hawkaloogie

There is that, of course. I was more thinking of this as a structured ASWZ game, Attackers vs. Defenders, as opposed to both teams having to field both attackers and defenders (difficult when there are only 3 players on your team). Once the zone reaches 5v5 or 6v6 it would automatically revert to a normal ASWZ game.

Save that shit, it's ASWZ shit.

Since we need at least 10 people to effectively play a real ASWZ flag game, we need something to play while we have fewer than that many players. So what if we just drilled attackers v. defenders? The rules I've tentatively come up with go like this Map consists of one ASWZ-style base. Base contains one carryable flag, placed in the flag room (not turf flag). Attackers spawn in the center, near the greens. Defenders spawn in the flag room. To win, Attackers must pick flag and drop it (hold for 60 seconds). To win, Defenders must prevent Attackers from winning for 15 minutes. After game is over, teams are switched and game starts again. Defenders are given 60 seconds to set up before Attackers begin. Map lasts for 60 minutes, then a vote occurs and map changes. There are some other ideas I've had that I don't know are good or bad What if the map was two bases, when the attackers got through one, they spawned at the end of that base / beginning of base 2. This allows the defenders time to regroup. Freqs are balanced so that if they are not even, only defenders ever have fewer players. To make up for this, defenders get a robot terrier ship to help defend (cannot place too near to the flag). What I like most about this idea is that it allows us to play ASWZ-style games without needing 10 people. 6 people (3v3) would essentially simulate a 6v6 game (3 attackers, 3 defenders). What I don't like is the amount of programming that will be involved. I'm not sure I can have something of this magnitude done by this Sunday. Please comment on this idea and let me know what you think! Additional ideas are always welcome!

Soon I want to have a website for A Small WarZone, but I don't want to have to maintain my own forums. I do, however, want to be able to put the latest thread activity on the main ASWZ website. A feed in XML, JSON, or any other format would work perfectly. Is there any way to do this? Barring that, would you allow me to have one written?

Today we reached 5v5 in our event! Thanks to all those who showed up to play! We still need more people. To keep you better informed of when people are playing, ASWZ now has a twitter feed: http://twitter.com/aswz . The feed will be updated automatically when ASWZ has at least 6 people in pub. With this, we can have impromptu events at any time! I'm open to suggestions as to what else we could do with the twitter from inside the zone (allow spamming by people who want to organize a game, for example). Subscribe to the RSS feed for ASWZ twitter See the ASWZ twitter If anyone has an idea for an avatar for ASWZ, I'm open to just about anything. Remember: Next Sunday, March 16 at 9:00pm Eastern

We had our first event today and it went far better than expected! Our game got as large as 5v5 over a total of 2 and a half hours. Almost 20 different players showed up during the event, doubling my estimate! This is also the first time the voting system was used in a real setting, and I've got some ideas to make it even better. So stay tuned and stop on by next Sunday at 9pm Eastern!

Production server is online and we've had our first game so I'm unpinning this topic.

We're going to start holding ASWZ Events in SSXA A Small WarZone starting this Sunday March 1 at 9pm Eastern. Let everyone know!

Sounds good. This Sunday at 9pm Eastern. Let people know!

Thanks! We can use a couple bases in these, though a couple are pretty old. The settings have changed a bit since those days. We may need to see how they play.

Everybody wondering: Make sure you join the "aswz" chat. If you know old ASWZers, get them to join the chat too. Update your zone lists, SSXA A Small WarZone is there. Be sure to vote in the "What time should we hold events" thread! If you have any ASWZ maps, get them to me, we have 3, and only 1 classic one. If you want to make ASWZ maps, talk to me and we'll set up an arena for you. We're getting ready, we're almost there, we need you!

This may be a new setting, but it's been like this since I can remember. The settings are from right before ASWZ started going downhill, in my opinion the best settings that we had.

Our production server is up now. SSXA A Small WarZone Please update your lists. I hope to start scheduling game as soon as next week. Please fill in the poll with your availability. There may be some bugs that need working out, please let me know if you come across any. I will be working on making some informational messages for the flag game (much like WZ has).

Now that we have a production-level server operational, we can start scheduling events. What day/time is everyone available? Choose ALL times you can make.

We've got a production server that I haven't set up yet. I will get to that today or tomorrow and then we can start scheduling some skirmishes. I'm thinking Saturday or Sunday around 8:00p Central (hopefully after any Premiere league matches or Warzone skirmishes).

Status Report: January 16, 2009 Still waiting on Sknox's new server, it seems Dell has been unhelpful as to shipping schedule. I injured my right hand, so I've been unable to do much in the way of coding (which sucks for $dayjob). I've been working on some bases to make some more maps, current progress is in ?go hawk. ASWZ bases are a bit different from other types, so I'll need lots of feedback. We are still on-track to start playing pub skirmishes once the server is online, I'll post more once I know more.

Pub Status Update 12/31/08 11:30 PM The votemap plugin is almost at 100%. There are a couple minor bugs to work out and then it is ready for pub release. I've attached a couple screenshots of the plugin in action. You can also join SSXA A Small WarZone Dev and try it out yourself. Please report any bugs on these forums. The timer is set at 40 seconds per map for testing purposes, when we go live it will be more like 45-60 minutes. I'll update this thread with more exciting news soon. Stay tuned!

Back before ASWZ became popular, arenas were forced to 2 teams of 8 players. This usually caused there to be only one pub arena at any given time. Once ASWZ lifted those restrictions, games became larger and more exciting, but private freqs and center-killers could quickly kill the flag game when only a few people were in the zone. There are really four options available to us: Force 2 freqs of a set size (8 or 10). More people means new arena. Unlimited public freqs of a set size. Force people to grow 2 freqs evenly, then join them to a third freq. When third freq fills up, start a fourth. When fourth fills up, start a fifth. etc... Unlimited public freqs of a set size. Allow people to be in whatever public freq they want. Unlimited public and private freqs of a set size. Allow people to be in whatever freq they want. Since we're starting from scratch again, I'm thinking that it would be a good idea for the time being to force the 2 freqs of 8 (or 10) for a while. Barring that, I think option 2 will help the zone more than allowing people to go off on their own freq for center-killing. Once the zone can maintain a real flag game (2 freqs of 8, 3 nights a week), these restrictions can be lifted and we can return to the exciting, chaotic, do-as-you-want ASWZ pub. Any opinions?

My Goal: Release ASWZ Pub as of Thursday January 15, 2009 so that the first official pub games can begin that weekend. Projects that need completion and status: Maps.We currently have 4 maps, two of which have been used in pub before. One has been used in ASWZL. We need at least 10 maps for proper zone operation, more if possible. Contact me if you have any or would like an arena to start building some. [*]Server. Sknox has ordered the server and it should be arriving soon. [*]Pub programming. ASSS out-of-the-box supports the "No Flags Outside" rule The map voting system is about 50% complete, with the first version to be released possibly this weekend. We will need some testing of the system once it has been released. I will update this thread as news changes.

Not sure if this is the correct place to report bugs, but here goes: If DCME loads a bad LVZ (doesn't follow the LVZ format), it will refuse to open any correct LVZ that share the same name. Instead it will show an error message "Error uncompressing 'filename.bm2'". Not sure if I can reproduce it, the LVZ was generated by my own library (which is now fixed).

It's possible, yes. Probably even easier than making a sudden death, but I'm not sure it's the best way. The first reason was to keep things moving, instead of dragging out a flag game for 2-3 hours, far past the time everyone should be in bed, and frustrating players who work for the entire length of time only to have to leave for some Real Life reason. If the games are kept short, they can be more casual. Come in, and at most you're going to spend 45 minutes in a single game (time limit subject to change of course). I think this might help improve the popularity of flagging in SubSpace. The second reason I thought of the sudden death is the inevitable time when people leave the zone for the night. When they leave, there's a flag game half-finished or barely started. What happens to it? With the sudden death idea, that game would be reset (eventually), and the next person to join the zone would get a fresh game on a random map. The third reason is if someone doesn't like a map. They only have to spend 45 minutes on this map they don't like before they can choose a new map (instead of 2 weeks, or 2 hours). So instead of going home (or to a different zone), they're encouraged to play through and help pick the next map. The fourth reason is the panic factor: The game is about to end, the jackpot is up near 15,000 (as high as it gets in a 45-minute game), tensions are high. If nobody claims all the flags in the next 5 minutes, the jackpot gets cleared and nobody gets it. This forces people to work together under pressure and time-constraint to achieve their goal. It makes pub almost like a constantly recycling league game. I'm open to suggestions and criticisms, but I'm almost convinced that putting a strict time-limit on flag games is a Good Idea. There are many other things we can do inside of this format to improve ASWZ's curb-appeal (which is what we need right now, a big "OMG Let's try ASWZ! They're doing something Different!").

tcsoccerman: I've got your IM usernames from my thread in the SSDev forum, but I cannot seem to message you using them (the server just rejects them). I suspect some weirdness with my client. My AIM id is "hawkal00gie" and my e-mail address is doug@commctrl.com. I would greatly appreciate assistance with server dev. I plan on learning Python and doing some stuff as well. My only caveat is that the work be released with a popular F/OSS license (preferably GPL/LGPL, MIT, or Artistic). I, personally, am puzzled by the lack of F/OSS code for SubSpace, considering SubSpace's status as "Abandonware" / "Community-maintained" (the number seems to be hovering around 25%). It may be that I'm just not looking in the right places.

Every zone in SubSpace follows the same pub format: One map for two weeks, score reset and map change, rinse lather repeat. With ASSS, we have the opportunity to change the map and settings in an arena without having to disconnect all the players. With this, we can have new ways to keep pub interesting and fresh. 6-12 maps in pub rotation Players vote on a new map every 30-60 minutes If flag game isn't finished when the map timer runs out, go to sudden death (disable respawning). After 5 minutes of sudden death, if flag game is not won, freq with most flags wins. Map changes, players download new map, game waits for a few minutes to allow players time to download. Flag game begins again. Does this sound like a good idea? Are there refinements we can make? Am I completely nuts?

For all of those wondering where ASWZ went, wonder nevermore! Due to a gracious donation of server and bandwidth by sknox, ASWZ is back! I will once again be leading this endeavor. I have no doubt it will go far better than my previous attempt. We're using the ASSS server (grelminar being an old ASWZer, it just feels right). Because of this, we already have a bunch of features that subgame simply is not capable of (flags cannot be dropped outside the map, for example). Before we open officially, there are things we need to do: Find maps. There are dozens if not hundreds of ASWZ maps out there. If you have a couple, please let us know. The old ASWZ ?go duel map is missing, if you have it we can put the duel arena back up. Hire staff We will need 3-6 mods. To begin with, as mod, your job will be to populate the zone at designated times, help new players get the hang of the zone (by not killing them, letting them kill you, and/or protecting them from spawnkillers), and otherwise be the face of ASWZ. Server Development There is little that really needs to be done here, but I have lots of ideas. These will be addressed in later posts. Get the word out At its peak, ASWZ had more players than Warzone. Some of those players are still around. The first few weeks will be a lot of talking: How things should proceed, What sort of zone we want to build. The ship settings that are in-zone right now will remain mostly the same, but there are things we can do with ASSS to help the game stay fresh. These will be talked about in other posts. Please be patient, ASWZ wasn't built in a day. My goal is to have 2 freqs of 8 on at least 2 nights a week. If we can achieve that, I will consider ASWZ reborn.

Could I get a zone forum for ASWZ? Complete zone name: SSXA A Small WarZone Dev Forum Moderators: Hawkaloogie Password Protected: No It's called "Dev" for now, but that will go away once we have our production server hooked up. I'd like the forum now so I can have a place to discuss the development that will need to happen before a true release of the zone. Thanks