Winter Solstice

XDemonX
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Re: Winter Solstice

Post by XDemonX »

Your alliance has several strong leaders in it, and hardcore players. Once again like I told you before and told you in this thread. I am not a hardcore player, I don't have time to lead and I work 5 days a week. On top of that I am busy most other times, you are expecting me to play your game when A. I don't have the time, and honestly B. I don't have the ambition to. There is no requirement for me to have to me running around with my head on fire in this game. Sorry but those days are over.

JJ,

You are missing the point. I am not directing this at you that YOU should step up and lead. As I just stated to Holti, you can be a casual player and play in a hardcore alliance. Yes I agree there are a couple people in my alliance that could step up and lead. Is there a reason for them to do that? Back to the beginning of this discussion.. This map is catered for casual player not for hardcore players. It would be boring as crap to lead which is why I stepped down. I also work 5 days a week and drink heavily on weekend but I do have the ambition to but YOU are making me play your game by taking that ambition away and making it a "casual" type game.
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Holti
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Re: Winter Solstice

Post by Holti »

s I just stated to Holti, you can be a casual player and play in a hardcore alliance.
I know this to be untrue. I've seen players in the past few years be kicked from alliances because they couldn't show up for ops at the times designated or had work/family/life issues and couldn't log in every couple of days. I've seen European players, like Collider, not be offered an invite to an alliance because he was European and could not op at American op times. ACD had the same issue during the last draft round.

I started CIA to offer European and casual players a chance to have some fun. I reject your desire to prevent non-hardcore players from leading (and yes, I led last round, Jouldax ran the ops when they occurred).

If you want, design a hardcore map. Admins can start a hardcore game that involves that map. All players that work/have families/have a social life outside of SMR will be forbidden from starting an alliance. We'll see what happens.
jouldax
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Re: Winter Solstice

Post by jouldax »

Let's try a different angle here. Why did guys like Sergei and Orca quit the game? Because there wasn't enough activity. The maps weren't the problem then and they aren't now. The problem is the player base. Other than you and Azn, there are maybe a handful of "hardcore" players at most. Let's use a real-life example. Blizzard had a problem with World of Warcraft. The end-game was too time intensive for the majority of players. So they scaled it down and geared it more towards casual players with a small bonus incentive (better gear) for the hardcore players. Account cancellations reversed and the game started growing again.

The point of my example is to say that, yes, whether you like it or not, we have to try to cater to the majority of the current player base. And I strongly disagree with your earlier statement. A casual player CANNOT compete in a hardcore game/alliance. They will get wiped and be demoralized and will not achieve the expected performance from the alliance leaders who want to dominate the game. A hardcore player, however, can absolutely play in a casual game/casual alliance, with his benefit being that he can still dominate the game and get more kills than anyone, even if that total number is reduced from a hardcore game (which is a moot point anyway given the diminutive size of the current player base).

If there were more hardcore players, Demon, we wouldn't be having this discussion at all, because you'd have more players to kill and more alliances to battle. Alternatively, and to your point, there isn't necessarily an incentive anymore for hardcore players to keep playing in a hardcore fashion. The issue, however, is that, as I've stated several times above, a map won't solve that problem, and I think you know that.

So how is what we're doing addressing the problem? Our "casual" alliance has encourage several returning veterans to stick with the game and find a home to get their footing back. Maybe some will convert to hardcore. Most probably won't. Alternatively, Azn killed Leesus 3 times in rapid succession last game and he stopped playing. Maybe it sounds like babying but we don't have the resources to just throw people into the deep end anymore and expect positive results. We're working on refreshing the game, but in the meantime, if we can actively bring back vets/recruit newer players to at least keep the game afloat near-term, I think it's been pretty clear that the strategy is to cater towards a more casual user base because that's what the majority of new players are. The only hardcore players are legacy players who still play the game and that's not going to change anytime soon.
XDemonX
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Re: Winter Solstice

Post by XDemonX »

Holti wrote:
s I just stated to Holti, you can be a casual player and play in a hardcore alliance.
I know this to be untrue. I've seen players in the past few years be kicked from alliances because they couldn't show up for ops at the times designated or had work/family/life issues and couldn't log in every couple of days. I've seen European players, like Collider, not be offered an invite to an alliance because he was European and could not op at American op times. ACD had the same issue during the last draft round.

I started CIA to offer European and casual players a chance to have some fun. I reject your desire to prevent non-hardcore players from leading (and yes, I led last round, Jouldax ran the ops when they occurred).

If you want, design a hardcore map. Admins can start a hardcore game that involves that map. All players that work/have families/have a social life outside of SMR will be forbidden from starting an alliance. We'll see what happens.
In the past, when the playerbase was at a point where full alliances were happening that might of been the case. Right now that is not the case. You have played in alliances with me that are hardcore Holti. We never kicked you or anything like that because you were busy with real life stuff.

There is no real point for me to waste time designing maps when the admin team has a totally different direction they want to take the game. I'll just sit back and watch it slowly go inactive when people are no longer building planets, no one hunting, and all you got left is a few people trading all game. Better solution to align with admins views is to put everyone in 1 alliance and not allow them to leave. Put some NPCs in the game and prebuilt planets that the NPCs own. No one will die, no newbies will get slayed, no pressure to op will be a very friendly game. Who needs competitions? We can use minecraft's game model.. millions of people play that right?. Everyone can build their own planets, trade as much exp as they want, login when they want.
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XDemonX
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Re: Winter Solstice

Post by XDemonX »

jouldax wrote:Let's try a different angle here. Why did guys like Sergei and Orca quit the game? Because there wasn't enough activity. The maps weren't the problem then and they aren't now. The problem is the player base. Other than you and Azn, there are maybe a handful of "hardcore" players at most. Let's use a real-life example. Blizzard had a problem with World of Warcraft. The end-game was too time intensive for the majority of players. So they scaled it down and geared it more towards casual players with a small bonus incentive (better gear) for the hardcore players. Account cancellations reversed and the game started growing again.

The point of my example is to say that, yes, whether you like it or not, we have to try to cater to the majority of the current player base. And I strongly disagree with your earlier statement. A casual player CANNOT compete in a hardcore game/alliance. They will get wiped and be demoralized and will not achieve the expected performance from the alliance leaders who want to dominate the game. A hardcore player, however, can absolutely play in a casual game/casual alliance, with his benefit being that he can still dominate the game and get more kills than anyone, even if that total number is reduced from a hardcore game (which is a moot point anyway given the diminutive size of the current player base).

If there were more hardcore players, Demon, we wouldn't be having this discussion at all, because you'd have more players to kill and more alliances to battle. Alternatively, and to your point, there isn't necessarily an incentive anymore for hardcore players to keep playing in a hardcore fashion. The issue, however, is that, as I've stated several times above, a map won't solve that problem, and I think you know that.

So how is what we're doing addressing the problem? Our "casual" alliance has encourage several returning veterans to stick with the game and find a home to get their footing back. Maybe some will convert to hardcore. Most probably won't. Alternatively, Azn killed Leesus 3 times in rapid succession last game and he stopped playing. Maybe it sounds like babying but we don't have the resources to just throw people into the deep end anymore and expect positive results. We're working on refreshing the game, but in the meantime, if we can actively bring back vets/recruit newer players to at least keep the game afloat near-term, I think it's been pretty clear that the strategy is to cater towards a more casual user base because that's what the majority of new players are. The only hardcore players are legacy players who still play the game and that's not going to change anytime soon.
I lead all the time. I constantly have casual players in my alliance. They do just fine. Hell I have played with holy the last several games and he only trades. Casual players have the life in my hardcore alliances. All they gotta do is show up for an op every once in a while. They don't have to worry about money, they don't have to worry about a place to sleep.

Vets won't come back. So let me get this straight.. You're trying to tailor the game to try to bring back players who login 1-2 times a week? If you're a new player.. Are you going to be attracted to a game that the only time action happens is 1h maybe twice a week? You should be trying to figure out how to get players like Sergei and Orca back to the game. They were great for activity they gave people a reason to be more active. Again you are not seeing the point.. There is nothing to do in the game so no need to be active. You are limiting to what you can do in SMR to trading and occasional opping. The map is limiting that. I can play hardcore and try to build a route a galaxy and then a casual alliance that puts in the minimal time can come in and take it all away with 7 people? That would be wasted time for me to do that then hence why I am just going to "casually" trade all game from fed and watch the game slowly decline in playerbase.

Yes, bashing noobs isn't the coolest thing. Again, look at it in Leesus perspective.. all he knew was to trade. The game did not offer him anything else. Gave him no opportunity to trade on a protected route in a protected galaxy that an alliance built. You left him to trade in open. Back when Rain was a newbie, ask her how many times I personally sat ontop of her while she traded to protect her on a route the alliance made. If she was trading a racial route I wouldn't be able to do that but I could spend 10-15 turns to launch from planet and protect her. That could of been done for Leesus but since it is a casual game there is no alliance route or alliance galaxy to protect them. Just 1-2 sharks swimming around trying to kill off boredom.
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JettJackson
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Re: Winter Solstice

Post by JettJackson »

I am still trying to figure out how uno distance matters this much, especially since the uno distances to planets are almost the same as last game, and the entrances to each galaxy is protected and not a 4-way. I mean did you actually count off the sector distances from uno/ca to planets and compared them to last game? If you had a point that they were ridiculously short I would understand, but that isn't the case.
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jouldax
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Re: Winter Solstice

Post by jouldax »

There is nothing to do in the game
That's because this game is old and stale. Amazingly, however, there isn't any less to do now than there ever was. Turns are limited. Alliance sizes are limited. It's the player base that's the problem. I'd love to get Sergei and Orca to come back. Guess what? Getting them more targets is the only way that's going to happen. Slowly immersing new players into the game instead of letting them crash and burn in an antiquated browser game is the only way to keep building the player pool without flat out advertising, which we don't even have an appropriate product for. If you have a better idea about how to get Sergei and Orca back, I'd love to hear it, but I think you really need to broaden your perspective about the state of the game and the realities involved. Oh, and they weren't great for activity (this just shows how one-sided your thinking is). When Sergei came on, almost everyone stopped trading. That's good for activity? I'd love to see him back but you simply need larger numbers to make that happen.

I never said we're grooming people to log on once every 2 days. In fact, we're encouraging a growing community through IRC and opping, which is one of the best group activities this game has to offer. You want sticky users, not one and dones. People aren't going to come into this game and immediately be hardcore, no matter what you do. You have to build them up. You think our vision is off when your vision would basically entail 10 people on all day shooting each other until it got boring. I'm trying to actually build something long-term and keep all parties interested. I spend hours helping newbies learn how to trade, hunt, and op. Every one I help is one more for you to shoot than you would have in this game otherwise. And it's not just about kiddie gloves - it's about moderation. Hi I'm hardcore and I'm going to dominate you regardless of what it does to the game and people's perception of it isn't a good long-term strategy. That's like someone has achieved the best gear and can annihilate everyone who comes on so why bother to compete?

JJ is a prime example of someone who actually gets it now. He and I used to fight all the time about how his alliances would just crush morale and the game over the past couple years. So we engaged in some fleet fights and other things that let newer, less experienced players get a taste of the game, get a few kills, and be part of something instead of repeatedly stepped on by the hardcore crowd. I still fail to see how this map is "anti-hardcore" and think you're really the only one who feels this way, but this topic has diverged to cover a deeper issue that I'm not sure you'll ever be able to understand because of the blinders you have on when it comes to the game. I can appreciate that passion but things have changed. Refocus that passion into recruiting more players and teaching new ones. Then you can have the game back that you so desperately want.
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Re: Winter Solstice

Post by Goey »

Well not sure why my name got brought up in this discussion.. but the only reason I am in XdX's team is because I am not gonna be on a alliance with JJ, and I have been leading teams for a bit now that would be considered at least competitive up until the situation that occurred last night round. So if anything the current state of affairs as far as activity goes in at least partially on the admins, and the players simply put need more input into the game. The map is only of several bigger issues involved here. The admins seem to be getting a little bit ridiculous and just doing as they please IE this map and yes of course power driven admins are going to push people away.
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Re: Winter Solstice

Post by jouldax »

We've been pushing for more player input for years. I'd like to see us migrate to a simpler webboard solution, for example, but that's not my area of expertise. None of us are "power-hungry" at all but there needs to be a decision making hierarchy. I think most people believe this map is fine; there will always be dissenters. However, I also took the blame for not making sure the map was up for discussion. Unfortunately, instead of giving us credit for getting a massive revamp to classic in the game and working on the game of the future, as is typically the case in this game, people choose to focus on the negative and what went wrong. Last time we had an admin table discussing these massive changes, 3 people outside of the admin team showed up. 3. This is also by and large a new admin team that, as many of you have pointed out previously, has been much more involved directly in the game. Saying the current state of affairs has anything to do with the admin team is about as silly a statement as you can make; this is a browser-based game that has been in decline for years with almost no resources. New ideas like maps and round themes have probably kept this game on better life support than it otherwise would be on.

I think this topic has gone far enough astray and is no longer about the map itself. I think we all realize there is a stark dichotomy between the casual and hardcore players and trying to appease both player bases is going to be impossible. At the end of the day, we all need to do what we can to grow the player base, otherwise no one is going to be happy. Everyone is going to have to compromise to some degree. Forget the past - it's just not realistic in the present. If we want to start another topic on how to grow the player base AND KEEP IT CIVIL, then let's do that.
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