Let Us Not Forget...

[PoLiX]

I go around zones, and constantly hear "Subspace is Dead" and people just sitting in spec, not doing anything to help.

 

I'll continue saying it until the day this game rots away, but use to this game was a join effort. We NEVER controlled the source or controlled the client, but we always we're ready to step up and advertise, bring new players, and work together to help improve. Now, I watch people just bitch about the "powers that be" and don't try to do shit themselves. You wonder how those "powers that be" got where they are now? By just doing what they thought was right and stepping up to help.

 

A lot of the current council always asks me why the old council disliked me so much. Cause I didn't give 2 shits what anyone else thought, I was just going to do what I thought was right and trying to help this game. They had grown content in their ways, and let everyone else do the work, and if they didn't like it, they just kicked em to the curb. Problem was, I bolted my ass to the ground and their shoes weren't big enough to kick me nowhere.

 

To me, this game became a hobby. Like working on my cars, riding quads, and playing xbox. SubSpace websites we're a hobby of mine. Not something I went around bragging about, but I did learn one hell of a lot here. Everything I know about computers, programming, coding, and graphics I learned from running my own zones and growing them to SSC access. I got my brothers into the game, got a few friends into the game, and my cousin and his 2 cousins also played. We had a tight group, and we all just played to have fun. Hell, I ran zones just to cater to our wants.

 

Now why do I share this? I dunno. Sometimes I sit around thinking while working on SubSpace Online, "is it worth it anymore?". And I'll stop working on it for a week. But then I go into a zone and watch some newbs having fun and yelling at each other like we use to, and I realize "yeah, this game is still fun for someone" (While typically trash talking them back).

 

Take this post as you wish... but this client screenshot, I took ~February of last year on a league day. Lot of zones had leagues going on, and we had almost 1600 players on. I snapped the screen quick, and have held onto it as the client screenshot for SSCentral and now SSO as a reminder that this game once was the greatest player ran mmo at one time. And we have MANY game reviews to back that up.

[PoLiX]

A few things you can do:

 

Advertise

Tell your friends

Tell your school

Take LYNX's idea and get a lan with some friends/classmates setup

Post on Forums.

Post on websites.

 

Just Advertise.

[»doc flabby]

When someone says SubSpace is dying they forget the population NOW is larger than it was 9 years ago.

 

I had an idea, we could create a single player flash game based on subspace and submit it to many games websites...inside the game we have a link (alot of games like these have adverts)..."want to play the real thing" or similar.

[»Lynx]

I tried doing this, but I'm not good enough with Flash... There was somebody in a chat of mine a while ago, who was very good of flash. She was an MG player, her alias has just left my head right now. I'll remember it sooner or later, though. :/

[Emit]

plays MG and uses flash? must be kai ossa

[»Lynx]

7

 

She was talking about re-doing it and making it into a game, but this was way back in... June/July last year, I believe. Somebody told me that s/he's quit, however..

 

L Y N X> ?find 7

Not online, last seen 9 days ago

 

-Lynx

[Audry]

plays MG and uses flash? must be kai ossa

 

He said female... even if this silly little azn isnt very manly... still is a man

[»D1st0rt]

no such thing as spaceship female

[Kilo]

As this Memorial Day comes to a close let us have a moment of silence for Subspace. 1996-2009. R.I.P.

 

Just kidding this game will be around for another 10 years.

[Dav]

this game will be around as long as people like us remain unable to let it go.

 

I like the idea of a flash game, get it out there then have the community use its crazy voting power to give it a high ranking and it will give us great coverage.

[»Lynx]

We just need somebody to code it. It looks pretty simple, but I found it hard getting it past a ship that could fly around and have some other ships chase and shoot it. There's loads of code around out there, so to be completely honest... You just need a vague idea of how to write action-script, but more of an idea of how to use Flash etc.

 

-L

[grazzhoppa]

Sometimes I sit around thinking while working on SubSpace Online, "is it worth it anymore?". And I'll stop working on it for a week. But then I go into a zone and watch some newbs having fun and yelling at each other like we use to, and I realize "yeah, this game is still fun for someone" (While typically trash talking them back).

When I coded for Extreme Games zone, I had the exact same mentality. Those unknown / casual / new players kept me motivated to come back to work after I'd hit a wall.

 

Unfortunately when my work started depending on other staff's work, the laid back nature of that staff sapped any motivation I had. I felt like I was walking through mud for miles when I needed other staff to do fairly simple things to help me out. The answer to "Is it worth it anymore?" becomes NO when you depend on other zone volunteers to be responsible.

 

This game offer much to those who are able to run zones, websites, forums by themselves. But when coordination & mutual responsibility is needed between people who run the game/zones/community portals, we barely get shit done.

Edited May 26, 2009 by grazzhoppa

[»Lynx]

Sometimes I sit around thinking while working on SubSpace Online, "is it worth it anymore?". And I'll stop working on it for a week. But then I go into a zone and watch some newbs having fun and yelling at each other like we use to, and I realize "yeah, this game is still fun for someone" (While typically trash talking them back).

When I coded for Extreme Games zone, I had the exact same mentality. Those unknown / casual / new players kept me motivated to come back to work after I'd hit a wall.

 

Unfortunately when my work started depending on other staff's work, the laid back nature of that staff sapped any motivation I had. I felt like I was walking through mud for miles when I needed other staff to do fairly simple things to help me out. The answer to "Is it worth it anymore?" becomes NO when you depend on other zone volunteers to be responsible.

 

This game offer much to those who are able to run zones, websites, forums by themselves. But when coordination & mutual responsibility is needed between people who run the game/zones/community portals, we barely get shit done.

 

If I could mod this up, I would.

 

-L

[Corey]

Viva La Continuum!

[FMBI]

Although I can't stand this fucking awful new setup for the forums (XP vs Vista, anyone?) and will probably never post again after this (Yay! ^_^), I still feel the need to reply to this:

 

I go around zones, and constantly hear "Subspace is Dead" and people just sitting in spec, not doing anything to help.

 

I'll continue saying it until the day this game rots away, but use to this game was a join effort. We NEVER controlled the source or controlled the client, but we always we're ready to step up and advertise, bring new players, and work together to help improve. Now, I watch people just bitch about the "powers that be" and don't try to do shit themselves. You wonder how those "powers that be" got where they are now? By just doing what they thought was right and stepping up to help.

 

A lot of the current council always asks me why the old council disliked me so much. Cause I didn't give 2 shits what anyone else thought, I was just going to do what I thought was right and trying to help this game. They had grown content in their ways, and let everyone else do the work, and if they didn't like it, they just kicked em to the curb. Problem was, I bolted my ass to the ground and their shoes weren't big enough to kick me nowhere.

 

To me, this game became a hobby. Like working on my cars, riding quads, and playing xbox. SubSpace websites we're a hobby of mine. Not something I went around bragging about, but I did learn one hell of a lot here. Everything I know about computers, programming, coding, and graphics I learned from running my own zones and growing them to SSC access. I got my brothers into the game, got a few friends into the game, and my cousin and his 2 cousins also played. We had a tight group, and we all just played to have fun. Hell, I ran zones just to cater to our wants.

 

Now why do I share this? I dunno. Sometimes I sit around thinking while working on SubSpace Online, "is it worth it anymore?". And I'll stop working on it for a week. But then I go into a zone and watch some newbs having fun and yelling at each other like we use to, and I realize "yeah, this game is still fun for someone" (While typically trash talking them back).

 

Take this post as you wish... but this client screenshot, I took ~February of last year on a league day. Lot of zones had leagues going on, and we had almost 1600 players on. I snapped the screen quick, and have held onto it as the client screenshot for SSCentral and now SSO as a reminder that this game once was the greatest player ran mmo at one time. And we have MANY game reviews to back that up.

 

I'm sorry, but is that some kind of joke? You took a screenshot a year and a half ago on a league day, barely hit 1600, and now you're using it to help inspire us at a time when the total SSC pop is often short of 1000 and major zone after major zone has completely imploded? Heh, I've enjoyed this game as much as anyone in the past, and sure, it would be nice to see it come back, but let's be real. People have been talking about advertising and spreading the word for as long as I've been playing (5 years), and it's still gotten worse and worse. Three zones (EG, DSB, TW) now carry virtually all the game's pop, and even they're starting to hit the wall. This game is dead. There's nothing we can do, other than sit back, giggle at the newbs who care and give a sad, knowing smile to the vets who still believe. As you said, there are still a few moments when the game almost seems to come back to life, but that's 5 minutes in a 6 hour day. It's like mining for coal in England; it's just not worth the effort anymore. What once was is so depleted and stripped of its former nature that it's actually possible to come away feeling more depressed after you spend a few minutes living like it's 2003. Meh, speaking of depression, this post has left me feeling suicidal. Anyway, nice thoughts, but it's impossible to avoid the impression that you're lying to yourself. Cognitive dissonance and all that. G'day.

[grazzhoppa]

Sometimes I sit around thinking while working on SubSpace Online, "is it worth it anymore?". And I'll stop working on it for a week. But then I go into a zone and watch some newbs having fun and yelling at each other like we use to, and I realize "yeah, this game is still fun for someone" (While typically trash talking them back).

When I coded for Extreme Games zone, I had the exact same mentality. Those unknown / casual / new players kept me motivated to come back to work after I'd hit a wall.

 

Unfortunately when my work started depending on other staff's work, the laid back nature of that staff sapped any motivation I had. I felt like I was walking through mud for miles when I needed other staff to do fairly simple things to help me out. The answer to "Is it worth it anymore?" becomes NO when you depend on other zone volunteers to be responsible.

 

This game offer much to those who are able to run zones, websites, forums by themselves. But when coordination & mutual responsibility is needed between people who run the game/zones/community portals, we barely get shit done.

 

If I could mod this up, I would.

 

-L

what does "mod up" mean?

[Dav]

Although I can't stand this fucking awful new setup for the forums (XP vs Vista, anyone?) and will probably never post again after this (Yay! ^_^), I still feel the need to reply to this:

 

I go around zones, and constantly hear "Subspace is Dead" and people just sitting in spec, not doing anything to help.

 

I'll continue saying it until the day this game rots away, but use to this game was a join effort. We NEVER controlled the source or controlled the client, but we always we're ready to step up and advertise, bring new players, and work together to help improve. Now, I watch people just bitch about the "powers that be" and don't try to do shit themselves. You wonder how those "powers that be" got where they are now? By just doing what they thought was right and stepping up to help.

 

A lot of the current council always asks me why the old council disliked me so much. Cause I didn't give 2 shits what anyone else thought, I was just going to do what I thought was right and trying to help this game. They had grown content in their ways, and let everyone else do the work, and if they didn't like it, they just kicked em to the curb. Problem was, I bolted my ass to the ground and their shoes weren't big enough to kick me nowhere.

 

To me, this game became a hobby. Like working on my cars, riding quads, and playing xbox. SubSpace websites we're a hobby of mine. Not something I went around bragging about, but I did learn one hell of a lot here. Everything I know about computers, programming, coding, and graphics I learned from running my own zones and growing them to SSC access. I got my brothers into the game, got a few friends into the game, and my cousin and his 2 cousins also played. We had a tight group, and we all just played to have fun. Hell, I ran zones just to cater to our wants.

 

Now why do I share this? I dunno. Sometimes I sit around thinking while working on SubSpace Online, "is it worth it anymore?". And I'll stop working on it for a week. But then I go into a zone and watch some newbs having fun and yelling at each other like we use to, and I realize "yeah, this game is still fun for someone" (While typically trash talking them back).

 

Take this post as you wish... but this client screenshot, I took ~February of last year on a league day. Lot of zones had leagues going on, and we had almost 1600 players on. I snapped the screen quick, and have held onto it as the client screenshot for SSCentral and now SSO as a reminder that this game once was the greatest player ran mmo at one time. And we have MANY game reviews to back that up.

 

I'm sorry, but is that some kind of joke? You took a screenshot a year and a half ago on a league day, barely hit 1600, and now you're using it to help inspire us at a time when the total SSC pop is often short of 1000 and major zone after major zone has completely imploded? Heh, I've enjoyed this game as much as anyone in the past, and sure, it would be nice to see it come back, but let's be real. People have been talking about advertising and spreading the word for as long as I've been playing (5 years), and it's still gotten worse and worse. Three zones (EG, DSB, TW) now carry virtually all the game's pop, and even they're starting to hit the wall. This game is dead. There's nothing we can do, other than sit back, giggle at the newbs who care and give a sad, knowing smile to the vets who still believe. As you said, there are still a few moments when the game almost seems to come back to life, but that's 5 minutes in a 6 hour day. It's like mining for coal in England; it's just not worth the effort anymore. What once was is so depleted and stripped of its former nature that it's actually possible to come away feeling more depressed after you spend a few minutes living like it's 2003. Meh, speaking of depression, this post has left me feeling suicidal. Anyway, nice thoughts, but it's impossible to avoid the impression that you're lying to yourself. Cognitive dissonance and all that. G'day.

 

the game is not dead, just less populated then it was at its peak. We have been saying time and time again this game has a lot left in it yet and all we need to do is attract fresh blood. You might have given up on it but thankfully the rest of us are sticking in there.

 

this game will be around as long as people like us remain unable to let it go.

 

Provided the core of the community is willing to do their bit then we have the ability to get that potential fulfilled.

[Guest davinci]

Haha, oh man, I'm getting tired of seeing these posts. Another long, dreary essay from Polix about his feelings towards the game and how much of a failed community we are, and once again he offers no real solution, he just brags about his past and how "deeply" connected he is with the community. If you want to do something, then do it, stop with this emo bullshit that really wrecks newcomer's opinions of the game whenever they see it. It's great that we have a several page thread that's pretty active, but it's not great when it's the same 5-7 people who don't even play the game constantly replying to it and talking about how it used to be. You've been talking about advertising for like what, the past five fucking years? Do something about it, actually advertise. Stop running your mouth and go do something for the goddamn game, your little autobiographies aren't going to change anything.

[»doc flabby]

The SubSpace client has been dead for many years.

The Continuum client, whos last (improved functionality) release was in 2003, however is going strong.

Its no co-incedence that population peaked in 2004, the lack of client development is what has stopped our growth. You can talk about advertising or any of the crap but in reality, its the lack of client development that IS the most urgent thing to address, and where our resources should be focused.

 

The life cycle of a technology product like Continuum is pretty standard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_life_cycle_management

Continuum is now phase 4.

 

The two client projects need support to regain our population, they ARE the only way this game will start growing, innovation = growth.

 

Unfortunatly there are a number of problems with both projects.

Edited May 28, 2009 by doc flabby

[Dr Brain]

The SubSpace client has been dead for many years.

The Continuum client, whos last (improved functionality) release was in 2003, however is going strong.

Its no co-incedence that population peaked in 2004, the lack of client development is what has stopped our growth. You can talk about advertising or any of the crap but in reality, its the lack of client development that IS the most urgent thing to address, and where our resources should be focused.

 

I concur with your assessment. Stagnation is the enemy.

[Requiem.]

Have any of you even thought of attempting to get someone who is new to the game in generall and interested in learning ASSS and teaching them / helping them out?

 

Lynx gave me a massive hand when it came to giving me DCME so I can learn more about base building instead of the basic tiling i've done for him so far.

Not to mention he is pretty brilliant as far as most players ago.

 

The truth is that Continuum has indeed been consalidating lately due to more and more games being more appealable to them. Not to mention Continuum is such an unknown game irl that I don't bother mentioning to my friends much anymore.

I have gotten some friends involved who would be interested in learning ASSS.

I've also noticed that noone is really interested in teaching anyone the basics.

 

PoLiX, what would we do if you decided you didn't want to run these forums anymore?

Not sure if anyone has realized but the coding group is relatively puny in relation to the (current) population of the zones and forums.

 

Aside from that, if I could get a few of the younger kids in the older "kids" I bet we could come up with something pretty awesome as a Flash version. I'm betting I could get a few kids involved with it that I know who love to code and would love to make it just to see their name on the bottom left of the intro screen OR would do it just to increase populations by 3 atleast.

[»Lynx]

There's nothing to advertise. We've just got to fight stagnation, and make things easier to understand for newcomers. It's nothing new that things like asss are a lot more complex than subgame, and with the amount of bullshit we have flying around in terms of what to use to edit things, it's all quite overwhelming to the newcomer.

 

Back when I was a kid, understanding things like subgame, ssme, settings files, bots were very straight forward. However, now it's more like understanding Linux, then asss, the array of bots, on top of DCME, settings files and whatever else. Maybe a very simple walkthrough on everything would be useful, I started writing some parts on my sub-zone forum, but real life has kicked in again. I don't have the time to write anything else on this reply, no matter SS.

 

-Lynx

 

Don't get me wrong. Forums, flashy websites, all that shit is useful, but... They're not what's killing SS. If this Forum was offline for three months, would SS pop die? I doubt it'd even drop.

 

Also @ grazzhoppa: modding up = adding +1 rating to your post. We had that feature, but it got removed... lamely enough.

[Samapico]

Don't get me wrong. Forums, flashy websites, all that shit is useful, but... They're not what's killing SS. If this Forum was offline for three months, would SS pop die? I doubt it'd even drop.

Perhaps, but it would also compromise the long-term future, making development harder (whether it be for zones, new client(s), map editor(s), or any other tool)

People would surely have to find another forum for these things, but that's beside the point

[»Lynx]

Of course, development communication would be a lot more poor, but even still... Zone development wouldn't slow down much, if at all... And I think Client Development would be around the same, too... As far as I can tell, zone development is usually done within the zone, client development is usually done by maybe two or three people and as for map editors, you know the stats on that best. I'm not attacking the forum, I'm just saying... Advertising, Forums etc aren't the saviors of this game, game development is.

[PoLiX]

We have a plan ready for action once I get a few more zones online with it, to mass pm members with a link and information that the game was still alive. ~600 people got the pm on SSF from the mass pm bot, and 150 dls of continuum in 2 days from ssf alone. So saying all dled it here, and only the dls we're from those people, that means 1/3 of them downloaded it. Take ~4,200 members we have, 582 active in past 90 days, so ~3600, that means same factors ~1200 dls. Realisticly, probably ~200dls, but still, could benfit. Now do that on all the zone forums also, mm, could make some progress.

 

Also once I finish SubSpace Online, gonna go back to talking to IGN and Gamepro and continue trying to get them to do a story on SS. Its sad you pretty much get bounced from person to person trying to find someone willing to take a few mins to talk about the game or atleast check it out.

 

I was also thinking the other night of contacting G4, and seeing if they'd want to do a "10 yrs later" review type of thing.

 

I've sadly given up with Rapidshare, and am just watching what they do for now. They want our game, not advertising us.

 

And the reason I count on most of you guys to advertise... I don't goto a college with tons of people, just other government apprentices, and I don't have friends who play PC games, at most a few play XBOX. So really hard for me to get anyone into this game. Those of you who goto a college, just put up flyers, information, anything. Last time I posted a thread like this, trained contacted me about cards and advertising, and he ran with that. If we can atleast do 1 mass advertising a year, all would work pretty well. It gave this game the life boost it needed back in 2000, so all it'd take is the right audience one time.

 

Davinci (who I'm guessing is The Apache), I don't see how this is "bragging" or "dreary". Then again, you said I was doing the same thing with RS, which all I did was post about the e-mails I was sending between myself and them, and what was being discussed between myself and zone ops. As I said before, last few times I've posted these topics, people have came up with ideas and acted on them. I work too much lately to do much more than make sure SSF is running fine, so I try to sometimes poke the surface of the members brains and get them thinking bout this. And again, many of these people goto school or have lots of friends who play PC games who they could show Subspace too. Look at Lynx's simple idea, just setting up a lan at his college, and he had tons of people hooked.

 

And Finland, the screen was just showing the fact the population has dropped in a very short time. The record SS pop was only just barely over 1600, another reason I posted it. The only key is like you said, people don't play as long as they use to. There is also more SSC zones the pop spreads over. Really if you took the old list, and merged all the pop down, you'd not be too much off from our pops in 00-01. Just again, lots of AFK and people not staying on as long. And lots more bots.

 

And as for client development. Discretion is the one that has been discussed the most. We have a small Development forum setup on SSF now with most the active SSC Ops and Developers, and many ASSS Module Programmers. Right now the main focus of a lot of the members is on helping the large zones get to ASSS, though there has been some discussion about a new client, etc.