The popularity of empires has definatley declined over the years. From what I gathered, that is not due to the lack of interesting gameplay or a learning curve. Do you remember when 2.4 was released (after the empires launcher fix was implemented) we had a huge wave of new players and old vets returning. For about 5 days we had 50+ people on epic or viper for most of the day. Now it seems like the popluation went back to its "normal" state. This is just speculation, but a reason why this happened might have to do with the Invalid Steam ID ticket problem that I had to fix again shortly after the update. Most new players probably don't know how to fix it and old vets might just not have the desire to go and fix it. Also maps cycles tend to kill the population, for example when viper had 3-4 infantry maps in a row! Also escort should be removed from the cycle imo and only put on upon request. After a long long round of escort (as always), atleast 10 will quit. Also, it doesn't help the way new players a treated, for example being called a retard for building a wall that is supposed to used for shooting over. Too many empires players expect new comers to know all the tactics of the game right away. To me it seems like the community and the people running the servers are just not prepared for an increase of popularity.
The reason more people don't play....."Vets" to be honest having played some other indie/mod games recently I realised just how intolerant and degenerate some Empires players are, no doubt they all consider themselves "vets" and as if they are entitled to behave like pricks in a pub just because they can play decent. Trickster pretty much said how I feel in another thread in that lots of people feeling more important than they are as if people owe them something just for playing (forgive me for paraphrasing). Its actually pretty annoying, I don't have a problem with anyone really, I get why people feel the way they do, and I know for alot of people it is just because they are young and immature. But the only people I really hold in high regard are not uberskilled, they just conduct themselves in a reasonable manner. Like loose your shit in a scrim or a pug and its fine, but in a pub game with 10 new players try not to be a total bell end. One of the reasons I am playing wastelands now for example is because I met a few really cool people to play with even tho I TKed them by accident as soon as I spawned! On topic: slightly mindless/forgiving commander maps like this that give consisten gameplay are a bit boring but they do help populate the server.
So we'll permaban all veterans in the empires code itself for a year or so. Actually, and i'm not joking, by the end of that year we could have a lot more players then we do now. Though we should wait untill all problems have been fixed before permabanning The CW training server would've been perfect for this. Everyone who insulted newbies would get a few warnings and then get kicked, while most of the other players actually helped out explaining everything
Training servers were difficult to manage. When me and eldalonde did this on one of the servers, it would often culminate in 'vets' bitching that we'd reprimand them for not playing the game more straight forwards. We'd kick commanders who built a sneak rax on Mvalley above the enemy base and such. These tactics used to outwit the enemy with stealth and such are not great things to use in a normal pub match. They put players off when you have one squad that roams through and ravages everything in their path. it's a very hard line to draw as an administrator on a server, and when there is not a population, you are, quite litterally, forcing players out of matches when they don't know how to relax and not play the game seriously. Dota is the best example of how this effect works out imo. If you have a group of people that are try hards and you get matched up against them while only being a casual player yourself, it's no fun. At the same time, if there are 3 try hards on your team and you are not a try hard, you can ruin it for your team. It's a pain in the ass to deal with the inbetweens.
@Freak: The influx of new players and the return of old players probably had much to do with the fact that the release coincided with the beginning of winter break for a lot of people. Similarly, Empire's depopulation coincided well with the end of winter break for a lot of people. @AZK: The only reason why I've played as long as I have is because of pickled_heretic. He was actually patient enough to teach me how to play the game, and I endured his occasional bouts of being an asshole simply because I realized that it was a game, and that tempers were bound to flare. His raging at me in many cases made me a better player; I still remember this match I had with him back in Jan or Feb of 2010 where I was in a 3 man squad with him and yobbo going to take dam. I took repair upgrade, because I was still more or less a complete noob at the game. Of course, when pickled and yobbo went down, he raged at me for not having rev, and of course, I got angry at him because the wiki said that repair was the most useful skill for an engie to take, but whatever he taught me stuck, because I have generally been taking revive over repair ever since. This holds true for a lot of people, OuNin and suprore taught me how to work in a squad well, numb401 taught me the joys of ninjaing, etc. Honestly, some new players might be scared away by vets, but the only new players who stay generally stay because of the community, not because of the strengths, or lack thereof, of Empires gameplay.
Silk probably thinks this is a shit map, but I love to see new maps for low pop games. Playing with ten people can be agonizing on an elaborate map.
Hexi, I'm just butt hurt because well over half the people I have introduced to the game have said the same thing. They kind of enjoyed it but they wouldn't play it again basically because of the way they were spoken to. Its just the polar opposite of my experiences in other games and thats what irks me.
There are things we can change, but the communities attitude isn't one of them. Freaknovich actually has a fair point, the Invalid SteamID bug hit us (for the 3rd time now) at a really bad time, and I definitely saw a drop in playercount in the days after. There are other things. This release could have got more players if we'd hit the 21st December date, had no issues, and got all the PR out that day. Instead, it took us about an extra week to get it working, then due to the lack of time I had, the PR was spread out over the week after that, rather than all being done at once to give an exponential player boost. By the time everything went through, people were heading back to work/school. Having said that, a pcgamer.com article never really figured into our plans, so we did better than expected there. I don't know to be honest, maybe the time for sourcemods has passed. There are other things in the pipeline which could get us more PR, but we really have to bide our time on those.
The one thing that pisses me off about new players, is when I take time out of my day to show them the game, teach what does what. They thank me and I never see them play again. Ever.. I've decided to stop being nice, and only be nice to the ones who actually stay. I mean everyone gives Franklin endless amounts of shit and he still plays the fucking thing, regardless how we treat him. We don't get that kind of quality frequently, if we are lucky even...
I must admit, I really do understand this. I've had this happen so many times now, and it really does feel depressing.
It's more complex than that. It has no details at all so yes i think (know) it's an ugly map. It is very narrow everywhere so it is like s-bend in slaughtered but just ... everywhere... which will from time to time lead to frustrating battles i'm sure. The fact that it's small though i do consider to be a good thing as well, as we're lacking such maps. There should be a range of maps for any possible amount of players, going from around 10 to 64 people. I don't even think that this layout (circle) has to be bad all the time. Low playercounts for example require maps without too much paths. Also newer players who aren't yet experienced in empires tactics won't be able to screw everything up if the layout is a circle because maps like this take no part in the strategy of the matches played on them. But to be playing only maps like this for years .... ugh And again, it is a very ugly map that won't help getting new players when they start up empires after having played FarCry 3, Crysis, Battlefield, etc ...
Source mods had it peak quite a few years ago (like when valve first started offering mods through steamworks). Also with things like crowd funding and the rise of indie game development a lot of people decide to make a commercial game rather than a mod these days. I think one of the problems is that there is no category on the steam store for free mods (I think there used to be) so not enough people simply ever notice them and the ones that do, look at the server browser see only 10 people playing, think "this mod is dead" and never bother again.
Perhaps with the release of the confirmed Steambox, mods might see a resurgence, especially if it launches with Half Life 3. With games like Planetside 2 being free VS a seven year old mod with no exposure it's not that surprising the player population is low. Anyways, the map looks pretty cool and reminds me of why I like more simple maps like booty bay where you usually fight in only 1 or 2 areas, because I'm a sucker for trench warfare.
This is, I believe, the key problem, and one I'm hoping to fix. I don't want to say publicly because it might get people's hopes up, but I'm hoping we can arrange a move on Steam, as long as we fulfil some very lengthy criteria.
btw does anyone know if this is a broken sdk feature or just not working in empires specifically: The detail.vbsp file is what places the cheap grass sprites on top of the terrain. I succeeded in making 2 other sprites to test new content, however i can only get them in the game if i replace the default files with them. In this case however, ALL sprites in ALL maps are broken obviously since they no longer have the correct file. The map properties window seems to hint that you can have 2 or more files and link each map to the one it fits too, but it doesn't work at all. I can set it to my custom files, but it will still keep going to the default location for the default file.
A guy in the interlopers chat asked something similar about detailsprites today, perhaps you should ask them?
Thanks for the info! Also BroT, I actually really was making a small commandermap with a layout very similar to emp_coast before i made this topic. I'm trying to find the correct atmosphere first; so combining/making textures, ssbumps and getting the lighting right is first on my to do list. After this i'll start on the actual map. That said, by now i'm extremely close to my dream atmosphere for this map, so i was able to make a test setup that should look very close to what the finished map will be in half a year or so. emp_smallcommandermap screenshot (working title):
