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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Z-Man
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by Z-Man »

/dev/null wrote:I hope you die in a house fire.
Not OK, not even through the "it's only /dev/null" filter. One day ban. Stand in the corner and think about what you have done, or something. I should probably stop applying child education to forum moderation.
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/dev/null
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by /dev/null »

Im way down for a ban, it would give me a reason to not just cackle like a supervillian.

Please ban me if you can.
Sadly for everyone involved, you dont play, because you have to constantly deal with smegheads on the forum.
Last edited by Z-Man on Tue Feb 10, 2015 2:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: I can do worse than banning :)
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takburger
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by takburger »

<snip, no longer makes sense :(>
Last edited by Z-Man on Tue Feb 10, 2015 2:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Aww. Sorry.
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S0lutai
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by S0lutai »

Why not making a new version with a tutorial anyway? I highly doubt it is that hard. Even an Image with controls or what to do would even work better. The reason this game lacks growing up is because newbies don't even know what to do or how to do it. Yeah in .4 there is like some sort of tutorials like grinding, attacking, etc. But that is completely OPTIONAL, it shouldn't be optional. If you take a look at destiny, league of legends, forza, we can pretty much say ANY game (not any but a pretty big proportion of them) has a small tutorial like some image with controls, what to do, or even a starting mission.

Why not instead of having that voice that yells (I don't even remember if there is such voice, correct me if I'm wrong) 3...2..1 put something like "Capture all zones, destroy your enemies" That would at least be helpful for all new comers to know what to do.

A community can't keep a game active, they can but it is hard, really really hard. It needs some kind of effort from developers as well.

Another example, this time with Destiny:

The entire game is overall, fun. but it is simple and repetitive, if they didn't come up with last update (december 2014) I can be sure 80% of the players would've quit already, but guess what? They did not because they knew a new update with new content was comming! There are weekly updates that constantly fix bugs in-game, and people are ansious for the next upcoming update that comes in a couple months.

My point is, this game needs updating, yeah, developers might not have time to do so, yeah it's a free game so there's not right for any of us (especially me) to complain about. But all games have updates, even free ones.

But yeah, as you've noticed, it is not only developers work. There is not point of making a game that no one plays! Don´t complain about this game being boring, lame, when you only show up to ladle. Really. (I identify with it also)
You won't make this game active making posts on forums no one else but exact same 30 people read. Go to the grid, where you can actually do something.

By now, I will make some word promoting on my twitter account.
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by takburger »

there is already a tutorial in 0.4 iirc
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by S0lutai »

takburger wrote:there is already a tutorial in 0.4 iirc

What a deep response. Almost made me cry. Literally. Anyway for those that apparently are blind;

Yeah in .4 there is like some sort of tutorials like grinding, attacking, etc. But that is completely OPTIONAL, it shouldn't be optional.
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Ratchet
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by Ratchet »

S0lutai wrote: What a deep response. Almost made me cry. Literally. Anyway for those that apparently are blind;
That attitude is a bit why this thread exists in the first place. It demonstrates the overall "vibe" that new players get from our community.

Try a less condescending approach to those who don't understand you the first time -- I'm sure you'll find that it goes a long way in improving the atmosphere.

Sure, it was a knucklehead response from a person that didn't read your post very carefully, but isn't that the sort of attitude you were met with when you started tron and started asking nooby questions?

"How do you make your tail two colors??"

"RTFM you idiot!"

I surely recall those days.
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Z-Man
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by Z-Man »

To get back to actual discussion, I disagree that the tutorials should be any more mandatory than they are (remember, they keep sitting at the top of the menu until you complete them). They are serviceable, but not great. No frontloaded explicit tutorial has ever been great. Tutorials can only be great and made mandatory if you have a story or campaign and can interweave them into that, teaching one tiny bit at a time and having the next few minutes to help you refine your use of that feature along with everything else you already learned. And a proper singleplayer campaign that does not suck is simply out of scope.

Same for regular content updates. Completely out of scope. How many people are on the Destiny or COD teams? Upwards of a hundred full time employees?
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by blondie »

people shouldn't complain about content updates. There are new servers, new game modes, new settings all the time. An update for a big game is a minor change of stats on a weapon or something. Just go to sumo and change the cycle_speed by 2% and the rubber by 1% and you'd have an equivalent to a major content update, if that's what you actually want. The game is good because it requires no content updates to stay interesting, exactly like football or chess or poker or go or basketball, etc. Any criticisms you could make about the Armagetron client could be echoed for any number of classic games or sports. Content usually makes well designed games worse, not better. It's the same reason we play Ladles on a square, empty grid, instead of in CTWF. Random shit everywhere prevents players from directly competing against each other. The purity and directness of competition on a flat empty grid is why the game is attractive in the first place.

bit of a rant, but these comparisons are ridiculous.

The Armagetron client is a means to play the game, not the game itself. And the current client, while some people may say it lacks polish or features, does a great job at allowing you to play the game.
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by S0lutai »

Yep. New settings every time, new game modes and such. But if I am correct, Fortress is still the most populated game mode at the moment. True fact. So still, why making a game mode 90% of the people don't like/never tried? I mean I could make a server right now with a new revolutionary game mode that either 1. People won't play due to it not being fun enough or 2. People actually liking it, but dying in a couple of months because fort is way funner and having a million of posibilities to try in it. True fact. and you can even confirm that by yourself, Blondie (apologize for calling out). There are several game modes that haven't died or ended up dying because of fort. Could count 'em with the fingers of my left hand, actually. Another true fact there.


Anyone ever got to see the 1k+ downloads a week this game has on source forge? I'm sorry but that's a bit ridiculous. Where are those 52k+ people a year? My initial thoughts are local gaming and some kind of downloader bot (if such a thing exists)

Yes, probably went too far away with constant updating. Game is smooth enough. I mean tiny glitches still happen but that's with all games. My bad over there.

Though I still thing this game needs more promoting, I mean that's certainly not essential but it's helpful, even with a spoken promoting.

Also yeah sorry about that Rat :P
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by vov »

There's also the collection of games here. I'm currently collecting lots of old, current, and new stuff there, so everyone can try it and judge for themselves. And also add stuff there if it meets the purpose and works as intended.
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by takburger »

I do apologize, I indeed only read first sentence of your posts. They're all too long.
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S0lutai
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by S0lutai »

Why posting this kind of stuff anyway, tak? Not meant to be rude or anything, but if you are not saying anything regarding this thread, should keep the spam for yourself.
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by Ratchet »

I agree with a few things mentioned, blondie.

I don't think the game needs many improvements, personally. Yeah, we could all spit out features that would appeal to us long-time users but I think the ultimatum is appealing to new players. Maybe that's where we've all gone wrong thus far; we're all worried about what we want and not what someone who downloaded tron for the first time may want.


Think back to the times when you started the game. Why did you start? What did you like or dislike about the game? Why did you keep playing? Surely you were bullied just the same as I was when I first started, why did you make it past that phase?


These questions are what we should focus on. It's not about improvements to the client as much as it is improvements to our targeting ability. Maybe a website that is more beginner-friendly (as some of you have started working on) would be a great help. Maybe a more concise path of navigation through the wiki for new users. I remember having a hard time finding the right page on the wiki when I was told to go look something up as a beginner. There were several articles for noobs as opposed to one comprehensive and yet condensed introduction to the game and everything that I needed to know.
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Re: Armagetron is NOT dead, here's why and how to keep growi

Post by blondie »

at some level, it's what Phytotron has been saying for years, and what I've disagreed with in different contexts. People download the game to play Tron, not to play high rubber, or sumo, or fortress, or capture the flag. The download it to play something resembling the sequence from the movie. The default local game settings could mimic that scene as much as possible. Blue vs Gold, 3v3, 5 AIs with the proper names.

Online, it would be nice if there was a thriving low rubber deathmatch scene (3v3 or 2v2v2v2), but that's irrelevant considering there is hardly any thriving servers at all. I don't think it would be inappropriate for there to be one or two quasi-official low rubber deathmatch servers, with the same default physics as the default in local mode (although not necessarily the same default as there is currently) and pinned to the top of the server browser.
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