TeamWarfare League

TeamWarfare League (TWL) is a community based gaming website that provides online gamers an opportunity to play in numerous ladders and leagues for PC and console games. With over 735,000 players on over 121,000 teams, playing 127 games, on almost 100 ladders and leagues, TeamWarfare League is one of the largest online gaming communities.^[1]

TeamWarfare League was founded January 18th, 2001 by co founders Will "Polaris" Everett and Myles "Triston" Angell. Originally a competition website for Starsiege: Tribes, it has grown game by game and become a comprehensive online gaming venue. A large number of gaming communities reside at TeamWarfare, and it is not uncommon for a player to belong to several gaming websites simultaneously.

Ladders

TeamWarfare hosts a variety of "king of the hill" type ladders for a growing range of games. Teams challenge higher ranked opponents in an effort to gain control of the defending team's rung on the ladder.

Leagues

TeamWarfare Leagues work on a point system and are seasonal competitions. Each league is broken down into one or more conferences and each conference is broken down into two or more divisions. Each team competes within their conference to earn as many points possible with the highest scoring teams matched into brackets for an end-of-season tournament style playoff.

There are two styles of scoring that can be used in TWL Leagues.

1) Match based points: Each win, loss and tie recorded for the League generates points toward a team's overall position in the league, in a similar fashion as many sporting leagues. (e.g. Baseball, Basketball, etc.)

2) Round based points: The results of each round of a match will generate points for teams in the league. The potential exists for a team to lose a match overall, but win based on rounds, depending on individual round scores. This format is similar to that used by auto racing leagues, where the race result position determines the points scored for the round.

Recently, TWL has introduced tiered leagues, similar to CAL's tiered system.^[2] Teams move between tiers based on their position within the tier at the end of each week. Each Tier represents a potential playoff spot with Tier 1 the top teams in that particular game. Tier 2, the emerging teams, and Tier 3, the Recreational teams. Typically, you see the Tier 1 teams at various LAN events competing in cash competitions, basically, Professional teams.

Tournaments

TeamWarfare tournaments work on a bracket system. For prize tournaments, the top four teams winning prizes ranging from gaming server subscriptions^[3] to high end video cards. Tournaments hosted at TWL may be Single Elimination or Double Elimination tournaments. Single elimination tournaments drop teams from the competition after they lose a match. Double elimination requires two losses, one in the primary bracket (winner's bracket) and once in the secondary bracket (consolations).

Forums

TeamWarfare features numerous forums, allowing users to ask questions and discuss topics pertaining to specific games. There also exist site support forums, which are used if users are experiencing difficulties with the website. However, it often happens that these requests end up in the general forums instead of the site support forums. In order to combat this problem, the general forums have recently been moved down and the site support forums moved up in the header menu.

The TeamWarfare forums are known for their strict moderating as many senseless threads are locked and/or deleted promptly. The general forums require new threads to adhere to strict posting guidelines which, if not consistently followed, may result in the user having his/her forum access revoked for an extended period of time.

TWL's game specific forums are often used to discuss potential rule and maplist changes to ladders, propose new ladders and discuss miscellany related to the game. Proposed changes can, depending on subject matter, lead to a voting ballot.

Voting System

Official votes for proposals are divided into two categories, Global and Founder votes, although informal votes may be held at any time in a game specific forum. Ballots of official votes are created and maintained by a Competition Manager or higher level staff member.

Global votes allow any registered user at TWL to vote on the topics listed in the ballot. Each account is allowed a single vote, which has raised concerns of sockpuppetry and meatpuppetry in voting, by stacking votes for or against a proposal.

Founder votes are restricted to team founders only. To be eligible to vote, a member must create a team at TWL, and join the ladder or league associated with the vote. Concerns have been raised about problems with inactive Founders, but the staff usually handle inactive Founder issues on a case-by-case basis.

Informal votes may also be raised in the various game specific forums. Informal votes are often used for maplist changes, but can be used for changes where a large number of modifications are being proposed, as the site limits the number of options on an official ballot.

Staff

TWL staff are volunteers from the gaming communities served by TWL, who have offered to provide their time to administer competition at the site. Staff members are bound by a code of conduct and violations of that code by staff members are subject to termination. In exchange for their increased responsibility and the voluntary nature of staffing, special protections are given to the staff. Members who abuse staff risk being suspended from competition, having their forum access revoked, or being completely site banned.

Competition Admin

The general ladder administration duties at TWL are performed by Competition Admins (CA). They oversee matches on one or more ladders, monitor compliance with ladder rules, and issue rulings and forfeits on disputes. Admins will often spectate matches that are disputed and can issue spot rulings on infractions. Rulings that are disputed escalate to Competition Managers.

Lead Admin

Observation Corps

The Observation Corps, often referred to as the OC, are volunteers who spectate matches to ensure all gameplay rules are followed as they should be. Currently, only Call of Duty 2 use OC members for competition play. An OC member is below all other levels of staff, as these members cannot dictate, interpret or decide on any rules during gameplay, they are strictly there to watch the matches as an unbiased eye. Members of the OC are not permitted to observe a match being played by a team on which they are rostered to conform with staff conflict of interest rules.

News Team

The News team members are the front-page view of TeamWarfare and its website. The News Team consists of many members of the community who put together articles about happenings in the TeamWarfare community. These articles are viewable and commentable by anybody in the community. Some news articles relate to business actions which affect the hardware and software communities of those involved with TeamWarfare (such as the purchase of ATI by AMD for $5.4 billion), as well as league and tournament updates to be posted on the home page.

Member Services and Site Support

Marketing and Business Relations

Anti-Cheat Divisions

Many games at TWL have anti-cheat divisions, dedicated to the review of complaints of cheating in matches, investigation of new cheat programs or add-ons, and monitoring of anti-cheat resources such as PunksBusted and UTAN for additions to their ban lists and evidence used in their bans. The results of their investigations are reported to their manager or admin, who issues a ruling on the match, player or team in question.

Competition Manager

The Competition Manager (CM) oversees competition for an entire game at TWL. They are the first point of appeal for a ruling from a Competition Admin, handle disputes where the CA of the ladder in question is in a conflict of interest, and are the persons who administer player suspensions and bans. Competition Managers are also capable of creating new ladders, using templates created by Competition Directors, which would occur when teams and players provide enough support to warrant the ladder's creation. Competition Managers also do a majority of the hiring of staff for a particular game.

Competition Director

The Competition Director (CD) provides oversight for a number of games at TWL, usually more than three each. They also are able to create ladder templates for new games as they are released. Competition Directors typically approve promotion of admins's to manager status. Competition Directors will often handle serious ladder, league and tournament breaks, and often communicate with site developers on a variety of site issues. Competition Directors may also intervene in disputes that involve a Competition Manager or his/her team, and may hear appeals of a Manager's ruling. Typically a Director's ruling is final for game specific issues.

Anti-Cheat Consultant

Anti-Cheat Director

Regional Competition Director

The Regional Competition Director (RCD) provides overall oversight for all games for their region at TWL. Liasing with Competition Directors, they are also responsible for organising all new games as they are released. Regional Competition Directors approve promotion of Managers to Director status. Regional Competition Directors may also intervene in disputes that involve a Competition Manager or Competition Director or their team, and may hear appeals of a Director's ruling. Typically a Regional Director's ruling is final.

Senior Operations Director, Director of New Game Development and Planning

Quality Control

Quality Control (QC) is devoted to preserving the integrity of TWL, by providing general oversight of administrative decisions. Bans, suspensions, and other disputes where admin rulings are in conflict may be directed to QC, who will conduct an independent review of the case. QC also conducts investigations of administrator misconduct.

Senior Staff Advisor

Assistant Commissioner

COO, Competition Development and Planning

COO, Commissioner

The Commissioner is the final word at TWL. The Commissioner oversees all competition at TWL and is the last point of appeal for any dispute. Issues that escalate to the Commissioner are those that affect all games or the site in general.

CTO, Co-founder

CEO, Co-founder

Zero_NAC

Official IRC Channel

     #teamwarfare

Other TWL IRC Channels

     #twl_support
     TWL Support Channel

     #twl_aa
     America's Army series

     #twl_bf
     Battlefield series

     #twl_cod
     Call of Duty series

     #twl_tf2
     Team Fortress 2

     #twl_cs
     Counter-Strike: Source

     #twl_l4d
     Left 4 Dead series

     #twl_moh
     Medal of Honor series

     #twl_console
     Console Games

     #twl_xbox
     Xbox Games

     #twl_sc2
     Starcraft 2