Why do people only seem to play minsta+hook or CTS?

Am I the only person that really dislikes this game style? I like minsta, but when you add the hook (the hook any time is lame IMO) it just becomes annoying to play. Might as well be playing on a shapeless blob because with hooks the layout of the map is essentially meaningless, not to mention you're zipping by to fast to appreciate any design in it.

I can understand the purpose of CTS, I just find it boring. Especially in conjunction with the above. It's like "let's go improve our movement skills and then not use them at all because we have an all-powerful hook".

I just really dislike hooks in an FPS, and it seems that any time I get on to play the ONLY populated servers are hook+minsta or CTS. Xonotic is a pretty great game and I really like playing vanilla and with insta, but very rarely are there populated servers doing this (and even less often can I find one with <100 ping).

/rant

Hopefully an influx of new players plus Xonotic "pure" servers will help us overcome this, I have seen many people try overkill or minsta for the first time and think it's regular Xonotic.

If you don't understand the appeal of a game mode like CTS don't play it, people are going to play what they like. If you like actual xonotic then play it, and regular servers will become populated :3

The minstagib menace is inside all of us. The best thing any of us can do is to lead by example.

Yes this has been always a problem with xonotic and nexuiz afair. I just look at the server and nope,nope,nope,nope,nope, F10.

There is a simple solution to your "problem":
We form a committee that makes the decision which game modes are to be considered fun and of value. Then we hardcode a limit of how many hours per week someone can play an inferior game mode. After reaching their weekly allowance, players with undesired preferences are then forced to play according to the committee's ideals.

sev, great solution.


I am sure we are going to get thousands of new players after introducing this feature. People will forget about Cods, Bfs etc and move to Xonotic to be able to play in closly monitored, controlled condions, with perfect balance of people between servers. They will be cheerful, happy, enthusiastic to be a part- a small part, but still a part of the worlds most advanced, perfect game system on Earth. Soon, it will expand to allocate one's gaming, eating, sleeping and working time in real life. It will assign jobs to people, and decide who should be a dentist, a farmer, a factory worder, a computer assembler or who should work on The Xonotic, as a simple ame developer, timing enforcer or even the member of the High Councill of Xonotic.
AfTer some time the system taking place, Xonotic will replace all govermental, religeous and economical orgaizations. The world will be whole and united!
The head of it will be The Xonotic AI. It will do all the micromanagment and will take all important decisions. It will [i]elect or maybee pick?[i/] suitable candidates to be enforcers, the best of which will enter higher levels, eventualy becoming canclers and joining the XAI. Their brains will be extracted, totaly brainwashed, and placed into special cells/pods/capsules and cconected with synaptic links to XAI, becoming part of it forever.

Wow!!! What we get here is a descent singlplayer story

Enjoy OpenSource :3 Where every kid with notepad can ruin work of group of developers.

Instead of game with stable gameplay mechanics (process of learning occur, since your weapon always has the same specs and physics is the same) you get mutilated versions of game all the time.

Personally I hate mods. If I want to play game, I want to play damn game. If I want to play X, I don't want to play Y.

I play mostly CTS but I also play public CTF and DM, I mostly prefer non-pub 1on1 and TDM but I'm not playing that too much.

We have had this discussion too many times now. You can't blame other gamemodes for lack of interest in your favourite one(s). I for one would not play Xonotic at all if it wasn't for CTS.

I propose to dump non-popular gamemodes and make Overkill, Minsta-Hook and CTS default for Xonotic. Then we will always have full servers!

Enjoy OpenSource :3 Where every kid with notepad can ruin work of group of developers.

Instead of game with stable gameplay mechanics (process of learning occur, since your weapon always has the same specs and physics is the same) you get mutilated versions of game all the time.

Personally I hate mods. If I want to play game, I want to play damn game. If I want to play X, I don't want to play Y.

Except that CTS and Minsta weren't coded by a kid with a notepad but by the actual developers of the game. And they are not "mods". And they are not mutilated. Do you hate on duel if you only play CTF? No, you don't.

Do you hate on duel if you only play CTF? No, you don't.

Some people actually do!

I hate full subway stations, adds in tv and having no money ... but who cares

oki - we have the right to freedom of opinion and expression ...
But noone pushes you to play on minsta/hook servers ...
The minsta/hook servers are pretty good visited? - Maybe because the peepZ like minsta/hook?

Anyway - I.m coming from a old minsta/hook clan and enjoy to playin this mode - even host 2 minsta/hook server (at least also one cts) ....

But I would never post here against the mods I dont like ....

@ aa: +1

GreetZ Su

Personally I hate mods. If I want to play game, I want to play damn game. If I want to play X, I don't want to play Y.

http://stats.xonotic.org/player/4578

6 months ago? Seriously?

The problem is not the existance of mods, but the fact that most of the vanilla xonotic players are inactive.

So, if you want to improve the situation stop talking gibberish and play.

RoKenn wins +10 internets

The idea that players gets confused about what is Xonotic proper and what is not is bullshit.
Right now, player base is focused on two minsta+hook servers, one overkill and one vehicle server. CTS community is pretty small but quite active, giving the impression that the two CTS servers are well attended. All these servers have stable, dedicated player base.
What it tells me is that players know damn well what they prefer playing. I see no confusion here to speak of. And you're not going to make unpopular servers suddenly become popular by what... server list gimmickry? You can only annoy folks and make the player base even smaller. Unless you find a bunch of active, dedicated players for vanilla servers (like CTS managed to gather) you're not going to get far.

Because those modes are more fun to people than vanilla xonotic is. I assume that's partly because of the complexity of the game, especially the weapons and the items. Many players don't seem willed to invest time into really learning the game. The lack of tutorial levels and the partly non-intuitive design doesn't help either. So what happens is that in vanilla xonotic they run around shooting each other mostly with shotgun, unless they stumble on a weapon, which they then spam till they die or ammo runs out. And that is for most people, sorry, sh*t boring. And to repeat myself, stop looking for excuses (as if such a serverlist hack would change anything on the real problems!) and decide on a clear direction: either focus on the casual players (make the game as accessible as possible!) or focus on the competitive players (make it as tactical as possible!). Currently it's rather a mixed up mess.. Samual's work goes into the right direction but I miss a clear line in the development of the game that devs pull together on.

I don't... I do not understand how you call a mod, somthing that is included in the Official release. Downoload a Vanila 0.6. Instal and launch it. to Multi.>Ceate You will see CTS Nexball Assult Runemath Arean along standart DM; CTF... All f them were added by the developers of the game. same for mutators.

The idea that players gets confused about what is Xonotic proper and what is not is bullshit.
Right now, player base is focused on two minsta+hook servers, one overkill and one vehicle server. CTS community is pretty small but quite active, giving the impression that the two CTS servers are well attended. All these servers have stable, dedicated player base.
What it tells me is that players know damn well what they prefer playing. I see no confusion here to speak of. And you're not going to make unpopular servers suddenly become popular by what... server list gimmickry? You can only annoy folks and make the player base even smaller. Unless you find a bunch of active, dedicated players for vanilla servers (like CTS managed to gather) you're not going to get far.

You overrate new players by far. Most of them have no clue about the 73462 possible ways to play Xonotic.

Your conclusion of removing the modded servers is not necessarily true. That's because a small community like the Xonotic one can't be split into unlimited sub-communities since the amount of players within the sub-communities would be too small to find other players to play together. There would be no active servers around then, new players wouldn't join and the game (community) would vanish.
So removing those servers might make some players leave the game, but it would reduce the amount of sub-communities. New players will focus on the existing communities/servers which will increase activity there. It will be much less probably they leave cause there are (much more) active servers in their community. After all the game might be more popular then.
Just theory though, no warranties included.

You have a point but many of those servers in discussion are heavily modified way beyond what is possible via the menu.

You overrate new players by far. Most of them have no clue about the 73462 possible ways to play Xonotic.

Your conclusion of removing the modded servers is not necessarily true. That's because a small community like the Xonotic one can't be split into unlimited sub-communities since the amount of players within the sub-communities would be too small to find other players to play together. There would be no active servers around then, new players wouldn't join and the game (community) would vanish.
So removing those servers might make some players leave the game, but it would reduce the amount of sub-communities. New players will focus on the existing communities/servers which will increase activity there. It will be much less probably they leave cause there are (much more) active servers in their community. After all the game might be more popular then.
Just theory though, no warranties included.

But there are not 73462 ways of playing Xonotic. Neither there are "unlimited sub-communities". There are three - exactly three active communities out there. Minsta+hook, Overkill and Vehicles. So don't fool yourself that fragmentation is the problem. Its simply untrue.

If you have any doubts about that, look at the aftermatch of the Gronkh story. After Gronkh, for at least few weeks there was way over 100 active players at any hour. A lot of servers was active, most of them vanillas. But only one server managed to keep its players from that time active to this day - it is a Minsta+Hook server. In the meantime, the most active vanila CTF server was not able to keep its player base around. So what does it tell you about the standard gameplay, if previousely crowded vanilla servers are loosing player base?

And if you think minsta+hook player, Overkill fan or Vehicle admirer will suddenly convert to to plain xonotic, you obviously did not follow this drama long enough. There have already been attempts to shut down Overkill for example, and nothing good came out of it.
As for CTS, 80% of regulars there are former Racesow or DeFRaG players and few others are former Nexrun players. They wouldn't even care about Xonotic if it wasn't for racing servers.

This thread became nastier than I expected.

My thoughts:

I sometimes get a little bit annoyed at the fact that the minstigib, overkill and CTS servers seem to be the most popular, especially when hardly anyone plays modes I want to play like freezetag or keyhunt.

But I don't think complaining about it will do anything and if people want to play minstagib,overkill and CTS then fine, leave them to it. If that's what they enjoy, then that's great!

Is what we should all be doing is encouraging more players to join Xonotic. Although the minstagib, overkill and CTS servers will (probably) still be the most popular, there are bound to be more players who want something else.

Even better, spread the word about all the different game modes, do more 'let's play' videos on Youtube while playing the vanilla game modes, etc.

But, there is no point whatsoever complaining about the popularity of certain servers. It won't change a thing.

But there are not 73462 ways of playing Xonotic. Neither there are "unlimited sub-communities". There are three - exactly three active communities out there. Minsta+hook, Overkill and Vehicles. So don't fool yourself that fragmentation is the problem. Its simply untrue.

Well, no.

--

However the "problem" is that new players obviously join Minsta, OK or Vehicles, because these servers got the most players.
Then they might like it (/don't know that Xonotic go other modes and such), having fun and just stick to it.

The causals player always joins the populated servers, so just stick some minutes in DCC for example and they will join.

inb4 "NOT TRUE":

Code:

Most active servers
4     [MoN] Vehicle Gameplay     207
5     DCC's Plain Delight DM     202

Edit: Just noticed Vehicle and DCC Plain is almost the same.


Players play the mode where they have fun and you can't force them to play something else where they don't have fun - or they quit the game.
Simple.

Did not want to take part in this discussion anyway - pointless.

This thread became nastier than I expected.

You must be new here.

However the "problem" is that new players obviously join Minsta, OK or Vehicles, because these servers got the most players.
Then they might like it (/don't know that Xonotic go other modes and such), having fun and just stick to it.

After Gronkh many servers were active, including a lot of vanilla xonotic. But only some stayed active (i.e. interesting to players). One can't ignore that, and claim that the problem is in fact about wrong servers being active.

First of all, I think it's necessary to blame Vehicles for everything. After which we have a quick rage about casual gameplay on maps we don't really like.

Then it's about time to tackle CTS, because it is obviously to blame for the fact that our normal, standard, default and oh so enjoyable servers are still empty. But wait, when the first CTS server went MIA, there were no players AT ALL on the servers. CRAP! Well, let's disregard that for a bit and start complaining about the new CTS server once it's online.

When that's done I suggest we start hating on Minsta CTF. Oh and while we're doing that, let's dissect why players enjoy the map Dance so much, because that is annoying too.

And let's hate on fast hook, that does not even exist for Xonotic.

I think we need a Real Solution ™ to end this once and for all!

Edit: I'm tired and the URL button is throwing some "undefined" clutter around, so I may have mixed up some topics. Now I will go to sleep, hoping this thread will have gone away when I wake up.