TW-General Revisited (WingZero, PLEASE Consider Implementing This)

[roxxkatt]

• Remove levs and weasels completely.

stopped reading here
your idea is trash, and is just a repackaging of very old ideas from better people

[TABARNAK!!!]

Moving ?go base to pub is a great way to bring more people in the basing scene. New players will all play ?go base and eventually join a basing squadron and play twd and so on. I had this idea years ago and 15 players +1'd my thread :0(

[Pressure]

I don't even know where to start my thoughts and opinion on this. It's overwhelming.

Even though you clearly put some thought into it, it's not thought through. In the first place: You do not play Pub. You don't know Pub other than "that's where our newbies go and stay and that's where we need to get the players away from".

This is untrue. I was a pubber for the first 1-3 years of my career on this game, and I still play it here and there. Yes, I use it primarily to scout players and to take the edge off when I'm bored, but to say I don't play pub, or have never played pub, or know it not to be useful for anything other than recruiting players is an uninformed claim.

This is also your intention: dragging players away from pub and showing them the rest of TW.

So, since Africa currently has no structured government, no shopping malls, no highways and complex, organized commerce, it never should have these things? Africa may want to stick to their traditional way of life, but they will never be anywhere near as technologically advanced as the rest of the world. While "dragging players away from pub" might seem like my only intention at face value, it is not as destructive an intention as it may seem. Pub is essential for beginners, but to say that the competitive aspects of Continuum aren't what have kept it alive this long is a completely false statement. What I intend to do by drawing players away is hook them on the only thing really proven to get players addicted: leagues. However, this does not mean that I don't see the value in a successful pub environment; on the contrary, I think pub should be shaped to allow players to develop their skills, and find leagues on their own without having to be pulled. Pub as it stands is a clusterfuck of nonsense with no true structure, strategy, or competitive game play. It is, as I've mentioned, a farce version of basing. It possesses similar rules, elements and game structure as the core gaming of Trench Wars, but just few of the genuine aspects of basing.

While this isn't a bad idea, putting all in one arena and enforcing heavy ship restrictions, forcing people into certain areas isn't how we play Pub and it's not how Pub will ever become.

Let me ask you something, fiS. It was your idea to enforce the changes made to the lev, right? What was the point? If I had to guess, I'd say that you wanted pub to be a better representation of basing. Flagroom fights would be less affected by the weaker lev, leading to longer flagroom fights, and better gameplay overall. If this is the case, why are you saying enforcing heavy ship restrictions is blasphemous, when you have done just that to the lev? As it stands, lev is basically just a slower, slightly stronger javelin, with no bouncing bombs. Yes, flagroom fights are less interrupted by LT's, but the change was made specifically to help pub's basing dynamic flourish. You ruined every veteran LT's fun, though, so why should it matter if we ruin any veteran weasel's fun (are there even any "veteran" weasels that would be so upset about losing their ship that they would quit? no.) These ships, as I've stated, serve no true purpose in basing.

Secondly, Pub has always been and will always be free to play for everyone, in any ship, on any freq, minus Pure Pub times and extreme laggots. People see all the ships there, their abilities, strengths, weaknesses and Pub is the only arena where they can learn them; the basics at the very minimum.

What makes you so tied to these ships that you're saying free play must be guaranteed? In true games, these ships serve no purpose. Can you explain, in detail, what purpose keeping cloaks and levs serves in the dynamics of pub? You've already sabotaged the fun of playing as lev (and even as playing as weasel, since they aren't small anymore), so what's the point of even having them available at all? You mentioned that everyone has a right to assess for themselves the strengths, and weaknesses of these ships. From what you've gathered, in your opinion, what are they, exactly? If your goal is to improve the quality of games in pub, as it seems to be based on the changes that have been made, then explain how keeping these ships help your progress. In my post, I stated clearly why these ships don't belong in pub, and why removing them would improve gameplay, and improve player quality. Time for you to defend your stance.

You state that pub is the only arena where newbs can learn the strengths and weaknesses of these ships--but, for what end result? Who actually yearns to "master" weasel, or lev? Newcomers who are introduced to the competition actually strive to become better spiders, javs, warbirds, terrs, and sharks. No one strives for this success in weasels and levs. And even if they did, then what? They've "mastered" lev, but that's it, they plateau in pub and get bored and never come back. No one would miss these ships once they see the quality of gaming dramatically increase in pub, either.

You are saying that everyone entering "Pub" must be Shark, Terrier or Spider and in the same sentence you are talking about adding ?go Base into Pub. Why would we do both? Are you serious? Then we would end up with a "Pub" (as YOU call it), and a Base, being exactly the same except for people get to chose between 3 ships instead of getting put into one.

People who want to base in pub can either: sign up for the competitive pick up match (?go base), or play for fun in a random, less chaotic, less fake version of basing as spider, shark, or terr. I even considered the idea of allowing 2-3 wb's or jav's per team. Anyone who wants to play base on these games in these ships can easily !reserve a spot if the 2-3 spots are taken. Also, lancasters would be allowed in this basing match, with no restrictions. In the mean time, they can play in the spawn area and once a spot opens up, they can get a private message, and have 30 seconds to take the spot or it opens up for someone else. The reason there would be both is, only 16 players would be allowed to play the pick-up game. In the mean time, players who would normally just spec ?go base might find themselves motivated to jump in pub while they wait to play the ?go base game. Not all players would be able to fly from pub spawn to the ?go base match, it would be closed and automated. The players playing in the pub basing game wouldn't take that game as seriously, and if they wanted to move on to competitive play they wouldn't have to figure out how to change arenas to do it. The game would be right there for them to sign up. This is all explained in my initial post, but perhaps you just saw "change pub" and ignored the part where I listed the benefits of having ?go base in pub.

Putting every WB or Jav into a dueling rink isn't Pub either. I really don't know what to say to this idea other than that the "automatic area place" depending on your ship is by far one of the most terrible ideas that I've ever heard for our Public arena.

Actually, some players began their careers as spawn birds, who just flew around trying to get the best rec they possibly could. Nowadays, it's hard to really do this, as most players are fighting for the base. A free-for-all with no death limits would give players the ability to improve their skills, and simulate the exact same "pub" spawn, but with more people to kill (since most wouldn't be flying to the base). Again, you say the idea is terrible, but based on your frame of reference, I find it hard to believe that if you really thought about it you would be able to actually put up a decent argument as to why the idea is terrible. Is our zone really being ran by people who "don't realy know what to say" other than "your idea is bad, mine is better?" If so, staff should start looking inward rather than outward to fix their problems.

You are certainly right when you say that it's too much what we have right now. We have too much automated arenas for not enough people. Just to mention a few, Base, Elim, Hockey, Duel+Duel2, Javduel, Wbduel, Spidduel aside from the entire TWD matches and hosted events and I personally am not a fan of all the automated events either - I would rather see some of them dropped OR merged.

None of them should be dropped. THAT is a bad idea--pushing people who love these arenas away just because you think we have "too many." Not once did I say that I think we have too many automated events for the population; we just have too many arenas for the population to be so spread out by them. However, if some of these arenas were merged into one arena, perhaps we'd be able to showcase our full population of 100-150 people, with 50 in spec, rather than 50 people in pub where only 20-30 play. A player doesn't want to enter the "most populated zone" of 200 people only to see 50 players in spec, and 20 in the game itself. Merging the aforementioned arenas would fix this problem, and showcase multiple aspects of the zone upon entry. Again, you should re-read my post because it doesn't really feel like I'm the one who hasn't thought this through.

Merging them into Pub isn't an option, especially not with your "requirements" and ship-area-restrictions. As of now we already have way too much green spam, it'd get a thousand times worse if we'd merge all that into one.

Green spam? You mean private message spam? That is what the ?ignore command is for. If you can't handle it, that is what the ?nopubchat or ?lines=0 commands are for. Is this actually a viable concern? "Too much spam?" What about "too few veterans wanting to log back on" or "too few players finding the competition stimulating anymore" or "too few players finding pub interesting enough to return to the game?" These concerns are much more dire to the heart of the zone and it's longevity, not "oh my god if we merge the arenas too much discussion will go on at once!" Plus, this is something that people will easily adjust to after about a week of this change being implemented.

What I still think is worth a mention about your ideas and points of view... Yes, Lev and Weasel are the two most problematic ships in Pub. But they belong there and have their reason

This has yet to be seen, but go on.

and I've been trying to get them balanced further which certainly isn't an easy task and it seems like any compromise is impossible and not accepted by our community. What I would like to say at this point is that Pure Pub (as in Levi and Wzl restrictions as well as private freqs) is something that will be "back" temporarily, for the weekends or so.

If this is something that can be changed back for the weekends, why can't a TW-General be designed and implemented for one weekend just to see whether or not it is successful? If these changes can be made on a weekendly basis, why can't we test something out that might actually work, and if it doesn't, just change it back? Do you actually think if the zone is warned that we're going to temporarily try this idea out for one weekend people will just start quitting? Maybe they won't log on for that weekend we try it out (they will, but hypothetically speaking they might not if they're die-hard weasels or die-hard levs) but we won't actually lose players just by experimenting for one weekend.

Also: You personally are a fan of TWDB, TWLB and ?go Base and you absolutely can't compare this to Pub.

They can't be compared? Then why is pub considered the entry level to the leagues? What is the purpose of pub at all, if it runs parallel to the leagues and competitive play? Why is the gameplay so similar (one flag, two teams fighting, specific amount of time required to win) if they are incomparable? How long have you even been playing that you are the one with this perspective making the decisions? Why do you think for some reason that these two things have to be separate? Isn't the reason you are afraid to merge base/pub because you don't want to split the population? NEWS FLASH: the population is already divided. My proposal actually offers unique, innovative measures that we can take to blend the divided populations and build bridges between the two. You're just focused on "perfecting" this pub which really has no bearing on the rest of the zone. You don't even realize that you've incidentally divided the zone with your changes. I want to feel compelled to play pub, but as long as pub is pseudo basing with bullshit settings, you'll never see me playing as a pure pubber. If pub gameplay was closer in gameplay to true basing, I'd pretty much always be in there in my spare time.

Stop doing that, please, for god's sake. Just because YOU are a fan of it (and so am I and many others), and YOU think that it's the only aspect of TW, it doesn't mean that this direction is the correct one for our one and only Public arena.

You forget that pub was founded on the basis of being a basing match. I'll never stop voicing my ideas just because staff doesn't agree with them. I'm thinking about the longevity of the game as a whole, leagues and pub included, while you're just focused on pub. Maybe it's not me who should "stop making decisions" just because I'm a fan of something, but you who should look outward from pub and realize the redeemable aspects that should be kept in pub for the sake of the gameplay, and the scrap the shitty aspects that take away from it (weaker lev was a good start, but we need more changes).

Just as what you said about Teamkilling; yes, it's annoying. But it's a part of the game.

It's a part of the game because we have no way of avoiding it or restricting it besides banning people. Either way, I can enter pub and TK the whole team whenever I want and as long as a staffer doesn't see it, I'll get away with it. Or I'll get warned and stop until I decide I want to do it again. A lot of people share this mentality, so why allow for teamkilling to be an aspect at all when it can be controlled?

People learn it and people who keep doing it get handled by staff, I love the game dynamic that teamkilling adds to it - it makes you carry and learn the responsibility, unless of course you're a troll.

What the fuck? You love the dynamic that teamkilling adds to the game? Besides the LOLs that come from a hilarious TK, you are deluded if you think it "adds" to the dynamic of basing or pub when used deliberately. It makes you carry? We're talking about pubbers, 1% of them have the ability to "carry" their team. Learn the responsibility? What responsibility? What are you even talking about?

I'm pretty sure I forgot to mention some stuff, but I hope I woke you up. TW has more aspects than just competition and Base.

Yes, you woke me up: to the idea that some staffers really have no concept of why bridging pub to the competition is essential to the longevity of the zone. In the dark period where pub was basically dead (before KrynetiX changed it) what do you think kept this game alive? TWD/TWL/TWDT. That's it. I am fully aware of the importance of improving pub so that we can acquire and retain new players, but the end goal should be to get these players involved in the various competitive aspects of this game. This is the facet of Trench Wars that keeps players interested, that keeps players coming back, and that forms the relationships exhibited throughout the players of the zone. This is the one part of Continuum that has players most addicted to the game. Pub has some fans, sure, but the fanbase of the competition heavily outweighs the fanbase of pub. Not just in passion, but quantity. It's funny, you keep inferring that my idea would further split the populous of this game into competitive players and pubbers with my idea, but you're the only one implicating the division. You want pub to stay separate from the competition and exist as it's own entity, while I'm suggesting we merge the two and bring out the best in both.

I hope I woke you up with this post.

[Zeebu]

i stopped reading when you started talking about africa

[Hulk]

Any staff want to comment on why pub 0 is not enjoyable and unplayable? Lev really kills pub and instead of doing something about it you make it so they can shoot bullets from there butt. Great work! For me personally, if I was a new player playing this game I would have no clue there were even any other arenas. Secondly, without knowing you could play any other arenas you play the same shit pub and get lev bombed constantly. They won't be learning anything from the game and would quit immediately. Wouldn't it make more sense if for instance had to use this trash PUB BUX to buy the levi. At least then I would know some newbie spent time playing a different ship for once and earned the money through basing.

[Star Fox]

Every player who I enlighten with this idea thinks it's a great way to change this zone for the better

This thread was made so that this innovative idea (something completely lacking in TW at the moment)

Well at least you're humble about it. You even italicized innovative.

I read your entire post, buddy. Unfortunately, as you can clearly see in other replies, not everyone agrees with you, no matter how long you make your post(s), nor how many words you bold, color, and italicize, and no, not even referring to your own ideas as enlightening people. You're still just a man, with an opinion. Thanks for it, but not everyone agrees.

EDIT: So I figured I might as well give my two cents, though I'm at work. I don't think merging everything into pub is a good idea. It's already a confusing clusterfuck. What if javduel, base, and pub are running at the same time? That is extremely confusing to a new player. Also, warbirds and javelins should at least be allowed in base if they want to. Levis and weasels should be allowed (although I will again restate I think we should have "pure pub weekends" again or similar where these two ships are not allowed). Stop trying to control how people play. You might want a controlled environment, but not everyone does clearly or they wouldn't play the way they do. That's why we have ?go base, and leagues. Also, having only one arena active most of the time seems...depressing, somehow. Someone else mentioned this too. It would seem to be almost accepting that we are dying and taking our last gasp. I don't like it. What if we get a surge of players and need to upscale it again? It's pessimistic.

[Pressure]

Even if we don't merge javduel/wbduel/elim/base into pub, the elimination of weasel/lev and implementation of free-for-all areas and a more "pure basing pub" would be hugely beneficial for the same reasons.

[Pressure]

Well at least you're humble about it. You even italicized innovative.

Is it not innovative?

I read your entire post, buddy. Unfortunately, as you can clearly see in other replies, not everyone agrees with you, no matter how long you make your post(s), nor how many words you bold, color, and italicize, and no, not even referring to your own ideas as enlightening people. You're still just a man, with an opinion. Thanks for it, but not everyone agrees.

This won’t stop me from voicing my opinion. Great start to your post though, telling me that opinions are opinions, thanks!

EDIT: So I figured I might as well give my two cents, though I'm at work. I don't think merging everything into pub is a good idea. It's already a confusing clusterfuck. What if javduel, base, and pub are running at the same time?

They already do. The only problem is, most newbs that have just entered the game don’t know that these arenas exist.

That is extremely confusing to a new player.

As confusing as the commands that this game requires for the new player to navigate throughout the zone? As confusing as it is for these new players to actually learn these commans?

Also, warbirds and javelins should at least be allowed in base if they want to.

All of your basing knowledge is really shining through this post.

Levis and weasels should be allowed (although I will again restate I think we should have "pure pub weekends" again or similar where these two ships are not allowed).

Why should they be allowed? What value do they have in game? I understand the whole “players should have a right to do whatever they want in game” mentality, but we have other restrictions that stop players from doing what they want, so what’s the difference? If you can enlighten me, and tell me what you find valuable about having these ships in play, then maybe I’d change my mind. So far, you haven’t done that, and I’ll stand by my opinion.

Stop trying to control how people play. You might want a controlled environment, but not everyone does clearly or they wouldn't play the way they do.

I’m not, and I don’t. I want quality gaming, and I want new players to see these qualities so that they are more inclined to stick around.

That's why we have ?go base, and leagues.

Is that why?

Also, having only one arena active most of the time seems...depressing, somehow.

As depressing as having 150 players logged in? As depressing as having 60 in pub, with 20 playing and 40 in spec? As depressing as having zero TWD matches going on? Were you even around in the glory days? Obviously not, if the current state of the zone isn’t depressing for you already.

Someone else mentioned this too. It would seem to be almost accepting that we are dying and taking our last gasp. I don't like it.

What is wrong with accepting that we are in critical condition? This is absolutely ridiculous. Cancer patients don’t like to face facts that they are dying, but unless they take action and drastically alter their living dynamics, they’re going to inevitably die. Would you rather wait until the zone is completely dead to make changes? None of us like it, that’s why I’ve taken all this time to articulate this idea and respond to everyone’s input.

What if we get a surge of players and need to upscale it again? It's pessimistic.

Then we revert back to what we had? What if we don’t get a surge of players?

[Rab]

stahp

[Spock!]

Even if we don't merge javduel/wbduel/elim/base into pub, the elimination of weasel/lev and implementation of free-for-all areas and a more "pure basing pub" would be hugely beneficial for the same reasons.

Gosh! What the fuck do people have against the weasel? Its always being attacked by haters, mostly "pro" players who refuse to glance at radar once in a while.

Weasel doesn't hardly affect pub, since it is hardly played by anyone anymore, thanks to the staffers great updates. Look at the amount of kills all the pub weaselplayers get every 2 weeks, it doesn't affect the play much at all, especially since it can no longer sneek into the flagroom. If it does, the terr should be smart enuf to alert others of it's presence, and even without a terr, unless people are uber-noobs, they should take half-a glance on the radar once in awhile.

Also, weasel will help noobs to use the radar to aim, so its a win win. The x is the second slowest ship in the game, with slow bullets, so if anybody has a problem counteracting them, they really need to up their game.

Anyway, the weasel is less annoying than all the spawning and sniping warbirds that sit in spawn and try to snipe through the hole in base. I would say that the warbirds kills the game more than any weasel ever did.

So please, just STFU about the damn weasel. Your probably just mad that I broke your streak a few times in it because you where too damn stupid to take a glance at the radar.....

[Vys]

The game is dying due to all the changes over the years by staff what wasn't essential. Why fix something that's not broken? And now we're at the stage where we do need to fix the game that's dying but no one knows what the hell to do. There's no solution, just old school addicted players thinking there's some solution. We blew the chances of making this game popular. Instead of advertisement we was feeding the already addicted players with pizzas.
The rules of double squadding should be removed. There's no freedom in the zone. There's probably a rule for making a rule.

[Fork]

The game is dying due to all the changes over the years by staff what wasn't essential. Why fix something that's not broken? And now we're at the stage where we do need to fix the game that's dying but no one knows what the hell to do. There's no solution, just old school addicted players thinking there's some solution. We blew the chances of making this game popular. Instead of advertisement we was feeding the already addicted players with pizzas.
The rules of double squadding should be removed. There's no freedom in the zone. There's probably a rule for making a rule.

Plus the lack of trialling out ideas. Ideas get posted on here all the time- some are good and should improve the population but most old school players- especially on forums- fail to recognise this or will go against any idea saying 'let the game die- give up.' Which is just troll posting. What some people don't release is that old/ semi-old players quit due to lack of improvements/ trialling out ideas (attitude: what's the point in playing if this game won't get any better).

My advise is- start collecting the 10 most popular ideas existed on forums/ have a staff- player meeting like last month and start a vote system of these 10 ideas to see truly what people think. If 75% of people like the idea then trial it out asap. Any current projects that's being worked on- hold off for a week or 2 until the ideas are in place. Make a forums thread for the ideas people voted yes to and under each idea have a status: 25% completed (wingzero on it) etc- staff will also be respected greatly for implementing what the majority want.

If staff do this then there should be a staff/ player meeting every couple of months to evaluate the recent changes and any change that players strongly disagree on would b removed.

Even these meetings would draw more people to the game so afterwards host a special event or player voted event.