Since the beginning of time communities have been plagued by the difficulty of deciding for their own future. Usually the generally best option prevails over the inferior ones, but exceptions happen, and are in fact alarmingly common. Crossfire, or the ET-scene in general, is no different. All the recent talk about LANs, leagues, ladders and admins having killed the game by their poor decisions has made me wonder: does this community have balls after all? Could the average middle-European player be roused, and could the community perhaps yet save their favourite online game's future?
Yes, I know what you think: I'm overreacting. Perhaps some will even say, "It's just a game, chill the fuck out!". Well, while it might be "just a game", it's still one of the few games I have enjoyed playing for such a long time. Evidently this goes for many other members of this community, too - an old game like this, even though being free, hardly entices new players, especially your casual Call of Duty-Carls or battlefield-Bobs. There are no iron sights, no unlockables, no instant kill snipers. Everyone keeps jumping around and moving generally faster than them, and they swiftly ragequit, infinitely despising the name of Enemy Territory. Many of my friends don't like this game because it's "unrealistic". Ergo, this game is slowly dying. It happens to every online videogame, and is inevitable - but not undelayable.
You have all perhaps noticed how we are basically being told that the only way to save ET from its inevitable death is organizing more and more LANs, and through them gaining attention to this old warhorse. This argument has been used by the current administrative organ of ET (i.e. admins of Crossfire and the major leagues) to such extent that it has actually become tiresome, and every time I post something relatively lengthy or critical about what the admins are doing, I get told by Krosan how it is actually very important and I could not possibly understand the reasons of their recent many changes, for I am not an admin. To my understanding similiar thoughts are found all around the world in poor leaders, in modern politicians and tyrants - the puny peasants are too stupid to decide for themselves, and hence they shouldn't. Naturally that only means that power has gone to their head and they might not even see it themselves.
I think, however, that this game could still be saved. It has been gruesomely marred recently, but it is still not beyond mending. I am not talking about the mere 6o6 -> 5o5 change, but also other changes in rules, configs and such. Being an ecstatic covert ops player I am most annoyed by the recent limitation of snipers per team to one. The "ET-committee" composed of top-tier langoers originally decided for this change because two snipers could break otherwise carefully designed defences in sp_delivery_te, and Clanbase adapted it to their configs tongues brown. Ironically Clanbase also removed the map this change was exclusively adapted for from their mappool at the same time. Laughably enough they also broke the forcetapout command by making it unusable when your body is destroyed by an explosion, because it could cause a bug about two people knew about (I admit, I told about it to Clanbase admins, as I saw it being abused in a match. A folly, of course, but everyone makes mistakes, don't they?). So next time you get a full spawn from a nade because of not being able to tapout soon enough (there's a ~1s delay), you know who to blame.
In the end I think there is only one way we could attempt to revive this dying game. As it seems that all the "ruling power" ET-scene cares about is themselves (Do we see TosspoT around except during LANs when he can exit his closet and go reap the fame and possible monies from these gaming events, for example?). We need to shift the power and have new leagues with new cups and ladders that have rules and configs that suit the game, instead of only suiting LANs. I expect I'm going to see one certain LAN organizing admin here telling me how any league that doesn't suck his cock is going to fail as soon as he announces yet another of their magnificent events. Again, I think it's only silly and useless loathing of anything that doesn't match their interests, whatever they are. Stupid pessimism never leads anywhere, this community is a great example of it.
For final words, I'm not saying there's some great conspiracy that only aims to make this game a boring campfest, add two objectives to each map, a bomb to the other team and disable spawning. I'm saying that the people who are deciding for most of the rules and gameplay changes at the moment are simply bad at it. This is not an insult, but a criticism everyone in an influential position will have to endure. The situation of the game at the moment seems like a series of unfortunate events, nothing more. It could have been avoided if these decisions had been thought over, instead of changing the whole gameplay just because you're lazy and organizing events with hundreds of people in them is a lot of work (No shit Sherlock). The 5o5 change, of which Baggiez wrote a lengthy journal about, is only about the LAN organizers being lazy fucks and trying to take the easy way out.
Again, before any of them comes having lengthy discussions with me on IRC about this, this is not an insult, but criticism everyone in an influential position will have to endure. You could have done better if you would really have wanted to. I am hundred percent certain that it was not impossible to have 6o6 LANs, but it was just too much of a work for them to bother. And that is bad.
Bottom line: If you want something changed, don't just whine, but do something!
Yes, I know what you think: I'm overreacting. Perhaps some will even say, "It's just a game, chill the fuck out!". Well, while it might be "just a game", it's still one of the few games I have enjoyed playing for such a long time. Evidently this goes for many other members of this community, too - an old game like this, even though being free, hardly entices new players, especially your casual Call of Duty-Carls or battlefield-Bobs. There are no iron sights, no unlockables, no instant kill snipers. Everyone keeps jumping around and moving generally faster than them, and they swiftly ragequit, infinitely despising the name of Enemy Territory. Many of my friends don't like this game because it's "unrealistic". Ergo, this game is slowly dying. It happens to every online videogame, and is inevitable - but not undelayable.
You have all perhaps noticed how we are basically being told that the only way to save ET from its inevitable death is organizing more and more LANs, and through them gaining attention to this old warhorse. This argument has been used by the current administrative organ of ET (i.e. admins of Crossfire and the major leagues) to such extent that it has actually become tiresome, and every time I post something relatively lengthy or critical about what the admins are doing, I get told by Krosan how it is actually very important and I could not possibly understand the reasons of their recent many changes, for I am not an admin. To my understanding similiar thoughts are found all around the world in poor leaders, in modern politicians and tyrants - the puny peasants are too stupid to decide for themselves, and hence they shouldn't. Naturally that only means that power has gone to their head and they might not even see it themselves.
I think, however, that this game could still be saved. It has been gruesomely marred recently, but it is still not beyond mending. I am not talking about the mere 6o6 -> 5o5 change, but also other changes in rules, configs and such. Being an ecstatic covert ops player I am most annoyed by the recent limitation of snipers per team to one. The "ET-committee" composed of top-tier langoers originally decided for this change because two snipers could break otherwise carefully designed defences in sp_delivery_te, and Clanbase adapted it to their configs tongues brown. Ironically Clanbase also removed the map this change was exclusively adapted for from their mappool at the same time. Laughably enough they also broke the forcetapout command by making it unusable when your body is destroyed by an explosion, because it could cause a bug about two people knew about (I admit, I told about it to Clanbase admins, as I saw it being abused in a match. A folly, of course, but everyone makes mistakes, don't they?). So next time you get a full spawn from a nade because of not being able to tapout soon enough (there's a ~1s delay), you know who to blame.
In the end I think there is only one way we could attempt to revive this dying game. As it seems that all the "ruling power" ET-scene cares about is themselves (Do we see TosspoT around except during LANs when he can exit his closet and go reap the fame and possible monies from these gaming events, for example?). We need to shift the power and have new leagues with new cups and ladders that have rules and configs that suit the game, instead of only suiting LANs. I expect I'm going to see one certain LAN organizing admin here telling me how any league that doesn't suck his cock is going to fail as soon as he announces yet another of their magnificent events. Again, I think it's only silly and useless loathing of anything that doesn't match their interests, whatever they are. Stupid pessimism never leads anywhere, this community is a great example of it.
For final words, I'm not saying there's some great conspiracy that only aims to make this game a boring campfest, add two objectives to each map, a bomb to the other team and disable spawning. I'm saying that the people who are deciding for most of the rules and gameplay changes at the moment are simply bad at it. This is not an insult, but a criticism everyone in an influential position will have to endure. The situation of the game at the moment seems like a series of unfortunate events, nothing more. It could have been avoided if these decisions had been thought over, instead of changing the whole gameplay just because you're lazy and organizing events with hundreds of people in them is a lot of work (No shit Sherlock). The 5o5 change, of which Baggiez wrote a lengthy journal about, is only about the LAN organizers being lazy fucks and trying to take the easy way out.
Again, before any of them comes having lengthy discussions with me on IRC about this, this is not an insult, but criticism everyone in an influential position will have to endure. You could have done better if you would really have wanted to. I am hundred percent certain that it was not impossible to have 6o6 LANs, but it was just too much of a work for them to bother. And that is bad.
Bottom line: If you want something changed, don't just whine, but do something!
get over it already
:O
it's funny you talk about brown tongues, why don't you talk about your tongue licking experiences with pale?
irony
bad example
Take that wwwdl exploit for instance. If the information had never become public, it might still not be patchet against. Yet it did, and it took under a week to get a working fix for it.
Burneddi is against every kind of cheating in praccs / offis.
I know he is Legumuumi. How many cheats he created or helped to created to ET?
0.
Edit: Yea you are totally right. Congrats.
Ps. Dont want to continue this useless argument.
why the whine? where the use?
I cant see anything attracting new palyers to it. Thats why the community is shrinking and shrinking. All the great words in the world cant change the fact that every product has a life cycle and ET is surely as it's end. I think that making the rest of the active community responsible instead of the lack of new players is absolutely counter productive.
This is why im saying "why the talk?". lets accept the inevitable and actually enjoy our (last) days in ET instead of whining about it taking its natural path.
playing other stuff and then pwning ET every now and then makes you appreciate how good the game really is. you just need to learn to love it for that instead of hating it for fearing that all will be gone one day. thats just the way it goes and yes, i am #1 hater on every new public focused game. look at this community blindly anticipating BRINK even tho it has been published months ago that the stuff they are actually working on is face paint and moving oer ever object in scripted ways... noone here really appreciates ET for the facts that make it that good but everyone whines about it dying out.
gg with 6on6 just now was fun times :)
yep
As for the LAN stuff, I could easily say the same. Go that extra mile to organize 6o6 LANs or don't organize them at all.
Can you taste the delicious irony in your own words? How unfortunate that you're so terribly short-sighted.
As I, like the rest of the community, have learnt, the 6o6 -> 5o5 change was only because 6o6 was a "logistical nightmare". Now reading between the lines there (i.e. in Baggiez' column) tells me that it was a logistical nightmare only because *you* are short-sighted in planning your events. Such horrible logistical problems wouldn't happen if you planned them properly.
In LAN organizing the faulty party was the organizers for not being able to plan their events well enough to make them fluent to organize. In league organizing the faulty party is the whole community for being generally lazy - and I'm not blaming anyone in the last statement, as it is pretty much just human nature. If nobody wanted to come to your LANs just because "they would fail anyways", would it be your fault?
Say you're right, it was a bit short-sighted of the event staff to not foresee the problems simultaneous 5v5 & 6v6 tournaments would cause. If that was the case, the event would've been 5v5 in the first place and we'd still be where we are now. The lesson was learnt during the event rather than beforehand, so what?
Also, you must remember that running a LAN is a huge amount of effort for barely any reward. Until you can walk a mile in their shoes, you really shouldn't be so openly scathing.
Have n sets of 6 computers for ET players, and n sets of 5 computers for CoD players. No players will have anything to do with the computers dedicated to the other game at any point. Then make a schedule: 10:00 o'clock teams from bracket 1 use computer sets A-1 and A-2 to play a match, and teams from bracket 2 use computer sets A-3 and A-4 to play their match. Allow sufficient time to pass in the schedule so that all matches are certainly finished, and say, at 11:30 start the next matches on the computers for teams from brackets 3 and 4. I don't see how that could turn into any sort of a "logistical nightmare".
Do you seriously think that running an event is that simple? And if this is a serious proposition for how to format your tournament, how fucking dare you accuse any admin of being short-sighted.
Until you are part of the admin team for a LAN, you have absolutely zero say on how it should be done.
I know what I'm talking about and you don't. These are facts.
It's the same with ET - if you can't have an ET LAN in a way the game is supposed to be played, then better not have them at all. Although if your logic was applied to the aforementioned rock concert thing, some inverbal global restriction (do note the "inverbal" part before catching on to this) would be placed that bands can never again play anything but acoustic gigs. They'd only allowed to play electric instruments in pracs, and that would be very difficult because nobody makes electric instruments any more.
You're so full of yourselves you can't stand any contradicting points of view.
I am not going to reply to anything you say after this, you are actually not worth my time. You are a moron.
You say that it is *impossible* to have 6o6 ET LANs. I say it is not, but would require slightly more work and dedication. After that you tell me to fuck off and kindly inform me that I know nothing. Do you think that's how the world works? That you can just ignore everyone else's contradicting statements and then tell them that they're simply wrong? Pf. That's how it works with religions, perhaps, but not with the rest of the world.
I know for sure that it is possible to organize a LAN where people play two games with different team sizes simultanously. I also boldly claim that it would not be a "logistical nightmare" if you planned the event accordingly - and in return, you tell me that my extremely simple example of a core plan sucks because I haven't taken the time to tell you how to act when a player has got a papercut on their thumb and can't play?
Get real.
Although I see no point to switch back to 6on6 anymore but it would definitely be better if it does so. It is VERY DISAPPOINTING to actually find out that ET switched to 5on5 JUST BECAUSE OF LOGISTICAL NIGHTMARES. BULLSHIT MAN!!!!
Like I said before, if 6on6 LANs are impossible, it would be better if u dont host LANs anymore. No one is forcing the admins. I don't want to hear them whine that they had logistical nightmares and stuff. Like I said before, ask for more help if they are desperate for LANs...or do extra effort.
Sometimes, I really doubt that logistical nightmares is the real reason why ET switched 5on5 cause... thats a really dumb decision to make for a such a shit reason. The logistical nightmares happened only at CC6 also... I guess they arent that mad at CC1-CC5? If it happened at CC6 only.....then they shouldn't fcking blame 6on6!!! They should have reviewed more clearly wat went wrong..
why ? if they like to organize them, then why don't? you talk bullshit with this only one sentence
dont bother reply me back
Insulting a person that don't know as much as you do, is snotty.
Until u win a oscar do not criticise a movie that won one?
you could make a schedule for a 6o6 event and stick to it perfectly if you give each team 10 minutes to setup and force starts to games if they are ready or not
that might seem "short sighted" but if you compare setup times between ET teams and COD teams you could probably actually do that in COD where you have very little chance of it working for 90% of ET teams
generally speaking ET games overrun their schedule and COD usually gets ahead of schedule, having the two running side by side gives you a bit of slack when one gets ahead of schedule you can use a gap in that tournament to bring the other one back on track, but you can't fit 6 players onto 5 computers
also theres all other sorts of infrastructure related issues in terms of international lan events helping each other out and sponsors who have a set amount of machines available at a given time, plus the problem of networking and getting power for the machines on an ad-hoc basis when you are adding to the capacity of a place such as wzzrd - its actually a bit of a challenge to even get the pcs all working at the same time :D
if so many people want to play 6o6 and want to see 6o6 on lans they just need to raise the money to organise an event, in fact if you all bring me the money and get me to the location at the time, oh and pay for my food and drink and accommodation (not a tent though please) then i'll organise your lan <seriously>
No dear son, I can understand the decision LAN admins took.
(somewhere I'm thinking though, why didnt they change COD to 6v6 :D)
Of course it wouldn't work if they mixed the computers between tournaments, but if they ran each tournament on their own sets of computers it would not present any more logistical problems than a single tournament would.
Hehe, saying dont take it personal and calling him a retard, now thats funny :D
And yes, this is my first(and most likely last)compliment I gave to you :)
I still think its funny tho
Because you only need one Covert Ops, and only 1 sniper is distributed to each team (just like only 1 of each heavy weapon used to be back in't day) I think that's fair enough. MGs were nerfed in bremen_b2 because in b1 they were overpowered (they really were, Finns :() and a lot of people agreed with the changes made then.
I think the fact CB and LANs limited snipers is only a good point, even if the map snipers broke (delivery) isn't actively played anymore. Mortars were thrown out of the game because they (pretty much) made Oasis attacks and Battery defences a lot easier (one could say they made supply attack easier too when the angle bug was still in). It follows the exact same reasoning.
no spread
disable crosshair going up when beeing hit, dunno the word for it anymore
would be muUuuuuuuuuuuuuch better, less luck, more skill
and what would be the other way of fixing it? (about damage feedback)
u surely mean "getting used to it" or something like that ;d
so luck makes a game more fun for u
and dunno why it should be slower then..
Damage kickback could be removed but it's not that big of a problem and I actually prefer it on. If you haven't gotten used to it after this long, then I don't think you ever will.
Hitboxes are bad. I think hitboxes should be changed, but I wouldn't really like them like jaymod hitboxes.
and if its too fast you could still decrease the damage. for example u need 4 or 5 headshots.
and just because your used to something (damage feedback) doesnt mean it wouldnt be better if its "fixed"
And I think making it 5 headshots a kill would make it worse, because you would run out of ammo before you killed a lot of people, so you would have to increase clip size > constant circle of changes.
ET is too old to implement a whole new gametype, it should be tweaked and improved, not rebuilt.
and how did u play without damage feedback? =o
Removing Spread and Damagefeedback affects gameplay too much.
ET is too old to implement a whole new gametype, it should be tweaked and improved, not rebuilt.
Dito
I would be for some improved / pimped ETPro version, but yeah..
Playing without Damagefeedback:
a) ETPub - /cg_damagekick 0
b) Using a Hack
If you don't try, you'll never see if it works.
brb praccing hard ...
Tosspot says this all the time! it is however so very true.
He's trolling
Absolute bullshit already, which shows that you have no clue about what you are writing.
not if you play vs diablos and me
HEHEHEHEHE
Could you post a screenshot so I could see what you mean?
But it is hard to make a change once the admins have done bad change alredy and gotten everyone into it. Sure it is possible but it takes so much works, and admins not actually helping at the solution aint really helping neither.
Cant really see why cant we run a 6on6 online, and month / two before a lan event switch it to 5on5 and back to 6on6 once lan is finished. Sure it does add more things there, eg. one played have to drop out from lineup etc etc but after all it isnt really a big problem, once agreed that u play online with us 6on6 and drop once we start to prac got lan and so on.
In my opinion we should make a poll, ask every clan u find on clanbase about what they want to play, and go with the result, make lan 5on5 and online 6on6 and whatever the result would be crossfire admins would accept is aswell and help community to get what they want, doesnt it sound good in ur opinion too?
[ ] 5v5 online + 2-4 5v5 LANs
[ ] 6v6 online + 1 6v6 LAN
[ ] 6v6 online + 2-4 5v5 LANs
Something like that indeed, whatever the result would be i think it should be supported, also i would ask from every EC clans & every clan that have attented previous lans what they prefer instead of just some little highskilled group, just so the sample size is big then that the result would be clear. Thats really how i think it should be done. (:
Good thinking there, mate.
also why just the 'skilled' players shoud decide over this? not even half of the lan competing teams were/are highskilled, so why they should have the powers to decide this on their own? giving a shit about what the rest thinks (tho i think the result would be the same in both caes but still)
i hardly believe that anyone who works on organizing a lan can be called a lazy fuck..
I havent done that so far, but i have helped out in online competitions.. that is alot of work.. i cant imagine the work it takes to organize a good and fluent LAN-event..
So from my point of view, you are wrong there..
regarding the rest of what you have written, i cant say i have much to comment on as I am a bit of an "outsider" atm, since i havent been active for a few years, and havent notices any big changes except 5on5 which I actually now prefer better than 6on6.. (and that comes from a FOP)
Also, your complaints about Tosspot are misplaced. You seem intelligent enough to understand that organizing a LAN is not as easy as you make it look like. Apart from that, how would organizing a LAN for the community be a selfish action?
Even if it could be considered a selfish action, can we blame someone for being selfish? Isn't everyone selfish? Isn't everyone at least a little selfish?
Perhaps crossfire should be a democracy, but then again, democracy is nearly impossible on the internet.
Apart from this all, ET dying could be considered a good thing for most of the lives of crossfire users. As you said a game's death is inevitable, but not undelayable. Hasn't the death of ET been delayed long enough? What will actually be the problem of ET dying? People will just quit the game and find something else to spend their time on, no?
Interesting read.
Anyhow, thanks for the constructive feedback. It seems to be quite scarce around this community.
E: And about that democracy thing - yeah, the usual kind of democracy has no way of working on the internet. Polls and such can't be directly used to decide for things here - people won't take them seriously enough, and they are way too easy to "spoof". I think that, while introducing total democracy to this system would be simply stupid, having admins that actually listen to the public opinion more than their own would be necessary. Ever since the 6o6 ladder was removed from CB there have been *loads* of whine about the decision - I daresay most of the community would want 6o6 back - and yet, nothing has changed about it.
CC6 was ET-only.
Ah, well, my sources must've been mistaken then.
6o6 - miss u darling :*
never knew you could only play with 1 sniper tho :D
omg didnt know that, logging out to real life and trying it out!
e: i failed
where are the statements of tosspot and all those big guys in the background?
can anybody of them actually confirm what baggiez said about the 5on5 case?
i want statements of tosspot and from all those guys who told you, you would have not the slightest clue of what youre talking about...
also I find it amazing that there has been as many as 7 Crossfire LANs + the other LANs for ET, the effort behind that is definitely top notch and not something every member-for-a-year Burneddi can just mock
However, the effort and whether or not it was enough is quite a complex subject. I mean, sure it takes a lot of effort to organize a LAN regardless of how well you do it, just like it's a big effort to build a house, no matter if it comes down the moment it's ready. In this column I was trying to say, amongst other things, that while it certainly was a great effort for all those organizers who took part, could they still have done it better and made it easier on themselves at the same time? I think they could.
Is it the part where you compare me to tyrants, or the part where you accuse TosspoT of being a fag and "reaping fame and possible monies from these gaming events"?
also I don't see anything wrong with the admin decisions :O)
You don't save a game talkin about it, You keep a game alive just playing it.
And all the words spent for it are a wasted time stolen to the netgaming.
When a game dies it's just cause it was its time. Players get bored to play same maps, same tactics and yes, same game over and over again. Its normal.
trust me.am ot 37 yo for nothing. I hope i learned something :)
Here are installers:: http://www.kweik.com/
Here's a cfg - generator : http://forums.aq2world.com/viewtopic.php?p=62108&sid=03c1a3a8a1dcc62708a4b3a31399b3c7
Enjoy!
About the gaming landscape, BF and CoD are so popular because they: A) Had tons of sequels. B) Are easier to get into for beginners. Everybody understands the concept behind iron sights, while nobody would think that you are supposed to strafe while dishing out several headshots in a row in W:ET. C) Unlockables. Nuff said.
For RtCW/W:ET this could be solved by A) Releasing a good sequel ("RtCW 2"), with both a good single - player and multiplayer that plays different on the different platforms (pc and consoles). B) Tutorials, videos and the right marketing as an action - oriented shooter ("a playable action movie") that requires dexterity. C) A normal gamemode that features unlockable weapons and skills + a "promode" out of the box that features only a few balanced weapons and only points instead of xp. And maybe a few more gamemodes next to Object, Stopwatch and Checkpoint, like TDM, TDM with 1 life only and maybe a CTF - variation.
Not that this is going to happen, since ID, after releasing crappy sequels to their best games, seems to copy CoD now. Wolfenstein featured unlockables, iron sights etc., and so will Rage, judging from screens and vids.
It's the douches thinking lans are keeping the game alive that are delusional. Like someone already mentioned, the game has run it's course. It's natural. The community isn't still here because of lans.
Nobody cares about the couple of nerds going to lans to fight for mousepads while the other games get better prizes. It's like some sort of uber nerd where even the other nerds of eSports view ET players as nerdy. The vast majority of the community is online.
Make no mistake about it brethren. Your tyrannical overlords care not about the community. They just want to get their tentacles in that unsavory abomination called eSports.
I'm not saying that true community lans shouldn't be had. Just that a couple of lan events catering to other games and eSports should not change the format of the entire community.
U mad?