I haven't been playing EOL much lately. The main reason is those crappy uphill battles etc. I don't find it funny to struggle in uphills or play battles which battle time clearly exceed the time used to design them. They might be funny but usually they aren't. I'm not saying that all battles are crap but I think that the quality can be enhanced significantly. That's what we want to do here: create beautiful and sensible battle levels so that people can actually enjoy them and drive amazing times in them.
And for level designers this means a new possibility too. If you don't have motivation to make a levelpack but you have 1 or 2 good levels ready, you wouldn't necessarily want to battle them and see that only few noobs are playing them. You can't make a cup because someone would be driving with save/load. Instead you can now adjust them for mopobattle and send them to me. See the levelmaking guidelines below.
Basically this is how the EOL mopobattles will be arranged:
- in EOL like a normal battle
- maybe once a week
- probably in the EOL primetime which is around 21 EET.
To have the oldschool feeling, we will have the following settings:
- times visible
- other players hidden
- normal battle mode (no first finishes etc)
In the old days, rec uploading was mandatory for everyone. Now I don't see it needed anymore. However, I would like to make the following rule:
- rec uploading is mandatory for top 5. Upload your rec for example to zworqy.com or send it to me: zebra@mbnet.fi
For now, we don't have any kind of statistics (I'm not going to update the old ones anymore), but Kopaka promised to make some kind of statistics in the future. When the statistics are ready, we will include afterwards all mopobattles since this first EOL mopobattle.
Compared to normal battles, mopobattles will (hopefully) have better quality and more players. It's maybe not so big difference to normal battles as it used to be, but I think there is still some extra in these mopobattles.
I will add the coming mopobattles to my site: http://koti.mbnet.fi/zebra/mopobattles/events.html
Mopobattles are announced there at least 3 days in advance
It is not updated yet, but I will update it shortly. At least you can check the old mopobattles there

Guidelines for making the levels (for designers):
- Levels have to be unpublished (don't load them to zworqy.com or other place)
- Levels have to be finishable for everyone! This means that they have to be fairly easy. The main thing should be finding the best style and executing it as fast as possible, not to try to find a way to finish.
- No pipes and no uphills.
- Levels with multiple routes are better for battle than levels with only one route. This isn't a requirement but a suggestion.
- Include grass and some pictures if possible. You can also decide to leave them out, but the reason has to be the level style, not your lazyness

- Level length around 45 seconds. Under 30 seconds is too short for a big battle and over minute starts to be a bit long unless it's very easy.
- Level filename is not important (I will rename it anyway). To level name you can write your own nick.
- send your levels to zebra@mbnet.fi with your nick.
- send only your best levels. Don't flood

- I will choose all levels (no rights to complain

- I will make some levels myself too.
- I would like to get levels from all the best designers

Things to find out:
- level designer can maybe spy the battle too if EOL has support for that?
- can we abort the ongoing battles? At least we should abort battles if they are queued just when the mopobattle should start.
- what to do if EOL crashes during battle? Probably we will lose that battle's results. If EOL is already down or unstable when the battle should begin, it will be postponed.
- maybe I should announce every mopobattle in mopolauta too?
Questions:
- What are the best weekdays to arrange the mopobattles? Any special suggestions? And what about different times (other than 21 EET)?
- Is once a week good or should it be twice a week or once in a month or how?
- How long mopobattles would you like to have? If I remember correctly, most of the old mopobattles were 30 minutes in length, but some longer ones were at least 45 minutes. In EOL, we could go for 60 minutes too if you want. So what is the best alternative, 30/45/60 minutes?
- Are mopobattles still needed? Thoughts? Comments?
