All things old are new again
Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 4:39 pm
Perhaps I am mistaken in this observation, but over the last few weeks I have noticed an annoying "new" development.
As those veterans of the early days can attest, the first two months after release was a wild time to be playing. There were tons of servers every where, and you could always find a game. Stratagies were still being developed, and you were never too sure of what you could expect.
However, there were many problems. Host dropping was rampant, name calling, cursing, insults, etc. flew for any trivial reason, and players would quit the moment tings didn't go thier way. In time these problems begain to fade, becoming almost rare. I believe this was due to the fact that so many of those players were only playing due to the cheap price, looking for a throw away game. Somethign they could play then discard when the winter batch of gmaes came out.
The community grew smaller, but the quality of the games and players increased.
Things seem to now be moving back to how they once were. Perhaps it is due to the receant retail release and the sudden influx of new players, or perhaps it's all in my head. But it seems that over the last two weeks or so that there has been a marked increase in several annoying catagories:
A) Server Disconnects
B) Abusive Players (cursing for no reason, insulting for no reason, causing problems, etc)
C) Cheaters- spectator hints (I had one openly announce at games end that he was telling another player over the phone what was going on, not that it helped), land exploits, etc.
In addition, from the games that I have been spectating lately I have noticed that most of these new players have the same tactics. They can't place their silos worth beans (for either offensive or defensive purposes), but they all seem to use similar naval tactics. They use small non mixed fleets, which is fine, but they don't seem to know quite what to do with them. They sail off small groups and get them sunk, or park them in obscure places where they do absolutely no good. It's as though they looked on the forum for tactics, but didn't bother to actually find out how the tactic actually works.
That being said, I have also met a number of newer players lately who I think will make a great addition to the community, and who show great talant for how little they've played.
So my question to the community is, am I alone in seeing these things (which means that they likely are not happening), or have others noticed it as well?
As those veterans of the early days can attest, the first two months after release was a wild time to be playing. There were tons of servers every where, and you could always find a game. Stratagies were still being developed, and you were never too sure of what you could expect.
However, there were many problems. Host dropping was rampant, name calling, cursing, insults, etc. flew for any trivial reason, and players would quit the moment tings didn't go thier way. In time these problems begain to fade, becoming almost rare. I believe this was due to the fact that so many of those players were only playing due to the cheap price, looking for a throw away game. Somethign they could play then discard when the winter batch of gmaes came out.
The community grew smaller, but the quality of the games and players increased.
Things seem to now be moving back to how they once were. Perhaps it is due to the receant retail release and the sudden influx of new players, or perhaps it's all in my head. But it seems that over the last two weeks or so that there has been a marked increase in several annoying catagories:
A) Server Disconnects
B) Abusive Players (cursing for no reason, insulting for no reason, causing problems, etc)
C) Cheaters- spectator hints (I had one openly announce at games end that he was telling another player over the phone what was going on, not that it helped), land exploits, etc.
In addition, from the games that I have been spectating lately I have noticed that most of these new players have the same tactics. They can't place their silos worth beans (for either offensive or defensive purposes), but they all seem to use similar naval tactics. They use small non mixed fleets, which is fine, but they don't seem to know quite what to do with them. They sail off small groups and get them sunk, or park them in obscure places where they do absolutely no good. It's as though they looked on the forum for tactics, but didn't bother to actually find out how the tactic actually works.
That being said, I have also met a number of newer players lately who I think will make a great addition to the community, and who show great talant for how little they've played.
So my question to the community is, am I alone in seeing these things (which means that they likely are not happening), or have others noticed it as well?