miscellaneous

1 bot (from 1 unique IP address) is online and active within the past 15 minutes:

Took this picture before I logged on.

http://i.imgur.com/eUE6aH2.png

no game should ever have 0 players on it just shows how dead this game actually is

blame CoD

anyone got a game plan on how to get more players?

First of all

1. Regular updates or give the community what they want (I.E tournaments/PvE) I understand tourneys are coming soon but Unfortunately the link I provided usually gets given. Still doubt they will be here come January 15

2. Advertise the game on other sites.

3. Active owner and Mods.

I've been away for a while, is ender active these days?

Not really :/

we could always advertise I guess?

I've been away for a while, is ender active these days?

Depends on your definition of active. I check the forums pretty regularly and respond immediately to outages, but development work has slowed. The tournaments design is complete, so it's just a matter of finding the time to implement it now. Hopefully I can get that done within the next month or two. After that, I'm probably going to focus more on breathing some new life into the game via advertising. Pretty much everyone here nowadays is from bots2, so it would be good to get some truly new players.

can you get rid of the fucking showroom timer and just put everything in there? its giving me the shits good and proper

-shred

Well it´s summertime. There´s a World Cup going on.

That normally ends up in more activity Benny. I remember yelling at all the Netherlanders years past about the World Cup :P

As for ideas on how to keep people playing, I think it has less to do with "we need more people" and defining who it is that wants to play. When people play games, they want excitement and to keep menial things to a minimum. Bots2 did a better job at keeping menial things to a minimum by not forcing you to make build cookie cutter builds or spending 50 hours of your life looking for items for all your dumpers. Bots4 does a better job at keeping things exciting since the pool of energy is harder to retain than traditional clan score. So here's my ideas, not that Ender will listen to them:

1. Have all weapons and armours in the showroom. It does not add "difficulty" to the game, it just adds monotony. Getting the kudos for them is an actual test of skill versus sitting in a showroom for 16 hours. You won't do this because your source of income, stars, are based on it.

2. Add 10 dashes of imagination. Tournaments will only keep the die hards coming back. Focusing on events or items etc. to keep new players playing would be beneficial.

3. Add intuition. Many things that have been added to bots4 are anti-intuitive and against their original purpose. You wanted real wars but allowed whores in when you did not need to. You could theoretically cut down the entire list of weapons in this game to those used most often, have a level requirement on them that forces people not to use ones below them (once you have answerers, you can't get blackrazors), get rid of the 0 weapon damage thing, and make a few more balanced weapons like answerers to round out the fight. Oh and also bots can't hit bots higher than their level. You rid of dumpers, whores, and streamline the entire game into real wars. You achieve your original purpose and you can be done with bots4.

• 1: That´s frankly a horrible idea. If one wants to make camping less "annoying" , add a couple of extra stashspaces for everyone.

• 2: Yay for more stuff!

• 3: If that happens I´m screwed (and not in the good way). I don´t like silly (imo) restrictions.

I like the idea of getting rid of the armour weapons nobody uses & perma stocking the showroom. Zal's right endless hours of camping add nothing to the gaming experience. & yes it is harder (well certainly for me) to obtain the kudos.

Hmm real wars. Much touted, but who really wants it? I suspect if a poll was run the majority of players would vote against real wars. The average player would rather see their win counts going up & ratio building. In my opinion real wars are only worth while if there is an element of surprise and wonder. If you do not know roughly what percentage of times you win against your opponent as you know the capability of both yours & their build.

That said I hate dumpers. The whole ethos of dumpers does nothing to entice new players into the game. It takes a certain type of player to start a game and then invest time or money into building up their portfolio of dumpers. Plus they are time intensive to maintain & there is no 'thrill' of watching your energy increase as you battle.

& wft Leader, more active mods? I am proud that the forum mods for the most part fly under the radar & have no real need to be visibly active. As that indicates that we have a harmonious & mature player base =)

Bring back clanscore plz ty

Dumpers and energy too hard for me

As for a perma stocked showroom, I think that's a bit much, however waiting hours for a piece of gear is also annoying. Yeah, the IRC chat can help with that if you get lucky with the delivery girl thing Ender has, but for the most part you're just waiting or you can order, but you're still forced to wait 24 hours

Maybe make the showroom in a sense "check" what gear the online bots have, or are close to, and prefer stocking those, so say I'm on this thing, the game checks my gear and goes "This guy has Troll Shoes, let's make those more common"

I dunno

Sorry if I offended you rose but on some occasions the forum has got out of hand and threads have either been shut really late or left open for example http://bots4.net/forum/8/6038 this thread was aimed at me and ville and was left open far too long it took me a good few you mad bro comments to get it shut (no longer there anymore due to one childish fuck)

Lol

mature player base

To respond to a few of the comments:

Benny: Adding stashspace could help but it's not what I mean by the idea of fully stocking the showroom. What I'm talking about is if you want to attract new players it would make sense to be able to make your bot as fast as possible and maintain it as easily as possible. This allows you the ability to make dumpers and whores faster also rather than the fairly hard task of having to wait for 20 sets of answerer weapons/armours and also having to make your main bot a freaked build. Why don't you have to make a freaked build? Because if you are able to produce dumpers faster it would not really matter if you had a freaked bot since the amount of energy your dumpers gain would offsset any you lose to other players that attack you with freaked bots, if any do so.

I also thought a bit about whether or not stars would impact this idea. It may actually bolster the amount of stars people will buy because they will want even more stash space, and since the time is reduced to get their items it will make them buy more often. In effect this idea alone may speed up the game enough to keep new players playing. Perhaps instead of 24 hour ordering a different benefit could be added such as reduced buff prices.

I never really said that real wars were a good idea. I said that that was the original purpose of bots4. Ender has always been big about it. It would add difficulty to the game, real difficulty. Dark Souls level difficulty. So I made that comment moreso to Ender.

Thanks for the comments, critisisms and support. These ideas vary in level of difficulty to implement, from the 1st one being the easiest to the 3rd one being the hardest. I would suggest we at least test the ability to buy all weapons and armours for a week and see how it goes. And Ville/Leader2, you mad bro? Kahaha, just kidding ;D

Mods aren't here to jump in to protect people from some heated discussion Leader, that's arguably when the forum is most entertaining and active. Thread was locked on request and because it wasn't productive anymore and just spam.

On topic: stocking all armours is a terrible idea, what's the point in the showroom at all in that case? Also a real kick in the balls to anyone who has spent time camping in the past. Jane is a god send, more help isn't needed IMO.

Also a real kick in the balls to anyone who has spent time camping in the past

we've all done this. permastock the showroom and it will help keep new players? makes it easier to build your first bot/s however if you remove stash spaces all together and let only people with stars have a stash then hopefully that won't affect stars too much. otherwise maybe add some other benefits to having stars?

I outlined my reasons for permastocking. So far the only negatives I've heard from the 2 (kinda 3 if you count Dragon Summoner's) is "add more stashspaces instead" and "we must keep with the past!". The second idea of Dragon Summoner is pretty good though, would probably just take more time. And what's the purpose of the showroom? To provide items for us like every other shop in any game ever made. Or we could make this Diablo 2 like bots2 original vision and make us fight bosses lol.

But perhaps this is the reason why people have left. Resistance to change. It probably wears down Ender in the same way. But only one thing comes to things that don't change and that is death. And this game will die without change.

I don't really think it will help keep new players, right now they may not have the most optimal armor as they create builds, but that is part of the mystery as you learn the game. I personally wouldn't have spent so long playing WoW and runescape if I could spend 1 hour training and have best gear possible. Attaining armor adds an extra dimension to the game, what's the point rushing gearing up to be able to click 'fight again' more often? Playing your first bot should be a constant battle to upgrade and improve it, not a quick look at the showroom, realize iron pelt is the best for you for the next 15 levels, buy it and not change until spirit forge.

There are a ton of actual ways to improve the game appeal to new people, not just making items more popular in the showroom because you are bored of camping. I think something needs to be done to make the game more fun an appealing, such as looking at the fighting system. That is the major problem with this game IMO, it's terribly boring and unengaging.

just tell your friends.

Part of the mystery? There is no mystery in this game. You go to a build calculator, find the optimum build, and camp for the items for it. At least that's what most players do if they plan to keep playing. Think of bots4 as an RPG for a minute, not a stupid MMORPG with bosses, team battles, action packed PvP etc. In a traditional RPG you battle your way to a town or vendor that has new weapons and armours for you to buy. You can buy them any time you please (although some systems have forging etc.) to help you beat the next group of enemies. Do you waste 16 hours of your life waiting for the vendor to restock a dagger on an RPG? NO. Yet RPGs still go on for 100 hours lol.

Maybe permastock isn't an option but maybe having a minimum chance of every single item showing up once in an hour would be enough for most people.

what's the point rushing gearing up to be able to click 'fight again' more often?

Because it speeds up the game, thus generating more activity, and we wouldn't be talking about this to begin with.

I'm just trying to flesh out the pros and cons of a simple idea. The battle system will not change in the near future Fish. Now you should do as me and state your ideas so they can be ridiculed. Don't forget to put actual actions in them that Ender or us could do to help the game. Because that is what they call "constructive criticism".

I think the problem you are trying to address is new players. I don't believe that a stocked showroom will help in this situation. It's a very indirect way to get more people online. The low level equips all have a very high respawn rate, this change would most likely favour only the existing player base.

Your example of making 20 answerers is something only a player who has played for at least a few months and has a lvl 130 bot would do.

All I hear is complaints and no ideas. So thank you for more unhelpfulness shoy. So what if my idea is bad. Not my purpose here.

If you can't handle the criticism of your ideas, just get out of the forum. If you want to view my ideas go read up on the logs

I feel like you're trying to get my goat shoy and I won't fall for it. As for your ideas, I have no control over the game so they are of little use to me. If you have told them to Ender then good, if you wish them to be talked about here then please post them. I told my ideas here instead of the chat is all.

I think this is the wrong place to post ideas this is a misc. thread, the original intention of this thread was probably just to complain. If you have anymore ideas i'd recommend you posting them there instead of asking for ideas here.

And I'm not familiar with what your goat is, but I'm sure no one wants those milkshakes

I do think the issue is drawing in new players. There's a very big hill to climb for new players, and it doesn't really ever get easier.

Someone mentioned a perma-stocked showroom makes it easier to get your bot up and running is true, but then they also mentioned that it's easier to get a dumper up and running and all that. Like, It's a lot of work to get one good bot up and running, then getting dumpers going and stuff? That's way beyond the scope of what a new player should be expected to do to even compete.

While having whores and clanscoring wasn't that much better, it was arguably much easier to get into. Most of that stuff was already set, and whores were much easier to make, and all a new player needed was to get a basic idea of what to build their bot like, and they could benefit their clan by CSing.

I guess it just comes down to is there a way to attract new players AND keep them, or is the game pretty much set as being a very niche game for people who played bots2 and is just going to be the small community that it is.

The showroom idea definitely makes it more accessible for new players, at least past that initial hump. Every item is always in stock, so you know what's available, what you want to aim for, what might be a cool weapon/armor etc. Does it screw over current star owners? Maybe, as having stash spaces is only useful for int switches/whored switches, since if your stuff breaks, hit showroom, bam, replacement time.

Honestly though, gear doesn't even matter all that much, since it's still just like whores, isn't it? I don't know the exact details of how dumping/dumpers work etc, but as far as I'm aware, you have a weak bot and a strong bot, and you benefit one highly. You don't need optimal gear for that, the only time you'd want perfect optimal gear and builds is if you're actively fighting real/strong bots, or if/when Ender implements tournaments.

Maybe that idea that someone had on bots2 ages ago, where the uniques had varying stat rolls, so at least there was some sense of difference, or there was benefit to camping. Like, yes every time you go to the showroom you'll see a Shade Helm, but maybe this one instead of having the current 8Str/3Dex/4Con/-11Int it has like, 5str/1Dex/4Con/-11Int and only 180/252 of the max defense roll. Who knows.

Also I accidentally sold a Shade Helm writing this post, y'all better appreciate my stupidity :)

this was not made to complain this was made to show how bad the game is to get just 1 person online

that's nothing new then, that happened 2 years ago as well

See what you did SJ? There are more people online now. And it´s all thanks to you :P

doubt its because of me lol

I wouldn´t underestimate the power of the forum. An active forum = a active game :)

Also I accidentally sold a Shade Helm writing this post, y'all better appreciate my stupidity :)

haha the irony of this as you discuss permastocking the showroom ^^

Shoy, You know yourself that not everyone uses chat so posting or talking about your ideas there is no good.

I'd like to hear what ender has to say about some idea brought up in this thread.

Perma stocking would certainly make it easier for people to make dumpers and bots, which in my opinion only gives the experienced players an advantage in making these bots quicker

I agree with leader, perma stocking only gives an advantage to older players who know what they are doing, also making dumpers and such is NOT required to be good at bots, it's only required to compete with the best, unfortunately.

A new player with a few questions asked and a few hours of research can build a bot capable of generating an impressive amount of energy, and lets face it, it wouldn't take much nowadays to get yourself up the rankings.

And having LESS in the showroom is quite frankly ridiculous, what it needs is more, if there were more players + more gear + more randomness somehow, then real wars would be more viable. And even if real wars aren't viable, I'd probably start playing again if there was more stuff to play with.

just a suggestion:

maybe have multiple showrooms that are perma-stocked based on say beating a boss or something? it would essentially be another train-bot that unlocks more armors? I know its not much like the game is atm (or was) - just thinking aloud here.

Perhaps you should all bring this up in the suggestions thread.

Ah that thread! Good times :P

About real wars, it isn't fun to win 50% of the times so more randomness is needed. Fun is to build bots with specific purposes to test some strategy. I like to have lots of bots, they are like my army.

And 1.5 month later...

http://imgur.com/2k5ORZk

So Leader and Ville need to leave Eternal so I can critize them and bring some activity by spicing the things up.

Or I can say that Escapism is the best clan of bots4 but everyone knows that.

LOL...143 million total energy, 22 1'st place platinums soon to be 23, the facts dont lie buddy.

With that said^ maybe you should spice your own clan up and bring some activity to that :D

Soon it'll just be me and lyrad racing for top monthly energy spot :)

^aka "soon, everyone will have a life but me"

:P

just waiting to overtake xerex and eucliwood

Xerex did this in bots2, he boosted to the highest level, Then vanished.

xerex might have to put in a little more effort. lyrad still leveling away. lyrad might actually be able to do something neps never did. top level and top monthly score on the same bot

Xerex did this in bots2, he boosted to the highest level, Then vanished.

I do not recall Xerex holding the top spot in bots2

Mission accomplished.

Xerex did this in bots2, he boosted to the highest level, Then vanished.

I do not recall Xerex holding the top spot in bots2

Blue...?

There was a blue?

I thought that was an urban myth ...

Lyrad would have to have a score on an a very inactive month to get top monthly. But by the time he gets to top level the game might have dwindled down that much. None the less I hope he does it, would be a hell of an accomplishment.

And who the fuck played blue?

Xerex has earned a long break. Going to be awhile before anyone catches him

I think TheCause can catch him soon if he applies himself.

cause as got bored of the game hense why he is not on as much anymore

I'll make sure I'm active in the month Lyrad gets top level and goes for top energy

Esvz you still mad bro?

Xerex was top level on bots2 blue server for like a zillion years. He was passed near the end by a bot called Intel.

i played blue ville lol

So did i! And i am pretty sure Ville was on AoC himself at some time :D

I was in Age of Champions with Adsy, Sprock, Coleman, and the rest of the crew.

Did not play blue a lot. It was always referred to as Asians little toy.

i once made a whore bot on blue, leveled it all the way to 10 i think

<------ AoC

Blue server had its moments. Aoc and AOL rivalry was good fun in the beginning.

It was good rivalry, but asian used dirty tricks more then once against AoC members too.

I think I'm speaking for everyone when they look at the home page of bots and thinks to themselves "Where's the 'Join The Blue Server!' link?" and gets kinda sad.

Or maybe I'm just speaking for myself, whatever.

A fresh server would actually be really interesting

blue was shit iv never looked at the home page and thought shame there isnt a blue

i look at the home page and think i wonder if ender as done anything to the game yet

then come on and be like nope hes done fuck all he is as bad as flor

but thats just what i think

You think?.....

You forget that you sold your soul to the Devil SJ and have no heart anyway >.>

I´m sure the Devil rejected SJ soul because it was to fucked up.

hides from Nos and Zal

A fresh server would actually be really interesting

Like hell it would be. It'd end up like this one in no time flat.

Yeah^ a server with a decent amount of players would be more interesting :P

I vote for a Red server. Or a blue and a red. Red VS Blue FFS!

I like green :)

Okey. I like green too :) So how about a green and greener server :P

Sounds great but my ip would be blocked within a week for trying to log into the wrong one lol.

The only good reason i could see for making another server would be a slightly different version of the game, maybe more exp or more distribution points idk.

More exp and moar points? Sounds like bots4 Light to me. But really as it is now, there´s no need for another server. If we get to a point where we have to wait in line to log in then we can talk about it :)

And thus the topic was never spoken of again...

*insert end title music here*

takes the lemon out of DNMs mouth

*fixed :P

do you not think you should unbind him too Benny?

it's quite rude to leave a guy hanging.

Perhaps a new server where ender tests the new stuff he implements first...

Perhaps a new server where ender tests the new stuff he implements first...

It exists and is called localhost

do you not think you should unbind him too Benny?

Maybe I like being tied up.