?go base

[jeem]

has there ever been talk of taking down ?go base? i know some of you are getting very angry at even the suggestion of it, but hear me out on this one. i touched on some of this in my != thread and i was just going to post there but i figure most glossed over it.

the future is newer players, it has always been, except TW'08 is perhaps the worst the zone has been at catering to newer players. this has been the case for a while, not just now, but with the rapid population decline its effects have never been more drastic. there needs to be motivation for newer players to continue playing, which can come in several forms. i would say 90% of the time the motivation comes from other, experienced players killing them or showing them how to play. the other 10% is self-motivated, but that self-motivation stems from perhaps seeing other players at better skill levels (high recs in pub) and striving to reach that goal.

ever since the implementation of ?go base, however, basers who would have normally practiced in pubs spend all of their time elsewhere. consequently the newer players have no role-models, no one to open them up to the other parts of the game. this is what is different from years past. if players saw better players spending time in pub (like i used to watch cripples and disoblige), i can not even begin to tell you the positive impact this would have on the zone (not to mention the leagues, although they are NOT synonymous). this is what i had envisioned != doing, bringing back a return to competitive pubbing, but i know one person, or one squad, even, will not do the trick.

so, stop analyzing and coming up with bottom lines on the marketing/websites/staff structure, etc. IT IS NOT THAT COMPLICATED. TW WAS NOT THINKING ALONG THOSE LINES WHEN IT SAW ITS GREATEST POPULATION INCREASE. all it takes is a few dedicated squads to improving public play. it was more about the zone then, rather than the leagues. now the other arenas players play in are just league-wannabes (wbduel, twd, base, etc.). this is why league is not fun anymore. it's not anything special because I can do it every night of the week, not just on sundays. is this really so hard to understand? is eating mcdonalds everyday really that difficult a metaphor?

removing ?go base for a trial period may not produce the effects i mentioned, it may not do anything at all (and i doubt it will ever be removed). just know that pub, NOT TWL NOT ?GO BASE NOT TWD, is the lifeline of this zone, and without nurturing and feeding it, it will be the end of this zone. i had more to say but i think that's enough.

[Fit of Rage]

I'd be willing to give that a shot. ?go base has been pretty bland anyway.

Although counterpoint: if you remove ?go base, instead of "forcing" older players to go back to pub they might just get lazy and stop playing altogether.

[HeavenSent]

"Never doubt that a small group of people can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead

Trench Wars was invented by a small group of dedicated individuals who had great forethought and a lot of balls. There was little to no discussion about what was best for the game or what was going to come next. The pubs were changed, the map was changed, events and bots were invented, basically at the whim of these few people. Luckily, they were geniuses, and so they were not only doing a great job of inventing things but also bringing new ideas in at just the right times to keep interest and keep things moving forward.

Those people have moved on in their lives.

Now, Trench Wars is run like a corporation. And, believe it or not, MOST corporations are run extremely poorly, with ideas that seem to make sense but in the end fall apart. For every successful corporation you see in the world, do you have any idea of how many thousands of terrible, failing ones exist also? It's not the best model to build upon. This is why many companies use corporate governance only in the middle stages of their existence (which supplies them with necessary funding to grow), then buys back their shares and re-privatizes in their maturity, to bring the number of leaders back down to a brilliant few.

Trench Wars is based upon a gaming system that can basically be made to do whatever we want it to do. It has just the right mix of gaming and social interaction with it's chat system. The subspace server can still serve as the basis for cutting edge online gaming for the foreseeable future, as long as people have the forethought to keep pushing the envelope.

Trench Wars' advancement has stopped since PriitK, Dock>, Arilou, and a few others stopped doing their thing. With stagnation comes eventual defeat.

Don't get me wrong, staff has some brilliant thinkers and if they would just do their thing and get it over with, this game would move forward. But with this game being run like a committee and everyone afraid to step up and take the potential risk of ruining the game or tiskk... getting razzed by the naysayers or other staffers, not much is moving forward anymore.

This game has the talent to move forward. For example, maybe a year or so ago, someone, and I believe it was Witness, showed me a whole new concept that he had invented. The map and ships were unbelievable. Why isn't that our new pub? It completely blows away what we have now, and its a good evolutionary step in the game, similar to all the other evolutionary steps that were taken in the past to bring this game forward. Think back to the old maps and old shipsettings for awhile, lay them out on a timeline, and consider how we have evolved. It's time to move forward. But no one will do it.

In a way, this forum is one of the biggest problems. I can't stand the fact that the whiners that are afraid of every little change have such a huge voice in this game, and it's mostly because of these forums. Pretty soon, they will be the only players we have left.

I got interested in this game back when it was still evolving and thus generating a buzz in the world. There is no better marketing. Those of you who think that creating a poster or banner or TV Commercial will save us, are committing the same fallacy that so many marketing departments fall into. They believe that they can sell ANYTHING with the right tactics (and occasionally they can, but mostly they fail). The best marketing is the buzz that is created by moving forward and pushing the envelope. That's how I got into the game, think back to how you got involved for a second, I bet the reasons were similar.

Since this post has already turned into a booklet, I'd like to finish it with a quote from an interview with Dock> from many years ago. I've been spreading around this quote lately because I think it is critical to TW's survival:

DoCk>: The toughest job is trying to figure out what is good for the public, and not what is public demand. Sometimes decisions can be extremely unpopular but then grown to be accepted later on. This is a fact of life of being Sysop, and every little change or move, simply because of the size of this zone, causes a lot of heat to be turned on the zone's staff.

I am not at all in favor of trinkets if you were talking to me. I'm talking about the core of the game itself. Pub/TWD/TWL, the individual ships and the respective events that bring out their qualities; such as ?go base, elim, and belim.

That is where the improvement is needed, perhaps I wasn't clear. Really it all begins with pub and trickles down from there (new pub is at first hated, then gradually accepted, new players discover the game, old players think it's cool and come back, then TWD/TWL/gobase inherits the changes).

I agree completely that mini-games are a detriment. I haven't supported distractions like strikeball and the like, my apologies to their creators but they need their own zone. I like events that bring out specific Trench Wars qualities. So for instance, I think hosted events such as ProDem, JavProDem, Teamkill, most dangerous game, turretwars (not the versions with crazy ships), and hunt are good for the game when hosted in moderation. But many events stray too far from TW's concept and/or TW's normal ship settings. I'm not going to name specific events other than SB, but there are a lot of them. Think about how many Trench Wars events take place in cars or racetracks, for instance

:wub:

[Reaver]

Remove ?go base and either A) put the squad's name with the most points for the month on the map or B)create a new *objon every month that stays up for 10 seconds with the winning squad's name on it. Note: do NOT put the individual player's names on the map or the *objon, only the squad name. The squad should receive recognition for it's efforts in pub, if individual players want recognition or the squad wants more recognition, save that for TWL.

[FarScape]

What you want to say I do not know...

What it has with ?go base have to do with the population? its just an arena in the game.

People who come to TW, get the first impression from the pub, and they will play in pub. Ill say the way I got into basing in TW.

I was first of course playing in public arenas and mostly I was joining events that were hosted and are great and unique for this zone. Sometimes I went as warbird to some old Duel arena (that had many room to pick from) and had duels with friend without bot, commands or sign up (dunno where that map is now).
After a while i went to go base/elim/baseelim, but mostly I went to go base because I found it fun when I got picked when it wasn't so full. I remember when they didn't pick me i was like "LOL you newbies im good, pick me im good spider" ect...
after a while playing in base like that, I got myself some reputation of a decent spider (I had like 1:1 ratio with high kills and deaths), S@@R from dudgeon invited me to join that squad and the ball was rolling.

Keep ?go base, but maybe the contribute of the community from the veterans players who cap in go base is to add some people who are unknown and give them a chance. Its should be as the people who cap in go base see it... I don't think it something that should be forced.

Don't shark them because it will kill the game for the whole team. one new spider with other four who are good and more experienced, can form a great team for ?go base, and let new player get into the groove.

[Reaver]

The only real difference is that you're taking a game that could be played in pub and you're moving it to another arena, out of the sight of new players that don't know any better. That's actually a big difference when you think about the negative impact.

I'd only be up for something like this if there were no limitations though. I don't want to be forced to base all the time I'm in pub and when I do base I want to be able to base how I like.

[FarScape]

Man in A LOT of games there is some sort of pick-up side maps/games/way of playing, its not something that ruin games.

[jeem]

I'd be willing to give that a shot. ?go base has been pretty bland anyway.

Although counterpoint: if you remove ?go base, instead of "forcing" older players to go back to pub they might just get lazy and stop playing altogether.

i thought about this but if this game is strictly catering towards older players, once personal issues (boredom, college, wow, etc.) arise and they leave, what then? the newer players are what we need to be worried about, otherwise we turn into hockey zone (if we haven't already, and i think that we have)


heaven: i thought that was interesting but isn't it strange that he chastizes the forums in a forum post? and he contradicts himself, saying that there need to be things that push the envelope and then criticizing games like strikeball and supporting other third-party settings like witness presented. read this post: http://forums.trenchwars.org/showpos...0&postcount=46


farscape: you were not around before ?go base and while that shouldn't be a detriment to your contribution to this thread and the zone in general, you have no basis for comparison. i think it's interesting that you found some support in ?go base but imagine the players who aren't as self-motivated or as immediately talented (in that, if they even manage to go to figure out how to go to other arenas, they don't get picked and leave the game. i don't even get picked in ?go base a majority of the time and i have been on anti-scrub, pallies, and disoblige- how is a newer player going to have a chance?)... i appreciate the input though



edit: reaver: i think the goal is to make pub into something you enjoy, where you can "be able to base how [you] like." want to base 8v8? ?go twbd or get a host and ?go #adman - imagine the spontaneity and reward of organizing a pickup game instead of knowing that there is a game of ?go base going on at this very minute. maybe total removal isn't the best: perhaps only on weekends or just saturdays to create league excitement?

[FarScape]

you were not around before ?go base and while that shouldn't be a detriment to your contribution to this thread and the zone in general, you have no basis for comparison. i think it's interesting that you found some support in ?go base but imagine the players who aren't as self-motivated or as immediately talented (in that, they don't get picked and leave the game. i don't even get picked in ?go base a majority of the time and i have been on anti-scrub, pallies, and disoblige- how is a newer player going to have a chance?)... i appreciate the input though

You are arrogant and maybe because of your "Oh I'm older player" attitude people actually get sick of playing here?
It doesn't matter What was here before ?go base because NOW continuum as a game is much older than 5 years ago. It could be a decrease of population because people just prefer playing better games that are free and more rich than Subspace.

SO instead of telling me if I can contribute to the zone or not, maybe you should stop this thing about coming with ideas of how to stop people from leaving Trench wars. It seems that everyday someone is coming with this brilliant idea and think he is like the most pro player and smarter of all.

Answer me to one question, if the answer is yes than continue reading. if not stop here and ignore my post.
Is the population decrease only in Trench Wars or its affect other zones as well?

Be smart, think how you want to attract new people to the game. Its all about Advertising and improving the way people get into the game at first glance making them NOT to say "O.K i saw and it was cool but not really interesting".
Want to be smart and think that ?go base made people leave, go a head. Just don't tell me crap like I wasn't before Go base when it was around since I started playing it in 2004, So I cant say my opinion about it and contribute to the zone.

[Facetious]

i agree.

but i also dont play ?go base.

or pub.

so

[Kim]

I cannot even begin to comprehend what the backlash will be from players and some staff with the removal of ?go base, even though it is what TWBD has to offer. New players will never walk in there.

Using my own squad as an example, one night we were bored and were not jd'ing or doing anything in particular, so we decided to LT in pub. Well after a while, we built a crowd of people trying to kill us. They'd all ask us questions like, is "Hydra the new thing?" like they never heard of us before. In the eyes of a pub player, they don't even know the names of TWD/TWL squads unless they've seen it for themselves, getting killed by them in the public arena.

I seriously doubt ?go base offers anything to the table that is Trench Wars that public arenas or TWBD could not serve themselves. When you take a look at veteran players who return from the game, no they will not ?go base to get a taste of the game again, they go to 2 places, 1) pub or 2) elim. Lo and behold, these two arenas are the oldest things we have in the zone. People keep trying to tell me that ?go base is what elim is, but no, it is just ?go wbduel and ?go javduel. They are practice arenas for PRACTICE ARENAS! TWD is practice for TWL, so the concept is absolutely silly. Lately javduel and wbduel have been dead, because Elim and Baseelim have been brought back to life. Same could be said about Base and Public arenas.

[Money]

they will get over it, down with base

[jeem]

Is the population decrease only in Trench Wars or its affect other zones as well?

Be smart, think how you want to attract new people to the game. Its all about Advertising and improving the way people get into the game at first glance making them NOT to say "O.K i saw and it was cool but not really interesting".

i guess i came off a little stand-offish because really, in all honesty, i have memories of what pub used to be like that you simply cannot fathom. that is the case.

now, did you really read my post or were you responding entirely to the suggestion of taking down ?go base? maybe my english was a little off:

the way to get newbies interested in the game at first is to have public zones be exciting with new and old players alike. i suggested one idea that might accomplish this. never did i say that i was completely correct and that you must believe what i say. the goal is to create a discussion. i aplogize for personally attacking you, i was just a little distraught.

[Fluffz]

bottom line of this thread: pub stinks.

more pubbots, old cloaker, tk protection, no traditional shiplimits, limit automated arenas please

[jeem]

if there ever was not a bottom line of this thread, that would be entirely it.