Changes in pub #2

[Bukkake Surprise]

"2-1 vote (almost 150 people voted)"

Votes held on the forum are worthless, since most people who play the game don't bother with the forums. For a vote to count, make it pop up when people log in.

Can we see the voter list and how they voted? I suspect the private LTing assholes (mods/griefers) skewed the results.

"the players (and not just all basers) voted for the old levi"

Yeah, the parasites who have their fun at the expense of everyone else voted to be allowed to continue to annoy people. Don't tell me you're surprised. Again, most people who play the game fight for the base, and most people who play the game don't bother with the forums.

Making the levi's attachment bounty 10 is stupid even by TW staff standards.

"The only thing I hear is more along the lines of "well if they can't don't like it, they can adjust or quit..." type of attitude."

That's exactly the attitude the private LTing assholes have towards basers, and some mods have that as well. Look at WingZero.

"Pub is more than just basing, which included LTs in the past."

The keyword being "past". Times have changed, and now there are no more good players who can hunt LTs, especially when LTs can buy a ton of stuff on the fly. You just have a bunch of idiots who sit in base and get blasted. You don't see noobs LTing or chasing LTs. They're happy to fight for the base. You want to alienate them instead of the griefers? Go ahead. Without the basers, the private LTing so close to the mods' hearts will vanish.

The previous map was just fine. I don't give a shit how "iconic" Arilou's map is (and it is the map I started this game on). Bring it back for one week a year and it's enough.

"Pub is not meant to be all about basing, otherwise there would be no streaks for warbirds"

Right...cause you can't get streaks in base... Do you remember when streaks didn't exist? Was pub all about basing then?

"Pub needs stability above all else"

This is true, but changes for the better would also be ok. However, the changes as of late have been for the worse. That's why I stopped playing. !buy flag + !buy base + !buy win + overpowered levi + fully invisible weasel + unpunished TKers + shitty map = garbage gameplay. Add stupid and abusive mods, and it becomes downright hilarious that you expect people to stick with this game.

And I was a frequent pub player.

"If the leader really cared, he would poll the players for any lasting decision just like fiS did."

I don't remember fis polling me for anything. Did it happen on the forums? Cause, see above.

I still don't know who the imbecile who made the rocks really hard to see was. I'd like to poll him over the head with a highly visible rock.

"They're not stupid."

Hahahahaha! It seems like you're the one who doesn't play pub much. How someone can play this game for two weeks and not conclude that the majority of the people playing it are fantastic retards is beyond me.

[Left_Eye]

"2-1 vote (almost 150 people voted)"

Votes held on the forum are worthless, since most people who play the game don't bother with the forums. For a vote to count, make it pop up when people log in.

The vote was in game. It wasn't even on forums. Any vote on forums would be skewed, but it was only available to those that actually logged in. It was used by TW-Poll bot in public that PM'd players upon entry every time they entered. So it met your qualifications that you asked for a poll to entail. The vote was up for... a little longer than a week if my memory serves right.

"They're not stupid."

Hahahahaha! It seems like you're the one who doesn't play pub much. How someone can play this game for two weeks and not conclude that the majority of the people playing it are fantastic retards is beyond me.

They really aren't stupid. They have intelligence and common sense. Whether they are always reasonable to deal with is a separate thing. However, they are old enough and smart enough to know what they want in a game, and usually have played TW for a good amount of time to be able to have their voices heard/polled.

[Bukkake Surprise]

Do you not read the pub chat on occasion? Do you not see how they play? Intelligence? Common sense? What a complete and utter joke. Most people in the world are morons, not just the ones in this game.

In any case, I hope this game survives and becomes fun to play again. It's a mostly unfounded hope, since after reading some threads on the forum over the past few weeks, I have realized that the situation is worse than I thought, and nobody has any clue how to steer the ship. Mods are throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks - a true sign of desperation.

Hmm...thinking back, perhaps there was a poll of some sort. I vaguely remember something like that. I usually don't read the message, since it's invariably worthless, and I never participate in polls either, because that's also a waste of time. The one time I typed what the bot said nothing happened.

[Ephemeral]

…
Pub is not meant to be all about basing, otherwise there would be no streaks for warbirds, no streaks continuing in safety, no LTs in the first place, all ships would be basing ships, there would be no duels, etc. Pub is more than just basing, which includes LTs, whether you like them or not…

IMO a bad choice of words and one I do not agree with. Pub is the cover to the TW book and the mission statement on the zone web site does indeed state the primary objective of the zone as; “To maintain the game play focus of this zone; Basing, and to promote it to newer players and establish it within the community (Publics)”.

I also do not understand the logic of ‘otherwise there would be no streaks for warbirds, no streaks continuing in safety, no LTs in the first place’. Perhaps I am misunderstanding you but surely you aren’t arguing that just because certain features exist then their existence is justified?

The ‘age old’ argument between basers and LTers exists only because we were too stupid to end private frequency LTs. An LT that is on a frequency which is trying to capture the flag room falls well within the objective of Pub. But two assholes who kill off a 30 minute competitive game by raining down bombs on the flag room for their own pleasure is the real issue. Anyone with two eyes and has played Pub more than once has seen this happen and knows what happens; the game collapses and players log off. (Same thing happens when someone would ?buy win to end a great competitive flag room fight.)

Used in the right way there is nothing wrong with an LT and I concur it is part of the game. It should be used to ‘soften’ the FR for the rest of your team as they try to take the flag room. But a two person private frequency LT serves no strategic value whatsoever. And in fact having two experienced players climb into a private frequency LT for the sole purpose of disrupting Pub IS damaging to the zone.

Over and over the zone has introduced ‘features’ that negatively impacted competitive play in Pub 0; it literally has gone on for years. Someone comes up with an idea that can be coded and it gets implemented without thought to the objective of the zone. Pub has been treated like a test bed because no one wanted to spend time developing stuff only to not have it used. The list of these kinds of decisions is long; pub bucks, kill-a-thons, etc.

And just like what has recently happened, when the zone leadership wants to fix things like removing pub buck completely they get ‘push back’ by others in staff. And because the zone can hardly stand to lose even a few player, never mind those who contribute more by working on staff, the leadership waters down its decisions or tries to make changes ‘in steps’. Anyone who has invested huge amounts of time and effort into these features is obviously going to be upset. We all know how difficult it is to divest yourself once you are so close to something you have given birth to; this is common sense. But does this mean that they have the best interests of the zone in mind? The real issue was that no one was there to ask that question before anyone spent any time developing it in the first place. These features then have to go through endless tweaks trying to make them compatible with the objective of the zone.

Public opinion is important but should never trump good leadership. Leadership is leadership because it is supposed to have vision (and backbone) that the public might not have. Leadership is about selling and getting buy-in for that vision and in these kinds of sticky issues. If the public or majority could always be counted on doing the right thing we wouldn’t need leadership at all. But good leadership is not about flexing muscles, watering down the hard decisions, or making friends. Good leaders are often not that ‘loved’ while they serve but history always remembers them well.
eph

[Steep]

Most people in the world are morons

Good thing you are not!


ps hit the Reply With Quote to quote someone!

[Left_Eye]

IMO a bad choice of words and one I do not agree with. Pub is the cover to the TW book and the mission statement on the zone web site does indeed state the primary objective of the zone as; “To maintain the game play focus of this zone; Basing, and to promote it to newer players and establish it within the community (Publics)”.

I also do not understand the logic of ‘otherwise there would be no streaks for warbirds, no streaks continuing in safety, no LTs in the first place’. Perhaps I am misunderstanding you but surely you aren’t arguing that just because certain features exist then their existence is justified?

Eph, you are also consciously failing to quote that full paragraph, probably with the reason to bolster your argument and twist words. If I'm not mistaken, it also talks about not disregarding "other aspects" of Trench Wars such as dueling, etc. LTing has been one of those "other" aspects of Trench Wars that has been around. In addition, one of the constant words on that main page is fostering teamwork. There is rarely a thing in this game, besides being on public freq, that fosters teamwork as an LT, whether public or private. So you can dislike the words as much as you want, but LTing, both private and public, have been a part of TW and by simply changing their role, even you are disregarding this mission statement you rely upon so heavily.

The ‘age old’ argument between basers and LTers exists only because we were too stupid to end private frequency LTs. An LT that is on a frequency which is trying to capture the flag room falls well within the objective of Pub. But two assholes who kill off a 30 minute competitive game by raining down bombs on the flag room for their own pleasure is the real issue. Anyone with two eyes and has played Pub more than once has seen this happen and knows what happens; the game collapses and players log off. (Same thing happens when someone would ?buy win to end a great competitive flag room fight.)

Used in the right way there is nothing wrong with an LT and I concur it is part of the game. It should be used to ‘soften’ the FR for the rest of your team as they try to take the flag room. But a two person private frequency LT serves no strategic value whatsoever. And in fact having two experienced players climb into a private frequency LT for the sole purpose of disrupting Pub IS damaging to the zone.

If you read my posts with care, they simply state that LTs, both private and public are part of the game, and by changing them in such a drastic manner, they are doing unnecessary and drastic changes that do not need to be done in the first place. There are many other alternatives that are better suited to this situation, such as giving huge incentives for an LT to be on a public team, such as not permitting private LTs to have access to buy things or removing all pubbux prizes gained for private LTs that do not participate in a basing game. Staff has an endless array of ways to promote public LTing rather than private LTing. However, people are dead set on removing LTs altogether instead of fostering growth in this area. By changing settings, they are resorting to drastic measures for the sake of promoting basing when in fact it is completely neglecting the other parts of TW pub that do foster teamwork. Even if they were to change settings, there are many other settings that could be tweaked with (as I have recommended to this leadership before) that would still keep the old levi intact but make it harder for it to operate or cause such "damage" as people like to use that term. I'm sure I could come up with many different solutions, but at this point, they would be simply overlooked.

Over and over the zone has introduced ‘features’ that negatively impacted competitive play in Pub 0; it literally has gone on for years. Someone comes up with an idea that can be coded and it gets implemented without thought to the objective of the zone. Pub has been treated like a test bed because no one wanted to spend time developing stuff only to not have it used. The list of these kinds of decisions is long; pub bucks, kill-a-thons, etc.

And just like what has recently happened, when the zone leadership wants to fix things like removing pub buck completely they get ‘push back’ by others in staff. And because the zone can hardly stand to lose even a few player, never mind those who contribute more by working on staff, the leadership waters down its decisions or tries to make changes ‘in steps’. Anyone who has invested huge amounts of time and effort into these features is obviously going to be upset. We all know how difficult it is to divest yourself once you are so close to something you have given birth to; this is common sense. But does this mean that they have the best interests of the zone in mind? The real issue was that no one was there to ask that question before anyone spent any time developing it in the first place. These features then have to go through endless tweaks trying to make them compatible with the objective of the zone.

Again, the leadership is trying to fix things, but going about it the completely wrong way. Even you would probably admit that small changes that might fix the problem should be used rather than a complete overhaul of the way things go on. Why would you throw out the baby with the bathwater? This situation is simply like throwing out and creating a new pie recipe when the old recipe just needed less salt to work perfectly. Again, this is in regards to LTing. The whole decision with pubbux I have been fighting for since I first came back. Pubbux really serves no legitimate purpose in terms of the actual base games itself. It is simply a replacement for ?buy that never resets, which harms pub. It could work by itself with dueling, other items in TW, but should be removed from the actual pub play entirely. One thing I will say (as I have said a multitude of times) that even you admit pub needs to not be used as a testing ground. I have proposed over and over again to our leadership that changes need to go through a process before it is finally "live tested" in pub. However, none of these changes went through any sort of vetting process with people to get a large amount of input (or even using many "test groups") before releasing it for live testing in public. People are acting and changing things just for the sake of change, which is always a bad idea. Things need to be thought through and tested extensively before releasing it out into the public arena. Even when released to the public, it should be for a testing phase and voted upon at that time to gauge public opinion.

Public opinion is important but should never trump good leadership. Leadership is leadership because it is supposed to have vision (and backbone) that the public might not have. Leadership is about selling and getting buy-in for that vision and in these kinds of sticky issues. If the public or majority could always be counted on doing the right thing we wouldn’t need leadership at all. But good leadership is not about flexing muscles, watering down the hard decisions, or making friends. Good leaders are often not that ‘loved’ while they serve but history always remembers them well.

What you are saying is simply wrong. Both good and bad leaders, not just one or the other, are not "loved" during certain times. That goes the same for the opposite side of the spectrum. Hindsight is 20/20. I have worked closely with good leadership, both in real life and in game, to know how they function and their thought processes. Good leadership is about making smart, well-thought out decisions and by using the least drastic and most efficient means to accomplish the goal. It is about leading and inspiring people without forcing their hand. Anyways, I could go on and on about what a good leader is, but again, that is for "history" to decide.

[Spock!]

L3 levi has no place in pub anymore, not with this population.....

I already said this, but removing !buy would solve the LT problem with ease.
Do any of the players really like the !buy system? It hasn't done squat to help pub or noob retention, and keeping noobs should be a top priority.

Gamers nowaday are not used to typing commands, and !buy just over complicates pub. Pub is great for its purity in gameplay and how it wasn't clogged up with the shit alot of games have. It used to be about skill, not how many portals you can buy.

Hell, private freq LTs wouldn't be so so overpowerd if they couldn't buy portals and repels over and over again. No anti-warp for spids. (annoying as hell in flagroom) No rocket and repel spam by weasel (I'm guilty of that)

All main problems in pub basically come from pubucks and the ability to buy shit over and over again.

Keep the L3 lev, just get rid of the damn money.

Gosh

[Ephemeral]

Left,
I added the ellipses at the beginning and end of the quote to show the reader that this was what I had done, obviously there was no ‘sleight of hand’ intended. Not sure why you want to turn this into a personal thing by accusing me of being bolstering my argument and twisting words. It was my fucking opinion, period. Only thing I said about your opinion was that I thought it was a bad choice of words and incorrect.

Yes, the mission statement included other aspects of the Zone such as dueling. But we intentionally worded that way to make sure that folks understood that teamwork and competitive basing was the primary emphasis of the zone. If anyone doesn’t like this then contact the right people and change it; but that is the way the zone objectives have been for years.

You left the zone and came back years later. Some of us have been here the whole time and played through all the iterations that Pub has been subjected to. But frankly you and I are not far apart in our opinions; for whatever reason your post appears to want to pick out the small deltas and make a bigger issue of them. I see no value in arguing with you over things that ‘even I’ think are minutia. I agree with much or your opinion about LTs; in another post a few days back I stated that I thought that tweaking ships and maps to deal with what is really a team killing procedural shortcoming is a mistake. We also mostly agree on leadership issues. Ditto on pub bucks; we are both on the same page.

I am sorry that you seem to have some axe to grind with me. If you want to clear it up contact me in game and we will talk.
eph

[Left_Eye]

Eph,

I have no qualms against you. I'm more tired of having to repeat myself over and over again. It really has nothing to do with you at all. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, and I know I took a long time away (went to law school, started a career, etc.). I just had to bring it all out again to show you that we are on the same page on a lot of topics. Sorry you took it the wrong way, but it was more me laying everything on the table and giving it all out there so you could make the judgment for yourself (as you just did). I'm all for having a healthy discussion and giving everyone a chance to critique my thoughts, as that's how better judgments are made. In order to do that though, I had to lay it all out there for you and others to see. Again, sorry if you felt like I have something against you. The only thing I have against you is that you keep signing your name "eph" to the end! Just kidding! Bahahah! ^_^

[jim the chin]

L3 levi has no place in pub anymore, not with this population.....

I already said this, but removing !buy would solve the LT problem with ease.
Do any of the players really like the !buy system? It hasn't done squat to help pub or noob retention, and keeping noobs should be a top priority.

Gamers nowaday are not used to typing commands, and !buy just over complicates pub. Pub is great for its purity in gameplay and how it wasn't clogged up with the shit alot of games have. It used to be about skill, not how many portals you can buy.

Hell, private freq LTs wouldn't be so so overpowerd if they couldn't buy portals and repels over and over again. No anti-warp for spids. (annoying as hell in flagroom) No rocket and repel spam by weasel (I'm guilty of that)

All main problems in pub basically come from pubucks and the ability to buy shit over and over again.

Keep the L3 lev, just get rid of the damn money.

Gosh

I like the buy system. When it's not loaded with ridiculous specials it's fine. Just make it so levs can't buy reps and ports. Also, the buy system has never been used to its full potential.

Bring back fis's quick lev. That was great. Everyone was playing it... so much fun.

[2pac]

Eph,

I have no qualms against you. I'm more tired of having to repeat myself over and over again. It really has nothing to do with you at all. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, and I know I took a long time away (went to law school, started a career, etc.). I just had to bring it all out again to show you that we are on the same page on a lot of topics. Sorry you took it the wrong way, but it was more me laying everything on the table and giving it all out there so you could make the judgment for yourself (as you just did). I'm all for having a healthy discussion and giving everyone a chance to critique my thoughts, as that's how better judgments are made. In order to do that though, I had to lay it all out there for you and others to see. Again, sorry if you felt like I have something against you. The only thing I have against you is that you keep signing your name "eph" to the end! Just kidding! Bahahah! ^_^

Went to law school? Don't bring that law attitude to this game and unban me, you wannabe online lawyer your pathetic low-life scum staff of tw. Should be ashamed of what you have done to tw by making it pussy just like you!

[KrynetiX]

2pacz, do you ever have anything constructive to say?
Ideas?
Good points?
Improvements?
Things to consider?

No, you don't. You're just going to reply with something along the lines of "Yea I have an idea, all of TW staff should quit and I hate KrynoobiX sooo bad."

I don't understand, 2pacz. You can't stop hating me from in-game to SSForum to TWForum and even a few messages on AIM that I ignored. What's the deal? You knew me since the early 2000's. You watched me help create and manage some of the best zones Subspace had to offer. You know I was sysop in countless SSC and non-SSC zones for well over a decade.

Not to mention I personally taught you (or attempted to teach you) subspace development skills over those years.

Yet here you are, harassing me and shouting to everyone that I'm a noob that doesn't know anything. You personally know that's not true.

So instead of raging against me on forums, why don't you take a look at why you feel the way you do and talk to me with a positive attitude once you figure it out?

Or just reply to this with some more nonsense..

OK? Thanks.

[2pac]

There is no truth to anything you said above. Staff are fucking morons just like you. Hope this zone dies just so you faggots can RIP

[KrynetiX]

So you decided to reply with more nonsense.. I tried to be amicable here. Oh well!

[Jones]

2pacz reminds me of some 5 year old kid who wants a lollipop but when his parents refuses to buy him one he throws himself at the floor crying "i hate you".