Twel

[H.M.S. Stargazer]

This needs to get better under control. As far as I can see. We have 1 (active) Op.

[Shadowmere]

Basically it doesn't need all that many operators.

Tera's the head, and pretty much the only things done before a season that's needed is getting the bot fixed for a new season, and site updated.

Haven't seen PureOwnage <ER> in a while, but he was trying to get the league running a while ago, and the last thing I heard was him being busy with real life.

Maybe a few ops wouldn't do bad to come up with updated rules for playoffs and keeping an eye on "double duelers" (multiple names in the league).

[Asmodeus]

Basically it doesn't need all that many operators.

Tera's the head, and pretty much the only things done before a season that's needed is getting the bot fixed for a new season, and site updated.

Haven't seen PureOwnage <ER> in a while, but he was trying to get the league running a while ago, and the last thing I heard was him being busy with real life.

Maybe a few ops wouldn't do bad to come up with updated rules for playoffs and keeping an eye on "double duelers" (multiple names in the league).

Well, I'm back and should be helping Tera with TWEL. So you can take that number of Ops to 2! (w00t!)

[Zenlion]

Just a little side note about TWEL, love dueling but It's not much fun anymore, to me it seems people are lagging/spiking more, but lagging out less. it really makes the point of a duel moot, but thats just me, I don't think the spike limit will be changed but it's just a thought. ^^

[hak]

Trench Wars Extreme League

I too have been a Trench Wars 'Extremist' for a while, and I'm thinking to return to the scene to get some more people playing the Extreme League. I've noted that during the past years, Trench Wars Extreme League has been getting less and less attention, since 2d(ragons) pretty much left the scene. Now is the time to get TWEL ready, set and going. I hereby submit my thoughts to you.

There's a bunch of things that TWEL needs right now. For instance, several people have different ideas about how the maps should be, and possible ship changes like spider damage random/set. The main thing TWEL needs however, is more public attention.

Problem: A lot of people in the public arenas of TW, challenge their friends and enemies to duels. They do this mostly by flying to a safe and fighting each other there. They go there for the simple reason that most of them don't even know about a dueling arena in Trench Wars.
Solution: This can be changed however, simply by giving the arena more attention, for instance by 'hosting' it. A useful staff member can often (often being at least once a week) sit in the Dueling Arena, zone messaging like he/she would for any other hosted event to get some players in. If/when a certain amount of people have entered the arena, the staff member can then explain to the players how exactly they have to use the commands to the dueling bot. Also, he/she can tell them about the ranking system, and the website (www.trenchwars.org/twel) attached to the whole dueling scene.

Advantages: a) More people get to know the Trench Wars Extreme League, possibly resulting in more players for the League. b) Trench Wars gets another 'famous' arena in the zone, along with (Base)Elim and Tournament. c) The Trench Wars Extreme League could end up being a fun and important thing in Trench Wars, possibly becoming a kind of 'Solo TWL'.

Disadvantages: a) A staff member needs to be willing to sit in an arena for five minutes, explaining people how to use the Duelbot, website and ranking system. -> Explaining people how to do what, is an easy thing to do, simply by creating a bunch of macro's, like in any hosted event. I would be willing to create these simple macros for a staff member to use. b) More trash talking from certain people, about their TWEL victories and streaks. -> No one actually cares about what these trash talkers say, so they shouldn't be that big of an issue. And if you do care: paint your ship, check your engine, upgrade your bullets and start playing Trench Wars Extreme League!

I close my case.
Regards Hakkinen. B)

[Asmodeus]

I too have been a Trench Wars 'Extremist' for a while, and I'm thinking to return to the scene to get some more people playing the Extreme League. I've noted that during the past years, Trench Wars Extreme League has been getting less and less attention, since 2d(ragons) pretty much left the scene. Now is the time to get TWEL ready, set and going. I hereby submit my thoughts to you.

There's a bunch of things that TWEL needs right now. For instance, several people have different ideas about how the maps should be, and possible ship changes like spider damage random/set. The main thing TWEL needs however, is more public attention.

Problem: A lot of people in the public arenas of TW, challenge their friends and enemies to duels. They do this mostly by flying to a safe and fighting each other there. They go there for the simple reason that most of them don't even know about a dueling arena in Trench Wars.
Solution: This can be changed however, simply by giving the arena more attention, for instance by 'hosting' it. A useful staff member can often (often being at least once a week) sit in the Dueling Arena, zone messaging like he/she would for any other hosted event to get some players in. If/when a certain amount of people have entered the arena, the staff member can then explain to the players how exactly they have to use the commands to the dueling bot. Also, he/she can tell them about the ranking system, and the website (www.trenchwars.org/twel) attached to the whole dueling scene.

Advantages: a) More people get to know the Trench Wars Extreme League, possibly resulting in more players for the League. b) Trench Wars gets another 'famous' arena in the zone, along with (Base)Elim and Tournament. c) The Trench Wars Extreme League could end up being a fun and important thing in Trench Wars, possibly becoming a kind of 'Solo TWL'.

Disadvantages: a) A staff member needs to be willing to sit in an arena for five minutes, explaining people how to use the Duelbot, website and ranking system. -> Explaining people how to do what, is an easy thing to do, simply by creating a bunch of macro's, like in any hosted event. I would be willing to create these simple macros for a staff member to use. b) More trash talking from certain people, about their TWEL victories and streaks. -> No one actually cares about what these trash talkers say, so they shouldn't be that big of an issue. And if you do care: paint your ship, check your engine, upgrade your bullets and start playing Trench Wars Extreme League!

I close my case.
Regards Hakkinen. B)

I agree that the league needs more attention. We however cannot "host" in that arena. We could advertise for the league I suppose. We'll work something out. Thanks for your feedback!

-Asmodeus

[Asmodeus]

Just a little side note about TWEL, love dueling but It's not much fun anymore, to me it seems people are lagging/spiking more, but lagging out less. it really makes the point of a duel moot, but thats just me, I don't think the spike limit will be changed but it's just a thought. ^^

I'll talk to TWDev and see if they can't do something about that.

[Shadowmere]

Ikrit used to advertise for ?go duel

However a staff member being required to explain how to use bots etc is useless. If a person can't read this:

TWEL Season 5 has started! Enjoy dueling -Tera
DuelBot> Welcome, if you are new PM me with !help for more information.

Then he might as well not play TWEL at all. It's really not all that hard to follow the steps the bot gives you with that command.

The site URL could however be added to the greetmessage of the arena with a bot or .CFG update.

[hak]

Trench Wars Extreme League

Ikrit used to advertise for ?go duel

True, by hosting I actually meant the advertising for the arena. Of course the dueling can't be hosted, since it's a one versus one game. You can however advert for it, and explain people the gameplay.

However a staff member being required to explain how to use bots etc is useless. If a person can't read this:

TWEL Season 5 has started! Enjoy dueling -Tera
DuelBot> Welcome, if you are new PM me with !help for more information.

Then he might as well not play TWEL at all. It's really not all that hard to follow the steps the bot gives you with that command.

First of all, some people don't know what !help means. (I'm talking about the very new, that have not yet ventured outside the publics of Trench Wars). They do not know how to PM people (or bots, in this case), and know zero about bot commands whatsoever. You are not one of them, but surely a lot of new-bies in the game are. I mean, when did you discover you can Personal Message by "/" and "::"? Most likely not in your first week playing either.

Secondly, I've noticed a lot of players follow Event hosts around, admire them, follow their every command. I actually do think the impact of a host is big enough for these people to want to try new things out, such as the Trench Wars Extreme League.

TWEL Season 5 has started! Enjoy dueling -Tera
DuelBot> Welcome, if you are new PM me with !help for more information.

DuelBot> --Player commands-------------------------------------------------------------
DuelBot> | !signup - signs you up for the dueling league. |
DuelBot> | !setrules <included rules> - sets rules, include rules you wish to use |
DuelBot> | available rules: winby2, nc, warp, 5/10 : Ex !setrules warp 5 |
DuelBot> | !challenge <name>:<type> - challenges <name> to a duel wb=1/jav=2/sp=3 |
DuelBot> | !tchallenge <gID> - challenges your opponent for game #<gID> |
DuelBot> | !tchallenge <gN>:<league> - challenges your opponent in playoffs |
DuelBot> | !accept <name> - accepts a challenge from <name> |
DuelBot> | !removechallenge <name> - removes the challenge issued to <name> |
DuelBot> | !notplaying <time> - turns on notplaying for requested <time> |
DuelBot> | !notplaying - toggles off notplaying |
DuelBot> | !lagout - puts you back in to your duel |
DuelBot> | !cancel - toggles your decision to cancel your duel |
DuelBot> | !lag <name> - returns the lag of player <name> |
DuelBot> | !ops - shows list of league operators |
DuelBot> | !score <box#> or <player> - shows the score of a duel # or a player |
DuelBot> | !duels - shows the current duels being played |
DuelBot> | !scoreboard - turns the scoreboard on/off |
DuelBot> | !enable - enables your username |
DuelBot> | !disable - disables your username |
DuelBot> | !rank - displays your ranks for all leagues |
DuelBot> | !rank <name> - displays <name>'s ranks for all leagues |
DuelBot> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In my opinion, this !help message covers just half of what's going on in the dueling arena.

-To start off, there is not a single clue about an existing website for the League. This could be easily inserted somewhere in the bot, but who will do this? I wonder. Also, an explanation of what the site has to offer for you could be a good thing to put up. Most likely this could be done on the website homepage, next/instead to/of the news (which is months old).

-Second of all, I personally think the explanation of the duel challenging is rather confusing. I quote: "!challenge <name>:<type> - challenges <name> to a duel wb=1/jav=2/sp=3". I wonder, why are there brackets in this sentence? Also, the bots refers to "type", but later on it calls the same thing a "challenge to a duel". This might want to be considered as something to be recreated.
Also, the bot notifies a player of possible game rules. "Winby2, nc, warp, 5/10". What are these rules? What do they do? A lot of players don't know this.
Note: The challenging command and rules commands are just examples, I see more possible little flaws in the Duelbot.


What I am trying to point out here, is the fact that when a Host or Event Referee explains all the commands, instead of just stating them, players will possibly understand the bot better. By this, I am hoping to get more people into the Dueling League. (The duelbot is the only way to even get anywhere near The League)

Together we can make this happen. Tell me what you think.

Regards, Hakkinen B)

[Shadowmere]

Greetmessage with .CFG or bot is easy enough way to tell people the site URL.

Pretty sure the kids who play this game won't remember how to PM people, or remember the site if they get it right in front of their eyes. They grow up by figuring things out themselves way better, and will also remember them better.

The more mature people will realize what the nc, winby2 etc mean without a lot of trouble, and will be able to press F1 for help of PMing etc (If you haven't ticked off help messages by pressing esc+f6).

Not like guides of how to PM someone will be needed.

Forward to the bot's !help, yeah I think it's rather messy. And so might the challenging/accepting procedure be, but taking into count bot people have more important stuff to do than correcting tiny things like that, I don't see a problem with keeping it like that.

You could probably add a 'help' part to the TWEL site if anything, telling people about TWEL, commands and stuff. But that's all I see is needed.

To understand this game and play it, all you need is to read. If you're as advanced as to tick off the help messages, you're advanced enough to PM a player or bot in this case.

[Maverick]

Good points hak, your input is appreciated. I'll check the bot out and see what I can do about usability and newbie-friendlyness.

Maybe the !help can be downsized to only the essential commands and an !exthelp command for all the other commands or a !guide command explaining how to work the bot instead.

Indeed, maybe the website needs to be mentioned more but is the site absolutely needed to play TWEL? I doubt it.
Maybe the bot can give a link to the players after a match with the results (like tourny does).

Improving the bot is always good but is the current bot bug-free? I like to make it bug-free first before adding more features on top of it.
For example, I believe there are still problems with the playoffs.
I found some other issues at twcore.org too (although these may be already fixed).

Asmodeus, maybe we can chat sometime about the todo's of TWEL (bot + website).

[Purple Heart]

Get rid of the lag abusin' newbies, and the arena will automatically get more players knowing everyone will have a fair duel.

Doing that is the hard part though, unless there was a more strict lag limit.

I had to duel Sarrow (280ms with 0.3%~ 0.3%~) and Mega Newbie (No where near as laggy as Sarrow, but still terrible) for last 2 duels in TWEL. I couldn't see Sarrow's bullets, and half the time his ship would pass through my bullets, I honestly don't know how I won (probably the major skill difference between the 2 of us; no offense..).

The point I am trying to make, is that Sarrow normally doesn't lag that bad, however in TWEL ?go duel he turned up his lag to the very limits just to duel me; terrible, simply terrible. Now I don't know how good he is this season, but his 2nd place in TWEL for last season is pretty much thanks to his constant lag seizure.

It's one reason why I haven't taken much interest in TWEL this season (I might still play; not that anyone really truly cares so much) but knowing that I'll probably have to duel players that I can't see half the time is kind of discouraging, I'm sure others feel the same way. Why duel someone who has an obvious advantage especially when it comes to spider dueling. If you duel someone very laggy, you think your shots are counting and when you go in for the kill, it turns out you still had to shoot them 4 more times because the whole time they were eatin' majority of your shots.

Sure you can always avoid dueling laggots by checking their ping using !lag "player name" but you can't avoid dueling a player that you HAVE to duel in order to progress further into the ladder for TWEL.

Get rid of the lag, and you might get back even a few players; and the current ones won't be so annoyed.

[Depre]

downsize the laglimit to 160ms would be nice to get rid of all the lag abusers

[janitor]

i agree with pretty much everything kgt said, and these are the reasons most people wont/dont take twel seriously. Also please dont make any playoff duels to a ridiculous 20 deaths. 10 lives is fine thank you.

[midoent]

Lower lag limits

Agreed with kgt and LS, please lower lag limits or I (and I am sure, many others) won't bother with twel.