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A Future Look Into TWL Rules and Things That NEED To Be Changed/Fixed

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  • A Future Look Into TWL Rules and Things That NEED To Be Changed/Fixed

    Due to the rules already being in place, I cannot say much about TWL during this winter, but since I've heard from multiple inside sources that TWL will occur once again in summer, I am going to lay out a few things that I believe are an issue, have caused plenty of issues and player disgruntlement during this TWL season, and are simply stupid rules that don't need to be enforced any longer during this day and age of Trenchwars League.

    Mainly, what I'm going to discuss is about Softlock and Hardlock.

    1. I believe that Softlock and Hardlock are simply too strict for the way this zone is running now. These rules were made during a time long ago when we had 700 to 1000+ players during peak TWL times on Sundays. It was created and enforced to make things easier to manage more or less for TWL moderators and for people to not squad hop so much during TWL. It was a good idea back then, but we simply do NOT have the population we once had, there are NOT that many squads left that even make TWL competitive anymore, and there are NOT that many veteran players left.

    I, for instance, downloaded subspace again last Sunday for the first time in 3 years. I did not know TWL was going on until after I logged in and joined Wolf. I logged in and within 5 minutes, I received plenty of warm welcomes from old friends and acquaintances asking where and how I've been, which was great, and Wolf asked me to join their squad. I did not know Wolf was a TWL squad, nor did I know TWL was going on at the time, but I joined due to wanting to be on a squad with people I liked/respected and simply wanting to get back into the swing of things with the community. That being said, when I DID find out TWL was going on, naturally I wanted to play. The entire point of veterans these days playing still is BECAUSE of TWL.

    Now, with that being said, I am unable to play TWL this season due to the hardlock. I suppose that is okay, but I honestly would have already quit again for the simple reason that I cannot play TWL and this game has little interest left for players like me if we cannot play in leagues. WHY am I still playing then? Honestly, it is because I'm so BAD now, and I've never been this bad before during any other time coming back from quitting. The longest time I've quit in the past was about a year at a time, and I usually regained my old form (or at least enough of my old form) to be decent again within a very short time frame. Apparently though, after 3 years of being gone, I lost my skills, and the only reason I am still playing is to regain those lost skills, because it is annoying and irritating to me to be going negative in TWDD (for example), or to not be able to 20-0 in wbduel or elim like I used to do anytime I actually cared enough to try. It doesn't help that elim is basically .?go javs these days, so I have no ability to unrust whatsoever outside of the occasional wbduel or during an actual DD itself (which is not the best way to unrust, especially when you cannot hit the broad side of a barn with your aim anymore).

    Okay, so I got a bit off topic, but my main point is that there are a LOT of players like me who have quit and came back for TWL, and find out they cannot PLAY TWL due to stupid rules like Hardlock. There simply should NOT be a hardlock whatsoever, in that players that were NOT on a twd squad before and who just recently joined a TWL squad should not have to be ineligable to play TWL. The ONLY THING you are creating by keeping this rule is to keep players from ever rejoining the community. You are keeping players like swimkid or riverside (for example) on my squad Wolf (along with me) from ever wanting to become potentially active again, because nobody gives a shit about TWD games during TWL. You give little to no incentive for swimkid to get active again, because he cannot play TWL due to a pointless and counter-productive hardlock.

    The entire point of anything having to do with Trenchwars these days should be parallel to RETAINING CURRENT MEMBERS, because you simply are NOT going to get new, fresh blood in this game. The ONLY way to make Trenchwars have higher peaks in player activity is to get OLD players who have quit to come back. Hardlock and Softlock are counter-productive to this.

    2. I believe the roster limits are a very bad idea. It is very ignorant and stupid to have TWL roster limits while the TWD roster limit is LARGER. I know Wolf had Flew emo rage quit due to being demoted, which I don't really give a shit beyond the fact that there is a Hardlock and so now Wolf has a 14 man TWL roster. We have much more than 14 players on our TWD roster, but half the players cannot play or enjoy TWL, because there is a retardedly SMALL roster limit. I realize you created roster limits in hopes of creating MORE squads, but this obviously is not working. All you did was alienate players like me, because even if I WAS eligable to play TWL if I had somehow managed to download subspace a few hours or a day earlier rather than the timeframe that I did, I STILL could NOT play TWL due to there already having been 15 men on Wolf's TWL roster. Do you understand what I'm getting at here? Other players in my position, who did the same thing aka redownload subspace again with the intention of becoming active again, have just QUIT AGAIN because you refuse them the ability to play in a league that really isn't that special enough anymore to be keeping stupid rules like this.

    3. You've created obvious bias or at least PERCEIVED bias by having players like Casket added to Fierce's TWL roster by a TWL mod (Reckful), while players like swimkid or me cannot be added to Wolf's TWL roster simply because Reckful was not online or was afk or did not give a fuck enough to respond to Wolf captains who asked to add recently joined players to it's TWL roster. If you cannot understand how this is perceived as bias and cheating on the part of the TWL Mod, you are ignorant. I don't think any of you are truly this ignorant in staff, and you should know that perception is EVERYTHING, so for the simple fact that you can do it for one squad but refuse another is one of the reasons people hate staff so much. Either make this rule the same for EVERYONE, and let EVERYONE who joined in the same manner as Casket onto their respected TWL squads, or REMOVE CASKET and make this shit fair. Why am I sitting out an entire TWL season just because Reckful didn't want to respond to my squad's request to add me or swim to our TWL roster, while he clearly wanted to kiss Fierce's ass enough to respond to them and grant their wish? Bias much?

    4. The entire "week/round wait after joining" Softlock rule is COMPLETELY STUPID AND RETARDED, it is NOT found in any rules, and it is counter-productive to the health of this zone. Why in the world do you need this rule? What exactly does it help in the grand scheme of things? How does it do anything but punish players? How does punishing players do anything to better this zone or TWL whatsoever? Who decided this was a good thing to put in place? Also, why define it in such literally stupid terms as to say "you only wait one round if you join before the 1st time slot TWL game, but you wait 2 rounds if you happened to join 1 minute after that 1st timeslot game stared." Does this honestly sound like a good idea to you staff members? Who thought this was a good fucking idea? You seperate the ability of a player to play TWL and how long he has to SIT ON THE BENCH of his twl squad simply by the manner of a few hours or minutes. THIS RULE IS THE STUPIDEST OF ALL TWL RULES. IT ONLY FORCES PEOPLE TO BE INACTIVE AND NOT PLAY SUBSPACE. Yes, I am yelling in caps. That's how completely moronic this rule is. It needs to be removed. It doesn't add anything to the TWL picture. It only serves to make people inactive and quit for weeks at a time. This zone needs all the players it can get and as much as it can get them.

    I can keep going over and over and over with all the stupid counter-productive rules in TWL this season, but you get the gist of it. All of these rules such as Hardlock, the week/round waiting period, etc ONLY serve to make people want to quit playing altogether, and that is the exact opposite of what this zone needs for it's long-term survivability. Are you TRYING to make this game die faster? Do you WANT vets to quit playing subspace? You are never going to get new blood in this game anymore, so the only way to get more players in this zone is to keep he old ones and to regain the vets that quit. When I see at least 10 players now that redownloaded subspace again for the first time in years just like I did, only to quit once again a few days later simply because they are not able to play TWL... That pisses me off. It is ignorant. It is stupid. It is a fucking tragedy.

    Do you guys understand what I'm getting at here? The entire point of every rule in this game should NOW be based on getting back old vets and KEEPING them. You just made at least 10 vets that I know of (i'm positive there are a lot more than that, it's just people I've talked to before they quit again) that made the initiative to play subspace again literally fucking quit again due to stupid ass rules in TWL that serve no purpose whatsoever in making anything better. They only serve the purpose to make it worse.


    Please read this staff, and please take note of what the fuck you are doing. Common sense apparently isn't very common, or you guys would have recognized how stupid these rules are to begin with.

    And for anyone that will inevitably talk shit and say "cry newb u cant play twl hahaha" type of thing... this isn't just about me. This is about the health of the zone/subspace in general.
    RaCka> imagine standing out as a retard on subspace
    RaCka> mad impressive

  • #2
    Exalt,
    I concur with much of what you stated, but think we need to step back and first consider the way the rules are written now. (But good point about pub = new player retention while leagues = old player retention)
    IMO the single most important thing to change in the TWL rules is to break the ‘rules’ away from the ‘punishments’. Make them two separate documents. Rules are black/white; a player either breaks a rule or not. The ‘punishments’ should be written with a range of possible reactions for each infraction, THIS is where some latitude is introduced for specific situations. The current rules have always be broken/bent/appealed with the excuse that a certain situation warrants it. This only served to undermine the integrity of the rules in their entirety, making them really no more than a giant time suck and drama generator.
    eph

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    • #3
      Finally somebody decides to make sense. I've been making these points for years. While staff and everyone else put all their wasted efforts into coming up with great ideas to bring in a bunch of newbies that would somehow save our zone, our population and the people who actually matter (vets) have continued to decrease and staff continues to follow the same path that hasn't worked for 4+ years.

      Maintaining the current player base should have been the #1 priority throughout this entire rebuild period. Instead of coming up with good ideas to keep this game fresh, interesting and competitive vs other online games by fixing TWL, TWDT (TWDT-J finals were NEVER EVEN PLAYED LOL), TWEL, and creating other leagues/events, we waste time finding which way is best to spend our money to recruit newbies who will likely have no impact on this game.

      I can't come up with any players besides Cres and Tabarnak who are currently on a competitive TWL squad and who started after 2008. That's 5 years and probably hundreds who have downloaded this game. Barely anyone sticks around and even a smaller percentage fights through the ridiculous learning curve and trolling to play competitively.

      This game isn't appealing for newbies and it never will be, it is what it is. Subspace is a social, community driven game with 15+ years of history attached to it. You can't just continue to replace vets with shitty faceless newbies who have no aspirations besides playing leviathan in pub. Bringing back any cultured player or squad like Dice this season infinitely brings more competition and interest in the game. Losing squads like Sweet this year was a huge hit for TWLD (and TWLJ too, I guess).

      Basically what I'm saying is anything that doesn't promote player retention should be re-evaluated. You can't complain about a dying game and then put in place ridiculous roster caps and different rules that make people that matter want to quit the game. Inactive players should be allowed to be inactive and still get to participate in the community with their friends and play the random TWD when they feel like logging on.


      tl;dr version: nobody says this game sucks because there's not enough newbies coming into the game, they always say it sucks because all the "good" players quit and there's no more competition. Stop expecting the newbies to replace the "old" good players, focus on keeping our current players active and bringing back old vets and maybe this game can have a few more good years left.
      PattheBat> steadman your name is literally "a mean std"
      ogron> CM,OPN NMKAN

      Comment


      • #4
        I don't have time to read the whole thing, but I've been pushing for more focus on the tl;dr for years. Staff is pretty against the idea of catering to the old players (most of them are new themselves).

        Comment


        • #5
          This guy is already more competent than the majority of current staffers...combined.

          Comment


          • #6
            Well, I see you are a bit angry about the situation, and I will try and explain some the reasoning the best I can. We may possible look into changing lock dates and adjusting the times as TW has changed, so must its rules. I am sorry that you were not able to join this TWL, but I hope u come back around, as the TWL has been playing at the same time pretty much for some amount of years, give or take a month, as well as the same roster locks. So, being a veteran and captain before, one would think you would know the rules even if you dont agree with them.

            To be quite frank, the roster limits are because of squads like yours. You have as many people on your team as a 3 league squad, yet you compete in only TWLD. We have squads in twld that are there just because there was no one else. I will be working with twd in hopes of putting restrictions like the twl ones as far as how many leagues u compete in to go along with the size of your rosters. I use to make and join squads that would have 30 man roster and play 2-3 jds at a time and do nothing but jav. You are correct in saying that we do not have the same player base that we use to, but that doesnt mean we should all join large squads and play the same teams day in and day out. Obviously restrictions will be less strict, being as its twd and it will be off season, but the problem lies where squads have enough people to make 3 competitive squads, but would rather sit on a squad like wolf's and be a 10th string player? COME ON. Wolf could easily split into two squads and do better than half the TWLD teams. Fierce slapped together a TWLB team in a week to try and add some competition to TWLB. Thankfully we found some people with the same mindset of squad stacking.

            As far as being biased, it is only perceived as biased if you only have half the story, which you do. There were many roster additions that sunday, as captains and players who took the time to read the rules or contact a TWL ops made changes to their roster. Your squad is a perfect example of this. Riverside was added the same way casket was, and to be quite honest will be more of an impact than casket will be due to Fierce already having other top quality warbirds. So before you start pointing fingers at staff, why don't you get the whole story first, and maybe ask your captains why they chose riverside over you.

            The 1 week wait rules and times make perfect sense as well, you just have to look outside your box. The 1pm saturday rule was put into effect when we played games on saturday and sunday. As we only recently started not allowing games on saturday, I'm sure we will be making some changes in the upcoming seasons.

            I'm sure in the future we would like to have the input of some level headed players who have been around for some time. Look into putting your efforts into helping change twl as opposed to bashing it.
            1:waven> u challenge
            1:waven> if i challenge it looks too scary

            Originally posted by MHz
            Hope you contract ebola from your, no doubt cheap, Easter Egg, you fucking shit-jav, pug-faced cunt.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Tiny View Post
              I'm sure in the future we would like to have the input of some level headed players who have been around for some time. Look into putting your efforts into helping change twl as opposed to bashing it.
              I just did help it. I made common sense into an art form. If I'm bashing it while also helping it, blame yourselves for being ignorant. You just tried explaining away stupidity by saying "but but but... we've always done it this way!!!" as if I haven't been around since 1999 and know. Of course you have, and I explained quite clearly that with the current state of the zone, to keep any of this shit the same is fucking stupid.

              Btw, I will always get pissed off when I see people rejoin this game and then quit again, because the people that run things currently are both new and/or do not have common sense. I won't continue to talk to you Tiny, because you are clearly one who just wants to keep things the same in a dying game. I'm sure you'll still be on that fake high horse of yours when you are the only one left playing.

              What I do kind of find funny though is that honestly, I am your help. Nobody else really cares enough to say anything, yet you say that I'm the one bashing it instead. I guess it's how you look at it. If you view not saying anything whatsoever and watching this game continue to lose population over and over again is helping it, then yes... I am bashing this game. If you think speaking up, telling people when they are being fucking stupid, and calling out common sense issues that you clearly cannot understand by yourselves is helping, then yes, I am helping.
              RaCka> imagine standing out as a retard on subspace
              RaCka> mad impressive

              Comment


              • #8
                I joined literally 10 minutes before hardlock, exalt. Are you too dumb to comprehend that?

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Welfare View Post
                  I joined literally 10 minutes before hardlock, exalt. Are you too dumb to comprehend that?
                  This not even about you. You don't really matter whatsoever in the grand scheme of things. I just used you as an example of how PERCEPTION shows that staff are fucking stupid.
                  RaCka> imagine standing out as a retard on subspace
                  RaCka> mad impressive

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Having run TWL before twice, and assisted in running it 4 other times; I believe I can speak with some authority in this matter. Now mind you, your post was a giant wall of text with lots of caps and my hawks are about to play soon, so I didn't read every nook and cranny; but I got the gist.

                    1. Abolish soft and hard lock: Answer: probably not. I happen to be in agreement with you in regard to the soft lock at least. I think it is a bizarre concept, and the rules surrounding it are a pain in the ass and often don't make much sense. The hard lock however, makes perfect sense and exists in every single sports league in existence. There comes a date in every sports league where rosters enter a "no new people" or a freeze status. Debating when that should be is a valid thing to debate, but the hard lock should stay in place.

                    That said, here's the 1 simple reason why it won't happen: the website. I wanted to get rid of the soft lock when I ran TWL, but through testing on the website I found that the season won't function properly unless you set a soft lock date that is actually within the proper time frame. If you talk to most staffers who do web/programming and ask them the one thing they don't wanna do, they will usually respond with "touch the TWL website" cuz it has been a mess for a while. Oh well.

                    2. Roster limits...I don't see a problem? I mean, I think they have gotten too stringent these days; but I see no problem with roster limits. Having afkers or people who just want name recognition seems of little value to me. If they want it that bad, be in squad and chat, but not on TWL roster.

                    3. Perceived bias is a very large problem in staff. The majority of players have preconceived notions about lots of things or people. Don't really know how you want to solve that though? Kinda hard. But as for x happening cuz reckful is hear and x not happening cuz he is afk. Well...if you leave a ?message, it leaves a time and date....and you see, that will prove you're within time frame.

                    4. Already addressed in 1.

                    If these are the biggest rule problems you see, then I think it's sad.

                    For me the LARGEST problem is that TWD has been rendered irrelevant. I was trying to develop something in which TWD points would do something more for you in TWL than just qualify you. So that some teams are rewarded for activity and success on a regular basis, plus it would promote more activity in the zone. But then Demonic became sysop and I left staff, so pretty sure that died with me.
                    TWDT Head Op Seasons 2, 3, and 4
                    TWL Season 14 & 17 Head Op
                    Season 13 TWLD Champion, Seasons 13 & 14 LJ Champion

                    Winston Churchill: "That is the sort of nonsense up with which we will not put!"

                    Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.
                    - John F. Kennedy

                    A sadist is a masochist who follows the Golden Rule.
                    Originally posted by kthx
                    Umm.. Alexander the Great was the leader of the Roman empire, not the Greek empire guy.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Well Summa, not all of my ideas will be agreed with, but you at least understood them and you did agree with quite a few. All I'm trying to point out is that some rules that have stayed this way due to "always being this way" no longer are really valid anymore with the game's current population, along with that as a whole, trenchwars should be doing anything it can to not only retain its population, but to also get any previous members back that it can. Let's be real and finally accept that the only dent we'll ever make as far as population increasing will only come from people that have already played the game in the past. That being said, thousands upon thousands have played trenchwars before, so it is just a matter of finding ways to get them back and keep them. If certain things interfere with that, and those rules are not necessary to the health of the league, then I stand by the idea that those rules are detrimental and useless.

                      Now, do I understand what hardlock is there for? Of course. I'll still say hardlock is worthwhile in that players should not be able to squad hop from one twl squad to another during TWL. What I was talking about are players that are NOT currently in a twl squad. Softlock shouldn't affect those players, and to an extent, I don't think hardlock should fully affect them in the same way either. Both were mainly made to stop people from squad hopping.

                      At least you agree that softlock is stupid.

                      As for the TWL website, yeah I've heard that reasoning too. That TWL website has been garbage ever since it was created by God knows who (I certainly don't remember). All I have ever heard from coders is that the code in the TWL website is such a garbled mess of garbage that nobody understands how it is even currently functioning at all, let alone how it works.

                      What I never fully understood is how we could find coders to do something like the TWLM website, which is far superior to TWL, yet we could never find someone to just completely scrap and redo the TWL webpage. Obviously, you can't fix that broken mess, so the only solution is to redo it from scratch. You have to admit... it is kind of pathetic that a TWL mod cannot change rules, let alone fix rules, due to being handcuffed by a website that has always been barely functioning to begin with. The website is a tool. It shouldn't be the reason we cannot make any innovations or changes.

                      Oh... and as far as other rules? I find plenty wrong with TWL, but I was pointing out something that should have been easy to change and fix, and my goal was more to retain and keep old players that I saw come back and quit again, rather than worry about the other details. Why should I waste my time giving a million suggestions when, in all actuality, nothing will be done in the first place? I can go back the last 10 years and find threads of mine that explain things that need to be fixed in TWL, and every year I'll have staff agree, TWL players agree, and even TWL mods agree. Does it ever change anything? Of course not. Staff never do anything like that. Staff are just there to keep the status quo. That's it. There's a reason qan is doing that "council" thing. It is either A) a way for non-staff members to get shit done or B) a way for elected council members to be the new scapegoats for staff failures. There are great ideas every year, and every year those great ideas fail. It always starts at the top, and let's be real here... people have complained that staff are useless for longer than any of us can remember.
                      Last edited by Exalt; 02-03-2014, 02:49 AM.
                      RaCka> imagine standing out as a retard on subspace
                      RaCka> mad impressive

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Theoretical question. Could you put soft lock and hard lock to be set to the same day?
                        Former TW Staff

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                        • #13
                          To be honest I think only hard lock is needed- without this then people would just hop squads and the competition would be completely rubbish/ boring coz any squad could win + writing reviews would b boring. Twl works fine as it is (competition is very high). The major problem is twd. It's getting boring (unless ur really trying to improve). There needs to be more incentive to play twd, to keep old players going. If u increase twd activity- u will get a better twl turnout. I have a good idea that would give incentive to play twd, hopefully it could b put in place- even if it's in twdd4/ twjd4 arenas.
                          1:Hece> iv done good A (amphetamine) many times and ppl say u cant get your dick up on it..my dick works on every chemical i have tried so far

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Shaddowknight View Post
                            Theoretical question. Could you put soft lock and hard lock to be set to the same day?
                            they have to be set 7 days apart at the minimum to function correctly if i remember right, i could be remembering wrong though.
                            TWDT Head Op Seasons 2, 3, and 4
                            TWL Season 14 & 17 Head Op
                            Season 13 TWLD Champion, Seasons 13 & 14 LJ Champion

                            Winston Churchill: "That is the sort of nonsense up with which we will not put!"

                            Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.
                            - John F. Kennedy

                            A sadist is a masochist who follows the Golden Rule.
                            Originally posted by kthx
                            Umm.. Alexander the Great was the leader of the Roman empire, not the Greek empire guy.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              You guys act like staff will ever change anything. Bunch of scrubs run the zone.

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