Open Letter - Tough Decisions

[Demonic]

OK I think we have come to the point where we have some tough decisions as a zone to make. We no longer have 500+ players logged in constantly, which is currently what the zone is setup for. We have so many different things running all at once, that all the separate arena's have perhaps 4/5 people in, so nobody else comes across to make it start. So we have a choice, we can continue along in this vain, and keep our fingers crossed that somehow miraculously the zone will pickup and we gain perhaps another 100 players back OR we look to take action quickly:

1 thing we can look to do, is take the zone back to when we averaged this amount of players (ie. set it up for approx. 200 player), old players will know what this looks like, but for those who don't:

-- Removal of automation of wbduel/javduel/base. - This went automated when we had tons of players so it was always populated, hell we had wbduel and wbduel2 running at same time. Elim was always designed to be the main event for many years. Now we have 5 ppl in elim (don't play as too few), 4 in javduel (same), 7 in wbduel (not playing).

-- More Squad based events for players such as squad dm etc, as mentioned in separate post.

-- No hosted events during specifically quiet times.

-- no automated events, ER host rather then bot controlling with more variety.

This was pre 2004 settings of zone.

We could also try and where inbetween these settings, but the point is I will go with what u guys decide, do u want this to stay as is?? or do you want to look to have populated arena's that u can actually play in?? Or do you think you can find a better solution? As someone has told me, we are pretty much at the "critical mass", so the only thing we cant do is nothing.

[Rab]

tw should be:

- 1x pub (for casual / noobs)
- wbduel / javduel / base (for social practice)
- twdd / twjd / twbd (for squad competition)

AND NOTHING ELSE

see http://forums.trenchwars.org/showthr...nd-of-the-year

[kthx]

Not even wbduel/javduel/base during the week honestly.

[kthx]

And might I say that.. this does need to happen and really soon.. this should be Priority #1.. literally putting on hold any other initiative, changes, updates, or new events/coding until this is done, every single resource this zone has as far as dev and bot dev needs to be devoted to condensing and consolidating elim into pub and turning off the bots in all of the automated arenas.

[Rab]

regarding:

javduel / base / wbduel

these should not be turned off ever. high skill players play these when their squads don't have enough for twd. you don't want to lose these players.

[kthx]

I don't think you understand what critical mass means, we are in a circle of fuck. People login and see our 100-200 population which over half is bots/afkers and see them spread out among 10 arenas and just logoff instantly, you have 10 groups of players fighting to get their event started. Warbirds want wbduel started, Javs wanted javduel started, basers want base started, some people don't want to play that because twd is all that matters to them and they want to play with their squad, and in the end nobody has enough to play anything. Nobody does anything so everyone logs off. That is what demonic means by tough decisions. I hate being the one to say this but its about time we fucking forced everyone to play with pubbers. Basers need to play base or have private events in #myth with people who won't ruin the game, or ask a staffer to host it for them. Warbirds need to play elim in pub, Javelins need to play jav in pub even if its in a separate elim area that you !opt in to play. You could even do it with base.. just like hockey zone has their pub hockey game in the same arenas their more serious picked to play hockey game. You could be playing pub and get an invite from a captain to play in the more serious 8v8 basing game. We HAVE to stop dividing our playerbase if we ever want any new players to stay. We just can't simply do what we have been doing. It is a tough decision, and it has to be made.

[Shaddowknight]

One thing we need to do is drop all of our leagues that mean absolutely nothing. Half of them are just a waste of time. TWD needs to be the league focus. If it doesnt make more players log on, then we need to stop doing it or work on changing it to make it more interesting for newer players to look into.

[Rab]

Well OK... this is the minimum required for me to log on:

- pub
- javduel
- base

you lose the whole squad thing tho - for competition anyway, it just becomes a social thing.

[WillBy]

Altnernatively, at times such as this, pub has 60 (dunno how many playing), base has 20, javduel has 20, and battleship has 30. There certainly are times when TW is slow, but other times it would be a shame to limit the game. So if possible, I'd like to avoid limiting event hosting at all, if possible. Hosts should recognize if theres enough players for events. As for the automated events, I agree hosts can manage them. It should be up to the hosts to manage those (keep bots available for spawn). Also, squad based events are a great idea (as weve discussed) but I dont see them replacing normal events or bwjs. Maybe during the "active hours" we leave all type of events up to staff, but during the slower hours we could and should leave other options such as wbduel and javduel open. As for pub and TWD, those both fall to their respective heads, but I would leave them open to playing at any time.

In summary: limit base/wbduel/baseduel, replace with events as demonic as said. Leave the rest open. Of course, I'm also interested in hearing what players want. If youd rather play wbduel all the time, that can be arranged...

[kthx]

Weekends would be no limits on anything, have wbduel/javduel/base/twd and everything up and running, host anything you want. Weekdays would be nothing on, elim still in pub, base still in pub, and a population minimum to host certain events such as bug which require an obvious 20 players to be entertaining.

[Rab]

so... reduce to this first....

- 1x pub (for casual / noobs)
- wbduel / javduel / base (for social practice)
- twdd / twjd / twbd (for squad competition)


then if that doesn't work... reduce to this...

- pub
- javduel
- base

then if that doesn't work...

- pub

then if that doesn't work...

ded

[kthx]

Its too late for half measures, do you want fucking gustavo fring to die? Boom, fucking implode it now.

[Rab]

I think the first step keeps existing players.

I think the subsequent culls actually cause long-term players to leave... call it self-fulfilling if you want

[Demonic]

I think the first step keeps existing players.

I think the subsequent culls actually cause long-term players to leave... call it self-fulfilling if you want

you may be right rab, although TW grew in playerbase when we didn't have an automated wbduel/base/javduel, as all arena's were used/full. As I allured too, we aren't talking about doing anything that we haven't had before. But its something players need to agree on to be discussed, the playerbase needs to want a change and understand why and what it would mean. As I said option 2 would be stay as we are and cross our fingers, the choice is really down to all of you.

[Shaddowknight]

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