After RO2 is fixed...

Raneman said:

How will we gain back the lost playerbase?

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I know a large group of gamers from the U.S., U.K., and Australia who still play RB6: Vegas 2 in Terrorist Hunt CO:OP nearly every day, and have told me they would buy RO2 if TWI ever releases a patch to include CO-OP in this game.
They have modded V2 so they can include up to 99 Ai, and some other things to keep it interesting.
CO-OP T-Hunt is all they play, and I don't know of another game at present that is similar.

I haven't played V2 in a couple of years because of the poor netcode and lag for all but the host, and because Ubisoft abandoned the game shortly after release, but I did play if for about a year.

I don't know how many players would be added by introducing CO-OP in RO2, but I do enjoy playing CO-OP games with friends and relatives.
We always have a great time using my TS server to communicate.

Yoshiro did confirm in a recent thread that CO-OP would be included in a patch, but didn't give a date.

Just a thought, but it is possible that some lost players might be interested and return as well as new players!!

Reduced price would help also to bring new gamers in!

DAT said:

RO3??? haha. What is funny is most of the posters in here do not realize how little staff there actually is in Tripwire compared to the big publishers of BF3 and COD.

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I'd like to know then why they (Bf and COD) keep putting new lipstick and a different dress on the same rode hard and put away wet street walker if they have such resources. Just playing on the lemmings that buy this dated crap? The world may never know.

As to the OP. Roost had a rocky start if I remember correctly. It settled out and was enjoyed by the niche it was intended for after a while.

Zetsumei said:

Together with the feeling of the devs pissing right on my face while laughing.

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Or the other way around..... laughing while pissing right on your face

Aside from all the issues, RO2 still has to deal with the fact that it's neither an arcade FPS or a simulation so it has a hard time satisfying a lot of people.

RO1 was neither of those things either, so this is not a comment about RO2 being dumbed down or anything. It was just easier for RO1 to get away with it in 2006, a time before two different games gained hegemony over opposite ends of the spectrum: Call of Duty (with the first MW) and ArmA II.

People wanting an arcade or sim will be able to find a purer experience with one of those games. So a lot of people playing RO2 just get left with gaming blue balls.

Going forward with RO3, Tripwire needs to pick one side and go all in.

CocaineInMyBrain said:

Free weekends, sales, word of mouth... etc etc. And btw your definition of "fixed" may differ greatly from other people's.

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For me its when microstuttering ends, sounds work like in beta, and we have maps that actually have some engagement distances and troop transportation. I'd play RO2 daily if the microstuttering didn't kill it for me. It's practically same as playing in ~15fps even though my fps is 60. Last played RO2 some months ago because of that, waiting for the fixes.

Leopardi said:

For me its when microstuttering ends, sounds work like in beta, and we have maps that actually have some engagement distances and troop transportation. I'd play RO2 daily if the microstuttering didn't kill it for me. It's practically same as playing in ~15fps even though my fps is 60. Last played RO2 some months ago because of that, waiting for the fixes.

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I remember you from the Codemaster's forums. =]

Poerisija said:

We got 4x more players than RO:OST ever had and it lived 5 years. I don't see a problem.

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Please post a link to your sources for this assertion.

HLudwig said:

I remember you from the Codemaster's forums. =]

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That forum was horrible got banned for a little criticising and not being a blind fanboy.

Zetsumei said:

Together with the feeling of the devs pissing right on my face while laughing. It takes more for me than just fixing things that should have been ok from the beginning for me.

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Massive over-reaction from someone who usually makes sensible posts, imo.

You're free to dislike the movement, map sizes and weapon loadouts... particularly that RJ blatantly lied to the RO fans and those in the beta, but this is still a Drama Llama post. It just doesn't sit well when the majority of dev teams and practically all publishers out there have such a cynical attitude to gamers these days (interesting to see TurdMasters already mentioned in this thread).

The release of full-conversion mods will bring players back to have another look at the game. TWI now have to ensure those mods are released for free, otherwise they will die like a damp-squib, gaining a player base of well under 1,000 players world wide.

Icey_Pain said:

How very inaccurate of you to say...

The developers have already stated in one of their recent posts that gameplay and balance changes are coming. So far they've not lied on what they were working on.

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As I said; I doubt. Of course there is still a chance. It's TWI after all, not Codemasters, or any other ignorant crap company. It just seems weird that they suddenly change direction.

DAT said:

RO3??? haha. What is funny is most of the posters in here do not realize how little staff there actually is in Tripwire compared to the big publishers of BF3 and COD. What is amazing that they actually created this game with so few staff when compared to the giant developers and publishers. I am thankful and is evidence of how long I have been a member of TWI forums I understand the ins and outs of publishing a game of this size. A few more months and most of the whiners will finally be gone.

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That depends. There is still going to be people that want the game to be less arcade and focus more on realism and strategy at least if the current state of the game isn't changed in that aspect. Whiners - there will always be whiners. But the truth is that most of the complaints aren't coming from whiners. So don't pretend that everyone that complain are whining about the game. A lot of the complaints comes from people who have invested a lot of their freetime into previous RO game and they have created a lot of wonderfull stuff for it and kept the game alive.

There is always ins and outs, and I think people understand this. The bugs and glitches sems not to be the big problem for most people on this board. The problem is the games new direction with all this arcade stuff and the lack of a proper hardcore mode. And the reason to this has nothing to do with the fact that TWI is a small company. It's their decision. It's not like it is some sort of a mistake or a bug.

Leopardi said:

That forum was horrible got banned for a little criticising and not being a blind fanboy.

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Welcome to the club.

I gained infractions for critizing Red River. I then got shadowbanned (I could write posts, create topics etc. but no one else than me could read or see them) and when I wrote a fine and constructive email to their customer support the only answer I got was a permanent bann. They systematically gave infractions, cencored posts (sometimes they just changed stuff in the post), removed posts, gave out shadowbanns and banned people, and after the release the left the board and dropped the support as with dragon rising.

The devs were also complete idiots. They didn't only tell lies and mislead people, but they acted so ignorant and never listened to anyone. I remember that one of the threads was about the exploading red barrels in DR. This was hilarious: People didn't like this. Sion Lentons reply was basicly (I can't quote exactly) that ''Every game has red exploading barrels''. Another thread was about the health system which got bashed prior to red river release. You basicly held a health bag in front of you, clicked a button, and with no animation or anything you got 100% health. You could also do this in hardcore mode. One he devs responses was basicly ''If you don't want it, just restart the whole mission if you get injured. It's really about selfcontrol.''

Oh, good old days. No wonder codemasters flashpoint series got canned.

Zetsumei said:

For me at this point just fixing the issues wont be enough. There needs to be a big change to get me to play again, more of the actual responses and way of communicating though. Ill follow these forums mostly out of habit, but the fire and love for this game has been put out. Together with the feeling of the devs pissing right on my face while laughing. It takes more for me than just fixing things that should have been ok from the beginning for me.

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Aye.
TWI saying they fancy and are listening to the community so much, but why do we get a product that is something -at least- the majority of the community (from before RO2 releasedate) is not content with? To put it mildly.

Some executive manager of TWI made a big fail - wether it is in communication and/or development.

Colt .45 killer said:

so, are you saying its worth buying for a fiver?

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I have no idea what your gaming tastes are but Brink is a very different type of game from most standard fps shooters..

For just

Six_Ten said:

Please post a link to your sources for this assertion.

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Based on my own observations during the 3-4 years I've played OST and the time time I've played RO2 (since launch obviously).

OST was released in 2006, generally had 250-450 people on in 2008 (never saw more than 500 online in OST) and it slowly dropped to 200-250'ish and 2010 and downwards to 100-150's in 2011, while RO2 generally has around 1000 people playing. Granted RO2 hasn't been around as long _YET_ but it started with a much higher number of players than Ost.

Can't be arsed to search for it, but Yoshiro or Ramm said RO2 sold more than OST and KF combined.

Can someone else post numbers? These are from memory, so they could be totally out of my arse, but that's how I remember the numbers and I was saddened to see the community slowly dwindling.

OST did have a brief resurrection in the months before RO2's launch. Numbers jumped up by a hundred or two.

barakas said:

RO:OST didn't drop to 10% of its launch numbers within a couple of months though.

At this point in its life cycle, RO:OST had a lot more players.

Just before RO2 came out, RO:OST used to have about 500 players at peak. Now RO2 has around 1,100 at peak times.

When RO:OST was in its hay-day it was getting around 4,000 players at peak. Smaller than the 9,000 for RO2 launch, but those players are long gone.

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Ost launched with a lot less players and a lot of them had already played the mod. People knew what they were buying and very little "new" people bought it before the sales. You can check the achievements, a very small % (Less than 18%) of OST-owners ever killed more than 10 people. Less than 8% killed more than 100 people. RO:OST was also played actively by less than 10% of the original buyers. Of course we can't tell the time from here but it didn't take very long to kill 100 people in OST. A couple of days to a few weeks?

I never played RO in the very start, so I can't tell about the player numbers from there, this is based on my experience when I bought RO.

A lot of people bought RO2 thinking it was something it wasn't (IE, a new CoD or a OST-reskin.) and didn't like it and the game was buggy - explains a good deal of the number drop. I honestly think the vocal minority here on the forums is disillusioned about why people aren't playing RO2. RO2 certainly got bought by more people than RO1, and most likely is played by a larger percentage, if we had 10k on launch day and 1k remain, that's more than the active 8% of RO:OST's active players compared to buyers.

Richey79 said:

The release of full-conversion mods will bring players back to have another look at the game. TWI now have to ensure those mods are released for free, otherwise they will die like a damp-squib, gaining a player base of well under 1,000 players world wide.

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I would have said that to be true as well, but the PC gaming market has not only grown but has become extremely competitive. There are so many titles on the market that I don't believe just releasing mods or an SDK can save a title or bring back the disenfranchised.

First of all I think TWI personalities need to address the community in some way, without pulling any punches. No BS, no excuses, no chest beating etc. They need to repair their relationship with their community first. Address the MKB issue..why did they do things the way they did despite assurances before release to the contrary. Wilsonam needs to address the "trust us" stuff about unlocks, and how it would be treated delicately. They need to get back trust and improve their reputation with their core fan base. That will help generate positive attitudes towards them and their game, on their own doorstep (here), and elsewhere where people talk about the game. They always relied on word of mouth for sales, but most people have nothing good to say about either the game or Tripwire atm and I bet a lot of people won't play RO2 just because they feel pissed at the company or feel that TWI don't even want them in their game, and want a different playerbase.

This whole thing went bigger than just issues with the game..I think people were genuinely feeling betrayed by TWI and that is reflecting on their opinion of the game, rather than it just being issues with gameplay. Its like TWI tried to leapfrog over their fanbase towards some envisioned mainstream, after which they could then ditch us as we would be the niche amongst thousands of mainstream gamers. They just gambled and failed, except for initial sales. TWI were always about the long term though, they want the game to keep selling for as long as possible and to do that people need to be playing and talking positively about the game.

Actions speak louder than words but it needs to be both ways..they should get people back on their side by improving the game and having the right attitude on their forum or in other press releases.

There's a point were its virtually impossible to get people back though, no matter what you do. When you fire up the game you need to see a healthy amount of servers and thats just not the case atm..even if a lot of people wanted to play if the game looks dead it will stay that way until they do a big update / steam discount / free weekend whatever

melipone said:

First of all I think TWI personalities need to address the community in some way, without pulling any punches. No BS, no excuses, no chest beating etc. They need to repair their relationship with their community first. Address the MKB issue..why did they do things the way they did despite assurances before release to the contrary. Wilsonam needs to address the "trust us" stuff about unlocks, and how it would be treated delicately. They need to get back trust and improve their reputation with their core fan base. That will help generate positive attitudes towards them and their game, on their own doorstep (here), and elsewhere where people talk about the game. They always relied on word of mouth for sales, but most people have nothing good to say about either the game or Tripwire atm and I bet a lot of people won't play RO2 just because they feel pissed at the company or feel that TWI don't even want them in their game, and want a different playerbase.

This whole thing went bigger than just issues with the game..I think people were genuinely feeling betrayed by TWI and that is reflecting on their opinion of the game, rather than it just being issues with gameplay. Its like TWI tried to leapfrog over their fanbase towards some envisioned mainstream, after which they could then ditch us as we would be the niche amongst thousands of mainstream gamers. They just gambled and failed, except for initial sales. TWI were always about the long term though, they want the game to keep selling for as long as possible and to do that people need to be playing and talking positively about the game.

Actions speak louder than words but it needs to be both ways..they should get people back on their side by improving the game and having the right attitude on their forum or in other press releases.

There's a point were its virtually impossible to get people back though, no matter what you do. When you fire up the game you need to see a healthy amount of servers and thats just not the case atm..even if a lot of people wanted to play if the game looks dead it will stay that way until they do a big update / steam discount / free weekend whatever

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Agree with most of the post.
One thing that may help to bring players new to the RO series into the game would be if TWI would release a demo with a single player mission, maybe 1 or 2 multiplayer maps, and possibly, a co-op mission.
(the single player mission could include an option for co-op)

Make the demo available on Steam and other big download sites.

why do we keep saying the community is damaged?

melipone said:

Address the MKB issue..

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How recently have you played the game?

I'm finding that the new problem (which is only going to grow) is the level 50 PPSh. You see players sniping at 150m - let's be honest, this feels much further with the current engine - hip shotting all over the place and never having to reload.

Not singling out the PPSh really, just the levelling system. Most players who have lives will take a couple of years to get to these levels, so it feels like playing against cheaters.

The MKB doesn't feel particularly OP on the battlefield now.

Raneman said:

How will we gain back the lost playerbase?

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We will resurrect the people who have fallen during WW2.
This new army of ours will get the sales information of everyone who has purchased RO2, go to their house and force them to play by gunpoint !!!

Richey79 said:

Massive over-reaction from someone who usually makes sensible posts, imo....

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There might have been more behind that statement you quoted than you are phaps aware of.