Distension: the future of Trench Wars

[Stabwound]

We all know that Trench Wars and Continuum are dying a slow and agonizing death. Staff and players have the attitude that nothing should ever change in the zone, and that's why it's dying. The pubs are the biggest issue the zone has; they are the most important aspect of keeping and building a player base, and they obviously aren't doing a very good job of it at the moment. Over the course of only a few years we've gone from having 7-8 packed pubs to only 2, and the population is on a decline. I wouldn't be surprised if we're down to 1 pub within another year or two, and still people are crying out that we can't touch the precious pubs/settings that have barely changed over the past 10 years, because they "are" Trench Wars. Guess what? That's why it's dying.

Some players and staff are pushing to advertise and promote Continuum, but for what? When a new player downloads the game, they're most likely to try out the most popular zone, which is, of course, Trench Wars. It's pointless if the new players won't stick around. The first and last thing the majority of people that try this game see are the pubs, and if they don't hold a player's attention, they're gone. The current Continuum just can't compete as well in the online gaming market anymore.

I think TW would be smart to embrace Distension. Keeping TW static will surely be the death of it, and I think that somehow implementing Distension into pubs could very well revitalize the zone/game. The popularity of Distension is quite apparent, and the arena is almost always packed with 10-15 waiting in queue each time it's hosted and zoned for at a reasonable time of day. Right now there are about 50 people playing in pubs: about the same that Distension gets each time it's hosted, and you have to consider that Distension has a low player limit. The in-game Distension chat is the largest zone chat in TW. When the game isn't being hosted, it's constantly being discussed and everyone is asking when it's going to be on again. When is the last time you've seen something like this in Trench Wars? Never. This is a massive thing for the zone and probably Continuum in general. It makes people want to log in and play the game.

Think about how much easier it would be to rebuild a player base if Trench Wars were marketed as a space/action RPG. Online RPGs are huge right now, and the game of Distension is a highly popular and addictive one. Of course, we'd still have elims, TWD, TWL and whatnot, but the main game of Trench Wars would become Distension, rather than the loose basing game the pubs are right now. We could even still have a regular old pub for players whom are that stubborn. The game of Distension would need to become a bit more user-friendly, as it has a much steeper learning curve than current TW, and a lack of decent documentation. Brand new players could be thrown into a tutorial arena which displays a short introduction and explains the game to them, including aspects such as the basics of Distension, the chat/messaging system, etc, but let players skip this if they wish. When advertising the game, make it known that the game is completely free, with no fees or purchasable perks whatsoever, which is a large advantage for the game.

You might say that the game would become too imbalanced for new players, but there is a simple situation to that. Make new players start out in an arena that allows only ships of rank 15 and below so that they can get their bearings on the game and controls. Of course, players wouldn't be locked in this arena, and could go into unrestricted arenas if they pleased, but it would be best for them to stay there to rank up a bit and get acquainted with the game. Afterward, the players would graduate into the 'big leagues' and be free to be slaughtered by whomever they please. =P

It could also implement the achievements idea discussed here which are another fun little thing that keep people coming back for more. Distension is already a complete and fully playable game, but there's lots that could be added and upgraded to it over time, unlike the current static pubs we have. Having updates to a game go a long way in making it seem like it's still alive and kicking, which are few and far between these days.

Again: elims, TWD/TWL and hosted events would NOT be touched at all, so don't worry about any of that.

I really do believe that Distension can save Trench Wars/Continuum if it's handled correctly. I'm under no illusion that it's ever going to be massively popular, but there's no reason why the TW population couldn't starting climbing again, rather than falling.

Think about it.

[Krazie_Killer]

Personally, i think distension is just a phase. once players' ranks begin to sky rocket, the peeons will lose interest, and return to pub.

This is what i'd like to see happen to distension:

Schedule distension during the week, for a fixed amount of hours per day.

Distension SHOULD NOT be hosted on weekends

[Stabwound]

For the record, I think rank is given out much too quickly. It could stand to be much smaller, especially if it's going to be run long-term.

[FarScape]

For the record, I think rank is given out much too quickly. It could stand to be much smaller, especially if it's going to be run long-term.

As in any RPG's, ranking should be as compared to the ship level. Meaning that it will be easier to get to level 30, but after that it will be pain to get to level 40, extreme hard and long to 50, and "ill quit this shit" to level 60+.


Basically, I think its pretty balanced now so most of the players are around level 25-35. I hope that later on, it wont be as much as easy to advance.
I can tell that it took some time for me to get from level 30 to level 40, considering the fact that I'm o.k spider ^-^
Terriers however seem to advance pretty fast, but I hope that sooner or later (I mean, raible already level 50) they will have hard time to advance.
It's of course based on the global ships level RP (kills) bonuses (win/lose/flags) and other misc. (!assist, higher RP to rank in every ship level etc, RP sharing?), so I don't know if it will ever happen.

[HateTheFake]

distension is killing trenchwars, as of now you can say you enjoy it, but how often will you continue to play it after they reset your progress every 6 months. Im guessing not long. In the meantime theres noone to twd, noone to play events with, because most of them are in distension. I think tw took a big step back with distension and alot of players who come on to twd, will just get bored and leave.

[E sharp]

As much as I love Distension I don't know whether I'd like it to become the focus of Trench Wars. It's great fun as an event, an interesting variation, but I'd rather have it as something like ?go base: that is, if there are enough people wanting to play then any old ER can start up the bot for a round (or three)—and if there's still any interest afterward then rinse, repeat, etc. I don't think you'd have to worry about it bringing down the rest of the zone; base and the elims haven't done so yet. They're all fun on their own, but I wouldn't want any of them to become pub. The people who enjoy Distension are already playing it.

[Pressure Drop]

I disagree with this

Publics are important to a large reserve of causal players that really bump up this zones activity. The ability to jump into a spaceship and know it’s settings over the last few years is great, to have to level up your spaceship can add a new dimension or bring a new lease of life to active players who have grown bored of TW but not necessarily the large casual player base.

If you make this the default zone where you have to play regularly to enjoy the perks of levelling up your spaceship you are less likely to be inclined to play unless you can devote a large chunk of time to it, also as someone else mentioned each wave of resets would see more people not bothering to level up again and lead to a natural decline.

I remember playing that Desert Storm zone and it was fun levelling up but ultimately after a few run throughs I still preferred TW as you can just jump in any ship and know what your getting.

I’m not against change and I’d overhaul the levi, change some bonus greens, add more ?buy options and add in a tough tkwatcher in pub that ignores the shark or cuts it more slack and other things like add a small attach bty to javs etc etc… things that I’d believe would add more fairness as well as fun to pub

Distension is still new in terms of TW and goes against the grain of the structure of TW i.e. essentially the ship settings are the same in pubs, TWD TWL TWEL etc … if this is the new default do you change TWD too? Or are new players playing completely different ships to the leagues?

I’d be strongly against this sort of change -_-

[dako]

I'm pretty sure it was made known that there is no intention for distension to EVER be reset. A lot of people dont realize that while there are rank 50 terrs, this is less than ONE ONE-THOUSANDTH of the way to rank 80 as far as total RP goes, and less than one half of the way to rank 60. I will however agree that the ship levelling is inherently too fast, as its been a month and there are already rank 30+ in every ship, and rank 40+ in jav, terr, spider, shark, and soon to be warbird.

[HateTheFake]

I'm pretty sure it was made known that there is no intention for distension to EVER be reset. A lot of people dont realize that while there are rank 50 terrs, this is less than ONE ONE-THOUSANDTH of the way to rank 80 as far as total RP goes, and less than one half of the way to rank 60. I will however agree that the ship levelling is inherently too fast, as its been a month and there are already rank 30+ in every ship, and rank 40+ in jav, terr, spider, shark, and soon to be warbird.

then you are wrong, dug has mentioned a few times already of the resets.

[HateTheFake]

Really I wouldn't be against reducing the amount required for all ships in the higher ranks and just having more frequent resets, maybe one every 6 months. But we would definitely be looking at reset potential. This isn't so bad considering you could level one ship up pretty high, and then next reset focus on a different one. Meanwhile the rate at which you ranked would still remain fast enough to keep it interesting.

Also take into consideration that after beta there should be a few more people filtering in and out of the arena, creating a more diverse rank set and generally more havoc to be wreaked.

this

[Spikester]

I think stabwound is right.


He makes a good point and presents it well, too.

[Vehicle]

So I just wrote all of this and realized it’s a fucking essay, important parts are bolded:

Distension is great in and of itself, but it’s also important to recognize that it’s new. Yes there was beta testing, but that is entirely different from the huge public rollout we’ve seen in the past month. I think before we start making decisions about what direction to take Distension, we should wait and see how it develops in terms of gameplay and popularity after a few months of uptime.

Hell, I would say before putting distension in pubs it would be in our best interest to run it 24/7 for a couple of weeks and see if the interest still remains.

With that being said there are definitely problems to implementing it in pubs. As was pointed out, leveling is a major issue as veteran players will surely outgun new guys. This could be solved, as Stab pointed out, with an arena dedicated to low level players. The problem with this, though, is that if there aren’t enough new players, that pub wouldn’t have a big enough population to keep players there. Then, if they go to the other pub and get slaughtered they’re more likely to quit.

I’m not sure how to solve this problem as far as the short term aspect, but for long term I think rating resets would be imperative. I know people loathe the idea of starting again from scratch, and I don’t blame them. But you have to take into consideration what one high level spider, when it gets super, can already do to a balanced distension game. This is just an isolated example but it’s inherent of the sort of obstacles you’ll come across if its rolled out into pubs.

With a RP reset, veteran players have a few options that I think would keep them from leaving. First, the opportunity to use different ships. Personally, and I’m probably not alone, I play three distension ships and the third is only because I unlocked the levi and wanted yellow bombs. You reset and a player who was bored with their high level terr can now switch to shark because everyone is starting low.

Secondly, even if players want to stick to the ship(s) they’ve been playing, they can now upgrade and specialize their ship differently than they had previously had it set. To encourage this, I would maybe come up with some more upgrades, although there are already a shit ton.

With all of that aside, if you put distension in pub you would have to make leveling more difficult. 24/7, 7 days a week is a lot of time. A lot of people with no lives play this game. You make the connection.

I also think a tutorial arena would be imperative because the learning curve on DBot is like a 90 degree angle. Minimally, a Word doc that thoroughly explains the ins and out of the game.

Other than that I think it’s an interesting idea and I also think it could drive back the exodus from Continuum and, if marketed and handled correctly, draw more players to the zone.

[Viruk]

I don't think any one arena can be 'the future' of Trenchwars. I suspect one of the main reasons it has so many players compared to other zones is because it has such a good collection of different arenas and events.

Best accept the fact that Continuum and all its zones will never get back to the same population they had in its golden age. The game itself - not just the settings or the graphics - is old now. I do think that Distension is popular enough to give the zone a boost that might slow its decline for a while if correctly implemented and marketed.

Currently the way Distension is run to a poorly adhered-to, infrequent schedule with odd extra sessions means that any new players are likely to miss it or if they do get to play it they have no clue as to when it will be back. Only the most enthusiastic will bother to hang around other parts of the zone waiting for it.

I would like to see (semi)permanent Distension integrated with other existing arenas as much as possible but I don't see it as a replacement for the existing pubs. It is probably best that new players learn the basics in a pub arena and then move on to Distension (or one of the other well-advertised areas of TW) if they want to. Those who want to jump right in to Distension should be allowed to do so.
Having new players arriving straight into a Distension tutorial arena sparsely populated with other newbies or a busy Distension arena full of high powered ships both seem terrible ideas to me.

[dads revenge]

Pubbers wont stand for it.

[roxxkatt]

u mean the same pubbers that wont stand your daily 'big bounty' and 'wild guns' events?