Multiplayer in Poland

[Enguzrad]

Have you thought about looking at multiplayer maps from other games and copying their "footprint"? Total Annihilation had some good map designs for example (Granted alot won't work as there are no ships or air transports in OW). There are also some good ones from CNC games.

Actually I did, both Shrubs and Wetlands are almost direct copies from maps in Supreme Commander FA. Kasyr is loosely based on a map from Dawn of War Soulstorm.

There is quite a lot of maps in Throwback now. To come up with a good map can be hard, but actually making it in editor is easy. Making GBI for it is easy too, once you get a hang of it, but it's a long and mundane work.
I personally really like more asymmetrical maps like River of Lost Souls, but pulling off something similar is really difficult. That's why in RTS titles you find almost exclusively symmetrical maps.

[Gravitr]

Swastika was copied too (from random game map image from google). But what about some older maps remake? I mean, fx. Babylon could be remade for 3v3 players (east vs. west), when some hills are removed.

It's hard to "invent" some new kind of map, even more it must have more player slots. Map size is limited and positions must be balanced.

[Heike Steyer]

Has anyone played the game 'Praetorians'? The strategic game based on the roman empire? That has some very good ideas from the skirmish maps in it most of, if not all, are very balanced and support up to 8 players. These maps might be a good starting point for some new ones, what do you think?

[Nefarem]

I played with Imperial Mod.

[Heike Steyer]

I have played both the Original and with Imperial Mod, Imperial mod adds more great maps that could be used as templates

[Enguzrad]

I played a demo of Praetorians as a kid, but I also have it purchased on GOG (waiting to be played, not enough time for all those games ).
I may take a look at it but right now I have different things to worry about, like our shrinking community. What would be new maps good for if there is noone who would play them?

[Antitheus]

like our shrinking community.

I can't say if the community is shrinking right now. We've got twice as much visits per day nowadays (compared to 2012-2013). There's no proper indicator for this thesis. Singleplayer is the strongest driving force for OW. Given the time, MP games are quite boring.

[Enguzrad]

I can't say if the community is shrinking right now. We've got twice as much visits per day nowadays (compared to 2012-2013). There's no proper indicator for this thesis. Singleplayer is the strongest driving force for OW. Given the time, MP games are quite boring.

Well, I'm talking mainly about our cz/sk community. We have problems to get together enough people for 2v2, which in comparsion with the past is pretty bad. Of course there are still individual players outside the community but given the small activity around czech part of this forum, there is probably not many of them.
OW will be still played for the excelent singleplayer experience, but becausse Throwback is multiplayer mod this drop in active players is worrying.

[Bren]

Community isn't shrinking. Antitheus is right, we've got more players than before, but most of them are new players.

I remember when I started playing OW in multiplayer (patch 1.10b, when you couldn't walk out of your base before BT and spectator didn't work). Trying to play with pr0 players* was ridiciolously hard these times - they were kicking me out of server 9 of 10 cases, because I was a noob** and I didn't know rules, as they claimed. Before I met a guy nice enough to tell me basics of multiplayer games (Antonio), some time elapsed and I nearly gave up trying to play multiplayer.
Just a few guys actually cared about community and new players. There were (nearly) no tutorials how to host a multiplayer games or how to play CB.
That was shrinking community. Not many guys even tried to start multiplayer and only guys playing were 20-30 no-life pr0 players who didn't even want to play with "noobs".

When I learned basics, I became a "camper" - I rushed snipers to not let pr0s exp mechs in HG. Most of them didn't know how to react to such a noob strategy, so they didn't want to ever play with me. What's more, I started playing with newbies and then most of them were rushing snipers, just like I was doing. I created my own noob community in OW community.

In my opinion, community is better now than it used to be.

*Pr0 player - a guy who learned how to exp mechs in HGs. 50% of them were douchebags and didn't know any other strategies.
**Noob - a new guy who didn't learn how to exp mechs in HGs yet.

[Enguzrad]

Community isn't shrinking. Antitheus is right, we've got more players than before, but most of them are new players.

I'm happy to hear that yet my point still stands. There is significantly less active players in our Skype chat than there was when I first started playing multiplayer. There is always lack o matches during school year but now it's almost dead.
It's not like there are not new players coming up from time to time but most of them won't stick around too long. The arrival of new players is just not enough to compensate leaving old players.
OW multiplayer might not be dying out, but I believe that our XR community does.
Quite a shame, really. Just when situation around OW started to evolve again...

[Bren]

I think we need something like Original War Weekend, but much more often. Number of players wouldn't be a problem if players actually knew when to play to actually meet anyone.

[Xander]

I think we need something like Original War Weekend, but much more often. Number of players wouldn't be a problem if players actually knew when to play to actually meet anyone.

1 per month should be enough, or 2 (max)