RaceToWinzone

KamP · Post by **KamP** » Sun Jan 08, 2006 7:00 pm

Gotta say, this server is a mixed-feelings server
i like it, and i think it is boring as the sun at noon.
You go and go and never feel like you're getting anywhere
One thing is how easy it is, the leaders are decided in the first couple seconds, and catching up is damn near out of the question, since not many mistakes are made on that course.
And then there's all the rubber
How about punishing the mistakes harsher

maybe enough rubber to let someone hit a wall twice if they're going at an average speed, maybe around 500 (the speed, that is)

I was thinking, after playing the settings locally, that long tails would be cool, if they gave a substantial boost. On the one hand, it'd make the race more exciting, because players could actually interact with each other during the race. THe boost off an enemy wall would also help you catch up to people ahead of you, and then maybe a group at the top could get a challenge from someone who mistakedly hit a block near the beginning... like me. I constantly found myself in front of a block, or pressing turbo too soon (it wouldn't actually read the turbo during the game, so i'd have to let go and press again, but by that time it was too late and they were at least three turns ahead of me).

I wasn't sure who was admin of this server, so feel free to move it if it belongs in one of the server forums

Phytotron · Post by **Phytotron** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 4:03 am

Some people might be surprised to read me typing this, but I'm thinking that this particular game variant is maybe not such a bad idea, conceptually speaking.

Now, this specific server (the one the says American Race and has all the death zones) has some pretty bad settings, and KamP has pointed to some of those. However, conceptually, it's actually far more Tron-ish than shaped arenas or maps or ramps or any of that stuff I dislike. How? I just think of the lightcycle scene following the grid game, after they've escaped the grid and are running from and trying to avoid tanks and recognizers—here represented by the death zones. Perhaps someday if and when recognizers are actually put into Armagetron (using tard's model, of course), they could replace those death zones.

The question is, how to better the settings and whatnot, as well as how to make it better for competetive and/or team playing? Is a race to the finish with all players starting in the same spot even the best way to do it?

At this point, I haven't put any time into thinking about answers to these questions, but there they are to possibly open the discussion.

Raoul Duke · Post by **Raoul Duke** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 6:02 am

this server feels the most like the movie. Its very fast paced, and huge. I suggest multiple turn offs to make it a tad mazelike. You turn left, but its a dead end!

Also, being able to blow a hole in the side of a wall and making a shortcut would be awesome.

KamP · Post by **KamP** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 9:50 pm

For about a minute, there was this server called Maze Test, and it was kind of like that, raoul. Well you couldn't blow through walls, but there'd be multiple spawn points and multiple dead ends. The biggest problem with it was how uncomplicated it was, and that it used multi-axes. I like hexagetron as much as the next man, but for a maze server like that, it'd be neater to just stay with right angles for turns. It was fun, and the idea was still to get to the winzone, but it was a lot more complicated.

Very fun, i think it was wrtl's

iF · Post by iF » Mon Jan 09, 2006 11:31 pm

the one the says American Race and has all the death zones

The server is not named "American Race" because the DeathZones.

Its why iam a fan of the good old games (ala c64/atari800x) and a fan of the good old "game-names". Somebody can remember "American Race"? The better and "looonger" PolePosition - with Police, Desert & TankStops?

Mixing America with Deathzones is politic. Armagetron is a Game.

If you have not mixed it - then iam sorry - i misunderstand it.

Post by **Lucifer** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 11:36 pm

/me wonders if anybody remembers his labyrinth server that was always empty.

KamP · Post by **KamP** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 11:53 pm

I do, but i wasn't using the beta at the time it was out because of the lack of a debian package and my ignorance of compilation
chance of that getting back up?

Post by **Lucifer** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 11:56 pm

I don't know, I'm thinking of running the crack pipe with a mix of maps, some automatically generated, some usermade maps. If I do that, there will be occasional mazes thrown in.

KamP · Post by **KamP** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 12:54 am

That's cool, lucifer
I was thinking while i was playing on racetowinzone
and, well i thought
i managed to convince iF to increase wall length, but it's still not hard enough
I think if the mazes were slower, we could try and fight each other while racing to the inzone

Another thing i thought up was team racing
That's right, relays.
Say you have a maze
And a team
One person spawns from each team
So say SP against Lucifer's old farts team
So Orb and nemo spawn
race race race we assume nemo wins
he gets to the winzone, he gets killed and the next person in the team gets spawned. at the beginning and starts running
Only thing is that this would need some patient teammates, since they WOULD be spectating
Obviously this gets boring if Orb falls behind nemo, because catching up is damn near impossible in that server. You need to be flawless and lucky to do so
Which is why the slower speed and longer walls, to (a) promote fighting and (b) let you kinda grind on someone's wall and keep going.
And less rubber. Rubber is for car tires and protection in bed, so use the least of it as possible in tron as possible

Man that relay racing would be kinda neat
I guess if someone gets killed in race, before gettin to winzone, like i'd expect orb to get killed by nemo, then the next person in their team gets spawned.
I guess you could have a good dumper at the beginning of your team, and he can try and sit around and kill whoever spawns. A square around the spawn point? i don't know

iF · Post by iF » Tue Jan 10, 2006 1:04 am

Iam not sure that iam "onTopic" - but RaceToWinzone means "who is the first" - not "who is alive".

Its a lil race: some ppl escaped from grid.

The tails on this server are only "for show" and better viewing opponents.

KamP · Post by **KamP** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 4:42 am

that's true iF
It'd jsut be neater if there were more interplayer interaction than just chatting "damn, i died"

then we could try and cut each other off, grind tails to gain speed, kind of like a real racecar driver would.

On the other hand, back to the maze thing, we played maze test server today. Started with wrtl, psyko (heh, yea "why you foos hate us"), and i and man it was fun. Then of course, fads are a big thing in tronland, so a lot of people started joining. Just goes to show that randomly generated mazes are a tenable theme for a server. Thanks wrtl!

Phytotron · Post by **Phytotron** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 6:39 am

Um, I didn't say that it was called American Race because of the death zones. I said it was called American Race and has death zones.

Anyway, yes, I played your labyrinth, Lucifer. I got about 9 fps there, same as in this one (too many polys!). But that was significantly different than the one being referred to in this topic. For one, it was a complex maze. This one is a long, winding hallway with some obstacles. But then, my previous post wasn't even about this server specifically. It was about the concept, and I still haven't thought any more on it, and no one else has gone in the direction I was hoping. Oh well.

philippeqc · Post by **philippeqc** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 6:54 am

I loved the american race when I tried it! The obstacles elements have been updated recently I think, and the map is now quite charged! makes for a good challenge.

Race to winzone is neat also. Somebody really made a loooooong maze to run. That was great! Really allowed to run for a while. but sadly I havent meet anyone there, and AI dont make good racer.

maze test server (grrr, what a name!) The hexagon cells and the 6 axis, the short trail and the speed component gave it an organic quality. It was like being a "born again spermatozoid", fighting for the big race, you know, the one where we all got to be winners.

-ph

philippeqc · Post by **philippeqc** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 6:42 pm

I was just on Race to Winzone, and one thing I realise is taht people are one the full turbo all the time.

one way to balance this would be to ensure that the players can reach out-of-control speed easily. Then the strategy wouldn't be to hit turbo all the time, but to press it by very short interval to maintain a speed that is still playable. When a long straight line come, people would push it to the max, then try to release it and fall back to a speed they can control just before the next turn.

Well its just a thought

Thanks for the server

-ph

iF · Post by iF » Fri Jan 20, 2006 9:45 pm