Bargeld

Let me summarize my perspective on #TWMASTERZONE's input: Chaos/4v4 player expresses a desire to 'market' Continuum to gain new players to the game as a whole. He does it in the sub-forum of his zone/arena of choice, on the overall forum system in which most of the active zones have sub-forums of their own and participate on this overall forum system. TWMASTERZONE appears and states that it should be discussed with other zones in order to reach a mutual agreement (of something, idk) and suggests using the TW council forum to do so, on a forum system dedicated to the single zone, TW. TWMASTERZONE then suggests that, TW has developed and supports the concept of a 'league', which Chaos has, but that one that basically sucks, and provides his interpretation as to why it fails and how it should be improved by creating new arenas to train players as a transition to league. But there is a problem with this suggested solution and with this game, and every other game out there with a similar zone/shard/arena structure. It is the same problem that businesses run into and is evident in any marketing analysis. The concept is cannibalization... basically you have a pool of X amount of users overall. Each user in the pool has a preferred brand/flavor/game/zone/arena/whatever. In order for any of the segments to grow, it can either gain new users/players/customers from outside the current pool, or they get people to switch brands from within the pool, from one segment to another... hence 'cannibalization'. But TW and 4v4 are like Diet Coke and Fanta Orange drink. Yes, they are distributed through the same avenues, they are both 'drinks', but they are soooo different that there is little to no cannibalization between the two. The same occurs in-zone, where the entire playerbase is aware of 4v4 and if someone decides to go to play 4v4, they are abandoning pub to do it. (This is how Alpha died, btw... but it wasn't 4v4 or a league, it was just a different sub arena). Placing alternate sub-arenas in a zone will only make the existing ones shrink (cannibalization again), and if you have populations that are already low, you are simply fragmenting your playerbase to the point that none of the sub-arenas will have any longevity. And this is why Mindriot made his original post. The solution is not to 'fix' league or arenas, or to make mutual agreement between councils... the solution is to bring in new blood to increase that overall pool of X players. Some will go to TW, some to Chaos, some will end up in 4v4 and some will end up in one of the other smaller zones. But you need NEW players in order for any of it to occur. The current and historic difference between TW and Chaos (SVS style) is obvious. TW is a one hit kill zone, and so newbies to the game get instant gratification. It tends to draw younger players, and has always been considered less 'skillful' than SVS. I've been playing SS/Cont for 18 years, and I have no idea what TW league is... I'm sure you can take TW vets and let them play in structured matches on structured teams, and there is some level of higher skill between newb and vet teams. But that is still a completely different game than SVS 4v4. The point of the comparison is not to say that one is 'better' than the other, but simply to show that they are entirely different, and that when a legitimate new player comes to the game, they will have a preference in the type of game they want to play and will end up in whatever zone provides it. TW is simply larger because more young kids like to be able to instantly Tea-bag that vet in pub, which rarely happens in SVS pub, and almost never in 4v4. So TW gets the bigger population. I'd like to say something regarding the original post and provide more input, but I got nothing... already said my peace about centrally marketing the game. I just had to point out how a TW guy had ridiculous, zone-centric input, just as I originally posted.

http://www.subspace.co/topic/27501-chaos-is-red-poulation-10/

I'm going to sound like a negative nancy here, so don't get me wrong... I am all for the game growing. That being said: People have been doing this for years already. There are multiple facebook groups, there have been numerous 'reviews' written about it, there was a greenlight push on steam, alternate clients/servers have been in development, etc. etc. There are a few main problems, as a whole: 1) The multiple zones don't really coordinate on an inter-zone level. It's safe to say that it's actually quite the opposite. Due to the different styles of games and the age of the zones/games/players, there is actually more animosity between zones than there is any level of kinship. The only thing ALL zones share is a desire for players to defect from another zone and come to theirs. Then when they do, they get continually insulted for having roots outside the zone. 2) There is no central 'agency' to coordinate, manage, and direct any marketing effort. The same applies to funds. Historically, the only 'marketing' ever done has been by a few people who put their own money and effort behind developing a website and blasting it to the internet. Unfortunately, those efforts cannot be sustained indefinitely. 3) The copyright/ownership of Subspace/Continuum has always been a detriment. The really good ways of getting exposure, like Steam greenlight, require source code to be posted and/or ownership stakeholders to participate. We have neither... hence the desire to re-develop the game as a new client/server. As stated, I'm all for more efforts of gaining new players, but this is not a new concept, nor will it be the first effort of it's kind. Perhaps you can do a little bit of research (like searching the overall forum for 'marketing' and see what threads/info pop up.) You might be able to learn of some of the past and current people who have worked at promoting the game and get in touch with them as well. I offer a sincere, non-sarcastic, 'good luck' with the effort!

I can tell you from experience that stagnation leads to extinction. Change !forcecap. The only reasons given NOT to change it so far are: 1) Change is bad, m'kay. (see sentence #1 of this post) 2) You guys suck too bad and we don't want to play with you. We vets want to maintain our elitism and only play who we want to play. Restated as: we want to continue dicking over everyone else not in our group of 20 players who have been playing league for 5+ years. Give a valid reason for forcecap not to change and maybe that can be discussed. The only real obstacle at this point is having the bot code altered to accommodate a 'more friendly' and 'more fair' version of the bot behavior that caters to a broader range of players and not just the elite.

You should. Your last post was way off target because of it.

Let me restate what you said in a much easier sentence: 'you have a nice idea for how !forcecap should work that is different than the way it currently works'. I think you meant to say 'you have a nice dream but it's different than what most other people want'. I'd say do a forum poll on keeping vs changing !forcecap, but the results would be skewed due to the demographics of the voting members (not everyone who pracs 4v4 checks the forum or will vote, so you probably won't get accurate results). Providing opinions is how things change. If I want something to change, I will try to make it happen, not just sit back and 'hope' for it to happen. Just be glad that I don't have any direct ability to effect 4v4 and the arenas, or any admin ability in chaos, cuz I would be using *shutup and *kick left and right until a lot of people learned some basic sportsmanship and human respect for each other.

Just a bit more thought on it... If the winning SQUAD wants to !fc another cap/team, but the winners are no longer a valid SQUAD of 4, or the chosen challengers are not a valid SQUAD of 4. Let say the teams are MOSTLY a squad, or just a TeamStack that wants to play another good TeamStackv2. GET IN FUCKING LINE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. This is the perfect example of what normally happens. It's not about squads. It's about the 'good' players being provided a tool that lets them abuse the arena and play whoever they want and waste the time of the people waiting in line. It's elitism at it's finest.

4) Change how the bots work so that the abuse of !forcecap is minimized ... The suggestion to migrate people over to 4v4prac is ridiculous. Here is why: SuckyDude gets in !cap line in 4v4squad. No one knows who he is, or he is known to suck, or is just a jerk. There are 5 others behind him in line that are all average, known players. TeamStack has just won. SuckyDude gets !cap. TeamStack decides to !fc the next guy in line, or whoever else they want. SuckyDude has to wait 10-30 mins for each game, thinking he gets next, to be !fc'd over because no one wants to play against him or the winning cap is just a troll. So, SuckyDude decides to go to prac arena and !spam. He is an unknown and maybe 2 people come to see what happens and maybe join. In the meantime, the other arena has 5 people still waiting behind him in line who are willing to play in that 4v4squad because there is a 99% chance that !fc won't be an issue with them. They aren't squads, it's TeamStack vs TeamNextRandom and no one will leave to join SuckyDude willingly with a live line in progress in 4v4squad. !fc works great when there are issues with captains that AFK while holding it. Or AFK and !away claim. Or, or... there are valid uses. And so having !fc is the better option when comparing 4v4prac vs 4v4squad. Realistically, no one actually cares about 4v4squad vs 4v4prac. The people saying it means something are spewing out a line of crap of how it's supposed to work, or what was in mind when it was implemented this way. But it's ultimately a load of shit. They should be the same, and in effect on a daily basis, they are. All this boils back to letting the winners abuse the rest of the arena, and the people in line that they don't like. That's what 99% of the complaints here actually are. A tool for trolling has been given to the players, and those who choose to abuse it will do so whenever they see fit. Fix the tool. Change how often is can be used by adding a timer. Maybe check for valid squads so that it can only be used for a winning squad to !fc another squad (they can make a private freq and the bot can look at it and check the 4 players and their squad and then activate everything). Or look at my previous post in this thread that elaborates and provides some other ideas for using it and enhancing 4v4. Leave it open for trolls to abuse it, and they will. This issue will never go away in it's current state and it will continue to drive the newer people away from league. Ask for attrition and ye shall receive.

http://erroraccessdenied.com/files/images/serious_cat.jpg http://37.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mb234va0zr1rxye79o1_500.jpg

http://www.subspace.co/topic/27412-sscx-chaosleague-zone-is-back-up/?do=findComment&comment=291098

So... been helping some people troubleshoot connection issues and it appears that directory servers all have a bad IP for Chaos: dirserver.ssnecentral.net sscentral.sscuservers.net ssdir.playsubspace.com All report Chaos at: IP: 66.235.184.102 port: 13500 Manually entering the following allows connection: IP: 66.36.247.83 port: 13500 (this was the IP/port that my Continuum has used since updating the zones after the DDoS) Not sure why the directory servers all have the wrong IP listed, and I didn't test any zones other than Chaos, but this needs fixing because new installs and anyone who tries to refresh the zone list are all screwed. Edit: Since this is the link provided when you enter Chaos as a reference to help people with connection problems, this may actually be hurting more than it helps.

How about something along the lines of 1 or 2 uses per winning streak, tied to the freq (not the cap/player/squad). Or 1 use per 2 hours. Once that's up, change arenas if it's really that important to play a specific team. It's stupid to use !fc anyway. In most cases, if a winning freq wanted to specifically play someone, but the !cap line was held valid, then the winning freq and their chosen competitor could always go to a different arena voluntarily. !fc is just a lazy shortcut for that. It could be argued that the !cap who is losing their spot could just as easily do the same... except that the single main arena tends to have a pre-existing line which makes the gameplay flow better for the randoms/next in line/people who have been waiting 30 minutes. Cater the arenas to be for practicing for the layman and let the squads/vets adjust around that mindset, rather than the other way around. Catering to the vets is ultimately going to make league participation shrink due to attrition. The status quo arena is already to the point where players are suiciding cuz they don't care, aliasing so they don't tarnish their real stats, and incessantly spewing stupid, useless, wanna-be 1337 crap in blue. The only legitimate reasons that !fc is needed is due to a player's ability to "?away claim" while afk, or some douchebag just wants to !claim and hold the arena hostage. -------- Would be cool if different game modes were available too, as mentioned earlier in the thread. Perhaps have a concurrent line of players that are volunteering to play in a random match. Let the new, challenging cap determine if he wants to draw the next players in that line and let the bot PM those players to !join or get skipped after a 30 sec timeout (kinda like how !cap works). Then, if both caps agree, allow the bot to mix up the teams based on more even ratings (The 2 caps keep their freq, the one with the lower rating gets the guy with the highest rating out of the non-cap players that are in, the other freq gets the next highest, back n forth). At least it wouldn't take 10 mins just to put a team together while the !showline is 7 caps deep. Example command list: !join (puts a player into the player line) !showjoin (shows that line of players waiting) !mix (both caps use the command while freqs are full, similar to !rdy - also, could be used as many times as desired, as long as both caps use the command... in case someone afk's/gets kicked/has to leave)

!pracstats any player in that game will kill the bot.

Oh oops, I misread that. I thought you said they subbed in on YOUR team.

Me.

I'm not WRONG. What I said may not apply to the situation that occurred with nfs's example, or with Micloren's first example, but my explanation could absolutely apply to Micloren's 2nd example. What I described is actually very common, but no one notices it unless it occurs at a critical moment, like death damage. It would not explain 2 deaths in a row, but would only explain a single death from a player who 'died without being hit by anything'. Btw... the better approach is to make your rebuttal, and let other's determine who they believe is right, wrong, or otherwise, rather than open a sentence with "You're wrong". It's just a jerk thing to do, and usually just makes people more argumentative.

I discovered this a couple years ago, also. Same problem, same solution.

The fonts remained screwy no matter what we tried, even with my custom res correctly set at 2x native (3360 x 2100) on the newest version. But I'm only one user, and we spent a good amount of time in-game trying to work the fonts out yesterday, so if everyone else is working fine, no harm, no foul.

I've popped in a few times since your post, but haven't managed to cross paths with you yet. You're using 'Weasal' right? Crescendo left me a ?message for a good idea, to try using the resizer at my default res, and see what that does. Lo and behold, there is an oddity. First off, simply setting the custom res in the resizer forced my lower windows taskbar to always be on top, even when in game. It basically looked like an active desktop, with no way to get the taskbar to go away. That was using all the same settings for everything in the previous posts/tests. I then turned 'chat window support' OFF in the resizer, and it fixed the problem, taskbar went away. That's when I noticed that the game's "full screen" was dropping a number of lines off the bottom of the screen. As you can see in the screenshot, there are 30 pixels of black space at the bottom (i measured it in photoshop), and the text/chat is cut in the middle of a line... where that line cuts off was the bottom of the monitor at full screen. 1650x1080 http://www.bargeld.us/storage/1650x1080.jpg Based on that, and the font wonkiness I've seen, it almost looks like there is a fixed value in the formula for the res to display that is off by that 30. Or possibly a weird percentage/division occurring. I'll continue to look for you in game. Edit: on a hunch, I checked the height of the Vista taskbar by taking a desktop screenshot and then pasting into photoshop and measuring: 46 pixels. Edit 2: Feel free to split my troubleshooting stuff off to a separate topic for general Resizer troubleshooting, in order to clean up the mouse aim topic. Sorry about that.

Large fonts do it too... 2048 x 1340: http://www.bargeld.us/storage/2048x1340_LF.jpg

Mouse aim (or lack thereof) is functioning correctly. As far as the fonts... I'll attach some examples, it's not just a function of the res being different because I use the resizer on my win7 laptop and it's not doing this. Also, whenever i take a screenshot, it seems to blow the screen buffer out to the resizer res setting and sets it as the capture size, but then places the visible screen at 1650 x 1080 as seen, and the first screenshot is always a solid black screen. Onscreen, the actual visible display on the monitor, the monitor sees a full screen image, none of the cropping problems occur, except in the screenshot output. "Show Default Resolutions" seems to have very odd behavior also, although it would take quite a long to time to fully describe it all. Let me know if you really want me to. Vista default res: 1650 x 1080 (16:10 aspect) Attempting: 2048 x 1340 http://www.bargeld.us/storage/2048x1340.jpg 2560 x 1676 http://www.bargeld.us/storage/2560x1676.jpg 3300 x 2160 http://www.bargeld.us/storage/3300x2160.jpg These are the original .bmp just converted to .jpg. Fonts are screwed in all, as can be seen.

Good job, doesn't crash out on my vista 64 anymore and the res change takes effect... BUT Cannot turn off Mouse Aim (when I deselect the option, the game starts and LR arrow keys do not function. As soon as you move the mouse, the dot appears and the ship rotates. Rotation function is not correct... It seems to move 2 or 3 ticks, then stops. Fonts are screwed no matter what advanced options, font size, or resolution that I set. (Page flipping, clipping, software emulation, force fonts to mem).

Stop giving a damn, you are making your avatar lie.

https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&rlz=1C1CHKZ_enUS431US433&es_sm=122&q=can+not+or+cannot&spell=1&sa=X&ei=-StRU6OMNazfsASHyILgAQ&ved=0CCgQBSgA&biw=1345&bih=860 Learn before you correct others. TLDR; They are interchangeable and 'cannot' is the more common usage.