Have we really come to this?

[Chambahs]

Lol @ prittk comment.

[2pacZ]

prittk is a fag dude got mad money from the skype buyout he could care less abt ss.

[No_Remorse]

It pisses me off too, especially when zones which have never had population and likely will never have any, such as Jackpot SVS, Command & Conquer, Star Warzone, all try to boost their player count by filling the zones with bots. When it comes to major zones having nearly 50 bots sitting around, that's just sad.

 

What's the opposite of busting a nut? Whatever it is, it almost just happened to me. Although it was so long ago it seems like it never happened, Star Warzone did have a population and a very prevelant one at that. I forgive you though, Hakaku.

[Hakaku]

Go read my post after that NR. I'm not taking your pity. :/

[»Purge]

 

What's the opposite of busting a nut?

Wait... what?

[Sass]

So as I've watched the pop dwindle over the past few months, I have noticed a trend. More and more bots in zones filling the "void".

 

EG for instance in public arenas right now has 45+ bots. 25 or so in just 1 arena. Usually they just had 27 in their meteor arena, plus a few others. The zone pop being at 140 that means in reality there is only 90ish players. 60 or so being accountable, that leaves 30 or so in privs + bots in privs.

 

Granted it isn't only EG. But just the one I have noticed doing it a lot lately with having so many bots in 1 arena that I have never seen hosted any of the various times I am in there.

 

Have we really come to this?

 

>unknown command

>

[Confess]

lOl, Lol, LOl, loL,LOL!!!! About the priit comment.

[mineRBot89]

It would be nice if you guys would just realize that SS cannot compete with other games out there.

This is now a 14 year old, outdated, and obsolete game.

Besides some extremely aggressive (and expensive) advertising, there will be absolutely no way you can compete with other free games.

Teenagers always want the best and the greatest, and while I admit, SS was at one point the best and the greatest, it is no more.

 

Question: How many people still play the original Super Mario Bros? All I can say was while I used to play that game all the time back in the early 90s, I don't play it anymore because there are other better and more immersive(sp?) games out there. While I may go back every once in a while for nostalgic reasons, that will still never regain it's playership (number of people playing a certain game over a certain amount of time) that it used to. The same will go for SS. While I come on for the nostalgic feelings it gives me, I still continue to play Halo: Reach, A.V.A., and other titles a lot more often then not.

 

SS will always be there, but because of it's reliance on having many people to play it, it probably will eventually die as 1) the current generation ss players grow up, and 2) people get bored and move onto other things.

 

-MB

Edited October 13, 2010 by mineRBot89

[L.C.]

It would be nice if you guys would just realize that SS cannot compete with other games out there.

This is now a 14 year old, outdated, and obsolete game.

Besides some extremely aggressive (and expensive) advertising, there will be absolutely no way you can compete with other free games.

Teenagers always want the best and the greatest, and while I admit, SS was at one point the best and the greatest, it is no more.

 

Question: How many people still play the original Super Mario Bros? All I can say was while I used to play that game all the time back in the early 90s, I don't play it anymore because there are other better and more immersive(sp?) games out there. While I may go back every once in a while for nostalgic reasons, that will still never regain it's playership (number of people playing a certain game over a certain amount of time) that it used to. The same will go for SS. While I come on for the nostalgic feelings it gives me, I still continue to play Halo: Reach, A.V.A., and other titles a lot more often then not.

 

SS will always be there, but because of it's reliance on having many people to play it, it probably will eventually die as 1) the current generation ss players grow up, and 2) people get bored and move onto other things.

 

-MB

The only thing that is going to get this game back on its feet is (1) focus on the browser and cell markets only, and (2) preferably paid and/or dedicated at heart, organized and structured development.

 

If a developer is not "dedicated at heart," then they develop out of "self-interest," which is what the majority of developers (practically just about everyone with only a couple exceptions), which will not work.

 

Development has to be structured and organized the same way as if everyone was being paid, as if everyone were in a team under a game development company, and if there was distinct direction. This also means there has to be a power hierarchy and developer's will sometimes have to do something they don't want to at someone else' orders.

 

 

 

Today's market is a different one. A client that must be downloaded and installed won't cut it these days. It must be playable through the browser from any computer regardless of operating system, and should support as many of the mainstream browsers possible. Cell phones are included in this (but as a secondary objective). Fail to realize this? Then good luck. Until this point is realized, your product will be a critical failure if you seek to replace Continuum (because some developers, again, doing it out of self-interest, are more interested in the programming experience, the learning, etcetera, NOT the game -- such motives can easily be masked to mislead people).

 

 

 

My two cents. Fortunately, this is already being done and worked on with good progress.

Edited October 13, 2010 by L.C.

[mineRBot89]

Quote

It would be nice if you guys would just realize that SS cannot compete with other games out there.
This is now a 14 year old, outdated, and obsolete game.
Besides some extremely aggressive (and expensive) advertising, there will be absolutely no way you can compete with other free games.
Teenagers always want the best and the greatest, and while I admit, SS was at one point the best and the greatest, it is no more.

Question: How many people still play the original Super Mario Bros? All I can say was while I used to play that game all the time back in the early 90s, I don't play it anymore because there are other better and more immersive(sp?) games out there. While I may go back every once in a while for nostalgic reasons, that will still never regain it's playership (number of people playing a certain game over a certain amount of time) that it used to. The same will go for SS. While I come on for the nostalgic feelings it gives me, I still continue to play Halo: Reach, A.V.A., and other titles a lot more often then not.

SS will always be there, but because of it's reliance on having many people to play it, it probably will eventually die as 1) the current generation ss players grow up, and 2) people get bored and move onto other things.

-MB

The only thing that is going to get this game back on its feet is (1) focus on the browser and cell markets only, and (2) preferably paid and/or dedicated at heart, organized and structured development.

If a developer is not "dedicated at heart," then they develop out of "self-interest," which is what the majority of developers (practically just about everyone with only a couple exceptions), which will not work.

Development has to be structured and organized the same way as if everyone was being paid, as if everyone were in a team under a game development company, and if there was distinct direction. This also means there has to be a power hierarchy and developer's will sometimes have to do something they don't want to at someone else' orders.



Today's market is a different one. A client that must be downloaded and installed won't cut it these days. It must be playable through the browser from any computer regardless of operating system, and should support as many of the mainstream browsers possible. Cell phones are included in this (but as a secondary objective). Fail to realize this? Then good luck. Until this point is realized, your product will be a critical failure if you seek to replace Continuum (because some developers, again, doing it out of self-interest, are more interested in the programming experience, the learning, etcetera, NOT the game -- such motives can easily be masked to mislead people).



My two cents. Fortunately, this is already being done and worked on with good progress.

While I do admit making continuum a browser based game would have it's benefits, there is no physical way you could do it without forcing people to install a plugin, and heavily modifying the code. All of the built-in security measures are all likely to be tripped. You are better off building an entirely new game, in a completely different language. Heck, why not make it in Flash? -_-
Secondly: I really would like to know how you could even possibly turn this into a cell-phone game. There are too many controls to be able to do anything productive, and you would also be missing out on one crucial element: CHAT.
Thirdly: That's where the big problem lies. Development! A lot of the developers that I have known usually go into it thinking "Oh, I am going to do something great!" but eventually lose interest and move on as this is just a hobby to them. There are very few active developers that I can think of that have been around for a while and are still contributing to the game. Even fewer (only 1 or 2) that are trying to branch out and make this game something better (at least i think there are 1 or 2. my knowledge is lacking about a year or so). Once you get something working, not an alpha, beta, or RC, you may have a chance, but from what I see; that is still a few years away. And at the rate technology is advancing, a few years may make the game you just made old and outdated.

[L.C.]

there is no physical way you could do it without forcing people to install a plugin, and heavily modifying the code.

Unless the game wasn't based off of proprietary, plugin-based software.

[Dr Brain]

A browser based game will always fail because of the security issues. No one has addressed this, thinking that it can just be tacked on later. Sorry guys, it can't. If you've put time or money into it, LC, then I'm sorry for you.

[»Purge]

A browser based Continuum? That's just going backwards.

 

A better idea if you wish to incorporate browsers/mobile devices would be to provide a robust interface for connecting to ASSS zones that will allow the player to perform stationary tasks (chat, some sort of gameplay feature, development) in a zone that would allow such things. This is even possible to do now using chatnet with some ingenuity and dedication.

 

EDIT: Actually, you don't need ingenuity. Just bandwidth and dedication.

[Drake7707]

Runescape does a good job being a browser MMO while still being secure. A browser based game can be secure and isn't much different from a real application that's running (aside from running inside the browsers process).

 

Thirdly: That's where the big problem lies. Development! A lot of the developers that I have known usually go into it thinking "Oh, I am going to do something great!" but eventually lose interest and move on as this is just a hobby to them. There are very few active developers that I can think of that have been around for a while and are still contributing to the game. Even fewer (only 1 or 2) that are trying to branch out and make this game something better (at least i think there are 1 or 2. my knowledge is lacking about a year or so). Once you get something working, not an alpha, beta, or RC, you may have a chance, but from what I see; that is still a few years away. And at the rate technology is advancing, a few years may make the game you just made old and outdated.

 

That's because once you're in the middle of development and you have a motivational dip it's really hard to continue with the same enthusiasm, especially when you have other projects/ideas lying around that you want to try out. Also developing a whole game outside of your normal work hours is really really hard, I have about ~2 hours of free time each evening on a work day, I want to spend that time relaxing and unwinding, not stay focused and think until I have to sleep. I seriously respect those who are able to pull that off, even if it's only for a month or two before development stalls. If I had the knowledge about programming back in college I wouldn't have hesitated to give it a shot at writing something, but now after a whole day of programming at work I can barely finish a proper sentence at the end of the day .

[Dr Brain]

Sorry, I was talking about a subspace-like game, where players fight each other in real time. Even the Discretion project doesn't address half of the security issues needed for cheat-free gaming.

 

On the other hand, if you have no problem with cheaters destroying your game, then go for it!

[Samapico]

Too lazy to quote exactly, but the guy said something about "competing against other free games"

 

That's the thing, free (quality) games are a rare thing... sure there are all these 'i'm bored I'll go spend 5 minutes on that stupid browser game', but other than that...

 

Yes the game is very old and outdated, and this is exactly why we NEED a new client that would greatly expand the possibilities and bring the game in the 21st century. The current game's engine is great and devs used it with great creativity to push it to its limits, but we pretty much reached that limit now.

 

I imagine a future client would bring us much more than a '2d spaceship game'... It would spawn a whole bunch of RPG's, racing games, sports games, puzzles, and whatever else. We already have all of this, but they all still have that 'I'm piloting a spaceship' feel. Also, just give subspace a major graphics overhaul (particle effects and crap), and you can have an awesome game.

Hell, if we do make our own open-source client, we could even distribute it on steam for free or something.

[Drake7707]

While security is certainly important (especially considering the previous issues with cheaters in subspace/continuum) as is performance of the game engine, focusing on all at once is too much to take and leads to stalled development. I've seen it before and it happened to me too. There is no need for super ultra security features when the game isn't finished, it's way too overwhelming otherwise.

 

A sculptor doesn't carve each statue detail from a rough block but refines it until it's a rough version of what it should be, refine more, check it out again, let other people check it out and make suggestions, continue refining until it's finished.

 

 

Of course it's best to keep the actual goal in mind, steering the code here and there a bit in the right direction so it's still manageable and flexible enough to be added later on.