This is an interesting topic, and I'm sure not may sysops and/or players would disagree that the game needs to be changed to accomadate new players. As a sysop with a good bit of experience trying to balance games between reds/blues, veterans/noobies, new school/old school, etc... I've found out that there are a lot of things to consider. For instance:
1) Setting ship move delay or lowering the Max commands per cycle will pretty much make it impossible to move without getting planet dropped unless a planet move delay is added.
2) Also when you do add features to make it easier for players to move, then it opens up the field to the red cashers who can initially have many more fighters than a blue trying to build planets. Also adding to the chance of finding bases much faster and wiping out the blue opponant.

In my opinion, the options we have can be very confusing for new sysops. There should be options, but the values should be automatically set when the game type is selected. For example, let's say a sysop chooses "Easy Play" and when he does so, a ship move delay is added and planet delay is adjusted accordingly. Sort of like setting a game to MBBS and many settings can't be changed. This is just my opinion and you know what they say about those. Good Luck JP.

Maybe, but what I'm trying to say is that for every simple tactic, there's an equal counter-tactic.

Delays just tweak the gridder-defender balance. That war is the key to so many games, it's such
a vital tactic, that the person that masters the new balance will have a huge edge. Until that
issue is addressed, I don't see anything as having a lasting effect.

Along the same lines, the reason why delays aren't popular is the simple technical issues around
having them. Fast style players hate them, and because there's more fast style players than
slow style players, sysops have to cater to them. If I could have games that had delays AND
games that didn't... I could have games that attracted both styles, without having to compromise.
If move delay was game by game, that would make move delay a much more viable option.



Yeh, ok so I can't torp. I can still drop figs. Going to add a fig drop delay? Fine, I'll drop figs in
key areas and high traffic sectors early on. Or I'll sit in a sector near a DE and run DE gate...
guy grids adj, I drop figs and kill. The timing of things is just a challenge to be overcame.

Yes, that's a technical view... and we're talking about changing the technical aspects of the game,
but the core principal is competitive edge. In a game against other competitive players, those
new settings would be fun. In a game against non-competitive new players, it'd still be a slaughter.

To that end, I think the way to address the problem is to completely unbalance the situation in a way
that favors new players. Tpad, pwarp and xport delay might help. A fig decay rate would certainly help.
Something to disrupt red team cashing scripts would help. Etc, etc.

"I think you will find out that your "peak" in your graph will coincide with the introduction of broadband. People had more time to explore the internet."

Maniac, I don't know, I have a hard time believing that an increase in potential market has led to a decline in player base. We're talking about such a tiny, tiny segment of the online gaming population. If anyone new was coming into the game, it would remain steady. But the game is steadily losing people and nobody is replacing them. Other games like BRE and LORD are enjoying a bit of a renaissance. TradeWars used to be as much of a draw as those games. Today it is not.

"Along the same lines, the reason why delays aren't popular is the simple technical issues around
having them. Fast style players hate them, and because there's more fast style players than
slow style players, sysops have to cater to them. If I could have games that had delays AND
games that didn't... I could have games that attracted both styles, without having to compromise.
If move delay was game by game, that would make move delay a much more viable option."

Damnit. I really wish I would have just gotten that change in. Back when I was going to do that, I just really got turned off by all of the fighting over this change and that, and I just stepped away. But you're right, that change would have been a big difference. I totally agree that those server-wide settings were a mistake.

"Yeh, ok so I can't torp. I can still drop figs. Going to add a fig drop delay? Fine, I'll drop figs in
key areas and high traffic sectors early on. Or I'll sit in a sector near a DE and run DE gate...
guy grids adj, I drop figs and kill. The timing of things is just a challenge to be overcame."

Since players have always been able to drop fighters in the game, it isn't the simple fact of being able to do it that has become a problem. It's something related to that. Either it's because players are cashing too fast and can afford to blanket space with fighters, or it's because they're able to do something with those fighters that they couldn't do before. In a game with less cashing, I think players were forced to focus more on defending certain key areas, and only when you started to dominate could you begin to control large areas of space (and thus win the game). So I think that's more about pace. You play games with unlimited time, high turns, and mega-cashing scripts, once again pace is out the window, and there is no "opening game", "middle game", and "end game". Within a few days, you're at the end-game and it's just a battle of attrition between the few who could keep up.

Yes. Sometimes it's cashing, but mostly it's the latter. Today, people can be online 24/7 running scripts. Didn't work that way
with dialup BBSes. Today people can run a map and do traffic calculations, most people could not do that 10 years ago. Today
people can run scripts that do complicated database stuff, that wasn't true 10 years ago.



Well, cashing is easily adjusted by MBBS settings, ptrade %, universe size, port %, stuff like "steal from buy port" and turn
count. So much so that it's rather easy to build an edit around the cashing limits of an edit. Even in a turns game with limited
cash I can run ship dropper and kill errant gridders. If figs don't work, perhaps mines would, or a combination of figs and mines.

None of that will keep people in the game longer. If they can't grid, it's only a matter of time till their base(s) are found and
invaded. Then just drop some haz around fedspace and lock up the game. Piece of cake...

Ok, here's something to throw in here. Suppose games are low turns, and move delays are in place so it takes a quarter second to move to an adjacent sector with a fast ship like the Scout. And planets take awhile to move, so they're not mobile weapons, but just movable bases. Also, suppose there is a relatively short time limit in the game, like an hour or two per day. Add to that something new, the ability to set up trade routes (a variety of different types like we have today), but then let those trade routes run without direct control, the way npc aliens run today. You'd have a limited number of "trade turns" to use, but that would be separate from your "movement turns". So your time online and turns won't limit trade activity (cashing), it'll only limit exploration, building and invasion. Such a game would depend much less on automation, because the tedious part would be replaced by AI. Also, suppose extern stuff is handled more in realtime as well, so the MSLs are being kept clear, etc. These kinds of things are not as hard to achieve as it might seem. They've been possible since the Gold alien AI system was introduced.

Many of the sysops have server side scripts that keep clear designated sectors of fighters, mines, etc. I think that would be a very good idea if you designated trade routes that were cleared randomly and periodly without having to run server side scripts. It may also hinder planet dropping if it was done randomly and planets were set back to level 2 like they are when extern runs.

As long as you're invisible as you do these trades, I think that'd be one approach. If you're not, then you're still
at mercy to the online players as you cash and nothing changes. Altho you'd need to expand the trading options
from just "trading" to other stuff as well (sst, sdt), otherwise reds would be screwed.

You would also have to fix the time limit bug. That'd be a nice fix either way.

I think the key is that there would be a trade-off between spending your turns on finding trade operations, building up defenses for those trade routes, building planets, etc, or you're spending turns on attacking others. You shouldn't be able to do both very well. Games today are so unlimited, you really don't have to make decisions about what you want to do with your turns or your time.

As far as being invisible, I think you need to defend sectors where you're running trade routes (or hope nobody finds it). It shouldn't be different than if you were running it in realtime, except you should not be expected to be online for the hours that it will take to run the route with ship delays.

And right, gotta include all kinds of cashing methods.

Actually I would disagree in regard to games today. You still have to make decisions on turn usage and time usage. Time is not unlimited unless you have no life or need for sleep, and wasting time/turns allows an opponent an advantage. Decisions are made between cashing/building/attacking in regard to the "when" in every game. I see what you are saying, I think, in requiring another option for turn/time usage though.

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

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

Sure, even if turns and time are unlimited, the choices you make will matter. But by restricting turns and time further, the meaning of those decisions are greatly amplified.

I'm going to be a contrarian for a moment. I was also very active around 2002. In the EIS community, there were some major shifts in player base. The older guard was moving onto other things. The new "elite" players at the time were the new super scripters. Cherokee. Xide. TWX and Zoc and Swath changed the game. There were a lot of players that didn't like where it went. We saw a huge dropoff in players around that time. Move forward a few more years when gridding took major hold and you saw another huge drop in the players. Mind you, I'm not blaming scripting. It was just the evolution of gameplay. I don't see broadband playing a role at all. Sure, you could play other new games that had graphics but that wasn't the big issue of the day. In many ways, it was a natural progression. Players got bored of having to run cashing and externs. We all have been there. The obvious problem, and we all know it, is someone gets an itch to see if TW is still here. It is, but they can't compete. They're 10-15 years behind the curve. Regardless of how we feel about the use of scripts and TW today, if you want TW to be viable and growing, something has to be done to bring the new/returning player back to a point they can survive. If we want to keep it miniscule and insignificant, we can continue to say "well, if they REALLY want to play this game, they'll take the time to learn xxxxx".

Expanding on what SG said, A 1 second delay sending sub space messages and hails would sure put a kink in those pesky bot scripts.