Sad to see the decline in the playerbase

[MorganKell]

Honestly we all know it's because 1.0.4 looked better. If one was to hold 1.1 or whatever this is right now side by side with 1.0.4 and judge them in a beauty competition we know who'd win. 1.0.4. Keep everything else if you want. Just make it look better.

[Padfoot]

Cemer: Didn't Valve start trying to help out TF2 competitive recently? (also STAR is cool)

Yes, Valve announced matchmaking is coming to TF2, as well as a stream list.


As much as I hate to restart a flame war (because that's exactly what this thread has become) I would like to let my opinion be heard (even though people are going to trample all over it). To me, the situation isn't that bad, it is still salvageable. The first thing however, is the masterserver. When a new player comes into the game, and he/she loads up the masterserver, they don't see the variety that I think they should. While I agree that it may be confusing for new players who get screwed around by "Gameplay Altering Modifications", the solution isn't really that hard. You could either:
a) Make a seperate tab that contains all of these servers
--or--
b) Force all servers such as this to put [GAM] or [MOD] or something like that in front of the description, and then remove only the modded servers who don't do this. This way players can find out what it means with exactly one question to the people in a server, and then they can play on it if they want, or play the official maps.

Why is this important (to me)? When I began playing back in 1.1.0.4, I spent a large amount of time playing ctf on HeadShot city (which was a fun map), or tosok on a towers map, whose name I have sadly forgotten. From there I transitioned into a clan, and from there was introduced to competitive. (Even though I'm crap at it, it's still fun). One of the things that made those maps fun was the amount of people in them, as well as the fact that the colours were different from the usual boring grey. The art style of the official maps is very much a run-down, urban setting, and even though this is the official art style, to me, it is very boring. The difference art style of maps such as Headshot city was a relief from the official maps. Because of how easy to use the map editor is (compared to those of other games), I would expect to see more custom maps than I do, and I feel that part of the reason for this is that if you make a very good custom map, there is little chance of it getting good exposure, and even less of it making the official list if it doesn't fit perfectly with the vision that the devs have.

The second thing I feel would be a good idea is a shift in the art style. I don't mean "make it hi def", I do support the idea that it can be run on toasters. I just feel something should be done texture wise to make it a little less boring and bland.

Anyway, that's just what I think could/should be done. No doubt there are many problems with it that the community will pick up on and tell me about. Now to address some other comments made in this thread.

1. The pause thing. I would prefer to use a pause feature that I can see the code for rather than a pause feature that is only given as part of a binary. While the unpause warning I think is a brilliant idea, I would prefer for it to be open source, and as it is not, I would prefer to use the other one.
2. Lack of community requests actually making it to the releases. Not really much I can say here, but it would be nice if the dev team could see what the playerbase wants and place that ahead of their own dreams.
3. Lack of advertisement for AssaultCube. This is still a problem, and social media is only partly the answer. I believe that platforms such as twitch are another possible answer to this, and that both having tournaments and covering them with twitch (and posting to youtube afterwards) are all important things. I would like to see a tournament that had round robin for seeding before the finals. A problem is having enough teams for this to really work.

And one final point on competitive playing. In many games it is a backbone. It is something that should be nurtured along and I see clients like the w00p one as a good idea. However, it was implemented very poorly, and I would like for features in it to enter the official client, where we can all see the source. However, the competitive elitists need to remember that while it is important, it isn't everything. Pub games are extremely important in bringing new people into the game.

-Padfoot
TL;DR Be less restrictive on the MS, different art style, be more open source, support both pub and competitive.

[Nightmare]

@open source pause: Check out the pull request on AC's github.

[Padfoot]

@Nightmare

Yay! I'm an idiot who forgot to check that. Thanks for the reminder.

[Cemer]

tf2 matchmaking is gonna either be terrible or quite nice but thats another story

to kinda sum up my thoughts that some people may have noticed over time, i think the idea of an official maps system should be rethought

regarding the integration of akimbo into ac proper (unless i have severely misunderstood how custom content is now downloaded), it would be nice to have a page in the client menu that has a monthly updated list of great new custom maps and maps that should be recognized, and offer the option to download them in game

whether a map should be official is another story, but instead of regular patches that showcase great maps as official, why not just have a rotation of maps that people can look at and play without increasing the default package?

again, i may be talking about things that are too far from reality, or i may be misinterpreting how maps will be handled in the future. i'd like to throw this out there though.

[Alien]

regarding the integration of akimbo into ac proper

Akimbo is just store for maps as quadropolis. The dependency of the game on "Akimbo service" is not smart for future. The philosophy is to think as developer and not the owner of the game. You need more active small communities around the game while you provide them playground. If the server owner could just upload his map with custom materials to his folder on server and your server would send it to clients itself. What is the point of approving and maintaining foreign maps ?

instead of regular patches that showcase great maps as official, why not just have a rotation of maps that people can look at and play without increasing the default package

Default maps are samples what you can set in maprot.cfg or what you can create in this game. Like programs data/samples in other programs. It is chosen by developer because it is presentation of their work. These maps should present some significant changes/improvements.

[Cemer]

What is the point of approving and maintaining foreign maps ?  

to possibly provide support or incentive for people to make high quality maps; the contests are probably not enough at this point

Default maps are samples what you can set in maprot.cfg or what you can create in this game. Like programs data/samples in other programs.  It is chosen by developer because it is presentation of their work. These maps should present some significant changes/improvements.

i am not saying for the custom map rotation to be presented as official at all; it's just an outlet for the community to say "we liked these maps as they are quite good; try them out". and have an easy and effective way for new people to find and play them.

[Alien]

@cemer
Akimbo/quadropolis provide compatible materials (skyboxes, mapmodels, sounds) for AC. It is place for the sharing ideas and chatting. Certainly it improves quality of maps. But it is also whitelist of custom maps. Server admins use AC but Akimbo should be just only their choice.

I remember "official custom pack", AC community chosen maps for server admins. I don't know if it still exists. It was good start but sadly controlled by inactive mappers.

[Padfoot]

@cemer
Akimbo/quadropolis provide compatible materials (skyboxes, mapmodels, sounds) for AC. It is place for the sharing ideas and chatting. Certainly it improves quality of maps. But it is also whitelist of custom maps. Server admins use AC but Akimbo should be just only their choice.

I remember "official custom pack", AC community chosen maps for server admins. I don't know if it still exists. It was good start but sadly controlled by inactive mappers.

Sorry, correct me if I'm wrong here, but Cleaner is both the owner/runner of Akimbo and an AC dev is he not? So while I agree that it should be the choice of the server owner whether they use Akimbo or not, easy integration with it and it's map section is a good idea isn't it?

Anyway, just a thought based on recent replies.

-Padfoot

[MerCyKiL]

Oh, I remember I was like you: young and brave and naive and spilling these types of ideas to the forum :DD

Masterserver

I agree here. The thing that differentiated AC from other games was the ability to play pretty much anything you wanted. Some of the reason the restrictions were put in place were performance issues with toasters. Others related to the fact that mods didn't want to see EzJemVille and ac_oldvillage popping up on all of the servers. I feel that relaxing the restrictions would bring the game some good but good luck with the devs

Art style

This is a cube engine game. That means the only objects you will see on maps that are not cubic are mapmodels. With the new auto-download system in this version, I feel the devs have done a fantastic job with reshaping the way the game looks. Also: if you check your defaultmapsettings.cfg you will find a ton of textures edited out (there's a max limit as to how many textures can be available in a .cfg). This game already has a ton of textures. New ones are pretty easy to download as well (so I've heard. never tried it).

The pause thing

Would be cool. I think the devs are contemplating this for a future version

Lack of community requests actually making it to the releases

We gotta keep in mind that the devs have jobs and livelihoods to tend to. They are indeed listening. Community requests, if popular enough, are added to the next version. New versions come out sporadically and the last one took about 4 years. The more things the community requests, the longer the version will take to come out.

Lack of advertisement for AssaultCube

This is really on you, me, and the rest of the community. The makers of the game aren't going to spend even more time marketing their free product to the world. That's our job. Let your friends know. Post on FB and forums.

Competitive Scene

Yup. I see you here. In all honesty, the pros (the people who tend to play the most) are the people who tend to have the most sway about what gets done in the community. And what gets done in the community often happens to benefit the pros the most. There's no way to change this by just saying "hey man dafuq" to the people who make the game. You gotta become a prominent member too. And you can. Host AC events that don't involve professional play (idk like a gema tourny or something). Speak often but make sure what you say with worth hearing in the community and people will listen to you.

[theMule]

I have been playing for a while and I won't join a clan or anything like that but one thing I have noticed is that you will never get more players when you have older players like |oNe|Federico for example, who play on the public server on CTF and never actually go for the flag, only try and get the highest kill ratio possible. The game is called CTF not DM. Everytime I see a players name like |oNe|Federico, or notice there playing style, I quit, immediately, and I can tell that some of the other players, who also do not like this playing style also quit playing. So maybe you could make a vote to get ride of players like this in the game so that players that just want to have some fun playing, just starting out for example, or just want to play for fun without the competition can do so, instead of getting incredibly frustrated by these type of players.

[DogDancing]

I have been playing for a while and I won't join a clan or anything like that but one thing I have noticed is that you will never get more players when you have older players like |oNe|Federico for example, who play on the public server on CTF and never actually go for the flag, only try and get the highest kill ratio possible. The game is called CTF not DM. Everytime I see a players name like |oNe|Federico, or notice there playing style, I quit, immediately, and I can tell that some of the other players, who also do not like this playing style also quit playing. So maybe you could make a vote to get ride of players like this in the game so that players that just want to have some fun playing, just starting out for example, or just want to play for fun without the competition can do so, instead of getting incredibly frustrated by these type of players.

Well I see him get plenty of flags.  He likes to kill but hes always trying to get to the enemy base...some people once they are shot go back and use pickups.  That's why we have them.

Just because someones ratio is high doesn't mean they are only looking for kills my friend.

[JMM]

Not everyone in CTF is supposed to rush for the flag like a mad mule. Some play more defensively, some just clear out the way for someone else to get the flag, some whore kills and some just like killing regardless of gamemode. This kind of thing existed even way back when I started and there were ~4 full servers of bs_dust2 CTF, not everyone plays the same. What's frustrating about this?

Pubs are pubs and as long as you respect your teammates and don't try to ruin the game, it doesn't really matter how you play. If they really piss you off that much, you CAN call a vote on them to piss off - just don't count on people hitting F1.

I have come (very intermittently) come back a few times and I'd say AC playerbase declined quite fast in the months following 1.1 release, I don't have any hard stats to back this up but I feel this weekend has bee a lot more active than some of the other little seasons that I've played, the rate of decline has certainly been very slow over the last few years. One thing about AC was, though, that at the time I started playing, insanely shit Intel GPUs were still very common (I recall Intel's IGP marketshare being well over 50% even back then) - even as "recently" as 2011 (past the "golden age" of AC) I could still buy a brand new Atom netbook that had one of those notorious intel onboards that barely managed playable FPS on AC. AC is one of the very few (still played) games to run acceptably on such shit hardware, and such hardware was abundant at the time (thanks Intel!) - however, times have changed, old computers have been ditched, and even Intel graphics are now useful. There's no "need" for vanilla AC any more and the playerbase is shrinking to the very small minority which still hold on to old computers or just like the simple and basic AC gameplay and maps even when their machines could run something "better".

...which of course means that we should lift mapping restrictions, allow more detailed and demanding maps, and allow a server to designate itself as "crapware friendly", only running low-demand maps. I honestly can't say that I don't miss the occasional hectic shootups in maps with floating furniture pieces and lights which were careful to include every shade and colour from omgimepileptic to SailorMcFlamerPride. I even miss the 24/7 dust2 servers. Even douze CTF looks good now. ACs strength was (and is) user-made content, and if we allow users to go wild instead of trying to enforce The One True Way, we could get a whole bunch of new players that don't fit into the aforementioned small minority.

Of course, if The One True Way must not be compromised and someone simply finds more adherents of The Way, that's fine too. I'm quite content coming back every now and then to have a shoot or two, see if the game is still kicking, but I would rather see all this magnificent work to turn into something different, even if the old guard disapproves of it, rather than become a relic of the past.

[Padfoot]

To address your point mule. This is a comment mostly about 3v3 inters, but during these games I prefer to play defensively, ensuring that our team loses as few flags as possible. However, this extends to pubs as well. If I want to play defensively and make sure that the team loses as few flags as possible, I can. If this frustrates you because you wish to be able to storm into a base with no defenses and take the flag, that's no-one's fault but your own. Also bear in mind a crucial thing about the game when criticising these players who run around killing. Dead players cannot take flags. They are ensuring that their flag will not be taken. Just because you think it's DM, doesn't mean it is. The point of CTF is to defend your own flag, and to score. It's not just one of them. If a player has 0 flags, and is at the bottom of the scoreboard, and he defended for the entire game, the measure of his success isn't his flags scored, it is the amount of flags that the enemy scored. As such, they scored 0-2, he did a very good job.

If you think that this behaviour is frustrating, you've missed the point of CTF. It is to both defend and attack. Obviously if an entire team is just defending that is ridiculous (because they're only doing half of what's required, just like what you think should happen), but if a few players on a team are devoting time to killing you, and you get annoyed by it, instead of rage quitting, I would like to suggest that maybe you should try and kill them.

Sorry if this came of as assholey, I'm just really annoyed with people who whinge about getting outplayed, I'm pretty sick, and I just woke up.

-Padfoot

[Federico.]

Well said. And lol, this theMule guy. Envy and hypocrite. He's always complaining about how other players play, but there is no once that he have a positive ratio in pubs. Train more and stop be a dick everytime you find someone better of you (really, he do it everyday with all that players that he cant kill). And until you have this attitude do not complain if you get kicked from the server, because its annoying.

[Waffles]

it's as easy as saying "l2p" federico. join |oNe|, get haters. it's in our blood.

also "SailorMcFlamerPride" is the best thing in the world.

there are many issues with the decline in the playerbase, the biggest one to many people being the urge to keep the game as it was originally intended to be. My favorite game is final fantasy tactics for some reason which has shitty graphics and is a grind game (no multiplayer either for you youngins *gasp). Still, it is a good game but not a "go-to" every day. AC is like a stinky vagina, can be fun to get into when you're drunk, but watch out if you go too deep.

[MorganKell]

Bigger maps need more players. Open up the servers to more than 10v10.

[Nightmare]

I find it interesting that the actual AC teams actually kind of fit the people here.

'Trigger happy' RVSF admins 'conspiracy theorists' 1cap CLA rebels, etc.

[1Cap]

you got me ;)

[MorganKell]

RVSF! Lock and load boyz. Ready to roll!

[Sonic_the_Hotdog]

I miss the old ActionCube v0.93 and the first AssaultCube v1.0 on my Pentium 4 with 256 MB of RAM.

I started playing this game again and I'm sad because of that fact. The game improved and in its functionality, but the fun itself just lost. Today there is only servers with restrictions and gameplay based on the tactical team. I confess I laughed and cried at the same time when I saw that the players limit is 16. I remember very well the old battles on ac_depot with 40~50 players . Yes it was a war scenario. Pleased to invade the enemy base after advancing in line voltages and bring the flag to spawn was one of the best experiences gamers have had in life.

[morshu9001]

I'm annoyed that 1.2 brought new bugs. It also seems to require more computer resources now. And I didn't know about the player count restriction, but that's dumb. Why 16 max?? What problem did they have with people making it as high as they wanted? Should be able to go up to 2^32 - 1. :D

[Boomhauer]

I agree with DamDam and a few others here.
As much as I am an AC snob, I did start in 1.0 with Headshot city and Twin Towers and such silly maps. And like it or not, those were some of my best days and the most fun. It's what made me love AC in the first place. And I see more new players playing in similar maps than anything else. And deep down I know why... because that was really fun.
That's what brought a huge amount of players.
I think 1Cap could bring a lot of players with his marketing jive. But we've kind of bled a lot of the fun out of the game with an elitist attitude, myself included.
We cut out a lot of the goofy fun stuff that is a stepping stone to the competitive playing. Which is exactly what it is, a stepping stone. I think people have to learn the game in steps. Starting generally with big open maps and single shot kills that anyone can pull out of their ass. It gives a player a sense of satisfaction. Then they can continue to move into more competitive game-play. We need that stuff as a kind of "day-care" stage of AC.
I agree with Crema to a certain extent. The game is dying, but no reason for it to continue that way. It will never go away if it retains a certain cult appeal, which we are slowly cutting out of it. I think we should have a few servers for the "pro" players and the nooby experimenters but push some of the fun goofy stuff back out to the forefront.
In a time when old-school 90's era graphics and stuff are actually considered "cool" this shouldn't really be happening to us. In another 3-4 years millennium era stuff will be looked at as "cool" because it will be 20 years old and that's really how society seems to develop. Our hey-day hasn't even happened yet if we move back towards what made the game so much fun to us in the first place.
I remember being happy and sociable in the early days. But after years of competitive elitist boo-hoo-ing I think I've grown sour towards the game. If once in a while I could go back to those silly fun maps and do what made me love the game so much in the first place, maybe some of that feeling can be rejuvenated.
Maybe we can have a huge alternative map-pack with a lot of the custom/fun/silly maps available. Just place them in a separate folder in the download and make it an option at first download, also making it available as a separate download on the site and forum. Then we can go from there.
We already have a lot of these maps on Akimbo, and we can start collecting and converting some of the older maps we all used to love so much. I for one would love to see the old ORIGINAL headshot city brought back (maybe that's what it was called, the one with the castle towers and stuff?), along with several others.
And yes, even though it can get silly, it was fun to once in a while play with 32 player teams.