I've been playing Empires since 2.0 came out (I think), which was about a year ago. Empires is simply the best game ever made. I can't think of any other way to say it. It's just the best. It has some serious flaws related to team work, the learning curve, and failing to provide a tutorial map. For the first 8 months or so, it was really fun. After I finished mastering all the classes (hey, even a scout can be useful... once every 30 games), the constant team stacking, idiotic teammates & commanders really started to get to me, and I lost interest. After some prodding from a good friend of mine, I bought L4D. That game is nowhere near as complex as Empires, but it's fun about 75 - 90% of the time. When I play Empires, I usually am able to enjoy about 25 - 30% of the time I play. The other 70 - 75% of my time in Empires is spent dealing with stacked and / or idiotic teams, and / or idiotic commanders. About 40% of the 70 - 75% is dealing with griefers, exploiters, or people acting like assholes. There's also the fact that Empires has 23 servers, only two of which are populated. I know 2.2 is going to be out soon, but I don't know if I can even see myself bothering to play. Is anyone else getting sick of the constant BS that seems to come packaged with playing Empires?
^ What the main man above said. I've invested a bit of time in empires, and by and large, it hasn't been a waste. Tbh, i'd have to get hit with a mallet every game I play for it even to equal all the fun I had during testing. The main point with empires is to play when you want to play...It also becomes a bit tiring when you have to admin, so if you ain't feeling it, don't do it. Just play, play as a nobody if you want, it's really liberating... One day Empires will become the only game you'll want to play 24/7...but it isn't there yet, so don't expect it to be.
Nope. Empires was incredibly awesome in its prime days, and even though it's lost some of the initial charm, the core of the game is still there: a unique RTS/FPS-styled mod.
I have to agree with you recon. It's no where near where it will make me quit because I love this game too much for that. But I do play much less now then ever before. Just today I log on after 5 days to play. One of our teammates kills the enemy comm early as he was building a rax. He starts yelling at us(his teammates) to comm wall it and kill it. None of us do and then he starts going on about how his team sucks because we could have killed comm in 2 minutes of the game starting. I just went along and said yes I do suck and smiled because it makes people like that more mad =P Some of us like to actually play a game before we keep ending it in 2 minutes flat I rarely have a round where I don't have some sort of a problem that makes it less enjoyable. One of our biggest problems is that there aren't enough admins on the only servers we have populated. Almost always there is need for an admin when they aren't present. But I understand getting more admins is a hard process because it can backfire. I just think a big solution will be admins and more of them that ban and don't take this crap so we never worry about it later :D
Yes... And no. The drama is easy to ignore once you have one fun round. And this is why I keep coming back. The imbalances, the griefing, all of that is nothing against one round where everything works and everyone has this perfect synergy and, most importantly, everyone is having fun. In my mind, one hundred rounds of crap is worth that one golden round. Nothing can top nor diminish that feeling. If you want to go play a different game, that's fine. It really is. It's a game and if you're not having fun, you shouldn't be playing it. However, it would be great if you stuck around, because we need senior players to help keep the order, to help new people, and to contribute to that overall sense of fun. Yes, Empires has a lot of problems that need to be dealt with - the idiots, the griefers, the flamers, the assholes. We need to people to help balance them out. I know I'm going to stick around through everything, even if it mean I'm the last person in the last server. Even through all the shit. Okay, that came out a bit dramatic, but I was listening to some dramatic music.
LOL just decided to try and play another game. Wouldn't you know a guy asked to be comm and everyone voted him because we had no other comm. What does he do, drive straight to enemy base on canyon. Oh wait, if there was an admin on he could have banned him before he got anywhere near But thats too bad because none was one. Ouch 0_o
Bah! You cannot let yourself down just because EVERYTHING isn't perfect! If you are losing and you have a so-called "Idiotic" team, that's just an excuse for you to do random fun stuff you wouldn't usually do! The game only becomes less fun when you stop trying to have fun.
So far its been pretty fun, if however, it needs polishing. But then again as far as I know, its not even half-done, so I'll be waiting and watching. If you can get a little publicity, I'd expect that your fan-base would go up, and that along with it, you'd get a pool of potential helpers. Like people that can actually help with modelling and coding.
Like grief? Jeep races? I had a match last night on escort where my team built three dual rail heavies. Let me tell you, thats fail not fun. For Empires to be fun you need 20+ players with about 5-6 'good' players and comm per side. This does not regularly happen. I don't mind having an occasional unbalanced/fail match, but not 5+ in a row which happens too often for me tastes. From what I can tell, 'peak' Empires game quality occurs about 1 month after a new player surge (like after 2.0 or 2.1). Thats when you have 3-4 full servers and few emp_recruits.
I've found L4D rather boring and repetitive. Sure, the enemies change location... So what? Only thing thats become less fun in empires, is when there are only 2-3 people on your team that know what the hell they are doing. Its unfortunately not that unique. Battlezone (1/2) both had RTS FPS play. In game, concurrently. You could go to the 'radar' and command from overhead, or be in the thick of it still placing buildings and building troops.
Foxy, It seems to end up being stacking (e.g. you join the team with brains), or you join the idiotic team and get screwed.
Anyone who's in a clan that scrims never gets tired of it. I've been playing for like over 3 years and its still my computer game. But if you only play in public matches I'm sure you will get tired of it really fast.
I see this as a clash between the long-time member and the newbie/pubber. The long-time members have the knowledge while newbie/pubbers don't really know what they are doing. With this you can get stacked teams with more long-timers and you can get fail. It sounds crazy, but maybe we have to separate the long-time members from the newbie/pubbers in different servers. The long-timer will all be good players who know how the game is to be played. The newbie/pubbers will be able to have fun because they all suck the same amount. Stacking is solved, long-timers are no longer disappointed with fail teams, and newbie/pubbers learn faster with those of the same skill level because there isn't some long-timer completely destroying them before they can learn the game.
Won't work, The training server is still here but vets are always in it, and the noobs dont contain themselves to a training server because they don't know the game and therefore think they are actually good at it. M.A.D. made a vet server and that failed as well, to tell you the truth i'm not even sure its still up. And even if we could get the vets to stop playing in the noob servers, Who decides whos pro? You cant go by post count or by time on forums, I know great players who arent even registered on the forums. Cant make them take a test because people will cheat and having tryout matches are to time consuming. Having random people select people doesn't work either due to people's bias. Edit: Beat Mageknight woot!
It's been tried. It doesn't work out very well... Any server labeled "Veteran's Server" or somesuch will be flooded by noobs, while the "Training Server" will contain many experienced players. I agree that it's a conflict between seasoned and new, but I think the solution is for both parties to try to help each other - seasoned players need to be understanding and supportive of new players, and new players need to be attentive and subservient to the seasoned players. Easier said than done, I know, and probably overly optimistic - but that's what I think. EDIT: Bah, Owning got there first.
Hate to say it...but I agree with Recon here. I asked the same question, which resulted in my not playing emp until 2.2....I can see no reason to keep playing. Its the same stuff over and over, save some new map being put in that is annoying as hell. Its all the same. Get on a decent team, you can have fun. Get on the shitty team, its no fun at all. With most FPSes, when you're on a shitty team, you can still get some chance to have fun....get some kills, etc. With empires, when your team sucks, you're stuck with std light tanks or AFVs, while the enemy team has heavies with nukes and rails. That's no fun at all...and a flaw by design in the game.
Its been a whole lot of fun on napalms the past couple of days. With like, 6 EPIC, 8 BSID, a few CW and JPL and various other pubbers who know what they are doing, and only a handful of noobs (who are actually listening to advice - woo!) combined with the fact that there are 5-10 admins on most of the time, you are going to get much better pub gaming. That and the fact that it is impossible not to have a fun game when Headshotmaster is commanding!! Go Empiers!!!
