What is it?

[Ewan]

Recently one problem has been annoying the hell out of me:

What is it that makes SS/TW so bloody addictive?

The only answer I can think of is the "community".

I tried to show this game to someone I know but I was stuck for words when he asked me what was actually good about the game - All I could come up with was that it was fun and the community is good. He said he preferred pacman because it is "Less repetitive, requires more skill and has better graphics". Obviously I disagreed.



This "problem" is really annoying me, any ideas would be nice.

~E

[Stabwound]

Because you compete with other people 1v1 and also on a team. If this game was single player only, it would be shit, and no one would play it anymore.

[NaiLed]

easy to pick up, don't need a good connection, community, simple but effective graphics (i have a crappy built in gfx card) - reasons why i started playing and why i still play it

competitiveness also plays a big roll. imagine playing this game without any squads or leagues. ugh.

EDIT: NO CHEATS! Well, apart from lag ones.

[Mr. Peanuts]

actually... i dunno why i play.

bye

[Xog]

Because we can never find out what that damn smell is... Is it Me or Ewan.. :/

Xog> ?message Ewan:Ewan smells
You have 1 new message. Type ?messages to read
Xog> ?messages
Ewan:Xog smells

:/.. It can't be both of us. It's one distinct smell!

[Aquatiq]

It is extremely new-user-friendly. If you're new to it and assuming you just play pubs, you can enter and spec absolutely whenever you want. You aren't forced to follow a timer or schedule or rounds or anything like that - your play schedule revolves around YOU.

[Jeansi]

Originally posted by Aquatiq
It is extremely new-user-friendly. If you're new to it and assuming you just play pubs, you can enter and spec absolutely whenever you want. You aren't forced to follow a timer or schedule or rounds or anything like that - your play schedule revolves around YOU.

IMO this is the least newbie-friendly game I have ever played. No one welcomes them or understand that new people make mistakes.
There is no easy way of getting into the community and it takes alot of effort to be well known.
When you first start the game you have no idea where to go/what to do. Usually people go to where they have the lowest ping or where there are most players online.
So much is done with console commands that are hard to find out about/remember.
I don't think it's user friendly at all.

[Fruitang]

To me, it's community.
At the beginning it starts out as record hogging in the public arenas but when you join your first squad it becomes trying to win matches.
And now for me it's just community, I don't care for playing as much as I used to. I log on to talk to people.

[Bilbo]

For me it's my bruvas and sistas.

[geekbot]

I don't understand anyone who plays a game because it has good graphics. A game is fun to me if PLAYING the game is fun.

SS is one of the first online multi-player combat games. That means there is a community involved. It also means that the players that you play against (and essentially the game) constantly changes. TW basing changes all the time (invention of lining and invention of cramming for examples) without the help of any change to the rules of the game or game engine. That's pretty darn cool.

SS servers are simple and flexible. Besides the players changing, the game itself and the game play can easily change. Anyone can easily start a zone. If the game sucks, someone can go and make it better. This leads to variety and quality. It's also pretty darn cool that zones like DSB, Desert Storm, Hockey, and Powerball all exist in SS. These are essentially all different games with different game play. If TW is too repetitive/simple/low on graphics, try a different zone. There are plenty of zones that are less repetitive, more complex, and/or have more graphics.

That's SS. I started play TW basing because it has simple game play (and so emphasizing strategy), teamwork, and the community.

[Troll King]

I think that a lot of us take this game for granted. Every now and then we see the cliched statement that this is just a 2D spaceship game. In truth, however, this game is about survival. How many times has this game nearly died? Those whose knowledge of history only goes as far back to Continuum's coding are only looking at a small part of it. You'd need to look back at the SSC council, various server upheavals and of course, VIE's abandonment. I cannot think of any other game out there that has had to go through as much adversity yet still continue to grow for so many years. For that alone, this game is unique.

[Louis XV]

Originally posted by Troll King
this game is unique.

[Zyclon]

Originally posted by Fruitang
To me, it's community.

[ÆNIMA]

It's so popular, that when someone invites a friend to play, they steer that person into TW, and it's so easy to get into the game, that they never leave...and eventually they invite more people into the TW community. When people leave TW's 1-shot 1 kill zone into say SVS, they can't handle the fact that it takes millions of bombs and bullets combined to kill a person, so they stay in TW.