Open Letter - Tough Decisions

[Demonic]

Ill consider an in-game forum with players to talk about what people think and what they want to see changes.

Perfect, thanks shadow. Things to consider - wbduel/javduel/base. - Leagues (which to run, do we dump twel/twdt etc...) - elim etc...

[pee pee sock]

delete the fuckin zone.

[KrynetiX]

Certainly a tough decision.. Clearly we need to do something.

We need to move forward with whatever resources we have and run with some marketing/promotional ideas before it's too late.

I'm completely confident that if we plan accordingly we can sustain this game for years to come.

New Subspace clients are in progress. Slowly but surely there will be a polished, open-source and modular Subspace client.

We already have a great server software (AS3) that TW has yet to take advantage of.

We are relying on a billing server who's admin is unresponsive and unavailable -- even though we don't have to.

The list of obstacles in trying to save this game are long, I could go on .. but I'm confident that if we take some risks we'll come out ahead.

Changes need to be made.. There's still hope.

[Ephemeral]

IMO the biggest challenges are events and retaining new players.

Events are popular with a group of experienced players but the current limited population does not support the ‘constant robbing’ of this group from other arenas. Let’s face it, the staff quota system totally favors and promotes events over things like pub 0 and go base. Once an event is held and is well attended this group of players is herded from one event to another for hours as staff tries to fill their quota. This system might have been good when population numbers were high but it is now rewarding the wrong priority. Dump the quota system and the number of events will drop quickly.

The highest priority should be new players. Finding new players is difficult but has been recently demonstrated with the Steam effort it is not as important as being able to retain new players. We need to figure out why a large percentage of new players don’t stay. Obviously some see the dated graphics and/or SS is just not for them. But breaking into the game in Pub 0 is far harder than it needs to be. We need to figure out a way to improve the new player experience until they become ‘invested’ in SS.

Towards this end I would encourage ALL players to stop and think their decisions in the game. Shit talking might be fun and kill macros can certainly be worth a laugh but at what expense? Of course having your own fun is why most of us play the game, but being selfish all the time is leading the zone into a slow and painful death. Just because many of the features of Pub 0 promote selfishness does not mean that we should all act that way all the time. Simply ask yourself if what you are doing is helping the zone. If you spam a squad ‘fix your team’ 70 or 80 times as they are being owned because they are trying to give new players a chance to learn and grow, how does that help the zone? Climbing into a private frequent LT and raining bombs down on a good competitive Pub 0 game is another commonly seen selfish act. Point is, just because zone has some stupid ‘rewards’ and features doesn’t give us an excuse to act in ways that damage the zone. Surely we are intelligent enough to see that the population is at critical mass and unless things change we will no longer even have a zone to act like a dick in.

We don’t need a thousand suggestions on how to tweak every tiny detail, we need ‘top down’ thinking with the primary intent (and prioritization) of retaining new players. Demon has taken the lead and time will tell if the other ‘powers that be’ will get on board. The population itself does not have to wait for the zone leadership, there are plenty of things that each of us can do every day. This isn’t rocket science; the measurement here is simple; ask yourself ‘does this promote the zone in a good way and does this help retain new players for the zone?’. If the answer is no then you shouldn’t be doing it and you are firmly at risk of being one of the primary reasons the zone is dying.
eph

[Ricko]

I completely agree with slimming down what we host and run; we REALLY need to cut out the other leagues such as TWDT, TWEL and distension for good (well, twdt and distension permanently). We need a serious focus on just pubbing, twd and twl once a year.

TWDT has not fulfilled its purpose at all...literally no new players get involved and the majority of experienced players who play it don't even care about it. Not only that it kills TWD on a sunday for 3 or so hours when our population is at its highest.

Distension just isn't TW and what TW is about and it takes up a lot of time and some resources, if we want lean management this is the first thing that should go.

TWEL is somewhat decent and the 1v1 dueling has been around a while....a way to subsidise this is to add .?go duel into the pub map and remove the circular dueling arenas in the pub with the .?go duel maps so that newbs can get more involved with dueling and get to see top wbs/javs/spiders dueling in the pub arena without having to change arenas themselves to watch it unfold.

Pub - this a long with TWD needs to be our main focus...possibly remove pub bux? Wbduel/javduel/base do still need to exist though, I don't agree with removing them or implementing them in to pub...let them stay as a separate arena (adding people for wbduel/javduel/base in pub could be confusing as people will be pubbing and not want to play these features, how would you differentiate between people happy pubbing and people who want to use wbduel/javduel/base without creating complicated commands etc.

Events - events need to be hosted less frequently and maybe entirely on fridays and weekends? Staff quotas need to be removed as it just leads to some staff trying to host dumb events with 3 people turning up that I have seen far too much of and it will make events seem more important. Big deathmatches and squad based deathmatches/jav and wb tournaments/basing tournaments and zombie events need to be the focus for now with the winners being announced throughout TW and the winning player/mvp/squad getting an announcement on the tw website and possible money prizes to motivate people.

TWD - this along with pub is the most important thing for us to focus on....remove leagues such as twdt and distension and it allows us to focus the population on what in my and a lot of other peoples eyes is the most appealing feature of TW. Every season of TWD/when twl qualifications begins etc should have mvps and top squads announced officially on the twd site, trenchwars site and there should be a section on the twd site with history of 'season' winners and top mvps in each league. This will make it more exciting for people to play to be seen as the best wb/jav/baser in trenchwars and have their name permanently down in TWD history.

TWL - Once a year, smaller roster caps, a few less squads unless population boosts at some point. Need to make TWL remain an elite and sought after league.

Staff - staff needs a huge turn around...too many inexperienced/dumb hosts. Lefty's basing tournament was a brilliant idea and it's ideas like this that will help the zone, people like Lefty and demonic need to be the focus for staff as they are some of the more experienced players and know how tw was run when we were at our peak player base with effective staffing. Guys like Wark should be invited to staff - some people might not like what he says but egos a side he has good ideas and knows how tw should be run, plus he has a lot of staff experience from years back. As I said above, remove quotas - I have been axed from staff twice now from going away on holidays over 2 summers so not meeting quota and returning to find I'm no longer staff....absolutely stupid seeming as I have more experience and valuable ideas than people who have played this game for under 3 years.

TL;DR - read it all.

[Wazzaaa.nl]

i agree with whats said above
so just focus on pub, twd and events
kill the rest like automated javduels, wbduels, base and distension
this will cause more activity in twd and pub (where we need it)
drastic times call for drastic measures

[PrOnEsSim]

Kill Javduel, wbduel, base? Are you kidding me? That'd be a dumb decision.

[Rab]

The thing about events for me is it's a fun way to encourage transition from pub to squads. Considering that the purpose of squads is some combination of wb/jav/base - events should follow this pattern. I'm saying host things like deathmatch, javs, boki - rather than mario, gatez, distension .. etc.

[Ricko]

The thing about events for me is it's a fun way to encourage transition from pub to squads. Considering that the purpose of squads is some combination of wb/jav/base - events should follow this pattern. I'm saying host things like deathmatch, javs, boki - rather than mario, gatez, distension .. etc.

Good point, I used to recruit pub newbs from events that could relate to how they might play in twd and it's how I was recruited to numerous squads back in the day!

[KrynetiX]

Also, note that:
Removing the instant-gratification wbduel, javduel and base provide will encourage people to join a squad. Which will give TWD/TWL (as well as pub) much needed activity.

[a2m+]

Reinstate wark and LF to staff.

[Crescent Seal]

let it burn

but in all seriousness (if any is even left), try going back to the 2004 settings and condense the remaining active populations to a few arenas and see how it goes. not like we have anything to lose at this point. if the remaining active players do not like it then revert back. make a poll and do what the fking public wants for a change.

[Crescent Seal]

Good point, I used to recruit pub newbs from events that could relate to how they might play in twd and it's how I was recruited to numerous squads back in the day!

?

(4 years ago)
Crescent Seal> Hello Ricko. I'm new to this game and I saw your squad Battle twding. May I please join your squad?
Ricko> stfu newbie dont pm me again
Crescent Seal> I'm sorry.
Ricko> fuck yourself

[Ricko]

?

(4 years ago)
Crescent Seal> Hello Ricko. I'm new to this game and I saw your squad Battle twding. May I please join your squad?
Ricko> stfu newbie dont pm me again
Crescent Seal> I'm sorry.
Ricko> fuck yourself

I didn't say I recruited any random newb :P

[Left_Eye]

Honestly, I think removing ?go base would be harmful to the zone. There is nothing that could replace ?go base effectively, besides events hosting base arenas or TWD. I don't know about you all, but even before I learned how to play competitively, I had taken part in pub games and also events, as there was no ?go base around back then. Yet, in time, I noticed a lot of players were eventually recruited from their ownage in ?go base when it became open, as that's where people used to learn how to effectively cram/line and eventually make it into TWL/TWD.

However, I honestly believe that removing wbduel and javduel automation would be beneficial, only if elim was programmed to permit team elims. That would be the best solution, as player's could vote what ship and how many teams. It also would revive elim. To be quite honest, when this zone first started, elimination arena was one of the first arenas that was hosted/automated, and people were instantly attracted to it. If you want to consolidate, then merge wbduel/javduel concept into elimination. I doubt people would miss wbduel/javduel if you could have a 2v2v2v2v2v2v2 or 3v3v3v3v3v3 elim, etc. Plus, it would fulfill the javelin and warbird skills, and could easily be turned into a special event to permit "squad" elims when a host wanted to override the bot and permit a 5 team elim to 20. Who knows. I used to do that all the time and it used to attract people all over when advertised in advance. People like those types of events, and if you merge that with elim, imo, it would revive elim and eliminate unnecessary arenas.

However, I think merging elim into pub wouldn't be good at all. I think if anything, ?go duel and ?go duel2 should be merged with pub as the dueling circles are already there, and just format the circles into boxes (one for jav and one for warbird). The bot coding is already there, and it would eliminate ?go duel and ?go duel2, and if they wanted, staffers could still host TWEL as it would essentially be held in pub... so I don't see the need to get rid of TWEL. If it pulled away from pub, then yes, but under this concept, it would attract people to play in pub rather than in ?go duel/duel2. This is the most logical step that should be considered/taken. There could be four circles, two for "pub" dueling, and two for dueling that would have occurred in ?go duel/duel2.

As for getting rid of quota, the quota system is outdated. However, there are loyal players that like to play events, and I do not see the harm in having hosted events if players enjoy it. You would run a serious risk of losing players if we limited events to weekend only. I don't know about you all, but this is a game. People expect to have fun. Yes, pub is fun, but once you force people to start playing one way or another, that will eventually turn them off. This shouldn't be work for people to have fun. There has to be smart and tough decisions that should be made where you can consolidate arenas effectively without losing those players that prefer one or the other.

So far, I've give this a lot of thought, and that is what I would suggest at this stage in the game. To me, this seems like the most logical balance of how to consolidate arenas without losing the attraction that players have towards those specific arenas.

This is just my perspective on things. Y'all can take it for what it's worth.