I have writtin this collumn with the intention to reply on Kamz' collumn tbh, but i faded a bit away and think that it would be more useful to post it as a new collumn, than as a comment.
There are 6 different stages in the productlifecycle of a game like Enemy Territory.
I Introductionstage[/u]
The game is getting developed and hasn't been published yet. There are only some informations such as a gametrailer or whatever to make people get interested in this game.
II Startingstage[/u]
May 2003 - Enemy Territory gets published and everyone can download and try it out. The community starts to grow and the interest of the game is raising. Activity is very high. The players decide if they want to stick to this game or not and some kind of "lock-in-effects" occur.
III Penetrationstage[/u]
Everything is new and everything seems great. ETTV gets developed and the first lans are planned. There are still some new players to the scene, but not as many as when the game got published. Activity is not growing as fast as in the beginning but it is still growing.
IV Maturitystage
Activity is on max and there are many lans, community work, Ettv viewers, new maps, Open Cup with many sign ups. First satiationeffects occur.
V Crisisstage[/u]
Players start getting bored of the game, because lack of innovations.The activity is decreasing and more and more players leave the game. This is our current situation.
VI Breakupstage[/u]
Only a few players are left. Activity is on a very low level. Everyone is moving to a new game and Enemy Territory finally dies.
Is there any possibility to save the game and prevent us from moving to the last stage ?
Many companies are using this prductlifecycle to manage their products. It is important to keep the product alive as long as it makes profit. In this case profit means for us that we try to keep ET alive because we want to play it on high activity with many lans, many cups and much more.
It is possible to make some kind of step back in the stagesystem to be honestly.
What made Enemy Territory so special in the first stages ? Why did the activity kept growing ? This are the questions we have to ask our selves. We need new innovations such as new maps, new anti cheat, new grafics (to attract other people). We need new innovations which make the game more interesting again. Old innovations were for example ETTV, fragmovies !, lans, new maps, new mods and much more. This was one of the two aspects, which can keep ET alive.
The next aspect is about us. It is in the hand of the community. If they want to keep using Crossfire to flame, troll and annoy people without any motivation to help other users and without any motivation to keep the game alive, then we will join the last stage very soon. We need more people like Merlinator or Krosan, who try to do something for the community. We need more people like chapija who invent new things, which make the game more attractive.
We need to stick together and stop downvoting every new step. They are investing so much of their freetime to make this game better. Everytime someone tries to make a new step, he gets flamed hard by most of the community. Look, he just tries to help the community, but they search for every tiny fact, which could be flamed.
We have to leave this attitude behind us, because this will be the mainreason for the "death of ET"
There are 6 different stages in the productlifecycle of a game like Enemy Territory.
I Introductionstage[/u]
The game is getting developed and hasn't been published yet. There are only some informations such as a gametrailer or whatever to make people get interested in this game.
II Startingstage[/u]
May 2003 - Enemy Territory gets published and everyone can download and try it out. The community starts to grow and the interest of the game is raising. Activity is very high. The players decide if they want to stick to this game or not and some kind of "lock-in-effects" occur.
III Penetrationstage[/u]
Everything is new and everything seems great. ETTV gets developed and the first lans are planned. There are still some new players to the scene, but not as many as when the game got published. Activity is not growing as fast as in the beginning but it is still growing.
IV Maturitystage
Activity is on max and there are many lans, community work, Ettv viewers, new maps, Open Cup with many sign ups. First satiationeffects occur.
V Crisisstage[/u]
Players start getting bored of the game, because lack of innovations.The activity is decreasing and more and more players leave the game. This is our current situation.
VI Breakupstage[/u]
Only a few players are left. Activity is on a very low level. Everyone is moving to a new game and Enemy Territory finally dies.
Is there any possibility to save the game and prevent us from moving to the last stage ?
YES !
There are two aspects:Many companies are using this prductlifecycle to manage their products. It is important to keep the product alive as long as it makes profit. In this case profit means for us that we try to keep ET alive because we want to play it on high activity with many lans, many cups and much more.
It is possible to make some kind of step back in the stagesystem to be honestly.
What made Enemy Territory so special in the first stages ? Why did the activity kept growing ? This are the questions we have to ask our selves. We need new innovations such as new maps, new anti cheat, new grafics (to attract other people). We need new innovations which make the game more interesting again. Old innovations were for example ETTV, fragmovies !, lans, new maps, new mods and much more. This was one of the two aspects, which can keep ET alive.
The next aspect is about us. It is in the hand of the community. If they want to keep using Crossfire to flame, troll and annoy people without any motivation to help other users and without any motivation to keep the game alive, then we will join the last stage very soon. We need more people like Merlinator or Krosan, who try to do something for the community. We need more people like chapija who invent new things, which make the game more attractive.
We need to stick together and stop downvoting every new step. They are investing so much of their freetime to make this game better. Everytime someone tries to make a new step, he gets flamed hard by most of the community. Look, he just tries to help the community, but they search for every tiny fact, which could be flamed.
We have to leave this attitude behind us, because this will be the mainreason for the "death of ET"
but...
just copied this of the other colum..
Wait a second your only thinking about the etpro side of enemy territory, what about the jaymod and etpub side and such there are still loads of people play jaymod.
and just becuase maybe the etpro side seems a bit dead it dosent mean that the whole of et will be dead, in my opinion i still think et is alive and well, its just a few things have hapopened here and there that may damage its "activity" but there are still many people playing activly and warring everyday.
I believe that we should bring 6on6 back into play as i think it adds more sense and passion ":D" into the game, most people now play 3on3 and some 5on5, but 6on6 should be better experience.
There are numerous people who have posted the same articles, columns, journals etc yet arent willing to invest their time in helping the game. There are 100's of ppl on this website that constantly whine about the format of the game (which im not going to talk much about) yet they havent even set up a 6on6 tournament (apart from Lazio) which would gain a lot of interest and provide smth fresh for the community with the recent lack of tournaments. We need more orgs such as Decerto to provide the community with tournaments and hopefully prizes which gains interest. I wouldnt take into consideration the last month seeing as we have just come off the back of a successful lan and it is summer with nothing to play for. I know TosspoT has some great ideas for the community which should spark some interest and competition.
We just need some new maps thats all and start up a few 1 day cups or such maybe a few more LANS and just cups alltoghether. becuase it seems now all people play is shit sp_delivery_te all the time it seems its the shittest map i have ever played. In 5on5 and 3on3 it seems the only maps being played is supply, sp_delivery_te, adlernest, frostbite, braundorf and occasioanlly maps like et_ice, tc_base etc.. what happened to all of the old school maps like siwa oasis, and fuel dump and etc. maybe if we create a few more maps or maybe bring back a few more of the old school maps et would be a lot more active.
In short, there are a lot of ppl who like to point fingers and criticise but wont get off their ass to help the game. Im sure that there are ppl out there who could host successful tournaments, whether it be online or lan. The problem is that this site being the pinnacle of competitive ET has too many users that enjoy trolling or posting negative shit. I also dont understand many ppl's reasoning for not wanting to attend offline tournaments. If you look over the successful active games, the community strive to attend these events even at their own cost. Believe it or not, these events are fun, its not just turn up and play for money. Im sure there are places out there like poland czech republic, estonia, france, which have numerous offline events which could be a great location for ET competitions. The recent Swansea lan i believe if run in the future would be a hit, maybe not to the extent of CC lans, but if the UK community pulled their finger out, im sure it could reach 16 teams.
also we could maybe start playing baserace more often ":D"
But what we are forgetting is there are still loads of people playing jaymod and such but they will gradually make there way up to etpro for a change, and this will make etpro more popular.
Dont think that we really need more orgs like Decerto who provide prizes, since it would be only attractive for the "highskilled scene".
Lets analyze the community.
At first we have to ask ourselves - Who is playing this game ?
We - the community - are playing this game. We have to seperate the community into different groups. It would be possible for example to devide the community into the skilllevel to make it easier and more effective to specialize and focus on every group. Therefore we can benefit a larger group of possible ETplayers and cover more interestgroups.
Next step - what are the aims of the different groups ?
Lets assume there are 3 groups: Highskilled, Medskilled and lowskilled group.
The highskilled group probably want to win prizes and be on top of the community.
The medskilled group pronbably want to win a group, division or cup and become somehow fame. There are still some players who want to have some fun.
The lowskilled group probably just want to have some fun and play some games without getting raped by skillfakers.
Next step - how to realize this aims ?
it could be possible to organize different cups, ladders or whatever to benefit the groups. For example the eurocup for the highskilled scene, an professional organised cup for the medskilled scene with good coverage (-> fame, ettv, mainnews -> they feel "important" -> happy), and a FUNcup for the lowskilled group. Every cup has to be organized professionally. Im talking about coverage, good cuppage (not this 1daycupshit) and good admins.
possible problems ?
how to define the skilllevel? how to find good admins who are willing to invest their time ? Will the community accept this new step ?
Basicly i mean that we have to focus on every interestgroup and not only the highskilledscene. Therefore prizes arnt really needed. I agree with your other points tho..
but dunno how u want to realize it, its kinda harder
This community wont give new maps a chance, we've seen it with the last mapping comp.
There is a new AC, so you can take that one of the list.
Afaik, ET X-Real is still alive right?
So thats 2 out of 3, but in my opinion, we need more online competitions, just like Lazio said. LANs are fun and stuff, but the online competition is what the people make to want to play this game. Atleast, for me that is. Cuz the only chance you will win something on LAN is when ur highskilled. Alot of players, myself included ofcourse, will never reach the highskill level, so we have to do it with the lower online leagues. Thats fine by me, but if there aint any leagues left to play in, why bother playing random irc matches?
And ladder matches are still possible at any skill..
-- or is that not what you guys mean?
& dont think we need more than just 2 or 3 lans a year. & maybe the loss of ec could make oc more attractive again :P. & i also found it sucky that both esl/cb have ladders, should just all play on the same ladder to make it more active
hehe hoho
fixed*
It's sad to say but its very true.. its kinda why i prefer 6on6, was more entertaining, 5on5 is just too similar in its basis to 3on3, i miss seeing huge airstrikes or panzers from the likes of urtier, xpaz, night, now it's all about who can ping off 3 head shots the fastest and it's just not that entertaining anymore i guess.
We ALL know that 5on5 is shit.
Who decide for the whole community? Seriously..
Lans are made for a small part of the community and tbh, i don't give a fuck about lans.
Those are made for nerds who don't even care about their "followers" so..
http://www.crossfire.nu/?x=column&mode=item&id=563
:)
That's my point.
How many players are going to Lans? 16 teams of 5 players (when everything is alright..) and some randoms specs. And what about the others?
I would kiss baggiez' butt for this column.
No we dont, fuck off.
Why are there only lowskilled ppl who want to have something needed all the time.
As what comes to lans, u saw what happened to phx, "5on5 will have many many lans" Who the fuck cares when ppl dont go to them?
Therefore every step we can do to improve ET or make it attractive again is an innovation.
Why not give people what they want, it might help and i dont think it can cause any dmg to ET right now :)
5V5 IS THE FUTURE
I haven't seen a new player in quite a while though, but that should still be quite easy because every computer can run this 8 year old game. We need new players, but I still feel that it's too little, too late.
you need 100000 steps to install it....
ET is a game that takes away quite a lot of your free time, that is if you want to be any good at it. For casual players it's just out of reach, i mean, why bother if you can just play cod4 or cs and be somewhere around decent level on a game that is way more popular, with similar skill level and takes no problem to set it up. I find these to be the three major et killers there is.
Even though you say that there is a way how to keep a product at the stage 4 or at least at stage 5(and i agree), it just seems quite impossible. Why? Because the main difference between this community and a company, which actually makes profit from a product, is THE PROFIT. I'm not saying that we shouldn't try, what i'm trying to say is that even at the best, we would only extend the period for a short time like 4 or 5 months may be 9 at best. Too much effort, too little profit ;)
who care? play it and stfu ...
who cares ? just invest money, time etc. and stfu... care if you lose all your money
Oh! Your graphic is totally wrong. ET was at his best on first 2 years when new players and old rtcwERS joined the game. Then it was slowly going down to reach a stall, grow again THEN to slowly die. yes et is dead. yesterday there were more brink players than et players: what a shame for et players!!!!
history repeats itself. I already saw all this with RTCW. Game dying, people leaving, other players trying to save it with alot of theories but It's useless cause nothing is forever.Neither a free cheap *hit game like ET.
For 2 reasons i can say : ET, FINALLY IT'S YOUR TURN! DIE S*IT, DIEEEEE!!!!
the 2 reasons?
1) cause this s*it game killed the most beautiful game of all times: rtcw
2) cause this sh*t game ruined the conception of netgaming with all its cheaters, kids, haters.
ET is dead exactly like the game you used to hate (remember quakewars? and brink? )
You mad?
this is a discussion and there is no place for being mad ;)
im working on an article (published in a few weeks) and then i can prove you wrong :)
Either way I'm not too concerned with the activity of ET anymore, grew tired of it awhile ago. Only fun every now and again.
+
gonna try to do a 6on6 onedaycup soon enough, just to see if people are a bit interested :-)
but i like !
Start a team with me??????
i IMAGINE a narrative voice "And after 3 years of hard work to remake a shiny version of et on xreal, people started to write in console r_pacmangraphic 1 ... and we had again ET!!!"
Do you really love to waste your time guys?
2. New maps (2-3)
3. Play more ESL!
4. someone who can fix some bugs etc. and fix gfx!
5: innovations: for that maybe allow shotgun in 5v5/ or 6v6 and lets see how it works :P
6. i think the skillfaking was also annoying for new players, for example you search low+, you get med skilled players and so on.. (players mistake on mIRC)
7. the community, the trolling, flaming etc. for example someone needs help.. help the person, or someone is searching a team.. give him a chance or .. dont answer like: shit player or cheater hahahaa blabla.. just wish him gl :)
8. as mentioned above, 6v6!!! and do some cups for it to get in.. some creativity for the cups: like some cool banners/pictures with photoshop that ppl get more interested and think wow thats fucking nice.. blabla
9. online competitions!