(GotFrag Community) - With the TWL playoffs literally around the corner, our resident TWL guru, Aepplejoose, had a chat with longtime gamer and admin for the league in question, Revalk.

Let’s start it off by having you give us a little background on yourself.

Sure. I was originally a Quake 2 Weapons Factory player. Team Fortress started with Quake 1, and then Weapons Factory was the next step for the mod with Quake 2, and eventually, TFC was made based of these TF mods and others. I played that until the community died, and then very casually gamed for years, not finding anything that quite hit that quality of game. Then an old WF friend told me about TF2, and I came running. I started my clan, Aged in Oak Casks, played way too much, and soon saw the ad here at TWL looking for an admin. I've been here ever since.

When and why did you decide to become a TWL admin?

To be honest, I've been looking for something to recreate the community I had with Q2WF for years, and TF2 seemed like the first game since that could do that for me. That said, the competitive community was lacking when I first started playing. Once my team started jumping in leagues, I finally felt like I knew enough to start helping out. This was around Christmas last year. It sounds stupid, but I just get something out of being the guy helping build things up in these kinds of communities.

TWL has been hailed as the "n00b" league ever since it ventured into TF2. Season 1 and 2 were jokes to most of the community, what has the TWL staff done differently this time around to increase not only the attendance levels but the skill level?

I'm a little ignorant of what happened with s1/s2, however I've heard the horror stories, haha. From what I can tell, we've completely changed how we do things. Part of the reason TWL is becoming a great league now in comparison is our admin team. We've got a good group of guys who don't have ego issues and just want to do things right. We've also gotten much more personal and interactive. I can say I've personally dealt with almost every team in the league this season. On top of that, we're trying to be much more transparant with the community in how we operate, and just try to interact with them so that the admins are happy, the teams are happy, and the league runs smoothly.

I know one turning point for TWL was following in the steps of the bigger leagues for the major issues (e.g. criticals on/off). What is your stance on mirroring other leagues, to a point, to bring in more teams?

That's a great question. To be honest, we don't care about other leagues very much at face value. That said, some things, like crits, should have been changed ages ago, and probably a result of the previous admin teams. We'll use other leagues as examples, and learn from what works for them, and what doesn't, but at the end of the day we look at things with our heads and rationally. We do things because it makes sense, not because "everbody else is doing it." Usually the two ideas match up, but sometimes, they don't.

With the success of this season, it seems like that is the right stance to take, but onto the play-offs! It seems like the format is pretty much what everyone expected, with the exception of having a best of 3 finals. Please enlighten us on how you guys came to these decisions?

Season 3 was more or less the "get TWL TF2 off the ground" season. We realized that previous seasons had ruined things, and we wanted to restore our reputation so that TWL can become *the* entry level league for TF2. I think we were pretty successful in doing that, but as a result, we had so many teams join this season that skill levels are all over the place. For that reason, the idea behind our playoffs format is to keep things short, sweet, and fun, so that we can get to season 4 quickly and really turn this league into the great league the new admin team has envisioned.

Assuming the Balloons forfeit their first match, who do you have taking the crown?

Ahaha, well if I was to abandon my unbiased admin status for a moment, I could probably make a couple guesses. To be honest, it's a toss up with a few teams. Consortium, the TF2F Squigglies, UM, or Kryptic will probably be up there, but I could also see V2.0, terribles, Rebirth or Red Flag pull it together. It probably just depends on which teams have their best guys out and practice the most. I'm leaning towards Consortium myself, but being good friends with the Rebirth guys, kinda hope they take it too. It's a guessing game at this point, and I think most of the teams have a decent shot (good luck guys!).

With the play-offs over in just a month, when can we realistically expect to be able to sign-up for Season 4? Any set dates yet?

I can't give you an exact date, but I can tell you that we want the transition to be almost seamless. We're looking to have teams be able to sign up a couple weeks minimum before the playoffs end, so that teams don't lose interest waiting around for the turnover. That said, we're also offering consolation games to those teams that didn't quite make playoffs. The turn around should be fairly quick for even the most impatient of teams ;)

Consolation games?

Basically for any teams interested, we're going to offer to pair up teams in a very informal manner so teams can keep practicing and play matches each week until season 4. There's no reason teams that don't make playoffs should have to sit around waiting, so this should keep teams active and entertained. We're also looking to test out some new maps tailored to competitive play for potential introduction to season 4, and these consolation matches would be a great place to do so if both teams are inclined.

Sounds good! Speaking of Season 4 though, there has been a lot of buzz that things will be different, can you elaborate or is still in the works?

Everything is still in the works, but I can give you a few unofficial thoughts. Basically, we looked at what our goal for the league is, and what we can change to meet these goals. I can't tell you the specifics of what those changes will be, but I can tell you what issues we're looking at. One issue is community within the league and competitive TF2. Leagues are about being competitive, but there's a certain lack of community. Teams don't get to know each other well enough with most NA league formats, only play each other once a season generally, and there's little room for rivalry. We want to increase the whole overall community aspect of TWL. Another issue is skill level. TWL has every range of skill level, from the Ballons rockin' every regular season match, to new teams entering a league for the first time. Our aim is to make it so most teams are playing opponents at their skill level as much as possible. A final thought is a team’s goal in joining a league. Yes, most people just want to be #1, but for the dozens of teams that don't get that honour, we want there to be short term goals as well. This way there's always a next step up, and the mid-level teams don't feel like things are getting stagnant. We've got some other things in the works as well, but those are some of the larger issues.

Any ETA when these ideas will be released? I'm sure our readers are eager to find out what changes there will be (I know I am!).

I'm *hoping* the next couple weeks at most. Ideally, today, but you know how it is. We've got a lot on our plates for a bunch of guys doing things for pro bono.

And we all appreciate the hard work you guys have done. Thank you for your time and congratulations to the entire TWL Admin team for a great Season 3, hopefully Season 4 will be even better! Any final comments?

Just a couple quick new notes that you might have missed on the forums! We're still planning on hosting a BBall tournament and starting a 6v6 ladder up soon, and potentially some changes to the way the ladders work to generate some more interest.

Excellent! We'll be sure to keep our eyes peeled. Thanks again for you're time Revalk, we appreciate it!

Any time! Happy to be of service :)