I agree with this, it’d seem like the best solution as we don’t have that magically incline granger to see into the future what kind of base we want. In addition about the Player crafted “pre-built base layouts”, it kind of seems similar to the current layout system, but perhaps, it’s accessible to anyone or perhaps the layouts change positions on the map randomly, though that might render the whole base useless in some situations, and wouldn’t exactly be easy.
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It’s not a problem that “experienced players win”, the problem is that if you don’t do well in the first place, you’ll get less and less resources to work with in the future, while the other team gets battlesuits and tyrants. The game could even be set up to level the playing field somewhat and still not ruin the game, as long as it’s not too much of help.
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That is true.
Would there be some specific way to track the skills of a player? Perhaps using like X amount of kills or KDR, then again it’s really odd to have a game where the point is to get evolved and win, but be limited by the fact that the other team plays more than you.
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That is one of the possible approaches to automatic building, where there would be different zones defined around the map, and each zone could have multiple zone specific layouts, where one would be randomly selected when on of the teams take control of that zone.
But it is also possible to write an algorithm that would automatically place buildables in a given zone. Such algorithm generated bases might not be as effective as player built bases, but that might not be a bad thing, where if forwards are automatically built, losing forwards wouldn’t be as much of a big deal, and there could be a lot of ongoing base construction/destruction throughout the match. Additionally, a benefit to having an algorithm based auto-generated bases is that there wouldn’t have to be a lot of manual preparation (although @romdos ’ suggestion is interesting that the players could make these layouts, perhaps as spectators, for future matches, although you would probably want to specify which players are allowed to make those layouts) for each layout in each zone of each map, and there would be more variation in zone layouts.
That algorithm based autobuilding would still be specific to conquered zones, and would still depend on teams taking and keeping control of zones.
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Note that this is the case even in games without upgrades; the real problem is that if every class is made available from the start, the game would consist solely of tyrants fighting against lucifer cannons and everything else would be obsolete. So the real challenge is to first create a system that limits the use of powerful classes while still being fair.
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That can be done with a system that controls the rarity of items well. We will be trying out two different systems. One is dynamic pricing where the prices of each item changes personally, based on the usage of a given item, and other items that have similarities.
Another approach is to essentially give each item its own “currency”, where when you get a kill progress advances for each item, but the progress of one item can’t be transferred to that of another. Higher tier items can require more progress, and thus be used less frequent, however using them wouldn’t sacrifice the lower and mid tier items as options (how annoying is it to save up for an expensive item, lose it quickly, and then only to start out poor again?), so we should also see a lot more variety.
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Here’s one testament to the importance of being socialization-friendly environment: there’s another multiplayer game Teeworlds, and it has been essentially taken over by a mod called DDRace. The game is a fighting game like Quake but 2D, and the mod is a cooperative maze-clearing game.
Some mazes are difficult, but the mod is still fundamentally chill and slow-paced. Even though the game does not show mods by unless you uncheck a checkbox, still, as you uncheck it, you will see the player count jump from like 150 to 800.
The “skill syndrome” doesn’t help either, there are only few maps that are played, just like Tremulous ATCS but far worse.
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As both a tremulous player and someone trained/experienced in PR I can say that tremulous has much potential, right now I consider Tremulous a diamond in the rough. If we start connecting the Tremulous brand and game to the desires and identity of the gamer we will have an open source product that gains much player interest.
Tremulous From a Public Relations Perspective
Tremulous has some great features: team play, good theme developments, decent graphics, and decent play mechanics, and a built in player base. Tremulous problems exist from a public relations standpoint…and sadly poor PR can sink even the best designed games. Here are some of Tremulous’s PR points for improvement:
- Tremulous permanently looses any players that visit it and get a poor first impression. If the play experience is not immersive, or there are few human players kicking around, they think its dead and never return…
- Poor social proof
- Alien teem has is not very relatable. Not many people can relate to insectoid aliens, personally I do, but thats probably because they are predatory and stealthy. An immersive campaign and backstory could help out with this.
- The player environment is still toxic, and in some cases hypercompetitive for new players…The key is variable reward, not losing and ABBAB(Always Be Berating and Belittling) from your own team 100% of the time, this is what most new players get, this is not variable reward, not addictive, and not even rewarding. This permanently drives away new players.
- Currently the lack of a narrative backstory hurts theme development and game immersion.
Video about attention engineering and social media https://youtu.be/JgkvTRz_Alo
In short we need to polish tremulous to go from a struggling multiplayer game to a massive online multiplayer game that captures players and keeps them.
Solutions to the Tremulous PR Problems, Game Play Tweaks
We need to polish the Tremulous game player’s first impression.
- Before promotion hire or convince people to play and be in the servers so that social proof of the game’s popularity can be realized. At no time should the lobby ever be empty during promotion.
- Immersive story mode, single player
- Playing mode that allows some variable reward, random buffs or powerups that makes it possible for noobs to win at least 30% of the time. This should be a mode for noob servers or mix servers. Jordan Peterson teaches you how to interact with children - YouTube
- Tie the factions to not only player style, but player self identity, player desires, and make the alien faction part of a narrative. Everyone wants to feel great…important, something which current game play destroys in new players.
Allowing new players to win at least 30% of the time is a good idea. Research suggests that if players do not win or succeed at least 30% of the time they will discontinue play. Furthermore a team win is still not and individual win. If the team wins and the individual feels like either they had not impact or everyone says “yeah we won, no thanks to the noobs” thats not a win, thats still a failure in the eyes of noobs.
Polish the new player experience in these ways and trem will be great again, ignore these points and expect every new player that visits will never return due to a bad first impression.
Recap
- Social Proof, and empty lobby makes us look like loosers, and it makes the product look like crap…we don’t be the Quikymart that has a grand opening with only one customer visit for the whole day… Anyone that sees an empty lobby is a lost player, and a poor first impression cannot be repaired easily…every player that visits an empty lobby or gets trashed in gameplay over and over will leave and
likely never return - Immersive story narrative, without one you require novelty and graphics, like Doom when it first came out, story was not required, it was new, graphic, violent, and had variable reward, suspense, and fear with gibs that were new at the time…trem is not new and does not have cutting edge graphics, don’t skimp on the story.
- Variable Reward, new players should be able win at least 30% of the time
- Make different servers for different skill levels as needed, pros beating noobs into a thin red paste over and over again and insulting them on their own teams will cause them to leave and likely never return…
Fix these things, and with some polish Tremulous can be successful and very popular. Ignore these things and tremulous will continue to alienate noobs and new players that are not likely to ever return to our community. A player with a poor first impression is not someone who didn’t stay, its someone who won’t return.
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Possible idea: tell the future artists to make them colorful and sleek instead of bland, deformed and barnacle-encrusted (suggesting infection and disease) like they did with Unvnquished and most other alien games.
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Are you making game for yourself or for the community (others)?
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Please elaborate. Is/are there any particular suggestions in this topic so far that you are referring to? For me personally, the answer to your question is both (without taking away from either). What should be taken into consideration when making the game for others?
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I think that this is wrong and the right answer is this: for noobs, who are the heart and the soul of any game. Almost any substantial change takes something away from pros or even mid-level players, since skills that come from a deep understanding of the game mechanics are also the most inflexible, and as I’ve already mentioned, learning sucks 
.
And yes, I think it’s now evident that the resource system (i.e. build points, health, credits) has to be “dumbed down” to some extent (the core game, i.e. speed and timing, should stay the same). Here’s the reason:
If you bring up popular commercial games like Overwatch and stuff, it’s important to understand that if you have enough players, you can simply let the game match players up fairly.
Famous games give players another motivation to stay and keep learning, even if the game has flaws in its design: bragging rights. Tremulous obviously doesn’t have nearly as much popularity, so it only thing it has to hold on to a player base is its own merits as a game.
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Considering that no one gets paid to develop this game, there has to be some other incentive(s) to develop it. For me part of it is the fun, challenge, and learning experience in the actual developing, and then another part of it is the fun, socializing, and challenge in playing the actual game. For some developers, they might be fully satisfied solely from the development experience, seeing their work put to good use, and it may not matter to them much if they would enjoy playing the game themselves, there is nothing wrong with that, as long as they get the most out of their free time.
But I want more than that, I also want a good game that I would enjoy playing. Of course in order to have a good game that I would enjoy and that would live long and prosper (especially since part of that enjoyment for me is the social aspect), there has to be a sufficient number of players in the player base, the community needs to grow much larger than it is now, and that means that the large majority of the future player base will be noobs at first. So it comes down to the intersection between what I would enjoy, and what a sufficient number of new players would enjoy.
Not everyone will enjoy the same exact things that I enjoy, they don’t have to. I remember reading somewhere that it is estimated that there are around a billion gamers in the world currently, if we had just a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of that, we might have more players than Tremulous ever had in the past. Additionally, I don’t have to fully enjoy to the same degree every available option to the game, there can be some variations where some people enjoy some aspects better than other people. Variation is good, differing tastes in the community is good, as long as there are fundamental common threads in the community.
For me, the quantity of players in the community isn’t the sole indicator of success in the project. For me the quality of the game and of the community is at least equally important.
Making a game for oneself, and making a game for others, does not have to be mutually exclusive. Selfishness and selflessness does not have to be mutually exclusive, but rather if they are in harmony with each other, they can both thrive. I believe there can be a game that both new player and myself can enjoy a lot.
It depends. I personally enjoy learning if it is intellectually stimulating. I find using the same techniques/strategies over and over on the same map for years and years, with very little learning and change in that time kinda boring. Some people seem to enjoy it, but I don’t think that was satisfying enough for most people, considering that the size of the playerbase shrunk to about one thousandth of what it once was, and there isn’t currently a dozen full 1.1 vanilla servers all playing the original atcs.
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You guys talk way too much, its not like all that much talk will lead to anything, who in the hell can keep track of all that?
Anyhow, the way i see it theres not point in theory or practice to deviate all that much from trem base, atleast until 1.4 or so.
Keep trem being trem with a few new additions to keep things fresh, but dont stuff it with mechanics.
If anything we need to explore new ideas is a modding friendly trem so that people can make up new things by themselfs and experiment.
If we have a well moddable game base then we can attract more devs maybe and by extension more players.
Then we can see what works better and what doesnt and can alter gameplay by evolution instead of design, assuming its playercount you really want.
I dont really care about the playercount, lots of foss games are unappreciated, its not something trem exclusive, the important part is to make a playable, fun, stable game and the rest will fall into place or it wont, i dont know.
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There is nothing wrong with debating and deciding to add say, a feature or something that might help the game. 
Yes, that is true, if we did do that, at least before 1.4, we might as well make our own game, practically.
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A Multiplayer Game with Few to No Players…
What do you call a political convention or product opening with almost no attendees? A museum piece.
Trem’s Strengths and Weaknesses
An underappreciated social gaming platform is somewhat less than stellar…Trem’s bread and butter is its multiplayer functionality. We are not cutting edge like Doom was in the 90s, and our game cannot stand on the merits of its engine or astoundingly market shaking player mechanics. Trem’s major strength is that its a social game…It has no story, graphics that look like they came out of a game company’s time capsule, very little single player appeal, and game tactics that on some maps become very predictable, even with human players.
Placing our Heads Firmly in the Sand
Lets be honest as possible here: take away the players from Trem and then you take away the social element…what you have left won’t be that fun to play unless we make those bots very very realistic. Saying that the game must stand upon its own merits and ignoring that a multiplayer game’s bread and butter is its… players, is akin to sticking our heads in the sand.
Currently the remaining game community has elements that are positive, and toxic elements that drive away new players… Gameplay does not help retain players if they cannot win at least a fourth of the time, we do not have a large enough player base for games to be matched by the game itself.
- Trem is a social multiplayer game
- Take away its multiple players and you also take away its social aspect
- The game play and community with polish could attract players and retain them
- Without multiple online players all we have left is an out dated game engine with substandard graphics and an empty void in the player lobby
To ignore the theory and practice of game promotion and marketing, and to take focus away from the multiplayer games biggest asset, its multiple players, is not unlike placing our heads in the sand.
Mega Glest, An Example of a Failed Game With Great Potential
Mega Glest started out at a multiplayer on line tactics and strategy game that could have had great potential as an open source project. However with an empty lobby and poor community engagement they quickly went from having a few players to almost no players, and now to not even having active development.
Mega Glest is a strategy game developed as a free software project with severely dated graphics, a crappy engine, no way to train new developers, aging code, and a severe popularity problem. Today all that is active in the community is a developer’s forum with few active players and an ever shrinking community… Even the developers have lost the desire to work on their own project.
I really liked Mega Glest but in the end its an empty game devoid of single player story, and devoid of players.
In Conclusion
We have poured time and effort into Tremulous, and it would be tremendous waste to stick our heads in the sand and become the new Mega Glest.
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I’m not really sticking my head in the sand though… The player base is the bread and butter, but the game must be good enough and forgiving enough in the first place for the players to stick around long enough for the social connections to start forming…
Imagine for a moment that Tremulous gameplay is replaced with this: you have snails, everybody clicks ready and the snails ever so slowly race to the finish line at random speeds… yeah… You’d be better off uninstalling it and using a regular chat program instead to talk with people.
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I was talking about this in that part lamefun:
I agree we must improve the game, but when we finally get it ready, and we will soon enough I expect, it must be promoted well, else that effort will have been wasted.
And yes a clicking snail game would be very hard to promote, though I have seen some truly awfully boring games do well with good marketing, and that is why I support good development on trem as well as its promotion… although you could make a snail mod that has adorable snails in anime style and market it to the female Japanese audience, much like pac-man…but with snails 
. (Joking about making a snail version of Trem)
We really want both skill and chance to be involved to certain degrees, some games do this well, and some do not. Warzone attempts to have an element of chance by having oil barrels randomly pop up. Wesnoth does it badly with a relatively poor RNG for hit chance that aggravates players in the single player mode…
We want chance to be an element, and game play to be fun as well as social elements to the game. However if anyone wants to make a hilarious marketable snail Trem mod I will gladly help them promote that after I stop laughing at the idea
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Ease of access and having things work properly “out-of-the-box” is critical. This means that the game is distributed through idiot-proof platforms and that default settings will work for most setups. Historically, Trem has (only) been distributed through tremulous.net and some mirrors, and any alternative clients had to be discovered by a player.
Aside from great game-play, two things that would give tremulous some future-compatible staying power are techs like HumbleNet, an UDP protocol wrapper to (additionally) broadcast traffic via WebRTC, and modern web based tech like emscripten (C to JavaScript) for WebGL and also WebAssembly (to replace the “VM” that QVMs use) - to port a client to run in a web browser, giving players the option to play anywhere (on the same servers as native clients), without having to install anything.
Edit: See http://cloud.killtube.org/~jrandomhacker/libwebgame_html5/ and https://quakejs.com
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