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Author Topic: Bit worried about that what is going on with oa's clans...  (Read 15348 times)
MilanFIN
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« on: November 03, 2011, 12:31:49 PM »

Hi

I have been around for 2 month under year now and I have noticed that lots of clans have died last months, no much new ones is coming nowdays.
Only GoD is a real strong clan nowdays, don't want to say anything bad from it, but lots of strong clans have died past months, like super,bots has almost done...

AND: the list that AIM did few days ago (it is more right than GoD's one) shows only 12 active clans left...

Is anyone else worried about the clan community in oa?
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Peter Silie
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« Reply #1 on: November 03, 2011, 01:08:50 PM »

summer time is always a shrinking community and many clans disappear.
usualy during the winter months more players are active and new players arrive - so the clans do.
lets wait what will happen this season.
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Cacatoes
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« Reply #2 on: November 03, 2011, 01:25:39 PM »

Personally I don't worry so much about players leaving/clans disappearing, though I worry about the project development's activity.
These things are linked. And I already said * what I thought of what could keep the project in better health. Surprisingly, seems like some of these things could find their ways (idea of running git, optional brightskins ...).

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RMF
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« Reply #3 on: November 04, 2011, 04:25:42 PM »

Is anyone else worried about the clan community in oa?
I am, but it seems inevitable. Though as long as my friends are around, there will be enough OA players Smiley
I'm not a hardcore gamer, I don't need people to be around all day long or even every evening. A game every now and then with some players is enough, perhaps even better as playing in a crowded public server with random noobs, novices and professionals mixed up. And don't forget the regular camping and spamming. Any gametype with any playernumber is fun with friends ^^ I once spent about two hours doing practically nothing but running around and chatting a bit with (back then, IO^)TINY on pul1ctf, we were both in the red team and just messing around without actually playing punched

Edit: Development... Well the game is quite good as it is really, I wouldn't mind if 085 ends up to be the last release (which I don't expect, but hypothetically (hope that's the right word)). Of course improvements and more development is great, but it's not like there is anything in openarena that needs very badly to be fixed.
« Last Edit: November 04, 2011, 04:46:44 PM by RMF » Logged
Neon_Knight
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« Reply #4 on: November 04, 2011, 04:49:03 PM »

Also, the problems have to do with the (lack of) releases.
Anything I have to say about this issue, I've said it before. And many times.
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WaspKiller
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« Reply #5 on: November 04, 2011, 06:40:30 PM »

...the list that AIM did few days ago (it is more right than GoD's one) shows only 12 active clans left...

I have a response about why we are in this situation but it's Friday night and I'm not about to spend time composing an appropriate post.  I will post here either Sat/Sun.

However, regarding the Clans, as I wrote at MegaClans' Forum a distinction ought to be made about Competitive Clans (those that want ranking in a league) and Fun Clans (those that just want to drink beer and have a good time now and then).

http://teammega.tk/forum/5-15-1#75
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andrewj
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« Reply #6 on: November 04, 2011, 08:51:34 PM »

a distinction ought to be made about Competitive Clans (those that want ranking in a league) and Fun Clans (those that just want to drink beer and have a good time now and then).

Perhaps use the spelling 'Klan' for the ones serious about their supremacy Wink

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swaggerall
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« Reply #7 on: November 04, 2011, 09:50:31 PM »

...the list that AIM did few days ago (it is more right than GoD's one) shows only 12 active clans left...

I have a response about why we are in this situation but it's Friday night and I'm not about to spend time composing an appropriate post.  I will post here either Sat/Sun.

However, regarding the Clans, as I wrote at MegaClans' Forum a distinction ought to be made about Competitive Clans (those that want ranking in a league) and Fun Clans (those that just want to drink beer and have a good time now and then).

http://teammega.tk/forum/5-15-1#75


we all are here for fun but we all do compete at a certain degree



(clan wars)
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WaspKiller
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« Reply #8 on: November 05, 2011, 02:03:58 PM »

a distinction ought to be made about Competitive Clans (those that want ranking in a league) and Fun Clans (those that just want to drink beer and have a good time now and then).

Perhaps use the spelling 'Klan' for the ones serious about their supremacy Wink




LOL, you're a riot!  However, I don't think the black players would appreciate that spelling.
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Bane
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« Reply #9 on: November 05, 2011, 03:03:53 PM »

I think most people in clan this time of year or either in school, college, or just to business working, summer time clans seem more active. So maybe they are not dead but just on a break.
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WaspKiller
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« Reply #10 on: November 05, 2011, 07:46:31 PM »

OA is a great game.  It has a solid engine, decent framework (the OA part) and can leverage most of Quake III's assets (maps, bot skins, mods, etc.)

Fromhell (leileilol) is the lead developer, web site/forum operator and admin, and more.  The amount of personal time he/she commits is admirable and probably under-appreciated by most players.  As such, IMO, he/she ought to have some benevolent dictator leeway in OA's direction.  However, I have an issue with the balance of strongly held personal views and OA's development as a game that can appeal to a broader audience.

There are numerous references in the Public and Private Forums attesting to Fromhell's disdain for semi-pro and pro players and their high tech accessories, the use by semi-pro's/pro's of certain cvars like r_picmip, any discussion of BrightSkins, AutoDownloads, and other issues which I need not delve into.

It doesn't bother me, and it shouldn't bother anyone that Fromhell falls on a particular side of one issue or another.  However, when you are in a position of power, you ought to guard against your opinions becoming dogma as the end result will typically appeal to only like-minded individuals.  If you want to make OA more appealing and therefore more popular you MUST offer options, even if you feel the other side is wrong.

For my purposes, I will link the issue of r_picmip/fastsky and BrightSkins as one.  r_fastsky is a client variable that makes the sky black so that enemies are more visible against this background.  r_picmip modifies map textures and image quality, with 0 being the best quality, and higher numbers progressively degrading these qualities.  Generally, by increasing the setting a player (particularly on a slower PC or connection) can attain a higher and more consistent framerate, improve visibility of the enemy against background textures, and make a weapon such as the LG easier to keep on target.  BrightSkins allow a player to make the enemy incredibly visible by assigning one or more bright solid color(s) to the entire model or parts of a model.

I can understand Fromhell's personal objection to these.  In competitive Mods like OSP (Orange Smoothie Productions), CPMA (Challenge Pro Mode Arena) and E+ (Excessive Plus) these are standard and unquestioned but in other mods including baseq3/baseoa players many see these as cheats.  Moreover, when Fromhell spends months designing a model in OA, it has to be upsetting that a player then comes along and negates that by using BrightSkins, etc.

However, you have to cast personal feelings aside if you want the project to grow and flourish.  The issue is how to satisfy both casual and Clan type players.

I don't necessarily have the answers but like others I can certainly make suggestions.  I have no doubt that if more marketing is done, if there is at least one release within a 12 month period, and more options like the ones listed above are added to baseoa that we can appeal to both types of players.

I have never seen a Commercial or OpenSource game have a vibrant and growing community without Clans.  And you can't maintain or increase Clans if you don't attract casual players in the first place.


Related issue...

Semi Pro/Pro players are content with dumbed down graphics but casual players generally want eyecandy (can we scream Q3A and Q3TA texture replacement packs for custom maps) or at least something that does not look circa 1999.

Quake III was release in December 1999 and the main minimum requirements were:

Pentium II 233 MHz or AMD 350 MHz K6-2
64 MB RAM
8 MB 3D graphics accelerator with full OpenGL support
100% DirectX 3.0 or higher compatible sound card
500 MB of free hard drive space

OA still uses the Pentium II as the baseline.  We are almost in 2012 and even though we use the ioq3 engine, the basis (idtech3) for this will turn 12 years next month (Dec 2011).  I could be wrong, but it seems to me that holding on to this baseline 12 years later is like carrying an 800 pound gorilla on our backs.  It has to be a constraint on the implementation of newer technologies and general improvements.  Additionally, we aren't ioq3.  We are supposed to be building on top of them so our requirements should be a bit higher.  Can we say Pentium 4?, after all these were shipped by Intel starting in November 2000.  I knew of two Pentium III players but my personal discussions with them on TS revealed that they were trying to have fun but it wasn't working out.
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Jiminy
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« Reply #11 on: March 08, 2012, 01:29:53 PM »

I agree about the baseline and would personally like to see releases optimized for specific CPUs (P4+, AMD, etc). I build my own and optimize the holy crap out of it, and it definitely runs smoother with a few more fps, so I think it's worth it.

-------

As far as the clan thing, I know exactly what you mean. I'm in NIN (or just N nowadays) and we seem to be the only active North American clan besides Mega. We don't even try to do clan wars and stuff anymore...there doesn't seem to be anyone to match against! But we keep chugging along. Every single day we're in IRC (#nin-clan on quakenet) 10-15 deep. Many of us have been playing for more than 2 years. Up until a recent issue with my video card/motherboard, and getting 55+ hours a week at work, I played every day. Every single day. I auto record and literally have thousands of demos.

I will say it looks like people are getting active again. I've noticed a good little surge of old players coming back, and a steady amount of new players coming to the game. I'm keeping the faith...you should too!
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swaggerall
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« Reply #12 on: March 13, 2012, 07:23:43 AM »

Yeah it seems to be Mega, NIN, & GoD Clans to still be active in OA playing and chatting in there irc's


the latest im trying to spread OA to people in my city so we can get more people and Americans to play !
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fromhell
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« Reply #13 on: March 14, 2012, 07:21:52 PM »

I agree about the baseline and would personally like to see releases optimized for specific CPUs (P4+, AMD, etc). I build my own and optimize the holy crap out of it, and it definitely runs smoother with a few more fps, so I think it's worth it.
I'd like to know the results. From the beginning, id tech 3 was designed to make the GPU do all the workload with little CPU calculation, even less so than id tech 2.
Furthermore my target spec is "Pentium II '98 era rig" - OA 0.8.8 is still playable on that around the 20fps mark, but a lot of things could be better as modern hardware tolerate "bag of tricks" methods less to the point we'd need a total renderer rewrite for more speed.
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asking when OA3 will be done won't get OA3 done.
Progress of OA3 currently occurs behind closed doors alone

I do not provide technical support either.

new code development on github
Neon_Knight
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« Reply #14 on: March 14, 2012, 09:01:35 PM »

For one, map optimization should be a priority. I've found out that some maps could be rescuable while many others would need to be redone from scratch... "Quake 1" mapping techniques may work with OA, but they bring a lot of issues.
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"Detailed" is nice, but if it gets in the way of clarity, it ceases being a nice addition and becomes a problem. - TVT
Want to contribute? Read this.
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