Anyone notice how hard it is to find a normal game?

[Demonic]

Stop whining and play gathers just like everyone who wants to play default ctf does.

That's such a lame excuse, and a poor attempt at a cheap shot.

What's stopping me from saying that gather's servers are being wasted on that IRC engine, and that they should be open to the public for play? Why can't you come down to us, instead of us coming up to you?

As Bombski put, quakenet is very much open to the public and basically anyone can join in on gathers and whatnot if he gets through the hassle of installing and configuring an IRC client ( which takes like, thirty minutes max ).

Otherwise, if all five ( plus x american ) gather servers were to be opened, they'd get filled, fast, with casual public players. There is a huge skill gap, and those of us who have played nearly nothing but 3v3 for years now are bored with games with more players, especially since most the time your teammates are numbskulls and the enemy poses as much of a challange as Danko or Dutch set to 'Stupid'. Also, sad to say, but I'm not kidding.

[LtKillroy]

Its too bad this game is like this now. Someone who isn't the best wants to play a pub CTF and they get told to play gathers. I thought the point of an open freeware game was anyone can play anything they want.

[iDante]

I would like more good games in pubs, it seems like there is a growing gap between the decent players who only do pubs and the people who do gathers/clan stuff. If you simply aren't good enough to do a gather, there's no good way to train ctf right now.

[sai`ke]

You could always host yourself or rent one.

[Pie]

Stop whining and play gathers just like everyone who wants to play default ctf does.

That's such a lame excuse, and a poor attempt at a cheap shot.

What's stopping me from saying that gather's servers are being wasted on that IRC engine, and that they should be open to the public for play? Why can't you come down to us, instead of us coming up to you?

As Bombski put, quakenet is very much open to the public and basically anyone can join in on gathers and whatnot if he gets through the hassle of installing and configuring an IRC client ( which takes like, thirty minutes max ).

Otherwise, if all five ( plus x american ) gather servers were to be opened, they'd get filled, fast, with casual public players. There is a huge skill gap, and those of us who have played nearly nothing but 3v3 for years now are bored with games with more players, especially since most the time your teammates are numbskulls and the enemy poses as much of a challange as Danko or Dutch set to 'Stupid'. Also, sad to say, but I'm not kidding.

You don't have much faith in anyone do you?
There are a few good players that know how to play a real game in CTF pubs, but yeah, most of them are dicks...

[.Long-Range]

Its too bad this game is like this now. Someone who isn't the best wants to play a pub CTF and they get told to play gathers. I thought the point of an open freeware game was anyone can play anything they want.

I agree. What's worst is that new players are faced with non-default servers that don't really symbolize the simplicity of the game that Soldat is. And they won't even realize it because most won't know that there are such things like scripts and weapon mods running in a server. True, if any new players are dedicated to the game, they'll choose to research and end up on the forums. But what about the many who choose to just play this game casually?

[excruciator]

Also, some of the scripts are completely unbalanced. I actually tried to play in avarax's server. but after 30min with only 5 kills really discouraged me from keep playin it.

Its too bad this game is like this now. Someone who isn't the best wants to play a pub CTF and they get told to play gathers. I thought the point of an open freeware game was anyone can play anything they want.

yeah, what the hell, offering a newbie to play gathers just because there are no CTF pubs around. They'll just get flamed. plus sending all newbies to gather isn't really solving the problem of having no standard games. More like avoiding the problem.

[Rai-Dei]

I would like more good games in pubs, it seems like there is a growing gap between the decent players who only do pubs and the people who do gathers/clan stuff. If you simply aren't good enough to do a gather, there's no good way to train ctf right now.

Untrue, when I first started gathering I was TERRIBLE. I've seen many players gain skill quick from gathers, yes there is a skill gap but the gap is what makes people get better faster. Even if you aren't good playing against high skilled opponents will make you better, I've seen it happen.

[Demonic]

Yeah, a good example would be Chaka, who never even played in publics, but started in gathers at around 1.2-1.2.1 if I recon right. Now he's a very strong and capable player, currently in Soldier's Nightmare, who have a fine chance of winning SCTFL.

[Snow]

Still, there are those of us, who, because of our busy lifestyles, cannot play Soldat regularly. So, my skills may never be above average. Doesn't really bother me though, I still have fun, even if I get my ass handed to me once in a while. I like to be able to just pop on and be playing in under 30 seconds. So, you usually will find me on Fracs or the TW pubs. I'm limited to playing casual. I find gathers to be small (I prefer 'big team' - at least 5 or more players per team, the gathers I see are 3 on 3).

Because I'm a casual player at the moment, I'm definitely not clan material and don't bother to try and join one. If the clanner's are playing in gathers when not against other clans, I stand little chance. I probably wouldn't even be able to see the enemy's flag I'd get pwned so bad.

On the other hand I don't want to downplay gathers either. I do think they are a good idea, if you want to join a trusted server. Plus, yeah after playing gathers for a while you probably will gain more skill than you would in a pub, since you're playing against skilled opponents.

But, if I was to play in gathers and I'm only on once or twice a week for an hour or two, would it be worth it?

[excruciator]

Yeah, a good example would be Chaka, who never even played in publics, but started in gathers at around 1.2-1.2.1 if I recon right. Now he's a very strong and capable player, currently in Soldier's Nightmare, who have a fine chance of winning SCTFL.

yes, those kind of jump in skill isn't uncommon, but not all players are capable to making those jumps, we have to accommodate those kind of players too.

But, if I was to play in gathers and I'm only on once or twice a week for an hour or two, would it be worth it?

I mean you could technically play gathers for fun, but most gather players play like 3-4 gather a day. So I don't think it will help in the short run..or it would help at all.

[Gortaak]

Maybe because scripting makes game more interesting ? There is not really a need for "pure" ctf except for a few people in these forums which are not enough to fill up a 10 slots server I think Tongue Try it, make a CTF with no scripting, no WM no nothing and see how popular will be. People only play this in gathers.

Hey leo, lets see here. Fracs.net 23073. Prob the most popular server Ive seen around. It is full ALL day long and ALL night long, The second someone leaves fracs, another one comes to take his spot. no scripts. 12 slot server. VERY FEW noobs. No weapon mod either. Mebey people in realistic dont like non modded and non scripted servers, but that isnt true for all normal players. Anyways, scripts and weapon mods make the game too easy, for just any noob to come along and one shot you with a minigun that shoots spas bullets modded to do 233464745756453245 damage.


This is a pub too.

[theSTATWHORE]

i use to enjoy regular games, but that became boring quickly with all the imbalances.

you're right, regular games just aren't as popular as gimmick ones in the pub list so they're more challenging to find. but if you go down to non-american servers, you can find some good play.

"Its too bad this game is like this now. Someone who isn't the best wants to play a pub CTF and they get told to play gathers. I thought the point of an open freeware game was anyone can play anything they want."

so true 

[JonWood007]

I think it is annoying too. I end up having to go to a european server half the time (and ping over 100) in order to find a normal game. When I put it by game type and ping, all the servers under 100 ping are climb, saw/knife/law servers, hexor, and R/S. The only local server I can find for CTF is the fractured CTF pub. I normally ping around 47 there. My actual ping in game is between 33 and 66. Otherwise I stick with the italian/polish/other european servers. I dont ping bad though. Normally 150-166 tops. A little high, but playable without causing major problems in game.

Im not in a clan. No interest in a clan. So I dnt do gathers. I think that I am pretty skilled for someone who sticks to public servers though. Not that skilled compared to a lot of the pros, but not bad.

[Pragma]

I'm in the same boat as the OP.  FWIW, even Teeworlds has this problem.

Fracs and U13 rock the house for normal CTF play.  However, these are usually *FULL* during prime-time, so it makes jumping into a pick-up game harder than it needs to be.  If we had a few admins turn off their crappy dodgeball script, unlock their server, or give climbing a rest, we might actually see more gaming going on than what we have right now.

Gathers are a hack.  Getting together in IRC is a band-aid on top of the fact that the Soldat-ecosphere has no skill ranking system and/or unified lobby to facilitate pick-up games.  Meanwhile, time spent in IRC is time that should be spent playing the game.

Yea, I know its easy to ask for the world and not do much about it.  If I had the cash to spare, I'd buy a U13 CTF server and do my part, but alas, I don't.

[iDante]

Gathers are a hack.

Do you even know what a gather is? You just go into an IRC channel and hit '!add' and it will assign you a team and server to play a 3v3 ctf game with. (or 4v4, or 5v5,  idk about more than that)

Getting together in IRC is a band-aid on top of the fact that the Soldat-ecosphere has no skill ranking system and/or unified lobby to facilitate pick-up games.

... I dont want a skill ranking system. That would ruin the point of the game.

Meanwhile, time spent in IRC is time that should be spent playing the game.

IRC is the Best way to find CW's. Are you saying that we should just all play pubs only because there are no gathers and CW's?

[Pragma]

Gathers are a hack.

Do you even know what a gather is? You just go into an IRC channel and hit '!add' and it will assign you a team and server to play a 3v3 ctf game with. (or 4v4, or 5v5,  idk about more than that)

Not to flame or anything, but I honestly think we (as a community of gamers) can do better than that.  Its nice that ad-hoc matches can be made by slick IRC scripts and all, but it really should be a part of the whole package to begin with.  The fact that I had to find this website and ask around to even find out about such a thing is a clear sign to me that it's not the best solution to the problem.

So I'm saying that something like "gathers" should be a first-class feature in Soldat; available without any additional software.  That's all.

Getting together in IRC is a band-aid on top of the fact that the Soldat-ecosphere has no skill ranking system and/or unified lobby to facilitate pick-up games.

... I dont want a skill ranking system. That would ruin the point of the game.

Granted, such a thing is not for everyone.  I was thinking along the lines of avoiding pairing up noobs with 'leets in the same match, if the player wishes it.  Sometimes, noobs just need to figure things out on the bunny slope while the experts do their thing.  Right now all we have is pubs, gather and clan matches.  IMO that's hardly an ideal arrangement since there's many subtle shades of skill in between those environments.

Meanwhile, time spent in IRC is time that should be spent playing the game.

IRC is the Best way to find CW's. Are you saying that we should just all play pubs only because there are no gathers and CW's?

On that note, do you think people should dive into IRC and find a gather instead of logging into a pub server? :p

I'm not disputing that IRC works for some things; I'm not some "CW/gather" abolitionist or anything.  I just think that Soldat has a lot to offer new gamers, and I see the some things in the status-quo that are sizable barriers to entry.  The lack of good normal-mode pubs (as the OP pointed out) is one of them.  I think that relying on the "gather/IRC" band-aid, instead of pushing for something better, is another. 

Besides, general-purpose pickup game automation isn't the best solution for tournament style games anyway.  However, it would be slick as hell if there was one-stop shopping for *all* kinds of gameplay, but that'll probably stay a daydream for a long time to come.

Nice signature BTW.

[Demonic]

In most established games ( CS, CoD, Warsow, etc ), there is a serious scene revolving around IRC and competitions. Naturally, the players whom participiate in these don't and wouldn't want to mix with the public people, because it's either hilarious, or damn annoying. The next version of Soldat will have integrated lobby-chat, to substitute IRC, but gathers and the competitive community will remain isolated. You can't mix it back into the public-side, and just finding it is enough of a gap to drive those away whom are better left in publics. When they are ready, they can move on - unless they become bored enough and quit alltogether.

The abscence of traditional public servers is another question - there are some pubs howling empty all the time, whilst others, like the tba one are cramped day and night. A server today in Europe can only prosper if it uses SOME sort of scripting, which is pretty bad, as this way we'll just slice up the community into even smaller sections - TW, Hexer, MMod, RealSol, SRL-Realistic, climbing, knife-only, just to name a few of the present ones.

[ElGato]

Still, there are those of us, who, because of our busy lifestyles, cannot play Soldat regularly. So, my skills may never be above average.

Not exactly true, I'm not even close to being a "regular" player and I consider myself above average. It doesn't take much to get to the gather level of soldat, just a little practice. There are some great players that can be dicks to new people but so what? Ignore them and play your game, it's a random 3v3 so they know what they're getting into when they add.

[jerich]

Yep, playing soldat is like riding a bike, the fudamentals are basic and is very easy to retain, one simple game can lay off rust from long periods without any activity.

As for myself, I like playing in the Fractured CTF. As an admin, I just make sure there's no one trying to take away from the game to keep it a friendly atmosphere. The other admins do a splendid job as well and keeps the game fun. U13 is always a great choice when its up and running also. As for outside NA, it would have to be 2Wai or tba's server, although I don't really like any scripted servers.

Oh, and IRC, I used to play gathers all the time, but now I refuse to even open IRC or participate/sub in any gather for about 6 months now. I rather just find a scrim then have some generated match. If it's your way to get better, and you think gathers are for you, then go for it. Gathers to me is a way to improve, which I don't see myself trying to do. I play soldat to play and compensate for my boredom, and the public servers satisfy me enough. If I really wanted an organized match, I would just scrim with my clan. It's all in opinion though.