No one plays this mod anymore?

[Spectorials]

Firstly, my real nick is Spector... have not logged into these forums for a while and password reset wasn't working - little annoying.

Background - I used to be a competitive player in Australian / New Zealand competitive scene for TFC, played for about 8 years. I also used to compete with international teams and have scrims with country teams. I was hugely into the game and also loved the community... I still visit the site where it all started to this day (www.ozfortress.com) and have 7,000 odd posts there. The reason why TFC was great despite the (comparative to other games such as CS and now TF2) lower player base is because the competitive community was fantastic.

Now I can see other people have mentioned this in the thread that the key to a successful game is itscommunity, so how do you get a community to start? Personally, I think this game has had it's chance and it has passed. When news of this mod was first discovered, the TFC community in Au/Nz had huge hopes for it and could not wait to move over. However, very little information was released and the community slowly got smaller and smaller. Numerous attempts were made by our community website to get us involved in the game during early stages but these failed for reason I am unaware of... I know only a handful of 'competitive' (they weren't that good) players from the Au/Nz community that got into alpha/beta stages of the game. I even recall writing a long e-mail expressing my thoughts to one of the devs but never got any replay. By the time the game was released our community was about 1/3 of the size it was when FF was originally announced and initial impressions put most offside - we felt that the game did not feel like or reflect true TFC gameplay. We also felt that some of the flaws could have been avoided by more community interaction during development. Patches 6 months down the track were tried by some (including me) and there were some improvements, but by that time the community was so small that no new community could be created.

In short I think you guys needed to bring the communities all around the world on side a lot earlier. I think you kind of missed the boat... the communities that you needed initially had to be built upon the existing communities.

I really miss TFC and hoped that FF would replace it one day, bring all my old TFC mates along into a new community. Unforunately it didn't turn out that way and my hopes for this game are long gone (apologies).

Anyway, I do hope you succeed in getting a better player base in the future. I think it will be difficult because you will not be able to source players from the old TFC/QWTF communities readily.

Please not that this post is not meant to be a dig or anything personal towards the team here, I am merely trying to express why I feel the game failed in Aus/Nz. Good luck.

[Scuzzy]

The Deathticles post and subsequent conversation have been moved to: http://forums.fortress-forever.com/s...ad.php?t=21779

Scuzzy

[JackBauer]

I used to play TFC too, like most on here, and I really wanted FF to become at least as big as TFC back then. Imo FF is already better than TFC although not perfect yet, it's close to perfection.

it's a shame because the game really deserves better.

[Bridget]

Fortress Forever's defeat comes with the fact that there is no legitimate way for beginner to integrate into this game. If you don't join the game with already formed knowledge on how to concussion jump, concussion aim, bunnyhop, and so on, then your experience is going to be pretty bad. You're going to get stepped on over and over. That's exactly what happens too. Someone goes Scout and tries to run the flag without bunnyhop or concs and gets owned, someone tries to play Engineer and keep their gun up and gets owned, someone tries to play Medic and support their team and gets owned, and examples and examples.

There is no platform for beginners to begin learning the things that make Fortress Forever fun. You can display over and over what makes the game fun, but when the beginner jumps up and can't immediately perform those skills or has nothing to compensate while he learns those skills, he isn't going to be much interested in playing the game at such a disadvantage. Now, the development team is making current strides at making the game more accessible at lower levels of play, but I think it might be too late for that.

Any change that gives beginners a better chance at integrating into Fortress Forever is met with opposition from a conservative and fundamental competitive community. They love perpetuating artificially difficult or counter-intuitive mechanics to create a default line between them and the public community. They build up tolerance to these terribly implemented mechanics, and then out of their own struggle, feel it is necessary to subject everyone else to the same torment. No thanks.

Fortress Forever injects its competitive community right into the public community. The game is built to be played competitively and to appeal to a small number of players. So, I don't understand why we continue to be worried why the game isn't taking off. Why go through the trouble with advertising and trying to get the game on Steamworks or discussing Orangebox if you know in the back of your mind that your game will pretty much never be marketable to those in the market? Waste of time?

[[AE] 82694]

Originally Posted by Bridget

Fortress Forever injects its competitive community right into the public community. The game is built to be played competitively and to appeal to a small number of players. So, I don't understand why we continue to be worried why the game isn't taking off. Why go through the trouble with advertising and trying to get the game on Steamworks or discussing Orangebox if you know in the back of your mind that your game will pretty much never be marketable to those in the market? Waste of time?

This may not be on purpose, because we have tried numerous times to bridge the gap between competitive and public play but it sure hits the nail on the head Bridget.

[chilledsanity]

Bridget: Good point. TFC was just as daunting, but it had more rookie classes. In TFC, engineer was a pretty good newbie class, you could make an sg and it would almost certainly get some kills for you before someone took it out. Like you said, not so in FF, you'll get stomped on. Hwguy was the other good rookie class in TFC, you just had to aim it at a player near you and fire and would dish out a lot of pain. There's some of that in FF, but not nearly to the same extent. I'm not sure FF has a rookie class; that is, one that you can just jump in, having not played the game, and be effective.

Now don't confuse me with saying new players should be just as good as skilled ones (that's for TF2), I'm saying TFC had a couple classes where you could be effective without a big learning curve. Due to many changes, I don't think FF has that anymore.

[Bridget]

Yeah, there's a difference between watering the overall game down to appeal to beginners or adding mechanics that appeal to beginners while they're progressing to the skill threshold that makes Fortress Forever fun. Let's face it, it's not that people can whizz past defense with concussion grenades or ace an entire team on a ramp as defensive Soldier that turns people off. Everyone wants to be able to do that. It's just that it takes too much to become good enough to do it and Fortress Forever demands this level of skill on a minimum without anything to compensate while you build up to it.

You're right to a degree about the rookie classes. The Engineer's learning curve means players spend so much time constructing their guns which die in a few seconds even under maintenance. Beginners spend all that time building a gun only for it to die in seconds. The Heavy is also, as you point out, pretty shit in this game. His cone is far too tight for close range. People can circle strafe me at close range even when I have the gun hitting them point blank, and it does the same damage you would expect at range. I miss the old overheat system.

The two most intuitive classes are called cheap. The Sniper, I can understand why he is called cheap, and it's rather unfortunate that beginners have no choice to fall back on him. There's also the Pyro, which I think is a great class for beginners. It is very intuitive, it takes a huge risk for huge rewards, though it gets called cheap and beginners are discouraged from playing it. Why? I know it's irritating, but that's not a legitimate reason to discourage people. (Unlike the Sniper)

[chilledsanity]

I disagree on the pyro being a good class for beginners. The pyro's strengths are flame stacking and his awesome vertical movement abilities, something a beginner isn't likely to grasp right away. Unskilled flame jumping makes you more vulnerable than not doing it at all. Skilled flame jumping can be D's worst nightmare on more vertical maps, I've got plenty of avanti games that attest to that. I guess a beginner can run around with the flamethrower and torch people, but they're going to die a lot more than they get any kills. FF Pyro is hands down more effective and beginner friendly than TFC's pyro, but I think it's not as beginner friendly as some other TFC classes.

As for being cheap, I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand, I feel like players should do their absolute most to use every ability available to them. On the other hand if there's a tactic that is almost impossible to stop, then yes, that's cheap. Then if there are a myriad of tactics that give a clear advantage every time that don't have good counters, which is more of a nebulous zone. I feel like it's the devs responsibility to fix outright exploits that ruin balance in a game. However if a clear advantage goes patch after patch with no counter, is it still the devs responsibility or is it matter of players acknowledging this and altering their tactics so as not to be cheap? I don't know.

[GenghisTron]

Originally Posted by Bridget

Fortress Forever's defeat comes with the fact that there is no legitimate way for beginner to integrate into this game. If you don't join the game with already formed knowledge on how to concussion jump, concussion aim, bunnyhop, and so on, then your experience is going to be pretty bad. You're going to get stepped on over and over. That's exactly what happens too. Someone goes Scout and tries to run the flag without bunnyhop or concs and gets owned, someone tries to play Engineer and keep their gun up and gets owned, someone tries to play Medic and support their team and gets owned, and examples and examples.

There is no platform for beginners to begin learning the things that make Fortress Forever fun. You can display over and over what makes the game fun, but when the beginner jumps up and can't immediately perform those skills or has nothing to compensate while he learns those skills, he isn't going to be much interested in playing the game at such a disadvantage. Now, the development team is making current strides at making the game more accessible at lower levels of play, but I think it might be too late for that.

Any change that gives beginners a better chance at integrating into Fortress Forever is met with opposition from a conservative and fundamental competitive community. They love perpetuating artificially difficult or counter-intuitive mechanics to create a default line between them and the public community. They build up tolerance to these terribly implemented mechanics, and then out of their own struggle, feel it is necessary to subject everyone else to the same torment. No thanks.

Fortress Forever injects its competitive community right into the public community. The game is built to be played competitively and to appeal to a small number of players. So, I don't understand why we continue to be worried why the game isn't taking off. Why go through the trouble with advertising and trying to get the game on Steamworks or discussing Orangebox if you know in the back of your mind that your game will pretty much never be marketable to those in the market? Waste of time?

I disagree completely.

You're right, to a new player, this games mechanics will seem alien.

But I don't think we need to cater to their helplessness to make them 'good'. There's many players who see 'good' players, and strive to become like them. Then you have players who don't care about being 'good', and are perfectly content in being mediocre.

Is that the games fault for not adding flashy buttons and doo-dads? I don't think so for a single moment. It's likely that the people who I described as 'helpless' above, are like that in everything they do. They don't apply themselves. It's a further extension of our massive culture deficit otherwise known as 'entitlement'.

Players who are able competitors (In this sense, I don't mean league players, I mean players who are able of demonstrating they understand and can apply advanced tactics and strategies) are always going to be good no matter what game they play. They've empirically learned how to be good at video games (and no, that doesn't necessarily mean they play a lot of video games, although that is commonly the case. It's not mutually exclusive). They learn to question themselves, and instead of blaming the game or the developers for their shortcomings, they ask themselves--'what can I do to get better'? They develop strategies on their own impetus, and run with it.

Big-game developers struggle to maintain a balance in their game that will allow both 'able competitors' and 'helpless gamers' to enjoy their game. That's why virtually every big game out today is watered down--it has to appeal to a broader audience, because it's all about cash now.

And for the record, I'm not one that perpetuates 'artificially difficult mechanics', although there are plenty that are. Having played lots of games myself, I don't think it's even possible to make a game that's balanced, while at the same time, catering to beginner and advanced crowds, and making sure there's sufficient reward and incentive to do whats needed. Certainly not in a game such as FF or TFC. It just isn't possible.

[SmellyCat]

Bridget is mostly right, with the exception of the 'terribly implemented game mechanics'. These are the reasons we play TF/FF and there's no real way of putting them in a game with it being fun for vets AND newbie accessible. If doing so is what you want, then TF2 covers that aspect of gaming far better than a TF mod ever could.


If everyone was terrible and unable to do most of the cool stuff it'd be far less frightening for the newer players. Sadly, we're all far too good these days.

[Raynian]

Originally Posted by GenghisTron

I disagree completely.

You're right, to a new player, this games mechanics will seem alien.

But I don't think we need to cater to their helplessness to make them 'good'. There's many players who see 'good' players, and strive to become like them. Then you have players who don't care about being 'good', and are perfectly content in being mediocre.

Is that the games fault for not adding flashy buttons and doo-dads? I don't think so for a single moment. It's likely that the people who I described as 'helpless' above, are like that in everything they do. They don't apply themselves. It's a further extension of our massive culture deficit otherwise known as 'entitlement'.

Players who are able competitors (In this sense, I don't mean league players, I mean players who are able of demonstrating they understand and can apply advanced tactics and strategies) are always going to be good no matter what game they play. They've empirically learned how to be good at video games (and no, that doesn't necessarily mean they play a lot of video games, although that is commonly the case. It's not mutually exclusive). They learn to question themselves, and instead of blaming the game or the developers for their shortcomings, they ask themselves--'what can I do to get better'? They develop strategies on their own impetus, and run with it.

Most FPSes are just generic click-and-shoots, with different skinned killing weapons. FF is vastly different. Concing, for one, doesn't just "transition from COD or halo or xyz".

There's no incentive to try to get better when there are no chances for small communities to spring up outside the TALOS/OT/Euro servers due to the lack of population, and when the competitive players are all dicks, regardless of being "pickup players" or no. If someone's good, they're a douche about it. Seriously, 9/10ths of the time.

[Dexter]

You know, I've started playing pickups again recently and Im real bad / a noob at most things (except yard dm as a soldier pubbing4life), and 99% of the time if I let my team know that, they stop to show me how to do things, where to play, general strats for maps etc, usually without being condescending dicks about it. A surprisingly nice change

[JackBauer]

the reason why I started playing TFC was because it came with HL opposing force (or was it a pc magazine cd? can't remember). anyway back then I only really knew CS and TFC. there weren't many multiplayer games around either apart from Quake and UT.

Today we get like 2000 mods every week and tons of other multiplayer games.

as already mentioned before FF is probably too complicated for casual gamers.

it's a shame that players don't want to take their time to get really into a game anymore.

[Scuzzy]

Originally Posted by JackBauer

the reason why I started playing TFC was because it came with HL opposing force (or was it a pc magazine cd? can't remember). anyway back then I only really knew CS and TFC. there weren't many multiplayer games around either apart from Quake and UT.

Today we get like 2000 mods every week and tons of other multiplayer games.

as already mentioned before FF is probably too complicated for casual gamers.

it's a shame that players don't want to take their time to get really into a game anymore.

FF is no more complicated then TF2.

[SmellyCat]

Having just come from a uni LAN event with TF2 as its main tournament and topping 2/3 games scorewise having never played the game in my life prior to 30 minutes before the start of the tourny, I strongly disagree with that statement, scuzzy. They were largely decent players too, apparently.



I got my first taste of TFC from a PC magazine too, jack. :P

[Scuzzy]

Originally Posted by SmellyCat

Having just come from a uni LAN event with TF2 as its main tournament and topping 2/3 games scorewise having never played the game in my life prior to 30 minutes before the start of the tourny, I strongly disagree with that statement, scuzzy. They were largely decent players too, apparently.

You move, you shoot, you cap a flag. No difference, it's just been marketed to a mass audience well enough that a "tournament" is filled with idiots. They've made the game flexible enough that regular people play it, leagues have differing skill levels so that serious players can actually find enough people of their level to play with. They did it right.

[squeek.]

Originally Posted by Scuzzy

You move, you shoot, you cap a flag.

Captain Oversimplification to the rescue. Even the oversimplification isn't accurate. Capturing flags isn't included in the most popular TF2 game type.

[WarPig]

I agree with a lot of what everyones saying with my own take on it all, soooo I feel I should share and get involved into the convo....

To say this game won't take off because newcomers will be detoured by vets based purely on idea "skill" vs "skill" = " bad experience" to me seems a bit drastice and heres why.

If and when the game does pull in an excessive amount of players not all will have skill. Public play will still be what it is and a place where new players will fight skilled and also other NEW players. They will learn and grow just like the rest of us did back in 99 to current time.

Granted You have to get the players base for that to happen but it goes hand in hand. Will some puss out and not wanna play of course no doubt most gamers are whiney brats who get w/e they want handed to them and if they don't they don't play .. Fine by me get out of my game. But the ones who enjoy the game see the fun and truly get it, they will stick to it and progress.

So my conclusion to it all is when time is right and things hopefully get the chance to grow , instead of posting why I think it's gonna fail or be a bad idea. I'm gonna stick by everyone here and do what I can to support and help with it and say I gave all I had, if it works and helps awesome if not I can say I tried without being a negative worm on forums.

No direct hit on anyone here just some of the ideas I saw posted made me wanna talk a little

[Scuzzy]

Originally Posted by squeek.

Captain Oversimplification to the rescue. Even the oversimplification isn't accurate. Capturing flags isn't included in the most popular TF2 game type.

Captain Wrong again!

http://forums.oldtimersclan.org/scuzstats_mainpage.php

Lead us somewhere other people are Squeek, lead the development team to Orange Box where we can find new players.

[Dr.Satan]

lol yeah b/c stats from the o-t clan represent the entire TF2 community...oh wait no they don't