US DeathBall getting too private?

RaGe*NL* · Post by RaGe*NL* » 06-07-2003 16:05

tbh, i am seeing loads of new faces in pubs and this is very good,

Imaginos · Post by **Imaginos** » 06-07-2003 16:09

It's good to see this thread getting some chatter, a few points here were ones I mistakenly hadn't given any weight to as well.

Now when it comes to VO smallcube, I can't stand to see a server running nothing but that, over and over. Fast? yeah. Still a game for few people? Maybe. About as smart as tying a hand behind your back? Definately.
It drives me up the wall that people want to limit how you play a game. How about this then? NO RUNNING. Walk only. Wouldn't that make it interesting? Uh huh. Sure, that would be as popular as the ball carrier can't move. Anyway...

My original thoughts that we can hope to keep NA pub DB on life support with a 24/7 pub server doesn't seem to hold water. As a clanmate pointed out to me, there's plenty of other places people can play.. I agree, but my argument against the others is the level of activity and admin presense at any given time.. Our server is as close to round the clock as you can get in DeathBall - in that someone is playing on it or monitoring it at least.. It was my hope to have the V3 server be a decent streetlight to attract the wandering mothlike noobs to our warm glow.. where they will be hopelessly addicted as I am. Or at least be a welcoming place where rookies can learn - there's no shortage of experience there (kthx)..
On the other hand, for all I know, the players aren't even out there! Is it a lack of advertising? What can we do to get the sport more exposure on the UT sites? Attacking the player drought by generating interest might help.. Thoughts?

kaot · Post by **kaot** » 09-07-2003 05:15

I would guess it's a lack of advertising. I waited for years for a decent first-person sports game (probably since the sega genesis days), and this is it.

I can't imagine that there aren't a lot more people out there who are also looking for one. They just have to hear about it. Word of mouth is good, I guess, if you happen to know people who'd be into it that aren't already. TV commercials are way the hell too expensive and banner ads ... well, really, who ever looks at banner ads?

Anyway I'm with Bill Hicks. Marketing is a tool of Satan. So I dunno. More exposure is a must, though.

f1end · Post by **f1end** » 09-07-2003 09:39

1.5 nearly killed deathball!!!!!

At the time I was trying to set up a DB arm of my CS clan, as there was quite a lot (10 people) of interest... 1.4b was out...it was a great fun game to play....most of my clan who were n00bs and tryed it then liked it...then 1.5 came out...

...only the people who had been playing quite a while actually made it to play 1.6...most of the others had a couple of goes at 1.5 and decided the game sucked. (which i agreed with for 1.5)...my clan then folded, as there were only 4 of us left that enjoyed deathball, and had played enough to be able to be competative in euro div.2...then 1 of them left to join a more active clan.

It seems to be a combination of gameplay changes (mainly seeming to make the game less controlled to play), and the fact that the players that have been playing since 1.3 or so, are THAT much better than a n00b, and have ego's 10 times the size (not all tho).

I was on last night with a clanned player (who shall remain nameless), who admittedly was p0wning with his volleys and goals...but the arrogance that accompanied them...was enough to make people leave. Fair enough if you are a good player...but don't get carried away with loving yourself so much, you forget that you are playing a game with other people.

I don't know about the situation in the USA, but I get the impression from what I read here that it is very similar...and something needs to be done.

I personally think that the removal of sprinting from the game would make db:

a) a better, more controlled game
b) more n00b friendly
c) less server intensive (tbh db still runs badly as far as net-code is concerned)*

*not sure this is relevant anymore as sprint is no-longer server-side

|-F-|Prodigy · Post by **|-F-|Prodigy** » 09-07-2003 14:48

IMO another thing that is killing the american DB scene is the fact that free agents only want to go to the best teams. Yeah it's natural to want to play for a top notch team but now thier rosters are huge where the smaller teams barely have enough to make thier matches. Pretty soon there will just be 4 teams with 20 players each.

Fallen · Post by **Fallen** » 09-07-2003 14:55

El might die out....though i did propose, either if you guy die out, try to merge wif another clan, like you guys, flatline. It's hard for some people to play, either you have work or something else. I'm also finding that I have less time than before playing, I work 5 days a week, but I play only once a day, but usually I idle in irc.

RaGe*NL* · Post by RaGe*NL* » 09-07-2003 16:09

The problem is that people dont want to get involved with the community like they once did. Pug games are open to ANYONE

i think u kinda got a nice spot here, i remember in ut1 (yeah laugh if u want but it still pwns ut2003 ) there were 2 or 3 servers for teeeeeeeeeh 1337, dont look at me now, i wasnt exactly a brilliant utplayer but when i was noob i couldnt join those servers since there was a pass on it and the dudes innit were like to 1337 ^^, well at that time i reaaaaaaaaly wanted to be good enough to play there so i practised alot, got my friends to play it and all, after like a year of practise i finally got in the server and i couldnt believe how damn happy i was at that time, well i still wasnt good but my m8 (who was good) gave me the pass and i had loads of fun on the server, ofcourse the dudes didnt liked me in the beginning but it got more fun everyday and i trained alot, they also learned me things.

I think there should be something like this in DB, a 1337 server with a pass u can only earn if ur good ennuf, ok it sounds weird atm but it would give n00bs something to look out at. Kinda like a goal in DB. and + if dudes open the serverbrowser and they see u play on the server they ofcourse would see u as good but gives the n00b a bigger ego (Maybe just as big as khushdi's ego <-- doubt it anyway

, sorry khush

) But ok. This is my idea about it oO

|-F-|Prodigy · Post by **|-F-|Prodigy** » 09-07-2003 19:02

I think what I meant by my comments were that we are killing ourselves off slowly.

f1end · Post by **f1end** » 10-07-2003 11:21

/me shoots himself in teh head...

U know, I think rage may be onto something there...

Especially if the server had quite a lot of spectator spaces...so n00bs could see how the game is meant to be played.

but then, who decides who is 1337 or not...???

U may know, or not, I have just joined TEZC $\o/$ ...since joining, I have noticed i get passed the ball about twice as much as i did when i was un-clanned.

My point: People u think are n00bs may not actually be n00bs...just a good player who is not clanned yet...but people assume, cos there is no tag infront of peoples names, they are n00bs, and don't pass to them.

Post by **The_One** » 10-07-2003 17:02

i just pass to whoever is in the best position, i never look at names.
isn't everyone like that?

Astroboy · Post by **Astroboy** » 10-07-2003 21:00

the only time a name determines who I pass to is if someone has repeatedly done something stupid and you can tell they are doing it on purpose.

Surge · Post by **Surge** » 10-07-2003 21:30

It doesnt work though, Rage...

We had a sever (actually 3) at one time. One was a public, the other was a practice and the last was an always passworded server who we only gave the pass to certain people. There may be been a total of 5 full games played on that server over the course of 3 weeks.

The problem is you either say "here the password" or "heres the password, spread it and die". We chose the latter because we didnt want it to become a pub server with a password anyone had access to. It defeated the purpose. The DB community in 1.4b was pretty big and about 30 people had access to the server. It just doesnt work because you cant play 1v1 Deathball for very long without getting quite bored.

Astroboy · Post by **Astroboy** » 11-07-2003 16:35

Myself I see very few NA pubs...so I'm always pinging 120+ on euro pubs.

If I opened a server (a nice, fast NA server) would you guys actually play on it? Or would you keep playing ballers matches?

gnomeh · Post by **gnomeh** » 11-07-2003 17:15

There are quite a lot of pug games that go on in the V3 server (66.208.105.179:7777:7787) with above average players. We try to keep it unpassworded so that anyone who wants to learn is welcome to watch. If its ever passworded and you wanna watch, and depending whats going on I'll give ya the pass. You could just play instead of watching, although if your too new someone will probaly start geting mad at ya :p (irc.progameplayer.com #dbpug)
Also, I've been trying to get just a good public flow but its normaly 2-3 games and it dies out ;/

Heretic · Post by **Heretic** » 11-07-2003 21:26

gnomeh wrote: although if your too new someone will probaly start geting mad at ya :p

sadly i learned that the hard way this past week.. ;( but i think i will start "pug"ing more jsut because i am somewhat of a n00b still and i need to improve my game and its the only way!