Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 4:04 pm
I'll bet that three years ago you never thought you'd hear this. My hypothesis is that limiting the number of players on a server will give us better games.
I think it's a myth, perpetrated by the daughters of the mayflower, whose carcasses quite frankly are begining to get a bit whify anyway, that player skill is decreasing, todays player base is as able as it ever was. There were probably more aces around because there were more players around. I never played beta or very early retail, I *think* I bought the game in early 2000, and was a newbie for the next four and a half years or so before entering the golden era of my voobdom so I can't comment with any authority on the pre-Ducky era (herinafter refered to as B.C. (Before Canard(as opposed to A.D. (After Duck)))). What I do remember however was the game size brackets which you set before launch in the AZ, don't quote me, I'm sure someone remembers the actual sizes but weren't they something like 2-10, 8-15, 12-20 etc?
My theory is that Allegiance really doesn't scale well, I think that 15 or so players a side (depending on the map) is about the optimum, cramming 60 players onto Inside-out or Star just removes any hope of a decent, co-ordinated game. HTT's can't sneak about because there isn't just one Pook or Noir or Wyldkarde massochistically mooching about in a scout, there are ten, sup becomes ludicrously overpowered because 10 people with galvs kill a giga light op in about 5 seconds and the team still has an uber defense and 5 massochists in scouts waiting in the wings. The subtlety of Allegiance is lost, it becomes a huge, stinking, hairy mess. Nobody can do anything Allegilike because every sector is having its ass DMed out CS style.
What the game size brackets did was to allow the game owner to set the map to match the players there at the start, if twenty stragglers wandered in after launch the first few could join, the remainder had to either start another game, or sit in the lobby pissing and moaning about how cool it would be if there was a way to launch a game without a player cap. THAT'S what is missing from the current setup, two or three games of reasonable size and OMGWTF different cores being played at the same time. It would allow Allegiance style gameplay back into Allegiance. It's not the fact that todays newbies suck, it's the fact that we are incapable of regulating the size of a game by looking at the map and settings, without big brother doing it for us. Don't get me wrong there are times when a cluster-$#@! 60 player game is fun, but not every single prime-time game, every single day.
Two or three games may even give less experienced would-be commanders the impetus to have a go as well, commanding 10 people is less daunting than listening to a team of thirty with five or six able comms criticising your every move, mull it around. I think it's a plan.
P.S. I haven't re-read this yet because I'm at work and it's five O'clock, so if there are even more typos and bad punctuation than usual, tough.
I think it's a myth, perpetrated by the daughters of the mayflower, whose carcasses quite frankly are begining to get a bit whify anyway, that player skill is decreasing, todays player base is as able as it ever was. There were probably more aces around because there were more players around. I never played beta or very early retail, I *think* I bought the game in early 2000, and was a newbie for the next four and a half years or so before entering the golden era of my voobdom so I can't comment with any authority on the pre-Ducky era (herinafter refered to as B.C. (Before Canard(as opposed to A.D. (After Duck)))). What I do remember however was the game size brackets which you set before launch in the AZ, don't quote me, I'm sure someone remembers the actual sizes but weren't they something like 2-10, 8-15, 12-20 etc?
My theory is that Allegiance really doesn't scale well, I think that 15 or so players a side (depending on the map) is about the optimum, cramming 60 players onto Inside-out or Star just removes any hope of a decent, co-ordinated game. HTT's can't sneak about because there isn't just one Pook or Noir or Wyldkarde massochistically mooching about in a scout, there are ten, sup becomes ludicrously overpowered because 10 people with galvs kill a giga light op in about 5 seconds and the team still has an uber defense and 5 massochists in scouts waiting in the wings. The subtlety of Allegiance is lost, it becomes a huge, stinking, hairy mess. Nobody can do anything Allegilike because every sector is having its ass DMed out CS style.
What the game size brackets did was to allow the game owner to set the map to match the players there at the start, if twenty stragglers wandered in after launch the first few could join, the remainder had to either start another game, or sit in the lobby pissing and moaning about how cool it would be if there was a way to launch a game without a player cap. THAT'S what is missing from the current setup, two or three games of reasonable size and OMGWTF different cores being played at the same time. It would allow Allegiance style gameplay back into Allegiance. It's not the fact that todays newbies suck, it's the fact that we are incapable of regulating the size of a game by looking at the map and settings, without big brother doing it for us. Don't get me wrong there are times when a cluster-$#@! 60 player game is fun, but not every single prime-time game, every single day.
Two or three games may even give less experienced would-be commanders the impetus to have a go as well, commanding 10 people is less daunting than listening to a team of thirty with five or six able comms criticising your every move, mull it around. I think it's a plan.
P.S. I haven't re-read this yet because I'm at work and it's five O'clock, so if there are even more typos and bad punctuation than usual, tough.