Increasing the player base

[stuxnet]

Just interested to hear peoples thoughts on what would need to be done in increase interest in SS.

Personally I think the game itself still holds its charm.

[Rab]

For one, blocking all the cancer chat in pub, which is the first thing any new player sees.
1. Noob joins
2. Noob realises they joined twitter
3. Noob leaves

[stuxnet]

Personally I think there is more to it.

Currently the loading opening splash screen and client look exactly as they did back in 2000 when I joined. This really need needs a face lift preferably designed by someone with a fresh outlook on things. Bring in someone young who can design it without the 20 year influence.

[Supreme]

Maybe kill the opening sound

[zidane]

honestly id make the forums look more similar to before.. this color scheme is actually really really bad. Wirah done some good work but it looks flat out awful.. not sure why it hasn't been brought up more

[PaulOakenfold]

You have to destroy most social media, Fortnite, and modern media to have any chance. There is just too much instant consumable media for kid and young-adult potential new players to gobble up.

Also, yeah the toxicity in Trench Wars has existed for almost 20 years in-game and out of.

[Falconeer]

The game could be revived here is a to do list.

1. Move to your own server with whatever files and bots you have, who cares if hidden arenas no one knows about are missing. Since no one knows of them, they might as well not exist. You don't need the full trench wars back up from Priitk to move.

2. Make your own billing server.

2b) with your own server and own billing server you now have more autonomy and freedom to switch to AS3 which allows for more and better moderation options as well as coding in java/python.

3. Make partnerships with other similar games; like Free Infantry Online, and ARC, Altitude, etc.

4. Have a team of players create guilds in similar games, and then bring those guild members into subspace; there are many space games on steam, even 2D multiplayer ones.

5. Hockey Zone is a good hook into subspace, basically anyone interested in sports would be interested in it; from there they can potentially try other zones.

6. You need a centralized league site, like we had back in the day when we had league.nu. This site would operate every zones leagues, complete with a login section.

6b) in fact we need to centralize all the sites... all sites should be on one host, with each admin having access to the 1 site, and all contributing to the costs (potentially) as well as using player donations, from there the new central site would advocate for subspace continuum as a whole, not just trench wars or EG. You could click an obvious button somewhere or tab, that could take you to the TW site, or EG site. There would be info on the game/history/download sections and link to subspace forums. If you click the league tab you are taken to the league section of the site that handles all zones and then select your zone from there etc. Each zone could host their own database but the main league site would have read only access to the databases of all zones so it could display league data.

6c) in agreement i'm not a fan of the colour scheme on these forums (unless there are skins somewhere)... but a white/offwhite setup or all black is the way to go with most forum templates.

Big projects, with the people in charge too complacent to even start any of them. Qan is the person in the game who can influence the most change since he's head of the largest zone, and yet nothing useful gets done. More things could be done... I can tell you 100 ways to make subspace a success.

I just don't want to give all my ideas when the people in charge don't want to do the major important ones listed above. But literally there are 10 more major things that could be done.

It still may be 3 years before we see this new client... which i think will seek to not provide a ban system at all since it will be chalk full of the latest moderation options. Minimally zone owners won't be able to ban anyone, only high level BanG/netops will have any sort of ban access (if at all). <-- that's the hope i have for it anyway.
https://www.phoenixusc.com/phoenixusc/Phoenixweb.html
https://twitter.com/phoenixusc?lang=en
https://vidiot-x.itch.io/phoenix-uni...f-space-combat

a) Chat channels that are invite only, only people can join whose name was prewritten on a join list.
b) Friend lists and block lists
c) Silence/gag functionality
d) Hard lock in spec
e) idiot boxes for cheaters: their bullets won't effect anything
f) two in game names per computer also/with 1 account

and more...

Ban not being hard coded into the game or being a function basically eliminates Rab's discourse entirely.

[qan]

honestly id make the forums look more similar to before.. this color scheme is actually really really bad. Wirah done some good work but it looks flat out awful.. not sure why it hasn't been brought up more

Normally Wirah is really on point, agreed. The only thing that was different here was work got extremely busy for him right after he did the migration from 4 to 5. He didn't want to drop the ball, but he was sort of forced to. He only recently started responding on staff again, just had to go totally MIA at once. Fortunately he's poking his head in more often now, but he's still pretty swamped, I wager.

Anyway, back to the themes, literally just needs someone to spend maybe 1-2 hours to find a theme. It's pretty easy to do. Anyone who wants to can start here. I'm willing to pay out of pocket for a theme or two if they're really good, just don't have the time to search for it: https://www.google.com/search?q=vbulletin+5+themes I've been spending every night after I get home from work then working on SS for the last 4 days, up until about 9PM, have a little time before I go to bed and then it all repeats, heh. So I'll get to it at some point but after all the other crap that comes before it.

If anyone notices anything else quite screwy that could be patched up on forums, there's the thread here: https://forums.trenchwars.com/forum/...551-new-forums

Big projects, with the people in charge too complacent to even start any of them. Qan is the person in the game who can influence the most change since he's head of the largest zone, and yet nothing useful gets done. More things could be done... I can tell you 100 ways to make subspace a success.

It's not so much complacency as the size of the intersection between the set of people who are quite capable, and those who are still willing to give up their time in return for no compensation and almost universally negative feedback. It's an extremely small intersection. Who is left are essentially idiots and madmen, hardly worth speaking of. And certainly not anyone you should trust with such an important project as successfully migrating all of Subspace, a la Troll God 2.0's Grand Scheme. Which nobody will have read anyhow, because he's effectively made himself invisible to everyone by being an insufferable twit.

[mtine]

It's not so much complacency as the size of the intersection between the set of people who are quite capable, and those who are still willing to give up their time in return for no compensation and almost universally negative feedback. It's an extremely small intersection. Who is left are essentially idiots and madmen, hardly worth speaking of. And certainly not anyone you should trust with such an important project as successfully migrating all of Subspace, a la Troll God 2.0's Grand Scheme. Which nobody will have read anyhow, because he's effectively made himself invisible to everyone by being an insufferable twit.

I (and many others) wanted to help and get the job done, but got turned down. I can only think of a single reason why you guys do that: you want TW to shut down in the next year or so. Am I right or am I right?

[Falconeer]

Normally Wirah is really on point, agreed. The only thing that was different here was work got extremely busy for him right after he did the migration from 4 to 5. He didn't want to drop the ball, but he was sort of forced to. He only recently started responding on staff again, just had to go totally MIA at once. Fortunately he's poking his head in more often now, but he's still pretty swamped, I wager.

Anyway, back to the themes, literally just needs someone to spend maybe 1-2 hours to find a theme. It's pretty easy to do. Anyone who wants to can start here. I'm willing to pay out of pocket for a theme or two if they're really good, just don't have the time to search for it: https://www.google.com/search?q=vbulletin+5+themes I've been spending every night after I get home from work then working on SS for the last 4 days, up until about 9PM, have a little time before I go to bed and then it all repeats, heh. So I'll get to it at some point but after all the other crap that comes before it.

If anyone notices anything else quite screwy that could be patched up on forums, there's the thread here: https://forums.trenchwars.com/forum/...551-new-forums


It's not so much complacency as the size of the intersection between the set of people who are quite capable, and those who are still willing to give up their time in return for no compensation and almost universally negative feedback. It's an extremely small intersection. Who is left are essentially idiots and madmen, hardly worth speaking of. And certainly not anyone you should trust with such an important project as successfully migrating all of Subspace, a la Troll God 2.0's Grand Scheme. Which nobody will have read anyhow, because he's effectively made himself invisible to everyone by being an insufferable twit.

Not my problem if you guys can't see good ideas, or discern right from wrong. It is practically inarguable to say the suggestions for subspace success that i listed would not actually bring success to all the zones. Only the most stupid prideful idiot would argue that just to "prove me wrong" rather than objectively see the value in the ideas/suggestions.

I'm not saying you can't see the value in them either... but rather i'm saying IF you couldn't that would be the reason... an unwillingness to see good ideas as opposed to the ideas actually being bad. ALL because the ideas were presented by an insufferable twit troll god (What a joke). It's your game too just as much as it is mine, if these ideas aren't pursued or don't get done, it's everyone else who suffers... you aren't "teaching me lessons" by refusing to do good work.

I give negative feedback where negative feedback is due... i've readily praised you for example for a lot of good things you've done, like maintaining the zone, actually being capable of deving, the fact that you're in a position to initiate change - especially because you're not viewed as a twit troll god. If i was you, it would be insanely easy for me to convince 7 zones to team up on ANYTHING. Not an exaggeration, all you have to do qan is try. Im probably one of the most hated people in the game and managed to convinced three zones lately to do something - if i was you i could have convinced all seven easily.

Lastly i leave you with this... it's a good read and illustrated my point about ideas.

---

"One of the first interesting experiences I had in this project at Princeton was meeting great men. I had never met very many great men before. But there was an evaluation committee that had to try to help us along, and help us ultimately decide which way we were going to separate the uranium. This committee had men like Compton and Tolman and Smyth and Urey and Rabi and Oppenheimer on it. I would sit in because I understood the theory of how our process of separating isotopes worked, and so they'd ask me questions and talk about it."

In these discussions one man would make a point. Then Compton, for example, would explain a different point of view. He would say it should be this way, and he was perfectly right. Another guy would say, well, maybe, but there's this other possibility we have to consider against it. So everybody is disagreeing, all around the table. I am surprised and disturbed that Compton doesn't repeat and emphasize his point. Finally at the end, Tolman, who's the chairman, would say, "Well, having heard all these arguments, I guess it's true that Compton's argument is the best of all, and now we have to go ahead."

It was such a shock to me to see that a committee of men could present a whole lot of ideas, each one thinking of a new facet, while remembering what the other fella said, so that, at the end, the decision is made as to which idea was the best -- summing it all up -- without having to say it three times. These were very great men indeed."

- Richard Feynman

Also the reward for development isn't in public opinion... it's in progress and the outcome of your projects. A centralized site for all of susbpace would be amazing, especially if it ran every zones leagues - when there are currently at least two zones who don't have website league functionality at all. These accomplishments are something you value and appreciate for yourself, because you did them or had a part in them but also for those who appreciate it... not everyone is going to give you negative feedback for it... in fact leagues might grow, the sense of community would become stronger, and the game might retain players longer/increase population slightly.

If you want more rewards for your time (time which is already slim) then there is nothing wrong with putting a list of projects in your donation page, and asking people to donate money for your time spent working on these projects. Everyone would probably contribute, including me. it would still be peanuts compared to what people actually get paid undergoing things like this, but it's better than nothing.

How many web devs are there? Contact the HZ web dev, the EG web dev, the Subspace downloads web dev, every single one, and admin them on a new site, and centralize everything. Get them on board... you don't even have to code you just need to organize and delegate it.

https://www.gofundme.com/save-center-ice

Look at this, why is HZ paying $150 a year, and EG? and TW, and DSB? and Pro League? And the subspace downloads site?

You realize if everything was one site, you'd have one cost of $200 a year. Saving money and uniting all the admins and zones at least through the website and leagues.

[Sir BattyCrease]

here's my take on things:

1) don't listen to falconeer, ever. such bad ideas, with his main focus on websites and chat functions.

falconeer: gtfo, you're not even a player. you're just some spec'r armed with zero technical knowledge and only speculation - easy to sit there and chat shit when all you do is speculate isn't it?
i've berated you in pub for being a total incel faggot many many times, and all your posts exemplify exactly why i and others laugh at you rather than take anything you say seriously. nothing else needs to be said. the rest of pub and whoever lurks on this forum universally agrees you're some dipshit 30 something with no life and not to be trusted with developing any part of the zone, website or continuum. but of course! the spammer doesn't care! "listen to my ideas or fuck you!" LOL.
read carefully you salty pathetic guy, the bottom line is - if you act like a cunt, you'll get treated like one. please look at yourself in the mirror and kill yourself for your new years resolution - no one will care.


------------------

the game as we know it ladies and gentlemen, is simply on its last legs. time has caught up with continuum and really, the last hope we have is to either:

a) buy the rights to subspace from BDE

b) continue to keep the game alive for as long as possible

------------------

* there are plenty of games out there with more content and active development for the future. continuum doesn't have this. technology moved on a long time ago - we didn't.

* there isn't any $ in continuum. it's been not-for-profit for the longest time, and whilst it was a noble idea back in the day to keep things free and "for the player, by the player", the situation right now is a direct result of that. no one works for free, people don't have time to do shit now (mostly) everybody here has real life responsibilities.

* priitk doesn't care about this game. sure it's his baby, his first "major" project, but he doesn't have the time or even the will to communicate with zone owners. he won't release any code as some is shared with other projects he worked on, not to mention the whole rights issue with BDE who essentially still own subspace - release of the code could theoretically put priitk in the shit. now, we could buy the rights... if we somehow raised a cool $30-50k. if we do, then let's see if priitk would be willing to part with his continuum project. if we somehow got hold of the code, wtf are we going to do with it you ask? i propose we contact development studios who are a) passionate about computer games b) passionate about very old online games c) willing to take on the project to improve the game client.

* without advertising, we aren't going to get very far. if we don't have $ for this, then the other ways of advertising is simply: sending emails or making calls out to people who work on gaming magazines and online blogs, enticing them to play and write a short review. contacting gaming youtubers and twitch streamers letting them know about the wonders of this game! i think at this point with the whole game pretty much having less than 100-150 active players, any publicity is good publicity. i think mentioning the games colourful history is sure to sway people into at least looking at this game. i believe some people who don't know about this game would be dumbfounded that this sort of shit is still running after 20+ years with an active population...! in my mind, someone's got to think... well if these guys are still there after so many years, something has got to be good about it right?


basically IMO, it's down to $.
we don't have the money to advertise properly (pay off reviewers, pay for banners, pay for space etc) and we don't have the money to buy the full rights to this game to develop it once more.
because of the various legal and money issues, the game cannot be revived in the proper way.

do we donate to POiD and get more people on board with him to help develop his client instead?

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edit:

why the fuck do so many people care about websites and forums so much? the focus should be on the GAME and trying to draw MORE players to the GAME

[Falconeer]

here's my take on things:

1) don't listen to falconeer, ever. such bad ideas, with his main focus on websites and chat functions.

falconeer: gtfo, you're not even a player. you're just some spec'r armed with zero technical knowledge and only speculation - easy to sit there and chat shit when all you do is speculate isn't it?
i've berated you in pub for being a total incel faggot many many times, and all your posts exemplify exactly why i and others laugh at you rather than take anything you say seriously. nothing else needs to be said. the rest of pub and whoever lurks on this forum universally agrees you're some dipshit 30 something with no life and not to be trusted with developing any part of the zone, website or continuum. but of course! the spammer doesn't care! "listen to my ideas or fuck you!" LOL.
read carefully you salty pathetic guy, the bottom line is - if you act like a cunt, you'll get treated like one. please look at yourself in the mirror and kill yourself for your new years resolution - no one will care.

It doesn't matter if people listen to me. I get to keep trolling you if you don't and that's entertaining, and if you do I get to enjoy the benefits that everyone else would enjoy. A troll god wins either way by creating paradoxes.

Yes, we can see how the ideas I presented are bad by the way you seek to discredit the person who typed them rather than the ideas themselves. Instead, you throw out vague statements like the idea is bad and make appeals to authority "Falconeer knows nothing and really I am an authority/others are an authority on the subject" And yet arguments of authority are useless fallacies, and you also have no clue about my experience technically or in saving dead games if I even chose to argue I was an authority which I don't want to do... since this isn't about me. Keep talking about me though. You also failed to prove why you're an expert, but I don't care about 'experts' anyway, i care about the validity of ideas themselves.

Think of every game you know. It doesn't have 10 websites, 3 sites for downloading it, and over 20 different forums. Games look professional and united when everything is provided for on one site. The state of our discords (eight discords, and 20+ websites) is a reflection of how political and shitty the community is, how fractured and divided it is, and how everyone wants power but no one is willing to give for anything beyond what benefits themselves or their own zone. Gtfo.

Only the 6th idea i posted had anything to do with websites; ideas 1-5 are either zone related or advertising related. And I also said there are 10 more major ideas that could be done. There are two zones not running any leagues, partially because it would be easier with site functionality. The more leagues being run the more people play. If Hockey zone didn't run a draft league after their main league, there would be zero people playing it right now.

Yeah your defeatist approach is what we need more of. Are you from EG? It's typically their saying that the game is dead and let it die, because they are bitter and butthurt about how trolls owned them in their zone or they are up in tears about how people don't listen to them. This thread is titled increasing the player base, not It's a dead old game and it can't be revived, so you are actually off topic. Make your own thread please.

I would argue anyone who so obviously opposes what I say for personal reasons involving being butthurt is acting out of fear... funny I just called you a coward. As well they have an agenda to have the game die because they want to swoop in after and take over under their own tyranny.

P.S. Why dont you come and kill me? Bwak bwak bwak, he's so mad i'm a low life.

[Falconeer]

It is practically inarguable to say the suggestions for subspace success that i listed would not actually bring success to all the zones. Only the most stupid prideful idiot would argue that just to "prove me wrong" rather than objectively see the value in the ideas/suggestions.

Speaking of which, Hi Sir BattyCrease!

[Sir BattyCrease]

lol i agree, i am a faggot incel and i provide zero solutions to any real issues this game has.

that is what i read in the first sentence and subsequently the rest of your post has been ignored. your typing is wasted and has been for 20 years.

[Falconeer]

that is what i read in the first sentence and subsequently the rest of your post has been ignored. your typing is wasted and has been for 20 years.

TSDR - too short didn't read, become more literate and maybe people will take you seriously.