Planets League 2020!

As the last of the Zodiac wars commences Planets Nu is proud to announce an all new model for fun and competitive Planets play:

Planets league will be the new model for populating the Championship matches and becoming Emperor of the Echo Cluster.

The new league works as follows:

There will be 1 season per year. The first season will be the 2020 season which will run from March to December.  

Players must self organize into teams of players using the player groups tools. Teams can be anywhere from 1 to 11 players in size. Create a team by creating a group and specifying it as a league team. 

During the season "League Sanctioned" games will be created in several formats. Team members may join these games to attempt to earn points for their teams. The higher they finish in the games the more points are awarded to the team. 

At the end of the season the top 11 teams with the highest point total will win an opportunity to compete in the Championship match which will take place in the "Inner Circle" of the Echo Cluster (see the rings on the map page). Subsequent teams may be offered spots in additional lower ranking title matches to fight for control of the Primary Ring, Outer Ring, Badlands and Great Void - with appropriate titles and awards - depending on how many participating teams there are. 

The highest qualifying teams will be given first choice for race selection in their title matches.

When a team qualifies for the Championship match to become Emperor of the Echo Cluster the qualifying team will nominate a member of their team to become Supreme Commander to participate in the game as the primary player (and title holder if victorious). The Supreme Commander may then select 2 additional team members who will participate in the game as their First Officer and Chief Diplomat. Both of these players will be given access to the game and the ability to change diplomatic settings and send messages on behalf of the race.  

In addition, the Supreme Commander may give read-only access to the game to all other members of their team. They will have an access control panel that allows them to grant or revoke these privileges (coming soon). At any time, the SC may transfer command authority to either the First Officer, Chief Diplomat or other team member to give orders to their ships, planets and starbases without losing their position in the game. Only one player at a time will be able to give orders. As long as the SC stays in the game they maintain "admin" privileges and may take back control at any time or change their officers. 

If a SC does formally resign from a game the First Officer (or Chief Diplomat if no First Officer exists) will be promoted to supreme commander and will take over admin control. If there are no officers specified the slot will become available to any remaining members of the team. If no member of the team wishes to take on the role the empire will fall into disarray and be killed. (FoF style)  

The winning Supreme Commander of the Championship match will become Emperor of the Echo Cluster with the First Officer, Chief Diplomat and all other team members earning special badges of recognition and mention in the historical records of the Nuniverse. 

Each season League Sanctioned games will be started. They are divided into "long" format games and "short" format games. Each player on a given team is permitted to participate in up to 1 long format game and up to 4 short format games (11 long format and 44 short format per team) during a given season. Points are awarded to teams based on team members results in sanctioned events during the season. 

Some events have limitations on the number of team joins that are permitted.  

During the 2020 season we will be offering the following long game formats:

Very High Standard - Min-Rank Rear-Admiral - Races randomly assigned

Game will end when 5 players are eliminated.

Long format games will be available for joining within the first 3 months of the season and will start when filled. The Fight or Fail limit of long running league games will rapidly rise near the end of a season to ensure that a game finishes on time without having a fixed time limit. All long format games except the beginners will use the Planetary Production Queue. All league games will use Chained Intercept.

The following short format games will be offered to open the 2020 season:

1 v 1 Blitz - 3 Points for a win

2 v 2 Blitz - 6 Points for a win

8 Player Dogfight - Points by rank: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, 0, 0

Note: Special thanks to Talespin for developing and promoting the fantastic Nu Dogfight format - be sure to sign up for the Dogfights player group if you enjoy fast paced games: https://planets.nu/#/group/22

Once your League Team has taken a slot in a game, it will belong to your team even if the player leaves the game, and can only be replaced by another team member. The game will still count towards your team joining limit. It will not count as an additional team join to have a player join as a replacement, but the player joining must not have used all their joins for that format.

Example: A player is playing in a Very High Standard game, for which the limit for team joins is 1. They resign. They still cannot join any other long format games this season. Another player from the team can join the slot, provided they have not already played in another long format game. The team cannot join any other Very High Standard game this season, regardless of whether they replace the position or not.

Team admins will be sent an email notification when a player on their team drops or resigns from a game.

League sanctioned events can now be found on the "League" tab of any League Team player group. These games are ready for joining. Form your team now, grab some friends and jump into a game. As soon as games start the league leaderboard will begin to update based on current standings: http://planets.nu/#/groups/league

The 2020 league season will end in December and there will be a break before the next season starts in January. During the break the Championship (and title) matches will begin.  

As with all new things we will be learning as we go and may make modifications, improvements or changes to the league format if required to improve the experience. We hope you enjoy this new and unique gaming experience we are embarking on.

As always, your feedback is greatly appreciated!