To design, or Not to design . . .

[Mor.Evil-1]

The below picture seems to speak for itself . . . .


Shot at 2007-08-06


Many of us here at the ldso site have spent many hours,
And are still spending many hours creating new materials for 2.0

So I ask all of you out there,
Should we continue to create materials for a game,
That noone seems to play any more?

On a side note,
For all of you out there,
Still taking the time to host servers for 2.0,
We thank you from the bottom of our processors!

Thanks in advance for your feedback

Mor

[xistence]

That is the reason why i mostly concentrate on my TDM project right know. On the one side it is Tron/Tron2.0 related, but on the other independent from it. The only thing (but which i also already dropped) was to switch the engine.
Or to create my own, which is currently my main task. That way i can bring in whatever stuff i want and it is easier then to use mega-editor-packages like those from UT2K4.
I can understand the bad feeling about making stuff that isn't used, and to think about not to make stuff for Tron2.0 excusively is understandable. I won't stop editing and making stuff, but i already seem to have stopped making it for Tron2.0.
I don't think that we have any responsibility against this Tron2.0-community anymore: we made maps, we played at a high level, we helped whenever/whereever it was needed, we tried to keep things in order. Needless to say that a lot of our action wasn't thanked but anyway.
We won't hurt anyone real if we stop making things for the Tron2.0 community as there doesn't seem to be one anymore. I don't think we'll stop making stuff for any game or engine and in my eyes we also proved to be a sort of independet, higher leveled clan, as we just don't related our own structure just to one game.

So my final statement: we might should drop actions for anything that is dead like Tron2.0 and should only follow any action that is binded to a project of personal or clan interest. There will always be creativity, games and editors for us, no doubt.

Only thing to mention is about UE2, as you guys already spent so much time into it. Maybe you want to make it indepedent as game project and choose a different engine as well so you have more options to create more content. Most stuff must be(is convertable like mapdata, textures or models.


X

[win3k]

Morning chaps

UE2 is (probably - never say never) the last Tron 2.0 map/world I'll create, for three main reasons:

1. It takes a boatload of time to build anything halfway decent, and there simply aren't enough players out there to justify it.
2. Dedit is nice enough, but it operates on too high a level to allow me to do many of the things that I really want to do (space paranoids? tank-to-tank battles?).
3. UT3 is coming

win3k

[TronFAQ]

I have three projects still in progress: the Killer App mod (along with the many other members of the team working on this), I'm still completing certain sections of the TRON 2.0 Unofficial FAQ, and REZ Handler 2.0.

The mod will be done soon, while the FAQ and RH 2.0 will slowly be completed over time (probably by the end of this year).

When those three projects are completed, I have no further plans for any more Tron 2.0 content. I'll still be a part of the community, but I will become less active.

Also, in less than a month the game Bioshock is coming out. Not only will I be distracted and MIA temporarily when I play it, but I also plan to get into modding the game. Since Bioshock runs on a (modified) version of Unreal Engine 3, it will be a good opportunity to learn how to mod a popular engine. (Unlike Lithtech, which is still rather obscure and poorly supported.)

All that being said, I think only you can answer the question of whether it's worth still continuing your projects, Mor. I know I will, no matter what. Not for anyone else, but for myself. To prove I can do it.

Maybe when the Killer App mod and User Error 2 are released, they will inject some new life into the game.

[Avi]

Coming from someone that doesn't play the game anymore, I applaud all of the hard work the modders have put into Tron 2.0. I genuinely feel sorry for you all when a new map is released and no one plays it. I think of all the hours of work that you put into creating new game content, only to have it briefly heralded/criticized before it is left for dead in the DL section of Boxhat...which is starting to look like a custom map graveyard. I have often thought of the modders as surgeons, trying to improve the health of their patient on the operating table...even though the patient has passed away long ago.

I felt that same way towards the end of the KOTG games. Daddyo and I would discuss ways to make the game fair for everyone to entice more players into joining us. We rotated gametypes, began talking about a handicap system to even the playing field, etc. Even after spamming Boxhat, LDSO, Tron-Sector, with flyers for each week's games, we would get 4 or 5 players if we were lucky. I began to realize that my time was being wasted trying to revive a dying community that even it's biggest supporters didn't have time for.

Hell, I didn't really have time for it half the time, but I believed in it enough to try to jump start it. I figured once it picked up some momentum, it would flourish by itself. How naive of me. I guess I haven't been around long enough to understand the mindset of 90% of Tron 2.0 players..."Gimme gimme gimme". The whole experience was like filling up the tank of a car with a blown engine. You can mash the pedal to the floor all you want, but you ain't going nowhere.

The most difficult part of being away from it all is that I hardly talk to anyone from the community anymore. I recently PM'd Sparks on Boxhat because I was worried that he had been affected by the recent flooding in his area. When I logged in, I was curious as to what had been happening on that particular site since my last visit. Sure enough, it was more of the same crap with you-know-who writing 10,000 word essays on absolutely NOTHING. More flaming, more insults, more crying...nothing had changed. Why BigRed let it go on for so long will always puzzle me.

Overall, I think the community is a great bunch of people with some amazing minds...but all of that potential seems wasted in trying to kick this dead horse back to life. I'm anxious to see the Killer App mod when it is finished and released...and then see where everyone goes from there.

[Daddyo]

I think, and has probably already been said, that if you want to make content for Tron, I think it's great & noble these days, but its for relatively few people and for yourselves, sorta like a club. All the content you guys have made have definitely gotten tons of gameplay, and is appreciated by everyone even though many don't realize the effort it took to make, but we cant always blame them for that since often its just not understood what the effort amounts to.

You guys have shown that you can certainly make quality material. There's a whole lotta people who know your maps inside & out, every nook and cranny!

I think most of the gaming in Tron these days are on the fly coordinated on teamspeak or other medium, so is hard to catch. I think it has slowed down lately though.

[zook_one]

Sadly yes there are very few users. I do need to get back to finishing UE2 though.

I'm not to sure what I will do after we finish UE2. I'll probably move to another game engine such as Unreal 3. That will of course have to wait untill I get a new workstation.

[Jademz]

yea, the amount of hits on servers, went from 40 a few mos. ago, to 23(DM), 18(DA), 15(LC). ..of course, that's not including the "DudeWarezMyCycle" servers, those get way more traffic than my home servers, and I can't view the player stats, since the access is through leet's control panel.

I also, have been discussing among a few of my peers, the cheapest way to get 2 rack servers, to do co-location, so I may go up to NY for a vacation, unless I can talk a friend into going through the trouble.. to get the servers for mods, and retail Tron 2.0. So..

I honestly don't have time to play lately, life has been asking much, I take it as is. whatever.

But, I have a bond with those glowing walls, and cool environments, so the game is here to stay, hoped my friends were the same, but hell with them. :lol:

[Opa-Opa]

I feel really bad about getting to know this game so late. Tron 2.0 was a game that took me a lot of time to get, but it was always in the back of my mind. No one I know has ever played it. I only got it some weeks ago, and was really surprised by it's quality. I beat it very quickly, almost resenting the fact that such a good single player experience would end (not that I haven't already started a new game), but I knew that there would still be the multiplayer mode. To my surprise, I stumbled across this very same picture Mor posted. I thought maybe I was getting to the wrong servers, but after some research, lurking around here and tronfaqs, I realized this was really it. Which is pretty sad.

I managed to play a bit of LightCycle, and that was really odd. I played against this single guy that was just there in the server, waiting for someone to join in. I don't see that much often, one person alone in a serverm but I guess that's gotta happen before more people join in.

I downloaded all the maps. All the packs and stuff that I could find. The REZ Handler works pretty well and it sure helped me overcome anything that could make me not install these .rez files. I have to say that those are great jobs. I've fiddled around some of the maps and there is some really good stuff there. I know I'm new here, and I haven't seen or played anything you guys have (I'm sure it must be heartbreaking to see a custom map unplayed), but I think these days I'll hang around in some of these servers, waiting for someone to join in.

[TronFAQ]

I downloaded all the maps. All the packs and stuff that I could find. The REZ Handler works pretty well and it sure helped me overcome anything that could make me not install these .rez files.

I'm glad to hear that, that's exactly what I was hoping the program would do. Overcome any objections to installing custom maps. I get so little feedback, that it's nice to hear some once in a blue moon.

Once the mod is finished, I'll continue working on the new RH 2.0 version. Even though, by the time I'm done, there will hardly be anyone left playing Tron 2.0.

Thanks for joining us here and saying hello, Opa-Opa. Hope you enjoy your stay.

[Johnny Larue]

I can definitely understand the frustration, discouragement & disillusionment about modding for this game. I must confess that I haven't even looked at my mod for several months. For whatever reason, the modding community just didn't catch enough steam.

Tron is by no means a mainstream game & by it's nature, modding for this game requires a bit of an abstract imagination. Not to mention besides the Tron tools, there was nothing really else released or supported. The NOlf2/ Contract jack tools came with THOUSANDS of prefabs & props. Tron came with what?... a handful.

Ultimately I would love to see my tron mod finished some day. To have it finished would be an accomplishment in itself. To have other people play it & get positive feedback on it would be great but I would be just as grateful if only one person liked it. I am looking forward to playing the current projects when they are completed & I wish you map makers the best.

I regret that I got into Tron 2.0 late, as I first played the game in early 2006. It will always have a place in my heart & conjure up images of a wonderous digital existence. Thanx to all of you who expanded it!

cheers

JLAR

[data_ghost]

i joined the game only a while after the time tronfaqs BVG sucks essay finishes. the game had so much potential that was brought out in rare matches, the top being the 15 player DM server ive met some great people while playing and have seen how corrupt a community be by the attention seeking antics of several trolls. i hope the various goodies of the tron community sticks around to play it everynow and stays on xfire, teamspeak, tronlink or any other way people stay in touch out side of forums.

its been good

data

[NicolA.exe]

That tread sounds negativ. I hope i won't fail to bring in some inside why that is happen as it is. As my english now starts to get a little bit bettter it will be easier to understand. I just hope it is worth to read is it ?

Ok let me quote a few very important points that have been famous topic on Boxhat aswell:

I felt that same way towards the end of the KOTG games. Daddyo and I would discuss ways to make the game fair for everyone to entice more players into joining us. We rotated gametypes, began talking about a handicap system to even the playing field, etc. Even after spamming Boxhat, LDSO, Tron-Sector, with flyers for each week's games, we would get 4 or 5 players if we were lucky. I began to realize that my time was being wasted trying to revive a dying community that even it's biggest supporters didn't have time for.

Dear Avi. When u found this project together with DaddyO i was not laughing only about the avatar (that u used on Boxhat as to be the Mr.Announcerguy ). Rather i laughed by happynies that finaly after YEARS people started to get it that a game lives on & can be amplified when u get their attention & simply be there online on the gamegrid as often as ur reallife allows to of course. I don't mean we don't need a new mod with new skins & other extras nor do i claim we wouldn't need new maps. Probably people where more interested to become a contributor too for LDSO or just as a freelancer at least. Of course the technical part like to get out everything from the egine without having the source code indeed is a tempting challenge. As Tronfaq said it perfectly...when it's not for the people then at least just for me to have proven i could accomplished many ideas even with the lack of support (Bvg).

Hell, I didn't really have time for it half the time, but I believed in it enough to try to jump start it. I figured once it picked up some momentum, it would flourish by itself. How naive of me. I guess I haven't been around long enough to understand the mindset of 90% of Tron 2.0 players..."Gimme gimme gimme". The whole experience was like filling up the tank of a car with a blown engine. You can mash the pedal to the floor all you want, but you ain't going nowhere.

Yes this a very honest clear insight. Why couldn't u understood it earlier, that when u enter a community, which has started earlier as u could enter, it's pure logic that there are also wounds & not only positive things to discover. And when u don't know the people it's not wise to ask others why the heck they don't get along in the way it should have. The very best is u interact with everyone to find out the problems & the worest u can do is too judge. The best is u stay neutral or get dissapointed what alreay are. Pls don't miss interpet me again as u often have missunderstood my motives on Boxhat.com. I also didn't have register on LDSO to bring in the Bullshit from Boxhat back but if we realy want to discuse the problem "with the lack of players" "seriously" then we need to accept facts & details that we rather would have buried deep or forgotten.

KOTG was a nice idea & i would have wanted to support too but it felt to me as there was a trying to boycot me. Such like i was the scum of the community but in real i had maybe the noblest motives from all. I just wanted to games not only for me but also for others to feel this activity surrounded by me. I don't like dead places u know. I prefer people & animals to make noises and that makes the life even happier. The problem with KOTG is that maybe if there was no intention to boycot me, the time setting was the killer of the little success with the 15 players on one meeting finaly. I don't want to bad-mouth & this indeed was a success even when a little one but compared to what i could bring in action buy going thru some hardships too, it is nothing. What u & others need to learn is that i also have a reallife. I can't be online arround the clock like i used to be. Nor can i be up on grid when i need to sleep & that limiated KOTG. Of course with my attendance on KOTG the chances were big i could encrease activty but the negativ side was it also could attract people who hated me for primitiv reasons or loved to hunt me for perverted reasons. I don't want to name them. U all know their nicknames & since they seem have lost motivation to play because a forum was gone it's the best prove for their real motives they had to play back in time. Those guyz played for fun but they had a different taste of fun & that brought in some impacts in our community history.

Dear Avi pls don't be angry with me but if u have would have set ur tournament earlier than in ur latenites, ...such noon or afternoon i'm pretty confident we could have bring more rounds with more full servers regulary. Effort comes when u not only believe in it. Effort raises up when u enhance the support team with other creativ heads & diehards. And it is no secret that i'm very creativ as also diehard for this game.

The most difficult part of being away from it all is that I hardly talk to anyone from the community anymore. I recently PM'd Sparks on Boxhat because I was worried that he had been affected by the recent flooding in his area. When I logged in, I was curious as to what had been happening on that particular site since my last visit. Sure enough, it was more of the same crap with you-know-who writing 10,000 word essays on absolutely NOTHING. More flaming, more insults, more crying...nothing had changed. Why BigRed let it go on for so long will always puzzle me.

Obvioiusly u meant me with crying & writing 10 000 eassays & u had the right feel with sparks allthough he never was making sides but he instead was neutral to me unlike the most as he knew about my true motives even not having spoking with anybody before such "what's with this crackhead from Austira, ...why can't she be acting normal instead being obsessed to prove everything etc..." Sparks was always investigating. He kept doing it until he understood what was going on between the people. He also came very late into the action. When he was singing on Boxhat it he missed the best & most active over 2 years. That didn't hurt him as he was thinking fair by investigating thru the things before to judge plus to call out someone to be the reason of a death forum & a death gamegrid. However that sparsk realy understood many things can be broven by remembering his legendary comicstrip where he tried to work out actualy topics on gamegrid-topics. Also my person was involved in the story & i must underline he never seemed to be a fan of me ! So everything happened from a objectiv point of view, when he was creating this comic strip to puplish into the heart of Boxhat. He hoped that people will learn to laugh about what we called our troubles. Did we fail to understand the artist ? I guess so but never it is too late to change the mind & to learn from misstakes.

Apropos "desinging or not designing maps/mods":

Everybody knows how much i would love to play the newest Discmap DA-7982! designed by Mor. Just guess what if i could just join the server running this map or also playing it with people & i have to give an negativ answer...there was no one who wanted to give me a pleasure. No one was ready to play with me THAT map just because i don't want to play Derezze anymore ?!? Unfair, as i never have supported Disc Arena only. Of course DA was & still is my heart but i love to play Light Cycles aswell. So at least i have supported 2 gamemodes with no developing maps or refining any mods as just to join servers & being there with my typcial sense of comedy that often got missunderstood in all ways u could imagine. As the senior members know i went thru alot of hardships but i still was there on gamegrid to give action. And there was a boycot against me in during 2006 on grid & since 2005 on Boxhat. But i still was there & didn't give up. It was not only a reason about proud as i thought about the future of the gamegrid too. Yes ...my addiction to game is no secret aswell. But is it realy bad ? And after all i also could sit down here on the tread to cry out it isn't worth anymore even to look on the gamespy-table if someone is up to play.

So to bring a sense into this discusion if it is worth to keep the development for this game should be answered with YES if ur heart still belongs to this game but if u all feel u have lost the interest for this game because of ur curiousity of new games & engines THEN DON'T excuse ur leaving or lazy ass by pointing to me or any former Gamgegrid/Boxhat drama. When u go then go with a confident mind but to leave something with levity will give u the feel like u haven't completed something & at the end it turns to a deep remorse. I don't know if that is the way how "u all" want to handle things that seem not working as good as it should. My idea would be an optimistic one. From the senior members i expect they know what i mean & they also should to be used that Tron 2.0 never had 1 million players. The best we could guess was 1000 unique ips & players during 2003 to 2005. Since 2005 to 2006 we had expierenced the big falling & since 2007 it turned to the so called "little club" as DaddyO above-mentioned. And if the club is only focused to studying the engine or dreaming about to become a map designer too such Mor, Faq & Xistence then we shouldn't be surprised about the ZERO activity on grid. As we know we have lack of players, those who still have the TRON logo buring in brain, should attend on gamegrid too. At least at weekends then others, who didn't join for years or months will have the chance to discover some activty soon or sooner. This again could increase a new level of activity. U know how the human mind works....example...when i enter a server, a second guy by chance drops by & we play a few hours then all of sudden the third guy enters. The rest is working like snowball flight. 2 idiots starting the fun & the rest want's to be a part of the fun.

[Jademz]

KOTG Christmas or Xmas for some, anybody? I'll be happy to set something up.

Don't worry about different types Nicola, we all enjoy a good 2.0 ass kicking, some just have alot more methodology into thier work, so don't over-read into it.

[NicolA.exe]

Apropos if u are gonna host a house for Lightcycle pls then only set it to extreme (circuit speed). Otherwise it's too boring to drive. I know that the slower speed comes handy to the untalented kids or these fetishists for First person in-bike cam. But my point of view is...when i can't handle the the first-person perspective on faster speed then i just would fail forever.

Just to give an example...my talent is pretty limitated for lightcycles. I drove over a year fixed cam then i risked to drive with free "3d" cam. At the beginning it was a struggle for me. I had not only to concentrate where i drive as also to be the camera guy for me to bring in perspectives that fit. Meanwhile i can't & won't go back to the fixed cam as i'm totaly used to free. And as by driving with free cam the next hardcore can only be more speed & banning all icons away from grid. Void has the same taste as me & therefore it was not hard to convince him trying that back in time. And as we were doing test drives he figured this means more fun as it's harder. The advantage to bann away icons means also more stability for servrs (lesser crashes & bugs ingame). As many LC diehards seem not wanting to live without this powericons, ...well then let it but i admit to be angry that we have alot of LC-hosts in America but the most are slow to drive as the hell. It anyway is lesser fun to me due the latency. On for example Mr.Andersons i ping over 170 which is playable but when u play against a 100, 80 or 30 ping player it's save to say u will loose & win only by luck as it's a true gamble.

If 2 Andersons & 1 Jademz LC have extreme i'm happy. Of course the best would be to not support the Sunday cup drivers anymore. Because when there are still options left the spoiled one won't to take the new road. I'm pretty sure the half of the LC-players CAN handle the highest speed a host can set for the players. Especially when alot of them were betatesting the speed-mod & if they could handle this then extreme speed should feel to them such normal or fast setting. This is the type of setting that i not only wish for just 1 or 2 xmas days. And apropos KOTG....yes why not but if it again happens over my nites & early mornings then event will turn to a flop again.