I like how much drama Dz caused, and how the opposition is just two "I am mad at the world and I will complain about everything" guys. +1
Just tested the dropships, I now take the same side as empty and varbles. Oh lorddz, what have you done!
Server isn't laggy, the lag is coming from your end, as for maps we have limited choicse at this point, but all the good playable commanders maps are listed in rotation, until the devs update empires we can't add all the maps we would like to. If you have complaints about VIPER admins please let us know and post on our forums.
I thought that by now people would've realized that all those silly maps have ruined the community by driving off most of the core players. I'm disappointed to see only a minority is smart enough to realize this. Silly maps have caused significantly more damage than lack of maps, bugs and outdated graphics put together. In a game that has thousands of players and many servers this isn't a problem, cause real players will play on servers that play real maps while the people who just like to mess around will join the so called funservers. In empires however there's one server with people, and if a silly map is loaded, the players who actually like the original empires gameplay have no choice but to stop playing, usually with the promise to get back when the next map starts. In truth, most of the time you've started doing something else before that and so you don't join again that evening. With the normal players gone, only the idiots remain on the server, who of course keep voting for other silly maps. The next day you start up empires, play one or two maps and bam ... rainbowroad. After a few months of frustration you quit empires, it is that simple.
Pretty much why I called it. Rainbowroad, Octagons, Empirescup, and every other gimmick map didn't just make the game unplayable when they're on, they changed the entire playerbase. They changed the way people acted towards the game, what people expected of it, and a load of other shit. They killed the game in my opinion, and it would take a long time of abstinence from every single server for those maps, to really fix the playerbase.
I don't hate them, Rainbowroad, Octagons, and Empirescup are novelty maps, they are those maps that all empires players, vets or newbs, will remember cause they are just classic - but the gameplay on all three of those is a one-time deal, if they are played more than once a week the feeling of Empires really goes down. Sometimes I want to go play, so to check my ping I look at one of my friends or the server list, and whenever I see that the map is Rainbowroad (which is really common) I just lose my appetite for the whole day.
The problem is mostly that people play empires pretty compulsively and spend alot of time there. We all get to know one another more than playing other games because the playerbase is small and we tend to play alot, which is nice - people like some chit-chat with their gaming. But then people start to get bored, or they think that playing the same maps over and over again is stale (after many years and Thousands of game hours) and so they think we need to have fun maps to break up the serious ones.... Bu is that true? Is it better to play classic Empires and when you feel you've had enough then go play something else? Or is it better to incorporate some light-hearted fun maps and break it up? The truth is somewhere inbetween - ask the question to people you will probably get a split opinion. Generally there are some maps I really don't enjoy playing, but I will hang out in spec and ride it out unless the next map sucks too. For example this is OK: Crossroads, Slaughtered, Isle, Coast, Rainbow-Road, Duststorm, Cyclopean, Mvalley, Octogons... This is not OK: Crossroads, Slaughtered, Rainbowroad, octogons, mondoon, Duststorm, minigames Also note that the flag (conquest?) Maps and escort, etc also provide the same effect of relief in my opinion (but not dickstrict) much better. I think the best thing really is to have more escort / escort_nf type maps. Fun maps have their place, but if they come one after another you do just end up with a bunch of eejits online
I look back at 4 years of empires play thinking of good times on proper maps, and some epic escort rounds too. I have no fond memories of Octagons, Rainbowroad and Empirescup games.
I agree about the fun maps, I don't care for them either, but when I had none on I got requests for them over and over again, It seems there is always going to be a group who wants them and a group who doesn't. Out of all the maps on VIPER there are only 4 fun maps able to be voted for, hobbes, mondoon rainbowroad and octagons and I will configure it so a fun map can be played twice a day if voted 1 every 12 hours. For quite awhile I have asked some mappers to please map some small commnader maps w/o gimmicks, so far none have been made Being that the player base has been small for an extended period of time, imo these types of maps would be great to have on rotation.
They literally gave me headaches. At first they were cool, because they were different but after 5 minutes of a round they became a cancer to empires.
I can see why people want something different from time to time. Playing commander maps over and over again does become repetitive even if it doesn't get boring. However empires as it was released already offered "breaks" like that while actually increasing the game's value instead of completely messing it up. By this i mean maps like escort, district and even money. Granted all infantry maps suffer from some problems, but there's nothing wrong with the concept. Some of my best games were on escort, ... and yes so were some of my worst. My point is that after hours of serious commander maps, escort, while still being very serious, offered a break, and when it was over you were glad to go to commander maps again. Money gets a lot of complaints, but it is my version of a fun map. Yet the gameplay is serious core empires gameplay, and so are the graphics (in comparison to other official emp maps). It has loads of money though, and arties! Fun. While i wouldn't rate maps like that highly, imo they're quite important and help you log more hours in empires. I can't say the same about the crappy fun maps i've seen in the last few years. Those i'd give to a five year old child at best. I'm guessing some people want those fun maps, due to a lack of infantry and semi serious maps. Unfortunately empires doesn't have a mapper so we're stuck with what we have. Making silly maps isn't the answer to this. Well it is for 1% of the community, but then don't start complaining if there are no people playing. Vicky, i'm glad you'll configure the servers to limit these maps. Like someone said, i can live with having to play them once a month. And i do understand that as a server admin/owner you have to listen to the idiots as well and that you want to leave them in.
ive had fond memories of matches on empirescup (only b1 though), and i have good memories of rainbowroad when it is played as it should (as a fun joke map), which is never. i have shown no love to octagons since shandy removed the third level in b1
The thing is Vicki, I still think it was up to server owners to just ignore those requests. But it's catch-22 really. Ignore them and your server might just go empty, but don't ignore them and it kills the playerbase. Personally, I just think they need to go altogether, I think there has to be a point where we say "no, you're not having those shitty maps", no matter how much they're requested. The problem is that they've been around so long that the playerbase we have now, is the playerbase who showed up when those maps were getting loads of airtime, so they want those maps. If we had a good patch and totally removed those maps from existence, we'd probably lose playerbase quite significantly, but after that, I genuinely believe it would start to rise again, and I think the playerbase we'd get would be a much better one, one that genuinely wants to play Empires properly.
What people should do is just get those maps out of here, gone, forever, all new players after that point will never have played those maps. The people who want those maps will continue playing anyway, cause they are just gimmick maps. Then mappers should make a few restful maps, for instance, slaughtered is a restful map because all you do is drive tanks at each other. Make maps where the players don't have to do as much as in a normal round, then the server will go through stressful maps then through easy going maps. Or what you could do is have Mvalley come up every ten maps so that everyone just sits spec and talk about things every tenth map.
