rant

[LiveForce]

This was going to be posted in the 'sscouncil should be voted on', but it turned into a sprawling argument about SS in general, so here goes..

People have been talking about SS dying for years. Baudchaser told me about how terrible the SS community is. Most of the people i've known that have quit have quit because of the lack of new zones, and all of the !@#$%^&* talking that goes on. What other games result in lines of spam, abuse and flaming just over a loss or even one death?

People have been talking about it dying for years, but recently the population has looked in terminal decline. EG is down over a HUNDRED peoplein its population from a year or two ago, at all times of day. And what of MG, Chaos, WZ, SWR, SWZ, PowerBall, RedStar, 17th, DSB and T3G? They've all lost massive amounts of population.

The council should be full of active people. A council full of players wouldn't achieve anything. It'd be like keeping all of the US government, and appointing a 'council' with the power to do nothing apart from suggest things to the government. In other words, if they thought something was a good idea, they wouldn't be able to do !@#$%^&* to make it happen. Only the server owners, zone sysops and billing ops can change anything. And they just aren't active enough or committed enough.

 

There needs to be a new client release and a BIG marketing campaign. We should have a 'Play SubSpace Again' week or month, with events in every zone across SS. All the sysops should group together and promise a BIG effort over that period to be active, to host special events as often as humanly possible, and to launch propaganda campaigns using all their influence to bring players back.

There should be a separate team dedicated to SubSpace's marketing and advertising. You think that new players download the game and play it because they fancy the appeal of Asteroids online? No, new players at the moment download it because friends have told them to.

We need to put forward the positives of our game more - the chat client is a massive plus. 'A chat client with a free Asteroids game' has become almost an SS-cliche. SS can be as popular as it ever was. Chess is still incredibly popular, because it's more skill based than any other game. SS is more skill-based than 90% of games. Playing for longer doesn't make you unbeatable by letting you buy super weapons and armour, like in RPGs. Every player starts on an equal footing. SS can be fun, it is fun. We just need to think seriously about its future rather than just let it ferment.

 

Ok, rant over.

[rootbear75]

the massive event thing you wanted?

that has been tried and done, and has FAILED

 

Warzone Invitational? Supposedly its still going on but i have not heard anything about it

Subspace Olympics? Tried and Done, MULTIPLE TIMES, and failed miserably.

People aren't dedicated enough to spend enough time on this.

This is the bad part about SS being free, no one is getting paid for developing this game.

If there were advertising in the zones, that might make some small income to pay for developers, but not enough....

Sadly, i must admit, and i know this WILL happen, SS WILL die. When? i cant tell you, but it will....

[LiveForce]

did i say anything about a massive event?

[Hakaku]

I kind of have to agree with rootbear... People have tried countless different ways to tackle the fall of SubSpace, but after over 10 years, it's more or less inevitable for a game so old and so unsupported (update, security, etc. -wise). Redesigning a website... trying to bring zones closer (e.g. reintegrate websites into one place)... subspace anniversaries with massive cross-zone events... designing new types of servers... sending out adverts elsewhere... google keywords... These have all been tried.

 

But then... there's also a lot of put downs for new players, such as difficult to learn controls and commands, barely any original names available, not to mention some people hold up to 100 squad names for themselves without using them, other users cheating, etc. For a game over 10 years old, that lacks support? With "higher-ups" that do quasi-squat? New players would rather go for some pay-2-play MMORPGs or w/e.

 

And finally there's the technical side... Continuum not being cross-platform... Graphics and Graphic colors that are by default 8bit and 2d... And a bunch of other things that could be listed, everywhere from commands, to lame Continuum coding, to security flaws, and more... People aren't paid to maintain this game (and if they are, it'd be like the black market of Halo *cough*), so why should they?

 

Anyhow, I'm not trying to be pessimistic, but I'm just trying to lay out the facts. You could probably add somewhere up the all the e-drama involved in this game too (which extends to SSC and new zones). I'd love to see another big advert campaign, but I also doubt it would change much due to so many reasons.

[jacob hunter!]

YEA !@#$%^&*es. It's only mostly the higher ups not playing or really caring about SS. While all the main population of people are playing continuum for hours a day when they have nothing else better to do "like me", so Please lets try starting this !@#$%^&* and gettin it done! WE do after all, have Pritk saying he will make continuum 39 and !@#$%^&*a updates and !@#$%^&*.

 

 

WE HAVE MORAL HOPES TO PUSH THROUGH AND MAKE CONTINUUM GREAT ONCE AGAIN! Our incentive should be the love and joy of the game!

lets all help out and get something done.

[LiveForce]

And finally there's the technical side... Continuum not being cross-platform...

actually, it works fine on nix

Graphics and Graphic colors that are by default 8bit and 2d

Like I said, it's the gameplay that matters.

... And a bunch of other things that could be listed, everywhere from commands,

?

to lame Continuum coding, to security flaws,

Actually, the client is remarkably stable.

and more... People aren't paid to maintain this game (and if they are, it'd be like the black market of Halo *cough*), so why should they?

why should people ever do anything then, if they're not paid for it? because they enjoy it and want to help out?

[»freakmonger]

The "updates" IMO would be security only, so no new ships, weapons, etc. *this is just IMO Only*

[ThunderJam]

In terms of a multizone event, thats not needed - But live is correct nonetheless. They key is having active people in positions of power and having an effective advertising campaign. So many people shun away from the term "advertising campaign" but it really doesnt even need to be taht organized. If one out of every 100 ss players posted an ad to ss on some other internet forum they use, that would be an incredible leap.

 

Would be awesome if every zone connected to the ssc biller used an idential periodic message reminding players to advertise continuum elsewhere.

 

As far as further development of continuum, freak is right - nothing drastic should be changed. Besides security features, the only changes should be in allowing more control over settings issues taht already exist. Like full control of bullet/bomb level's damage instead of using a factor taht each level increases by.

[rootbear75]

did i say anything about a massive event?

yes in fact, you did:

We should have a 'Play SubSpace Again' week or month, with events in every zone across SS. All the sysops should group together and promise a BIG effort over that period to be active, to host special events as often as humanly possible, and to launch propaganda campaigns using all their influence to bring players back.

read it

that basically screams: Big coordinated event

[Suicide_Run]

IMO the decline of SS Population cant really be stopped. Its cause every few months, new games with new graphics comes out. Even though most people playing ss joined at first cause of their friends telling them to play, nowdays if you tell your friends about subspace. Most people will just give you a strange face cause your telling them play a 2D Space-Action Game when their computer can handle games that has graphic requirement 3 times SS.

 

I think SS should work on keeping the remaining players instead of trying to expand alot (maybe get a few ppl to join). What tj said about adding more controls would be a good way to keep players. Maybe some controls like being about to strafe your ship like infantry can.

[Samapico]

Kids dont play games like ss anymore, they want to see 3D blood and stuff... and our generation is growing up, getting a life, work, etc. So all have less time for ss, and there's like noone to take over...

[MikeTheNose]

Samapico has nailed it. This game is boring by today's standards.

[sil]

I woudln't say it is boring by todays standards. I would say it isn't visually appealing enough. Beyond the graphics, most games today are as boring as ever, if not more so.

[jacob hunter!]

But subspace has pretty much the best online gameplay.