Erm, I think you guys are missing the point.
Also yes this 2nd post is me confessing I still somewhat care about this zone Mati. Anyways ~
The whole idea of an automated League would work because its 3v3 or 4v4 because its not that uncommon for 3 people in a squad to be online at the same time. I mean I ?chat and I have at least 6 people from NF on at any one time.
What I meant by how EG helped their population & activity is that with the ELO system (that your prac arena uses I hope / TWDD / EGL uses) -
You have the weekend squad matches at a fixed time. - These are worth like double (or triple) the weightage points. But then weekday scrimmages would also count for points. I mean I run a semi-active TW squad which DDs maybe once a fortnight for the heck of it, at least this way you still get the big-feel weekend matches but helps improve activity during the week and makes recruiting more people from other zones to actively scrim/gain rating points/have fun in DSB.
The idea of Subspace is no longer I'm a HZer and I'm going to steal population from EG or TW or w/e. We're no living in 2000 anymore. To answer BH's point, its not between picking zones, its more like oh hey I have a buncha guys on lets do something fun together (tho I hardly play SS minus the weekly HZ & EG league game won't lie) - look I can either EGBDL or TWDD, what do you guys want to do? Give us the option of having a DSB3v3 or DSB3v3BABL too and TW or even EG squads might come over for a game or two during the weekday for the heck of it. I know I would.
Also you could ask the league coords of EG how they did it, Im not a thru & thru EGers but they were super successful so in bringing back their population so.
PS: Aside from Affined, I don't think anyone really gives half a shit about the practice ratings. It actually makes vets not want to play with newbies cause they don't want to screw up their rating which is why no newbies end up playing in DSB. Again I draw from EG because they used to have the same "Rated" Base-Duel but have since removed it / made it reset daily so your scores didn't matter and that too helped with the zone activity.
**Cheap Plug** - My HZ squadron is looking for 1-2 players, if you can make 9/10/11pm EST matches, please feel free to ?message Nubby in game
Also I don't check into the zone often and Mati is my sole source of information but if someone like Eridu/Detector/Beer Hunter leaves me a ?message before league starts or has a chat with dates and stuff, I'd consider brining a few NFers for another BABL or 4v4 league.