Distension: the future of Trench Wars

[DankNuggets]

IDEAS are free

I think distension should be run akin to elim. That is, the bot is up 24/7, and the event has the ability to run 24/7 if it has the population to sustain a game. And advert it everytime a new game starts up: "Intergalactic Planetary is on a 3 game streak! ?go DIStenSION to join the battle"

Really, there's no one who's had a good argument against this, except for the argument that some people will level up too fast and make the game unbalanced.

Here's a solution: Instead of capping the games at 6 hr/day, cap the individual's usage at 6 hr/day.

Similar to the queue now, if you're the longest player, it doesn't let you in. Keep the queue system, but if you've logged more than 360 minutes in one day in distension, then you're automatically kicked from the queue with a nice "You've played to much today, go outside for a change" message.


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Distension is by far the most addictive event/arena. This is because you have to be playing 100% of the time (useless wbs aside) for your team to win and by utilizing the most of your online time, you get the most reward.

That being said, it goes against the entire idea of the pubs to have distension as the entry arena -- it's not a casual arena. However, it should still get the same status as pub or elim or any other public arena with a dedicated bot.

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Distension SHOULD SHOULD SHOULD be hosted on weekends. It's nothing but SELFISH to not host it then. Older players who come on only on the weekends to fuck around don't have to hit esc+a and page down to distension. they can play the good ol' pubs they've had for a decade with no changes what so ever. Guess what, it's also a good way to introduce them to the new game.

OK, so what's the next anti-weekend angle? Events? The whole purpose of a weekend event is to draw enough curiosity from the pubs to get a big population for a fun game. Well, if you can't do that with distension running, then OBVIOUSLY it's not what people want to play. Why force them to play something they don't want to play? so you can say you hosted a 100 person event?

Last angle? TWL? FFS, if you're more willing to play distension than a TWL game, why the fuck are you on a TWL squad? We shouldn't have to make that decision for anyone. And if you want people to spectate that shit instead of actually play a game, die in a fire.

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One more thing to get straight.

The current schedule(?) is a huge cause for concern in regards to future planning. It's not hosted promptly or transparently at all. I've logged on so many times around 5 pm to see "last seen 1 hr ago" or some other shit. Or ppl in chat say "no distension this weekend b/c blah blah". If it's something like the biller lagging, ok. But that's about the first legitimate reason i've seen.

We have NO IDEA what it will be like 24/7, because it hasn't been tested.

We've tested the whole "2 sessions a day, for 1.5 - 3 hrs" SINCE BETA, FOR OVER A YEAR NOW.

Right now you have people getting rank 50 because they're playing every second, in fear that they'll not get to play in the future. If people knew that the game would be on whenever they logged in, they'd play more leisurely. Sure you'd have a few chasing the "top 5" page, but most people would see the long term goal of ranking up, and not play every fricking second, because they know they could play later (not so right now).

The schedule as it is breeds those everyminute-players. Imagine if Elim was restricted to 3 hrs a day, the competetion would be fierce. So it is with distension atm, whereas if it was on constantly, people would play less often, and for shorter sessions.

Who knows, they might even play for two hours, feel sastisfied with distension, and go play pub, elims, or even a dd or two... knowing they could always play it later.

[sonlox]

Distension is by far the most addictive event/arena. This is because you have to be playing 100% of the time (useless wbs aside) for your team to win and by utilizing the most of your online time, you get the most reward.

The reason why tw is fun is you can jump in and out of the action and still be on the same level playing field. Distension cant be the future of TW cause anything you have to invest so much time or have to be logged in 24/7 just to compete will just piss people off.

[Vehicle]

Dank, while you present some valid points I think you have to seperate your opinion from your analysis.

There is no reason to have to zone for Dist the same way you zone for Elim. Players don't leave between rounds. The arena is pretty much always full. I also think there is something to be said about the idea that running it 24/7 would decrease the popularity of the event.

I personally was way more addicted to ?go base (and its predecessors) when it was new than I am to distension. So your statement is just an extension of your opinion. That being said, I think there is some ounce of truth that casual play is not viable in Distension.

Distension shouldn't shouldn't shouldn't be hosted on weekends unless it's after 6 PM EST. The argument here is obvious. Yes, no one is forcing you to play distension, this is true. But the fact of the matter is that distension sucks up a lot of the player base. While I'm sure a lot of squads would still find TWD matches to get ready for TWL, I would argue the competition in TWL would decline as would the amount of people watching TWL games. Couple this with the fact that weekend events provide some sort of flavour to the otherwise monotonous zone and I, personally, think it would detrimental to have it running.

As far as your comment about scheduling. Consider what I said above about the bot advertising every round. As I've said over and over and over again, rather than go from no serious schedule to 24/7 gameplay, why don't we come up with a working schedule with two long playing windows? Seems reasonable to me.

I'm not trying to attack you but you have to realize that not everyone is as much of a Distension fanatic as you seem to be.

[DankNuggets]

Dank, while you present some valid points I think you have to seperate your opinion from your analysis.

There is no reason to have to zone for Dist the same way you zone for Elim. Players don't leave between rounds. The arena is pretty much always full. I also think there is something to be said about the idea that running it 24/7 would decrease the popularity of the event.

This was actually thrown in after I typed all that up to show that particular annoying fact of elim. Also, moving along the thought train that the activity will decrease given time in distension, adverts wouldn't be a bad idea. But, I'm perfectly happy with keeping ALL adverts within the chat, and never zoning the game. Please don't view this as a point of contention, because I'd really rather there not be adverts, so that I wouldn't have to wait in the queue anyway.

I personally was way more addicted to ?go base (and its predecessors) when it was new than I am to distension. So your statement is just an extension of your opinion. That being said, I think there is some ounce of truth that casual play is not viable in Distension.

I admit, there really hasn't been to many innovations since I started playing akin ?go base or distension. I thought it's understood when I say it's the most addictive and popular that I mean currently. Also, saying something is "the most" is obviously my opinion, but there are quantitive ways to measure this... like the ppl waiting in spec, long waits for the queue, etc...

It's definitely not casual, and part of the introduction of the ball game/wait period was to make it a bit more casual. Problem is, if it's on for a limited time, people are going to try to get every bit of RP they can.

Distension shouldn't shouldn't shouldn't be hosted on weekends unless it's after 6 PM EST. The argument here is obvious. Yes, no one is forcing you to play distension, this is true. But the fact of the matter is that distension sucks up a lot of the player base. While I'm sure a lot of squads would still find TWD matches to get ready for TWL, I would argue the competition in TWL would decline as would the amount of people watching TWL games. Couple this with the fact that weekend events provide some sort of flavour to the otherwise monotonous zone and I, personally, think it would detrimental to have it running.

Here's where our biases split. I personally think Distension is way more interesting than TWL. That's why I don't see the problem with having both up, and allowing people to choose which they like more. Obviously people who like TWL more want to see distension go down. I'm not saying we should stop TWD/L to allow distension! This is a double standard. And like I said earlier, if you'd really rather watch a TWL game (championship aside maybe) than I have zero sympathy for you. I'd rather watch a game of distension, waiting to get in from the queue. I'm definitely not going to watch a TWL game just because distension isn't on. Weekend events do provide fun, but only if they're really different from normal weekday events, and they provide enough interest to get the people to ?go. People won't always want to play distension over weekend events... but if you limit the amt of time people can play distension, their priorities are going to change (RE:TWL).

As far as your comment about scheduling. Consider what I said above about the bot advertising every round. As I've said over and over and over again, rather than go from no serious schedule to 24/7 gameplay, why don't we come up with a working schedule with two long playing windows? Seems reasonable to me.

Disregarding the zoners, you're forgetting about the entire BETA process, where it was hosted somewhat consistantly for two long sessions. It was hosted in the morning/afternoon and the evening (eastern time). It was pretty full around the peak activity of beta then, and it was limited only due to bugs and qan/alinea/LE's availibility. We've actually had a 2 session a day schedule since the beginning a year ago. Your solution of much larger windows would be a start at a compromise, as retaining the status quo isn't one at all.

I'm not trying to attack you but you have to realize that not everyone is as much of a Distension fanatic as you seem to be.

I don't see it as an attack at all, quite the opposite <3 I'm glad some staff have been converted towards the distension fanatics


PS: I'd like to be a Distension Op too :wub:

[Ward]

If pub will be turned into distension what's that gona make out of the zone? Newbies need to get a taste of what this zone is like, because the main aspects are twd and twl. Distension should be scrapped out of TW and made as a separate zone

[kthx]

I honestly think people have their priorities jacked up when it comes to distension. The thing is.. there are MMORPG's everywhere, WOW, MapleStory, the list could go on for another 20 pages full of games that are almost exactly identical to what Distension is only with better graphics and better game play. The zone considering that events like Distension are amazing just furthers my proof that we really need some good hosts. When hosting is bad, and we have people hosting that are not entertaining, host bad events, and don't host games properly of course people are going to go to an event like Distension that is ran by a bot, you might as well. The "Future of this game" is in the history of this game. We don't need to automate everything, we need more staff to player communication, we need people hosting events in a way that people have fun playing them. We need to re-establish the fact that TWL and TWD are the primary reasons why this zone is still alive in the first place. And instead of throwing hundreds of hours into one single event that is fun for right now instead of spending those hours improving what this zone was built on is rather asinine.

I understand that Distension is a very popular game, and that when older players go play it that they don't have anything new to learn. But I am afraid that the new generation of players will play Distension, especially with the way that so many people look at it as the "holy grail" of TW and think that playing Distension and leveling up is the ultimate way to "win" in TW instead of winning a TWL. This game doesn't promote leadership, it doesn't teach players anything about the game outside of Distension, it doesn't promote squads, all it does is breed players who are basically useless outside of Distension due to the extreme ship settings of the arena. I realize I am an older player and so I see this game in a different way that many people do but I think that this is almost a backwards step for this game. It creates a deadly cycle for good hosts, and if and when it becomes more popular and hosted more often, you can basically expect there to be nearly no hosted events anymore.

So your saying that it is fine because we have Distension and that is more popular than hosted events anyways. Well look into the future and think what happens if lets say.. six months down the road Distension gets boring, stale, and people stop playing as much. There are already tons of ER's pissed about the fact that when it is on, it is almost impossible to host, I notice when it is on things like wbduel, javduel, elimbeta, base, etc are all nearly empty. So by setting this up as the savior of TW we are also doing two things.

1. We are alienating the playerbase that wants to play hosted events other than distension, while pissing off hosts to the point where they feel like hosting is pointless.

2. We are alienating the playerbase that wants to play events like wbduel, base, javduel, and the other events that actually help to promote competition in TWL and TWD as well as introduce new players to them.

So in closing, I don't feel that Distension being hosted more often is the way to fix the zone, I don't feel that making it the new Pub is the way to make the zone a better place. I even feel that not everyone that plays Distension even wants to play it, they are just forced to when it is on because there are no other events with enough players to be entertaining. So before you go off the deep end and declare Trench Wars dead and Distension Wars starting, you need to stop being greedy, and think about the aspects that this game was built on, and should gracefully end on in the future.

[D1st0rt]

Whatever you do, don't talk to people with experience running RPG zones.

[roxxkatt]

from
http://forums.trenchwars.org/showpos...98&postcount=4

http://trenchwars.org/index.php?v=objectives


Main Objectives

-To maintain a strong presence of automation in the zone

this

[Lock]

I completely agree with kthx. While distension is fun to play, it sort of killing tw. We really do need better hosts to do a better job and host better events.

Get rid of that sad fucking excuse of an automated tourny and bring back hosted tournaments. Make them a weekend event and record winners each weekend. That will surely bring people back for more every week. You can do 1v1 and 2v2 javs and wbs, but make it hosted and not automated.

Stop hosting ?go bug just because it is easy. Do something worth while with your time, or don't be a staff member.

[Lemmin]

If you are planning on making distension into pub (something I am strongly against) then it is absolutely imperative that you have some way of protecting new players from veteran players. Every other online mumorperger has this - if you don't, then you won't ever get any new players.

Before you suggest making dist the main attraction of TW, think about how you would do this so that its as easy as possible for new people to join. Making people read word files or go to tutorial arenas won't work - people want to start playing and having fun immediately. TW is already too hard to play as it is (I bet most new players get put off within the first 5 minutes because they are killed while trying to learn pub, and that the new players who actually DO stick around are those who are introduced and tutored by their friends).

I'd also like to point out that TW *IS* its settings. Distension is NOT the same settings, so by rights it should be shunted onto its own zone (at least IMO). I know theres a few parts of the zone that use other settings, but they are events - the core of TW (pub, elim, belim, base, javs, TWD, TWL) all use the same settings.

Other points already made in the other kill dist thread....

LEM

[kthx]

It is stupid for this game to try to stay on the "cutting edge of technology" by making it an MMORPG.. there are too many better versions of it on the market. We need to keep this game what it was to keep players.. most people play this game because they make friends on chats and squads, and feel obligated to log on to play games with their squad. Lets face it, TW isn't going to be the next WOW, but we will be the only 2d spaceship game.

[2kill]

personnal I have stoped playing continuum unless distension is up or I can't get on a better computer (that has better games) or I know that distension is coming up. now that being said I DO NOT want distension made pub this would be a mistake in my opioion.

The other thing I'd been thinking about (as a distant potential) would be league games using Distension ships. In a contained match, players would be given rank X in all ships, and would have 10 minutes to assemble their ships as they please. After that point, you'd have a DD, JD or BD proceed as normal. This might open up more options, really... perhaps it would legitimize Levis and Weasels in basing, as well as allow new leagues to open? This could bridge Distension-only players with league play, and perhaps encourage larger kinds of competition... players might be competitive in the Distension version of BD, and also the regular DD. Wark also has an idea for Distension squads internal to the game that might help players become involved in other parts of the zone.

Bottom line: let's think of ways Distension can be used to bring the zone population and participation back up. If we assume it will divide us, or take over entirely, we're admitting to defeat that none would like.

this is my counter to the argument that distension breeds players that would not promote anything besides distension playing. a league would give people an intro into comperitive game play perhaps leading even into twbd, twdd, twjd.

In summery,

• distension should NOT be made pub but a highly suggested secondary arena.
• a distension league should be added to run along side normal tw leagues.
• distension should be given longer play periods to get people to be willing to play other things while waiting to get in (this will only work once dug gets the bot to pm people that a spot is open outside of the distension area which he is working on)

cya all in supspace
2kill

(Edit: distension does not need to be the second coming of WoW. but the fact that it exists means that we can start to try to advertise on MMORPG websites... which shows this game to a whole new crowd)

[kthx]

personnal I have stoped playing continuum unless distension is up or I can't get on a better computer (that has better games) or I know that distension is coming up. now that being said I DO NOT want distension made pub this would be a mistake in my opioion.

this is my counter to the argument that distension breeds players that would not promote anything besides distension playing. a league would give people an intro into comperitive game play perhaps leading even into twbd, twdd, twjd.

Ok...

(Edit: distension does not need to be the second coming of WoW. but the fact that it exists means that we can start to try to advertise on MMORPG websites... which shows this game to a whole new crowd)

It is stupid for this game to try to stay on the "cutting edge of technology" by making it an MMORPG.. there are too many better versions of it on the market.

We aren't going to get WOW and MapleQuest players to play distension in TW.. if we lied to them and said TW was a MMORPG they would leave instantly after seeing that obvious lie.

[Kim]

There's a whole zone devoted to that (Hyperspace), and quite frankly, its not very newbie friendly. Not until d1st0rt gave me free $ to buy stuff with, basically starting with 0 gives you a huge disadvantage as there is nothing to balance the level extremes.

There needs be 1 goal for the future of publics, and for TW's future, and that all this random pubbing needs to be channeled into a just cause for it all. If there is no reason to get kills, earn points, and flag.....there is no incentive. I love how accessible pubs are right now, but there needs to be a goal for all players on a team to work towards. Maybe we should start deviating to something similar to Counter Strike (vaguely). Similarly to how you have Terrorists vs Counter-terrorists, both factions have to kill each other, but they have very different goals to achieve on top of killing each other. Borrowing from distension, having 2 bases, 2 flags, would allow players to play both offensively and defensively, because not everyone likes to attack. Maybe LVZ can be implimented into our pubs to make these rules as straight to the point as possible, and as soon as a new player gets into a ship, he'll know his role and at least TRY to attempt it.

[schope]

i think this shit will die because its all the opposite of tw spirit.

tw spirit was allways like "most talented player wins"

now with distension bullshit its like "biggest no life nerd wins".

So you only gotta play all the time to get a higher rank and be powered ?

dont think it will work for long time.