emp_chain was a godlike piece of work, I have no idea why the players did not like it. Same with Fuel, they are fucking amazing, the players are just fucking retarded.
This. So much. The best maps don't get played at all Everyone whines about map rotation but it is largely down to players and not servers. Rounds last so long that the player base cycles before the maps do if that makes sense - which is why I think there is so much repetition. At any given time there is a lot of people who will enjoy either Mvalley or Slaughtered or Escort or Canyon - so inevitably they will get played a lot. In an ideal world I would prefer to have a map rating system rather than voting and have the server do some weighted randomisation to determine the next map. Either that or a random map based on player count with possibility for a map vote once every 3 maps or something. OR you could just all stop being repetitive pricks and vote in chain and all the other awesome maps we have. Variety is the spice of life guys!
I throw my vote out for Chain whenever we have enough people to do it. The map cycle problem can be reduced to a single problem that feeds into itself People prefer maps they know. Say you're a new player, and there are three maps to vote for. Slaughtered, Mvalley and Chain. Your thought process generally goes like this "Well, I know what Mvalley and Slaughtered are, but I've never seen Chain. I'd much prefer to vote for Slaughtered because I'd know what to do and it's simple. Maybe Mvalley, I'd done that one a few times. Not Chain though, I wouldn't know what to do." Now a new player comes along, and all these other players are mostly voting for Mvalley, Slaughtered, Crossroads and Money. So this new player has a bit less experience with new maps because the people before him had less experience with new maps than the people before *them*, with each new group of people have experience with a smaller and smaller map rotation. And so these people will continue to vote mainly for maps they know. The solution? Either a fixed mapcycle, or players that are willing to try maps they don't know. But if they try maps they don't know, then the people who *do* know the maps are going to rage at the people who don't know the map, so there's no real answer.
I'm not sure if that holds up Candles. It might explain why some maps get voted in to begin with, but you can't say most rounds have a significant voting portion of newbies. I don't believe that we have that many at all. It also doesn't explain the level of lulz that ensues on some maps, where more experienced players more or less finish the map quickly or just play around (play as in, another type of play that isn't really Empires gameplay. I shall call it lulplay). I think a lot of the reasons people don't play is because they always think things are as they were. True, when Rainbowroad comes on, I clock out, but that isn't exactly all the time, I didn't think. Not as much as it used to be by as much as half probably. I think what happens is people just need an excuse to come back and see how things have changed, which usually occurs with a new version. If it does change, they stay, if it doesn't they go away again. Also I will love emp_bush forever :D
Votes were around forever now because Trickster had to cater to the vocal minority and it was STILL mostly dead.
When I join the server, and I can assuredly say that I don't know half the people on the server, and at least another quarter I can say haven't been playing for more than a month at the most, then I can assuredly say that a majority of voters are new players. As recently as three months ago, this wasn't a problem.
Thing is there's no ideal solution, because people will go complaining no matter what you do. It's about finding and choosing the lesser evil.
There is a solution. Join a server, be a friendly person. Drink something while you do it, alcohol keeps out the idiots and keeps you happy.
That's crazy. Does this mean the mod has a substantial influx of newbies on a monthly basis?? If so...how do we manage to deep such big holes for this mod when we get so many new people in all the time???
Because the game has a ridiculous turnover rate. Because new players come but they don't stay. Because either they're treated like shit, they don't know how to play and get bored, or because the game is boring. Whether that's the game's fault or the player just has bad expectations, I don't know.
Blame Empires for being a bad game and I'll cut your tongue out, shove it up your ass, and then set it on fire. Just wanted to save Trickster some time. It's the turnover rate. I know everyone hates an influx of newfags, but honestly, people don't stay if they don't join the forums or join a clan. We need to get the forums shown more in-game and get some players with time to set up a noob clan for new players.
