Trench wars is dying.... Help?

[Oops]

Okay, i remember playing tw when elim was packed 24/7 and weekends had over 400+ people nonstop. The game was just more fun back then, and their was a hell of a lot more competition in twd. Squads could dd jd bd 20+ times in a day, now your lucky to do that once. I feel its only going to get worse so.... I thought about this for a whole 5 minutes so dont get all up on me but... Maybe make some changes in elim/ baseelim/ twdd/ twjd/ twbd rank, standings streaks and such. I mean to produce more population, give players soemthign to strive for that offers some reward, whether it means bragging rights on how good they are, or reputation of having the best elim record in tw history. Maybe recorded stats in wbduel and javduel as well as elim, baseelim, and stats that are mroe in depth ( longest streak, best record, etc.) It will encourage way more players like old times. As for twd, i cant think of much but be creative, switch ti up a bit, its been the same thing every year and the pop. is dying. Maybe begin creating squad games 1v1 2v2 3v3 4v4 in twdd and twjd, and statistics for all of those, as well as certain shipsets a team may have in twbd, so teams could be crowned "#1 in 1 Terr and 1 shark 6 spiders" or something. If these actuions were taken, or somethign similiar, i think it may really impact the tw population and it will be as fun as it used to be.

[Jones]

you just don't get it, huh

[Oops]

Jones

you just don't get it, huh

If you're talking about the fact that pretty much every other game made is betetr than this one in pretty much every aspect of it, then the pop of this game would already be zero, the fact that people still play is reason to try and increase pop rather than just let the game die out

[kage]

this SUCH GOOD IDEA havn't think big bangs go bad but do and if post good think everything goes GOOD!! make bots think stats arena every and wow watch go up PEWWW

[Dreamwin]

Got to realize, that changing things inside tw doesnt do much. We gotta find new players to join in action and thats pretty much it. (promo & stuff)

[Kontrolz]

The solution to the drop in population is..... (are you ready?) A COOL POSTER!

[winipcfg]

?go afk has contributed infinitely to this downfall.

[HateTheFake]

I think dugs new game will bring back tw, its interactive and has an overall use for competition. A game that takes 6 months to create a full ship. This will single handedly save tw. Mods everywhere should be kissing dugs ass.

[Doc Flabby]

whats killing TW is this europe lag, you've lost all the euros who play this, cos we can't participate in twd or twl once the lags gets up.

[Noah]

We have no way of attracting a new player to play this game long enough to become a part of the community.

I say we target our improvements to the players we already have, so we slow down the decay rate.

?go afk did the exact opposite, I don't think I've been logged on since I got that bot message.

[winipcfg]

We have no way of attracting a new player to play this game long enough to become a part of the community.

I say we target our improvements to the players we already have, so we slow down the decay rate.

?go afk did the exact opposite, I don't think I've been logged on since I got that bot message.

Why wouldn't people want to be part of this douchebag of a community?

[Kolar]

If you guys want I can report on population changes regularly. The Bot and afk population is not going to significantly change over time. Around the same amount of players in relation to our current maximum population has fallen into these two categories, if you were to go back 2-3 years I think you would find the same results.

Trench Wars is an old zone and Continuum is well past its time but I believe if we continue to keep the server stable, maintain a list of good and active staffers and produce league seasons there will always be a stable population.

I know there are concerns over the Hopone Router problem, TWL and the AFK lately. On the router/lag problem Hopone owns the router causing the problem so it is completely out of our control. No one in TW can do anything about it. By now the company is probably aware of the problem and it will be up to their people to fix it.

TWL got off to a rocky start and upper staff knows that thing are not running well. I've suggested stronger oversight by those running TWL to ensure all games are played and played fairly. I have also been available all weekend during TWL to correct problems and suggested all TWL Ops, SMod and above make an effort to do the same. The issue of replays must be solved within the context of the TWL rules, TWL Ops should be making decisions within that frame work while also progressing the league to finishing the season.

I also think TWL Ops should move away from using this board to conduct TWL business. The last 2 season has shown us that no matter what decision you make someone is always going to be disenfranchised, doing business here only validates their arguments and complaints no matter how silly or valid they are to begin with.

The issue of bandwidth from what the current Sysops tell me is no longer an issue. Mr. Arrogant 2 is not needed to kick people idling due to a lack of resources. There still remains the problem of players spectating in arenas with a max player limit (for example Publics) and with the zone reaching the max sub arena limit. It will likely still be needed to preform these functions but I think a compromise can be reached. The AFK arena isn't needed in my opinion, we can set it to skip popular sub areans (Elim, BElim, Wbduel ect..) but I don't want to speak for Mav on that.

[Money]

whats killing TW is this europe lag, you've lost all the euros who play this, cos we can't participate in twd or twl once the lags gets up.

AS SPACELY WOULD SAY....



and an AMEN!!!

[Salubrious]

global warming is killing TW

[Singularity]

The main thing is subspace doesn't get any new players. The current players are quite loyal and have been playing for years. If you see any player doing reasonably well in any kind of arena outside of pub, you can be sure it is an older player on an alias, not a new one.
The slow decline is due to the existing players quitting as they change phases in life, I've seen enough players around me quit since they started college or moved for their work/study.

That being said, its inevitable.

As to why we are not drawing new players?
It is too easy just to blame the fact the game is very old. If you take a look at runescape or maplestory you will see both are still going very strong despite having graphics not far outstripping commander keen 4 (funny how their community isn't that different from the TW community even though the average age is a lot lower). The main thing is the utter inaccessibility of the game.
I've posted this somewhere once before, but I'll say it again. I dare any of you to show a open minded friend where to download this game and ask him to test it. Chances are, he is going to be completely lost on the impossible interface and keyboard combinations necessary to play any kind of ship other than warbird or spider, and not talking about chat commands. Most games have a training phase or a tutorial, or are so easy none is needed. Subspace doesn't fall in the latter category in my opinion.

I've personally introduced a couple of players to the game of which only one still plays, and each and every player only managed since I was able to physically show them what the commands were and what things are fun to do. Without this knowledge you are basically just entering pub 7 as a warbird, and getting shot by a levter or a couple of floating warbirds.
As the skills needed for competitive play (even in pub) are quite high you are usually shot about 3 times for each spawnkill you manage, got called a noob and decide you've seen enough of this game.

Now granted, this was also a problem when subspace was first launched, but then we must think that back then (yes, we can positively call 96? back then) playing games on the internet required a good deal of effort (ip addresses host/dial in anyone?) and the whole idea of playing versus human opponents far outweighed the effort required.
We have become a little spoiled with perfect interfaces in modern games to accept games like subspace.

Now I'm not one to shoot down the effort of people, but posters, ads and whatnot to promote subspace will very likely not work as people don't continue playing by themselves. The game concept is not at fault, rather the clunky interface and the fact that the "good" gameplay isn't immediately found upon logging in. The distension gametype might work a bit to "glue" new er players due to the fact that putting effort into stats is just addictive (reason for maplestory and rs to still survive) but is not going to remake this game enough to really attract crowds by itself.

I will conclude this post by stating I've played this game for years with the occasional break and still enjoy logging in (even though I do not play in a similar way as the first year as when I started, as the focus has shifted from being "better" to just talking and having random fun pressing buttons) and will still enjoy it the comings months (years is a little bit too optimistic but one never knows).

ps. people saying the AFK arena is killing the zone are just now seeing the players otherwise idling in elim and private arenas. Elim used to be 2-3 people during weekday afternoon euro time anyway, rest was speccers, nothing has changed, its just more obvious. I still don't think it is that good of an idea tho, I liked it when people AFK'd in some random arena that I otherwise never would have seen.


pps. Why do you think of a tutorial arena where players are "guided" by the pms of a bot who tells them what each ship does and how to operate them in a controlled setting, and has a little exam in chat commands. This would've helped me a great deal when I started at least. Players entering the zone for the first time could be "redirected" to this arena.