The AOL Generation
This editorial is designed to be a statement on why the TF community is toning down, but no dying, yet.
— Webkid
It is my feeling that the TeamFortress for QuakeWorld community is not
dieing, but being toned down, specifically because of what i call The AOL
Generation. In the online community in my opinion, because of the rapid
technological changes going on, that it is a new generation every 6-12
months. In my personal opinion, The AOL Generation are not just AOLers, but
they are every kid who got a new computer from their parents cause "OnLine
is the way of the future" and they have no respect for anything, they are
all the people on AOL who dont know anything and think they do, they are
the spammers, lammers, cheaters who have no respect for the TeamFortress
community. They dont come online to enjoy themselves with others, most of
them come online to enjoy themselves at the expense of others.
I say they have no respect in general because they come onto the public
servers just wanting to win, but not wanting to have to work themselves to
increase in skill to win, they just want to kill but not put any effort
into getting the skill to kill, so they do things that they shouldnt, but
still get themselves kills, they spam, they cheat, they do generally lame
and unpleasnt things.
Now this does not mean the TeamFortress community is dieing because of
them, but because of these members of The AOL Generation people like me and
you who are devoted to the TeamFortress community dont like to spend as
much time on public servers or "pubs". I know i for one dont pub much
anymore, when i starting playing TeamFortress 1 year ago i played on public
servers every day, and didnt encounter nearly any "lamers". But now because
of the increase of members of The AOL Generation, more and more devoted
members of the TeamFortress community dont play on public servers nearly
asmuch as they used to, maybe 1/6th the time they use to when they started.
But these devoted people, they spend alot of time online, and if they arent
going to spend their time on TeamFortress servers because of these "lamers"
they spend time playing other games. They play Starcraft, Tribes,
Half-Life, etc etc etc. and they only play TF in clan matchs or 1on1s.
But now with these people not playing TeamFortress in their free time any
longer, they may get just as addicted to the other games they are playing
as they were to TeamFortress, and eventually they drift and drift away from
TeamFortress even stop playing clan games.
And the solution? There is none realy, we cannot teach the mass of 11 year
old kids etc that what they are doing is wrong, what can we do? I know i
dont pub anymore, and the occasional once every 4 days i plaay for about an
hour, i encounter numerous "lamers" which eventually leads me to quitting
QuakeWorld and going to back to IRC.
Now i do not know the solution, and i do not know what we can do about it,
i'd just like to shed some like with this editorial on why the community
seems to be dieing. But i feel its losing something special it had, but not
dieing, atleast not yet.
Admin & Owner of Valhallian Productions:
http://www.valhallian.com
and The Scripting Crypt:
http://www.scriptingcrypt.com
UIN: 1218098 - IRC: WebKid
Observations on TFC/TF
Some observations on the game.
— [FIRE]Schmoo
I've been scouring the boards associated with HL, TFC and ... almost
purely by accident, TF, and noticed a number of threads concerning the impact
of the TFC port of the original and it's possible impact on the TF
community. Let me lead off by stating that I am NOT a TF player. Frankly, I wish
I'd rumbled across it sooner, as it sounds like a blast of a mod. But
there are certain unavoidable impacts (other than this message ;) that will
come from the TFC port.
First, there are a greater number of computer gamers now than there
were in the venerable days of 1996. Second, a number of these gamers are of
the shrink-wrap variety. By that I mean that they are likely to buy a game
and play it, but they are unlikely to scour the web for mods and
enhancements. Third, TFC is being pushed as an add-on/mod for one of the most popular
FPS's in a long time. The only outstanding question for me that casts doubt on the severity of the impact to the TF community is how Valve/Sierra are going to handle the TFC distribution. With a great push effort, nearly all mildly interested HL players will have it. With a 'post' effort,
only those who really care will go pick up the TFC mod.
Regardless, the community is going to see a lot of neophyte bloat, especially in the initial release months.... Half-Life players who are dying to try the next cool thing from Valve. (and I suspect that all
us newbies will do a lot of just that --- Dying). These folks, on the whole, will probably not be dedicated to the environment, the mod, or the community -- but they will load the servers, and appear as the public competition. Except for the diehard core, the community is going to
lose focus and identity as these interested newbies swell the ranks (however temporarily). The vets and core community folks will likely be annoyed and/or hostile to our intrusion of the relatively stable TF realm. All of this is destined to be, although the severity is in Valve's hands, and
to those of us who became addicted to HalfLife.
The TF community will servive, and probably even grow. But that growth won't be without pain..... annoying newbies who can't even scratch their own butts without dying and cocky newbies who can. Purist veterans railing against the veteran TF-TFC converts. It has all the requirements of a major schism -- if you let it.
Simply put, the current TF community is in the driver seat when the chips hit the table. You are a country that will be receiving refugees from over the border -- people looking for a better brand of multiplayer FPS -- This much is unavoidable. But you have control over whether this influx of untrained bodies get indoctrinated to the wonders TF/TFC has to offer or whether we get thrown back on the boat and told to go back where we came from.
I for one, look for the understanding of the TF'ers out there as I make my foray into a community with established roots.
Observations
Thoughts on the game and the community.
— WoLf [BCC]
I woke up this morning with a few things on my mind about the Multiplayer and Gaming community in general. What I'm about to say, I can guarantee that some of you will disagree with, and some of you may even support.
While browsing through the web on Gaming, especially the Quake community through the last few years I've noticed that a good deal of female orientated gaming sites have sprung up, great I thought at last, except a good deal of them seem to take a great delight in men-bashing, not so great since we're supposed to be living in enlightened times. Now let me point out that not all of these sites do this, in fact recently I've been making friends with the excellent Da-Valkyries site which is probably the best female gamers site I've come across. Why? Because their attitude towards male gamers rocks. They take the time to answer emails and place articles into their news, their whole attitude is professional and personable. Something a few of the sites should take note of. Now I can understand why there should be a place for female gamers on the web and I'm not against it, because I'm not one of these men who will beat their chest because they are afraid of women taking over yet another male-orientated hobby. I just get angry when I have to pay for the sins of a few over abundant testosterone charged male walking hormone factories. Yep thanks to them the serious male gamer has now to contend with being ostracised from certain channels on IRC and certain areas on the web, but how can you Police this? I could go onto IRC and pretend to be a woman and believe you me I would do a fine job at it, since I know what makes a woman tick. My personal view is that segregation in any form should be weeded out, I never did agree, or ever will agree with Golf Clubs and men only clubs, it's a waste of time. I mean there is nothing more annoying when you take time to send in a map to a site which you have created to be told that, it can't go in a maps section there since it's only for female created maps. I would never dream of creating a site like that, damn I hate segregation and that no matter how small, is segregation. Thankfully though the map did get put in another section. Ladies if you want to be taken seriously, take a tip for DaV and don't ostracise males from your site with ideas like that or you'll build up resentment from people like me. And this post is the result of this ongoing trend, but I have to say it's taken me since Quake 1 to get annoyed enough to write this.
So if your one of those small percentage of men who likes to harass women on servers/online just stop for a moment and think what you're doing, because you're giving the women you're harassing a good laugh at your own expense. I should know I've seen it online especially in Quake2. Yep I've even become a female Quake player online for a time just to experience what women do experience online and I can say, it's true. There was one time when I'd just beaten this guy and when he said are you a man or a woman I replied a woman, following was a torrent of abuse that Playboy would be hard-pressed to publish. Did I feel offended, did my wife who was rolling on the floor with laughter as she watched? No, I just charged up the BFG10K and blew the sucker away while he was typing. There's a moral to this ladies, don't let people like that win by showing you're upset, blow them away and make them feel small. Because out there are men who do feel at home playing with women and get saddened by the fact they are the ones being ostracised from certain activities because of their gender, have a care and a thought next time you create clans like FWO or channels as such that it only gives the smaller minded of us more ammo to throw at you. Because you're starting to look like the unfair ones. Not as though I should care, after all I'm separated from all this by the push of a button and miles and miles of water/air. I don't expect to change the world overnight, all I'm asking is a little tolerance of those people who do fit into the male bracket. And to those people who do persist in harassing every female named character online, beware, you might just be harassing a man who's pretending to be a woman just so he can play with some people. Food for thought? I hope so.
Ok, here's more, how about a fresh new attitude to newbies in our community, I mean how many of you know of me. I've been around since Quake watching this type of gaming grow. WoLf's the name (But again how many people online are called by that name) But I've seen a lot of maltreatment of people who've never played before, especially by some, not all, of the older gamers. Tolerance would be nice. I used to enjoy playing online Quake1 and 2 a lot, but sadly now I'm drifting towards Delta Force. The primary reason? Attitude of the players there, most of them so far have been great. So if you're a Delta Force player keep it up, makes being a newbie fun again. So please think about who you're playing against and try to give them some common courtesy or help if they need it. We were all newbies once.
Teamfortress Classic for Half Life. I wish people would leave ˝ Life alone, I personally love the game and I've had no troubles with Deathmatch, sure it needs tweaking but correct me if I'm wrong so did Quake 2, I lost count of how many patches that one grossed and still is grossing. Now Valve are porting one of the most kick-ass mods ever made for Quake to ˝ Life and it's about time. But I will not abandon my roots, I'll still pay Teamfort for Quake, since Quake still rules in my book. I don't think too many of us will leave the ship that is Teamfortress, we've got too many fond memories and happenings that go along with the game. It's still one of the friendliest communities out there. Some good players and some fine clans.
Well that's all from me, I should go back to trying to liberate the Black Mesa complex from the evil head-crabs and aliens. Until next time.
Credo,
WoLf [BCC] [CO] 3d level Design Course @ Bilston College in the UK.
The Magic Wand
A reader talks back to the PF staff.
— GibbenJosh
You know something PF?
Quote from PF news: "I feel fairly confident that just like any new game or one under development, it will be a work in progress. Certainly they are
building the game under the assumption that more and more people will have faster and more complex computers. Why would
they not think that way? After all, my first computer, a 486 was $1,600 for the box alone, with 4 megs of memory and 240 meg
HD. A four meg upgrade was $160. Todays computer in comparison may set you back $600 to $800 for a really great box.
STOP!! Before you even go there, I know that there aren't many of you who happen to have that amount laying around."
you are so WRONG!
Ok, look at the consoles, they don't upgrade every four months (it took the N64 HOW MANY years to come out?) and the games designers came out with software that WORKS for older machines (*cough* Yes, the N64 has a memory upgrade and video accelerator out *cough*). Why, i remember my PC XT. Damn, that thing ran software for 15mhz 286 processors with it's blinding 7mhz of speed! you know something, that was FAST back when my three colour games (ahhh....Falcon 1 or F-19 Stealth Fighter, anyone?) and it only took up 720k or hard drive space (yeah, the funny big black disks, not to be confused with big black audio CD's). so what I am saying is that I think it's almost inexcuasable for companys to need more hardware/faster hardware. It can be nice if the games have TWEAKS for the newer/faster hardware (a tweak works both ways, slowing down the game if you are too fast, such as Falcon 1 on my 266mhz laptop, or looking better as in HL for my TNT). They shouldn't base their code on what the newest machine can do. Why, I have Half Life running 30fps at 320x240 with the crap I jammed into my 133mhz desktop. And that's without an accelerator!!! (Why brag about 320x240? You have to give the guests SOMETHING to DM you on when they come over...). ;)
Anyhow, what I am saying is this: GAME COMPANYS HAVE TO STOP DEPENDING ON TOP OF THE LINE HARDWARE! I have a buddy at work. He's programming in C++. He's putting st00pid little comments into his program and writing little easter eggs and leaving huge amounts of space wasted in between code blocks and insists on using the DOUBLE variable class for everything he does, "just in case...."!!! I ask him, I say, "Rick, why are you not optimizing?" He says to me, "Why, with a quad 450 P2 to run this on, who needs optimization?". I think that illustraites the point well. Everyone wants to play games on a quad 450 P2, but no-one owns one. This guy has top of the line hardware, so he thinks it's OK to write bloated code (read "AOL" in some circles). SOOOOO.....I hope gaming companys read this and realize that tight code is a Good Thing and that making something's base requirement a p100 or even p75 (quake1) is a good idea, because it promises fast gameplay to everyone.
Then mod makers step in and it's their job to write laggy code (*cough* original WF *cough*). ;)
Anyhow, one more point in case: I respect Westwood Studios (can you publish that name on PF? I dunno. ) because Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun (ewww....RTS? check out www.planetquake.com/shadowgate/ and look for QWAR2) has a base requirement of 133mhz P1 last time I checked. They make a great looking game, then offer graphical tweaks for those of us with kickass hardware. Thats the way it should be.
Anyhow, I am done ranting. I am gonna go to the next offic and complain about how some idiot didn't put a coffee filter in (like everything else around here, "crunchyness" just became a "feature" of the coffee), and I hope those game companys learn their lesson. Not just Valve either, EVERYONE MUST LEARN!
It almost wants me to become a console player.
Almost.
Not.
You guys need another disgruntaled writer? >;)
The demise of TF2
Is Team Fortress 2 doomed before it's even released?
— [DX]Visceral
This all goes back to the beginnings of TF, think back before that, think
back to when you first got bored of playing single player Quake or had
completed it several times over. Feeling rather confident about your
abilities, you decide to take your first dip into DM and then proceeded to
get your ass kicked! =). Of course, you persevere and eventually manage to
get Frags on a regular basis. After some months of playing you finally get
to a reasonable skill level, but find DM has become somewhat 'pointless' -
but hark! You come across TF! After much playing you find a class that suits
your style of play and several years later you're still playing the darn
thing! =)
Which brings me to TF2 - perhaps with trying to please everyone, they'll end
up pleasing no one? I did a little 'survey' with a number of TF Virgins, I
showed each of them a magazine article with various shots of the
game-in-progress TF2. All of their reactions were positive and many of them
said they will buy it should the specs of their machines hold out. I also
looked around various message boards From TF Veterans, i got the general
impression that they would rather have a fast reloading, all killing, sod
physics, kick ass rocket launcher they can RJ with =). Unlike in TF2 where
your main weapon is typically bullet based unless you're rocket support in
which you get a slow loading, strategically aimed,
anal-probe-flaming-out-the-back launcher of which would rather displace your
polygonal innards on to a nearby wall than let you rocket jump =).
Now where does the displeasure come into it? Well, this lack of Quake
physics may just put alot of Veteran players off from playing it for a
extended period of time, and force them to play TFClassic instead or the
original of course. For newbie players, all the added features, complexity
of missions and tactics might just put them off from playing it as they
don't have the time to master it all. Then again, at the end of the day,
every single person with a pc, net connection and an itch for wanton
violence and destruction might just buy it and we'll all end up enjoying the
delights of emptying clips into each other, rather than the previous
delights of gibbing peep's with a rocket launcher...Who knows? lets just
hope its worth its salt.
Think the author was right on target or completely off the deep end? Let us know -- mail us or post in the forums!
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