Open Letter to Demonic and M_M God

[Ephemeral]

M_M God and Demonic,
It appears to me that the zone is now at a point where we need to start making some hard decisions. We simply cannot split the population up the way we used to be able to do. If we assume that we always want pub healthy and I would say that given the current population the zone can support one additional thing running at the same time.

TWD appears to be greatly suffering at this point. TWBDs are way, way down. TWJD and TWDD seem to be holding their own but only because squad can play them with fewer players online.

Some may say that TWL has had an impact but others might argue that TWL actually is bringing more players into zone for TWDs. And as we all know we are headed into the time of year when the population drops off.

So are we willing to have this discussion yet or are we going to keep pretending that there is nothing wrong with trying to run TWD/TWL/TWDT, events, and pub all simultaneously? If we aren’t willing to have this discussion now is there some point where we should talk about it? If so, when?

Perhaps TWD shouldn’t be run 24/7/365? Perhaps a plan to better organize/schedule things so players can be online when the things they enjoy are running? Would consolidating some things and not spreading the zone’s population so thin keep it healthier?

And finally, if the new Council made a decision like this would they be able to get it done or would either of you override it?
Thanks in advance for your feedback
eph


P.S. - Interested in everyone's opinion on the above. Please feel free to also reply.



Edit: To clarify the question about the Council. If the Council decided to make a strategic change it is possible that some players would not be happy. They will, of course, run to you and start bitching. If the Council makes these kinds of decisions will you be supporting the Council or will you be willing to go out and try to sell the decision and get players buy-in?

[bkgmjo]

First and third weekend of month basing weekend, second and fourth weekend TWD, manual hosts(including elim/wbduel/base/distension) during the week with preset schedule for each week(same event twice maybe, euro and US time). Special hosts that require many players like ww3 if there is a holiday or something. Would be a way to have people look forward to something, assemble for it and stop staffs and autohosting from ripping the zone apart and killing the active population by spreading it thin with random stuff for 5 players.

[BooBiesYaY]

M_M God and Demonic,
It appears to me that the zone is now at a point where we need to start making some hard decisions. We simply cannot split the population up the way we used to be able to do. If we assume that we always want pub healthy and I would say that given the current population the zone can support one additional thing running at the same time.

TWD appears to be greatly suffering at this point. TWBDs are way, way down. TWJD and TWDD seem to be holding their own but only because squad can play them with fewer players online.

Some may say that TWL has had an impact but others might argue that TWL actually is bringing more players into zone for TWDs. And as we all know we are headed into the time of year when the population drops off.

So are we willing to have this discussion yet or are we going to keep pretending that there is nothing wrong with trying to run TWD/TWL/TWDT, events, and pub all simultaneously? If we aren’t willing to have this discussion now is there some point where we should talk about it? If so, when?

Perhaps TWD shouldn’t be run 24/7/365? Perhaps a plan to better organize/schedule things so players can be online when the things they enjoy are running? Would consolidating some things and not spreading the zone’s population so thin keep it healthier?

And finally, if the new Council made a decision like this would they be able to get it done or would either of you override it?
Thanks in advance for your feedback
eph


P.S. - Interested in everyone's opinion on the above. Please feel free to also reply.



Edit: To clarify the question about the Council. If the Council decided to make a strategic change it is possible that some players would not be happy. They will, of course, run to you and start bitching. If the Council makes these kinds of decisions will you be supporting the Council or will you be willing to go out and try to sell the decision and get players buy-in?

Popluation has to stabalize and expand at this point, but at least stabalize. Im not even joking when I say this but it wouldnt hurt if some of the higher ups or those loyal to the game start passing out mass produced fliers or pinning them up in libraries or something where kids go.

Im convinced that TW/SS could get like 2000 new players but the problem is retaining them and getting them to want to try and get use to controls. It took me like 12 months to get use to it. Plus nobody understands that TW/SS is mostly a social outlet. Most people don't play it for the game itself really, but the chat/connection feature lets you kill time having a lot of fun in arenas. Ie, some people play WoW or other games mostly for the social atmosphere. People think TW probably has no chat and is boring etc.

I think consolidating zones is important. Take all remaining zones, consolidate remaining players, and put arenas of extreme games or other arenas all in one platform so all players log in via one main arena first to boost population maybe.

Unban people over 6 months who can be watched and don't represent a major threat.

Continue to try and put the TW platform on game outlets. So the steam thing failed, try some other outlets for free advertising. Start writing into these outlets to try a partnership.

Try to redesign/update TW/SS if at all possible if any developers can help as a charity aspect. Probably very unlikely but it hasnt been updated in like 15 years so.. worth a shot.


TWL/TWD/TWBD are irrelevant to player growth/stabalization. Focus on events/pub to lure/stabalize players. TWD's will continue to suffer from monopolizing talent, possible connection exploting/cheating in the game, and lack of any real leadership in squads outside of the monopolized top 4 or so. Given population this isnt surprising either.

Add cheaper, more fun items to the !buy list. Don't add items that would disrupt basing too much or if you do (like thors) just put cooldowns on them, but right now its absurd to have 50k/100k items for sale that would take 1 month to earn for a 5 second fireworks. Its a stupid designed economy, and needs better more fun items, like multi-decoy to have fun. Since you usually reset money every year or so anyway, make it easy for people to have fun with !buy items and lure people wanting to do that. Its stupid to price things too high.

[kess]

game will die even faster with no competition. dont mess with twd/twl

[BooBiesYaY]

First and third weekend of month basing weekend, second and fourth weekend TWD, manual hosts(including elim/wbduel/base/distension) during the week with preset schedule for each week(same event twice maybe, euro and US time). Special hosts that require many players like ww3 if there is a holiday or something. Would be a way to have people look forward to something, assemble for it and stop staffs and autohosting from ripping the zone apart and killing the active population by spreading it thin with random stuff for 5 players.

Or maybe signups for a dedicated LONG hosted event. Such as, a week ahead of time, isntead of just saying "will be hosted sunday 4pm", have signups for a 1 hour event. This way you can measure the response. If under 70 sign up for the event(s) that are at least 1 hour.

If you host games like Warzone or WW3, appoint strong leaders to each team to minimize people from leaving.

If you host zombies, do a marathon of 5 arenas back to back so those who sign up get their money's worth etc. But make it clear those that sign up must stay for all games etc.

I think most TW players who sign up and go out of their way will show up. And you can have a full, big game thats reliable imo.

IDK worth a shot.

[roxxkatt]

with low populations schedules tend to work really well, especially if they are put in a visible place so people know when to show up, but the key to success is consistency

[BooBiesYaY]

game will die even faster with no competition. dont mess with twd/twl

I agree, but im talking about most people who casually play or those who play initially, won't even know or understand what TWD is. It took me a few months just to learn Esc + A, dethdefire laughed at me when I first started playing with him.

Im not saying TW is gonna grow anytime soon, im saying any efforts in focus should be aimed at improving consolidating pub, basic functions, and ease of use.

TWD should be maintainted so the monopoly players can compete against each other, sure, but the point im making is don't expect many or any other people to take TWD seriously except for those already playing. It suffers from the things I point out.

Thus, maintain TWD sure to retain those players, even build it up as much as possible, but don't try any futil attempt to lure MORE or NEW people to the lagues, it won't work, never. Not with the issues.

[Fork]

I think (.)(.)'sYay is right here, i'm sure we could get our population back if we were smart about it and ideas were experimented. Remember its about retaining those new players that arrive in pub. Focusing on player retention includes:

1) Preventing those new players from being spawned to death before they have learnt how to control their ship (They will get annoyed so fast because of the 4 second wait before respawn/ and how many times they get killed before they've figured out anything). suggest: Tutorial arena or new players start in a small area on the pub map so existing players cant get to them (when they type a command- they enter to enter pub)

2) Make it more fun for new players + encourage them to learn about this game. Anything will do like: Splash image telling them to type !tutorial to start/ splash images telling them a few instructions for certain amount of cash. Imagen if you just arrived to this game, if a large message said: Press CTRL to fire for $200 followed by "Welldone, now for $500 try and kill someone! Lets see if you can do this" - "OK now lets see you win a game for $1000" You should be more tempted compared to what it is now.

They could try out all sort of things to make a new player be temped to stay: A message that can be seen on screen in small saying "Play 5 minutes for $200" Followed by a timer ticking down from 5:00 to 0. Then a next goal is put up: "Play 10 minutes for $500" - under this is a 10 min timer etc.


-ultimately it comes down to some freeing up a coder or two to get this done which is almost impossible.


TWD

Anyway i feel it would be a very bad idea to restrict twd to certain times... Sometimes even during these "dead hours" there could be a rare moment when 2 squads have 3 and wanna battle. Imagen if they realise they cant play coz of the restrictions. This will just make sure players don't log on during the times you cant play twd (remember some players log on just to see if they are lucky and that their squad has enough players to get a jd/dd/bd).

You coders will prob know by now that if you really want to increase twd activity: your gonna have to allow squads to challenge the world.

-Captains gettin rewards for new player recruits. Idk but caps could get 2k per recruit simply by asking staff to do an alias check on them (to make sure noones abusing this for easy money)

-Make twd exciting/ different. Nothings actually happened for years apart from allowing 3 vs 3 games meaning people are obviously gonna get bored (this is the same for pub). An example of an idea i would love to see is when the match has been accepted: You can see a splash image of the 2 squad names that are gonna battle each other but these names could be designed by a member in the squad and submitted to twd staff for approval before being added.

Spend some tw donation funds on things to be added/ coded to this game and inform everyone what has happened for so much money. Hear me out... if people saw a really nice change has happened with the donation money, people will contribute more to the donation fund. Yes staff do things for free (ofc i respect that) but really, doing a complicated bot (to really change the game) will mean coders spending huge amount of effort to achieve this and if they were doing it for free they will most likely lose focus. Boy i'm sure u guys would love to vs very good computer controlled players in a twdd/ twjd or basing... if they advertised (publically) if someone can create a good working jav player then they get so much money- u would think someone would give it a shot. People have been asking for ages to fix the twl website/rules- well we know its not likely to be done any time soon but if you throw in some donation funds then things can be achieved.

If somehow we worked together and we contacted Priitk (i'm sure i've read somewhere on forums- its possible)... then we could persuade him not for the codes but to alter a few things to allow staff more freedom to do more to this game (Especially: less restrictions to do more things in pub/ new email addresses can be added to the account)

[Turban]

i'm sorry, but restricting TWD is hands down the worst idea i've heard in a long time. that would surely be the final nail in the coffin in this situation for our zone. rather than trying to force players to play something and limiting their options, we should focus on getting new players involved into events, elim and twd. i'm sure more people would be willing to run newbie squads if it was easier to make one; currently you have to make way too many sacrifices if you want to help the new players experience twd / competitive play.

also, fking get rid of the twd roster limit. it's just harmful for the zone.

thanks and bai bai.

[bkgmjo]

The idea behind is not to restrict it, but to promote it by scheduling times when games will actually happen. You will get exactly zero newbies interested in staying on this game by telling them they have to wait 2 days until their squad plays a league game while they are online just to find out vets who waited to play for a long time get chosen instead of them or they are allowed to be smashed in the ground by some experienced players in a newbie squad.

[Turban]

unfortunately that's all too idealistic if you ask me. it seems to me that some of you are forgetting about the most important part: no new players are going to be playing in TWD if things remain the way they have been for the past couple of years. getting new players involved into elim, events and twd should be highest on the priority list.

currently it's way too hard to create a squad meant for new players. trust me, it's not hard to recruit new players into a squad. while the process might take a while, such as telling them how to apply to a squad and register their name, that's not the reason why it's difficult to get new players involved in competitive play. there's only one reason and that is the lack of old players helping; you can't accomplish anything alone, you're going to need the help of others to succeed with this one. it's really hard to find the people to help you out and one training squad would be meaningless, you need way more than that. during our short project a few years ago we managed to get around 100 new players into TWD within a month, but that was a short-lived dream as that all took place during the TWL / TWD off-season + people got burned out.

most people are not willing to leave their current squad to help you. however, if they were given the chance to remain on their old squad while also being on a training squad (or two) they might have a change of heart. too bad this system would require a lot of coding, planning and proper advertising + the help of staff.

sry for the ramble, kinda running out of time so i just wrote as fast as i could. $

[bkgmjo]

Idk, I played like 4 or 5 TWD matches and about 3 elims since 98 as I just found it boring, but constantly introduce new players to the game and am permanently on the lookout for people who act newbie in pub and try to help and more important: entertain them. This entertaining is my #1 priority as I found it brings the most people back after their first experience on the game and only then, after they have like 10-20 hours in pub with the first people they got to know behind them I have success with showing them TWD, events and the fun arenas like art, balance and so on. Some stay in pub like me, some venture off into TWD and some hop around while sadly still the most are only seen a few times then no more due to disappointing experiences in all areas of the game.

While the potential of ss and tw as a free no-pay, no-browser, low requirement, no perma-online required mmo is still high even after so many years it suffers from severe mismanagement on all fronts. Of course giving every player their favorite arena and event with lots of players all day would be great and if I had the choice I'd be the first to vote for this even if I myself do not like those events, just because after all the most fun happens when people are around. But right now we do not have the players to have everything running. Most of the regular players have been around for a decade or more and sit in spec in a bunch of different arenas just waiting for something interesting to happen (no yet uninfected newbie would do this) and the only short term solution I see for this is bringing the people who like specific things together at specific times. Of course a mid to long term plan has to be the real improvements and fixes that should be obvious and are in queue for so long now, but until this can and hopefully will be accomplished we should keep the game running at least, even if everyone has to swallow down a little bit taken away for it.

[BooBiesYaY]

Idk, I played like 4 or 5 TWD matches and about 3 elims since 98 as I just found it boring, but constantly introduce new players to the game and am permanently on the lookout for people who act newbie in pub and try to help and more important: entertain them. This entertaining is my #1 priority as I found it brings the most people back after their first experience on the game and only then, after they have like 10-20 hours in pub with the first people they got to know behind them I have success with showing them TWD, events and the fun arenas like art, balance and so on. Some stay in pub like me, some venture off into TWD and some hop around while sadly still the most are only seen a few times then no more due to disappointing experiences in all areas of the game.

While the potential of ss and tw as a free no-pay, no-browser, low requirement, no perma-online required mmo is still high even after so many years it suffers from severe mismanagement on all fronts. Of course giving every player their favorite arena and event with lots of players all day would be great and if I had the choice I'd be the first to vote for this even if I myself do not like those events, just because after all the most fun happens when people are around. But right now we do not have the players to have everything running. Most of the regular players have been around for a decade or more and sit in spec in a bunch of different arenas just waiting for something interesting to happen (no yet uninfected newbie would do this) and the only short term solution I see for this is bringing the people who like specific things together at specific times. Of course a mid to long term plan has to be the real improvements and fixes that should be obvious and are in queue for so long now, but until this can and hopefully will be accomplished we should keep the game running at least, even if everyone has to swallow down a little bit taken away for it.

Exactly, i've yet to find a major social game, with such basic and easy design, a tiny download (few MB), and works with zero processor lag on any computer, old or new. The problem is people don't really know or wait long enough to find this out. I think word of mouth/fliers would work far better than advertising online. Only other option is partnering with game sites.

But, as far as TWD goes, we've been over this a million times. Theres 5 squads that monopolize all the talent. Talent is not distributed evenly. The top 5 squads rosters have zero newbies in them, its all vets or aliases. Nobody is going to join newbie squads to play higher squads which nuked them 50-25 all day long. Many of these newbies dont know how to "rush" and fire, they don't know how to manage energy for many years and so forth.

Also, TWL serves to retain vets maybe but it does nothing for the general population because its almost like the 1%'ers having themselves a party and nobody else in invited. Of course the same people who have 100% vets and the best talent are gonna make it to TWL every year.

Keep TWD/TWL, improve it, but don't focus on new players right now its not gonna happen.

Mismanagement is obvious in some aspects, but on the other side staff and mods are usually very nice and do their best in a lot of things. I feel like the intelligence factor is severely lacking sometimes though. Why would you ban people for 12 months? If someone banned me for 12 months id say FU to the game and go drinking and partying in my spare time instead and just make a WoW account again lol. Cheaters should be banned but id rather ban them for 3-6 months at max then watch them closely after that, not extend bans past a year and so forth. Staff and cheaters have been cheating in the past without consequence anyway for a long ass time. Was Sirius banned? Was Vys banned? Were others banned, nope (i like vys btw lol nothing personal).

Eh, i pretty much said all the improvements i think are worth focus on in prior posts. But the TWD/TWL thing is terminal is too many aspects. It should stay a dick measuring contest for vets, which is what someone called them in a prior post lol.. so true.

I may try to make a flier and post it in 2-3 libraries locally in NJ if im allowed. Even if it picks up 10 new players its helpful.

[roxxkatt]

why not create some draft system with reset intervals

[Ephemeral]

Turb,
So you don't think that TW is currently being stretched too thin; it is certainly debatable. But is there any point when you would say that the population isn't supporting the breath of simultaneous features that it currently has? If so, when?
eph