today in ac.

[SrPER$IAN]

I have to disagree here. I think the game could gain tons of traction with more marketing (free marketing to be precise). i.e. posting about in on every game-related forum you frequent. Tell your friends about it. Introduce it to gaming clubs and societies at schools etc.

Don't get me wrong, you are completely right about how upgrading AC would never happen but I beg to differ on the need to do so. I'm willing to bet if you market this game as a mix between CoD and Minecraft (with its cube-like graphics and mapping engine), people would be interested.

Everyone seems to think that the reason AC isn't played is because it's outdated but the real reason is nobody really knows about it. In terms of what it brings to the table, it's a dream game. It's lightweight on memory, has a tightknit community, and a retro feel with the ability to create your own gaming environments.

So here's the actual reality: the playerbase has aged and everyone's moved on without bringing anyone new it.

Am I saying that AC can be saved? No, not unless everyone here actively tries to do their own form of marketing. Honestly, I think the best way to attempt this would be to open up a stickied thread related specifically to spreading the word about AC. Inside, the members of the community would be able to organize who does what: who posts to which websites or forums, who goes to which school or town gaming clubs etc. It could be something as small as revitalizing the AC facebook or telling your friends about it.

Anyways just an idea

EDIT: Also a lot of people left when the map restrictions were put in place. Not saying we should get rid of them but perhaps losen them up a knotch to let things like ac_oldvillage and EzJemVill come back. Pipe dreams though...

I believe that there are two reasons that your plan might have less success as result :
1. AC is 12 years old game. It's no more a new unknown game in the market. Even we had 100K downloads at a period and actually thousands of ppl have downloaded it so far. Your plan might work and we might get downloaders but the main question is that "Can we keep them playing AC as it is now?" and if the answer is Yes so "why did it lose its players and still?"

2. The whole downloaders' shrinking process just started at 2012, a year before the map restrictions implemented by the developers. Obviously there must be another reason(s) behind this, though forsure this map restriction boosted this shrinking process at a period.

Besides the complaints about "ac_oldvillage and EzJemVill" and all the other abolished maps(Including GEMAs) does only remind me of all those crying for bringing back ac_wasteland to AC, and at the end of the day nobody played it (No Offense). Does any body remember when was it the last time he did play a complete game in wasteland?
Basically I don't think that removing map restrictions would save the AC alone, but it's probably one to be added to the TODO list. Though I'm against all "shitty" maps, but about this case, I believe developers had better choices such as have two tabs in server list, one for official maps and the other for all the other ones.[just an alternative]

Don't get me wrong, I do feel the same about all those nostalgic maps, sometimes I do miss all those TOSOK games in Headshotcity. But I believe if we want to get new players we need to think like a new player as well. It's not that hard; just put your feet on the shoes of a new player and tell me which of these features and photos are tempting you to download and play AC (and which are NOT ):



P.S 1 : we are living in 2016
P.S 2 : Almost all the screenshots and the features belong to 2008 version of AC(afaik)