Cycle Zones?

[Avast]

I wasn't sure where to post this. And to whom it even concerns. Obviously it would require a big effort and consortium of people who agree and so on.

 

But I like getting ideas out there..

 

So anyway I used to play Infantry and they did something unique when their population dropped. They have about 8 Zones.

No Man’s Land, Combined Arms, Twin Peaks, Bug Hunt (which is Aliens) and Mechanized are some examples.

Anyway what Infantry does is Alternate which ones are up.

 

So it's hard to explain since you need to know Infantry, so I will explain in terms of Subspace.

 

Shut down all zones except the most popular and integral ones, each offer unique game play, so keep trench wars up, extreme games, and Chaos zone. Then on top of those three zones, have one more zone. So our list would look like this. Extreme games, Trench Wars, Chaos Zone, fourth zone. The fourth zone will have 17th parallel for one month, next month it will have Devastation, the next month it will have Hyperspace, and so on for the good and awesome zones that qualify. What will happen almost exclusively, is that the fourth zone would easily start hitting around 100 people a day. Every month people looking forward to the time when their zone gets cycled. Yet still playing on another zone/setting. So every zone that has Zero to Ten people, would be played every day basically. As well everyone would have a feel for a different variety of zones after so they would be more free as opposed to the way it is now where people are stuck in one zone, and to one type of game play.

 

That's what infantry does anyway.

 

Keep in mind Certain zones would never Cycle like this. Which zones those are doesn't matter.

[PoLiX]

Wanted to post before the flaming and fighting begins.

 

Won't work in this game as everything is seperate zones and player run. Can work in a corporate world, because they run everything and don't care.

[»SD>Big]

in before dr brain says noway for HS

[L.C.]

Shut down all zones except

/thread

 

You are suggesting the impossible.

[Avast]

Lets assume this was attempted. Nothing is finite or set in stone. So it could be attempted any multiple types of ways.

 

For example instead of Having Eg, Trench, Choas and a Fourth Zone. The fourth zone being the one that cycles every month. We could add a fifth zone that also Cycles. So five zones on the list, 2 of them are cycling some odd 20 zones and settings.

 

We could let hosts like L.C, and other Hosts keep doing what they are doing it is a free community after all. So rather than force zones into this, someone could discuss the idea, and maybe out of these discussions four zones would agree to try it or that its a great idea. Lets assume those four zones, were 17th, Devastation, Starwars Zone, and Hockey Zone. So now all these zones close down and they all set up on one zone.

 

And every month that zone will cycle between these four zones.

 

Is this so terrible to think of? Nobody is losing anything, you would gain population ten fold. You retain all your staff. You need all the staff still for each cycle and zone. Why would anyone want to hold on to a title or position of power with nothing to show for it except a dying or empty zone? I don't see any problem with this except that it asks people to care about the community. Perhaps it's not something you guys are here to do yet.

 

But regardless I am presenting the idea, I don't mind if no one does it. I just thought people could think about it.

Edited February 17, 2011 by Avast

[Dr Brain]

You want to periodically shut down player's favorite zones to *increase* population? How is this a good idea?

[PlayWolf]

To me, just sounds like a way to make people mad. People will quit till their zone is back on the list, or possibly never come back. Of course, if you DID do this, the zone would of course have a big population, but only because their zone is being shifted. People be mad when their zone goes bye-bye for a month.

[Yupa]

The popular zones are doomed, they've compromised too much. This game is only going to endure with new zones, or un-fukt old ones.

[»Purge]

Infantry isn't as community rooted as this game, though. Won't work in Continuum.

 

I for one would ragequit/uninstall if my favorite zone was shutdown periodically.

[Kilo]

Oh, sure...let's cancel the leagues my zone runs year 'round.

[freaknigh]

The problem is even though more zones spreads out the player base, it keeps more players over all in the player base. A lot of those players are here because they get to run their own zones, get to moderate in those zones, or simply support player made zones. It is better to have this kind of freedom and then make your zone that much better then the rest vs to have only your zone available.

 

I think the game needs to go open source and then get feature crawled. People need to look at what the market for games like this are now-a-days and come up with a gameplan to meet that competition. Subspace when I first started playing is what you got in the genre (it was pretty much all you got for space genre at all). I only hear solutions that are within the bounds of the engine and it kind of sounds like cannibalism.

 

Just like there is zone creation freedom I think it is time also for coding / feature freedom and the ability for zone owners to make modified clients just for their zone if they have to.

[PlayWolf]

Hmm, if only someone could crack the source for continuum 0.04 and change it up. Prittk will not just hand out the code to anyone, and sadly...

 

Will never work on it either.

[Yupa]

See I didn't even read all this. Infantry? You really want to follow the lead of a game based on SubSpace that can't even maintain the population of _one_ of our several popular zones?

[Avast]

You want to periodically shut down player's favorite zones to *increase* population? How is this a good idea?

 

No I don't want anything.

 

To me, just sounds like a way to make people mad. People will quit till their zone is back on the list, or possibly never come back. Of course, if you DID do this, the zone would of course have a big population, but only because their zone is being shifted. People be mad when their zone goes bye-bye for a month.

 

People have no reason to be mad? If you think of the Cycle zone, as your zone, then it was never shut down. Your zone just decided to shift themes periodically. And your favorite theme is coming up, and it will be up for anywhere between 1 to 3 months. Depending on how many zones are being cycled.

 

Also My favorite server on Infantry was Mechanized. But they would switch it out with a Soldier Combat zone, so Did I quit? no. I played that combat zone, I didn't like it that much, but when Mechanized came back It was a hell of a lot of fun, and then I started missing that Combat zone too. So basically most people wouldn't quit when they know their zone is coming up. They would also start liking other zones. AND they have no reason to leave when they think of the cycle zone as their zone, that is just switching themes periodically. Those that do quit would come back when their zones turn comes up.

 

I mean when summer ends, you don't quit winter? Otherwise we would have a hell of a lot of suicides. Not to mention as much as you miss summer, in the summer you begin to miss winter. This is all psychology.

 

See I didn't even read all this. Infantry? You really want to follow the lead of a game based on SubSpace that can't even maintain the population of _one_ of our several popular zones?

 

I didn't play infantry for about a year. But Last I checked they still have 1000 people playing.

 

The problem is even though more zones spreads out the player base, it keeps more players over all in the player base. A lot of those players are here because they get to run their own zones, get to moderate in those zones, or simply support player made zones. It is better to have this kind of freedom and then make your zone that much better then the rest vs to have only your zone available.

 

That's something I never agreed with. What makes one zone better than another? This game is too elitist, and it shows because you have 30 empty zones. A real community doesn't go off and make their own zone, because its going to be better than what someone else has. A real community comes together and helps each other grow.

 

I always felt Subspace should just have one Development team that works on every zone together. I think such an idea used to exist too because there was a dev chat called ?chat=ssdev, and it had developers from all the major zones in it. This was a brilliant idea, and should be pursued again.

 

If four zones came together under one zone, and decided to cycle, every month. All the staff from each of the four zones would still be required, they would just work together thats all. Nobody would lose anything, in fact I think they would gain much more.

Edited February 17, 2011 by Avast

[No_Remorse]

Ok, so here is one simple flaw. Let's say the 4 zones cycled were 17th, Deva, Star Warzone, and Hockey zone. I would play in only 2, maybe 3 of those zones, why play something I don't like? That is human nature. So that means I would be inactive for 1 or 2 months and perhaps never even come back, lots of things can happen in 2 months.

 

Also, what about all the zones that don't make the cut? It wouldn't be fair to them.

[Avast]

Ok, so here is one simple flaw. Let's say the 4 zones cycled were 17th, Deva, Star Warzone, and Hockey zone. I would play in only 2, maybe 3 of those zones, why play something I don't like? That is human nature. So that means I would be inactive for 1 or 2 months and perhaps never even come back, lots of things can happen in 2 months.

 

Also, what about all the zones that don't make the cut? It wouldn't be fair to them.

 

Lol yeah its true it could be that way NR, but I don't know, DSB hasn't been the zone people wanted for five years now, and yet the players all still login to it, even if its just to sit in spec. At least in the above scenario you have hope that in one month your zone is up, and moreso you know that other people who would have only played 17th will probably be playing devastation now too. And vice versa.

[Kilo]

Man, HZ really must be slipping if it's getting grouped with Devastation, 17th, and ...Star Warzone. No offense (except that which was intended to the person who suggested it.)

Hey, my last post put the final nail in this coffin, don't go ignoring it now.

Edited February 18, 2011 by Kilo

[PoLiX]

You sound like the guys who think all the smaller zones should combine into 1 and there be only like 5-6 zones.

 

The issue: Newbs don't judge a zone by its sub-arenas. They go into a zone, look at the main arena, play it, if it sucks, they leave. Very few newbs know about ?arena/esc+a (and don't say you did, cause your full of shit) for quite some time. They will see "?go event" and follow it, but that takes some effort even to get them all.

 

So all you're going to do is chase more new players away as they might not find a zone they like. Diversity of zones does help to a point.

[Avast]

Man, HZ really must be slipping if it's getting grouped with Devastation, 17th, and ...Star Warzone. No offense (except that which was intended to the person who suggested it.)

Hey, my last post put the final nail in this coffin, don't go ignoring it now.

 

Your getting offended for no reason. It was just an example. Not even a real situation, it was an example in a Hypothetical situation, based on an idea. Anyway I mentioned Hockey Zone because it's one of the best zones in my opinion along with the others.

 

 

You sound like the guys who think all the smaller zones should combine into 1 and there be only like 5-6 zones.

 

The issue: Newbs don't judge a zone by its sub-arenas. They go into a zone, look at the main arena, play it, if it sucks, they leave. Very few newbs know about ?arena/esc+a (and don't say you did, cause your full of shit) for quite some time. They will see "?go event" and follow it, but that takes some effort even to get them all.

 

So all you're going to do is chase more new players away as they might not find a zone they like. Diversity of zones does help to a point.

 

Who is 'you'?

 

I never said cycles would mean sub arenas. The whole zone would change from 17th Parallel to Devastation.. and so on for example. All of this would be made apparent so everyone would know that the zone cycles between four zones or whatever amount. Even new players. Does 17th even get new players? I know Large population zones do like Trench, EG, Chaos, that's why they are not apart of this cycle idea. They would stand alone separately.

Edited February 18, 2011 by Avast

[No_Remorse]

Man, HZ really must be slipping if it's getting grouped with Devastation, 17th, and ...Star Warzone. No offense (except that which was intended to the person who suggested it.)

 

 

Star Warzone was one of the pioneering zones of Subspace and has probably at one point in time had more population than either of those zones. I guess the 100s of people who played there were schmucks.

[Kilo]

 

Your getting offended for no reason. It was just an example. Not even a real situation, it was an example in a Hypothetical situation, based on an idea. Anyway I mentioned Hockey Zone because it's one of the best zones in my opinion along with the others.

Wasn't even referring to you last time and my post was mostly a joke anyway. But the point is..every zone runs things differently, and that's not a bad thing. It allows more ideas to flow.

 

No_Remorse: I know, but AFAIK all of those zones have been low-key for the last several years.

[Avast]

 

Your getting offended for no reason. It was just an example. Not even a real situation, it was an example in a Hypothetical situation, based on an idea. Anyway I mentioned Hockey Zone because it's one of the best zones in my opinion along with the others.

Wasn't even referring to you last time and my post was mostly a joke anyway. But the point is..every zone runs things differently, and that's not a bad thing. It allows more ideas to flow.

 

No_Remorse: I know, but AFAIK all of those zones have been low-key for the last several years.

 

Cool Kilo, well Its up to the zone owners if they would want to team up, combine their staff and dev, and cycle their zone and see how it works, pros and cons. I think the only way to know for sure is to try it. I mean no one actually tried it, if its about letting ideas flow, maybe someone should give it a shot. A zone would never lose its identity, it would just come like the seasons do. This benefits some zones more than others, hockey zone was probably a bad example. But what would happen is a smaller zone list. Ideas and zones would still get represented, while having a more focused population. More focused population means a greater chance new players try a zone and stay, than enter an empty zone and quit. What I think most of us agree on is that the key thing that keeps players in a zone, is other players. Settings follow that, then development work, (how much a zone is developed on every month). But there is many kick ass zones with good settings and zero people. So no its not settings that get a player to stay Polix.

Edited February 18, 2011 by Avast

[»doc flabby]

Your better off trying to get more people to the game to play the existing zones.

 

If we can rebuild EG/TW/DSB the population for other zones will also benefit.

[Avast]

Well there are many ways to do that really..

 

Something that would be great is getting Continuum back on http://www.mmorpg.com/

 

Maybe someone knows why we got taken off that website? or more importantly someone could get us back on, and maybe even featured in an article on their front page or something. I contacted them last year, but received no reply.

 

I'm also wondering if Continuum has an official Youtube channel?

Edited February 18, 2011 by Avast

[Dav]

Cycling zones in this way would be a terrible idea for all the resons mentiond here so far.

 

There are other ways to go about it though, for instance cycling leagues or events. A cross-zone league where the winner is the best scorer over several zones would have your desiered effect without the drawbacks.

 

Good luck organising something like that though...