What's going on?

The original, free Ace of Spades game powered by the Voxlap engine. Known as “Classic,” 0.75, 0.76, and all 0.x versions. Created by Ben Aksoy.
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Willy
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So it seems as though most of what's left of this community is keen to restore it to at the very least a consistenly active, positive & continually improving place to be.
Personally I'm reasonably busy & as yet unsure how much time I'd be able to commit (though certainly greater than 0), but I'm just trying coherently understand what is/has been happening here, what's gone wrong, what's working and what you'd like to see happen community-wise, game related stuff should be directed to stack & (maybe? Is he still around?) izzy.

So.... yeah. What would you guys like to see happen? Ideas? Ways you can contribute? And could anyone ELI5 the community related stuff (including the juicy drama, I'll allow for rule bending here as long as it doesn't descend into a prepubescent shitfight) from like Jan 2015 to now? Info or suggestions you provide will help me create some kind of road map for the future, it's all very much in your hands.

Cheers!
EldredChandler
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Yes
bloodfox
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I'm really really really thankful that you're back to fix things up, Willy and with others, too. Cheers to that :)

What happened to that game you and topo are making lol.
Dare
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Nothing much has been happening here, except for few things. Some people came up with an idea to create a game similar to Aos with some improvements, it should be really hard to hack in the new game, at least that's how I understand it.
If you read through this forum you can learn something about it (ignore the useless posts by certain people), longbyte is talking about the concept on the page 2 in that topic: http://www.buildandshoot.com/viewtopic. ... 6&start=15

Clan page has almost died, the amount of activity there is closely reaching 0. Even though some clans are maybe going to revive.

What else to talk about .. Also Scoper and Lecom created servers with new scripts such as bots that steal intels, mortar and tanks, the servers are called Hallway Gone Wrong, they are currently down, but could be back up in couple of days.

aloha and Aos celebrated 5th birthday.
Webster
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Shit hit the fan. I came back a few times over the past 2 years. I shitpost then leave. That is the cycle my friend. So now I've come back to revive the MINIT.NU legacy. Also, a lotta shit post happens.
$Eddy$
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Basically Build and Shoot has turned into a cesspool of new kids spamming stupid crap and oldfags shitposting insults every once in a while. This is mainly due to the fact that there has been no staff members doing anything, the lack of progress on anything AoS related, and people just don't give two shits anymore.
topo
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i quit but im back now
hmu if u want a hand, im down to be useful
Kuunikal
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topo wrote:
i quit but im back now
hmu if u want a hand, im down to be useful
top :)
bloodfox
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topo <3
noobofspades
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wtf go back to being dead it's over go home everyone
Kuunikal
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noobofspades wrote:
wtf go back to being dead it's over go home everyone
Look, someone who thinks they're cool!

If you just want to complain and oppose reincarnation of this game, pl0x don't post about it.

>>> So yeah, that's what has also been happening -- people who like to tease community members come back and dis us. <<<
bloodfox
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Welcome to buildandshoot! :D
Willy
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Alright, I've read over the responses and here's my take on things:

- People are frustrated with the lack of development, change or general activity within Ace of Spades. This isn't a really new thing around here but seems to have definitely compounded over time. Primarily it seems to stem from the lack of a united and perhaps 'official' effort to bring the community who are passionate about this game and/or all derivatives and spiritual successors together.

- As a result of the point above serious fragmentation has occurred, with some attempts of varying degrees of success (which I haven't really looked into too much yet but definitely will) at recreating Ace of Spades, where a lack of support seems to demotivate these projects as quickly as they get off the ground. Sucks. :(

- The other side of the frustration results in the massive negativity around these forums, probably partly related to the lack of development but also to admin activity. The latter at least can be easily rectified.

- there's a lot of 'this game is dead, don't bother, nobody cares' and the like. However I genuinely think the opposite is true, that plenty of people care, especially the people posting things like this. Given our lack of activity and the lack of development in general it's totally understable, but needs to come to a swift end. Statements like this deter new players and further contribute to the decline of the game we all knew and loved, whether we'll admit it or not. I'm not saying we should pretend the current state of AoS isn't abysmal in comparison to 2012 or wish away reality, but we can at least start treating the symptoms of our affliction while we look for a cure to the disease.

- Which brings me back to the bigger picture problem. Fragmentation can't be encouraged for the health of a passionate but dwindling community, but neither can we stifle the creativity of people with the skills, ideas and motivation to make something new and exciting and expect them to blindly support a game that is clearly going nowhere fast.

So it's quite a quandry we've got and my solutions are quite frankly slim to none. Here's the best I can do:

Continue supporting the 'official' (0.75) platform as best I can. Bring in new players and veterans in any way possible. Back in the day the core this community was like a loose-knit family, complete with regular drama and bickering as it is now, but with a much greater positive element. I know supporting .75 is not in any way ideal. I know it's (at least in part) the very thing that has driven this community to destruction, but working with it is the easiest way to boost activity as a (hopefully) temporary measure.

Like Stack suggested, encourage OpenSpades use at every turn, and try to relegate VoxLap to a 'classic experience' rather than a 50/50 usage rate (whether this is the case currently I'm not sure but I'd love to see the download figures @Stack) Essentially (in my mind) voxlap would become a novelty for those that prefer it, but still entirely available and supported.

Quality servers seem lacking. Aloha are fantastic at running what have consistently been some of the best and most varied servers for as long as i can remember, but there seems a distinct lack of variety these days. When Aloha Babel seems the only server consistently pulling a decent playercount it likely deters those who don't enjoy Babel gameplay. In this respect I feel we can do sknethkng. Quality servers with quality moderation aren't difficult to maintain, and may be the very thing AoS is missing. A few 'official' BnS servers (with Stack permission obviously) operating 24/7 staffed by BnS mods/admins and potentially dedicated volunteers would go a long way to attracting a regular crowd. The intention (at least in theory and hopefully in practice) would not be to steal players from Aloha nor compete, but rather provide a greater prevalance of quality servers aimed at increasing playercounts. I remember what made me stick with AoS back in the day wasn't really the game itself, but the Goon Haven and later Minit servers and the associated culture, quality moderation and friendliness of the people who played there. That, in my opinion, would help to attract and more importantly retain new players.

It's 1.30am and I'm tired as hell so I'm going to stop there, part 2 of this post is coming tommorow as there's a lot more to say. In the meantime please post some comments or opinions below, I want to factor in as much community sentiment as possible into where we go from here.

Sidenote: Definitely don't take this thread as where the game is going in some kind of official capacity (refer to the newsletter for that) but rather as an investigation inti where things should be headed community wise.
bloodfox
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Never thought of having official BnS servers before. Good idea.
Priok
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I agree about the quality servers and community with them. I think more classic-style servers would be cool too. This game appeals to me most when it's sort of its own game with landscape-style maps(like gen, caves, pyspades gen) that encourage building + destroying stuff. Playing on a CS or CoD map is kind of cool, but then I feel like I'd rather just play those games instead since their gameplay is built around their maps. That's all just my own take on it though, not trying to speak for everybody, since obviously those maps and servers are popular. I know that lots of people like the randomly generated maps too though

Advertising the game is also a great idea, for me this game has lost most of its charm, but it was really fun when I first played it. I don't think a lot of old players will come back because of those reasons, but for new players the game will still be fresh for a while even without updates.

Also I wanted to say that I like what Chameleon is doing with his Openspades mod. I don't know how viable it would be to try to transition to that at some point, but it might be a good thing to consider later on.
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