How to acquire more players

[Harrywangs]

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.

[tk[as]]

Get a.i to replicate human play. Play bots that feel like humans. That's how

[Shotgun]

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.

[T1M]

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.

[Harrywangs]

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?

[tk[as]]

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.

[Dudakurten]

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!!!!

[T1M]

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?

[Harrywangs]

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.

[Harrywangs]

Talrand was good 3 years ago. Ragnar was good at least 2 years ago. Duda hasn't played for more than 2 years yet?

[Sentinel1]

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.

[Harrywangs]

Damn, totally thought training a few players would save the entire community/game. Plan B I guess.

[Shotgun]

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

[Shotgun]

Which is why having an active and accurate ladder was always important. IGL leagues are what made Kali / Zone so fun.

[ItS_baRa]

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.