Hey everyone! I was reading a few items on "The State of Empires" post and a point came up about playing only on weekends. Now, since the game is around 15 years old. I assume most of us vets have grown up and have gotten older and have more responsibilities IRL. This poll is just a gauge on how much IRL stuff is contributing to the decline on empires.
~40 hour work week, planning on working less in a year or so. Tho it's not the amount of time I have or don't that makes me not play emp so much, it's mostly because I've hit the point where all the best games have happened already.
Honestly if i wasn't working all the time on weekends and nights I would probably still play a few games of empires. I just can't stomach the usual 3v3 weekday games anymore. But yeah, it's not just working 40ish hours a week, it's having to help other people with something or take care of errands that eat that extra free time I thought I had. And darn, another poll you can't see who voted for what. What a shame.
I don't think working hours is the main reason people don't play anymore but I am sure it contributes to it.
Said it before and i'll say it again. Removing "fun" killed empires. Trying to force people to conform to a select few's view on how the game should be killed empires. Focusing on what people want that maybe played 1-3 hours a week over people who dedicated 8-15 hours a day...Killed Empires. Kicking/ banning half the server for 9 mining ....Killed Empires. Forcing maps out of rotation,locking spec, kicking/banning over petty shit..Killed empires. Banning people over a few select people having issues with them..killed empires. Over all the toxic server owners,admins, and community killed Empires. Yes Empires is old..But so is Halo 1..and it still has active servers. We had the people..They was hooked. Over all other options they chose Empires. The game is not the problem. Time is not the problem. Every decision that punished or restricted people having fun is what drove people away. So I kind of have a question..Are you people satisfied ? I mean you have what you want right. You people wanted Empires conformed to how you thought it should be played and now what is left is the amount of people who agreed. You won..This is your prized. Be happy with your victory and stop crying about how there is no population. "You did this"
Eh, you could say that, or you can say that playing the same game for 10 years makes it so that the competitive aspect of the game is one of the few things that still makes it "worth while" (I agree, too much drama and a lot of changes contributed to this game's decline) but, to be honest, I mostly like all the plugins and random sorting stuff on Mr. X's server. It's solved a lot of issues the community has been complaining about (and now we're complaining about lack of res, but Empires is still a strategy game...) so, come play a round or two this weekend and see how it is!
Don't compare Halo 1 to Empires Mod. Halo 1 was a success world wide, can form a country with its fans and is now a classic. Empires can hardly populate a neighborhood with its fans and is still what it has always been, a mod. Also yes, Empires is Gulag, admins kick and ban mercilessly unless you comply. (Sarcasm) Nobody is happy with the current state of Empires and nobody has what they want. Why are we still here, just to suffer?
@bunnyhopper, always blame server owners and admins, when it was the toxic player base that ran off many players. I never heard a player say I quit because of such and such server/admin but I have been told many names of players for the reason of them quitting. I also agree with Ranger there is a multitude of reasons people stopped playing but toxicity of some players/community members is high up on the list.
~40 work hours a week. My work hour isn't heavy, the thing is I can no longer stay up at 3AM. (GMT+8) As a bonus, I am switching my career path so I am spending extra time on that. (Hint: Exam.) So, personally, I have no time for Empires. In fact, I hardly have any time for games, check my Steam profile to see. But I'll quit my job in maybe two months and regain my flexible schedule, aka I'll be able to stay up at 3AM once again. Hopefully, I'll get to spend a little time on Empires. The population has been pretty bad, tho. Chill, I don't think he's talking about VIPER/NUBS
I was referring to any server not just VIPER or NUBS. I never heard of anyone quitting the game due to any server or their admins, complaints sure but not quitting the game entirely over any server. But I have heard many say it was over the toxic community and specific community members.
I can think of a few times where people was handed 3-6 month bans for screwing around. Things like 20/30 people playing decided to 9 mine the CV into the water. So 3-6 months for having fun.. So being toxic must have some harsh penalties right... Nope. They are made admins. Where they flame and ban new players for being new. Also never said it was only Server admins. But they was a big part of the problem. You blame the community but keeping the community from being toxic while on your server is kind why you should have decent admins. Not make toxic people admin. Then there are the forums... Same problem. Look at the catface drama. Mostly was fuled by admins leaking screen shots of private admin section of the forums. Forum owners and server owners are responsible for what is allowed within the community.
Personally, I don't think bans that are longer than 1 month and are NOT perma should exist. (As an admin for years I don't think I've ever issued such bans.) If the guy isn't hopelessly malicious, he should be allowed to play the game again, in a short while. For other games that have 100+ servers, server owners and admins can do whatever the fuck they want. Nobody would and should say a word. Servers are private properties after all. However, when the population is as tight as Empires, server owners and admins should not follow the same policy. Actually, should is a conservative word, they must not follow the same policy. It's the difference between "affecting your own server" and "affecting the game". You can't just say "players have other options", no, they don't. Actually, wait, yes, they do have other options(games). I don't hate to say this, "owners and admins do whatever the fuck they want" has become like 20 times more intense in recent years. Some deeds are good and should be preserved, in fact, a few of them are truly revolutionary. Unfortunately, some others are just begging people to uninstall the game, really. I miss the times when servers are merely places that let people enjoy the game. Oh boy, I really do miss the times. To not miss out names, I am not going to name them one by one, but I appreciate them.
bunnyhopper not sure what server banned you for that long but on VIPER the ban length increased with each time the same person was banned. Players who ruin the game for everyone deserve a lengthy ban especially if they repeat it. Permbanning has it place ie: someone who DDOS a server, someone who intentionally comes into the server to steal the CV and griefs the game, then leaves,, things such as this. During VIPER servers time we had such things going on. If the players wouldn't break rules admin wouldn't ban so it all goes back to the players not the admins.
Never said I was banned that long.. Time I am referring to was I think postamas and 2 others got a 6 months ban. Most including me got a week.. Mine ended up being 10 minutes after having an admin friend remove my ban. All because we wanted a different map. 3 admins on. Including you...but no matter how much we asked no admin would change the map. Couldn't be bothered to help people who wanted to play I guess.. but since there between spec being used as a chat room and afk people. RTV was not an option. Left us with basically 1 option to change the map. You watched it happen. Seen it coming and even threatened a ban if we didn't stop. You choose to ban half the sever. When you could have just put a vote to change the map. Things like that drove players away. Yes we "broke server rules" But asked if anyone had a problem with us 9 mining the CV into the water. Not 1 player objected. You basically punished the active players for wanting to play a decent map and keep your server populated.
LOL I never banned half a server and everyone who knows me well knows I wasn't big on banning on VIPER, so no idea what you are talking about and basically don't care since you are talking about something I can't possibly know what really happened. if your hung up about something that you think happened years ago my advice is to move on with your life. VIPER hasn't even been up for 3 years.
I can 100% certify that Vicki doesn't like banning people. (Haters are going to disagree) Bunnyhopper you might wanna recall exactly where and when it happened. Then again, I really don't think bans should be "months". If I am running a server I'd issue a one month ban and say "you will be perma banned next time and it won't be lifted." This would really fix those who have literally a dozen of ban records. People had been exploiting the fact that we are a tight community, to break rules.
Yeah... I've only been banned by Mr. X for "boom tanking" (I screwed up, okay?) But it only lasted an hour or two....
Fake news, player base is simply dwindling based upon the game being alot less fun than it used to be. No bonding occurs with new players so they are just fodder to destroy and they won't come back. New features put into the game would always surge players back into the game and that doesn't happen anymore. The game becomes a grind because tanks are so weak now and infantry is so strong. Flipping that made the game so much less fun. It was not possible for one player to kill a whole squad in 5 seconds before, but it is now. Lower resources are NOT FUN. Forcing people to play and not allowing them to choose who they get to play with, is NOT FUN. I'm forced to be X's bitch, so I quit, I can't go to spec, recently I've decided just to troll the team and remain on the team but do nothing, and that is due to no spec. ya and just rude, but you guys decide on the rules, if I want to play but am muted, I will sit in the corner and be a dumb mute, and you lose! On Viper everything was voted upon. The players controlled what was played and when to change maps. No one person could brow beat you into changing a map since it had to be a quorum that decided. And those bitching that you're not doing your job because they don't like the current map are just wrong. Vicki taught the admins to be fair. None of the current admins think like that. They kick, and mute at will or change maps because they don't like the current map. And the result - we quit the game. You remove the fun - we remove ourselves from the game.
To me, there has also been a cascading effect when a certain previously regular player goes on a hiatus or stops playing Empires. Basically, you could say when x had left Empires, so did y. It is kinda a vicious cycle since the overall population decreases because well, the overall popoulation decreased. I am less inclined to hop on a low pop game and wait hours until it fills up. Especially if I am working 45-50 hours a week and can play a max of 1 hour during the week. Empires needs to become more attractive to new players. For this, the community needs to become more welcoming towards new players and less toxic as stated above. Furthermore, Empires needs to show some more active development it can show off as news and milestone releases with proper advertising (such as the 2.0 which upon its release resulted in 15 concurrent full servers with 48-64 players each IIRC). This is a kinda dull point though, because at this point, and I know it has been said a million times already, Empires needs to switch to a new engine (preferably UE4). Source is just way too outdated now and no longer appealing to any potential new player, not to mention the restrictions the hard coded stuff brings. A dedicated group which organises PUGs, trains newbies joining these games and creates some trailers/screenshots to show off Empires would be a start as a temporary "fix". Maybe sending a message to former regular players/veterans could also help.