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Immersion Overhaul Mutator Information

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#4,421
I'll agree with AAZ there. The first few versions of the 1.15 alpha could pull 20+ players (and while that may seem much, for the pace IOM works at its not bad) and I am willing to put a bet on it a number of them thought "Well this seems cool. I'll wait for the full beta once they iron out the bugs." That and a lot of the RO2 player base these days seems to only want to one click something and it just magically works, so the Workshop version is where it suffers slightly right now. Once a full workshop version is working again I imagine things will pick up.

Also I mentioned that over the past month most educational establishments have restarted. I've played IOM for almost all events for the past couple of months, but now I'm back at Uni and trying to find time also to do recordings for other mods I'm having to replan how I use my time. I imagine a number of other students are also doing that, both in the context of not only those who play IOM but also those who make it also!

Also saying niche mods are "never" played just because there is not a full server up 24/7 is silly. I've played more Mare Nostrum with quite full servers in the past month than I've ever played it. Mare Nostrum: that mod which was "Stillborn" according to some.

Not saying IOM or HotW or any other mods will suddenly fly, but when things are in the doldrums of testing versions and have not been updated in long periods of time, then yeah, player counts will be low.
 
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#4,422
Let me start by saying that I am really impressed with what you guys have done with the mod so far and I am not here to gloat about the current situation, but I also do not like to pretend everything is or will be OK when this is clearly not the case.

After over 220 pages, nearly 4,500 posts and over 320,000 views of IOM thread, currently only one server is running IOM and it is mostly empty, even on scheduled events. The Steam Workshop procedure offers the less buggy previous version and still no servers are running it.

There is a large chunk of player-base which is largely unaware of IOM's existence because the way it is conducted requires you to be active on the forum and stumble upon it by chance.

For example, right after a big steam sale, new players don't even realize they would join a Campaign-mode server, but when they do, they decide if they like it or not. Same would go for the "IOM light". In both cases, player could judge based on their experience which required them just to join the server.

Let's take a look at the example of a server that used to run IOM back in the day:
 40-1 admins were running IOM on their primary server while the mod wasn't white-listed so the server was unranked. This didn't work and the server was mostly empty so they were considering switching to RS while running IOM only on events.

Later, they announced that they would be running IOM full-time again, this time ranked, on the same server. But it looks like whether the server was ranked or not wasn't the only culprit as the server is now back to vanilla again.

The same 40-1 member that announced their IOM ranked server also said that they they "really require a consistent level of players to justify keeping the server running" which is perfectly understandable since servers cost money.

Now, remember, these are not some random people who would give "some random mod" a try... they were obviously very excited about having ranked IOM server but still could not keep it going.

A clue for that may be found partially in a 40-1 forum post where, while talking about steps it takes to setup IOM on your computer, another 40-1 member tells that, "with the need to change your configs to be able to play it, it even attracts less people. Gamers often lack crucial skills on the pc to honest, so they often do not even know where this config is located on their HDD".
 
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#4,423
As much as I love IOM, I am honestly inclined to agree with Omar about this problem. Although in my opinion IOM is still fun even with a handful of people, most people do not agree, and simply refuse to join servers that are less than half full. Unfortunately, even with the events, IOM simply does not attract these kind of numbers, unless a major update has just been released. Even with hundreds of people in the steam group, most of whom have expressed that they would exclusively play IOM if there was a consistent amount of people playing it, most events struggle to attract more than a dozen people.

The only solution to this problem is to get a steady stream of newcomers to the mod by increasing visibility, which in turn is only possible by getting a consistent player count, thus leading to this vicious cycle that most mods get trapped in. Further compounding this cycle is the fact that even of the newcomers who manage to discover the mod, most are deterred by the hassle of actually installing it and getting it to work properly. The amount of people I've seen join the server during events only to leave and never play IOM again just because they installed it wrong or didn't edit their config is simply depressing.

As for resolving this issue, Omar's suggestion of an "IOM light" version is by no means perfect, but it's the best idea I've heard so far, and it's certainly better than waiting for the release of 1.15 in the hope that the numbers won't quickly drop back down once the initial novelty of the update wears off. Although 1MB in size is definitely too small, I think something similar to the original sound mod by Dibber would help provide exposure to IOM, while still appealing to many newcomers. Essentially it would just have to be easily downloadable through the steam workshop or server redirects in a way similar to custom maps. If servers could then just post messages in servers running this "IOM light" version, directing them to the actual IOM servers in order to see new guns, skins, gameplay mechanics, etc, then this could end up boosting the population of IOM itself significantly.
 
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#4,425
Has a way for the mod to DL and self install been found? I've been out of the loop for a while. As in, all you need to do is join a server running it? The last I heard was that was going to be impossible due to it's coding. Which is unfortunate as it's critical IMO.

You could grow interest even with one server running the mod if the randoms that jumped in could immediately experience it. Hell, even if a server only had "Immersion Mod" in it's title, people would click on it out of curiosity. Events are fine for testing, but if it was easy to play, I'm sure it would find it's way onto the server list.

It's the same old story I'm afraid, looking at how the community barely will tolerate waiting for a custom map to load, to get the idiots to try it, running the mod needs to be idiot proof.
 
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#4,426
LugNut said:
Has a way for the mod to DL and self install been found? I've been out of the loop for a while. As in, all you need to do is join a server running it? The last I heard was that was going to be impossible due to it's coding. Which is unfortunate as it's critical IMO.

You could grow interest even with one server running the mod if the randoms that jumped in could immediately experience it. Hell, even if a server only had "Immersion Mod" in it's title, people would click on it out of curiosity. Events are fine for testing, but if it was easy to play, I'm sure it would find it's way onto the server list.

It's the same old story I'm afraid, looking at how the community barely will tolerate waiting for a custom map to load, to get the idiots to try it, running the mod needs to be idiot proof.
Click to expand...

Which is why when SQUAD comes out, I'll be looking into dedicating time to that instead of RO2/RS. RS and RO2 has been a lot of fun, probably is still my favorite game, the actual players, are great (ie dedicated people who traverse these forums, or are aware of most things, and spend time actually looking, commenting, helping, on mods, maps, etc). Without these people RO2 wouldn't still be alive like it is. (Which isn't saying much per se, the average RO2 player doesn't hold on to the game, ie plays it for a bit, and moves on.)
I'll definitely continue to experiment around with RO2, like I have, but I doubt I'll be doing a lot. IOM is a perfect example of the conflict in RO2 & RS at the moment. The player-base is weak, not underpopulated, not by number, but their interest in the game is relatively weak, not as rabid as RO1, KF, KF2. Same goes for HotW, they have thousands of subscribers (Which doesn't say much), but only 20-50 players actually show up.
Tripwire Interactive is a great company, I won't say it isn't, because it's not. I have respect for smaller companies, and in my opinion, they usually turn out far better games, than major companies.
 
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#4,427
It'll be interesting to see what happens with Squad over its lifespan as there's a lot of similarities between the community now moving to Squad and that which initially moved to RO2. Both are made up primarily of players coming from modded games, who heavily support mods and custom content. I'm sure the first generation of Squad will be heavily modded, but as the studio grows, will they be tempted to go for a mass audience with Squad2 like TWI did with RO2? That lost them the mod happy players unfortunately.

Anyway, I've read the SDK might be out this year, so get ready... :p No word yet on how or when they will allow community content to be used.
 
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#4,433
Omar The Insurgent said:
Gamers often lack crucial skills on the pc to honest, so they often do not even know where this config is located on their HDD".
Click to expand...

The config file change is the biggest barrier to entry. When IOM didnt require the config change I would activate it on the Aussie / NZ server towards the end of a prime time night. Friday or Saturday. Would have about 64 players on for a few maps and then they realise the server is unranked and bugger off to another server.

I still have an Aussie / NZ server running IOM but it is a ghost town.

So out the need to change the config files and you will see improved player numbers.

IOM Lite sounds like a good idea Omar.
 
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