Good evening,

in less than 4 hours season XII gonna start.

The rules aren't uptodate yet and will be updated over the weekend. Until it is done please refer to the following changes for SXII:



SuperFinals:
Ghost Recon Team: saturday, 7th january 2006
Raven Shield Team: sunday, 8th january 2006

The top 4 clans that have played at least 15 cbs/TEAM ladder throughout the season, qualify for the SuperFinals. If not enough clans meet the requirements the SuperFinals for this ladder will be cancelled.

In each TEAM ladder you have to play and submit at least 3cbs against 3 different clans within the first 3 weeks(deadline sunday 12th december), otherwise your clan will be removed from the related ladder. So register and start cbing as soon as possible.

GameSpecific rules:

For AA rules please take a look at this thread:
AA rule set SXII.
Due the lack of rule feedback, the rules may consider the latest AA versions. You are free to change the rules and or add your own rulesets to this thread, until we add a final version to the *DBL rules.

Ghost Recon:

TEAM and CQB ladder: in addition to the etablished gametypes you can also choose the WAR gametype(now available at the Mac Downloads).

With the following settings(both ladders):
Game length: 5 mins
Respawns: 10
Invulnerability: 5 secs

Further the CQB cb lenght has been reduced to Best of 5(first to 3 wins) and the TEAM cb length from Best of 8 to Best of 6(first to 4 wins). For the SuperFinals the length stays at Best of 8.

Ghost Recon FFA:

Game Rules: SHARPSHOOTER, LMS, Hamburger Hill
Respawns: INFINITE or 3 respawns for lms
Kit Restrictions: All variations other than no-restrictions.

The host may decide to make the whole cb a particular game type or kit restriction for the entire FFA match - which should read on his/her room as e.g. "FFA MATCH - SHARPSHOOTER- PISTOLS ONLY" In this case the loser of each round can only choose the next map.

Raven Shield, BF and FtF game settings stay unmodified.



Last but not least I would like to welcome 2 new admins: joeboy and Spetznaz.

Good luck to everyone and have a fun season!

Yours,

*DAMN Mauti and the *DBL Administration

The Hall of Fame was updated now.

2 days until the *DBL opens its doors again.

The updated rules should go online tomorrow. Unfortunaly for America's Army we got very less feedback(thanks ferret for helping us), but it seems there is very little interest in updated rules.

However for GhostRecon we will have some additional gametypes, the SuperFinals are back for GR and RvS and we will add an activity limit for all clans in the TEAM ladders to keep out late starters.

This limit will be between 3 - 5 cbs vs different clans within the first 3 weeks. May this also helps some clans to get in touch with some fun cb action.

More tomorrow,

*DAMN Mauti

The winner icons have been sent out to winners.

The Hall of Fame will be updated soon.

If you play AA please take a look at the current AA rules here and may add suggestions and ideas how to improve them.

Season XII gonna start on coming saturday, the 19th november and gonna last until the end of the year, with SuperFinals being hold on 7th and 8th january(GhR/RvS).

Due the community request SuperFinals will be reintroduced but with some changes:

Only the best 4 clans that have played at least 15cbs throughout the season gonna make it into the finals.

If less than 4 clans meet the requirements, the SuperFinals won't be hold.

What does this mean for you? If you are e.g. ranked 4th in the end of the season, but didn't play 15cbs, the next clan who has reached the limit will play in the finals.

Alright other community suggested changes are currently discussed and will be announced before the season starts.

Vienna, 3.11.2005

Season XI

Season XI was finished last friday and the proud winners are:

Clan ladders:
Raven Shield Team & Advanced: BBs|
Ghost Recon Team: [a]
Ghost Recon Advanced: GhRa>
Ghost Recon CQB: z][t

FFA ladders:
Ghost Recon FFA: Ghostsniper
Raven Shield: Twist

Further I would like to mention the =US= clan for doing the most cbs this season overall! I hope you had a good time.

Congratulations! I really loved to observe the close finish in the GR Team and Advanced ladder.

Season XI had a few pro and contra, and I would like to start off with the bad news: the cb activity was decreasing which has a few reasons: first the overall activity in GameRanger is decreasing since months, many people get already tired off Ghost Recon, while Raven Shield never took off as much as GhR or Rogue Spear did when it entered the Mac market. The reason is pretty simple: high system requirements. So it's no big surprise that even the GhR demo gets almost as much play as Raven Shield. I even don't dare to talk about the great team orientated Battlefield with its superb Desert Combat AddOn. This game, although it got GameRanger support a few months back, still doesn't make it into the TOP 10 games of GameRanger, which translates into less than 265 games played per week. Sad, because it's a great game. Once again very demanding system requirements, together with the very long(too long) wait for GameRanger support obviously killed this game before it even had a chance.

Another reason why I think we had less played cbs this season, beside that it was a few weeks shorter than season X, was that the break between season X and XI was too long, which was my fault. The preseason couldn't fill the gap. However we have learned from it and season XII gonna start in less than 2 weeks from now.

Alright enough contra, because there are also a few good things to report:

There have been almost no cb disputes, the clans that played obviously had their fun. The *DBL Final Map Pack was a huge success and was downloaded more than 2000times since it's introduction.
Further we could gain a lot of experience with the Advanced ladders and once the script supports it right it will allow a lot of possibilities for future ladder gaming. For season XII I hope I can write a small script addition so you don't have to double submit the cbs. However how did you see the Advanced ladders? Tell us in the BL Forum!

Critics:

there hasn't been much critic or suggestions what to make better. The only big discussion was about the finals, and yes we will reintroduce them for season XI to all Team ladders with some special tweaks: due the lower activity only the Top 4 clans, reaching a minimum level of activity of each ladder gonna make it into the finals. If not enough fullfill this requirement the finals won't be hold. Otherwise the SuperFinals gonna be more or less the same as in season X.

Suggestions:

wishes have been expressed for adding new gametypes to several GhR ladders including the FFA ladders. We are right now discussing the possibilites in the BL forum and the admin zone.
Readding America's Army ladder!? In the past AA never took off in the *DBL, but may you have some suggestions to make it more attractive here and how we could organise cbs easier for AA!?

Future:

Season XII gonna start probably on 14th november, maybe 19th, but it will be announced here until monday. Winner icons and the according entries into the Hall of Fame will be done also very soon. Please be patient.
*DBL 2.0 is still under construction and won't see the light of the day before 2006. A public dev thread will be created once the theoretical part of my diploma thesis is done.

More news as they come. Have a nice weekend, yours,

Mauti