17 Jul 15, 12:06PM
(02 Jun 15, 03:42AM)Orynge Wrote: 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.