are we ever

[Bridget]

Originally Posted by Iggy

I'm opposed to anything that removes the skill from the game. I'm not profficiant at everything, far from it. But I believe that removing the skill based part of the game will do nothing more than echo what TF2 has done to the genre. That said, I do favor changes that will allow beginners to learn to the game, and allow them to become veterans capable of competing with current vets.

Team Fortress 2 removed no skill, in fact I would argue Team Fortress 2 requires more skill to play at higher levels than Fortress Forever. Team Fortress 2 has a lot of casual players, which you ignorantly assume means the game is a skill-less shit-fest of easy, because the entry standard is so low. Players can immediately enjoy the game, and aspiring to a higher standard of play is completely optional.

Fortress Forever is different. There is no low entry standard, and as a result, there is no breathing room for the beginner. It is a do-or-die situation. You must either know how to play the game beforehand or have a huge dedication toward learning to jack yourself up to a standard suitable even for public play. Considering there is no low entry standard, players have no “foundation” to chill on while aspiring to higher levels of play, so they will just join a server, deathmatch as Pyro, then move on to a game where they can actually do something that feels satisfying.

Do you even play Team Fortress 2 actively? I mean, you were so confident in assuming my knowledge was incomplete because I didn’t actively beta test for Fortress Forever, so why not be a little consistent, and admit your opinion means jack-shit because you don’t play Team Fortress 2?

Originally Posted by Iggy

Part of the problem, lies with the gamer of today. I've said it countless times. Gamers want to be able to just join in, and kick ass... you know, pwn people.

Yeah, Iggy, it’s called a video game. It’s a source of entertainment, and as such, people want instant gratification; fucking deal with it. There’s nothing wrong with that. My suggestions have always been that beginners need something to tie them over on their way to mastery, something like the following:

Entry -- Gratification -- Gratification -- Gratification -- Gratification --> Mastery

But, people like you somehow lack the brain capacity to see how you could make the game instantly gratifying to beginners or people aspiring to mastery by making the progress itself pleasing, so you inflate the idea of instant gratification in your heads to mean removing the line to mastery, to make the game immediately conquerable (1) because you’re still stuck in the idea that gratification should only come from mastery (2).

1. Entry -- Poof --> Mastery
2. Entry ---------------------------------------> Mastery, Resulting Gratification

Originally Posted by Iggy

You talk out of your ass about doing this, that and the other thing. You know damned well that we have few active Devs(and I don't see people knocking down the doors to assist), and that the time they have is very limited. Yet you sit there and keep tossing out rants about how they should dedicate every waking moment to a game that frankly, they won't make a penny off of. These are people with real life jobs, families, and responcibilities.

Instead of bitching all the time, why don't you do something positive for a change? You put enough effort into being a negative nancy, redirect it and do something positive for once.

I have recognized this in the past, Iggy, why do you continue to bring it up? I realize there are only so many developers, all volunteering their time, and as such, only so much time and resource is available. That doesn’t justify that time and resource going to waste. Seriously, if you guys were using your time and resource toward fixing actual problems, I would be totally forgiving with the delays (to be honest, if you focused on what needed to get done, these delays wouldn’t exist.) but from my experience in the beta, that hasn’t been the case. What little time and resource has gone to waste on silly changes that will probably never make it to a patch. That’s what pisses me off; the terrible allocation of time and resource. As a result of your inability to simply focus on what needs to get done, the game’s progress is hindered, and players wait a year or two for a fucking patch.

And, please, stop trying to shovel the blame on to me. Why do you do this stupid tactic every time I am critical? "Fortress Forever sucks, okay, Bridget, why don't you do something about it?" It's mostly because I am not in a position to do that. I don't have the technical ability to do it. I have offered my skills to other facets of Fortress Forever development, but they have all been denied. I offered to write for you guys, but that was turned down. I want(ed) to write for the Wiki, but no effort has been made to fix the Wiki, which has been broken for months now. I, and others, have done a lot of positive things within our ability, even if you can not or do not acknowledge them.

[squeek.]

Originally Posted by The Drizzle

Perhaps it's time that development was turned over to people who "have less of a life" and more of an interest in developing the game. An update a year is a dead mod, time to let it go to better people with more time.

'Cause obviously there are people lined up at the door and we're just shutting them out?

[[AE] 82694]

Well I see things haven't changed around here. Still the same old bitch and moans from the same bitch's.

[The Drizzle]

I know of several individuals who are interested, when do you want to transition your power and the source-code?

[squeek.]

Originally Posted by The Drizzle

I know of several individuals who are interested, when do you want to transition your power and the source-code?

Yet they aren't interested enough to get in contact with any of the development team or even be a part of the community in any form? Sounds like a surefire move. What could go wrong?

In the meantime, I'll wait for them to do something if they are so interested (like make a thread in the Public to Team Communication forum, email us, apply to be a dev, etc). This is a community-driven and community-created mod. If they don't want to be a part of the community, then they have no business working for it.

If they want to join the dev team, they will have as much "power" as they ever will have (unless they somehow have a paid staff to bring along with them). They will have access to the source code (given they are a programmer), and will have to convince the other devs and betas that what they want to do is a good idea, deserves effort, functions well, and needs to be added to the release. Power is a relative term in an all-volunteer team. More accurately, they would be seeking influence; and influence is earned, not given.

[moosh]

I think he was joking.

[Gwarsbane]

There goes people bashing OT again because they have rules that they enforce so that THEY and others that like those rules can enjoy themselves.

And ohhhhhh 3% of the peoples that have played on their servers are banned, Oh no the world is ending.... Course that is over what 6 or 7 different servers, from when ever the first OT servers were first brought on line at least 5 to 6 years or more ago. (I'm sure its longer then 6, i just can't remember).

And if someone causes trouble on one of their servers they have every right to ban them from ALL their servers. I've seen idiots in the past go from server to server over different games for one group causing problems on every one of the servers. I used to do the exact same thing as OT and ban idiots from all the servers I used to admin. It never hurt the community, in fact it helped the community because it got rid of the trouble makers.

You guys keep blaming ONE server for the problems of the community. Ever consider that its all the other servers that don't have any rules thats driving away the community?

No of course not. Because its much easier to blame a server you were banned from because you broke their rules many many times.

I don't even know why I bother posting here anymore. The admins won't get rid of the trolls who will course jump on this post and call me names.

Though they could actually surprise me and keep their mouths shut, but I doubt that will happen, they will just come up with more lies.

[unbankthx]

Originally Posted by Gwarsbane

And ohhhhhh 3% of the peoples that have played on their servers are banned,

I'd like to hear the methodology that went into creating that statistic. Feel free to post the data.

[The Drizzle]

Originally Posted by squeek.

Yet they aren't interested enough to get in contact with any of the development team or even be a part of the community in any form? Sounds like a surefire move. What could go wrong?

In the meantime, I'll wait for them to do something if they are so interested (like make a thread in the Public to Team Communication forum, email us, apply to be a dev, etc). This is a community-driven and community-created mod. If they don't want to be a part of the community, then they have no business working for it.

If they want to join the dev team, they will have as much "power" as they ever will have (unless they somehow have a paid staff to bring along with them). They will have access to the source code (given they are a programmer), and will have to convince the other devs and betas that what they want to do is a good idea, deserves effort, functions well, and needs to be added to the release. Power is a relative term in an all-volunteer team. More accurately, they would be seeking influence; and influence is earned, not given.

Squeek, it's clear that you and the current team have incredible busy lives, we have heard the excuse that you're just too busy to update the mod more then once per year. We all commend that you have created a good out-of-game life and wish you well, but it's clear to everyone here that it is hurting the overall development of the mod. The game has lost 90% of it's player-base on your watch. If you say that it needs to be earned I am sorry, but you did not earn it and you have clearly lost it by the outcome of your decisions and changes to the game. The lack of updates, the non-existent marketing, and the continued development team bickering amongst themselves proves that the game needs a new direction and team. You say this is a community driven mod, but it's clear that the community does not agree with the direction you personally have chosen. It's not a community driven mod, but there are many of us that believe it can be. The community needs more then you're able to offer it. We realize you have a life, we are all now acknowledging it, but even you must see that it's time you stepped aside. We appreciate what you've done, but we're all asking to allow the game to move on. The community is small enough and updates are so rare that it's time the game became open-source or at least open-community based. Give the community access to OUR game, the one we have contributed too and created over the years.

[The Drizzle]

Originally Posted by unbankthx

I'd like to hear the methodology that went into creating that statistic. Feel free to post the data.

ban list
there you go princess. . .oh and its only 2.48% if that makes you feel any better

[Bridget]

Originally Posted by Gwarsbane

There goes people bashing OT again because they have rules that they enforce so that THEY and others that like those rules can enjoy themselves.

I support the Old Timer's right to run their server, but that doesn't mean I support the way it is actually run. This seems to be the case with most people. People have their opinions. Learn to fucking deal with it. If your server is run backwards as fuck, then expect a response, just as much as you preach one should expect to be banned for violations.

Originally Posted by Gwarsbane

I don't even know why I bother posting here anymore. The admins won't get rid of the trolls who will course jump on this post and call me names.

Wah, I don't have impunity. People can actually argue against me. What is this world coming to?

[unbankthx]

Originally Posted by The Drizzle

ban list
there you go princess. . .oh and its only 2.48% if that makes you feel any better

Again, that does not explain the methodology. Are those numbers for all the unique players on ALL of the OT servers across ALL games? How consistent is the data? Was there ever data lost? When did you guys begin collecting it? Have you been collecting data since the beginning of FF? If that's the case, then it's easy to see those numbers making sense, because when the game was new, lots of people played it. If you tried to tell me that even two years ago that out of the entire active FF community, less than 50% were banned from the OT server, I'd laugh.

Data is easy to skew in your favor. Throwing in a hundred thousand players who played the game for maybe less than an hour total, and never picked up the game can certainly make the impact of the OT banlist seem not as harmless as it really is. There's many confounding variables that can possibly be shown that exhibit the OT banlist is actually harmful, but since you guys don't show your methodology when you come up with those statistics that you publicly list, I have a hard time taking them with more than a grain of rice. If you data was updated, I think it's clear that it would show that at least half or more of the current active FF population was banned at your servers.

[The Drizzle]

Originally Posted by unbankthx

Again, that does not explain the methodology. Are those numbers for all the unique players on ALL of the OT servers across ALL games? How consistent is the data? Was there ever data lost? When did you guys begin collecting it? Have you been collecting data since the beginning of FF? If that's the case, then it's easy to see those numbers making sense, because when the game was new, lots of people played it. If you tried to tell me that even two years ago that out of the entire active FF community, less than 50% were banned from the OT server, I'd laugh.

The only way your 50% figure will come true is if we shut our server down. Unfortunately that wont happen unless our player base decides they no longer want to play FF.

Just give me the source code and I will save this mod. I will get out the chest paddles and get that heat beating again.

Or you can continue on like this


Our community is strong. . .is yours?

[Bridget]

Originally Posted by The Drizzle

Just give me the source code and I will save this mod. I will get out the chest paddles and get that heat beating again.?

Old Timers Fortress, Patch 2.42

• Cursing beeped out from vocal audio.
• Blood and gore replaced with duckies, toy boats, cogs, and fish bones.
• Melee weapons replaced with pillows. Pillow fight!
• Particle system implemented to improve pillow feather dynamics.
• Chat is now parsed to filter out harsh language.
• Your full name, address, and social networking pages are now logged upon ban.
• Microphone usage is now limited to ten minutes of total use per day.
• Our banlist can now be accessed directly through the Main Menu.
• All projectile based weapons replaced with Nerf Guns.
• Grenades have been replaced with Water Balloons.
• Dispenser now dispenses stickers and coloring books.
• Sentry Gun now simply lights up and plays a silly sound. (Still as useful as it was before!)
• Medics now drop fresh vegetables and fruits instead of Medkits.
• Infection removed due to possible offenses to those who have H1N1.
• Medkit remodelled to a metal tin of kid friendly bandages for boo-boos and ouchies.
• Detpacks have been replaced with Confetti Cannons.
• Hints now display bible verses instead of gameplay tips.
• Capture the Flag changed to a more friendly cooperative version: Give The Flag
  

[Iggy]

Originally Posted by unbankthx

Again, that does not explain the methodology. Are those numbers for all the unique players on ALL of the OT servers across ALL games? How consistent is the data? Was there ever data lost? When did you guys begin collecting it? Have you been collecting data since the beginning of FF? If that's the case, then it's easy to see those numbers making sense, because when the game was new, lots of people played it. If you tried to tell me that even two years ago that out of the entire active FF community, less than 50% were banned from the OT server, I'd laugh.

Data is easy to skew in your favor. Throwing in a hundred thousand players who played the game for maybe less than an hour total, and never picked up the game can certainly make the impact of the OT banlist seem not as harmless as it really is. There's many confounding variables that can possibly be shown that exhibit the OT banlist is actually harmful, but since you guys don't show your methodology when you come up with those statistics that you publicly list, I have a hard time taking them with more than a grain of rice. If you data was updated, I think it's clear that it would show that at least half or more of the current active FF population was banned at your servers.

Who cares if it's just their FF server, or if it's all of their game servers? An assbag is an assbag. A banned assbag is no longer a problem for you. Did you actually read that page? With very few exceptions, the ban is explained. Why can't you admit to the fact that there are players who aren't mature enough to control themselves enough to obey a server's rules? Also, consider that the number might be skewed by the number of assholes who simply went there with the intent of being banned, so they could come here and cry foul. Yes, I've seen it happen. One person gets banned, tells a bunch of their e-friends, who act all tough on the internet and flood the server with a bunch of bullshit. End result? BANNED. Next thing you know, a bunch of people are bitching about OT... and yeah, some people end up thinking that OT bans people for every least little infraction, when it simply isn't true.

[Gwarsbane]

Originally Posted by unbankthx

I'd like to hear the methodology that went into creating that statistic. Feel free to post the data.

This is off Drizzle's link
http://forums.oldtimersclan.org/ot_b...fset=4200&typ=
As you can see, the bans go all the way back to 2005. Though again I'm pretty sure I heard someone say they are older then that.

And as you can see at the bottom of that page they have 6 servers currently. I believe they have had different games and different number of servers over the years.


And just so some people don't go trying to make stuff up, for the most part, people are given many many chances before getting banned. Even those that get banned are usually given more then one chance to come back, even those that have knowingly used a racial slur which is usually an instant auto ban offense.

[Gwarsbane]

Originally Posted by Iggy

Who cares if it's just their FF server, or if it's all of their game servers? An assbag is an assbag. A banned assbag is no longer a problem for you. Did you actually read that page? With very few exceptions, the ban is explained. Why can't you admit to the fact that there are players who aren't mature enough to control themselves enough to obey a server's rules? Also, consider that the number might be skewed by the number of assholes who simply went there with the intent of being banned, so they could come here and cry foul. Yes, I've seen it happen. One person gets banned, tells a bunch of their e-friends, who act all tough on the internet and flood the server with a bunch of bullshit. End result? BANNED. Next thing you know, a bunch of people are bitching about OT... and yeah, some people end up thinking that OT bans people for every least little infraction, when it simply isn't true.

Thank you Iggy.

[unbankthx]

Originally Posted by Iggy

Who cares if it's just their FF server, or if it's all of their game servers? An assbag is an assbag. A banned assbag is no longer a problem for you. Did you actually read that page? With very few exceptions, the ban is explained. Why can't you admit to the fact that there are players who aren't mature enough to control themselves enough to obey a server's rules? Also, consider that the number might be skewed by the number of assholes who simply went there with the intent of being banned, so they could come here and cry foul. Yes, I've seen it happen. One person gets banned, tells a bunch of their e-friends, who act all tough on the internet and flood the server with a bunch of bullshit. End result? BANNED. Next thing you know, a bunch of people are bitching about OT... and yeah, some people end up thinking that OT bans people for every least little infraction, when it simply isn't true.

I love how you completely went in a completely different direction than my post. The point was that the statistic that only '3%' of the FF community is banned at OT. That number is clearly flawed, and is clearly only true if you believe the smoke and mirrors act that OT puts on. 3% of the current FF community is like..... 2 people. If you include every single person that plays at your server for the past 6 years, and then try and pass that statistic off as valid today, when the active community is not more than a hundred people strong, then there's clearly something wrong here.

I agree, OT can do whatever they want with their own server. I'm a huge fan of private property. However, you aren't entitled to your own facts, especially when you try and use claims like the one above to try and displace the harm you caused on the community off yourself. I'm not going to attempt to blame OT for the fall of FF, because it's clear to me, it's not their fault.

It's as simple as that. You wanna try and use a statistic to minimize the perceived harm you guys caused the community (Keyword: Perceived), that's fine, but being a little intellectually honest is the least you can do if you're already taking the time to draw up such a statistic. People like me, who have seen hundreds, probably thousands complain about being banned at OT for minor offenses, and then hear that, 'Oh, only 3% of the FF userbase is banned!', and as someone who has an amateur interest in statistics, that rings some pretty massive alarm bells.

[Lynus]

And just so some people don't go trying to make stuff up, for the most part, people are given many many chances before getting banned.

clearly a lie. scuztools instant bans for a multitude of things.

also. yea why hide the truth about the true % of banned FF players from your shit server? its obvious you're scewing the real data with other server bans.

gwarsbane a joke.

the drizzle : if you think you can save the mod and get its "heart" beating again, apply for the dev team. I'll tell you why you wont though. It's either a)you dont know the first thing about coding and would rather spew shit from your mouth and anus at the same time on these forums because you have nothing better to do.
or its b)you do actually know something about C++ but due to being affiliated with OT, your solution to balancing gameplay would be to ban anyone who is better than you and would make for an easy"DENIED"

btw FF mods(iggy) : my last post got deleted... why? an old retired staff can come on here n say whatever the fuck he feels like "same ol bitchin you bitches", but i fire back at him and i get the shaft? what i said was true, noone gives 2 shits or a fuck about what a retired ff staff member says, especially if its a useless "same old bitchin you bitches" post. its the retired FF staffers fault the game isnt on orange box, steamworks, polished and shining. they bailed on us, FUCK EM!

[Bridget]

Originally Posted by Lynus

ban anyone who is better than you and would make for an easy

That sounds like something you do in #ff.pickup.