Ideas for population growth

[Pressure]

Didn't know where else to post this, so I'll post here. Just curious - has any thought been given to paying a popular YouTube/Twitch gamer to play SS for 2 hours live or to watch league games live on stream or something similar? I'd be willing to donate a small amount of money toward an effort like this if we can find a suitable streamer who is active, who is currently popular, and who has an age-appropriate/relevant fanbase/viewership.

Is there anything else we can do to advertise SS and try to promote population growth?

[Rab]

Nothing against using some of the money we already have for this purpose - but it would be a requirement to clean all the racism n crap out of chat first or nobody would be able to stream it.

[Leland]

hand out trenchwars cd-roms and free laptops and at covid testing centres so people can play while waiting

[SNOOPiE]

I like the Streamer idea, if we get that done we could have another cash tourny like twdt advertised with a minimum of 100h playtime to be able to sign up. Like a "ranked mode" that will keep players playing and there will be a prize at the end! I'll cash up as much as i can (im not rich) if it would help the population.

[Ardour]

Lets target poverty stricken countries and create shelters where people could play for food.

Or what about DavidParody/Children? He has now made it big on youtube now with 3.2million subscribers.

He could do a Review games video... even if he spent the entire time saying how rubbish a 2d game is we would still get a few thousand new players. Zone would crash for sure.

[Pressure]

Lets target poverty stricken countries and create shelters where people could play for food.

Or what about DavidParody/Children? He has now made it big on youtube now with 3.2million subscribers.

He could do a Review games video... even if he spent the entire time saying how rubbish a 2d game is we would still get a few thousand new players. Zone would crash for sure.

Just imagine what a couple hundred/thousand new players could do for the present and future of this game.

[Jessup]

This has been mentioned for 15 years off and on.. same old same old. Popular gamers have covered it, we have been on steams front page, we have had writeups in gaming mags and articles yet nothing helps. There are internal problems with how subspace is handled, there are huge skill gaps that make new players dislike even trying. The rampant trolling and complicated gaming commands will not allow for growth. People in power also refuse to open up and allow real change because they want to maintain their status positions at the cost of bettering the zone. Not to mention the game is closed source still and ownership rights are legally in question. I spoke with GOG.com devs and they were not interested. MMOs are not their main focus ( someone cud retry them).

What I see this game needs is a HUGE change. A NEW PLATFORM and a complete code overhaul that incorporates mouse interface commands and arenas set by skill levels. The only way to do this is for a real company to take it over that would cast out most of those in power now which no one is willing to do. Noobs would need noob arenas but in order to do that you need a population which we don't have. Res limits need to be reinstalled. Even if we had a population we then would need arena population caps. Steam launch was a hot mess and major fail because we stuffed everyone in one huge pub and chaos ensued. We never got a proper training guide installed either.

Basically the game would have to be redone, the rights sorted out, some type of company involved and deals struck. New DEVS added into the mix. Qan and biet would be the only ones and maybe wirah who shud be involved and how that would be worked out is seemingly impossible. Priitk would either need to be involved or give up / sell his rights to continuum.

As it has been for decades and continues to be.. any meaningful growth is virtually impossible. The game is only 300 hardcore players these days (if that) and over half of those are giving up too. I see almost no way to do this as things stand now. The ZONE issue too has been a big blocking aspect. Trench Wars ZONE remains and it is basically the only meaningful zone left. Advertising the game as it is now will do very little and the wasted money would probably hasten the real death of the game for the few even left. Sad facts.. its a dinosaur.. a great one but dinosaurs after a long reign went extinct and so will this game unless it EVOLVES. In this day and age that means a BUYOUT TO THE RIGHTS and losing much or all of the community run aspect to it. This is all impossible as things stands now so the game is still at a complete impasse. I sadly see no future for us. I hope I'm wrong but its just a matter of time now. All zones and hardcores have basically merged in Trench Wars and it gave a slight boost to our zone only while all other zones are completely dead or tiny groups of people clinging to them. TW even after a slight regrowth is slowly getting smaller and smaller itself as the last refuge. To me the writing is on the wall. I've become disinterested in the game and all the old vets I know feel the same. When we leave no one replaces us. Time is ticking if things remain the same. Sure a few years more maybe? but.. lol then what.

GL tho. I'd love nothing more than to to see the game reemerge.. it is a great game but.. it has major issues that require major changes.

[ronaldinho]

There are so many different possibilities of attracting new players without having a whole new version of the game. The problem is that the necessary time is precious for everyone. "Player A" is not going to do anything because he already has things to do and when he has nothing more to do he will have fun. You all have lots of ideas that would make it possible to bring in new players, obviously difficult to share, except when it is necessary that someone else put them into practice in which case the ideas are flowing.

[Roger Rabbit]

It’s so easy to troll and kill pub games to where getting people to pick this game up isn’t the problem. It’s keeping them once they do. The people who run trench wars, through their inaction, condone letting the trolls run the farm. They’re so worried about keeping the handful of people who create a toxic environment they lost sight of why 75% of the people who haven’t bailed yet just sit in spec. It’s like a union gig up in here.

Might as well advertise this game as chat app to log on and talk with people you’ve known for years because no one gives a shit about improving the gaming aspect of it

[Rasaq]

Waiiiiiiit...all I'm getting out of this is that the unfunny lip gloss wearing Children has 3.5 million subscribers? Awesome! I guess we can get all 3.5 million middle school girls to download continuum!!

[Vehicle]

Lol this thread is just one big wah wah + the reveal(?) that Children has +3 million Youtube subscribers?

I don't know that I believe it though, all Asians do look the same.

[Unlimited]

There are many things you can do. Honestly I did think it was a bit bizarre for there to be such a high cash prize for TWDT when the vets will always be here, they aren't going anywhere.. it's the pubbers you should cater to. Last night I played some pub with the egers just to test it out and maybe have some fun.. and learned a lot. It was a big game, maybe 25v25 with an active spec and there are seriously ZERO squads?

How can the most active public arena in ALL of subspace, have zero squads? hundreds of pubbers in total, to be fair okay maybe a hundred or so active pubbers, and there are ZERO squads.... what the heck happened? has it always been like this? (I have no idea, never played pub and just started tw maybe a year and a half ago.)

I can guarantee you if you do something to make people want to lead/join squads for pub, it will do so many things including :
1. Increase activity, obviously. Players that are joined to squads have meaning to come on and play every day.
2. Quality Pub play ( or at least greater quality pub play lol, there will always be the downies )
3. More newer competitive players (as the pubbers get better, they will start playing competitively.)

How to fix this!? it's simple, really. Who will lead these pub squads? that's the big problem isn't it? no one to start these squads. If there were leaders of squads, the players join, but there is no one that wants to lead, so make it run by zone staff! Have like 5 staffers (I've noticed staff are never in pub, and are mostly all competitive players all in other sub arenas.. which is another problem in its' own, so hire more,) and have them run the squads. I know off the top of my head like 3-4 players who play pub every single day, who have been staff in eg over a decade ago, who understand basing at a top level who would love to step up and help.

Just my 2 cents.

[Rab]

Pub doesn't have squads because people who join squads value community but those people can't stand the full blown aids that is pub chat.

[Lupin]

I tried sharing with 2 friends at different times last year and they lost interest within the first minute cus they had no idea what they were supposed to be doing. I tried telling them but it was not really catching. I think an engaging, visual, hands-on tutorial mode in this game would have helped. My suggestion:

Take the help fly-over graphics and put them in a "starter" area of the map and give them objectives. #1 fly from one end to the other, #2 fly around some obstacles, #3 spawn a TW-Bot and have them shoot it. Then eventually teach them the basics of flagging if this is possible to do(?)

Then when they get spawned inside actual pub they have some idea of what to do. At the moment I think just being plopped into open space with people spawning them is too much for a new player.

[menomena]

maybe if u wanna bring and retain new ppl it'd be a good idea to start banning people for their hate speech? we have people literally discussing why eugenics is a good thing in pub chat and how he was born a white supremacist. i mean???? call me a sjw all you want idgaf but do you really want new people to login and the first thing they see is Genseng spewing his racist bullshit? Staff is okay with that being the first impression of the game?

obv the game needs a lot more done to it to make it welcoming to new players. there's a huge learning curve. everyone still playing has like 15 + years of experience on someone that's new. but i personally wouldn't be too keen to stick around when i see players in pub chat talking about white people having better genes and there's nothing wrong with trying to give the world better genes and eugenics aren't so bad.

anyway