Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growing

General Stuff about Armagetron, That doesn't belong anywhere else...
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compguygene
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Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growing

Post by compguygene »

Gazelle wrote:I understand some of you still love this game very dearly and want to keep it in check, but for what purpose? There are like 10-12 "active tronners" out there now and the game is extremely boring now because of it. Brawl was at an all time low fielding 2 teams (barely) and you never see anyone on besides ladle day. I feel like a lot of you are wasting your time protecting a community that doesn't really even care.
Just because Capture the Flag has pretty much died, does not mean that Fortress/Sumo or Armagetron as a whole is dead, or that the community left does not care. For a great analysis of how CTF died and how that may relate to problems in Fortress I highly recommend that you read the series of 4 articles that sinewav wrote on TronTimes http://www.trontimes.tk/?p=400.
The point of my post here is that Gazelle's quote above is NOT true. If it were, then why is it that almost every evening (8-11pm EST) I can join in a public fortress game. It's not the same 6 to 16 people! I will confess that there are about 20 people that are the most common to see, but certainly not the only ones. This is the path that Kyle called for to help to rebuild fortress. He wasn't wrong. We have seen numerous new people whom have never played fortress come in to play! Isn't that the point?! Yes, at times the gameplay has been compromised by them and we have even suspended them and kinda forced them to learn. But new players are emerging!
Sumo games do continue. Yes, there are certain people in our community that are just not going to bother playing fortress at this point unless it is in a pickup server, clan war, or Ladle or other tournament. I am not really concerned about these players. They really are not willing to do anything to bring in and develop new players, they just want to only play in "elite" and "organized" competitions. Those options exist.
In rebuilding public fortress, we ARE rebuilding this community. It will take time, and people that are playing fortress with the hope of rebuilding things and helping to establish new teams will need to be patient and deliberate. But, just because things aren't as easy as when this game got a big bump from the 2nd tron movie, doesn't mean the game is dying or dead. It just means we need to stay the course.
Many of you don't see what a success this game is for an open-source game with a 0$ Marketing Budget! You can actually go into a server of some type 24/7 and play some form of this game with somebody! That is huge! So, just because this community has gone through a contraction does not indicate its death.
For those of you that still actually enjoy to play this game, I would encourage you to continue to play! Especially public fortress and CTWF! Teach the noobs, we need them!
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by Word »

I just commented on one of those articles; just don't like to type it all again:
I realize I’m late to the party – in my opinion CTF’s lack of recognition wasn’t so much the casual atmosphere – I’d actually say that’s one of the things many people enjoyed there, think of 1v1s etc.(yes, I remember those debates on Ww forums); and at its peak, there were just as many clans as in fortress, perhaps even more: D, R, ID, Ww, ctk and of course our own one – and those are just the ones I remember. Part of the reason CTF died is that the Fort/Ladle community was way more aggressive in terms of organization and advertising, and had a somewhat more official recognition from Arma forums and the developers (it seemed like only the biggest/best teams can take part in this and like it required more strategies), so it was easy for them to lure us into taking part and concentrating more on fortress. Of course I don’t regret migrating to fort, but I also saw that as a heavy blow to the CTF community. And then there was the whole Tr2n thing, which did the rest. All the relatable Wwers who usually helped and welcomed new players like me were gone all of a sudden.
Everything sinewav says about the quarreling CTF community is correct. However, maybe we should also attempt to re-populate CTF and the other servers that share traits of public fortress, and then try to get a few players from those, not all clans at once...
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by Lucifer »

Can't see the forest for the trees.

Here's the problem: With a fresh install of a game, all of the online servers say "Experience is suggested for this server".

You want to attract more players? Offer servers to new players. When my new cable modem gets here, I'll set one up, but it's a slow internet connection (by today's standards, it screams compared to the connection I originally ran Breakfast in Hell on).

Also, my cockpit apparently doesn't work. :(

In any case, I believe Z-man's original misgivings about that feature have proven to be well-grounded, and maybe a bit prescient.
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by johnny.nbk. »

Public Ctf was fairly noob friendly :), with respawning, team work, and not too many rules. Definitely the mode that got me hooked.
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by ConVicT »

New players come on everyday!
The problem isn't with the servers, it's with the current players never having any respect for "noobs".

Every time a new guy comes in and doesn't understand something, asks a question, they get shunned, or slagged off, or even kicked/banned for not knowing how to play.

When I started playing back in 2011, this wasn't a problem, people were always willing to help you out, but all those players are, unfortunately, gone (Probably why I stopped playing).

We have to make more of an effort to help new players out, especially in fortress because that's where you're more likely to get kicked through lack of knowledge.

Learn how to grind, noob.
Yeah, grind center, noob.
Ffs, noob, will you split earlier.
Noob: Idk what you guys mean.
If you TK again, you'll be kicked!
Noob: What is TK?
Ignored.
...Kicked


That's us probably lost this player forever, because everyone made him/her feel like an idiot.
Be honest, how many times have any of you saw that happen or even voted to kick them yourself?
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by takburger »

It is funny all the last convo i seen with new players were :

Hello and welcome to this game,
we are not bots, it require a lot of training but you will see in a couple month you'll do the same with no problems
I hope you are not afraid of us and come back
grinding is blablablabla

etc etc
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delinquent
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by delinquent »

I think most of us lack patience with newer players. That's probably partly down to a lack of games occurring... which in turn is partly down to a lack of players.
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by /dev/null »

I dont partake in that self jacking shitfest. Most of the "players" of tron could easily have thier name switched out for boring. And no one would know.

There are so few old gods left its sad. When we do show up its a clusterfuck of boohoo.

Unlike most of you dicks, I go out of my way to teach noobies.
The current crop is dedicated to being crap, so without new blood Ill get bored.
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by Phytotron »

Lucifer wrote:You want to attract more players? Offer servers to new players. When my new cable modem gets here, I'll set one up, but it's a slow internet connection (by today's standards, it screams compared to the connection I originally ran Breakfast in Hell on).
I happen to think Shrunkland and Bebop in Harlem are ideal for new players, especially the former. In fact, it's the thing I'm most proud of with that server, that it's great for newbies as well as experienced players. And both explicitly discourage one of the things that I think is to blame for the decline in population: artificial game rules.

But no one plays them. Ever. Not sure how adding the original BiH or some variant would change that.

Zone-based game modes and made-up game rules like open/loose/dogfight, and their attendant communities, killed this game. (The rise in multibinding didn't help, either.)
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by blondie »

though I agree with you about Bebop in Harlem style servers being ideal for new players– and that the deathmatch format is a simple way to encourage combat– the lack of activity in servers like that and the activity in fort/sumo/hr servers suggests that those game modes kept the game alive rather than killed it.
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by /dev/null »

Phytotron wrote:
Lucifer wrote:You want to attract more players? Offer servers to new players. When my new cable modem gets here, I'll set one up, but it's a slow internet connection (by today's standards, it screams compared to the connection I originally ran Breakfast in Hell on).
I happen to think Shrunkland and Bebop in Harlem are ideal for new players, especially the former. In fact, it's the thing I'm most proud of with that server, that it's great for newbies as well as experienced players. And both explicitly discourage one of the things that I think is to blame for the decline in population: artificial game rules.

But no one plays them. Ever. Not sure how adding the original BiH or some variant would change that.

Zone-based game modes and made-up game rules like open/loose/dogfight, and their attendant communities, killed this game. (The rise in multibinding didn't help, either.)
There is an ancient patch somewhere on the servers I made to tempfix the ripbug that makes multibinding a horrible idea. No idea where it is anymore, did a quick search, couldnt find it. It made the rim EXTREMELY dangerous.
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by Gonzap »

Phytotron wrote:
Lucifer wrote:You want to attract more players? Offer servers to new players. When my new cable modem gets here, I'll set one up, but it's a slow internet connection (by today's standards, it screams compared to the connection I originally ran Breakfast in Hell on).
Zone-based game modes and made-up game rules like open/loose/dogfight, and their attendant communities, killed this game. (The rise in multibinding didn't help, either.)
Actually zone based game styles is what kept this gamealive for so long. It improved my personal experience and made me feel a part of a community.
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by ConVicT »

Seems to be repopulating, I was just in Cheers with a bunch of people.
Should be called "Haunted Cheers", everyone there has came back from the dead as far as Armagetron is concerned.
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by Monkey »

Just today we were playing public fort with new people and they enjoyed it a lot. As long as people are friendly and helpful to new people they can usually learn. Of course, there will always be some people that you can't teach.
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by compguygene »

Monkey wrote:Just today we were playing public fort with new people and they enjoyed it a lot. As long as people are friendly and helpful to new people they can usually learn. Of course, there will always be some people that you can't teach.
More evidence of the point of my original post! I have seen the same. Many of you may remember that this was the way we got into fort which is what kept us coming back for more. I do think that others here have brought up some valuable points that have been made elsewhere.
I do think that a reasonable number of new players are downloading and discovering this game still. Yes, we do need to put up a much better website. Yes, we need to get the .4 release into a condition that everybody can use it and it becomes the normal release that everybody uses. But for now, if we just encourage new players to play, and play public games that they can come back to, this community can turn it around!
Armagetron: It's a video game that people should just play and enjoy :)
https://bit.ly/2KBGYjvCheck out the simple site about TheServerPharm
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