The Ladder Q. Is this a league? What is the difference bewteen a ladder and a league? A. No this is not an online league for NCAA Football '06. I do not maintain a schedule, nor do you have any ownership obligations. You can play as many or as little as you'd like. The ladder is designed to have all the benefits of a league: straight gameplay, community, and playoffs without being too demanding on the gamer's life. Q. How does the ladder work? A. Simply put, the league works based on a power formula well known by all members. You are ranked by this formula based on a number of factors: win-loss record, opponent's record, and team usage. Every so often the top ranked ladder players will be invited to bowl games. The winners of the bowl games will get respect and invited to a tournament to play out for a trophy and bragging rights. The Community and Guidelines Q. What are the rules for playing in the ladder? A. Well it will be pretty hard to enforce non-cheese rules for games played outside of the community. Any games played between two community members should be played straight up. If you plan on direct snapping to your WR or going for it on 4th down every time during a community game, forget it. Each member will be able to report community games played through the Scouting menu option. Bad scouting reports will hurt your community Rep and may eventually get you banned from bowl games and even deleted from the ladder altogether. Q. What about someone not in the community who cheeses against me? A. You can do whatever you need to do to win in this case. If you really feel strongly about it and really don't want the game to count against you, you can e-mail me the results and explain your case and I will probably accept it. To stamp out cheesy play, this website will eventually contain Strategies to deal with it the best you can. Trust me, I hate these kind of online players as much as you do and will do everything in my power to stamp them out short of attacking them personally. Q. How do I submit scores? A. You can go to the Submit Scores page and do it there or forward the official EA e-mail sent out after each game to my e-mail address: jeremy_w24@sbcglobal.net along with the following information added: Who used what team and who was the home team? Be advised that every score submitted will be checked againt EA's website for correctness. Any errors will be fixed on the spot. Every successful submission earns you +1 Rep. If you submit an official e-mail from EA with teams and who was home, validation from EA's website is not needed. This is really the safest way to make sure your older games get recorded properly. Q. I got disconnected and I don't want my game to count, what do I do? A. I will not record games that end 0-0, because that is an obvious disconnect. In other case, please e-mail me and tell me wht happened and your opponent's screen name so I can avoid recording that score. Remember that updates happen around midnight PST. Q. A Score I did not submit got posted, what is going on? A. If you post a score during the day, during the update at midnight PST any games in your recent games list that you did not submit using a regular submission method will also be added to your record with you as the home team. Any losses added in this manner will result in -1 Rep. This procedure will be used to discourage people from only submitting big wins and nothing else in an attempt to bust the system. Q. A mistake was made on a game I played, can you change it? A. Actually I can and will change it if you report the mistake in time to correct it. I must still have the original submission or the game must still show on either you or your opponent's recent games list on EA's website. Changes are difficult at the moment, so unless it is life or death, I'd like to keep these at a minimum. Q. How will the community keep cheesers out? A. You will receive great bonuses for playing within the community and bowl games. If you don't play these straight up, you will get your Rep blasted and eventually this will be enough to keep you from getting bonuses and you will never be at the top of the ladder. It might even get you kicked out. Straight games played against community opponents is the only real way to climb the ladder. So win games, get invited to a bowl game, win that, get invited to the tournament, and win that. That is the only true way to climb the ladder. You'll find that cheesers are only interested in winning and if you take that away, they leave. Bowls and Tournaments Q. When are the bowl games and tournaments held? A. Soon there will be a Bowl Game Headquarters that will tell you all about the next upcoming bowl games, who is currently in the running and tournament information. It will also have information for all the previous bowl games held and tournaments. There will be power bonuses for bowl wins and tournament wins so if you want to climb the ladder, make sure you play your invites. Members will have one week to play bowl games and each tournament round once invited. The bowl games will take two weeks and any no-shows will be replaced after week #1 with replacements based on ladder ranking. Q. Many players are not showing interest in Bowls, what then? A. You should schedule and talk about bowl games on the Forum so I know that you are trying. If I don't see effort in the first week at all, you will be dropped and replaced. Tournament games will be the same, but instead of replacing members I will forfit the games. This way if neither player shows up, the next round opponent will have a BYE. Remember the Forum is proof that you are trying to play your game and I think one week is plenty of time to get in a game. Ideas? Q. I have a good idea for the ladder, how can I be heard? A. The best way is through the Forum. Make sure you register with your EA screen name so everyone knows who you are. Bring it up at the forum, have others discuss it and I'll make sure you are heard.