Suggestions for making TWD alive again

[Exalt]

Honestly, this game is already dead. We are just pretending it isn't for old time sake.

The only way this game will ever have a resurgence is if it is literally remade. It needs to be updated completely, in every way/shape/form. That's the only way this game will ever come back, and even that isn't a sure thing.

So seriously, unless someone wants to go out of their way and make a new Subspace, then stop complaining about new players.

The only thing us old players are asking for is something new and fun to do before the game is entirely dead. TWD is fun, but it isn't active enough. Do something about that, make other arenas better, or make something new entirely. Do something at least. If this is impossible or you don't want to do it, then step down from your staff positions and go back to being afk forever. Nobody said staff was fun. People do it for 2 reasons. Either they want to change the game for the better, or they want some inflated, fallacious sense of power. Usually, it's the second one, and those players are the ones that make it bad for the first group.

What really needs to happen, if you ask me, is everyone from staff should be axed immediately and TW has a voting system to decide the real staff members. Let TW get exactly what it wants, good or bad. Nothing can be worse than what is already there for the most part. At the very least, it will mean people can stop complaining.

A free game with no ownership whatsoever should not be run by a bunch of people who get promoted and advance within their small fraternity, with the only way of getting in is through the cycle of acceptance into this small fraternity. This has gone on for years and years, with nothing good to show for it. It seriously is total shit. It makes everyone who get staff and is good at it look bad, and most of the good ones quit due to the large majority that are absolute shit. The absolute shit add in more shit, and the cycle has repeated itself over and over again since before I even first played this game in 2000.

So yeah, without a complete overhaul in everything, which will never happen due to 99% of those in power grasping for it even as the game is completely dead due to no small part on their actions/inaction, nothing will change and we have no reason to give a fuck. The only hope is again, some random person creating a new Subspace, and nobody in the current staff leadership roles can even touch that game. Basically, this game is fucked no matter what.

[Ephemeral]

What is the real problem are LTs in Pub. Change a few ship settings, change a few maps and events, add some more great features like the ?buy system and the zone will become just like 2003 again. Hell yeah, we need just a few more good ideas; THAT’S the problem. LOL

How many years of failed shit like this do we have to watch before it finally sinks in that these are NOT the answers? If we are not going to bother to fix what is really broken (lack of resources which is the result of the lack of proper leadership) then just fucking give up and let it go on the stupidity path that it is has been on for the last 10 years.

Find dumbasses who are willing to invest in their little ideas that keep it limping along in its half-assed way. Burn them out, use them up. There should always be at least 1-2 people who are willing pour endless hours into a fruitless effort because they think they are going to actually fix the zone. Just keep taking advantage of these dupes and their superficial ideas; hope springs internal. Turb will soon burn out and someone can take his place. And we can just keep scraping the bottom of the barrel for staffers who can hold an event.

TW reminds me of a McDonalds. Just keep turning over the minimum wage workers, the pool of them is almost endless. Everybody might occasional eat at McDonalds but who in their right mind would really want to work there for long? The marketing approach is to simply say ‘would you like to upsize that order of fries?’ and just add more crap to the menu. I guess no one is noticing that none of it is any good for you and no one can really stand to eat it day in and day out.

But the great ‘ideas’ just keep flowing in… add a new favor of coffee or stack another shit burger patty on top; yeah THAT ought to get more people in the door. Increase the menu to include 2000 things, even if they all suck it will make more people come in the door and try it. Who cares if 98% of them never come back?

Keep up the good job, many of you can have shining careers and you look so good in your little uniforms and hair nets. I get a tear in my eye when I see how the hard work can move you up the ladder to the McDonalds manager level. Keep these great ideas coming!
Eph

[Exalt]

/disagree
all I really want from TW is TWD
atm it's really hard to get a game at all
there's still javduel/hockey/elim to fill the gaps

Hockey is hosted every 5-10 hours maybe on average?

Elim is absolutely horrible for anyone who played it 5-10 years ago. An elim with 4 people in it is considered "big" these days. That's absolutely horrible and not fun. If Elim fills the time for you, then have at it. It certainly isn't fun for the large majority.

Javduel goes on probably as much as wbduel does, and both are pointless and inactive for large parts of the day.

So yeah, have fun playing or speccing in pub for 90% of the time, and then waiting and waiting and waiting for your squad to play one or two TWD games total. The amount of time you are waiting compared to playing is drastic. You have fun with that.

[Rab]

/disagree
all I really want from TW is TWD
atm it's really hard to get a game at all
there's still javduel/hockey/elim to fill the gaps

[Exalt]

Mythril +1

[Mythril]

I think everyone is missing the point. TWD is still relatively active. but what's changed in recent years is how every other arena that supplemented TWD has completely died to the point of everyone thinking TWD is the only thing to do in the game. People want to play the game, there's just not many options besides TWD, pub, or the random event.

Think about the peak of TW. You could login and there was immediately something to do. Elim was going 24/7, ?go javs always had people in it etc. The game offered everyone something to do while you waited for your squad and others to have enough for a TWD match. Now there's nothing to do but sit around and think about how dead the game is while you wait for a squad duel.

Not to toot my own horn about TWEL, but just noticing what happened, when TWEL qualifying began, ?go duel became constantly occupied with 20-40 people at almost all times. This isn't because TWEL is more fun or more important than TWD to people, it's just that it only takes 2 people to play it and there's relevant rankings which makes it hold importance, unlike casual games of wbduel or javduel.

TWD is great but the real problem with the game is how there's no arena that allows competitive players to log in and immediately play. It's also almost impossible to play the game as an individual player anymore which I think is almost worse. Just making elim active and important again with some kind of reward would make everything, especially TWD, more active.

[Fork]

The only good idea is from Rab and that's to reduce TWL to once a year, but you guys thinking up pages and pages of work for other people to do is pretty hilarious.

Creating more interest in twd is a wise move. If an idea could be pulled off to get people more hooked to twd- the population of the game may increase slightly (since 80% of people only play tws for squad games). This is very obvious and not too sure why people are against this? coz its me saying this? (most likely). I don't think the coding for this is as extensive as what you are hinting- the hard part is designing these 8 ships for people to unlock- which i could help do providing we have someone evaluate the work that needs to be done to code this in and agrees to do this.

When you mention "there is not enough time to just take it easy, make fun squads and play with dif people"- this is exactly what would happen if twd was made into a seperate competition (like turban had suggested) and i don't feel we need more competition- we just need to attract more people to twd- which can only be done if something new was tried out (that doesnt affect gameplay- but makes people want to play more and more).

Vat you suggested there is only one good idea in this thread: reduce twl to once a year but will that on its own be good enough to make twd more active??? What other ideas do you suggest???

[Vatican Assassin]

I mean the only way that could stop an idea like this would prob be the coding involved i guess and who could do this.

The only good idea is from Rab and that's to reduce TWL to once a year, but you guys thinking up pages and pages of work for other people to do is pretty hilarious.

As it is now, it seems like only a month goes by after TWL ends before TWD is reset, TWL is announced again and everyone is back in full competition mode. There is not enough time to just take it easy, make fun squads and play with different people. Now a days, all of the elite vets form on a couple of squads and no one else can match them. Months of TWD are made meaningless because of one game a week on Sundays. The biggest problem with this arrangement is the complete inability for new players to play TWD because TWD squads are so busy gearing up for TWL that they cannot afford to take time or risk with new players. Not to mention that no new TWD squads are likely to form from new players as they are unable to compete with the other squads that have become so stacked.

As pub becomes more complex, new players will have difficulty starting up, whereas it was very simple for us all to do so. Reducing this game back to the simple state Priitk envisioned might be a better idea than continually adding new "features."

[Rab]

TWD just needs players.

- stop taking players away from TWD to do TWL and TWDT
- encourage players to form/join squads
- put TWD on the TW homepage so every new player knows the whole point of TW is TWD

[Fork]

Up in ya is suggesting (note suggesting) to add unlockable ships to twd, see thread: http://forums.trenchwars.org/showthr...CK-ITEMS-SHIPS. I'm going to see if i can help him in anyway. Any suggestions on what you guys feel about this? Problems + possible solutions to these problems/ if you can help design ships- it would be great + speak to up in ya about this.

I mean the only way that could stop an idea like this would prob be the coding involved i guess and who could do this.

Another thing i would like to see if wormhole surfer could make a new twjd/ twdd map for twjd3/ twdd3 arenas- this guy is srsly good at making maps.

[Vatican Assassin]

So why don't we just start doing something?

Because none of the people chatting up a storm in this thread can even code? LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

[mtine]

Thanks for the list, turban. I really liked how you categorized them by the simplest things first like small changes which can make it a more fun experience for old/new players and then working it from there. Some of these changes are really easy, hell, even Fork coud do them (but prolly won't).

So why don't we just start doing something? Like we should make a starting point of where to start and then go from there. I.e. let's all agree to remove the unnacessary LVZ from pub to reduce downloading of the pub map. Yes/no?

The other thing I'm worried about is a lack of Dev zone. Is there still one where we can work our magic? Because if there is, I'm gladly to help out with map/setting changes because I know how to implement them. Also for making the tutorial area.

Let's start making changes. Stop ranting about what is going to happen/what is good for the zone, we got that one covered. Let's just categorize the things we need to do (make a similar list o turban's), prioritize them (easiest ----> long-term changes), find the people willing to do it and BAM...start working together as a team.

Oh and ffs stop listening to Fork.

[Fork]

Turban i already know this. I wasn't even asking for that idea to be implemented! (although that idea would be brilliant) i was just suggesting to work on the simplest ideas first and that pretty much all my ideas aren't impossible- just that no ones willing to spend that much time working on it. You're just typing what i said in my post for some bizarre reason.

Turban it seems you read only the lines where you feel you can try and make me look bad. In this case you even exaggerate the truth to make me look like a *** more "you still go on about it on a daily basis". It's a shame you do this because its very immature. Where's your thoughts regarding the other 99% of the post i made? If you really wanted to improve this game, for those ideas you didn't like (which is 100% of all my ideas)- you would think out-side the box/ think how they could work- and provide an alternative... that's a healthy way to do things.

[Turban]

despite the sheer amount of times that we have said it is impossible to implement bots against squads to this zone, you still go on about it on a daily basis. we are using a subgame server which has its limitations, end of story. time to head to bed and see what tomorrow brings to the table.

[Fork]

@Fork: I agree with turban to a lesser extent. I don't think all of your ideas are potentially bad. I think some of them are just plain impossible given the nature of resources available to us at this time. However, I think your fixes try to target the 2nd problem not the 1st. The 1st problem, in my mind, is that TWD is an irrelevant league that serves no purpose other than allowing people to practice when they want. That is what needs to be fixed first by changing the purpose of TWD and how it relates to TWL before we consider placing ornaments on TWD.

@Eph: I tend to agree a bit with your gloom and doom outlook on the state of leadership and the obstinacy of certain individuals over the course of the history of this game. I do not think that it will be fixed, hence why my early ideas are gauged toward making the highest impact with the lowest amount of resources expended.

For example: My idea about converting TWL into a point system and having TWD activity and standings give teams points prior to TWL. This requires literally 0 change to TWD other than a copy/paste of the the TWL rule into the TWD rule page. On TWL end, it would require some re-writing of the rules, some decisions on season length, an editing of the W/L column on the TWL site, and decisions made regarding how many pts to give. That's about it. 2 people could accomplish that: 1 guy writing rules, and 1 guy who does a tiny bit of web work. That's the kind of expectations I have and the scale of projects I think can be accomplished by staff in it's current state. Sorry if I come off as negative and dismissive of many ideas, but I am operating under the assumption that with staff's current state; if it has to do with heavily modifying bots, or heavily modifying a website, then it probably won't get done. Minor mods to bots/web are a maybe to okay zone, rule changes are a yes, arena settings/map changes are a yes. Those are my expectations.

So like eph says, you have to address the resource issue or operate within your resources. I would love to see the resource issue fixed because it would open the doors for a lot of the more intricate stuff expressed here; but I don't see it barring someone approaching a competent sysop with a couple thousand dollars saying "I am willing to invest this, but you need to make changes" with a sincere offer. Unlikely imo.

Well (personally) i don't think twd is irrelevant because it's the only thing (along with twl) that kept this game going for so long... yes you have the other things like events/ pub but the drug is TWD/ TWL. I mean i only log on to play squad matches and its always been that way. I'm 100% sure many people log on only to play squad matches but unfortunately they can't find another squad to vs and javduel doesn't cut it. Unfortunately people after along time of playing the same thing get bored (though i know some grow up/ get married/ kids and can't spend commit any more time)...

We do have ideas that's not been tried before and no-one truly knows how effective they will be until its actually tried. When this game was made- did they know it was going to last 20 years+? Throw in some spice to twd and you never know, old players (who log in once in a blue moon) could play 1 match and find they want to play more and more... just like old times- that's the goal we should try and work on.

As a very regular twd player and after discussing ideas with other people on different squads... they want more squad matches. They want to log into tws at any time and be able to find a match. Still the competition is high and getting more challenging because squads are struggling to find games other than the top 5 squads. ATM if you want a squad match- its quite hard to find an easy squad to vs. Hell because there aren't many shit squads to vs anymore, i bet people get fed up of losing all the time and perhaps stop playing haha.

We need more people playing in twd. We need to capture the old players that log in now and again but also try and tempt new players in too. We need a system in place so squads can find games when other squads don't have 3-4 on (challenging the world matches)... because pub is rarely good and getting worse- you can't srsly play pub in the inactive times- coz 0 people are playing for hours (which alarm bells should start ringing for the syst-ops but i bet they don't think its an issue).

W/E idea is possible- try the simplest ideas and work it from there. I have suggested extreme ideas, (though possible)- it would be too much work to ever achieve- someone isn't going to spend that much time making squads vs computer bots in twd, because this game might not have long life left + if they did achieve an idea as big as that- i can't imagen them to get a thanks with the current staff on.

TBH, there needs to be a major long discussion between staff/ regular twd players about what TWD players want? What will make retired twd players start playing again??? How can we increase the population in twd??? Gather all the comments- get an average picture and address the average negative about twd. If syst-ops really wish for this game to last- they need to at least show that they are trying/ try new things.

Done boring you with my rant. Anyway... i wanna jd.