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Date Posted: 15:54:04 09/07/01 Fri
Author: LuckySTAR*
Subject: =Team Talk=

I was holding off on this discussion at all, because it was (and still may be) highly possible that Classic Acrophobia or another Acro game similar to it will ever come back online. Now, it seems fairly likely that Acrology will launch some sort of site later this month and Flipside is, at the least, seriously entertaining rereleasing our beloved game. So, I guess now is as good a time as any.

Just let me say off the bat that this team, for the 2+ years that I've been captain, has been about the people. And, I believe that this summer has proven that the bonds have remained even when Classic Acro did not. There is not a nicer, more intelligent, interesting group out there. And there's no one I'd rather be gaming with than you and our extended family of friends. Before I go on, I have to say that Phil's loss leaves a gaping hole in my heart and in the soul of this team. His passing only brings to light how much we need to value each other and the limited time we have to share. It is because of the people being the priority that we are having this conversation.

Some of the topics we'll touch on:



=Poetry In Motion= functions for you, as you want it to. There remains a few original members amongst us from Poetic License, many who have been here for almost 2 years, and people who joined as recently as this week (hi Dru!). Most of our members are Acro veterans (more than a year or two of Acro experience and have been on at least one other Acro team). Many of our members are former captains of other teams, and this is a tribute to our legacy. Across the board, though, the thing that binds us is a love for the game, and for many of us, that does not matter if it is in the form of team competition or causal play. For others, it matters a lot.

Our captains, prior to Classic Acro going away, have tried to provide something for everyone... almost nightly casual play, a variety of teams, time frames and styles in Team Acro play, participation in any and all team tournaments (COTC, ACE, etc.), weekly team night out gatherings, for-fun only theme nights, intrasquad and intersquad gatherings and MBAs to name a few things. Participation has always been voluntary, and there are no minimum participation requirements. On our members pages, there are active, hiatus and retired status, mostly as a tool for myself to know about how many poets I have available at any time to participate in matches, so I need to know if I need to open our membership or cut back on scheduling. Anyone who has done anything at all in the last month or so remains active. People are placed on hiatus or retired by request or lack of participation. Hiatus or retired players may become active at any time by participating and most often need to be offline for a period of time for personal reasons or they want a break from TA matches.

Unfortunately, as time has gone by, the number of =poets= who find TA matches challenging has dwindled. I am not going to begin to list possible reasons here, but I will attribute a lot of it to the veteran status of the players on this team. I will say, as a captain, it's a drag when you have to pull teeth to get people to participate in a match. There was a time when every game had a waiting list 6 deep and, simultaneously for every TA match being played, there were at least a half dozen poets playing casually. The entire Acro climate became uncomfortable for a time and turned off a lot of people altogether. But my goal is to create the best possible creative playing environment for people who I consider to be friends. I have a great time playing with you whether we're in a casual or zone room, no matter to me.

This brings us to Stats Schmats. TA Stats do not mean a thing. They never have, and they never will. If you think they do, you are kidding yourself. If Team Acro were set up like an organized sports league and each team had exclusive members, played the same number of games by the same rules with the similarly weighted opponent strength and was scored objectively rather than subjectively (or at least observed for formal tournaments already are to try to assure fairness), there might be a reason to bother to keep Stats. But since none of that has happened or probably ever will, why bother? To say that a steak is better than a fresh romaine salad is simply a matter of taste. They each are food and have their respective nutritional benefits, but that's about all they have in common. One is meat. One is vegetable. If we throw them on the same plate, that still does not make them comparable. They are just two different foods on the same plate. Some people prefer the meat. Some won't eat the meat at all. Team Acro is a virtual Las Vegas buffet of styles, rules, goals, opinions and schedules, varying in everything from number of games played to styles of play.

In my field of dreams, there once was an organization like Team Acro that would sponser multiple divisions of play. Within each division, all teams subscribed to the same standards and rules of play, had a required size range and exclusive membership within that division, played a required number of games to qualify for post season playoffs, etc. I could go on forever on this, and maybe someday, when the economy is better and I have time, I will see it through. Mike (Portal) and I once spent a lot of time working out a sample league format, but the majority of TA was not in favor of further investigating the idea at that time. Suffice it to say, that for people who enjoy the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, this league style competition would have given them an honest picture of how they stack up amongst their peers.

While Team Acro was on hiatus this summer, Case's Ladder inadvertantly wiped away all of TA's records. The only reason I enjoyed Case's is the info it held from an historical perspective. All of that is wiped away now )c: Putting together our team page there, getting everyone to register, etc. is quite the ordeal, and now, all teams are supposed to register again. Dusty, in the past, has stated that we don't need to participate on the ladder to be members of TA. Hmmmmm, imagine that. We could play games for fun with teams that want to play us because they enjoy our acro style and our company and not to gain stats status? What a cool concept, especially considering that Stats mean squat. This way, teams that may skew their objectivity during the voting rounds, hide ringers, or write totally recognizable acros in team play would probably not want to schedule us at all. Fine by me (c: (Okay, so my personal opinion is already showing through, hehe.) For historical perspective, we can still do match reports and keep our own results.

Yes, this would be different. I am not sure how you guys feel about this idea, and there is much to consider. For example, if we were not listed on the ladder, would you care? Would you feel compelled to join a team that was on the ladder instead? Would you still enjoy team play if it did not 'count' (if you call the current stats schmats counting)? Do you want to play team matches at all with or without stats? Or would your rather just remain a social club of sorts that once came together over the greatest online word game ever created?

This post is already huge, so let me wrap it up by saying that I am anxious to hear your feelings on the matter. It's possible to do any combination of the possibilities so we can try and keep our family of friends in tact. I have to get back to work now, so maybe I'll post more later.

But, let the discussion begin...

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