Against Gathers?

[Dusty]

How can serious gaming be considered as fun, it is SERIOUS

,_______, come on...

[Shard]

Gathers...Well, I have play about 6, and, most of the time, there has been a retart, cus someone takes like, 5 seconds longer to pick a gun. Or a pause cus someone has to answer the phone.
3 players is NOT enough. 5 at the least, or else it gets boring quick. Plus more people get to play. And yes soldat is ment to be hectic uncontrolled chaos. Also, why cant we have Deathmatch gathers? Deathmatch IS soldat. Yes CTF is fun and teambased, but what happened to good old DM, I'm lucky if I can find 5 DM servers, tbh, that was the most fun. TDM is ok, but for teams i guess CTF is better.

So, uh, yeah, I dont like gathers that much.


As for advertising. We cant put soldat out there till its relatively bug free. You think Valve would still be here if they released halflife 1 as the full game while in beta then made people download constant updates? We need one final version to get it right. Then we can advertise.

[-Major-]

Gathers...Well, I have play about 6, and, most of the time, there has been a retart, cus someone takes like, 5 seconds longer to pick a gun. Or a pause cus someone has to answer the phone.
3 players is NOT enough. 5 at the least, or else it gets boring quick. Plus more people get to play. And yes soldat is ment to be hectic uncontrolled chaos. Also, why cant we have Deathmatch gathers? Deathmatch IS soldat. Yes CTF is fun and teambased, but what happened to good old DM, I'm lucky if I can find 5 DM servers, tbh, that was the most fun. TDM is ok, but for teams i guess CTF is better.

So, uh, yeah, I dont like gathers that much.


As for advertising. We cant put soldat out there till its relatively bug free. You think Valve would still be here if they released halflife 1 as the full game while in beta then made people download constant updates? We need one final version to get it right. Then we can advertise.

restart =/= regather, regather is the annoying thing, a restart should be expected as soon as a map starts. there's ussualy somebody that gets the extra long load bug or repositioning/putting on music.
pauses are annoying, just avoid turks and you should be fine.

also... soldat isn't ment to be hectic uncontrolled chaos, shouldn't you let the experianced players tell what soldat is all about? -.-

[Shard]

Gathers...Well, I have play about 6, and, most of the time, there has been a retart, cus someone takes like, 5 seconds longer to pick a gun. Or a pause cus someone has to answer the phone.
3 players is NOT enough. 5 at the least, or else it gets boring quick. Plus more people get to play. And yes soldat is ment to be hectic uncontrolled chaos. Also, why cant we have Deathmatch gathers? Deathmatch IS soldat. Yes CTF is fun and teambased, but what happened to good old DM, I'm lucky if I can find 5 DM servers, tbh, that was the most fun. TDM is ok, but for teams i guess CTF is better.

So, uh, yeah, I dont like gathers that much.


As for advertising. We cant put soldat out there till its relatively bug free. You think Valve would still be here if they released halflife 1 as the full game while in beta then made people download constant updates? We need one final version to get it right. Then we can advertise.

restart =/= regather, regather is the annoying thing, a restart should be expected as soon as a map starts. there's ussualy somebody that gets the extra long load bug or repositioning/putting on music.
pauses are annoying, just avoid turks and you should be fine.

also... soldat isn't ment to be hectic uncontrolled chaos, shouldn't you let the experianced players tell what soldat is all about? -.-

So soldat is ordered controlled and structured? Like chess? I think not. And I am not a random person who just downloaded soldat a day ago. I have experience, I know what its like.

[10th_account]

People like a challenge. The experienced players find clan wars and gathers more fun since they have to play their best in order to win. They want to earn their victory. In public servers they'd just come out on top most of the time without having to give it their best effort.

[Horve]

If those experienced players showed up in public servers, it would be a lot more challenging and versatile to play. Mostly because each time you see different players whom you don't know and are unable to identify as experts of novices from the first glance at their nickname. When you fight gathers, you meet people with whom you have played before, whose tactics you know, whose weaknesses you're also aware of. There is lesser risk of getting ravaged by those whom you have already fought against in gathers than in public servers. Sometimes fighting with a team which consists of newbies, experts, advanced players, campers, spawnkillers, teamkillers, cheaters and idlers is more "Soldat" than organised, strictly ruled barren scripted matches.

[-Major-]

lock this thread.

[demoniac93]

lock this thread.

Because we're finally getting at what's killing the public scene?
I have to agree with Horve, Soldat began as a random idea to start with, just let it be RANDOM.

[Atticus]

Also, why cant we have Deathmatch gathers? Deathmatch IS soldat. Yes CTF is fun and teambased, but what happened to good old DM, I'm lucky if I can find 5 DM servers, tbh, that was the most fun. TDM is ok, but for teams i guess CTF is better.

So, uh, yeah, I dont like gathers that much.

My gather actually supports all official game modes: http://www.nasoldat.com

[RemiX]

Gathers were a great idea and all that, but honestly all it has turned in to is just a chat room for soldat players. Half the time its either people just talking, people getting together and playing a different game, or people just idling there. If your not on at the right time don't expect to get a gather or for anyone to say "hi" back to ya. Plus it sucks for newcomers trying to play soldat because there not gonna know about IRC. There gonna try to look for a server to play on and find out it's just a bunch of bots with chainsaws. There gonna think the game is dead and probably never return.

[-Major-]

lock this thread.

Because we're finally getting at what's killing the public scene?
I have to agree with Horve, Soldat began as a random idea to start with, just let it be RANDOM.

nope ;o, just to be a bitch...

I can't recall publics have ever been alive... always been dead there.

[SpiltCoffee]

I've got a story for you all.

Once upon a time, Australian Servers were really popular, and the clan scene down under was thriving. Then gathers came along. The end.

[F3nyx]

I tried gathers way back when they first got popular, like 4 or 5 years ago I guess?  Anyway, it was way too structured and boring.  I enjoyed Soldat for the frantic, chaotic gameplay, and gathers just didn't have it.

[Illuminatus]

If those experienced players showed up in public servers, it would be a lot more challenging and versatile to play.

Actually they do, at least in my opinion they are "experienced". I play only public for about a year now (just 2-3 per week) and with the right server and time every week I meet at least 2 uber-players who really rock. I mean in all terms of reactiontime, movement, aim, survival time, ...
But maybe I just became too noob over time.

[Veritas]

I've been giving pubs a fair shot, and honestly I just don't find them as fun as I did when I first started. It's nice to be able to play for however long I feel like playing, but it's not worth it when there's no challenge.

[jerich]

This is complete bull.

1. You mentioned that you're NA and you can't find pubs to play in and you have to join EU servers. When was the last time you saw a game in #sna.gather? Yeah, it's inactive as hell and #soldat.gather doesn't have that many Americans playing there that it would empty the pubs.

I see a lot of gathers for nasoldat though

2. It's obvious that what's killing the activity is the lack of support. New versions take way too long to come out and you also have to take into consideration the fact that Soldat is an old game and since it's not even getting any updates whatsoever, how exactly are new players supposed to hear about it? If there was a constant flow of new players, there wouldn't be a ton of empty pub servers. The problem is that Soldat isn't getting enough new players, not that the old players aren't playing on pubs.

Oh, I agree. I'm not trying to say gathers is the SOLE reason, but one of the main ones. I've said time and time again, that the length this game has been out is a main reason why this game is dying.

And I dare say that the vast majority of Soldat players are still pub players.

That's true. But you have to take in account the longevity of newcomers. It ain't very long since, well, all the people are trying to "gather". Most people who download games to try it out aren't exactly interested in knowing the community until they have at least tried the game. How would they know that they have to install third party progs such as IRC to play a half-decent game instead of bots.

3. Gather has done a lot for this community. It's a fact that gather is a very simple and easy way to play organized cw without any hassle. Some of you people need to realize that while you might find the more random games on pubs fun, there are also people who actually find gathers more fun because you don't have to worry about unbalanced teams, people leaving in middle of the rounds, random votekicks and all that.

Uhh, without any hassle? Maybe I just had a bad experience back in the day, but I think I regathered more than I had time to enjoy a game. Worry about unbalanced teams? How so? It's randomly selected. Sure, the "threshold" of skill might be up, but I still wouldn't exactly call it balanced EVERY time. People leaving in the middle of rounds? Well, I didn't regather for no reason.

I enjoy playing on pubs from time to time but it's definitely a lot more fun to play in gathers in the long run. Gather has also substantially increased the activity of the clan community by attracting new players, thus increasing the amount and size of clans. And this way clan community has grown and that will in turn attract more players who are interested in clan wars instead of random pub games.

Maybe, it's just me personally, and it is indeed just my opinion, but I think the amount of clans has gone down because of gathers(and indeed because it's an old game).

You claim that first impression is important but you also need to consider that once new players find out that pubs are all there is to Soldat, they might not continue playing if they are solely interested in competitive gaming. But if they find out that there's quite a big clan community (given the size of the game), they might be inclined to play more. Of course that's just an assumption but your theory that gather is killing Soldat is no less far-fetched.

Nah, it's not farfetched, it's your opinion and I respect that. Now just think of soldat without gathers with all the "pro" players playing in pubs when they aren't in a clan war rather than idling on IRC. That is a bigger and more direct exposure to the clan community than segregating the pros to the newcomers.

Just by looking at the amount of people playing gather, it's obvious that it's doing a favor to this community. People aren't playing gathers because they are forced to, they are playing gathers because they want to.

Not necessarily. As I said, gathers became the norm. I played gathers at a point in time, because there was nothing else. Abandoned pub servers and no clans to play because 1 of their members were "gathering." Again, Dragonslayer, I respect your opinion and what you have done for the community, but I still think gathers has destroyed soldat more than it has rebuilt it.

[zakath]

I tend to somewhat agree with you jerich. the solution isn't imho to remove gathers all together but makeing the more accessible to players best would be if they were integrated into soldat. so threshold for new players to play a gather would be lower.

[Veritas]

I tend to somewhat agree with you jerich. the solution isn't imho to remove gathers all together but makeing the more accessible to players best would be if they were integrated into soldat. so threshold for new players to play a gather would be lower.

The real problem here is the time commitment. If you don't set 40 minutes aside for a gather, it's definitely possible a player will have to leave and then I will have to tempban them for 3d :(

I wouldn't mind, say, a 4v4 server that was highly active (so you wouldn't have to worry about time), randomized teams every X rounds (for a more interesting game), etc. -- whether this will actually be active is another issue altogether.

[zakath]

I tend to somewhat agree with you jerich. the solution isn't imho to remove gathers all together but makeing the more accessible to players best would be if they were integrated into soldat. so threshold for new players to play a gather would be lower.

The real problem here is the time commitment. If you don't set 40 minutes aside for a gather, it's definitely possible a player will have to leave and then I will have to tempban them for 3d

I wouldn't mind, say, a 4v4 server that was highly active (so you wouldn't have to worry about time), randomized teams every X rounds (for a more interesting game), etc. -- whether this will actually be active is another issue altogether.

well that isn't that hard to script for a public server really. however my point was that for most newcomers to soldat they have no idea about gathers and only see the publics and think the game is dead, and leave before even giving it a chance.

[Atticus]

I have made efforts to teach public players about gathers in NASoldat's many public servers. We have actually got a lot of new players showing up in our channel since I created NASoldat in January. I'd be open for any creative ideas to help teach public players about gathers and increase these numbers.