Bring back classic sumo

[Lucifer]

This is an excellent candidate for an official server.

Totally disagree, for reasons I gave in that other thread. Thought you agreed. Servers with special, unintuitive game modes, especially those with unwritten and arbitrary gameplay rules, are exactly what shouldn't be included as "official" servers.

Ah, I don't find sumo in the same class as Fortress or CTF or all the weird crap on CTWF.

The game mode itself is intuitive. Wonder outside your zone, get removed from the grid. Stay in your zone and be the last person standing, and you get a bunch of points.

As to unwritten and arbitrary gameplay rules, I've generally interpreted that as "stuff you can't enforce with server settings". None of that exists in sumo. Also, there's a splash screen when you login to a server, there's round messages, and there's even a round center message with which you can inform users how to play. It doesn't take much to stay "Stay in your zone, core dump your enemies". Meanwhile, you need a focking tutorial to learn how to play fortress without getting kick-voted.

If you want to include/introduce zones in official servers, then do it in the old-school way with win zones or some such—something peripheral to the actual gameplay. I don't think game modes totally centered around zones are good as introductory servers.

I would use a rotating map server for that. Do keep in mind that 0.4 zones are so much more advanced than 0.2.8 zones. There's a helluva lot more than fortress/sumo/win/kill zones in it. It'll take serious thought, design, and understanding to put together some good maps that stick to core values and utilize the new zones, but I believe it to be possible.

[Phytotron]

Ah, I don't find sumo in the same class as Fortress or CTF or all the weird crap on CTWF.

The game mode itself is intuitive. Wonder outside your zone, get removed from the grid. Stay in your zone and be the last person standing, and you get a bunch of points.

I suppose. Then again, cue Z-Man....

As to unwritten and arbitrary gameplay rules, I've generally interpreted that as "stuff you can't enforce with server settings". None of that exists in sumo.

In sumo, it's taboo to kill your opponents using your rubber, which makes the rounds boring and if (God forbid) a newbie wins a round, he'll be scolded for doing it wrong.

[Z-Man]

Ah, I don't find sumo in the same class as Fortress or CTF or all the weird crap on CTWF.

The game mode itself is intuitive. Wonder outside your zone, get removed from the grid. Stay in your zone and be the last person standing, and you get a bunch of points.

As to unwritten and arbitrary gameplay rules, I've generally interpreted that as "stuff you can't enforce with server settings". None of that exists in sumo. Also, there's a splash screen when you login to a server, there's round messages, and there's even a round center message with which you can inform users how to play.

Yeah, but still, you saw lots of new players enter, drive straight on, die without knowing why and ragequit. It's definitely not a mode I'd recommend to new players; you're also under near constant pressure to perform, unlike in zone-free mode where you can just chill for a bit. On the plus side, round length in Sumo is limited.

If implemented on an official server, there definitely is not going to be a 'don't kill' unwritten rule. Silly bastards.

[Lucifer]

As to unwritten and arbitrary gameplay rules, I've generally interpreted that as "stuff you can't enforce with server settings". None of that exists in sumo.

In sumo, it's taboo to kill your opponents using your rubber, which makes the rounds boring and if (God forbid) a newbie wins a round, he'll be scolded for doing it wrong.

If implemented on an official server, there definitely is not going to be a 'don't kill' unwritten rule. Silly bastards.

I, of course, meant to say something like this and just forgot.

Edit:

Yeah, but still, you saw lots of new players enter, drive straight on, die without knowing why and ragequit. It's definitely not a mode I'd recommend to new players; you're also under near constant pressure to perform, unlike in zone-free mode where you can just chill for a bit. On the plus side, round length in Sumo is limited.

We'll just have to see what somebody cooks up. There's more to a server than just the game mode, and I wasn't volunteering to make this one.

As for difficulty levels, I always viewed Breakfast in Hell as a significantly higher difficulty than most of it's compadres, and it still attracted plenty of new players that were able to adapt. True, some of them tried it and then practiced on other servers for awhile, but the higher difficulty certainly wasn't a reason that repelled players.