So...How dead is this game?

We are beginning circling here. I already pointed out to you that some time ago there was "steady playerbase" at many vanilla servers. It evaporated across the spectrum. Doesn't that bother you at all?

It does bother me, but I feel something has to be done by the people that are part of the community as well, or it will be like starting from 0.

I don't think Xonotic is getting advertised much, because everybody is waiting for the 1.0 release. There's no way (goes for any game and server) a steady playerbase can be achieved and maintained without any further input from for example the community itself, or the ones leading the community (nothing wrong here, game's still getting updates/development, servers keep adding new maps, etc).

It will diminish and go wrong at some point, may it last for a long time or for a short time... Things don't last forever without a source input, simple as that.

We all have the same goal in the end right? If we all work together, we can make stuff a whole lot more interesting and less "dead".

I reckon we'll be attracting more attention soon. Need a solid foundation to start from.

I reckon we'll be attracting more attention soon. Need a solid foundation to start from.

Don't you think that an existing community of people who know and love the game should be part of that solid foundation, though?

Then the other ~16 players I played ctf matches with today on DCC CTF are blind too, because we were all having tons of fun.

http://stats.xonotic.org/game/210883
http://stats.xonotic.org/game/210890
http://stats.xonotic.org/game/210895
http://stats.xonotic.org/game/210899
http://stats.xonotic.org/game/210905
http://stats.xonotic.org/game/210914
http://stats.xonotic.org/game/210919

Oh damn, I missed so many great games
But I still had some fun on DCC CTF yesterday : http://stats.xonotic.org/game/210863 :p
And DCC Plain DM was crowded as well.

I'm definitely going to be idling on public servers more often !

It would be such a pitty if the playerbase disappears by the the time Xonotic 1.0 is ready
There's no way to attract lots of players in 1.0 if there is no pre-existing community.
And the best way to prevent this has been pointed out by Archer :
"the solution is really very simple: stop the chain reaction that prevents people from joining (0 players)."

If mods are so popular, maybe Quake3 style FPS games are not so attractive anymore?

If mods are so popular, maybe Quake3 style FPS games are not so attractive anymore?

Definitely, but I think that's why Xonotic should show to people that oldschool arena style FPSes can be fun too, even these days.

I reckon we'll be attracting more attention soon. Need a solid foundation to start from.

I just hope this solid foundation isn't too far away. There are definitely sloppy things that need fixing, such as the serverlist and probably some other art-style related things (which don't bother me much), but aside from that the game feels quite solid. Of course there may be other problems lurking around that I'm unaware of, I'm not part of the team so I couldn't know, just trying to say that the game feels quite good for me for what it is now

I know there's some tension. It reminds me a little bit of the time before 0.6, when we slipped with 2 months with release, and everybody was like "where is it, why don't you release?!". But believe me, there are quite some things in movement in the background (actually, you can see it in git commit logs), but some things need a little bit more time than others.
I know I sound a bit cryptic now, but please, jut be patient, I promise (I hope) soon we can release the pressure that's building up.

Lags, right... except there was time when many vanilla servers were active (after Gronkh). Not just DCCs but many others. But with time almost all of that public vanilla gaming died off. And you know, non-vanilla servers can have lags too. And sometimes some folks "stop showing up" there too. Yet these servers keep going.
So don't be blind. You like vanilla gaming as it is now, and that's ok. But that doesn't mean all is right. Consider that racing servers can sometimes have more games than DCC. And belive me, Xonotic racing is a niche.

Then the other ~16 players I played ctf matches with today on DCC CTF are blind too, because we were all having tons of fun.

http://stats.xonotic.org/game/210883
http://stats.xonotic.org/game/210890
http://stats.xonotic.org/game/210895
http://stats.xonotic.org/game/210899
http://stats.xonotic.org/game/210905
http://stats.xonotic.org/game/210914
http://stats.xonotic.org/game/210919

Blind... all of em! Yeah right.

And the other vanilla servers are kinda coming back now, I see more and more vanilla dm servers coming up and being populated... I thought I stated that already.

Nothing can be perfect... All I know is that the current gameplay is fun, and I'm sure many more can agree on that, especially after today, so don't go around calling people blind... I know very well what's going on, and the games presented above are FACT that my idea worked.

Also, I have nothing against xonotic racing... It's a different kind of gameplay that's fun too, not sure why you're throwing that in.

Well, perhaps we witness a revival, but I'm skeptical about that to say the least. I follow the stats since a while. And the trend is negative, occasional pop-ups notwithstanding (several times in the last year some DM server would suddenly become active just to go quiet after a week or two).

If you would follow the stats then you should notice that DCC Plain DM is always 4th place in the most active servers. *badum-ts*

If you would follow the stats then you should notice that DCC Plain DM is always 4th place in the most active servers. *badum-ts*

Lags, right... except there was time when many vanilla servers were active (after Gronkh). Not just DCCs but many others. But with time almost all of that public vanilla gaming died off. And you know, non-vanilla servers can have lags too. And sometimes some folks "stop showing up" there too. Yet these servers keep going.
So don't be blind. You like vanilla gaming as it is now, and that's ok. But that doesn't mean all is right. Consider that racing servers can sometimes have more games than DCC. And belive me, Xonotic racing is a niche.

Then the other ~16 players I played ctf matches with today on DCC CTF are blind too, because we were all having tons of fun.

http://stats.xonotic.org/game/210883
http://stats.xonotic.org/game/210890
http://stats.xonotic.org/game/210895
http://stats.xonotic.org/game/210899
http://stats.xonotic.org/game/210905
http://stats.xonotic.org/game/210914
http://stats.xonotic.org/game/210919

Blind... all of em! Yeah right.

And the other vanilla servers are kinda coming back now, I see more and more vanilla dm servers coming up and being populated... I thought I stated that already.

Nothing can be perfect... All I know is that the current gameplay is fun, and I'm sure many more can agree on that, especially after today, so don't go around calling people blind... I know very well what's going on, and the games presented above are FACT that my idea worked.

Also, I have nothing against xonotic racing... It's a different kind of gameplay that's fun too, not sure why you're throwing that in.

Well, perhaps we witness a revival, but I'm skeptical about that to say the least. I follow the stats since a while. And the trend is negative, occasional pop-ups notwithstanding (several times in the last year some DM server would suddenly become active just to go quiet after a week or two).

If you would follow the stats then you should notice that DCC Plain DM is always 4th place in the most active servers. *badum-ts*

No, its not always 4th place.
Its active since about two week after being dormant for months. And its not the first time it pops up. Compare that to say a year ago and you should get an overall picture. Perhaps this time its turnaround for vanila. But, frankly I'm not holding my breath.

I know I sound a bit cryptic now, but please, jut be patient, I promise (I hope) soon we can release the pressure that's building up.

So, CuBe0wL, are you doing publicity now that Samual is gone? Good!


I agree that the zero-player problem is a large problem. Will try to idle on servers as well.
I also think that pickup matces should not be hidden away in private inlisted servers, but should be played in publique, maybee to make the serverlist look less empty, or even show "the real xonotic" to a new player.

Samual is not gone, he's actually very active (and was too even in his "fuck you I quit developing for 3 weeks" hah).

Warsow is being greenlit. More people getting intresested in old-school shooters again might even benefit Xonotic if there is some kind of publicicty for this new scene to find it.

I checked out 0.7 after a long hiatus and was pleased to find server with 10 players. So unless last night was a fluke, the situation is much better than what it was a year ago.

I checked out 0.7 after a long hiatus and was pleased to find server with 10 players. So unless last night was a fluke, the situation is much better than what it was a year ago.

So...How dead is Loafers?

I checked out 0.7 after a long hiatus and was pleased to find server with 10 players. So unless last night was a fluke, the situation is much better than what it was a year ago.

So...How dead is Loafers?

Very dead no thanks to Valve. Cannot stop playing Dota 2...

So lets make a forum post. havent done this...forever.

6 Months ago (according to Xonstat) i heard someone talk about arena shooters in a youtube video. Xonotic was mentioned and i took a look. I have never played a arenashooter before but i knew a bit what it was like.
So, the first thing: a look at the serverbrowser: Nobody online exept defrag.
Maybe I am one of the few but i took a look at the singleplayer mode and played through it. Somehow i got stuck with this game. And the only thing I`ve been doing since then is joining empty Deathmatch servers in the afternoon. Like people said before: Its the empty-server-barrier. People come if they see someone is playing.

I'm somone that plays every now and than. I would play more often if the vanilla servers were filled more often.
You see, when I have a game I want to be able to play the main game. Mods are a great thing, but I want to be able to play the game.
Wouldn't you get annoyed if you bought Super Mario World, but you're only able to play silly romhacks?
Mods will always be popular.
Look at team fortress 2. The servers with modded gamemodes are popular, but I don't mind that.
not only that, servers with norespawntime(Tf2 really needs respawntime or else it's a spam fest), 32 players(it's designed for 24), low gravity(why?), crits only(whyyy?) on the worst maps, etc are more popular that normal servers. (Mostly even with silly mods for lulz, like rtd(which by typing roll the dice gives you a random upside or downside, it's not meant to be taken seriously).
So not only mods are popular, but terrible servers are popular aswell. I love messing around but come on! Meanwhile serious servers trying to provide the best gameplay experience just never get filled at all, and this is a popular game we're talking about. However, valve host their own vanilla servers which are always full, and there are plenty of other good vanilla servers.
But nocrit/nodmgspread(which make the game more balanced)? Good plugins that don't effect the gameplay but make the game better(like voicechat alltalk toggle, or a mapvoting system) ? good well made custom maps?(custom map servers died) Mostly empty.

I think it's strange that a game that already has a small community, has most people only playing on heavily modded servers. Ofcourse you'll drive people away if it' impossible to play the main game. How the hell do you expect new players, or even expect people to play on normal servers if they're always empty? Shouldn't the hardcore people be playing on the server they want to get filled so that others will join?
That's how it works with my team fortress 2 server at least. I play on it with my friends, than people join. Sometimes those people like the server and become regulars, or one of my friend making me have more people to populate the server.
You can't expect people to just randomly join servers with 0 players. I bet that a lot of people don't join because it has 0 or a few players, but do want to play. If all those people would actually join, the server could actually fill. Same goes for other dead games.

Due to the large skill gap between casual and hardcore players the approach of simply having hardcore players idle on otherwise empty servers does not really work in a game like Xonotic, unless they set a huge handicap or so. On instagib or overkill servers on the other hand a casual player with basic fps skills will never be totally helpless.

I think a more realistic way would be 1) to have a well-administrated group of official servers (lag-free servers, admins to take care of settings and map lists, mods being around at the rush hours at least to help out new players and to ban trolls etc.) so that casuals and newbies have a common place to meet each other and don't get lost on the countless crappy servers out there (aka Xonotic 0.7 Server running solarium DM, no offence) and 2) to reward people for playing on these servers. Means, giving them XP (or some other sort of points) for every frag, for every flagcap, for every assist and so on. Give the newbies higher XP for killing a good player, give them awards, medals, whatever. Keep them motivated.

Regarding 1), something like that was actually planned under the name Xonotic Hub. Sadly it did not work out, although neither the servers nor the admins were the cause of that. I believe that with the right effort it could still happen.

We are actually trying to revive the DCC CTF server at the moment by playing there each evening CET time, but the problem indeed is that the people that collaborate in reviving the server are experienced players that raise the skill level to an extent that tends to scare off casual players. Though I consider myself far from being a pro player, even my skill level often scares off people (I made the experience that I have much more success in attracting players when I linger on an empty server using a nick like "Player"! But what's the point?!). What we would need is some casual skill players that could commit themselves to just start games on the public servers at defined times - I figure then other casual players will get attracted much more effectively.

2) to reward people for playing on these servers. Means, giving them XP (or some other sort of points) for every frag, for every flagcap, for every assist and so on. Give the newbies higher XP for killing a good player, give them awards, medals, whatever. Keep them motivated.

This is very smart and I support it. Giving people sense of progression makes them stick much longer.

Xonstat pretty much does that already, but new players won't find out about it till they hear about it on the forum or from other more experienced players, and the chance that happens is.. Well.. Not so large.

Linking in-game sort of achievements (more than just "airshot" and "amazing") using Xonstat might both give them the motivation to check out what's behind it, and keep them motivated enough to play. Every player should "feel" good, regardless of his/her skill, there are plenty of tricks to make that happen.

Achievements are WIP.

Check AU playors to see no games in average 3-4 months. Xonotic died here and there wasn't even an obituary.
I proselytize this game to everyone I meet, nobody interested.
Now I am playing gungame in CS - it's skillfree but hey, at least there are human targets.
flimflam sad...

Xonotic's problem is that it tries to be everything to everybody this is a problem with a lot of "Forked" projects this stems from people being a bunch of eger beavers and Copy-N-Pasting stuff from other games in a attempt to drive player count up by offering every Option under the sun but in reality all you get is a bunch of brokenness that either fragments the community or nobody wants to touch it

1.vehicles don't belong in Xonotic you Aren't Battlefield or unreal and you will never be stop trying I am sorry and i know people will throw the old "if you don't like vehicles don't play on servers that have them enabled) that doesn't work for a variety of reasons that I will not go into here

2.virtually endless configuration (fifteen servers all of them running modify ed configs and all of them Horrible and done only for the creators own amusement and offer nothing to the community
these things are EXTREMELY Bad for a game thats trying to gain ground as it fragments the player-base

Advertisement is basically non-existent outside of "FOSS" circles (slashdot/phoronix,Desura) most people that would be interested in a game like xonotic don't know it even exists

"official" servers should be a permanent existence and run `vanilla configs and they should be the first thing you see on the server list and there needs to be one in every region NA/SA/UK/JP at least
Xonotic tries to cover its basis and offers a plethora of game options and modes when all it really needs is a Solid Core set of modes TDM,Survivor,CTF,FFA nothing wrong with exploring other game possibilitys but is it to much to ask to get your core-game right before venturing off into becoming the next Unreal clone

That is a known problem which is currently being solved with new serverlist orginization iirc.