ok, turns out I had peerguardian on, and for whatever reason it felt the need to block the SSCU server along with a few others. I logged into 17th just fine after turning it off. About the pub and what it would take for people to come back etc, I was a big fan of the map with the two bases east and west with goals, the north flags and the southern safe zone. What I liked about that map was that it kept the players moving around. Regardless whether or not you were participating in the soccer game, somebody with the ball would usually zoom by and you would get sucked into it. Or they would ball kill you etc. It kept the pub lively because it appeased those that wanted to play soccer and those that wanted to just shoot people at the same time. The northern flagging area however was sort of worthless though, nobody ever went up there unless it was to kill some rogue spider. Another map that I felt worked really well was the one with two huge bases east and west. I think it was called Opal or something. That one was also good for keeping the action moving, and oddly de-emphasized the power of the Javelin with more close-quarters base combat. Spiders and Lancasters to name a few had more space to play on their strengths because of the bigger bases. Also, this map had the flags inside the east and west bases which meant that teams actually tried flagging since they were moving back and forth for the soccer game anyway. As for ship settings, the only thing it looks like that has changed is the weasel and terrier. For the weasel, I was never a fan of the tiny one, and I thought the one-hit kill, impossible to control, cloak and stealth weasel was best. It just added loads of comedy to the zone, because you're flying around thinking you're a bad!@#$%^&* and then you get killed unfairly by some weasel. Comedy goldmine imo. As for the terrier, I could never fly that !@#$%^&*, in any of its forms. But the one I remember that worked best was only flown by a fistful of people. Perhaps that ship could be re-worked so it's more available for the masses? Overall however, I think the most important thing to get people playing is obviously... people to be playing. Maybe you could host events or something to get people interested, collaborate with other zones to maybe get them to throw a message or two on their chats advertising 17th? Or perhaps just get a dedicated group of 10 friends to play as much as possible for a few weeks so people see the zone isn't dead? I'm at a loss on this.
