Already dead?

[fidy]

Originally Posted by cdotter

I've been playing this game more than TF2,

[be nice]

it's sad to see but if u watch the steam stats FF has dropped in playernumbers significantly. TFC is now almost always ahead of FF.

And on average FF lost more than half the public players.
Even in peaktime there are only about 500-700ppl playing FF nowadays.

but tbh playing FF on a public server isn't fun at all. I guess thats the major difference to TF2 (I havent played it yet). Playing FF on a public server is just totally boring. its like HL DM with classes. But hey, TFC wasnt the best public game so I didnt expect FF to be a great public game.
A nice FF gather on the other hand makes so much fun again like the old tfc times . But waiting for one 16men gather the whole day in irc isnt that much fun either.. damn idler!!! :P

not fairing to well with the "a/d" crowd so far. plays great btw

[EngeeMan]

I wouldn't say it is dead. If it drops below Insurgency's numbers it will be dead.

[~kev~]

One thing, FF has not received its just dues.

http://www.planetfortress.com - has not updated its front page in YEARS!! Other gaming sites insist on comparing tf2 and FF, instead of focusing on the qualities of each and giving each game its own time in the spot light.

The commercial sites are going to bow down to tf2 because its a commercial product. Valve has links to ATI & AMD - so those links will come into play with sites that want to sell advertising space. Very few commercial sites are going to flame tf2 in fear of losing advertising.

Perception affects reality: Because those commercial sites say tf2 is good, so therefore, the game is good in peoples minds.

FF is the best mod that has come out since counter-stike. But, because the timing of the release of ff is so close to tf2, the popularity of ff is being displaced by tf2.

In the end, FF will gain more popularity with the hard core TFC players then tf2 will. People seeking a real multi-player experience will play FF.

[Owoc]

Originally Posted by EngeeMan

I wouldn't say it is dead. If it drops below Insurgency's numbers it will be dead.

Is Insurgency dead in your opinion?

[Scuzzy]

Originally Posted by cdotter

Is this game already dead?

No.

Scuzzy

[df`]

We're now consistently losing to Natural Selection.....

Not good.

Being a veteran of the TFC community, I can tell you that everyone gets to a point where you get bored of the game. I played TFC for YEARS... it was a big part of my life for about 4 years... but there becomes a time when you simply cannot enjoy it the same way did you before. Take the way blizzard does their games. Starcraft 2 will be vastly different from Starcraft... but will still have a lot of the same features. Same with warcraft 2 to warcraft 3.. the addition of heroes and creeping drastically altered the way the game is played, but the basic foundation of the game is still there.

I blame the FF beta testers for the lack of interest in this game. The beta testers should have offered more ideas for change. There needed to be more creativity in the creation of this game to draw people in that loved TFC. I don't actually think there is a lot of interest in FF from players who played TFC when it was in its prime many many years ago. I only recognize a few names on this forum from when I clanned TFC (Defrag, Gunslinger, maybe a few more). I do not predict this game going anywhere unless drastic changes are made to differentiate the game from TFC.

I could see FF becoming a lot more popular if more creativity and unique ideas are implemented into the game (this doesn't mean slow the game down or completely remove the grenades necessarily, but change the weapons, add new ones, and/or change/remove certain classes). This is not a flame.. this is the best constructive criticism the FF staff has gotten thus far.

[Sabre]

Delusions of grandure springs to mind.

[barronofhellion]

Originally Posted by Dr.Uudge

LOL. Deadly Furby ------> Post Digger Guru.

didn't have to dig far, those are probably his last posts... serious people just stop posting in threads like this, that way all the haters/trolls can just jerk eachother off ... and we dont have to know what they do

[mervaka]

Originally Posted by benjpac

<big post>

beta testers weren't there at a stage when big creative decisions could be taken, i'm afraid :/ i started off as a beta tester back in october last year, and a lot of the design decisions had already been taken.

[Ihmhi]

Originally Posted by benjpac

I blame the FF beta testers for the lack of interest in this game. The beta testers should have offered more ideas for change. There needed to be more creativity in the creation of this game to draw people in that loved TFC.

The beta testers certainly offered plenty of ideas for changing the game.

The tester forums are fairly active and discussion is always going on about how the game currently plays and how that can be improved.

That said, it is not "our fault" for all of the dozens of interesting and new ideas that testers, devs, and forumgoers came up with being implemented. The problem is the devs lack the manpower to get things done in any sort of reasonably fast manner.

You are more than welcome to learn Source SDK and C++ coding and volunteer yourself to help (on your own free time, no less!).

[squeek.]

Originally Posted by benjpac

Being a veteran of the TFC community, I can tell you that everyone gets to a point where you get bored of the game. I played TFC for YEARS... it was a big part of my life for about 4 years... but there becomes a time when you simply cannot enjoy it the same way did you before. Take the way blizzard does their games. Starcraft 2 will be vastly different from Starcraft... but will still have a lot of the same features. Same with warcraft 2 to warcraft 3.. the addition of heroes and creeping drastically altered the way the game is played, but the basic foundation of the game is still there.

I blame the FF beta testers for the lack of interest in this game. The beta testers should have offered more ideas for change. There needed to be more creativity in the creation of this game to draw people in that loved TFC. I don't actually think there is a lot of interest in FF from players who played TFC when it was in its prime many many years ago. I only recognize a few names on this forum from when I clanned TFC (Defrag, Gunslinger, maybe a few more). I do not predict this game going anywhere unless drastic changes are made to differentiate the game from TFC.

I could see FF becoming a lot more popular if more creativity and unique ideas are implemented into the game (this doesn't mean slow the game down or completely remove the grenades necessarily, but change the weapons, add new ones, and/or change/remove certain classes). This is not a flame.. this is the best constructive criticism the FF staff has gotten thus far.

I'd say that FF should be more for the new generation of gamers than the old TFC community. As you said, people who played TFC competitively for 4 odd years probably won't want to play a new fortress game unless it gets an extremely large playerbase, thus a reason to improve their skills. Somehow we need to bring the new generation of gamers into FF, and get it hugely popular. That is the difficult part though.

Somehow the old buzz of TFC that brought new players to the game has died, and it has been replaced by simpler (don't nitpick this term please), slower, casual, aim-based games like Halo, TF2, CS, etc. Plus WoW and all MMO's. It seems like the new generation of gamers absolutely must have a 'pick up and play'-style game, with one or two skills to improve upon (aim, reflexes). FF/TFC requires MUCH more than one or two skills; it requires a lot of dedication to master even one of the classes (concing, movement, anticipation, bunnyhopping, strafing, nading, aim, reflexes, quick decisions, etc, etc, etc) and therefore is unlike any current popular game on the market.

TFC captured a generation with that depth of play, and somehow FF needs to do the same. How, though?... I have no idea.

[Dr.Uudge]

Originally Posted by benjpac

Being a veteran of the TFC community... I played TFC for YEARS... it was a big part of my life for about 4 years...

Originally Posted by benjpac

I played in multiple top clans in TFC for over a period of 4 years. I know all the little tricks in the game. Obviously I found the play style extremely fun to play it for 4 years. My entire point is that FF brings us nothing new. After 4 years of TFC,...

Originally Posted by benjpac

How does FF take more skill than TF2 exactly? I played in top tfc clans, which is pretty much exactly the same as FF.. and I have no idea how you can figure that FF takes more skill and is "deeper"...

Originally Posted by benjpac

I was a hardcore tf player in top clans..

Originally Posted by benjpac

I played TFC for like 5 years and I was in top clans.. did all the big leagues and all that shit..

I'm confused. By any chance, did you ever play in the top clans? Or play TFC for more than or around 4 years?

Originally Posted by benjpac

Take the way blizzard does their games. Starcraft 2 will be vastly different from Starcraft... but will still have a lot of the same features. Same with warcraft 2 to warcraft 3.. the addition of heroes and creeping drastically altered the way the game is played, but the basic foundation of the game is still there.

Wait, but none of that is new. Blizzard mainly just combined the elements in D2 and starcraft, with elements in WC2 to get WC3. The major difference was the engine, but little things have been done before by blizzard's other games.

Besides, i wager TF2 would be wiping FF's butt with kleenex if FF had as many programers as TF2 and the same amount of time. None of the TF2 purists want to admit it, but if FF had its own algorithms for lighing, had its own graphics boost to smooth animations, models, facial expressions, and even dynamic extras like blinking lights on the rocket/IC shooter from world view, or even idle world view animations like dod, or player view idle animations for the weapons, TF2 would have been so deep in the failboat, it would have overturned 2 times, once for using double talk to change "team" in TF to mean teamplay instead of "team vs team," and second time for replacing a harley with a tricycle with spinning chromes on the wheels.

[punkrockrocks]

THIS GAME WILL NEVER DIE!





for at least 3 years

[arsenal]

Bit of a vicious cycle really, the less players there are playing, the less people want to play.

If I want to play a specific map with a decent amount of players I usually have to wait a good hour or two till a populated server switches to it.

Dr.Uudge - I think you assume too much. I addressed the problem with FF and I think it's pretty valid. We need new content.. no amount of modelers would help if the game play is still identical to TFC.

Sorry beta testers, I guess I was too quick too assume that you all did not give great suggestions. I guess the developers should have gotten more feedback before making the entire game and using the testers as bug finders.

[caesium]

Originally Posted by squeek.

...TFC captured a generation with that depth of play, and somehow FF needs to do the same. How, though?... I have no idea.

You're the most sensible person I've seen around these forums for a while, squeek I've been trying to think of ways to do just that for a while now, and best idea I have so far is tutorial videos teaching players the basic skills for each class, and then showing ppl how cool and unique the game is once you master that class. This would certainly help get newish players who have already found FF get into it much more and learn what the game has to offer, but the problem is it doesn't get anyone new into FF. What do ppl think?

More good and varied maps is another thing FF needs ofc, but that will happen given time. It may just be a case of waiting while this happens and FF gets tweaked and debugged, and then the player numbers will rise. Anyone who has map ideas, open up hammer and get creative!

[mervaka]

fact (or at least opinion!) of the matter is that people want instant results nowadays on the games they play. noone wants to play a game and get beaten to shit. at the same time though, this shortens the shelf life of a game.

i just wish more people had the patience to learn a game.