DefinitionAside from WDL team practice sessions, which are scheduled and managed by their respective teams, our main gaming hub is the Private CTF sessions, or "priv" for short. Its namesake derives from the fact that the server where it takes place requires a password for anybody to join in and participate. This is a basic measure to prevent troublemakers and/or completely oblivious players to disrupt the game proceedings.
Unlike public CTF events, where you are free to hop in or out at your leisure, Private CTF has its own dodgeball-inspired system, to ensure that games will be fair and fun. A minimum of 6 players are required for Private CTF to officially begin.
Procedures- Players get ready to play by using the ready command (the default button is the Home key) or by typing "ready" in the console. Ready players are denoted by their green-colored name in the scoreboard, instead of the usual white color. If a player cannot or does not want to play, and just wants to watch the games unfold, they shall stay not ready, or just use the ready command again if they accidentally got ready once.
- Players call a vote for random captains, which will randomly select two players out of the ready pool to join the game on opposite teams. These two players will be the captains of each team. This particular vote can be done with the command "callvote randcaps" in the game console.
- The captain who makes the first pick is the one with the highest ping (latency) among the two. The other captain picks the map that will be played. If both captains have similar ping, they can have an agreement on who gets first pick or map, or they can settle it through a coinflip vote with the command "callvote coinflip".
- The first captain picks a player out of the ready pool to join their team. Afterwards, the second captain picks a player to join their team. Then, the first captain picks a second player to join their team, and so on. The player picking process ends when both teams reach 3 or 4 players, depending on the amount of available players.
- The second captain picks the map that the two teams will play on. It can be any of the existing maps in the WDL wad.
- After both teams are ready to play, the vote for the picked map is called. This is done with the command "callvote map mapXX", where XX is the map's number.
- Once the game is finished, the teams are disbanded and players start over from the first step.
Rules- A minimum of 6 players are required for Private CTF to officially begin, in order to meet the 3vs3 standard. There is no maximum limit to the amount of players who can participate in Private CTF at once, but mind the server's own player limit if the session gets too crowded. No Private CTF rules or proceedings apply if there aren't enough players -- they are free to idle or play practice games, for example.
- If there are 6 or 7 players, games are played on a 3vs3 setting. If there are 8 or more players, 4v4 is the norm. It is strongly recommended not to play 3vs3 if the amount of available players allow for 4v4.
- A player who was not ready before the picking procedures began, but gets ready in the middle of the process is not eligible to be picked. This is the common "midpick" scenario. They will only be made eligible starting from the next game.
- In the opposite scenario, if a player who was ready before the picking process becomes not ready in the middle of it, they will stay ineligible until the next picking process if picks were made while the player was not ready, even if they get ready again afterwards. If a player refuses to play for a given team, they will be forced into a not ready status for the remainder of that particular game.
- During a game, if one of the active players has to disconnect or times out for any acceptable reason, any of the spectating players is allowed to join the game and fill in for the disconnecting player. If there are no spectators who can play, the disconnecting player's opposing team must make their 4th player to spectate in order to retain an even amount of players in each team. If the game was already in a 3v3 setting, Private CTF will be halted until 6 players become available.
- Everybody who is going to play a particular game is required to play it from start to end -- if somebody abandons the game for any reason deemed unacceptable by the administration team, that player will be punished.
- It is strongly advised not to pick the same map a second time over the course of 5 games. This rule may be averted if all active players have no problems with playing the same map again, but the higher priority shall always be granted to those wishing for different maps.
- No cheating, impersonating or using unknown aliases in the server. This goes without saying. Players must inform everybody, specially the administration, about any alias changes.
- Do not stall Private CTF's proceedings for too long. It is perfectly possible to set up a game in just 5 minutes.
- It is prohibited to perform game fixing, which includes throwing a game.
Guidelines- Be a good sport. Avoid mocking the enemy team or excessive gloating if you win, and avoid bursting out if you lose. Doing it subtly at times is not a big deal, but don't go overboard.
- Take advice from others, and offer advice yourself if you believe somebody needs it.
- While fist-running and other handicapping measures are not always considered part of game fixing, do avoid doing so. It is really nothing but mockery at the opposing team and sometimes, even at your own team.
- Don't always pick the same people over and over again. Nobody was born a skilled Doom player, so everybody knows how demotivating it is to sit out of several games in a row. When you become a captain, give new players a chance every now and then.
- If possible, avoid picking overplayed maps. It increases players' odds of getting bored, which eventually leads to them leaving Private CTF.
- If a Private CTF session is underway, it is a good idea to inform Doom friends about it. A well-populated Private CTF is a good one.
ContactIn order to know the password, and to be informed whenever people are gathering to start a Private CTF event, or when you want to start a session yourself, hit us up at the IRC channel #wdl in irc.quakenet.org. We'll see you there!
