Warcraft II Forum
Warcraft II => Server.War2.ru => Topic started by: Harrywangs on December 31, 2022, 01:22:49 PM
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We kind of touched on this in the other thread but I wanted to start a fresh one. In order to execute something like this, it needs to be handled like starting a new business. We often say, we need to advertise, which is absolutely correct but, as stated before, once you get someone to want to download the game, we have hurdles that would be best if they could be addressed by us before that. We need, in a sense, a business plan.
I understand some of this will be more difficult or possibly not doable (basically the 2nd one) but maybe we can do some sort of workaround or something.
1) Leaders- who will be in charge of making sure things get done/ideas/implementation/sourcing feedback/committees/deadlines
2) Downloading Game- Deal with RU/Virus/Safety/Limit individual files/Structure and process of actual download (player)
3) Internal Functionality- Website update or revamp/banner/Some sort of notification option of games hosted/Server Status Page advertisement or link/Clean up "spam" or all of the text when you initially log in/Faster refresh when you click "join"/Ease of access to resources/Admins?/new innovations (maybe automatically hosted games for new people or for GOWEF/Chop vs computers? Idk, random thought) (Or maybe hosted games with closed slots that are there just to communicate)
These are just quick random things off the top of my head. More would be needed as well as input from others.
4) How to retain new players:
A- More games available
B- What is our "competition" doing right that we are not? (USA)
C- Have a timeframe where people host games for new people weekly? (better players do like 3v1s or something so it's not so boring?)
D- What are we already doing good and how can we capitalize on it
E- SPOCS to assist new players
5) How to retain veteran players?
A- Tournaments- the bigger the better. More advertisement via the channels we have available/new ones. Longer time to advertise. Make it a
"festival" as Burnt used to do. I love me some smurf tournaments. (No tendencies from players you know!!)
B- Certain times for good players to play
C- A single platform for players to communicate outside of actual warcraft to talk about when people want to play
D- Make them fun outside of the actual gameplay. The smurf thing lets people make creative names based off of a certain subject. (IE- the
Halloween one I did) Sounds stupid, but kind of fun too. Hallowangs would agree.
E- No 6/8 tournament. Any player who starts 6 or 8 visions everyone to prove it then new game is started until nobody has it.
F- Fix ladder for team games (2s)
6) Tournaments
A- Have tournaments be during consistent times of the year. So, like, you could do all holiday ones so players know that, during xmas break, there
will be a tourney every year. This way they can anticipate it.
B- Length- are they too short or too long?
C- Qualifiers?
D- Top 10 ladder player tourney?
E- Funding (can tora fund everything?!?!) How do we get more funding so he doesn't have to. So many people on here brag they easily make
200k+...
F- Ask players what would excite them
G- Streaming- Make sure people know who is streaming and how to get there. It seems you have to hear by word of mouth via channel and even
then, by time people do or don't, they are in other games or left.
Tiered Tournaments- This has been done before but you can exclude higher skilled players, so others have a fighting chance.
Weighted Tournaments- 1 loss hurts more for some than others. Might be stupid or unable to be executed but I'm just typing stuff.
7) Features- Things like server status page, obs feature, in game info like apm, things in channel, game bots (only via whispers so you don't annoy everyone). Things that don't necessarily have to do with the gameplay but other options that make the game more interesting and user friendly.
8.) Advertisement
A) U8 and other war2 player's twitch
B) Other non-war2 twitch users- many play old games and such, request war2 and have them give a shout out.
C) Youtube- start our own video or look at other videos already posted and comment in the section to let people know we exist. I've seen many
where people go, it's dead now, nobody is on or I wish I could still play.
D) Reddit and other forums
E) Comments on other games- similar games like sc2, war3 and other RTS sites/forums/youtube comments could be good places to advertise too.
9) GOWEF Map Fix? (The bare minimum only)
A) 6- Add 1 tree
B) 8- take away 1 tree
C) 4- take away 1 tree
I'm going to guess this won't be overly popular with the higher skilled players for reasons I already argued about the resolution. Although
everyone would be playing the same map. I created this map a while ago actually. It'll change the game, but I tell you what, I hear top players bitch
about spots more than anyone else. Then if/when they lose, they blame spots. "I had 6/8 3x in a row" I'm not trying to split the community either
though. Everyone hates these spots. I've questioned this since day 1.
This is simply a brainstorm but as you can see, simply getting more people to DL it isn't really the right way to go about it. Fixing this issue is a lot more involved than most people think. If you want to do something right, you have to do it right. It will involve some money, time, and mostly manpower.
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I hope/assume there will be many replies. I do ask that you keep the replies productive because, given the amount of information said, there is a lot of material for non-productive replies to be made.
For example, C- Have a timeframe where people host games for new people weekly? (better players do like 3v1s or something so it's not so boring?)
Then SG replying with, I do that every day anyways.
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there is a version of gow exists named GOW TE (tournament edition probably?)
a somewhat balanced version
at least 6 and 8 even though still shitty but seems more playable
also about features like obs mode or in game apm/timer they already exists on server i maked them some time ago
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Yeah, TE changes more things than just those 3 though.
I know you made them. I was saying if anyone has more ideas about things similar to those because those are great! :)
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Adding on to #2, the download process should be simplified. Maybe pick a language drop down and you get one single version to download from the site. Then on the installer, a default option that installs what's needed with one click. An advanced option can be there if you really want to go to a screen where you want to select all your options. Last time I downloaded the game there were a million options at every step which was annoying.
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there is a better option, play more better balanced map than gow, or play gow bne EF, problem is that old players dont want
wonder what you happen if @~ToRa~ host tournament cash on diffrent map than gow
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there is a better option, play more better balanced map than gow, or play gow bne EF, problem is that old players dont want
wonder what you happen if @~ToRa~ host tournament cash on diffrent map than gow
I will host on the other weekend a 1s tour with multiple maps giving a good prize to top4 (upon tora approval $$$).
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there is a better option, play more better balanced map than gow, or play gow bne EF, problem is that old players dont want
wonder what you happen if @~ToRa~ host tournament cash on diffrent map than gow
Nobody would play because players only play GOW.
I already experimented with hosting map pool and it didn't work.
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You're not going to be able to change GOW as being the primary map.
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Working team ladder
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That would be a good way to retain people, I agree. Games would mean more. Blid was the one working on that before? Can someone else? He made it seem like it wouldn't be a ton of work I thought? Or was that iL?
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You're not going to be able to change GOW as being the primary map.
and new people will not start play gow 24/7
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Gow is also my favorite. I will not host a tour without gow. However i am always adding different maps.
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Working team ladder
I was in touch with IL. Few months ago we fixed the part where gow is not counting for ladder. The idea is to have short seasons and do by ELO rating instead of the current rule.
Only 1s ladder, not team ladder (which should be possible to have as well in my opinion but far away to have it).
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Btw very good topic from Harry.
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Thanks. This topic comes up often and people like to argue what needs to be done or what we aren't doing, and everyone likes to give simple-ish answers. Now these are just 1 person's opinions on what would need to be done to get to where we hypothetically want to be at in this game. It doesn't include anyone else's (minus wg/player) opinions and possible alternative paths to take.
This would take a minimum of 6 people (at least 3 capable of programming) doing this. Because not all of these steps can be done concurrently, it'll take a minimum of 6 months probably to start actively interest/persuading people to join the server. A lot of leadership/admin support would be needed as well. Something we seem short of.
Also, war3 has their own private servers and ladders. Would also be a good idea to speak with them about it too. Another step!
Shit or get off the pot I say, lol.
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Get a.i to replicate human play. Play bots that feel like humans. That's how
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Acquiring new players is pointless, just need to work out ways to retain old players or get them back. Players who start playing now are simply never going to be good enough to have fun games with.
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This is the mentality as to why it won't work. The elitist's are fucking assholes (see equinox). You call them out and they get "permaban" butthurt. Grown crybaby ass men. It's sad really. All that really needs to happen is mother fuckers just be nice to each other and help each other learn.
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Ragnar, Talrand, Duda are all newer players who have become pretty good.
Tim, I've offered to teach many players who are new. Some say yes, then don't follow through. Some I've taught and they are still making CTs in 12 at entrance and milling way too soon when they are supposed to rush hard. Building placement, how to rush and defend gays are the first things I teach them. People only want to learn a little bit then do their own thing. Few people really want to get good or even average. 2k games in, they are still terrible and won't listen to anyone.
If I'm playing in 2s with SG/Swift/u8/Me, I'm well aware I suck compared to them and, in those games, they are mostly carrying me. Do I like playing in games with better people on my team? Sure. It beats having worse people on my team and having to do 2x the work to carry them. Am I aware that they would rather have someone better than me for them to have better games? I am very aware of that and often voluntarily take a seat if someone better comes in.
I'm not sure why this concept is lost on newer/lessor skilled people. Why do I have the ability to understand this and others don't? I 100% bet you that if someone much worse than you is on your team in a 2s or 3s, you get upset and/or bench them eventually. It's all relative my friend.
What pisses me off is that many people who bitch and complain about this NEVER HOST THEIR OWN GAMES.
What are you calling them out on?
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ragnar and talrand been playing probably 5+ years no? which is newer i guess for a 25 year old game with small community.
ive said it for a long time.. imo.. the only way to get new players is by spending a lot of money advertising.. which is stiill hard because the game is being played on a pirated server that throws virus alarms when you try to download it.
its just a really shit situation.
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Ragnar, Talrand, Duda are all newer players who have become pretty good.
See Sg, Harry said I am good. How could you complain about me as a pard!!!!
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I see your point and I understand the same. Taking a seat is not a problem. Being cordial is the problem. Just banning people for being in the room or booting them without civil discourse is fucking stupid. Grown ass men being toxic in a game this old; you think people want to stick around? People get sidelined without common decency. THATS where I have the problem. Take the EQ problem for example (and I wrote a post on this a while back), dude just bans random people or boots them from the game with an elitest attitude. "can you obs one?", "need room", etc goes a long way when there's only 9 players online and your forced to the lobby by yourself. It's just a dick thing to do. There's no excuse for it. You call the man out on that stupid shit and now he holds a grudge against me every time we meet. Grown ass toxic man children is a big part of the problem. Now I can't even try and learn to become better than I am with the people I want to play against because he's in the same room. It's toxic behavior. Period. I'll never get better chilling in the lobby. I'll get better by watching, asking questions and playing those better than me.
Are there times I will have to sit out? Yea no problem. Had a game going for a while? Cool just tell me and I'll bail on my own. "you've been booted" or " you've been banned" without any of the aforementioned common decency is just stupid. If some of you seasoned players would actually take someone under your wing, teach em a few things and stop being dick heads to the community you want to foster, people might stick around. Just my opinion and my experience coming back to War2.
Ragnar, Talrand, Duda are all newer players who have become pretty good.
Tim, I've offered to teach many players who are new. Some say yes, then don't follow through. Some I've taught and they are still making CTs in 12 at entrance and milling way too soon when they are supposed to rush hard. Building placement, how to rush and defend gays are the first things I teach them. People only want to learn a little bit then do their own thing. Few people really want to get good or even average. 2k games in, they are still terrible and won't listen to anyone.
If I'm playing in 2s with SG/Swift/u8/Me, I'm well aware I suck compared to them and, in those games, they are mostly carrying me. Do I like playing in games with better people on my team? Sure. It beats having worse people on my team and having to do 2x the work to carry them. Am I aware that they would rather have someone better than me for them to have better games? I am very aware of that and often voluntarily take a seat if someone better comes in.
I'm not sure why this concept is lost on newer/lessor skilled people. Why do I have the ability to understand this and others don't? I 100% bet you that if someone much worse than you is on your team in a 2s or 3s, you get upset and/or bench them eventually. It's all relative my friend.
What pisses me off is that many people who bitch and complain about this NEVER HOST THEIR OWN GAMES.
What are you calling them out on?
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Well, I would say that typically people say RE or need spot for the most part. Need room is also acceptable.
Again, what stupid shit is it that you called him out on?
I usually give people shit or something if they ban/boot someone for no reason. You hosted a bit the other day and you had full games. You don't NEED his host.
You can't let 1 person ruin the game for you...... Not everyone is nice. This is life. These are people. Not everyone in life, outside of wc, acts like a "grown ass man" either.
I'd be happy to help you out with things.
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Talrand was good 3 years ago. Ragnar was good at least 2 years ago. Duda hasn't played for more than 2 years yet?
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Only way you'll ever get new players is to get lucky with some big time streamer falling in love with the game and playing it on stream for awhile, or paying a big time streamer to play it on steam for awhile.
Training players on such a small scale is a waste of time in terms of building the player base to anything. You need a massive influx of players who can play with each other and slowly develop into good players over periods of time. And sure, some training could speed some of them along, but you'll never reach your goal of having some bustling server full of several competitive games without pumping hundreds of new people in at basically the same time and then waiting like a year.
Or you could play a more fun game like Rocket League.
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Damn, totally thought training a few players would save the entire community/game. Plan B I guess.
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People are afraid to play 1on1s these days, which is the only way you get better. It's why most people are subpar and don't realize the most important parts of a basic strategy game
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Which is why having an active and accurate ladder was always important. IGL leagues are what made Kali / Zone so fun.
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I made a thread 3 days ago (still awaiting approval ) basically on shotguns latest comment.
After reading Harry's thread and seeing some responses from certain people, here and in game. There seems to be a desire for a 1v1/team ladder of some sort. I know cases ladder (IGL) used to be used alot on USEast server.
So the question is, is there an appetite for cases ladder (if it's still around) or something similar? From what I remember, you had to register your war2 name, challenge people who are also registered, then the loser of the match reports the loss. It had its own automatic ranking system.
After the demise of bnets built in ladder, this was the go-to option for laddering in 1v1 and 2v2.
I play here and there sporadically. I find myself stuck most of the time in these random 4v4s with a bunch of newbs. And I've been getting the itch to play some competitive 1v1s again. Which in my opinion, was the funnest time I had playing war2.
So again, is there an appetite for something like this again, would there be any interest?
Another option would be to fix the built in ladder, which is alot more work. But we do have capable people working behind the scenes.
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I was thinking about this the other day. Having competitive 1v1s was the golden age of war2 in my opinion. For me 1v1s were what made me a better player and it can definitely do the same for others. I find being stuck in random 4v4s rather boring and pointless. If we can somehow fix the built in ladder system or even make an IGL league where you need to sign up and report losses, I'd be down to get back into 1v1ing more often to show support. I could make one if it still exists if people would be down for that.
PS: I made another forum account from my phone because I couldnt remember my password (and pw reset doesnt work) Password is saved on my computer (where I am now)
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Damn, totally thought training a few players would save the entire community/game. Plan B I guess.
Yeah because that was the core message of my post. Great contribution to the supposed discussion you're trying to have.
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That's funny. I was Googling trying to find some sort of online site where you can custom ladders and report games on. After a bit I gave up. I was wondering how many people would actually report it and would care?
If you do that, then you can do 2s ladder as well, right? What WG was asking for.
You would have to take a SS of every game then?
Historically I have liked 3s/4s but lately I've hated it. It doesn't contribute to me getting any better. I think the biggest reason I'm bored with 3s/4s is because of the skill discrepancy which makes spots super important. Any team can destroy any other team because if you get the right spots, your nib is dead in 2 secs and now it's a 3v4.
Personally, 1s is just too mentally exhausting. Maybe I'm just a pussy, lol.
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Is the current ladder still not reporting GOW games? Blid was the one that did that. I don't see why he can't undo it.
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Is the current ladder still not reporting GOW games? Blid was the one that did that. I don't see why he can't undo it.
It is, we fixed 2-3 months ago. But we need to change the system how its done today.
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Duda made league and only few people played it
Problem is that people dont read forum
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OMG a 1s and team ladder?! Brilliant! If only I hadn’t brought this up 10000 times before. ;)
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Good post Harry!
I think the IGl on Kali was the best aspect of WC2. Find a way to recreate that and maybe you will have players come back.
In the end though, only way to retain new players is to play in new player games(comp stomps, water maps, funky maps).. Trog does this well and is increasing his blueprint in gog. Stop the massive orig gow picks.
also the discord is very lazy, needs to be reorganized with actual players chatting to help your hundreds of new players coming in with not a single response to
them.
Incos
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I wish people played more maps, variety..you see me online im playing classic and differnet maps versus the same recycled ones. I hope more people have an open mind
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Annnnnnnnd fizzled.
Anybody create a 1s or team ladder yet?? ;)
People I’ll report games when they lose…just like they did back then.
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we need more publicity, more streamers, more advertise about game.
many peoples even not know that game still alive.
now mostly only u8 alone desperately struggling and making good streams and videos.
war2 is a game that deserves to be played but peoples just not know about it.
need to show everyone how good this game is.
(https://forum.war2.ru/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=6747.0;attach=4379)
(https://forum.war2.ru/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=6747.0;attach=4381)
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Mistral is it possible to bring back “war2tv” I felt like that was a good feature to have on the forums.
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maybe. but i dunno how exactly it worked.
and who even maked it before?
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maybe. but i dunno how exactly it worked.
and who even maked it before?
That was a moustopher creation and idk how it worked either.
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maybe. but i dunno how exactly it worked.
and who even maked it before?
@fois told me he can be able to fix that engine to make twitch API work again
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It would be good to bring back war2tv as that feature as I remembered used to show who was streaming on the en.war.ru homepage and on the main page of forum.war2.ru.
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To add to the list - Don't delete the accounts of new player's after a few days/weeks.
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I use to only play because of the ladder system, rank was rewarding.
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it might have already been mentioned, but u8's youtube channel will probably keep this game alive... thats the way to go if you want new players to come. youtube channels.
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imo you will have the best results/engagements with short clips less than a minute (like you have) and keep all other videos under 30 minutes.
instead of 1 upload that's hours long, split them into multiple ~30 minute videos.
more videos = happier youtube algorithm.
30 minutes or less = people more likely to watch all of it.