So...How dead is this game?

As the title says...

Just wondering.

I drink beer while playing it so its quite alive.

Depending if you are willing to play on overkill/vehicle/minsta servers, yes its quite dead, but often there is at least one DM server around.

There's Overkill/Vehicle/MinstaCTF which is active, then there's pickup matches almost everyday.

The core game? Pretty much death. That's why pickup matches are necessary. But don't worry, almost everyone denies it

The team doesn't deny it. For some reason the plan is to not publicize anything officially until we reach 1.0.

I'm starting to think that's a bad idea. It would make sense if there was no pre-existing community, but a lack of PR is going to tend to kill the game before attempting to revive it later. That sucks for the current players.

The core game? Pretty much death. That's why pickup matches are necessary. But don't worry, almost everyone denies it

IRC QuakeNet - #xonotic.pickup

I just had a couple yery fun vanilla DM games after burping "come and play" on IRC. During that, I saw a few dead players. But definately not the game itself dead.

How dead the game is depends on what region you live in and with what ping you're willing to play with.

In the european region at least the game is anything but dead, the issue is that if you aswant to play the vanilla game you'll have to play dm or ninsta, because duels and ctf don't happen nearly as much unless you play pickup games that is.

In the american region it's another story, you play minsta... or you play another game, sure an ocadsional duel happens but it's rare.

Now if you live anywhere else, I feel sorry for you because you won't get good ping anywhere :/

On NA there are duels most every night... look on the Atlanta/Seattle Smokehouse servers from around 11PM-3AM GMT (which is late afternoon/evening over here).

Now, it is usually the same set of about 6 players.

Plenty of DM for me lately, on various DM servers.

It's good to see servers other than DCC's DM server getting players as well, although most of them are still the more casual players, but that's no big deal.. If they keep playing some of them might stand out at some point.

A big problem is that the overkill/minsta/vehicle servers are overly populated most of the time, so people go to those first, and judge the game based on the gameplay there... Which is obviously not normative (if that's the correct wording for it).

I think a solution would be to make separate windows in the serverlist, the one ontop with servers that have official settings, and the ones below with modded (overkill/minsta/vehicle/cts/etc) servers (both windows should have easily visible titles stating that).


In others words: Servers offering official Xonotic gameplay should be promoted.


Very simple example of something I've noticed: say you go on a DM server, all alone. If you wait 5-15 minutes, somebody else will join. With each person that joins the chance that somebody else joins increases exponentially, because people sort their serverlist on -players- most of the time (nobody likes an empty server), so the server with most players appears ontop and attracts more of them.

This is how it went with the DCC ctf server... So many played... Now it's just an ancient ruin. I could try to bring it back with some others (spike, hot dog, maybe? ) by sitting in it for a while, so that's probably what I'm going to try soon.

The core game? Pretty much death. That's why pickup matches are necessary. But don't worry, almost everyone denies it

How can the game be dead if there are still people left to deny it......

As Mirio said, there's a pickup channel on IRC with a functional pickup bot, very nice and easy to organize proper matches, at least one-three are played every evening, although I noticed a minor decline lately, maybe because holidays were over or something.

I support reviving the DCC CTF. When I have the time, I#ll be hanging out there in the later evenings (CET) more now.

Yeah, long live DCC CTF !

In others words: Servers offering official Xonotic gameplay should be promoted.

Overkill/Vehicle/Minsta have active servers because people enjoy playing these modes.

If the official Xonotic gameplay was fun to new players, it would be played more. As easy as that. Everything else is looking for excuses.

And approaches like hiding the "unpure" gamemodes from the server list so new players are being drawn onto vanilla servers will only kill this game faster. This is not 1999 anymore, nowadays there are hundreds of free-to-play games available for the casual gamer to spend his time with. If you want crowded servers you need to adjust the game to the players, and not try it the other way around.

In others words: Servers offering official Xonotic gameplay should be promoted.

you need to adjust the game to the players, and not try it the other way around.

Yeah... So explain me one thing then:

How is the game going to adjust to the players... If nobody is playing it the way it's meant to be played in the first place?

In every single game, insta-kill game modes are always popular, because they require very little effort regarding tactical approach, at least compared to the main game.

So... Say player X hears about Xonotic and all its cool and useful weapons and nice arena gameplay shown on the website/videos... Then he looks around on the serverlist, and he finds #1 minsta ctf, #2 vehicle ctf, #3 Overkill, all with ~ 12 players... He starts playing on em, and is like "WTF this is not what I asked for" and leaves Xonotic forever, would be a sad story right? Especially if he could've been a potential player.

Now, the DCC ctf server caught the attention of many skilled players because it was pure, the only reason many people played on it was because of the fact that it actually HAD players to begin with, so more joined, and this chain reaction lasted for a very long while, because people expected others at certain times of the day.

What killed it eventually? Some simply stopped showing up because they got occupied with stuff... And the server lagged like crap, so others gave up on it. It was NOT the gameplay at all, because that was actually tons of fun (and it still is).


Now lets change the plan right? Instead of adjusting the game to the players and making it an incomprehensible mess that will suck for everyone, try to let the new people find out how to actually play the game.

So basically, the ONLY thing this game needs, is to give newcomers the motivation/incentive to find out more, to seek what's behind it, to understand why person X can kill others so quickly and why person Y dies all the time.

So far, the game does none of this (correctly), which is why most people play as if they've never played an fps before, and everybody thinks it is full randomness while there are plenty of tricks and tips to keep yourself alive for longer, or to move around quickly... Yet most people simply walk, instead of bunny hopping.

I have deep respect for Halogene's effort in making the game more accessible/understandable for newcomers, but who's going to point them to the guide? This should be INGAME in the form of tips that show at specific moments (loading screens, main menu) or in some other form... Make a huge red button that says "CLICK HERE TO START PWNING" or something, which would lead to a much more detailed tutorial.


To conclude it all: The official Xonotic IS fun, tons of fun. I've seen plenty of players on OFFICIAL DM servers playing and actually getting their ass handed back to them but still typing in chat: omg this game is awesome. Now just give those players the incentive to find out more, how to master certain things, and make all the info easily accessible to them, and there will be a lot more skillful players and potential community members around very quickly... Just show them the way, that's all.

What exactly makes you think that designing the game towards the players results in an "incomprehensible mess that will suck for everyone"? You need to know what your targeted playerbase is, what they want, what are the requirements to give them a pleasant in-game experience and then create a design based on that. That's the most basic stuff, but I don't see that in Xonotic to be honest.

What exactly makes you think that designing the game towards the players results in an "incomprehensible mess that will suck for everyone"? You need to know what your targeted playerbase is, what they want, what are the requirements to give them a pleasant in-game experience and then create a design based on that. That's the most basic stuff, but I don't see that in Xonotic to be honest.

Because I have experienced it myself, with the few other gaming communities I was involved with. This might sound stupid, but balancing a Minecraft server very much boils down to the same thing as this. Everybody will ask for feature this, and plugin that, or features will simply be added because they are generally liked (but kill the core gameplay).

Sure, you can say okay to each request, but just watch it pile up and collapse suddenly, with even the people that requested a certain feature protesting against it.

You have to put a limit somewhere, or you won't have a (unique) game/server anymore, becoming just as cluttered as the rest.

But that's just that. I agree with you, that I don't see a proper aim or direction, although the current mix seems quite enjoyable for both groups right now, speaking as somebody that's between casual and competitive

One important detail is, that the competitive players mostly get involved with the community, and the more casual players simply don't, which is no problem, but having a strong and healthy community is always a huge plus, I always believed in that.

This current community is great, but it would be awesome if it would grow a little bit faster than it does atm, and it could do that by making the game knowledge more accessible for newcomers, giving the ones that want to know more an easier route, and perhaps make it appealing to find out more for the ones that initially wouldn't care.

Probably doesn't help that a lot of the regulars past and present (me included) don't play on the public servers enough. Looking just now and I see 13/14 on the CTF server with Mirio, debugger, antares etc all playing so good to see.

Realistically in the next release and further releases, people should get off the pickup channel and play on the public servers, at least for new players then there are people playing.

What killed it eventually? Some simply stopped showing up because they got occupied with stuff... And the server lagged like crap, so others gave up on it. It was NOT the gameplay at all, because that was actually tons of fun (and it still is).

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.

@Archer
I think we are talking about different concepts here. I meant designing the game for the players and not letting them design it. Which would obviously not work out as player A wants a jetpack and player B wants a third fire mode and so on. Of course gathering feedback by the community is crucial but you should obviously not implement any random idea that some player has just to keep that player satisfied. Most players don't have the experience or simply don't care enough to grasp the ideas that underlay the design.

@Kojn
Yes the same people who already played in Nexuiz. My point is that a game must be capable of constantly attracting new players if it wants to stay alive. When gronkh.tv featured Xonotic there were hundreds or even thousands of new players trying out the game. And how many of them actually stayed for longer than a week? Well, at least not enough to fill the existing servers. Saying that these people should have stayed around for some months until they learned to play the game "the way it is meant to be played" (to quote Archer) so they would learn to enjoy it does not fit with reality at all. I claim that the very most people who try out Xonotic, an arena fps, just want to have fun and don't expect themselves to be required to spend time learning complex gameplay mechanics.

Your probably right, just wanted to state pickup chan players should really populate the servers more

What killed it eventually? Some simply stopped showing up because they got occupied with stuff... And the server lagged like crap, so others gave up on it. It was NOT the gameplay at all, because that was actually tons of fun (and it still is).

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.

@Archer
I think we are talking about different concepts here. I meant designing the game for the players and not letting them design it. Which would obviously not work out as player A wants a jetpack and player B wants a third fire mode and so on. Of course gathering feedback by the community is crucial but you should obviously not implement any random idea that some player has just to keep that player satisfied. Most players don't have the experience or simply don't care enough to grasp the ideas that underlay the design.

@Kojn
Yes the same people who already played in Nexuiz. My point is that a game must be capable of constantly attracting new players if it wants to stay alive. When gronkh.tv featured Xonotic there were hundreds or even thousands of new players trying out the game. And how many of them actually stayed for longer than a week? Well, at least not enough to fill the existing servers. Saying that these people should have stayed around for some months until they learned to play the game "the way it is meant to be played" (to quote Archer) so they would learn to enjoy it does not fit with reality at all. I claim that the very most people who try out Xonotic, an arena fps, just want to have fun and don't expect themselves to be required to spend time learning complex gameplay mechanics.

Yes that is true, but about that last part, people aren't obliged to learn all the stuff, they can keep it simple if they want... I just think it should become a bit more accessible so the average skill level will go up a bit, stuff like bunny hopping should be common knowledge and I see most people only doing it after a week of playing or so, while this is something they could've been told from start. I sometimes even see people with great aim, simply walking, isn't that a waste then? Nothing needs to be shoved down anybody's throat, it should just be easier for newcomers to get into the common knowledge quickly.

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).

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.

Just to illustrate how quiet are public vanilla servers.

BTW. If all is alive again, then why bother with this thread in the first place?
BTW2. There's no such concept as "are FACT that" some idea worked.

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).

BTW. If all is alive again, then bother with this thread in the first place?
BTW2. There's no such concept as "FACT that" some idea worked.

This very thread gave all of us the incentive to do something about it, the solution is really very simple: stop the chain reaction that prevents people from joining (0 players).

Fact or no fact, if the idea worked today, we can make it work everyday. Just populate the server, and people will join, it's once again simple honestly.

The situation was a lot worse a while back from what I witnessed, so I think the trend is slowly becoming positive again.

Problem is that there are plenty of players.. They're just looking for a proper place to play on.



Let me give you a simple example:

How many idiots per day join Xonotic Racing servers and start shooting at everybody? Quite a lot.

They kinda hope to be able to frag somebody, which will end in disappointment. Why do they join? Players. They see a playercount that isn't equal to 0, so they join the server.

Now, if those people would be "redirected" to an official DM server instead, you'd have a very steady playerbase on that server, as it is something that is happening constantly.

The serverlist simply needs a major overhaul, where players can very clearly see what they are joining. Then, some people need to put the "chain reaction" in motion for the servers we'd want the players to be on most of the time.

Let me give you a simple example:

How many idiots per day join Xonotic Racing servers and start shooting at everybody? Quite a lot.

They kinda hope to be able to frag somebody, which will end in disappointment. Why do they join? Players. They see a playercount that isn't equal to 0, so they join the server.

Good example indeed, but not one that would support your view.
I've been quite active on racing servers for a long while. I assure you that the number of newbies showing up there by mistake is nowhere near what used to be the norm just a year ago. Back then you would have there one or two newcommers at any one time in the evening. These days there will be like one misguided newbie per evening... sometimes few evenings.

Now, if those people would be "redirected" to an official DM server instead, you'd have a very steady playerbase on that server, as it is something that is happening constantly.

The serverlist simply needs a major overhaul, where players can very clearly see what they are joining. Then, some people need to put the "chain reaction" in motion for the servers we'd want the players to be on most of the time.

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?