Complete Automation = Complete Ruination?

[Hakaku]

You are saying that you bought SUBSPACE when priitk stole Sniper code and made subspace the downloadable free-ware it is today, what a joke.

Umm... you lost me here. VIE scraped Sniper and turned it into SubSpace [1995], which was beta, then went public[1996-1997], then the cd got cracked by CLASS, SubSpace was crushed and VIE dropped all servers by 1998. SubSpace was free before PriitK and Mr. Etked created the new client called Continuum, around the same time that bots started appearing. So I have no clue where you got your facts from.

Anyway, I do agree robohelp should be removed and staff should rely less on bots to do their work. I by far prefer someone answering over a bot answering, even if it's a stupid thing such as "?help WHY WONT U HOST THIS?", you are staff, answer it. Maybe if more staff played in public, they could answer these questions before they become ?help calls. However, bots do help a lot with some things, because manually hosting zombies and other events (not all) is still pretty hard.

[Kyace]

You are saying that you bought SUBSPACE when priitk stole Sniper code and made subspace the downloadable free-ware it is today, what a joke.

Err, I actually bought a copy of Subspace in late 2001 myself. The box was at a value city type store. I got it, read Rincewind's guide and then installed it. Yea, back then I didn't research games too well before buying them. Oh, to be young and foolish.

Automation is merely a tool to be used by hosts, same as macros, LVZs and *commands. I have felt the pain when players don't bother to read the rules, this is nothing new. Players always ignore rules. Its not that automation spoils them, its just that automated events generally are hosted enough that they can get the rules into their melon.

I onced hosted ?go matrix where every single human fell into a wormhole at the top left corner of the maze (near the flag) because none of them knew where to go. You have to remember, that statically, half of the players have to be below median-average IQ.

[Salubrious]

Maybe after you host 5000+ events I will value your opinion, until then fuck off pub newb staffer.

I find it ironic that you refuse to converse with pubbers, yet you're trying to get rid of robohelp at the same time, considering that it's the "pub newbs" that will have the most simple questions. Robohelp is useless, yes. But are you sure you wouldn't consider answering a pubber's questions a waste of time?

[cacoethes]

If you see something you love turning out badly, then do something to fix it. Throwing around your supreme eliteness like it's a credential, insulting everyone around you, and spazzing out is hardly a constructive way to do this.

Honestly, since you turned this into a you and me thing, let me say that I have very mixed feelings about you, wark. You seem to have been a lot of fun once, but at the same time, if I may paraphrase something you said once, "I took all my anger and turned it into a gun called kthx." You act like a total elitist ass. You throw your weight around in forums and in game. And you hang out with people with numerous warns and/or bans for various unacceptable behaviors--notably racism.

You think TW owes you something. It doesn't. You and every other player--staffer, pubber, or squad captain--owes something to TW. Because it's a free game made by volunteers in the best way that they know how to show you a good time. That's it. And if it doesn't work, either GTFO or roll up your sleeves and get to work, especially considering your "venerated" position in the game.

"pub newb staffer." Do you think that insults me? It shows me what a jaded piece of shit you've become. You love this game so much but you'll throw a word like "pub" around like it's an insult. And then call yourself a credit to the game. I happen to like pubbers. Maybe there'd be more of them if vets like you didn't treat them like such trash.

And as for TWL: it rules. And it's definitely a reason for a lot of the hard core players to stay in. But let's return to your original argument about automation: how successful do you think TWL would be w/o the bots? And the database? And the forum? And all of the middleware in between? How smoothly do you think one season would go with a host speccing players manually at 10 deaths? How many rematches do you think we'd play then?

Face it: you're just grousing because you're an angry person for some reason. Because, in fact, you are completely dependent upon the very thing that you've purportedly started this thread to villify. Automation. And when you decide to arbitrarily bitch about a major component of the game that hundreds of people have volunteered their time to, you do a great disservice to them.

[Heroin Bob]

Good Stuff

I took the time to read most of this, (dding atm) so i wasn't able to finish, but i love what Epi is saying, i remember when getting in tourny meant you were the coolest kid in TW and zombies would get 200 people. but those were the old days, now if you dont squad its no bueno, TWD and the chat system is about the only reason i still play :+)

Also "kthx", you QSers continue to be the bad guys of TW and we shall be the good ones :+) <33

[kthx]

I took all my anger and turned it into a gun called Kthx doesn't exactly sound like something I would say. I am not angry at all, in fact I am a happy person, all of my shit-talking that seems to piss you off so badly is done just for that reason, if people would ignore it, it wouldn't become such a big problem honestly. But of course everyone has to protect their own ego, and then I have to talk shit to them. Trust me even if I were to get "mad" about this game when I press Esc + Q it goes away instantly.

You seem to forget that just last friday I hosted a balance zombie event where 100 people came to the event, right after frwar zombies with 73, there is a reason people come to my events, because they know I do them correctly, because they know I have fun with them, and because they have been going to my events for years, so I earned my position to tell people what is wrong with things during the years. As for me hanging out with racists, who cares? To be completely honest with you alot of staffers don't really give a shit about that anymore, privately hosted racist acromania is done daily, mods and smods just basically ignoring racism unless they are forced to do something about it because everyone on staff chat saw it. Even Rudy wanted to get away with the racist stuff. But if you want to bring this at me, bring up one time I was warned for racism? thanks.

Here is another thing we disagree on, it sounds like you learned to respect your elders a bit more during this post, I appreciate that you would show some respect for one of the best ER's ever. Shit talking is a motivator, sure people "hate" quicksand but 90% of those people also wanted us to get into the playoffs last TWL. If I go to a pub and talk shit, and kill a newbie alot, he wants to get better so he can beat me the next time, that is the same for crappy squads, this is the reason why the week 2 quicksand game had 200 players watching it, and the finals didn't.

TWL used to be ran manually, it isn't a big deal honestly, but bots do make that alot easier and better, but I wouldn't consider TWD/TWL automation, I am talking more like events that are hosted 24 hours a day all week, or on weekends that needs to be stopped before it gets out of control.

Once again you call me angry, pointing out the truth about you in my arguments doesn't make me an angry person, I just happen to speak my mind, without worrying what others might think of me. This is the internet after all. As for being completely dependant on automation.. I don't know where you get these "facts" of yours from. Hitler spent alot of years fighting world war 2, do I do great disservice to him by saying that WW2 was a bad idea? Just because people have spent alot of hours doing something doesn't really mean that it is right.

(Btw by arguing with me on the forums like this you are really no better or differant from me, I am ok with that, but are you and staff?)

[Ephemeral]

IMO, 'shit talking' is nothing but drama, and this game/community does not need any more drama. In fact, the drama is partly responsible for the decline of the game.

And the automation is also a contributer to the decline. Automation like Robohelp are the same as those stupid, frustrating automated phonehelp menus some companies use, "Press 1 for Customer Service".

What problem was being resolved when Robohelp was implemented? A staff issue or a player issue?

[ZeUs!!]

The only way you can truely consider yourself a veteran is if you become dissilusioned over something you used to champion

[Izor]

wbduel/javduel/tourny/roboboy/robogirl are the worse forms of 'automation' in the zone. Followed by certain overhosted events that need bots. Face it - TW is spreading its playerbase too thin with all these arenas being up all the time. Wbduel and javduel are completely useless. Tourny is becoming a place where no one cares to try anymore cause you can just play again in another 10 minutes. Getting rid of a few and adding some hosting restrictions would go a long way toward making things more fun

[Kyace]

Izor, you live in New Jersey? So, you live in the Eastern time zone as well. For the players who don't live is such popular time zones, automation is a decent way to keep events going when most ERs are asleep.

Roboboy and RoboGirl are just adding to publics who would already be running anyway, so I'm not sure how they are spreading players too thin. Javduel rarely has enough players to run, since staff doesn't advert for it nearly as often as for ?go base. WBDuel and Tourny both seem popular for their own reasons: WBDuel gives players TWDD style games without needing a full squad. TWJD and TWBD both require decent ammount of teamwork to even be fun, while warbird matchs set the bar lower (Its hard for a single player to lose the game for the whole team in wbduel since they can just be subbed, while in javduel or base, they can actively cause trouble).

I'm not crazy about tourny myself, but I'm not sure how you can claim its both critcally overexposed (Tourny is becoming a place where no one cares to try anymore cause you can just play again in another 10 minutes.) while still thinning out other events too much.

[Fluffz]

1st: i guess we can agree on elim and baseelim to stay as it is.
2nd: pub bots are not automating anything. the hole pub situation needs work.

3rd: tourney and go base should NEVER get automated ads. i always get pissed when i pub and some1 starts a base game, the bot does an ad and the whole pub is empty. there should be limits of games that can be run in these arenas/day/week
4th: i always hated how TWD takes up 20 arenas. that is so useless, fucking bots, cant u make them go away when they are not needed?
5th: next time i see a basing game hosted where the host puts everyone in as spider i am going rampage.
6th: in the rare times i do help calls i always get a human answer...

it would be nice if the bots were connected to each other and when someone hosts an event for example, the bots are not going to start base or tourney untill the TWbot is not used anymore.
for example: the ad launches when the base/tourney game is over, base and tourney bots take a break, the event is being played, the bot checks if there is a new event registered, if not he gets base and tourney back online, but if there is some event going to start he just does an ad. it also would be nice to see this list of events in a web interface like twd records its games. do it ikrit <3

edit: out of the 100 starcon games i probably played, the 3 being hosted without scbot were the best, but out of the 200 bomberman games i probaly played, the 100 with a bot to assist the ER were the smoother ones.
why? because when i am going to balanceout i do it for fun and to play something very different. if the host decides to hunt the mob in the circle with a lev he got the point of that game. but you cant do a manual golden gun bomberman, thats just impossible. or spec the guys manual (wtf why) when the fall out of the balanceout circle and at the same time shoot bombs at them

[Shadowmere]

it would be nice if the bots were connected to each other and when someone hosts an event for example, the bots are not going to start base or tourney untill the TWbot is not used anymore.
for example: the ad launches when the base/tourney game is over, base and tourney bots take a break, the event is being played, the bot checks if there is a new event registered, if not he gets base and tourney back online, but if there is some event going to start he just does an ad. it also would be nice to see this list of events in a web interface like twd records its games. do it ikrit <3

And when hockey is hosted, since tourny and other arenas die, 98 people will ?go hockey and 12 will play? uhh...

Also if smod hosts something he/she may use *zone instead of ZonerBots !advert

[Fluffz]

And when hockey is hosted, since tourny and other arenas die, 98 people will ?go hockey and 12 will play? uhh...

Also if smod hosts something he/she may use *zone instead of ZonerBots !advert

thats the other extreme to bigbase being hosted with 17 ppl. i am willing to let base die for hockey. those 80 rejects can go pub, elim or baseelim; or abuse help to get something else hosted. at least this way you will have a quality hockey/bigbase/blind/whatever game. in the end everyone will at some point get his favourite event with a lot of people and therefore hopefully a good game.

and smods could as good as use the bot.

[Izor]

Izor, you live in New Jersey? So, you live in the Eastern time zone as well. For the players who don't live is such popular time zones, automation is a decent way to keep events going when most ERs are asleep.

You dont know what times I'm up at, clearly. Regardless of time zone, I'm here during some pretty odd hours to know how its like

[Zeebu]

Jesus...

shut the hell up half of you..

ive been around a while.. neevr staff though. some automation is wonderful... the lagouts and speccing at 10 is great... thats the tedium that hosts should not have to deal with. the twd bots arent bad either. but there are so many other "advancements" that have been made that jsut ruin alot.


i threw a hissy with they seperated elim... for any of you that remember elim used to be everything. normally jav or wb was hosted... but had the rest too. it used to be competitive back then too. at times it would be taken over by wb's and other times by javs... but you had to deal with it. and if you played, then you learned how to do both ships. right nopw, baseelim is dying out becaseu of javs and the stupid streak thing... javs was a place to host jav deathmatch or jsut warm up a bit before a match or something. now it is constantly full of people spawning the bejesus out of each other and that sweet warp bar thing. thatd be sweet to have them combined once more.

about not having hosts during your time? staff's fault for not hiring someone to host games then. i thought tehy used to do that..? make sure that there was a number of staffers that corresponded to the avg number of players at that time. if not, why not?

?go tourny ticks me off too... i think izor said it... tournaments used to be somethign that got hosted once or twice a week. youd have an incredible turnout and people would try to win because people would watch. you wanted to look good infront of an arena full of ppl. teh final game would come up and thered be a zone alert to get ppl to come watch you. was great, i loved it.