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Old 04-17-2010, 08:11 AM   #1
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No one plays this mod anymore?

Hi, this is going to be my first post in this forum.

I don't know if this is an issue with my steam account or not, but I just downloaded this mod about two days ago, and immediately noticed that the amount of servers available total no more than about ten at the most. Of those always only two servers have very few people playing. What happened? I remember that there was a lot of hype surrounding this mod a few years ago before Team Fortress 2 was even announced. It would be great if this mod supported bots to make up for the lack of players.

Last edited by Fariseus; 04-17-2010 at 08:14 AM.
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Old 04-17-2010, 08:28 AM   #2
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Well that's the reality. There's usually one almost full euro server and one almost full american server up at the same time.
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Old 04-17-2010, 08:34 AM   #3
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Sadly, I think most people were just playing this mod as a holdover until Team Fortress 2 was released. I still prefer Fortress Forever over TF2 though, as it resembles TFC the most, I have had some trouble getting used to the new changes in TF2.
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Old 04-17-2010, 08:47 AM   #4
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I really have no idea why FF is so unpopular too.
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Old 04-17-2010, 09:04 AM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fariseus View Post
Sadly, I think most people were just playing this mod as a holdover until Team Fortress 2 was released. I still prefer Fortress Forever over TF2 though, as it resembles TFC the most, I have had some trouble getting used to the new changes in TF2.
I'm not sure when you played FF or for how long, but the TF2 beta was released ~3 days after FF 1.0 (FF announced its release date, and then TF2 announced its beta release date as the exact same day, so FF released a bit early). The playercount for FF dropped from the 1000's to the 100's in that first week of release.

We have a steady and tight-nit, yet small, playerbase, as we always have had. Once we feel the game is ready, we'll aim to get 1000's of players again and attempt to hold them this time. Until then, you can play the game, spread the word, and/or help to develop the game. There is no magic wand that we can wave. Bots would be nice, but they need to be programmed and someone has to volunteer their time to do the coding.
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Old 04-17-2010, 09:44 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by squeek. View Post
I'm not sure when you played FF or for how long, but the TF2 beta was released ~3 days after FF 1.0 (FF announced its release date, and then TF2 announced its beta release date as the exact same day, so FF released a bit early). The playercount for FF dropped from the 1000's to the 100's in that first week of release.
Well that's what i'm saying. This mod began development long before TF2 was announced to come out. At that time I believe FF had a larger fanbase but when Valve made the announcement of the new game people lost interest in this mod. TF2 released only a little bit later and as soon as people were able to play the beta they switched over to that game. If FF had released months earlier we might have had a larger community, plus more newcomers to the series would have been aware of this mod as it would have been the only team fortress game available for the source engine at the time, thus increasing it's fanbase. I know it's difficult for a mod to compete with a commercial game, but this mod should also be advertised more.

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We have a steady and tight-nit, yet small, playerbase, as we always have had. Once we feel the game is ready, we'll aim to get 1000's of players again and attempt to hold them this time. Until then, you can play the game, spread the word, and/or help to develop the game. There is no magic wand that we can wave. Bots would be nice, but they need to be programmed and someone has to volunteer their time to do the coding.
Do you know what the developers have in store for this mod to make it attract new players?

Last edited by Fariseus; 04-17-2010 at 09:52 AM.
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Old 04-17-2010, 10:58 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fariseus View Post
Well that's what i'm saying. This mod began development long before TF2 was announced to come out. At that time I believe FF had a larger fanbase but when Valve made the announcement of the new game people lost interest in this mod. TF2 released only a little bit later and as soon as people were able to play the beta they switched over to that game. If FF had released months earlier we might have had a larger community, plus more newcomers to the series would have been aware of this mod as it would have been the only team fortress game available for the source engine at the time, thus increasing it's fanbase. I know it's difficult for a mod to compete with a commercial game, but this mod should also be advertised more.
The past can't be changed. What happened happened. I also don't think it's useful to think of FF as competing with TF2. All games are competing for players with all other games. It's hard for all Source mods to retain players at this point; it's not FF specific and I don't think it's caused by TF2.

Quote:
Do you know what the developers have in store for this mod to make it attract new players?
First and foremost: Making the game better. That means making it easier to see why the game is good, why it is unique, and why it is worth playing, while also improving the game as a whole.
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Last edited by squeek.; 04-17-2010 at 11:03 AM.
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Old 04-17-2010, 11:07 AM   #8
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to be honest, there was a boom when the goldsrc sdk was first released. expectation standards were low, and mods were few. in the days of sourcemods, that's the other way around, sadly. so many good mods go unrewarded by an insatiable playerbase. like squeek says, this isn't FF specific. mods now have to compete at the same level as professionally made games.
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Old 04-17-2010, 06:54 PM   #9
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Guy says he can only see 10 servers. That is a problem since I believe there should be at least more than 10 available. Even though there are unpopulated servers, there should be more than 10.

I have experienced a problem where not all servers show up. WTF is this problem? I don't know. I have been told deleting the two files in

C:\Program Files\Steam\config\serverbrowser.vdf
and
C:\Program Files\Steam\config\masterservers.vdf

and then restarting Steam seems to be a temporary fix, but it does not always work for me.

Fariseus, as of right now, I can view 12. One server in my favorites is not even listed in the main search and there are no filters on.

Unless it's true that now all those empty servers have called it quits and there are only 12-ish servers around... maybe this needs to be looked into. Would suck if when the next update comes, more people experience this and think there's still hardly anyone playing.
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Old 04-17-2010, 07:01 PM   #10
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It's out of our control. The server browser is entirely controlled by Steam/Valve.
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Old 04-17-2010, 07:13 PM   #11
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Steam has been having some problems lately with the server browser.
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Old 04-17-2010, 08:00 PM   #12
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Well when the mod launched it saw MASSIVE numbers because everyone was waiting for TF2. After TF2 was released, it started dwindling off. Being released on the Steam store as a mod saw another boost, but that dwindled off too.

From an AvD perspective, I was able to get 3 of my friends onboard and playing pretty regularly up through about 2.0. After that, they all more or less quit because they found the balance way too lopsided. Too easy as O, and too hard as D. I think many newcomers may appreciate AvD over CTF. There's a more tangible objective, you get a lot more action quickly, and if a person just wants to DM, that still helps the team. I would promote the shit out of this mod, but I can't endorse it myself anymore in its current state. If I did, I think people would download it, try it out, think it's cool at first, then find the gameplay too frustrating or easy, then leave.

From a CTF league perspective, I remember reading some forum posts a while back about how several clans were not happy with the 2.0+ changes and basically started falling out after that. I could be wrong on that however, and don't know the full story. If there's someone who had more perspective on what what was going on there (why CTF clans dropped essentially), I'd be interested to hear it.
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Old 04-17-2010, 08:31 PM   #13
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Originally Posted by chilledsanity View Post
From a CTF league perspective, I remember reading some forum posts a while back about how several clans were not happy with the 2.0+ changes and basically started falling out after that. I could be wrong on that however, and don't know the full story. If there's someone who had more perspective on what what was going on there (why CTF clans dropped essentially), I'd be interested to hear it.
The 2.0 patch dropped league and pickup activity (the SG and the no-choice-to-use jump pad made things dumb). Every patch since has had pretty consistent activity.
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Old 04-17-2010, 09:43 PM   #14
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So many of you think there is a problem with the server browser? I didn't thought so at first, since I checked out the server list for CS:S and DOD:S and the list goes over a 1000+ servers as usual, does this problem only affect mods?
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Old 04-17-2010, 09:57 PM   #15
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There still appears to be an issue with the server browser. I just checked and only see 15 FF servers available where I usually see close to 100.

there was a Steam update released yesterday (iirc) that was supposed to address the issue but apparently it's not 100% resolved yet.

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Old 04-17-2010, 11:13 PM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by squeek. View Post
The 2.0 patch dropped league and pickup activity (the SG and the no-choice-to-use jump pad made things dumb). Every patch since has had pretty consistent activity.
Huh, I didn't know it rebounded. Any stats on pre 2.0 numbers v. current ones or has there been any record of that sort of thing?

Also what about the 2.0 sg made it a problem against 1.11? If I remember correctly, the airpush and health got weakened, but the tracking got better.

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Old 04-17-2010, 11:25 PM   #17
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Huh, I didn't know it rebounded. Any stats on pre 2.0 numbers v. current ones or has there been any record of that sort of thing?

Also what about the 2.0 sg made it a problem against 1.11? If I remember correctly, the airpush and health got weakened, but the tracking got better.
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Old 04-17-2010, 11:52 PM   #18
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It also bears repeating that if you join one of those empty servers and idle for a few minutes, and maybe invite a few friends, often more people will join.
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Old 04-18-2010, 12:23 AM   #19
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^ This remains the fastest way to fill a pub. There's a decent amount of players who just look around with the attitude of "Oh.. no one seems to be playing. I'm not going to join an empty server." Those players join in.

It also helps if you've friended members of the FF community as they'll be notified that you've started playing and might hop on. I know this, at least, happens fairly often for the Beta.
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Old 04-18-2010, 01:21 AM   #20
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like today. me and caes went int to test some dev variables. we attracted two more beta testers in like, 5 minutes. and this was during the afternoon.
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