Announcements

An update released for BattleCity on February 22nd may be responsible for lag spikes plaguing certain members of the community. Initial reports after the update were very positive, with players noticing a significant drop in their pings. Even those finding themselves plagued by lag spikes have stated that when their ping stabilizes it is very low.

Unfortunately, the good news slowly began to turn bad. Most people did not report the lag problem initially, assuming it was a connection problem on their end. However, now, almost one month later, the number of people reporting the problem continues to grow as more and more each day.

According to reports, players will randomly find their ping spike up into the thousands. They will also often become stuck in a black area where the map did not load. To check your ping, while in-game click option and check the box which says "debug info".

Of course, adding to the confusion of the situation is the fact that this does not affect all players. I am personally affected by this when I play at school, but have no difficuly whatsoever when I play from home. Also, those players not affected, continue to report that lag on their end is at an all-time low.

If you are experiencing any trouble due to your ping jumping to 1000 or higher, please post about it in the following thread in the forums: Lag Issues Affecting BattleCity

Disucss this game event article in the forums 

Game Event Ideas by Method 

Hide and seek

X number of teams. X number of players per team.

Items allowed: everything

Goal of the game: be the first to find the hidden orb

How you play: Each team starts at their city. Once the starting signal is given, they start building whatever city type they want. They have to bomb buildings to try and find the orb which will be hidden underneath one of those buildings. You have to pick up your orb and shoot for any other orbs. It should be noted that attacking the other city is legal, although it means at least one less orb searcher.

For a single game: picking up and shooting the remaining orbs grants you victory.

For multiple games: picking up the orb and shooting the remaining ones gives you 1 pt. Bringing it back to your city and placing both your orbs on cc is worth another point. Killing the opposing team’s orb carrier gives 1 pt.

Alternative: placing many orbs and the team who has gathered most at the end of a set amount of time wins. They could have to bring each orb back to a set place and have to protect them.

Note: this event would need some tweaking to work. Right now, orbs cannot be hidden underneath buildings. They always appear over it.

Escort
(variation #1)

X number of teams, x number of players per team.

Items allowed: For escort: everything
For escorted tank: nothing

Goal of the game: if you are with the escorting team: have your escorted tank reach the designated cc. If you are with the attackers: kill the escorted tank.

(variation #2)

X number of teams, x number of players per team.

Items allowed: For escort: everything
For escorted tank: nothing

Goal of the game: have your escorted tank reach designated cc first.

How to play: each teams start within 10 tiles of each other. When the starting signal is given, they are free to try whatever tactic they want. Turrets will be along layed a long the way.

Blind Race

X teams if relay, no teams if regular race
X number of players.

Items allowed: none

Goal of the game: be the first to cross the finish line

How to play: A racecourse is set up. DFGs are placed throughout the course. Players cannot shoot.

Suggestions: Place dfgs right before the finish line in order to get everyone stuck on them right before crossing the line.

Precision Race

No teams, X number of players.

Items allowed (suggestion): lasers, 1 med.

Goal of the game: Be the first to cross the finish line.

How to play: A racecourse is setup. DFGs, mines and a couple of sleepers are placed throughout the course. Players have to make it to the finish line by shooting the obstacles.

Suggestions: Start with a hospital corridor to make sure players survive the start.

Hold the base

X number of teams, team = city

Items allowed: everything

Goal of the game: Have your orb on the bases cc for a set period of time (1-2 min)

Base: designated cc that was built around by an admin in the admin inn. City cannot be orbed. Defenses are in place at first but are not rebuilt should they get destroyed. Same goes for buildings.

How to play: Each team starts on their cc. Mayors can build whatever they want but cannot leave cc. Once the starting signal is given, each team can start moving towards the base. They are free to build anywhere they want and do almost whatever they want to ensure they win.

Rules: Teams cannot orb one another.

Bombapalooza

X teams, X players/ team, X players

Items allowed: bombs

Goal of the game: be the last one alive

How to play: in a ring proportionate to the number of players, players try to bomb each other to death.

Rules: Stay inside the ring even if buildings get blown up. Buildings need to be replaced asap.

Preferences: try to use a naturally narrow terrain. (Near Pos)

Battle of the trenches

X teams, X players/teams, X players.

Items allowed: turrets, walls, lasers, dfgs, meds (optional)

Goal of the game: People inside the ring: be the last one alive.
People outside the ring: getting everyone killed
but your teamate(s)

How to play: inside a ring, players drop turrets around to try to get their enemies killed. Outisde of the ring, players try to kill enemy tanks by attracting turret fire.

Rules: lasers are not to be used to focus on shooting tanks. Their primary use is shoot dfgs and turrets if possible.

Suggestions: place the dfg factory inside the ring so players can get them back and have to defend that territory.

Laser War

2 players

Items allowed: lasers

Goal of the game: be the last one standing

How to play: in a tiny ring, 2 combatants go at it armed only with a laser.

Blind Orbers

X teams, team = city

Items allowed: everything

Goal of the game: orb the other city.

How to play: Mayors build a city with no factories. Factories are placed outside the city (north of city for the “Northest” City, south for the city south, etc.). Once they are finished, an admin comes over and builds every factory underneath another building chosen by the mayor. Once its done for every city, they begin to fight.

Rules: – Attackers cannot blow up the outside factories. They are not allowed to go there.
-At no time can an inside factory be left alone. Mayors cannot demo the buildings on top of the factories.

Variable: drop the outside factories and have the inside factories only showing the driveable part.

Lumberjack duels

2-4 duelers in the same city, x number of spectators, teams can be made

Items allowed: Left to discretion.

Goal of the game: Be the last man standing.

How to play: This is a regular duel that takes place in an arena. Inside this arena, turrets’ belonging to the same city has the duelers are laid out. They duel like any other duel. Only thing is spectators are actually encouraged to try to attract the turrets’ fire to kill the duelers.

Restrictions: Spectators cannot interfere in the match save for attracting turret fire. They cannot bomb the arena.

Relay Race

Number of Teams: X

Number of players per team: 4

Variations of this event: 2

First Variation: Timed

Have one team run the race. Time it. Reset it and have other teams run it. Best time wins.

Second Variation: Have teams run it on same track at same time. (My preferred variation)

Object is to be the first team to get their orb across the map and back.

Have a starting CC that all teams start on. Then that player has to make it to the second designated CC. At which point they will hand the orb off. The fourth player has to bring the orb to the CC and then back to the third player. The process repeats itself until one team has the orb back on the Original CC. If any player should die he would have to restart his or her phase of the tournament only. It would not have to be restarted from the beginning.

Course set up: Moderate – Some turrets and a few mines and dfg's- but just a few to keep them on their toes and keep it interesting but not too much so that it overpowers the race.

Items used: Lasers, Zooks, One orb per team

Restrictions: You may not destroy the opponents orb or attack any of the other players

Tic Tac Toe

4 -16 players. 2 or 4 teams.

Items allowed: Everything

Goal of the game: Get your orb on three CCs lined-up.

How to play: Each team starts in a full city. Nine CCs are filled with defences (or a fully built city). Teams are free to use any means they can to make sure they orb 3 cities lined-up.

Restrictions: Teams cannot orb each other.

Easter Chase

X numbers of players. X teams

Items allowed: Everything

Goal of the game: End up with the most orbs.

How to play: Orbs are laid around the map, some with defenses, some inside cities and some in the middle of nowhere. Players/teams must pick up each orb they find and shoot the other stacked orbs belonging to their opponents.

Restrictions: Teams cannot orb each other.

 

Game Event Ideas by Makaveli

Race Down Death's Ally

Every man for himself.

Items Allowed: None.

Goal of the Game: Be the first to cross the finish line.

How to Play: A racetrack is set up with all types of turrets scattered along the course. It will be possible to run by all turrets without dying, but will be dangerous enough to kill you if you screw up. First one to the finish wins.

Suggestions: (1) Place walls strategically along the course to give people hiding spots from turrets. (2) Place hospitals throughout the course to help people survive.

***I've already tested this event. It worked good and the participants liked it.***

Giant Maze

Every man for himself or teams.

Items Allowed: Orbs.

Goal of the Game: Find the cc of the maze and orb it.

How to Play: Admins will spawn an orb for each player. Players will all enter the maze at the same time through a single entrance. There will be multiple paths and dead ends…first one to find town center of the maze and orb it wins.

Restrictions: No items allowed except orbs. (Since orbs will be provided by the admins, none of the participants should build anything.)

Suggestions: Use primarily buildings, not walls, to construct the maze (having a couple thousand walls in one sector of the map messes with the game). Walls should only be used as extra obsticles along the course, and to block certain paths (if we only use buildings to make dead ends, players will be able to cheat and use the mini-map to guide them). DFG's may also be used sparingly to slow players down (don't over-do it).

———

Giant Maze, Gauntlet Style

X number of teams, x number of players per team.

Items Allowed: Lazers, bazookas, med kits, orb.

Goal of the Game: Use teamwork to get to the maze town center and orb it.

How to Play: A maze will be constructed with turrets (all types) scattered throughout the pathways. (Mines/DFG's may also be used.) Teams will work together to destroy the turrets and find their way to the end of the maze. First team to find the town center and orb the maze wins.

Restrictions: (1) Teams cannot orb one another. (2) No items allowed other than those listed.

Artice regarding How to keep more new players playing the game from old Admin Team Forum.

Click Here to Discuss How to keep more new players playing the game in the forums.

Weebo wrote:

As you may have noticed, the main theme of all the last updates were focused on ways to try and keep more new players. The only way for the game to grow is to add new players to the community while keeping existing players playing.

Life for a newbie on Battlecity isnt easy, mainly because experienced players have no mercy and orb them every chance they get. However, the solution is not to sit around and kick these players but instead to continually improve the game.

Battlecity gets a lot of new players but tends to find a steady equilibrium of about 20 players online. To increase that, we just need to find ways to get more players hooked. So, the question to discuss here is what should the next update be?

Respawn was one of the last ones. It was great and helped a lot I believe. We saw the game reach 30 players more nights than ever before after this was added.

Now the new combined screens update will help give new players a better first impression of the game which is important.

The next update planned will be to implement membership as desribed in the battlecity store, allowing members to see who is online and whisper.

So, lets discuss what should come after that. Feel free to suggest anything. Sparking more interest amongst existing players is just as important as trying to get more new players to stick with the game. Keep the suggestions small. We arent interested in undertaking projects which will take 1298373423 months to program. If you have something big in mind, break it down into smaller more realistically achievable goals. 

One thing I'd like to do is have the Hospital moved to the end of the building tree since this almost always causes trouble for new players. New players are often stuck building, so I think we need to make it easy for them to build a city so that they can experience constant gameplay without getting stuck so soon.

Another thing to consider is the orbing limit. Right now you can orb someone at 10 buidlings. Everyone thinks its lame, so should the code just prevent it? For example, the point system could remain the same and we could simply change it to be that a city is unorbable until it goes over "x" buildings at which point it is permanently orbable. You would still only get 20-30 points for a poor attack where you bomb too much. And of course, if you build an orb and maybe even bombs, you could become orbable sooner. If this is done, the map could be edited to show "orbable" and "non-orbable" cities in different colors, or something of the likes.

We also have those windows in the bottom right hand corner which are still empty. ReMoTe and I have thought of ideas for them but if anybody has any suggestions please speak up! For instance, the way they were used in Obi's Bsttle of Utrecht Skin was very cool.

Makaveli wrote:

I like the idea of a higher building count before you are orbable. Maybe make cities unorbable unless they go over 21 buildings or an offensive factory (at which point they would be orbable forever, even if they go down to 1 building). This would solve the laming problem, and it would also cut down on people at 35 buildings whining about not being done when you attack.

If it's not too difficult to implement, it would also be nice if a city didn't dissapear for 10 seconds after the last player in the city quit. (You would also have to make it impossible for players to rejoin a city within 10 seconds of quitting to keep people from taking advantage of it.) If this is too hard to code, I think quitting from an orbable city should earn an automatic kick (for players colonel and up at least)…it really puts a damper on gameplay.

As for the windows in the bottom corner, maybe they could also be used for info on upcoming events? Just an idea…

Vindkast wrote:

As you approach a mayored city, it could show:

I made this to use in the latest BCL video, but left it out because I didn't want to fake updated building counts. Instead I just had the window show the name of the nearest city. (That makes the video less disorienting, tho I bet nobody noticed )

This would help newbies know where they are, and know whether or not they should attack. Plus it make it easier to learn the map, and I think newbies are a lot more likely to keep playing when they don't feel physically lost within the game.

It would also help vets streamline fair gameplay, since there would be no more "I didn't know you weren't orbable" excuse, no more "I didn't know you were alone," and no more "I was just coming in to right click."

Regarding Orbing Limit:

The WDouglas MadOrber Vindkast 5:30am EST Orb Limit Manifesto:

Orbable at 21 or Orb fac (or Bomb fac?). Once you are orbable you stay orbable forever. So, orbability is based off maximum buildings reached….

Similarly, make points off an orb based on maximum size reached instead of current size. This makes demoing completely ineffective. It also lets you differentiate the scoring, so not every 21+ orb (aka every orb) is 50.

Score could be:
20 pts: 1-20 max buildings (aka orb city)
30 pts: 21-26 max buildings
40 pts: 27-33 max buildings
50 pts: 34+ max buildings

This gives new cities the larger buffer, and still uses points to encourage fair fights.

Map color could show not just orbability, but orb value too.
This would help prevent "laming" while helping to prevent real laming.

White: unorbable.
Red: 20 point orb.
Yellow: 30 point orb.
Green: 50 point orb.

"Hey newbie, only attack cities that are green on the map."

Weebo wrote:

The way the points are now, ganging up on one city and bombing them to the ground when they have no hope is disadvantageous because you get less points for the orb. This way, it would not matter, still full points. Should that matter? Or if they got big enough, its their own problem? =p

The diff colors for value of orb sounds good 😉 We could have a green city worth 50 points turn yellow again if it goes back below a certain amount of buildings, or not if we decide it doesnt lose value anymore.

OF course, people will demo to make their city worth less, even though they are still orbabale if they demo to 0. So, perhaps your described method is better, since once they reach a size, they cant lower their value.

Should we go even further and use orbs and time in the equation? Should two 39 building cities be worth the same 50 points, even if one has been alive 10 min, and the other 4 hours? OR if one has orbed 0 cities, and the other 10? Just adding more wood to the fire =p

Stubbs wrote:

I wouldnt add time into the equation. Newbie cities can last awhile sometimes, and we want to deture them being attacked Excessively (not entirely). If a factor was added, i would base it on Rank. Much like the dueling league had setup.
However, I wouldnt have the point difference be that much… maybe a total of 10 pts added to the regular value.
10- Sgt (and lower) orbing Generals(and higher)
8- major orbing brigs
6….
4….
2….
0 Generals+ orbing Sgt-

rough Idea, but this would add to the game. I am not sure if it is really worth implementing tough.
On the bottom Rigt corner, I like vindkasts idea, However, I might add a compass pointing to the enemy city, that it is listing, new players could get confused, especially if it starts switching.

Weebo wrote:

I agree that newbies take longer, good point.

What if the timer only starts once you have a full city or once you orb your first city?

I dont think basing the formula on ranks is a good idea. Smurfs will cause problems and the scoring system wont be stable (example after a reset we are all privates, if no reset for long time, we have more high rankers – this will mess with scoring system.)

Vindkast wrote:

Chat

Make death messages and chat different colors.
(Makes chat easier to follow, especially for newbies.)

Allow scrolling in chat.
(Encourages conversation, giving vets a reason to stay in game longer. Like Ody.)

Make escape close the chat bar, even if it has text in it.
(Encourages chat by removing a major annoyance.)

Add a checkbox for "mute/censor enemy chat."
(Allows people to end situations in-game before they escalate.)

Building

Move Hospital to after Med research in the build tree.
(Makes newbies less likely to go bankrupt, keeps Hosp early for vets and orb cities.)

Show mayors their city's current rate of profit/loss (from buildings, not item production).
(Makes money management more obvious, tangible.)

Add "random" defense/building tips to the "you got orbed" msg.
(Gives newbies helpful info right when they realize they need it.)

City List

Separate mayor and commando jobs in the list.
(Makes the difference more obvious to newbies, more organized to vets.)

Sort commando jobs by least-commandos-first.
(Encourages even teams. A table-based sortable city list would be better…)

Rotate the starting cities.
(Keeps vets interested, disrupts huambo domination. Huamination?)

Misc

Broadcast promotions across the server.
(Shows newbies other people's success, giving them an incentive to continue.)

Add a button in Options called "Disable Sticky Keys Shortcut."
(You can do this by running a .reg file you include in the install.)

Add a timer on quit.
(Prevents some quitting to avoid orbs, 7+ seconds prevents quitting on DFGs.)

Self Destruct
Add a "self destruct" button that disables your tank and starts a 5-10 second countdown. If you are alive at the end of the countdown, you explode like a bomb, killing yourself and taking out adjacent buildings. This could be adjusted for fairness (maybe if you get shot it stops the timer), and it could be executed when you quit to add a timer on quitting.

Bunkers
Defensive items exactly like turrets, only they don't fire on their own. Instead, a player drives into a bunker and aims/fires manually. The bunker absorbs all damage from return fire until it is destroyed, killing anyone inside. The shots could hit bombs, and their damage/fire rate could be anywhere from lasers to turret fire to admin flamethrower, depending on what would be fair and effective.

Obiwoz wrote:

Great ideas Vindkast. However the last 2 are a fairly radical ideas, and may need alot of thought before being put into the game.

In regards to the previous idea: (make points off an orb based on maximum size reached instead of current size)

I think this would lead to players over-using bombs. They would just bomb the city to the ground, as weebo suggested, until only the command centre was left.
Now the idea is basically to orb the city without bombing anything that isn't nessesary. And I think the strategy to orbing should remain this way.
If this idea is taken on board then something would need to be changed to counter the over-use of bombs. Maybe make them weaker, reduce the number of bombs for a city down to 10 or lower, or maybe increase the detonation timer so they are easier to defend against.

I like the idea of points increasing based on the time that a city has stood for.

Stubbs wrote:

Makaveli Started a different Thread about Point values for orbing, and had a real good idea. Click here to read his article.

Also Alot of great Ideas Vind
** Stickey Keys, Those are a pain, always forget, until I install game on a new computer.
I think the Hospital being moved on building tree, should be considered Priority, I see it all the time where a new player has 1 house, 1 hospital, two reasearches, and is asking what to do, and has no money.
*Maybe an option to have it show on the list, or after say 'med RC' is built.
But overall, I would probably have the Hospital appear, after you Research Med Packs. Makes sense, Most players will have enough built, or a good enough idea of how things work to build it by then, if they want. Also Orb Cities would be able to build it easily.

Some discussion regarding the point value of cities. Click here to comment in the forums.

Makaveli wrote:

Discussion on the point value of a city when it is orbed has been going on for awhile now. Basing the number of points for each orb on rank keeps getting brought up, and more recently Weebo mentioned the possibility of using the amount of time a city has been up to determine that city's point value.

Here is my idea:

———-

Once a city goes over 21 or builds either an orb or bombs, that city is forever orbable. From that point on, forget about the number of buildings…the building count will have no effect on the number of points the city is worth.

Instead, the number of points you get for orbing a city would be be based on the number of orbs that city has gotten. A city that has gotten zero orbs would be worth 30 points. After getting one orb, that city would be worth 50 points. After that, each orb a city gets increases point value of that city by five points.  

NumberofOrbs      PointValue
      0               30
      1               50
      2               55
      3               60
      4               65
      5               70
      6               75
      7               80
      8               85
      9               90
      10              95
      15              120
      20              145
      30              195

If NumberofOrbs = 0
Then PointValue = 30

If NumberofOrbs = 1
Then PointValue = 50

If NumberofOrbs > 1
Then PointValue = 50 + (NumberofOrbs*5)

Benefits of this System:

1) It would make a target of any city that dominated the map for too long. (If a city has gotten 10 orbs — that's 500 points — then 120 points is a reasonable reward for whoever takes that city out.)

2) It would discourage targeting specific players as soon as they are done building. (If you double a city before it has a chance to orb someone, you only get 30 points for orbing them. Again, this encourages players to go after whichever city is dominating instead of going after the players they don't like.)

3) It would make the reward for orbing newbs much lower. (If a newb city hasn't orbed anyone they are only worth 30 points, regardless of the number of buildings they have.)

4) Orb cities would be worth a full 50 points as soon as they orb someone. (This allows people to get full points for orbing a real orb city, but doesn't reward them for attacking cities that "might" be an orb city.)

5) Smurfs wouldn't affect the system, because it is based on how much a city is dominating the map, not on the rank of the players in the city.

———-

What do you guys think?

To go along with this idea, here is what I suggest for the windows in the lower right corner (building on Vindkast's idea):

———-
 

This first screen would be a list of all cities that players are in, along with the point value of each city if orbed, and the direction of the city. (An unorbable city would have "0" for the point value.) The nearest city would show in a different color. Also, it could be programmed so that BCL cities did not show up on this list to keep people from attacking them during league play. This screen would require a scrollbar for busy times when more than six or so cities are up.

———-

This second screen would contain more detailed information on the nearest city. If the city is too small, the point value would say "NONE" to make it clear to newbs that there is no point in attacking. (Just an afterthought…maybe this screen should also show city direction so that players between two cities don't get confused.)

———-

Sorry, I was too lazy to change the buttons, but one could say "City List" and the other "City Info" or something like that.

 

Vindkast wrote:

Interesting suggestion. I think number of orbs is a better way to determine a city's "value" than size or rank or time-orbable, since it is based on actual dominance rather than the city's potential.

One problem I have with how the numbers are set up right now is that the +5s, small as they are, could inflate points. The possibility of a newbie getting 2+ promitions from one orb seems wrong. The minimum orb would be bumped up 10 points (20 to 30), but also the typical orb would drop 20 (50 to 30)… so maybe things would balance out overall?

Anyway, so far it seems like everyone agrees on the "permanently orbable at 21" part.

 

Stubbs wrote:

Basing orbs is by far the best idea so far.
I think I would cap it 80 pts…
or maybe
Orbs Pts
4 64
5-9 70
10-14 80
15-19 90
20+ 100

Just another Idea, Just keeps the points in the same range. If we do change the points awarded, I would definetly suggest a Point Reset.
Also do we want to keep the numbers even? would basically be for tradition.

*Allthough I still think there should be some penelty for destroying alot of buildings.
perhaps -2 points for every building under 21 but a minimum of 50 pts.
P = Point Value based on Number of Orbs
B = # Buildings when orbed
A = Points awarded for orb

if (P<=50)
A=P'
else
if(B>21)
A=P;
else
C = P – [(21-B)*2];
if (C<50)
A=50;
else
A=C;

So if you orb at 19, and theyve had 4 orbs, you would get 60 pts, instead of the full 64. Anyways, just an Idea, Allthough I am not sure if it is worth adding, but you could ponentially loose 40 pts, If you destroyed every building. But you also always get the 30 pts, or 50 if they had atleast 1 orb.

Here are some Monthly Status Reports put together by the old Admin team which some people may find interesting if you want to analyze how BattleCity is doing!

Comment on this article in the forums 

Web Traffic Statistics 

Month	Unique Visitors	Bandwidth
Jan 2005	482	458.80 MB
Feb 2005	1242	2.30 GB
Mar 2005	1832	3.67 GB
Apr 2005	2425	3.69 GB
May 2005	5836	5.14 GB
Jun 2005	3566	3.63 GB
Jul 2005	2999	4.28 GB
Aug 2005	1927	3.49 GB
Sep 2005	2761	3.84 GB
Oct 2005	2594	9.04 GB
Nov 2005	4030	11.63 GB
Dec 2005	4198	8.87 GB
Jan 2006	8630	16.23 GB
Feb 2006	15453	18.99 GB
Mar 2006	11894	14.16 GB
Apr 2006	10261	14.47 GB
May 2006	6512	10.79 GB
Jun 2006	5157	8.24 GB
Jul 2006	4916	8.48 GB
Aug 2006	4238	6.96 GB
Sep 2006	3471	6.14 GB
Oct 2006	3381	6.48 GB
Nov 2006	4097	5.99 GB
Dec 2006	4626	6.55 GB
Jan 2007	3889	5.53 GB
Feb 2007	3534	5.60 GB

July 2006 Statistics and Results:

Overall, web-traffic still larger than same time last year, however down again from the month before. This is now 5 consecutive months of decline, however, total unique visitors is still overall larger than before any advertising was done indicating a growth in the community.

Comments for July:

Overal server population in-game has been decreasing since incoming web-traffic has declined without advertising or fresh spamming of game website forums. This, along with active players playing less has brought average numbers back below 10 when it had gone up over 15 a few months earlier.

I still believe the server constantly lagging out was the major factor contributing to the decline as it frustrated active players enough to ruin their gameplay. Recent updates by ReMoTe have addressed this issue so if the fix has reduced the problem then this will definitely help get ingame counts starting to go back up.

Laming has been a continual problem as well, so some administrative changes have been made to help eliminate the problem by re-defining laming such that nothing is lame, everything is playing the game. Whatever shouldnt be part of the game, should be fixed and prevented via code.

Once updates related to reducing laming are released, it should be interesting to see how that affects the game. Almost everyone is in favor of such updates as they will help make the game more enjoyable. Quitting/demolishing are really loopholes which were never intended to be part of Battlecity strategy. The updates will provide many needed fixes, though they will also favor team-stackers whom had their point counts increased big-time by respawn which made it easier for them to rape newbies since cities didnt die. New ideas are circulating for other possible solutions to deal with that problem, such as increased points for orbing dominant cities so that they become targetted more.

BC Java is on hold while the current game gets fixed up. Nobody minds because everyone loves the updates!

Overall, the end of the month ended with a big bang and surge of activity after lots of drama and city rotation captured lots of interest. Hopefully that momentum carries into August. If the server stays stable, I expect to see player counts begin to start rising again.

Plans for August

– Updates aimed at reducing laming
– Getting BC mentioned again on many gaming website via forum posts or news posts to help bring in some fresh traffic and newbies. 

 

Comments for June 2006: 

I've definitely seen a lot of new players starting to take over the show! All these new players though are now Colonels or higher and form the majority of the active community. Thats encouraging because player numbers are about the same with the majority of vets not playing. As we get more and more new players and some vets come back time to time, theres more and more chances of having more and more peeps online!

Was happy to see the events going well in June! Hope to have that continue over into July.

Server "lag" crashing has continued to be the main problem plaguing the game. I believe a stable BC would definitely see major growth, but crashing at 20 players or during events which attract players just cripples the game and prevents it from getting bigger.

Right now the only solution on the horizon is BC Java, which will be stable and accessible to a larger audience. It will likely bring around a Golden Era of the new Battlecity, especially if completed before the summer is done.

Other problems remaining is laming, though that seams to peak when server population is low and you cant avoid your tormentor.

Plans for July

– Summer Bash continued! Give Surge a hand as much as you can!
– Wait for BC Java! Progress on the project has been going well.

 

Statistics and Results May 2006:

May was a slow month for incomming traffic. In fact, it was the lowest amount of unique visitors we've had so far in 2006, but still higher than the best month in 2005. This statistic is reflective of the community size + first time visitors from links or ads. We no longer have any advertising money so its normal to have less incomming people, though we still need to work on ways to grow this number so we get new players to replace our retired players 😉

Comments for May:

I wasn't online enough to get a feel for how well or poorly the game did this month. I would appreciate some feedback from those who were active please. Generally I found there to be less players online than in the last few months, but then again every now and then I logged on to see 20+ players. I did see lots of newbies which is encouraging!

Plans for June

– Weekly event planned and hosted
– Discuss new ideas and better ways of doing things to possibly be incorporated into BC Java.

Please respond and give me some feedback for how the game did in may. How was server population? How was newbies? How was laming? Any common complaints you heard or issues that need to be adressed? Thanks

Vindkast:
The server population definitely dropped– I seldom see it over 20 anymore. I think this is more because vets are disappearing than because the newbie flow is slowing. On the contrary, it seems like only now that the "newbies" are becoming vets. And there are a lot of people I haven't seen since BCL.

A lot of newbies are playing very regularly now (even bad ones that aren't on the monthly top 20). It's probably school being out, but maybe the lower server population has something to do with it, since when it's under 8 or so is really the only time newbies get help from vets.

Laming seems to be on the rise. During the day this doesn't seem like a problem, but late nights are turning into the lawless late nights of old BC. The lower server population causes some of it, since if nobody's on there's nothing to do but trap CCs or orb some newb at 10 before he runs out of money. Also, a summer lack-of-bedtimes are just going to make the nights longer…

Issues,

I was firing people from Iqaluit for a while, since whenever I see a full Iqaluit and a full Huambo, both cities just prey on small cities because they don't want to make the long drive. But maybe the excitement (or whatever) of a strange city outweighs this and keeps people playing. I'm divided on it, but either way I don't think it's an urgent issue.

Server "lagouts" are definitely still the main problem with BC. Whenever it looks like the server population's going back up, a lagout comes and kills the momentum.

Stubbs:
I think there is a comination of alot of things.

1. School is now out for alot of people, meaning, a summer job, vacations, various other things.

2. Server Lag outs, This is, and will continue to be a problem that lowers the number of people

3.. No BCL, I havent played regulalrly since the BCL.

4. Nostalgia runs out eventually, I think for most everyone it is gone.

I usually only play until I get orbed now. So, If I am orbed at 15-20 (which I usually am it seems). Then I usually just leave.

Weebo:
Great info Vind and Stubbs, appreciate it!

Some time has been spent on trying to fix those server lagouts without much luck so far. Well, thats not entirely true, each time a multiple of bugs were fixed which were causing actual crashes. Now it doesnt crash it just gets stuck in the winsock code for some reason simulating "lag".

Im not sure it will ever be fixed in the c++ version. Right now ReMoTe is working on BC JAVA and is hoping to take advantage of this to clean out the bugs as he codes. The networking in this version should be much better. ReMoTe has forecasted a release before the end of summer.

That means we may need to suffer the lagouts a bit longer unless a lighbulb lights up somewhere.

Issues of laming are again something which will likely be more fully addressed now in the JAVA version. Now is the time to think of better ways for the game to do certain things so as to limit laming and help make life more pleasant for newbies. Many of these changes may not make it into the current version as most effort is now going into getting a full JAVA version running so we can tap into a much larger market of players.

Thanks for keeping me posted!

Also I think thats a good point Stubbs brought up. Most vets will reach a point where they play less often. They'll still log on for a game every now and then, but will log off quickly if its not fun and they get lamed or orbed at 15-20. Sometimes you dont want to put in the effort to place D before you go over 11, you just want to log on, get in a city and play for a bit.

Thats another thing that I believe changing when a city is orbable will help address. The game will be more fun if its set up to encourage battles between fully built cities so there are actual battles and not random orbs that discourage people from playing.

Also indicating which city is currently dominant would let people build up and join in the fun, rather than have their fun ruined as they try to build.

Stubbs:
Somethings I think could help

1. change orbable limit

2. Inform mayor(maybe everyone in the city) that the city 'is now orbable'

3. 'city Under Attack' – this is an old feature

– 2&3 could be combined, may once the city is orbable the color of the Compass changes, and if it is under attack, it flashes

4. Hospital only buildable after Med Research – This has been discussed, but this gets new players all the time

5. MAYBE remove money entirely, maybe just go with time limits between building, overall money doesnt play a huge role, but is more of a annoyance for new players, people who know how to play rarely have a problem with money. and you could just limit hospitals to 1 or 2.

Thats all I can think of now.

Vindkast:
About server lagouts, does Remote know they happen daily now? Back when the server was running in debug mode so he could catch a lagout, they were only happening once a week or so. They're a much bigger problem now, and a huge reason why BC isn't growing.

As I just posted in the Errors section, it might be worth his time to try debug mode again now that we can apparently cause lagouts by running gauntlets.

 

Statistics and Results April 2006:

Another good month with another 10,000+ unique visitors to the site. This number has been slowly dropping as advertisement money becomes less and less.

Code:

Google Advertising Campaign Name—–Clicks—–Impr—–CTR—–Avg. CPC—–Cost Feb Ads—–7,981—1,307,423—0.6%—–$0.01—–$83.63 Mar Ads—–7,686—931,601 —0.8%—–$0.01—–$76.86 Apr Ads—–5,030—749, 017 —0.67%—–$0.01—–$50.30 Money Left For Advertising: $39.21

Advertising money is pretty much used up! Its brought plenty of newbies and got us plenty of new downloads. Hopefully we've grown enough that even without ads the game population will continue growing at a good rate 😉

Comments for April:

Lots of players, though I'd say average server population was lower than in March. Hopefully we can blame final exams and expect things to pick up once again in May.

Plans for May:

– Wrap up BCL Playoffs!
– Tony9 and Jizohn will host Skills Competition.

Open Issues:

We need to start keeping track off all issues that are affecting the game negatively from big to small. This way we can work on resolving them. So please reply in this thread with any additional ones.

– Converting downloads to new players
– Music and game sound effects has been switched off by default for new downloads! This must be fixed asap!
– Server spikes/lagouts

 

Statistics and Results March 2006:

Another good month for new accounts, with nearly 12,000 unique visitors on the website

Code:

Google Advertising Campaign Name—–Clicks—–Impr—–CTR—–Avg. CPC—–Cost Feb Ads—–7,981—1,307,423—0.6%—–$0.01—–$83.63 Mar Ads—–7,686—931,601 —0.8%—–$0.01—–$76.86 Money Left For Advertising: $89.51

With advertising money starting to wind down, we will be toning it down a little this month with Google and try to focus on spamming forums again for free. The ads will still run, but we will try and split whats left between april and may.

Comments for March:

Nice numbers, lots of players, plenty of fun.

Still lots of new players who don't stick around after trying the game. Need to work on that, think of what can be improved! Gotta convert more downloads into players for the game to grow!

Plans for April

– Run the BCL!
– Spam forums with new Battlecity newsletter. Email all players too!
– Pass final exams! =p

Expect possible new admins in May after BCL to help with events. Inactives will have admin accounts made non-admin to prevent any problems from too many admin accounts circulating around. These inactives will still have access to admin forum and will be welcome to use EventSparrow and EventHawk should they wish to help out and become active again.

 

Statistics and Results February 2006:

We thought January's record setting 8630 unique visitors was amazing… February almost doubled that with 15453!

Once again February was characterized by an incredible growth in new players! Thanks to advertising with Google this month, we were able to get many new players for basically 0.01$/click. Here is the Google Report!

Code:

February 2006 Google Advertising Campaign Name—–Clicks—–Impr—–CTR—–Avg. CPC—–Cost Battlecity Ads—–7,981—1,307,423—0.6%—–$0.01—–$83.63 Money Left For Advertising: $16.37

Comments for February:

This is definitely very positive! Battlecity is growing and we need to work hard to keep it that way!

One important thing to note, by looking at the Player Rankings we can see that only about 20% of all accounts created have made it over the rank of Private. So, for every 10 players, only 2 reach at least Corporal. This fact presents us with a definite opportunity for improvement.

The new respawn feature has recently been added to try and help keep more players playing Battlecity! New ideas and improvements will still be needed to make a better first impression on new players so they stick with the game! Please share all your ideas!

Plans for March

March should be a fun month! Battlecity League will be starting up again, which brought the server up to 30+ players on many nights back in November and December before all these new players joined!

The main goal for March will be to try and keep the games momentum going and growing! A lot of time will need to be spent re-thinking the way the game works to make some more major improvements to retain players.

Battlecity will be switching to a different server again around March 6-8. We will try it out for a day or two to see if that helps cure some of the recent problems with bugged cities and server stalls. If so, we will begin a new advertising campaign to load up on newbies!

Thanks to a generous donation from Commons, we now have an additional 150$ going into advertising which we will spread out across March and April.

We need to make sure people are not abusing these new players. Help them out on your admin name, encourage fair fights. People can load up their team with good players if they only attack other cities of equal skill. If they are picking on newbies, feel free to help the newbie with extra items or what not.

We DONT want to stop people from attacking the newbie, or he/she will think the game is boring. We just want to keep the newbie alive, not constantly orbed 😉

 

Statistics and Results January 2006:

 

All in all, January was an explosive month for Battlecity.

As you can see, the website smashed any old records regarding unique visitors. Thats a lot of newbies who visited the site for the first time, and as you all saw, this translated into many newbies 😉

I must say, all the efforts I did to market the game during January definitely paid off. At first, January looked dark and gloomy, with very few players online, but that was really just due to all the regulars not playing much anymore. By the end of the month, the newbies started to add up.

Now we just need to keep em coming in February. We've seen BC have 20+ players before then drop back down. So we need to keep it up! Keep events coming. Even though the Dark Lord thing sort of sucked, I've heard a bunch if newbies talking about it, asking what happened, asking who orbed it, being sad they missed it, etc.. So overall, it got their attention and sparked some interest, which helps keep them coming back 😉

Also, server crashes haven't helped in January. These crashes tended to only be triggered once more players were online, so as soon as we hit 15-20 players, we got a crash. ReMoTe has fixed several bugs related to this already, and hopefully the issue will be completely resolved within the next week as the game continues to run in debug mode.

Commons plans to help out with marketing this month, so hopefully we can get another 8000 unique visitors or more! If we do, then we will definitely start seeing some big crowds online.

Nice job everyone. Any opinions or comments on the month would be good. Any ideas for the future, please share! Right now, BC is growing, and thats good news. Traffic tends to go up and down, but overall, if it keeps getting bigger, the game will keep growing.

The Ads on MPOGD will stop showing on Feb. 10th.

Commons:
I think we are getting great numbers of noobs which is good news. Ive been thinking of late we need to get players that have started playing but have not continued! Vets from this version we need to keep them playing! We need to put some thought into this!! Maintain what we've got than we can truly expand.

Stubbs:
This last Week it has really stepped up

And I have had a blast playing the past 2 nights. I had some good battles.

Weebo:
For January, we will pretty much spend our time getting settled in and preparing for February. This is a new admin structure, so we will need a little while to adjust and figure out what is going on. =p I welcome you all to the team!

Please spam me with questions about anything that is unclear. I've written a lot of information but it may be a bit much to absorb all at once.

As of now, the only thing on the table is to get the Dark Lord event rolled out for late January.

Once we have the admin team finalized, with the exception of the Marketing Team, I will post an annoucement about the new admins. The Marketing Team will be made later once we have the rest set up and rolling.

As of now, welcome, Stubbs, Wujiamin, Method, Makaveli, Obiwoz, Vindkast to the team! I've also given Meerkat access to the admin forum as he will be helping out with the Dark Lord event.