How pickup kills tron

[szopin]

This will be mixed, as have two grievances, but both are about pickup:

Many topics here how to make the game more popular, how to introduce more ppl to it, we need more players yadda yadda yadda, yet, we not only introduce login but also IRC requirement. This in itself is not that bad, except that most of the time 8/12 means 8 players are not on the grid to promote the game by participation, teach newcommers how to play, welcome them and guide, but browsing cat-image sites waiting for the ping when 12 pros gathered round. Then wait 10 minutes sometimes to play 5 if actual newbs got captained. Pickup is killing fort.

And then add weird behaviour of ppl like Hoax. Banned Jericho, not for an hour or two, not for a day or two, third day comes by, ask him why? Silence, mods are gods. What the freaking ****? You decide? What about community? What about this game being open source aqnd community based? What about democratic kicks working somehow until this day? Now you ban someone for unknown reasons for days and not even muster a reason? **** pickup srsly if we have totalitarian regime in there. Next time it will be you, because, you cut him, but he cannot say it out loud (just to be clear, Jericho hates me, not doing friend a favour), this is just absurdly community-wrecking idiocy that must be stopped, or if everyone is happy with a king that decides about things and doesn't have any responsibility to answer any questions (luckily GPL will stop them there) be it, have the only current fort server for yourselves. Will do ground work introducing new players to fort and telling them if they need more rulers forcing their will on them to go and learn irc. Hopefully cafe can be restarted without any admins deciding the votes and doing 'best' for the community because of their power freaks.

[Gazelle]

waiting for the ping when 12 pros gathered round.

Flaw. 3/4th of the people that play pickup are not pro. Therefore your statement and argument is immediately invalid.

[szopin]

waiting for the ping when 12 pros gathered round.

Flaw. 3/4th of the people that play pickup are not pro. Therefore your statement and argument is immediately invalid.

Should have added sarcasm tags, forgive me. But being passive pro (or 'pro') hurts the game nonetheless. Be in that server you wanna kickstart and people will see someone is on and maybe join. This way there is a server that suddenly goes to full of 'pros' and then gets empty, how inviting to new players

[Gazelle]

There arent a lot of "new players" you have the occasional morons that stumble upon this game, and see that it is completely absurd and decide to just troll for the fun of it.. Unfortunately some of them stay (RoterBaron).. but u know.. i went through a long phase where i thought it would be nice to try and teach some of these "new" people.. but if they really wanted to learn, they would find the forums, read up on how to properly play fortress and start to practice.. yet they dont.

[sinewav]

For those who happen to read this post as you scroll, do your best not to jump all over szopin. While I personally don't believe pickup is killing Fortress (we have heard that for years now and somehow there are still about the same amount of players), there are definite problems with pickup. One is the quality of games, two has to do with rules and enforcement, and three involves extreme laziness and disorganization among players while attempting to start a game. Obviously these are tightly related to each other. I might enter an opinion in this thread later, but for now I'm just going to sit back and see how it flows.

Carry on.

[Hoax]

Tron>Pickup gametypes

Activity in servers often stems from players on irc and has done for years. In fact low activity is partly why pickup even came to exist. Yes it's grown increasingly popular & there might be arguments both for and against but what are you adding, szopin? If you think poorly worded multi-lined rambles are going to attract people to join you in a server, or take what you're trying to say seriously, then I think you're mistaken.

As for bans from #armagetron.pickup, work on those communication skills & im sure any admin would be happy to answer questions you had. It's best to hear from both sides of a story until you come to conclusions, people can speak for themselves a great deal more than you can & until they have it's not your concern.
Lastly the 'community' is very much vocal on any issues & don't we know it (in fact in this case the silence was deafening). If you were around longer than a few weeks everytime you would know this.

[bilbo baggins]

considering you were on pickup last night for 2 hours and thats the first time ive seen you on the grid in months i think your veiw maybe a bit skewed or biased szopin, public fortress is a lot more popular than it was several months ago, and we have the FFA and wiki guides to introduce new players to the game, nearly all the time i never add to pickup if there is a decent public fort game going on, but when your in a server with 8v8 and theres a tk every round, plus a centre every round, it gets a little bit boring when you want to improve your forting abilities. Imo pickup is necessary for the average player to improve, its not designed to ring beginners into fort and it never will be.

[takburger]

I guess that a 1 hour ban is for early leaving or something like that. Frankly, whenever I seen a ban it carried meaning.

pickup are not for total noobs that just discover the game. Yes. But you see, sometimes, average players like to play decent games where something can be done. Like bilbo say: in public fort, when you have one or two people ******* up the game of the other 10 players, its quite annoying. So we go pickup because it is organized and we have more fun.

Yes it does not help new people, but it could... They could watch and see what each position should do. But they prefer come, ask why they cannot play and leave before having an answer (that is always given).

It is like recently I was in Durf's "Tunnel" server. And very often noobs come in, see it, die once and leave. And everytime I was about to say : "wait a little easier maps are coming in", or " have you checked your configuration about infinite walls" but you know they leave too fast, because they don't wanna try to learn. Those players will quit the game quickly or end up thinking they are the best tron players while playing only on Yellow Sub and boxing all the YS noobs, then raging when a bored sumo player will get in and just laugh at their displaced pride.

But, somehow I agree with you, as I'm a fairly new player (started pickups 1 year ago), I remember my first pickup with all the players putting me sweep and then insulting me / asking me to never add pickup again. While I could just have read an explanation... That really sucked.

[Vogue]

As for bans from #armagetron.pickup, work on those communication skills & im sure any admin would be happy to answer questions you had. It's best to hear from both sides of a story until you come to conclusions, people can speak for themselves a great deal more than you can & until they have it's not your concern.

Do you know where the 'leaving early = ban' rule originated from? Back when pickup was popular and people were struggling to get a spot, they'd try and get in by adding as soon as the point limit was reached. To avoid confusion, overcrowding and early adds, you were only allowed to add if you weren't in a game and once "Match Winner: x" appeared. Now, for whatever dumb reason, people get banned for leaving early even when they don't add again and EVEN when the next game is like 6/12 and nobody is struggling to get added again. It's absurd that you ban these people, this needs to be situational. I get that you want consistency in rules but when the next game isn't starting because there aren't enough people, you shouldn't ban players for leaving early.

I'm not gonna simply complain and not suggest an alternative, so why not PM these players and tell them they shouldn't leave early because it's against the rules, but as they haven't taken anyone else's spot, they won't be banned this time.

Lastly the 'community' is very much vocal on any issues & don't we know it (in fact in this case the silence was deafening). If you were around longer than a few weeks everytime you would know this.

A lot of individuals have been vocal about the banning as of recently, good to know they aren't part of the community and that you don't take it seriously.



Lastly, I was banned for 10 days! Apparently telling everyone to get aids and kanker is "antisocial" Wooooooooooooooow... I don't want to live in a world where I can't wish diseases upon other ppl!!!!!!!!

[ppotter]

It amuses me when there is ~12 people in Megafort and they are just adding for pickup...a game with essentially the same 12 players, except you have to wait 5-10 minutes for it to start. Just play properly in Megafort?

[Titanoboa]

It's absurd that you ban these people, this needs to be situational.

100% agree. (haven't seen anyone ban someone who didn't leave early just to add up for next but i guess i'm not there 24/7)

It amuses me when there is ~12 people in Megafort and they are just adding for pickup...a game with essentially the same 12 players, except you have to wait 5-10 minutes for it to start. Just play properly in Megafort?

Yep, so annoying.

[Venijn]

You won't believe how hard my fingers fought me to type this, but I aree with Liz.

I've been banned twice now, the first time for an hour was for leaving early (after score limit was reached.) I left early so I could say good night to everyone and wish them well before everyone was added for the next, clearly didn't add, and then got banned anyway.

2nd time, I didn't show, which was justified, although a day long ban was harsh. To be told I was unbanned was nice, but I don't remember being given a reason for that decision either.

Anyway, the best rule application is done with Common sense.

[Monkey]

1) I don't believe that Pickup itself is killing tron or fortress but I'm not going to get into an argument over that here and now.

2) I think that banning in Pickup is essential. Several people have argued the case that it's ok to leave early if you aren't adding for the next game. The problem with that is that once people leave early, the rest follow. This can be because they believe that the Match Winner message hasn't shown up properly on their screen or, more commonly, that they believe that the people who left early are going to add again and they don't want to miss out on the next game. At the end of any game, no one knows who is going to add again or what the demand will be for spots in the next game. Waiting for the "Match Winner" message is so easy to do and the topic in IRC had been changed quite a while ago to warn people that they will be banned if they don't wait for it. I see no problem here at all; just wait for the ""Match Winner" message or get a ban. The only thing that should be decided is how long to ban people for. There needs to be consistency throughout, although this is easier said than done.

[takburger]

the first time for an hour was for leaving early (after score limit was reached.) I left early so I could say good night to everyone and wish them well before everyone was added for the next, clearly didn't add, and then got banned anyway.

So you got banned for 1 hour but you was about to go to sleep, then had a full day of work before next pickup you would have wanted to play. Seems perfectly fine to get banned in that situation, no harm done.

[Vogue]

monkey is still an elitist and takburger is missing the point as per usual

but ye keep banning people its totally a perfect system don't listen to any of us

i encourage everyone to boycott pickup and play public servers instead