I had to wonder if TW is finally dieing out tonight after visiting the servers listed on thestardock.com website. The vast majority, had 0 to maybe 20 distinct players active, and even one with a 600+ activity rating only had 4 players online.

I've seen the forums getting slower and slower in regard to new names posting. Seems like we have at best around 15 or so people that post. We may have a lot more that just come and read, but they don't appear to have enough interest to even post.

Some have said that we have a monthly cycle of game play and that times are just slow. This past year has been very slow except for the division created from some of the fiascos. Even during the Sylian debacle, there were probably less than 20-25 players posting in one of the more heated issues. Major tournaments (need to define what "Major" really means anymore) end up in the he said/she said smack talk. I've seen smack previous on some of the "Majors" but they were giving each other grief over getting SD or torping a corpie in a good natured way. Not personal attacks.

We lost a lot of players to the new "eye candy" games that are out (WoW just announced their 10M achievement). I doubt if those that have moved on to EVE or WoW will come back to a text based game. The new TW may be getting player interest now, don't know - haven't played it, but it may pull even more from the "classic" version.

We lost some very good servers and Ops due to lack of activity on what were very active established sites. The new fascination with truce games can be major headaches for an Op to monitor. It also seems like many of the players in truce games play until truce end and then leave (either before of after they are #SD#).

I know my own interest in the game is waning. From an active player and scripting, to mainly scripting, and now just T-Edit scripts for the sysOp. I thought running a server might help restore interest but that really doesn't do much. I know the truce games are not something that I like because of the time frame required to play a game. A truce game is much like a non-truce unlim only reversed - truce you have to be at keys at truce end, an unlim at the start. Why put 3-4 days into a truce only to fall while AFK to an invasion at truce end?

k, I am done with my rambling, but as I see it, TW is now in the beginning (maybe more advanced stage) of its end-game phase.

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

"A man who has no skills can be taught, a man who has no honor has nothing."

I think TW is just suffering from a lack of updates. When the rumors of bugfixes and a new beta were circulating there was a lot of activity and ppl came out of the woodwork. I had at least a dozen ppl ICQ me about it, people I hadn't heard from in months.

We could bring a lot more ppl to TW by getting a front page story on digg, reddit, slashdot or any such place. And I suspect that if we had a small group of ppl here get organized enough, we could easily get enough votes to attract attention... provided the story was newsworthy enough (TW will always carry a base w/ the nostalgic geek crowd). There are plenty of ways to bring in new ppl, it's just... when new ppl come along these days they don't see much worth commenting on and then move along.

The split did not help tho, every time the community splits we lose players it seems.

Well with that observation in mind, what can we do as players in the community to jump start TW back to an enjoyable state? Its easy to make observations that are definitly true, but lets come up with some idea's to change it....we can't just sit around and WAIT for the TW community to change itself.

We have more and more noobs coming on and sometimes getting run off *cough* prom *cough* <jk>
I think with a couple good idea's we MIGHT be able to improve game play amongst veterans and even bring and keep our noobs in the process. IF it doesn't work...what did we lose? Can't hurt to try..

Thanks Prom for the thread...hopefully this gets something started.

I have a few suggestions that might help get people interested in Tradewars again.

1) New updates with more options for the sysop to make it easier for new players. (Truce style features would help)
2) A annual tournament schedule, on alternating host servers with a 30 day time limit on each. 12 a year.
3) Either make changes so advanced scripts don't work, or offer better scripts for download for new players.
4) All players start spreading the word and add information about the game to more search engines.
5) All active players start contacting previous players and try to recruit them back to the game. Of course this would be easier if we did have some positive changes to offer.
6) Veteran players need to share stratagy and tricks with newer players.
7) Quit bickering between ourselves try to understand that everyone here has the same goal in mind.


Now most of these ideas are NOT original, but it never hurts to suggest them again. After all, they are excellent ideas.

True on some getting run off when we have players who are playing a serious game. Dieing quickly happens and not just to the noob player. Those of us who have played for more than a few months know that dieing quickly sometimes happens. It is frustrating for the newer player to build for a few days only to be wiped out 30 minutes after truce is over, or die within the first 5 minutes of logging on in a non-truce game.

Helping the new players is a common theme when we talk about growing the game. Thrawn and some others have established sites that provide games to help the new players and we need to guide them to those sites. We can also let them know that when they enter an established game where you have hunter/killers that are fighting it out that they probably won't last too long. I know the majority of my scripts aren't selective to a corp or player on attack (although I sometimes modify them for that purpose in a specific game).

We can help those players that want help, but those that respond to an attack with a spoiled brat's response get very little help. I know most of us have been called names that the filters on here block, and we've seen ships with our alias and colorful attachments and that does little for me to help someone. I played solo vs 2 players - podded one and he started in with the BS talk - he died. I told his corpie that he would have lived if it wouldn't have been for the fed com response. I ended up helping the corpie in the game as he was civil after an attack and asked questions. That is all I ask of any player since this is nothing but a game.

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

"A man who has no skills can be taught, a man who has no honor has nothing."

Speeding up the game might help too. When I get the Death-Drain on Guitar Heros I don't have to wait a whole day to go up agaisnt Slash again

I know its been said before....

Set up a new player training ground, I know a few servers have them, but I think it could be better. If I remember right Big D did something like this a few years back and I really enjoyed it as i was just coming back to the game. The time just wasnt right for me at that point. I know Sing has offered his help, and a few others too, maybe experianced players could get together and get something going. Id be more then willing to help allthough im not as experianced as some.


Less servers! I know they have been slowing dieing off but at one point we had a server for each player it seemed like. Im not sure how to making this happen but I know there is a few that i will not play at and some that I love to. lets face it nobody likes a 300+ ping unless your zark I guess spreading the word would be the best way to go about this.


I think the more new people that we help out the better, and setting up a training game and promoting the hell out of it might help out alot. Anyone have any further thoughts on this?

Actually, like you said, we still have plenty of servers. The biggest problem is, what few players we have are scattered out not necessarily on different servers, but also in different games on each server. Some corps won't play unlimited games, some won't play turn games, some won't play in games where a certain corp is playing, etc. etc. What we need to do is get the current players and corps to try to experience different types of games and settings. I feel that no one can ever be an elite unless they can compete in all type games. Once we get some good games going, be it truce games, unlimited turn, low turn, whatever, the new players will enjoy it much more and start participating. Also on a note, when you get into a game, don't be afraid to ask another solo player to join you and share knowledge. I've seen so many games where one corp dominates over several independant players where if the independant players had joined, it would have been a good game.

If only we could get everyone to go to one forum so that we could know who plays and who doesnt. Im sure there is lots of players that never even bother to look at a forum. That way they could meet corpies that way. Maybe we could get a training game going and promote the hell out of it and have a seperate forum just for that game?

You could also try supporting the training games that already exist

Cerne

Training games only get players that need training tho, so it caps the skill level. As for the hatred in the game, when another team or player calls you a cheater for doing something that they're also guilty of, and that isn't against any rules except their own arbitrary ones... it tends to breed a bit of dislike.

There's just a lot of competition in the online gaming world these days. The lack of consistent development makes the atmosphere a bit stale.

Arent you the "trainer" in one of them?

Capping the skill level? maybe so, one could look at it a couple of ways, player A gets "trained" by another very skilled player. Then doesnt bother to learn anything else. Goes on playing for awhile thinking he/she knows everything.

player B gets trained by the same person, then learns more as time goes on. Then is good enough to win against his trainer.

Now how do we get more player B's into the game to begin with. To me a training game is a stepping stone, not mastering the game.

true about it getting stale, then again the same 5 people playing in a game is just as stale.

The secret to getting more players interested in the game is simply that we need to recruit and advertise. The secret to getting players to stay in the game is we need to train them and take them under our wings. More active perma corps and well planned tournaments are a few solutions to training them. You can have training games all day long, but until they are in a real game, they aren't going to experience that needed rush of "powering up on you" and the need to be able to react quickly. Kane made a very astute observation about the trainee surpassing the trainer. I killed Bone Collector and Loki on a daily basis for at least a month, and then pointed them into the right direction (TWX and scripts) so they could get better. About 6 months later, I was getting killed by them quite often. I'm just sorry to say they moved on to EVE I believe it was. Maybe they got too good too quick or maybe the game didn't advance as fast as they did? Who knows... We still have a lot of new players willing to learn even today. We just need to accept them into our corps and teach them what we know.