Open Letter to Demonic and M_M God

[M_M God]

I can only speak for myself here, but imho, simply put, we need to focus on the core aspects of this zone, pub/twd/twl and fun events around it. Go back to these core aspects of the zone and focus on retaining them and making them more stable for the future. We need to target new types of people (new countries?) to download this game and come into our zone, try to make them stay/feel welcome here and give them time to adjust to our settings etc (tutorial/basic game play training at start). Focus our efforts on displaying this game as a nostalgic, free to play, MMO online game. Where you have some fun and competitive play if you want, but can also make friends and use this more as a chat application type of thing as well. I also want to do some specific targeting of old (retired) players, try to get them to show their face in TW again and bring up some good memories for them and other (vet) players that remember them and still play up to this date. The most logical step for that would be a professional email newsletter (since we still have a database of old players email addresses). We need to stop trying/caring for adding new !buy futures and what not in pub for a while and all focus on the main aspect here, stop this game from completely dying out by focusing too much on all the less important stuff around our core aspects. We need new people coming into this game, we need to get them to actually download the client and not only visiting our site, we need to let them have some fun at their first visit, not scare them away..and while doing that we also want to focus on the future and keep a healthy relationship between staff and the players. Anyway, I could go on for hours, but it's safe to say we're all still very involved and care about this game, so let's stop talking about unbanning a player or not like we've done for the last few weeks and move on to bigger, better things.

[Vatican Assassin]

I was way off on that math there.

[Bukkake Surprise]

Don't you mean "20 years old"?

I agree with making some ships "specialists", the way they used to be. There should be "fighting" ships and "specialist" ships. Lancaster, warbird, spider in the first category, everything else in the second. Make levis move slowly again, give them the powerful bomb, and to make sure private frequency LTs don't ruin the game, don't allow anyone to buy things outside of safe and reset bounty to 3 when entering a safe, at least for levis.

Also, make safe times for terrs be 3 minutes instead of 30, because fucking assholes go AFK in safe and people keep unwittingly attaching to them and wasting time (very bad when you're fighting desperately for flag room). Or just make it so people can't attach to a terr that's in safe.

[Vatican Assassin]

You're overlooking the strategic decisions of consolidation that have already been made. We now have 1 large pub where everyone plays, pretty smart and successful decision if you ask me. Allowing 3v3 twd matches. We have to accept that the cookie is crumbling and try to save the core. It looks like we're already doing that. If you have a strategic idea, please present it.

[Ephemeral]

The game is almost 30 years old, you see any other games from 1996 with 100+ players daily? Stop thinking the game would still have moer players if we only limited TWD, your ideas are only going to hasten the decline. Stop trying to force players to play certain events at certain times, the only reason this game still exists is because you can log on any time and play a TWD game.

VA,
Understood. But I did not intend to imply that limiting anything was the correct direction. The point of this thread was to see how many in the zone agree with thinking at a strategic level. The strategy of the zone could be many things;
- simply try to retain exiting players
- bring some of the old inactive ones back, maintain the zone like a retro legacy game
- try to bring new players into the game and retain them
- do what is done now, simply wake up and do whatever the fuck we did yesterday. Allow 1000s of ‘good ideas’ to bubble up from the grassroots level and see if anything works (aka be all things to all people)

I don’t give a fuck what the strategy actually is, just get it defined, develop a plan, and head towards the goal. But this shit of ‘being all things to all people’ is a cluster fuck and is clearly not working. The zone simply defaults to what it operationally did the day before. Leadership is needed that is willing to think strategically AND is willing to get out and sell the strategy (whatever it is).
So please don’t think that I advocate limiting this or that. I was asking for discourse at a strategic level.
eph

[Vatican Assassin]

The game is almost 30 years old, you see any other games from 1996 with 100+ players daily? Stop thinking the game would still have moer players if we only limited TWD, your ideas are only going to hasten the decline. Stop trying to force players to play certain events at certain times, the only reason this game still exists is because you can log on any time and play a TWD game.

[Ephemeral]

I am not sure that there are any ‘magic’ ship settings or maps that can be considered the solution to the issue of the declining population. (Although I would certainly agree that some configurations are much better than others.) IMO what is more important, and was the original intent of this thread, was to see if we could have a discussion at a strategic level.

Operational issues (ship settings, etc.) are of course important. But the zone has been run for literally years only at an operational level. There was never a lack of operational ideas, never a lack of operational effort. Running things at an operational level is much easier, especially if there is a strategic vacuum. But the decline of population is a strategic issue, trying to address it operationally will not work (nor has it in the last 10 years).

Just yesterday a new thread was started about the lack of TWBDs; and we aren’t even into the slow summer period yet. So at a strategic level I repeat the same questions;

1. Is there some point where the zone population is spread too thin and some consolidation is the best solution?
2. Have we reached that point?
3. If not, at what point might it be?
4. If consolidation is not the answer... What other strategic solutions might lend themselves to limit or prevent the deterioration of the zone?

eph

[Ricko]

I couldn't agree more with Waxy - change pub ship settings back to how they were, they were created that way on purpose - because they were the right balance.

The idea of lev was NEVER to have an equal playing field, it was made to be an incredibly challenging ship if you wanted to try and play it. If you could manage to get out of the spawn zone (which with a lower pop generally now is much easier), then you were rewarded with having big bombs that could do damage because it BALANCED itself out....high damage bombs but high risk of death before being able to. Now the lev gets tweaked every month and all we see are levs in flag room and flying about base ruining gameplay; this was not how the lev was intended to be used and the constant tweaking has damaged the lev hardcore's enjoyment for it so we have seen their population diminish.

Weasel - Similar to the lev it was intended to be a challenging ship, your low speed and low fire rate was due to the fact NO ONE CAN SEE YOU. It's a high risk, high reward ship and it should remain so....these days it's almost an alternative fighter ship to wb/spid/lanc.

This isn't a cry to go back 'to the good old days' for nostalgia's sakes - the ship settings of 6+ years ago generally were the best in terms of gameplay flow and it really would be refreshing to get the best ship settings possible for how Trench Wars was designed to be played and enjoyed.

[Bukkake Surprise]

"Welcome back then, you can use antiwarp in spawn."

Awesome!

[LaG KiLLeR]

Instead of getting too crazy with fliers, mass advertising, shifting events how about each active player takes it upon themselves to bring in a new player (friend, coworker, someone from another game, etc.). How about some sort of referral reward program? I got into SS through a friend, and a few years ago I got another friend hooked on SS, who as of yesterday still plays.

Next, unban everyone, and I mean everyone. Then start from scratch, reban if violations crop up. Like a business, it's easier to get old customers to return than source brand new ones. Look at loosening rules, especially language. Nobody really cares about preventing N-bombs more then playing in an empty zone. What's so bad about tking? It's physically part of the game -- have players vote via bot command to remove and lock a players out from their frequency instead of banning.

Emphasize the community part of the game more, chat on android was a nice touch (I have yet to try).

A post that actually makes sense. Dr Death, I always knew you were a wise one. Unfortunately, timing is important too. This post could've been helpful a few years ago (if implemented then). Now, with the limited competence of current staff members, the proposed plan would be useless.

On a different note, what's actually baffling is that TW has received over $11k in donations, yet a minimum of $525 actually went into advertising and "TW development" (there's a possibility that some "You Choose For Me" donations went towards those two categories).

[Wax]

Well I figure I may as well chime in here. Maybe it gets somewhere, maybe it doesn't.

First of all, I agree with 2pac. The settings which worked for years started to get messed with far too much. Changes began to be made to attempt to appease every single gripe that was brought about. One of the best things to realize in life is that you simply can't please everyone. When you try to, things don't get better. Hardly ever. I think there was a balance in a way that each ship had its advantage. Sure, the Levs had very powerful bombs, but guess what? People loved hunting LevTerrs. Each ship used to cause people to react if something annoyed them. A cloak (back when it wasn't this retarded small ship with only half of its original functionality with cloaking) was annoying you? You switched to a terrier and hunted him. A Levi was bombing base? You purchased anti-warp and went to work. Now it's just a bunch of evenly spec'd ships running about doing their own thing day after day, same situation after same situation. This zone almost adapted the same ridiculous mentality the real world has. Everyone gets a ribbon for participation, everyone is a winner, and everything must be equal and on a level playing field. No.

My second thought which touches briefly on what others have said is this: Organize and bring things together. We have multiple websites that serve too many different purposes. People are lazy. They don't want to have to go to different websites or do extra work, no matter how minimal the effort is that is required. There is a reason one stop shopping is so successful and appealing to people. We need to combine all of the websites and organize it so there is only one place you need to go or keep an eye on. A way needs to be figured out to get all of the features, purposes, and functionality on a SINGLE website. Marketing would be easier, traffic would go up, and information would be much more easily found and kept up with.

We need people involved and in charge that aren't going to think as players who have been around for years on years, but as people who aren't or haven't been. It is difficult to separate our personal feelings and what we would LIKE from the things that we NEED. But that is what must be done if anything is going to change. Cosmetic changes aren't going to fix anything. We need to get back to the basics and build from there.

[Shaddowknight]

Which posts are being moved and where?

There were a bunch of posts between 2pacz and someothers about his ban. I moved them here.

[2pac]

GO back to stock settings like circa 2003-2010 and leave it be. Nothing needs to be changed if it aint broken.

[Steep]

Welcome back then, you can use antiwarp in spawn.

[Bukkake Surprise]

Which posts are being moved and where?

"i surely believe we need to get our heads out of our asses"

Yes, I agree. But read the last few lines of my post above. Krynetix was pounding his chest and saying he will do what nobody has done until now (just like Obama) and he ended up being crap just like everyone else before him (just like Obama). I am very skeptical of grandiose claims and promises from staff members, and nobody can blame me (and the many other people who don't believe a word staff members say due to years of lies and broken promises and power abuses).

I would like to play again, but I refuse to do so until we can use antiwarp in spawn again. I never did that, but we must be able to chase LTs no matter where they go. Also, it's a matter of principle. Krynetix was a retard for making a mountain out of a molehill and abusing his powers to make the bot take people's antiwarp away due to one complaint. He reminds me of the FCC losing its shit over Janet Jackson's nipple. "Oh noes! The children are traumatized!" Why the fuck were children watching the pathetic excuse for feeding people violence that is American rugby?