NA Inhouses - What's the problem?

[quote=Khazem]Hai guise. As some of you may know, I've been trying to get the NA inhouses going again recently. Last night we managed to play 1 game (which I guess is an improvement over not playing a single game in June), but we still had to call in a bunch of friends of people (not actual mobafire people) to fill the game up and afterwards half of the players left so we couldn't get another game going. It just feels like most NA players have completely lost interest in the inhouses, whereas on EU we have less players but far more interest and I'd like to know why that is. So I just want to hear what you guys think the problem is and discuss possible solutions/changes we can make to make the inhouse more attractive again for NA players. Should we change what day we play on? The hour? Try to get people to stream/shoutcast the inhouses? Anyway, I'd like to hear what you guys think.[/quote]

[quote=Nighthawk]I'm going to make an assumption that some people would rather watch NA LCS than play in inhouses, but I don't really know, since I haven't played in a long time.[/quote]

[quote=Kazega]yeah. The timing is a big issue right now. Because it;s around 5 o'clock, and that just happens to be when the roommate has dinner ready. and yeah the NA LCS is pretty big for me right now since CLG is on top of the rankings[/quote]

[quote=Emi]I haven't participated in a lot of them, but I do know that some people complained about the balancing stuff. Like, people would argue or get mad over who had the diamond players and who had the lower bronze/silver players. Also, there really isn't much advertisement for it xD I didn't even know about the inhouses for a while, and I don't think some of the newer people to the site really know what it's about either.[/quote]

[quote=DillButt64]a lot of it has to do with the end game fighting, the pre-game fighting, and the in-game fighting also im not going to name anyone but there are a few high elo players that play very scummy and camp after the low elo players which doesnt make the game fun for anyone plus balancing is kinda difficult when people like tehasian and h4x want to play but thats not as much of an issue as other things[/quote]

[quote=Mooninites]The sign-up is absolutely terrible. I'm fine with google docs, but I think it's actually pretty hard to find out where to sign-up. For example, some people might not know that inhouses are in the "Community Games" forums section, however, the sign-up thread is sticky'd in the general discussion. Put all the inhouse stuff in one location that's easy to find. The other thing, not that many people join the Mobafire chat on NA side anymore. And consistency has been an issue. We've had weeks where we didn't have an inhouse, and some where we do. It kind of depends on who wants to host. At first we had Vulk and Suffix host and they did a pretty good job, Elite and Nebrasketball have done a pretty good job with the limited amount of people he has, but whoever was in between did a pretty terrible job (can't remember the name) not only balancing but hosting. Timing could be another thing, Nighthawk pointed out that it's during the NA LCS, but not only that, it's a Saturday night. A lot of people like to go out with their friends or what not on a Friday and Saturday night or they'd rather watch LCS. Maybe they have family obligations or whatever, but it's pretty difficult when you have a lot of things pulling people away from inhouses. I know my group of friends tries to get together on a Friday and/or Saturday night to hang out because we're off work or off school or whatever so that makes it difficult for me (and presumably others) to commit to inhouses. It's honestly the only reason I've never offered to host because I'm not sure if my friends are going to want to hang out. So maybe consider moving them I know we had a lot better response when people would stream the matches. LLL had a lot of success with that too. People like seeing themselves on stream or their friends play on stream or just watching community games. I think GMD (?) streamed a game a couple of weeks or months ago and we had pretty good turn out for it. Maybe if we can get someone to host/shoutcast/stream it, we would get better turnout. (I cannot because my computer is a potato) [b]tl;dr - awkward time conflicts with personal life and/or NA LCS - some bad hosts that caused it to dwindle - Mobafire community on NA dying - difficulty figuring out where to sign up/ discuss inhouses[/b][/quote]

[quote=Khazem]These are all very good points. So far it seems most people would prefer to play on a different day. I'll make a poll to see what day/hour people prefer playing on. As for hosting/balancing. I'll be around for most (if not all) inhouses from now on so that should at least mean having a stable host. Obviously some games are going to be a little unbalanced but that kinda just happens. It's up to the higher Elo players to respect the purpose of these games and try to keep it fun for everyone. I also agree that it can be pretty unclear on how to join or even knowing about the inhouse. Do you guys have any suggestions on how to improve that?[/quote]

[quote=FalseoGod]Put the real threads on one place of the forum, sticky'd (possibly community games). Get another sticky linking to the real threads on at least General Forums (Would you like to play. You may win RP. Fun and improve your game and maybe make friends. Clicky link for more/to register this week.)[/quote]

[quote=Xiaowiriamu]Signup process is what stops me.... I'm too lazy to do it, I'd rather there be a separate chartroom which people join to enter the inhouses, or join the mobafire chatroom and talk there. Theres also not much advertisement -- some people don't know when it is, how it all works and where to signup.[/quote]

[quote=utopus]It's not even the signup that's really the problem. I think it's people's attitude in ventrilo that really gets to me. For instance, I was late to the first inhouse game, and had joined one of the team chat rooms, to ask someone whether there would be room for me when the game finished, and nobody responded. The ventrilo chat rooms themselves were pretty quiet too. I think NA inhouses would do better if people talked more on vent. If the chat is silent, then I'd feel more inclined to just play a ranked game, or normals with friends with whom i can skype (and actually have a conversation with) instead of the inhouse games. Thoughts?[/quote]