@thewreck said in The End of FAF:
Is FAF really in decline?
It is no secret that FAF has lost a lot of players this year. The distributed denial of service attacks last fall undoubtedly contributed to many people leaving. New competition is also responsible for many people leaving. Similar real time strategy games such as Beyond All Reason have been a destination of many former FAF players because of the lack of performance issues. However, I do not believe these two things can actually kill FAF because in the last ten years there have been many intervals of time where we have gained and lost large numbers of players and I believe that we can recover from them. These two issues though are largely out of our control and while they are hurting the game they are not actually killing it in my opinion.
Contary to a unpopular belief, FAF is not really in decline compared to the pre-pandemic amount of players. A few players quitting does NOT mean that the game is dying, only that the players are no longer interested in the said game.
It is a miracle that a 16-and-a-half year old game supported by a dozen of volunteers could captivate attention of tens of thousands of people for thousands of hours, and that there are players that are still loyal to this game after a decade of playing it every week or at least every month.
As for me, the three biggest deciding factor for quitting the game is still boredom (i have played it more than 4000 times at this point), lack of high-level players to play against (2400+) on most of the days of the week and an insane timezone difference (GMT+10)
@thewreck said in The End of FAF:
Why has the game survived previous setbacks?
The reason FAF has survived for so many years is because there are dozens of players who have played the game for over a decade and have played the game thousands if not tens of thousands of times. It may be easy to conclude that I am only talking but the 2k+ community but this is in fact not the case. Every level of play has players who have thousands of games over many years. In addition to simply playing the games these players also keep the game alive by doing the following: They are active on social media platforms such as Twitch and YouTube and help bring in new players. They actively train and post guides for new players so that they can learn the game. They play in tournaments which the whole community can watch and enjoy which can also help to bring in new players. Even though these players may quit for several months because of server issues or to play a different game I find that many come back after sometime because like me they love this game and know that there is nothing else quite like it. This however, brings me to why I believe that this game may imminently die.
Not really. FAF survived mostly thanks to:
- The dev/balance/moderation team, constantly fixing and polishing the game
sometimes unsuccessfully - Two large casters (Gyle/Yuri the Professional) exposing the game to a huge audience
- A handful of streamers keeping the players interested in the game by allowing people to play with them
The rest of the players are pretty much doing nothing, just enjoying the game.
@thewreck said in The End of FAF:
Why is FAF dying?
In order for FAF to truly die the community which I outlined above has to start to disintegrate. The reason I believe FAF is dying is because many players that are a part of this community are quitting or are extremely unhappy with the way the game is being run. These players combined have contributed tens of thousands of games. In addition to playing the game these players have played in dozens of tournaments, trained dozens of players, and have written many helpful guides to help new players but now they are quitting and not planning on returning.
It isnt. The only problem is the lack of really high level players, since the old ones are kinda too old to play vidya games now, and the new ~2000 rated players are Not That Good.
@thewreck said in The End of FAF:
Why are community members quitting?
The reason the community is quitting is almost solely because of selfish moderation.
Not the case for me, and you are actually the only person i know that stopped playing out of spite for getting banned.
@thewreck said in The End of FAF:
banning and censoring players who use words that individual moderators do not like
Censorship
Another policy that has been enacted by the moderation team that is destroying the game is banning players for the use of words such R.tarded or N.zi and other mildly offensive words. Although some of the more offensive and extreme words are not words that I personally say I do not want to have a smaller pool of people that I can play with because they said something I disagree with. While these words can certainly considered offensive it takes 3 clicks to get rid of them in game, in Aeolus, or in the discord, if you do not like seeing them. Once again I will call on the communities ability to address problems on their own. If I do not want to play with someone who says these things or I have problems with someone saying these things I can refuse to play with them or mute them. Again I will state that you can disagree with my stance on this issue but this is what the community believes and once again their grievances regarding the enforcement of this policy have been completely ignored.
Contrary to what you might think, FAF is actually a game that is made to be enjoyed for people of all nationalities, ages, genders, skin colors, sexual orientations and neurodivergency. You can never know who is the person behind the monitor, and you dont get to assume that everyone's mental capacity for taking insults and slurs is like yours. Some people i know can legit start crying because you said something mean on the internet.
A game community must be inclusive and tolerable, at least on public resources like discord/aeolus/forum/games with randoms.
@thewreck said in The End of FAF:
The most dreadfully obvious and intellectually lacking counter argument to base ctrl k is "why should one person take away someone else ability to play?". However, this fact ignores the other 6, 8, or 10 players in the game that would likewise like to start a new game. Additionally they can still waste time and play on anyway it will just be for a decreased amount of time which is the idea.
That is because there are rules that exist for everyone's best interest, and you have agreed with them upon registering your account. You join the game to play it, not to ctrlk when you decide that its over, and since you dont want to play anymore, nobody gets to continue playing. It is NOT up to you to decide. If you want to give up, suggest a recall, and then, if team disagrees with it, just give them your base.
Other 6,8 or 10 players that died are observers, and as observers they dont get to decide to end the game because they feel like ending it. Actual manchild behavior.
@thewreck said in The End of FAF:
In my personal opinion high level players have a good enough understanding of the game to have the autonomy to decide that the game is over.
You dont get to decide that the game is over in a team game. You can quit playing it, but you dont get to choose if its over or not, like a little baby that starts losing in monopoly and decides to make up imaginary rules to instantly gain 10000$ and win it.
@thewreck said in The End of FAF:
Even the ban of a single active high level community member is near universally condemned because there are so few high level games. In the high level community almost no one reports for base ctrl k or flaming because in general these things do no bother us.
And thats a good thing about faf moderation. They dont go through every single game looking for base ctrlks or other offences, but only respond to reports made by players that were in the reported game instead. This means that you and your group of friends can do whatever you want in a game and not a single person would get banned even for most bizarre things.
The game actually doesnt even have a chat filter in 2024, which became pretty much a prerequisite for multiplayer games a few years ago. Think about it.
@thewreck said in The End of FAF:
The reason this policy is greatly harming the game is not because I believe that base control k should be legal but because the high level community believes it should be legal and they are completely ignored by the moderation team which has greatly angered players and has caused several to quit.
Again, the said group of players are free to do whatever they want within their community of friends, but they dont get to decide for other players when to end the game.
@thewreck said in The End of FAF:
The username rule change update
The single most egregious and selfish policy on this list is the recent decision to change the rules regarding username changes. To those unfamiliar with the matter the moderation decided to change the time jump between name changes from 1 month to a full year upending a rule that no one has had a problem with for the last ten years. This post was downvoted an astounding 44 times with only 6 non moderators in support of this idea. The discussion below included dozens of players grievances and suggestions but still the moderation team pressed onwards while completely ignoring them and they kept almost all the changes and were only willing to reduce the name change time to 6 months. Even still the moderation team insists that they represent the community when in reality nothing can be farther from the truth. This decision was the final straw for many esteemed members of the community who may never return because of this selfishness.
I actually agree with this one, but its pure delusion, not selfishness
@thewreck said in The End of FAF:
What can be done to restore the communities trust in the moderation?
Now we have reached my main reason for writing this. I did not write this article to argue endlessly the points I have presented up to this point. The community has spoken on each of these issues multiple times. I have written this thread because it is the moderation
You should speak for yourself, not the community as a whole. For example, i myself havent lost trust in the moderators, they still do their job rather well for free, just being wrong with some of their suggestions from time to time.
@thewreck said in The End of FAF:
I propose that Moderators have at least 1500 games at least 5 years of experience and for new moderators to have had at least 100 games in the past year before they are accepted. A possible minimum rating could also be discussed.
This is just flat wrong, let people volunteer if they want to. Also even i dont have 5 years of experience, and 1500 games can easily be ~1000 hours that are spent on the game, and not everyone has the time to play the game like some of us do.
@thewreck said in The End of FAF:
I also call for some form of immunities for high level members of the community as well as senior players that are not as high rated but have thousands of games.
Exceptions of this can be for major in game exploits or for other extreme misbehavior.
If a moderator enacts or bans extremely popular players they should not have immunity from being removed.
A high level/nolifer player is not worth more than an average level player with normal amount of games played just because he is better at the game and plays it more.
A contributor like sladow/jip/farm/whoever might get some privileges, but not ban evasion.
of the players do not have similiar usernames that are abusing I's and l's, and you can punish them just by comparing two names: one in the report, one in the game that was reported.
