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1.9 has been out for long enough for me to have a balanced opinion of it. And in all honesty, I don't like it. Where do I begin?
First off, I am not a fan of moves getting whored, but I think the restrictions of passing to a boosted player are far too harsh. It really cuts down on the free-flowing nature of midfield play. In order to initiate one of the so-called "lame" broom/boost/thingtrick moves, it requires 3 players to work together in sync. Call me crazy, but I thought that we were supposed to be encouraging teamwork.
Next up, the lag issue. Many suggestions have been offered as to why people are getting lag on deathball 1.9, and to be honest that's all they are, suggestions. No one (afaik) has come up with a definitive solution to the problem, or even found out what the exact cause of it is.
It is not a bandwidth issue, it is not a hardware issue, and until it is resolved, db will continue to be far less playable, and far less enjoyable than the earlier incarnations.
Another point: the noises.
These took me completely by surprise when the final release came along, because they hadn't even been mentioned, let alone appeared in any beta versions. Ignoring the fact that they don't work very well (ie fux0red catch/hit radii, but we knew that they were all messed up anyway), I am still to figure out which noise is which (and yes I know...rtfm).
I have never had a problem with telling which player/team was in possesion of the ball in previous db incarnations. I think there are four visual ways of checking this (mid radar; corner radar; corner text; possession change message in top-centre). All the noises serve to do is annoy.
1.9 has also been the first db to give me serious stabilty issues. I *never* used to crash out of a game. now it happens on a regular basis. Only with db, and only with 1.9.
What else? Broken sprint sure pissed off the ozzies, and let's face it, 1.9 is not encouraging to the na style of play either.
It isn't all bad news though. I think replays are pretty damn cool, and the new version of greenbaize is rather nifty, but that's about it. Oh, and db warfare is ok too. :p Rens.
So what is the solution? Regression.
I'm not suggesting we all move back to 1.4b, "driblering" and boostricks. I genuinely believe that 1.8 was (is) the best version of db to date, and until a db version is released that has all the new features *AND* is mostly bug-free (anyone for fireworks?) , I think we should all stick with the more stable version 1.8
Think about it. How many of you are using winamp3? or, like most, have regressed to 2.x? Hell, nullsoft themselves realised their mistake, and released 2.9x, which had a whole bunch of version 3 features, to repent their for their sins.
Going back to 1.8: what do you think? False dream, or realistic possibility? I don't think 1.9 was anything more than a rush-job, and I honestly believe that this is the best way forward for db.
