The Real Picard Posted August 27, 2008 Report Posted August 27, 2008 Curiously I wonder... How many active zones are there? How is the game doing compared to last year, the year before? Who are the Sysops of the zones? The forums? Where is Subspace headed? Are there any upgrades coming to the game? Is anyone doing anything other than talking and playing anymore? How long might we expect Subspace to be here? Your thoughts & comments are welcome!
Dav Posted August 27, 2008 Report Posted August 27, 2008 Curiously I wonder... How many active zones are there? Download the current zone-list and count (excluding dev zones) How is the game doing compared to last year, the year before?I think there is a slow population decline. Not sure of the exact figures though Who are the Sysops of the zones?You would have to go to the zones and download a list or ask. I can tell you in DS they are Jericho24., Killerbot NL and Myself The forums? http://www.ssforum.net/index.php?act=annou...f=279&id=65 Where is Subspace headed? Are there any upgrades coming to the game? Is anyone doing anything other than talking and playing anymore? How long might we expect Subspace to be here? This one is open to debate. Wherer subspace is headed is very dependant on how the next-gen client projects go and how we get newe players to replace those leaving.Problems are that this game is a bit basic for the new generation of gamers who all expect full 3d, amazing graphics and regular updates
Aceflyer Posted August 27, 2008 Report Posted August 27, 2008 Who are the Sysops of the zones? Besides what Dav's suggested (namely, going into each zone and asking zone staff), the member list at the SSC Forum would give you a good idea. Almost all active !@#$%^&*led sysops of SSC network zones are registered there. The forums? For the Server Help forum, Mine GO BOOM (MGB) is the admin. For the SSC Forum, BlueGoku, Hoch, and I are the admins. And Dav has already answered your question for SSF. Are there any upgrades coming to the game? Updates to Continuum? Most likely not. Is anyone doing anything other than talking and playing anymore? Yes, plenty of development work of all sorts is going on. Accede, DCME, Discretion, Starlight, SubSpace II, TWCore, and many others as well, in addition to basic zone and website development. How long might we expect Subspace to be here? Even if we end up being stuck with Continuum, the game probably has at least a couple of years' life left to it. If we end up getting something new, it'd live even longer.
»Lynx Posted August 27, 2008 Report Posted August 27, 2008 I'd say even if we don't get updates this game still will be around a while, with updates, a lot longer. -Lynx
Aceflyer Posted August 27, 2008 Report Posted August 27, 2008 I'd say even if we don't get updates this game still will be around a while, with updates, a lot longer. -Lynx Ya, thanks for agreeing.
X`terrania Posted August 27, 2008 Report Posted August 27, 2008 The game will probably be up for a few more years, with or without updates; we're a community and we all enjoy playing with each other, well, at least the people who play the game.
BlueGoku Posted August 28, 2008 Report Posted August 28, 2008 People have been saying that game will only be around for "a couple of years" for the past 10 years. This game as insane replay value and a great community, so unless something drastic happens I can see this game lasting at least another 10 years.
FMBI Posted August 28, 2008 Report Posted August 28, 2008 The thing is, though, the game has a slowly calcifying population base. I remember several years ago when I started this game, we'd see a constant stream of new players in all the big zones - and back then, we had serious small zones, too. Nowadays, probably 60% of the people in MG, HZ, and DSB are pure vets, Chaos only booms when special events lure vets in, EG's down slightly, TW's about 150 below what it used to be, and all the small-to-mid zones are gone - Halo, DS, Battlefield, Anything Goes, MK, Redstar, etc, etc. Now, that isn't to say a recovery isn't impossible - Infantry went from 6-feet-under to alive-and-well within a few months last year. However, while Infantry's got a small and incompetent moderating team, they do have developer support, they frequently rotate zones (a similar situation used to exist in SS, when the big zones would cycle off players to the small ones over time), and, most importantly, they made Infantry free after years of p2p-induced stupor. There's no similar incentive that SS zone owners or netops can provide to lure in more population, because SS is already free, it's already nearly at the limits of its development potential, and pretty much all non-!@#$%^&*S innovation has ground to a halt - along with the cause of ASSS advancement itself (I remember a few years ago when everyone was going to be ASSS within the next year, look where that got to..) People keep misreading this as just another population decline, when something fundamental is really changing this time. SS has been declining steadily, if slowly, for years and years, and, unlike in the past, there is absolutely no way to attract fresh blood. I'm sick of people saying "Kids these days need their 3d graphics and 1800x1500 resolutions," but I can't argue with them. There is no reason to play an ancient game, filled with abusive, rude, and very "colorful" players, when you can log on to CounterStrike or Battlefield 2 and get some satisfying high-resolution kills.
JDS Posted August 29, 2008 Report Posted August 29, 2008 i play subspace on 1680x1050 so its pretty kewl the easyest way to get people to play subspace more is if there friends irl played aswell.. cause if your friends play, you can just stay home and kill them from your chair instead of having to go out and not kill them
Knight Posted August 29, 2008 Report Posted August 29, 2008 (edited) As hard as this is to admit, JDS is right. The only incentive to lure in new players at this point is by word of mouth to people you know. And with our aging population, it's very hard for most of them to go to their 20+ year old co-workers and friends and start off a conversation with "Hey, wanna go shoot little 32pixel characters on 10+ year old game?... I'm sure that'll go over well. Unless someone in the near future comes up with a gimmick to get more people to play (google advertisements or something) we're pretty well doomed. And by doomed, I mean lack of a large influx of players. I whole-heartedly believe the majority of players are so hard in their addiction to this game that SS will be alive for years to come. (provided something drastically stupid doesn't happen ^^) Edited August 29, 2008 by Knight
Trained Posted August 29, 2008 Report Posted August 29, 2008 Well while I was still getting getcontinuum.com emails (because of the email forwarding) I noticed alot of people asking about playing SS on Linux, so atleast theres a few new players coming in every now and then.
»Lynx Posted August 29, 2008 Report Posted August 29, 2008 As hard as this is to admit, JDS is right. The only incentive to lure in new players at this point is by word of mouth to people you know. And with our aging population, it's very hard for most of them to go to their 20+ year old co-workers and friends and start off a conversation with "Hey, wanna go shoot little 32pixel characters on 10+ year old game?... I'm sure that'll go over well. Unless someone in the near future comes up with a gimmick to get more people to play (google advertisements or something) we're pretty well doomed. And by doomed, I mean lack of a large influx of players. I whole-heartedly believe the majority of players are so hard in their addiction to this game that SS will be alive for years to come. (provided something drastically stupid doesn't happen ^^) Lol, I got a friend to play the other day at like 1am... It was all cool until I stopped doing the flying and they just started getting owned and not getting kills. -Lynx
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