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**Banks** · 06-01-2017, 01:40 AM

You know what, i'm actually not oppossed to this idea at all. Interesting to see how this all could be played out

**roxxkatt** · 06-01-2017, 02:13 AM

you are wasting your time
the people holding the ss steam keys have never been willing to put in the work to do a job right, and are not willing to put in the work needed to make any changes

**mtine** · 06-01-2017, 05:07 PM

And that's why some of us are offering our free time to help out. We got some very cool people behind this idea (Attacks to name just one of them) and I really do believe that if we put all our differences aside for a greater good we can succeed. If we work together of course.

And no Cheese, they know what's going on and they also need help. So we will help as much as possible. Qan is already doing an amazing job with the zone, but we need to assist him so he doesn't burn out. And I really believe now is the time to do it.

**roxxkatt** · 06-01-2017, 05:44 PM

note how you said qan
qan consistently produces results
however, while qan has access, he is not the owner of the lock, he is only using a key that can be changed without his consent

as usual, the problem is that the people that produce results are being cockblocked by the people that dont and their corresponding overly large egos
even better, when they complain or draw any public attention to that fact, any access they hold is vindictively removed after the fact instead of any procedural improvement

**mtine** · 06-01-2017, 06:23 PM

Well, we will try to work on that. If we can help, we will, if we can't or won't be allowed to by the ones being in charge, then we won't. We are just offering our services to actually do something this time that could potentially save the game for a couple of years. That's all man.

**qan** · 06-02-2017, 03:02 AM

Thanks for taking the time to come up with and post your ideas. Always needed. The offer to help is very cool too.

Originally posted by wiibimbo

- ditch the whole tutorial arena and just move new players into elim where they can learn the ropes of how to play the game, whether it be hide behind trees/rocks or just suicide like crazy
- make elim great again! The reason behind this is that a lot more players would come there, especially new ones, and stay because many know what a deathmatch is and how to play it. It's much more simple than figuring out what to do in pub if you are a completely new player. Once they get past the elim experience, they can just ask around or make a ?help call on what else the zone offers. Would also be nice if a staffer was present in the arena at all (or most) times.

I understand the idea behind trying to funnel players into elim because they understand the concept, but elim's not even active with our normal playerbase. I'm not sure how pushing brand-new players into a possibly-empty arena is going to help all that much. The rules are simple enough, but what happens when a player's trying to figure out controls, quickly is eliminated and then is spec'd? These are people who are having trouble even figuring out how to get into a ship. By default the Steam installer sets their ship to WB rather than Spec, but if they were pushed to elim they'd end up as spec if a match is currently going.

On the other hand, pub lets people jump right in and kill. Everyone understands making kills. That's the most fundamental part of gameplay in SS, just killing and not dying. It doesn't have an overarching goal, but it's still fun, and it's what hooked all of us. Eventually, players can move on to getting the flag or dueling. (Or elim.)

Meanwhile, the risk of pushing players to elim rather than pub means pub will die, plain and simple. Maybe you can convince me otherwise, but I don't see how pub would maintain itself. Some people think pub is useless and meaningless. I think these people are very silly indeed. To me it will always be the heart of the zone -- not elim, not TWD, but pub. That's not a very popular opinion among most vets, but I still think that the zone lives or dies by whether pub remains living. The freeform play is central to the zone, and lets people practice all the skills they can then use in the more competitive aspects elsewhere.

One idea I've batted around for awhile are little warp areas in pub that take you to different arenas. Also, graphics that will display when elim/wbduel/javduel/base/an event are starting. It's been tough to get a designer to complete even those. fiS made 2 of them but to do the update we should have all 5. It's hard to find anyone willing to do much aside from give ideas and tell other people how things should be. So I appreciate your offer to try to help in ways extending beyond just "ideas machine."

- small area in elim (if you are too !late to join a game already in progress) - just like there is one when you die out, you could just practice before a new game starts without having to be in.

You can do this with !practice 1 or !practice 2. See !help for details.

- reduce the hosting of wbduel and javduel and concentrate more on elim when the game relaunches on Steam. These arenas can later be shown to new players to compete in a team-wise combat if they so desire.

Might be overestimating the effect of our visibility rounds (we're no longer relaunching). I don't think it will matter all that much. Could be wrong, though. If you have a compelling case, please give details.

- maybe add a small arena in pub with the option to play elim games. It doesn't have to be big, just like the duel arena is in pub or a little bigger. Same for javelim.

Would be cool. Just need to do this weird hack where I fool bots into believing they're not sharing the area. Sort of a pain in the butt. But running elim in pub would be great.

If any bot coders want to code a simple elim module for pub, we could also do that.

separate both elims (elim and javelim)!!! - this has been a hot topic lately and I must say I agree with the majority. There is a vast number of warbirds out there still but when javelim or javduel are on, those warbird players just go afk and don't play anything. This would definitely be helpful to the game itself.

This one is easy enough to try. Just copy the map and disable some ships on the 2nd version of the bot. If there's enough interest we can give it a shot. No harm in trying.

- make an option on the TWD website to allow new players to easily fill in an application (since nowadays most people playing video games know how to use websites) and just let the bot find them a suitable squad to join. For example: Hi, my name is wiibimbo, I would love to join a squad and prefer to play warbird (or jav or any other ship). The bot should then automatically search the squads appropriate for the new player to join and send them the list. The player would then just choose which squad to join (or it can also be automated, idk) and when the player joins a squad, it automatically sends them a message in the game with the password and chat for that squad.

Would be cool, but I don't know any web developers. We currently don't have any active on dev staff, which is a complete skeleton crew. It's basically me, and then whenever others have time they contribute a little. I mostly do bots. But I have a job, a girlfriend and a pretty involved social life, so mostly I focus on crucial stuff. Rarely take on large new projects.

- add more fun hosted stuff during peak hours of steam players logging in - staff should be already aware of this, but there are so many cool arenas that were hosted before and aren't hosted anymore. Could make a full list of it and put it here so people get nostalgic again. Also, hosting fun events for people to participate in on a weekly basis, just like we have weekend events, but done in a more competitive fashion. For example: basing World cup (hosted only during 1 Sunday), hockey tournament (also hosted during 1 Sunday), racing league (1 Sunday) etc.

You could start an event hosting request thread. Don't just list them, but talk up each thread a bit. Then we can have ERs take a look. A lot of staffers are newer players these days (remember, most vets have been staff at one point and just burn out ... it's a tough job). So if you can remind them of some solid events, give some details about how they run, etc., it would be a huge help.

- restructure staff and ditch the people who don't do anything but annoy others - there have always been corrupt players in TW staff and since that is the case the game won't go anywhere. Just let go of the ones that are detrimental to the zone or are just staffers because they love the smell of power. Also, a new structure of TW Staff would be nice to actually know what each one is doing, especially for the Steam launch period.

We have a new and experienced Dean coming on board soon (hopefully that's not jumping the gun to say). Staff management is a constant process and Beasty has been working his butt off lately. A lot of people don't get enough credit for behind the scenes work that keeps things running smoothly. Thanks to anyone reading this who's ever done a thankless job for TW, current and former staff, and players as well.

I can talk to Beasty about putting out an updated upper staff list, as it's changed enough since the last one to make such a thing worthwhile.

That would be it for now. I've also been talking to Attacks lately and he says he would gladly help out again the best way he can. If this is the case, I would (and I can't believe I'm saying this) love to help him with this task aswell, therefore offer my free time again to rejoin TW Staff and help in any way possible. (I will probably regret this later again, but I don't care. Time to step up and help the zone).

Cool, always appreciated, can put in an app and talk to Beasty or an upcoming Dean, as yet to be named, heh! If you have any special skills, can always make use of them. Unfortunately a lot of work is quite specialized. Even simple stuff like map and LVZ creation most people aren't willing to learn for some reason. But if you're willing to do that, that always helps. The events thread would be helpful too.

Again, thanks for taking the time to get this on paper.

**qan** · 06-02-2017, 03:07 AM

Originally posted by roxxkatt View Post

note how you said qan
qan consistently produces results
however, while qan has access, he is not the owner of the lock, he is only using a key that can be changed without his consent

as usual, the problem is that the people that produce results are being cockblocked by the people that dont and their corresponding overly large egos
even better, when they complain or draw any public attention to that fact, any access they hold is vindictively removed after the fact instead of any procedural improvement

Currently I'm managing the Steam account. MM handed it off about 6 months back when I expressed interest in working on it, and it was getting to be a bother verifying me on many devices, heh.

Got your message about this, and you're still on the account. Can talk in-game more about any issues you're having, as well as anything you're interested in doing for Steam. I'm working on setting up an automated update system for LVZ/LVL files, may have mentioned. Just a cron job that builds a 2nd depot. I need to set up the depot and a new limited access account for the automated building though. Planning on using GDrive for zone owners to update files, and this program: https://github.com/prasmussen/gdrive It works pretty well so far. I know it'll use a bit of bandwidth, but that's one thing the bot server actually has plenty to spare of, only using 3% every month.

**Ricko** · 06-02-2017, 04:38 AM

Originally posted by mtine View Post

We got some very cool people behind this idea (Attacks to name just one of them)

This is where I stopped paying attention

**roxxkatt** · 06-02-2017, 02:10 PM

Originally posted by qan View Post

Currently I'm managing the Steam account. MM handed it off about 6 months back when I expressed interest in working on it, and it was getting to be a bother verifying me on many devices, heh.

Got your message about this, and you're still on the account. Can talk in-game more about any issues you're having, as well as anything you're interested in doing for Steam. I'm working on setting up an automated update system for LVZ/LVL files, may have mentioned. Just a cron job that builds a 2nd depot. I need to set up the depot and a new limited access account for the automated building though. Planning on using GDrive for zone owners to update files, and this program: https://github.com/prasmussen/gdrive It works pretty well so far. I know it'll use a bit of bandwidth, but that's one thing the bot server actually has plenty to spare of, only using 3% every month.

good to hear
1) does it still have steigerwalt at the top?
1b) has anyone talked with BDE yet?
1c) has anyone made a US nonprofit and bank account yet?
2) as always, i can help you with web dev, but someone changed the ftp pw a few years back
3) as previously stated, i want to begin by making a steam auth biller, and then will mess around with achievements a bit, idk if the test achs i made are still in, havnt looked in ages
4) talk to jabjabjab, he was working on a zone file sync client addon exe a few years back
5) i would strongly advise you set up a bitbucket with git, and people can push their zone files using that. repos arent just for text files

**mtine** · 06-02-2017, 06:04 PM

Cheese, I think that was Dezmond if I remember correctly. But I'm pretty sure someone on staff has access to that, therefore they have the pw too.

**mtine** · 06-02-2017, 06:56 PM

Thanks for a nice response, qan. Really appreciate it. I also have to answer some of you stuff, though, and give you some more input.

Elim and pub: I am totally not against removing pub and replacing it with elim, no sir. I just think it would be more easy for new players to learn the game by playing a game of deathmatch first. On this thought though, implementing a small elim arena in pub would be excellent. That way when people are bored or there is no basing going on (or anything for that matter) in pub people can actually try elim. Also, the portal thingie you mentioned earlier: brilliant. Many other games, especially MMOs, have those for fast travelling to other destinations. I play full-time WoW now and let me tell you: people want portals all the time! Mages are sought of just for that reason, so yeah, if you can make that happen, that would be sweet indeed.
Another part here is elim itself. I know most vets don't play it that often anymore and I agree that it's kinda dead. However, if there was something to play for in elim, like let's say a lot of pubbucks earned during the end of each week to the top 5 players or a medal given to the top 3 players at the end of each season, that would certainly boost the desire to play elim more. But of course, this would have to be polled first and asked around the playerbase. Also, separating elim and javelim could be a good start. I mean, if we try and fail, we can always revert back, right? No harm in trying as you said.

Wbduel and javduel: as it stands, whenever I come online all I see is pub and javduel. And guess why? Well, pub is always on because it is the main arena in the zone and javduel is always hosted because 24 is a jav and he will spam the marathon for hours. While that is the case, 10-15 people will always play javduel while the rest of us (mainly warbirds) just play 1 or 2 wbduels per night. I'm not complaining that javduel is a bad thing, we just need another staffer or someone to do the same for wbduels. Like Henry always tries to do base. But there literally is noone to host wbduel for a few rounds.

Website for squad join: I think Cheese could do that. Or maybe we can find some other individual, maybe ever a former staffer, to help us out here. I don't believe it's a lot of work, just finding the right person for the job. If it can be done, sweet, if not, oh well. We can always find an alternative solution for new players to join a squad they want to be apart of.

Fun hosted events: I've been in this game for almost 8 years now. I've played many cool arenas in my time, including chase2, oldfishies, matrix, balanceout, bug etc. They really aren't hard to host, just need an ER with a bot and we're good to go. Basically most of these arenas that were so popular in the past require a host to understand how to run zombies, hunt, racing and maybe some other fun events like CnR or guess. It really is a piece of cake. These events could also be hosted on a weekly basis, meaning, we could make some sort of competition. Example: each 1st Sunday we do a competition for a zombie event like chase2. We can do like 3 big rounds of it and the top 3 in all those rounds get a lot of pubbucks. Or maybe 2nd week of each month we do a racing league: Saturday 4-6 pm, 3 maps, qualifying. Sunday 4-6 pm, 3 maps, racing. Again, top 3 get a prize. Or Basing world cup on a Saturday: gather all the people you can, let them know in advance of course, and when they show up just make random teams (preferrably 4) and then do a mini tourny in basing. Top 3 teams get a prize or something else. Something along those lines. The possibilites are endless.

TW Staff: I appreciate your input here. I know Beasty does a lot of job behind the scenes, but what about the players? They should know what's happening. I know this guy, 3DM, he is the nicest player/staffer around. He always helps people, talks to them and does this public relations thing. Why not, for example, give him the power to make a weekly post on the forums and inform the players what is going on behind the scenes? Maybe write about stuff that you are working on, other staffers plans and goals, put some jokes in to make us laugh, just to connect the normal population with staff again. That is the link we are currently missing...a lot.
Also, by restructuring staff i mean by giving the people that do a lot of work important position and demote others who just do an event now and then and are just there because of the "power". They can still be staffers, just not have that much power anymore if they don't contribute a lot to the zone/players.

My help offered: ok, I will cover all the things that I see fit here. I am also kinda tired today because I had to translate a long paper on Lenten veils. Yeah, don't ask me anymore.

Anyways, I've had my share of TW staff in the past but there were a lot of people there which I and others didn't like and things went south really fast. I made a small mistake and was removed from staff quite instantly. But yeah, let's leave that in the past. As I was saying, I used to do a lot of map creations with Dral and JabJabJab, but I forgot how to do LVZs and LVLs. But hey, am willing to relearn them again if it helps the zone in any way! The only thing I can't do is bots and coding because I have no idea what to even do with them. Besides that, just keeping people happy and hosting a lot of stuff has always been my big dream. Whether it be hosted events, weekly events, helping with TWDT/TWL/TSL hosting duties, helping people out via messages or in-game, maintaining order in pub (the other day it was 10v5 for like 30 mins and I made a ?help call and seniorkevin actually did this to help us out by shuffling teams after each round, was proud of him!) or anything else that can be done. Oh yeah, also with the Steam re-launch. Basically anything.

As you can see, we have quite good ideas, the only problem is getting people to help out. And that is exactly the reason I stepped up, forgot about the things that happened and am offering my free time to help the zone as much as possible. Also, would love to mention that Attacks inspired me a lot. Love u Tax!

But anyway, I hope some of this can be worked on, if not for our sake, then at least to make the new players feel more welcome and enjoy this beautiful game even more. If you have any other things you wanna talk about, please let me know here or send me a ?message in-game.

Have a great day, qan! And thanks again for all the work you put in. You, sir, ROCK!!!

**mtine** · 06-02-2017, 07:02 PM

Also, just remembered some fun stuff that could be done to pub: change the pub map a little sometimes, replace it with other cool maps from the past like Boki, do a little tile changes, different colors etc. Just to keep it fresh and fun!

Sorry, didn't let me edit my post, so had to make another one.

PS. Could also increase the number of people that can be added in javduel and wbduel to like 6 or 7 at all times if that is possible. That way, when we have a lot of people coming to those arenas and no staffers around, we can just add everyone to the game, without anyone feeling left out. Just brainstorming here.

**roxxkatt** · 06-02-2017, 11:51 PM

Originally posted by qan View Post

Got your message about this, and you're still on the account. Can talk in-game more about any issues you're having

as it turns out, its just that dumb cunts were selling the developer badge to the mentally disabled, so valve killed it for everyone, and with it my indicator that people are fucking around with the ss steam account
https://steamcommunity.com/discussio...6826773797172/

**kthx** · 06-03-2017, 12:21 AM

Originally posted by roxxkatt View Post

as it turns out, its just that dumb cunts were selling the developer badge to the mentally disabled, so valve killed it for everyone, and with it my indicator that people are fucking around with the ss steam account
https://steamcommunity.com/discussio...6826773797172/

Man cheese, as you get older you are starting to sound more and more like me, its enjoyable in a sense, yet unfortunately its also sad that the people who (ill grudgingly admit) did their best to make this game better are starting to see the writing on the wall that I saw years earlier. This game has always had great people but the leadership itself is a cesspool, people burn themselves out not because they get tired of working, but due to the fact that their hard work is oft ignored or disregarded because of an irrelevant group of admin who would rather see the game die than do what needs to be done to fix it. I might be drunk but I loved this game I put a lot of effort, my heart, and my soul into trying to make it better and it makes me sick thinking about all the amazing people who I have been in arenas with. This game is going to die, and I won't remember the game but I will remember the people who played the game, every single person who stops playing takes a chunk of the games soul with it. No amount of coding can fix it, because the code was never what this game was about anyways.

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