the tone of Haz and Arty's posts are 'us vs them'. I hope that I'm just misinterpreting that.

We are talking about two things that are non-exclusive. There can therefore be no "us vs them" rhetoric. It is simply our job, as Staff Dept., to make it clear about the way we operate and how our organizational structure works. It should come as no surprise to anyone that it is not within Clan BBA's prerogatives to administer, moderate, or oversee the daily operations of the league in any way. That's the job of the DIHL moderation team with the support and oversight of the Staff Dept.

If you take away these boundaries, use Clan BBA channel and its bot as a third party, with individuals with absolutely no accountability in 'charge' of some aspects of the league, then the league turns to discord (that pun doe). That is simply something we cannot condone, and so we are trying to avert while still in the league's early stage. A solid base is what will allow the league to prosper in the long term.

The solution seems apparent to me. We should move to Discord as a primary comms platform, but we should also design the game lobby mechanics to allow for decent pub players to fill out slots on a one-off basis. Hopefully, the league will grow to a size eventually where there's no problem filling games and then we can JUST be on Discord, but that's not the best solution right now.

Yes, it is obvious that the transition to discord should be done one step at a time, and that's exactly what we're discussing right now in the DIHL Staff channel. You might want to take part in that discussion .

[aimskjs]

I agree with cashmeoutside-. I feel like this argument is like 'us vs them'. I assume ENT staff worry about people who play DIHL think ENT is belong to clan BBA because people gather in clan BBA channel to start DIHL game. So ENT staffs want DIHL players to join discord and start a in-house game from discord and using discord and it will make clear about DIHL is operating by ENT community with providing server and organizational structure(system).

Only reason we gather in clan BBA channel to start a game is most of veteran DIHL players are belong to clan BBA and using battle.net is more convenience to get some people from pub to fill a game to start. If all players INCLUDING PUB RINGER have to join discord to play DIHL game, players from pub wouldn't join DIHL game because it is not simple enough for them just for 1 game which isn't very friendly for them. That's why I'm not very happy to move discord to start DIHL game. Moving to clan DIHL or ENT is happier for me instead of moving to discord.

I will move to discord because ENT staffs want us to move discord for DIHL game. BUT we will need to find a way to get people from pub and invite new players much easier than using only discord to join DIHL to improve our DIHL community. Our community is still too small as cashmeoutside- said. Only 1 DIHL game progress at same time now.

[MuMiX]

When we host from Discord, the slots will be reserved for specific players. There will still be two observer slots. Pub players can join the DIHL game normally and will appear in the Observer slot. The Game Owner can still use !swap to swap out a reserved slot with an observer. Thus, pubs can still join the games.

(at least, that's my current understanding, I have not tried hosting yet)

[aRt)Y]

@aimskjs

ENT did not care about BBA prior to the league dying - again. Apparently, the clan, the league moderation or any third party did a poor job administering, keeping the oversight or providing the technical aspects in order for it to work.

Therefore, the Staff Dept. has decided - on behalf of DIHL - to take measures in order to get it back on track for one last time. One of these measures was to move the technical side of the league to Discord. LIHL is using it extremely successful and they were the biggest opponents of it at the beginning, as well.

From channel as a rallying point to Discord, games number per week has gone up 400%.
-https://entgaming.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=181&t=122848&start=60#p480090

Does ENT want to provide its players a platform for league games? Sure, we do. But the way we do is fixed. You do not get to argue with us how the technical platform is working as long as games are host-able, stats recorded and abuse punished by disciplinary actions. We can not guarantee for any of that if ENT does not have the key factors in place. So yeah, you do have to excuse our tone if we get weary of having to repeat ourselves over and over again; our intentions are only for the best of DIHL.

I guess the Staff Dept. has commented enough in regards to Discord, so I will summarize the key points again. If you still have questions, please address them to the league moderation and they will get in touch with us, thanks.

• Clan channels are out-dated (technical-wise) [1]
• ENT can not effectively (or at all) moderate third party channels [2]
  
  • no audit-logs
  • no immediate oversight/disciplinary actions as no oversight is given [3], [4]
• Effort to have up-to-date vouch list and having it synced with bots is way easier on Discord; it's all in one place and not separated
• Easier to customize (sub-channels, permissions, etc.)
• No third party tool needed for voice-chatting (aka no skype, ts, ventrilo necessary)
• ENT's entire staff and community is already on Discord, just like the other leagues. DIHL should be no exception here; and given you have nothing to lose anymore, it's worth the shot.

I think I speak for everybody in BBA when I say that nobody cares about the clan itself. We'd all be happy to move to Clan DIHL or Clan ENT or anything else. What we do care about is finding the best way to have fun, competitive, fair, higher-than-pub-level Dota games.

Sounds very much like what ENT is providing.

The main benefit of using Battle.net as a comms platform is that it's the status quo.

The only downside is that the status quo is not future-proof. The Staff Dept. has little to no interest in migrating the league on a new platform while it is fully up and running. We are well aware of Blizzard's plans and have already strategically moved LIHL to Discord just because of that.
Lastly, using pubs as an argument for not using Discord is somewhat weird considering pubs shouldnt be playing league to begin with. They observe a few games and post their vouch application. The technical aspects of the league is centered around league players, not pubs.

If the majority of DIHL players does not like the final result, then fine, you can do it the old way again. The Staff Dept. is not necessarily sad about it given we are just providing you an organized, technical working and free league-gaming experience; we do not gain anything from hosting it for you. We do not force you to anything but what ENT offers you now is all you will get.

We are no newbies when it comes to managing staff, organizing things and dealing with the technical side of it. We did it before and we will do it again.

[Merex]

Topic locked. Refer to aRt)Y's post for any further concerns.