New Elim World

[kthx]

They already tried that, but now it has its own zone. Hi "Cheese".

How is your virus running, still 5 people?

[kthx]

A perfect example of how this idea would work would be to look at Hockey Zone.

One Arena
Players make decisions on goals and penalties
Because there is only one arena (lets say... 5 running in TW) there are always staff available because they aren't spread out so thinly.
A very tight knit community emerged from this.
Very few "useless" players because the players won't allow it and the game itself won't allow it.

Because of this they have a very stable playerbase who are all actually involved in running the game even if in a small way, TW could benefit from using this strategy.

[Demonic]

Yes, I agree Demonic but I figured we could have the best of both worlds by having a bot running a wb and a jav elim at the same time in ?go elim, if thats not possible I am still happy with bringing back the old idea.

I also think there are too many automated events happening at the same time, it doesn't make sense to have 10 different available arenas automated and open for use 24/7 like it did when we have an overflowing populace.

So I would suggest..

1. Condensing the pubs into one pub with a larger base.
2. Merging the Elims
3. Making Wbduel/Javduel weekend only
4. Tourny is pretty much dead, might as well kill that one off and maybe hosted tournaments would draw a crowd again.
5. And I know hockeybot and the new pubtest arenas are being worked on but kill the bots for now, kill the 4th/5th matchbots for twdd/twjd/twbd and kill the 2nd/3rd matchbots for twsd.

I know I have said this probably fifty times on these forums but it seems the playerbase and older members of staff are finally starting to agree with me that this zone doesn't have the population to have our playerbase spread out into fifty side arenas anymore. It is beyond time to run a cleanup of bots and events that don't draw a crowd or aren't being used, limit access to matchbots in certain arenas that might make people decide to play in other leagues while they wait, and once again start making Trenchwars more oriented to player to player and player to staff contact over having to deal with bots. I can't stress enough that the community here is what sets this game apart from the other five hundred thousand MMORPG's and other games available on the internet. But in order to keep the players that try out this game they can't enter the game into a pub with ten people and half of them afk because they don't know how to use the esc + a function. We can't expect people to play in other leagues if they never have to, or don't have any reason to. Javs and Warbirds in the same arena talking shit to one another probably made some warbirds learn jav and vice versa in order to kill the person who was shit talking them.

And last but not least we need an active hosting staff to host good events for the population of the zone instead of the same tired crap. I am not calling anyone out or even mentioning anybodies name that I think does a good job here but there needs to be a Maximum allowed hosting of a particular arena or type of event before the host stops getting credit for hosting that type of event or particular arena. Expose players to a variety of events such as jav events, warbird events, zombies, basing, flagging, etc etc etc etc the list could go on, because you never know when some new player, or even an older player might actually have so much fun in that arena that they decide to start playing again.

Once we kill the automation that splits the playerbase apart, hosts will get more players for their events, which in turn gives hosts more motivation to host events, and eventually you can have hosts who care enough to actually have friendly competition with one another to see who can get the most players for their events like used to happen in the good days. This will breed creativity and better hosting and the zone will flourish if it isn't too late.

This is how you fix the zone.
-Kthx

constructive post, with some good idea's which can actually work. My honest thoughts:

merge the elims first, needs to be worked in 2 phases, and from there see how the bots would handle running 2 elims in one arena. The enjoyment in elim used to be the banter as much as actually playing, which requires a playerbase.
Pub needs work, completely agree about pub 2, and if it wasnt for purepub i would suggest just one big pub map.
Dont get me started on automated events like tournybot, i think most ppl know my feelings on having bots run events, and the skill levels of ER's because of that. (i know this is being addressed). As stated, the poplation level is back to 1999/2000 levels before the boom, so the game needs to adapt to where it was.

[Dexter]

Good to have all those ideas.
At first, I'd like to ask
Would bringing elim and belim just 1 bot, or at all, merging them, be good enough?
Imagine the situation of elim ending and belim running, then everyone would have to vote for elim while belim is running. Would it be cool? Or what if the elim and belim ends at the same time, and we'll have to do different votes.
This means, its possible to do it and solve, but its a very complex system and would take much more time of development, since making just 1 bot and "clone" it to belim-elim is a lot easier.
The only point here is not about merging, but about a nice rank system, just like the old one that Priit made. Again, that is the probably what made him code just 1 elim bot to be used in belim and elim, its just about rank and not about merging, since that'd be a lot complex.
So, its just better I work out on 1 bot for each arena and have a nice rank system with good features like showing resolution of the player that had a good streak. And even making a display on the top right showing the top 5 players.

Also, should weasel be removed?
Levi, should just be to 3?

Ok, seems that we'll use the old robo ref system, where k+d >= 500 to you get a rank, and everyone starts from 300 in the rating(k:d) Right?
Lets all focus on the rank system from now on, how you guys would like to have it?

This sounds good, depending on my time, we might have it in some months. Step by step, of course and all the tests before.

Keep on the ideas

[Jason]

wouldn't be hard to parse votes in the event that both games happened to start up at the same time. just require that all votes be prefixed with a vb (for baseelim votes) and a ve (for elim votes), or whatever prefix you like.

[Dexter]

Yes, I know, but I don't think everyone would enjoy and adapt so easy to using prefixes. I could even make the belim system in yellow chat and the elim in blue chat, that could fix everything. But the new players would be lost at start, my point is reviving elim and bringing new players, so we need a simple thing instead of a complex one. Simple things are the best.
Anyways, if you guys really want to merge, we can try, but would be a massive work and with the lucky of being rejected, making me re-code a simple one.

[Zeebu]

i would love old elim back. learn to play both ships.

[Dexter]

i would love old elim back. learn to play both ships.

Sure, how would you like it to be?

[riske]

Put them both in the same arena, have 2 different bots, pm your voting selections to the correct bot. If you esc+belimship you get moved to the belim area, if you esc+elim ship you get moved to elim area.

It doesn't have to be anymore complex than that really. It would be sweet if the ranking system worked right, and could collect more data like JD does, though.

Also get rid of weasel BS or at least make it so they can't cloak, or if you cloak it drains energy, and when you hit 0 energy you get uncloaked. Something has to be done to make it possible+way faster.

[kthx]

Having two bots in the same arena is a bad idea, they would interfere with one another and when one bot locks the arena and says its going to be speccing at five its for the entire arena.

[fLaReD]

So I would suggest..

1. Condensing the pubs into one pub with a larger base.
2. Merging the Elims
3. Making Wbduel/Javduel weekend only
4. Tourny is pretty much dead, might as well kill that one off and maybe hosted tournaments would draw a crowd again.
5. And I know hockeybot and the new pubtest arenas are being worked on but kill the bots for now, kill the 4th/5th matchbots for twdd/twjd/twbd and kill the 2nd/3rd matchbots for twsd.

1. yes, i never see more than like 10 people in the 2nd pub, and i'm guessing the only reason they are there is because they haven't been able to get in pub 0 yet. i don't think we really would need a different/larger base, but at the same time i don't oppose it.

2. by "merging" belim and elim do you mean that people vote on whether to play warbird or javelin, or that they will both be running at the same time in the same arena? seems like it could get a bit messy for me. most people who play are 1-leaguers and stick to only belim or only elim. i really don't think merging them is necessary. however the changes made to the bots would be nice.

3. i disagree with this one. when i sign on and half of the nerds on my squad are playing league or legends while i want to jd i can only hope that javduel is running. i see this javduel and wbduel running frequently, no need to limit them.

4. agree, can't even remember the last time i saw tourny. i also remember the hosted weekend tournaments as being a ton more fun/intense than the automated ones. remove tournybot and make tourneys a hosted weekend event.

5. for twbd we don't need more than 2 areas. for twjd/twdd dont need more than 3, thought 4 doesn't hurt anything (except i think jd4 is the wormhole arena). and we sure as hell don't need more than 1 twsd bot ha.

[gran guerrero]

possibly add a timed elim feature (like a vote) - sort of like a kill race but it's timed.

[riske]

That would depend entirely on how the bots are programmed. The bots that handle the voting dont even have to handle anything else.

On the other hand, since voting only takes like 15 seconds, one elim could just wait until the other is done with voting before it starts.

[Jason]

riske, the problem is that elim/belim rounds will always take varying lengths of time to complete. inevitably, both rounds will end up finishing at the same time. it won't happen often, but it'll happen nonetheless.

[Eugene]

Good posts Kthx, potentially the only person in here with a brain.

1. As I don't think it's possible to have both elim and belim running in one arena, I don't think merging them is a good idea.

2. Merging pubs into a big arena sounds like something I'd be for, but I don't play pub, and I don't have a feel of what most pubbers want, so it is difficult to comment.

3. I play Javduel everyday because belim takes too long. I believe that javduel has replaced what used to be a strong .?go javs arena, and without it i'd be pretty sad.

4. Remove tourny, it is a useless a dying arena.

5. I think the biggest problem at the moment is the lack of hosting good events. I've seen over the past few days a dozen attempts to host "new" maps and new gameplays. No offense to anyone, but they were not fun and I do not plan on playing them again. I think what needs to be done is that there needs to be some dedicated staff members that will host games that draw in crowds, for starters, tournaments always get me playing. This is a list of what I think are good maps that bring the zone alive:

1. Tournaments (Jav/Wb)
2. ww3
3. zombies (overplayed at the moment) [rabbit used to be a good one]
4. spawnfest and regular UFC matches
5. balanceout and go balance
6. more than I may be forgetting such as golden gun games.


Another major problem that I am seeing, and this is a yes-offense post, useless staff members that do nothing. The ones that have no role in twdev, do not host exciting games, and barely fulfill their monthly quota for help calls or whatever they do.
Criticize me if you wish.