Consolidation of TW

[but...why...per...]

I personally like the concept Eph, to extend on what you were saying I think it would be good if we started a 'year forecast' on the homepage, currently players are aware TWL runs Jan-April but if we could have different leagues advertised throughout the year then I think it would give players and vets something to look forward to.
It might look something like this:

                                                    2014
Jan     Feb      Mar     Apr     May     June     July      Aug    Sep     Oct     Nov      Dec
|----------TWL------------|      |---TWDT-----|     |--TWEL-|        |TWHT|  
                                                                             |- TWD CUP-| |-TWL Qualifying-|
|-----------------------------------Weekend Events-----------------------------------------|

^this is just an example but if it were clearer to players about upcoming events hopefully it would boost participation and show what TW has on offer through out the year.
Of course care would need to be taken so some of these do not overlap and ensuring enough space for a few weeks delays.
Yes, I am aware some of these no longer run or the dates are out (it is just an example)

[but...why...per...]

^The format changed when I posted so the spacing is out but the general idea is there.

[Turban]

try using the <code></code> (but with []'s) next time, bwp.

[Turban]

i believe our true focus should be about the public and events while leaving the competitive play (duel, elim, twd, twl) mostly untouched. if we can keep our "general population" entertained then our population should steadily grow. regrettably, it's not a fast process and having scheduled events such as distension actually have a negative impact on the zone population. we have less people playing public and attending the real events and that is affecting our player base.

at most we could try promoting competitive play in public arena, but i'd prefer encouraging twd captains to "scout players" in public/events and get new players involved in the squad community.

[Zeebu]

a schedule that outlines things months in advance? that makes way too much sense. fuck outta here

[Turban]

i used to be almost exclusively an event player and i think that scheduling events would probably be a bad idea. i liked the "randomness" of events, having the hosts pick proper events to host based on the amount of players that were available for him/her to entertain. that's how i used to do it when i was hosting; if i knew not many would attend to my events i would just host something simple that everyone could enjoy until i had enough players to move on to a better event. no "crowd killer" events, many new hosts fall for that trap and wonder where everyone left after finishing the event.

i don't think anyone would actually follow an "event schedule" if there was one.

[but...why...per...]

Turban I completely agree, though the 'schedule' I proposed was intended just to advertise the main events (leagues and weekend events). The day to day events like bug/zombies/golf etc would still be free to be hosted unscheduled.

[Ephemeral]

Ideally and with a healthy population I would agree.

But how does this wash against the current situation where we have events being held with horrible attendance? Not only do these badly attended events suck for the zone but they also can spread the population too thinly. Additionally, it appears to me that the scheduling of Distension has been a success. No?
eph

[Turban]

i wouldn't really call it a success, tbh. it had a negative impact on our population - less people were playing pub or attending events. most got addicted to distension and probably started thinking that pub/normal events were boring compared to distension. only reason it seemed to be a success was because distension was something "new and exciting" for the ones who played it. however, after a while you could see that less and less people were playing distension.

i agree that major events, like tournament, should be scheduled ahead of time and properly advertised. i'm not really buying this whole "pop spread out too thinly" thing, though. i think the reason why most people are quitting is because they are simply bored and the zone doesn't offer the entertainment they yearn. this is probably due to the constant changes in pub, overly-complicating something that was meant to be simple fun, and because of the lack of quality event hosting.

i'd post more but typing on a phone really sucks. catch ya later.

[Turban]

though i do get the point you're trying to make. the reason why ppl made the scheduling a success was because distension was something new and exciting; a thing they could look forward to. atm we dont have anything like that to make it work again. i could be wrong, though.

[but...why...per...]

The scheduling of distension has largely been successful, having it only hosted for 1.5 hours lessens the impact on the zone, though I think the amount it is hosted will probably now be reduced. It has started a little later than scheduled a few times due to a lack of a host or a game of hockey running or other events running on a little longer than expected.

All events are tried to be ran separately Eph, staff members know not to run a hosted event whilst someone else is hosting. (Hockey is a slight exception since the event only caters for 12-13 players). But just how far could we go to implement your idea of no more 2 events at the same time?

If staff were to take the power back from players to run base/wbduel/javduel i.e. only hosted by staff, it would be damaging to new players entering TWD.
I have always seen base/javduel/wbduel as an important transition between pub and TWD. After all, it overs the same experience and new players can learn the commands.

Now suppose pub and an event were running - zombies , by the 2 event rule would this mean squads could not challenge each other to a TWD match? Or conversely we should not host an event because pub and a JD is running?

When I decide to host I generally do Esc + a, if I think there is a worthwhile population I will do a host. I think most staffers do this as they are conscious of other things going on, but I'm not sure if cutting back on certain things is wise, even with a low population.

[Zeebu]

pub counts as an event?

[Ephemeral]

Please don't take my random details as 'the right way'. To be perfectly honest in many of these threads the details of the changes is not the point I am trying to make. I don't care how the zone may actually consolidate. The fact that so many people simply refuse to even acknowledge that the zone should be listing out its change requests and then assigning priorities is pretty telling why we are in the shape we are in. My point has been not about the changes themselves but about how we make changes.

We have many reasons to move away from the current biller. If we do go to a new ASSS server what is the plan? Are we stupid enough to simply think that we can port the zone, poorly done stuff and all, to the new server and call it day? Obviously many thing will have to be, or are already actually done, completely rewritten. Are we really going to just ask Dev to rewrite shit that we know doesn't work or desperately needs improving?

In other words, are we going to use the typical 'just git er done' approach without any planning? Just prioritize stuff that the loudest whiner posts about? Or something that a specific staff wants? Or are we finally to a place where we say screw this 'real-time' approach to running changes and getting things done? I see this as the right time to start thinking about HOW we do stuff, and make improvements.

Consolidation may start with the processes the zone uses; leave specific details like league configuration out of it for now. But I am here to tell say; filling the forum up with 'good ideas' doesn't matter shit if we don't improve how we manage change requests. We have to start thinking from the top down and stop thinking that one of us is going to hit on some detail 'good idea' that saves the zone. The 'good ideas' that consume the rare resources we have are those which are lowing hanging fruit; easy to do and easy to say 'look, we have a change'. The true stuff that needs fixing is the hard shit, the processes. No one wants to deal with that, it is far easier to dream up some new way ship setting than to figure out the right time to consolidate features and prioritize them.
eph

[Turban]

now that i'm finally back home, time to go through the problems that imo trench wars currently has and what could be done to potentially stop the population from declining or the degradation of the zone. my advice may fall on deaf ears, but it's still worth a shot.

to some degree distension was a huge success for trench wars. it was a brand-new event with a schedule that players had to follow if they wanted to make any progress. for a while it was actually making people to log in to the game; it also attracted several types of players from pubbers to event players and even twd players. things were looking great. however, distension was destined to fail due to a couple of rather simple reasons, such as the lack of periodical resets; and with that several people would quickly lose interest into the game due to losing all the progress they had made. less and less people were starting to attend distension, but some who quit never returned to public. they just quit after getting bored. not all, but some did.

while scheduling is all fine and dandy, there may be consequences that could potentially happen if things go wrong. it's something you have to consider before actually implementing any changes. i don't think we should do any drastic changes, but rather upperstaff should give some clear "direction" to everyone on how to approach the situation. our european player base is probably beyond help, however if we can keep the small amount of players entertained through the "off hours" of trench wars then we have the chance to salvage our current situation ever so slightly. hosting events to 5 players can be a fun experience for both the host and players and if you keep doing that on a regular basis then more and more people will start joining your events. if we can keep those 5 players logging in on an almost daily basis because they have something to "look forward to" then if we have more random people joining the events, it could actually have a positive impact on the zone population. that's at least one kind of "scheduling" that would work, but it requires someone with time and motivation to actually go through it.

our competitive leagues are fine and should not be tampered with; although, we do need players to get into the "mentality" of helping the zone and actually recruiting new players into squads. this could be done by adding a mentoring system of some sorts to twd rosters with a limit of 10 new players/roster to train and by giving an incentive to the squad captains to actually manage a newbie roster. reward the players and squads for the successes of the new recruits. the last thing we want is any drastic changes in the league system in twd/twl. tweak it up a bit, ease the process of newbies joining squads and we'll be in a good spot. if we have the resources, adding new leagues (such as twd cup) would only be a positive thing. we certainly don't need it, but doubt anyone would hate it and it could help to motivate us to remain active.

public map should be reverted back to the old settings with a couple of tweaks as well. i don't think anyone likes the public cash system and it's actually ruining the public unless it gets improved a lot. it's like a pay-to-win system. new asteroids suck and should be removed, while it was a nice gesture of someone to put the time and effort to make that shit, it wasn't needed. same thing could've been said about the april fool's joke map; no point to do that with our current population. think before acting. old public without a population limit, perhaps pure pub weekends, and some recognition to the best players from the last monthly cycle would be enough to bring pub back to life. probably. might be a bit too optimistic.

sorry if this makes close to no sense. started drinking after a long day to relax a bit.

[Turban]

i think trench wars has always had that issue, eph.

we keep making changes without thinking or properly planning then wonder why things started going downhill. while there's a lot of great ideas are being tossed around, not many of them will ever begin to see daylight if things remain this way. we currently need some proper managing and planning; what we don't need is random people doing several things at once without proper guidance or direction. it's a simple problem without an easy solution.

staff always had that problem, but from what i heard things are slowly getting better with this new staff structure. i just hope they are capable of keeping the staff departments on a tight leash, having them individually doing things with no communication will do us no good.

another short ramble. woop.