Thoughts of an oldfag (serious)
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Hello friends.
I joined this game the 14th of April, 2011, officially anyway. I have seen relatively all versions of this game and the events that would transpire, and though I am not evidently active in the community I remain omnipresent in the daily life of the game, through my pack of friends who have also been here from the start. I have come to see the rise and fall of a great many organizations, ones that in their time would believe that they would last for the length of the game itself, and at its stead, SRB, or Kanker, or whatever you may call us stands at the forefront. Though we have come and gone, our presence is felt, and will be felt for time to come, and though it is my opinion we have never been quite as respected as we should have, I ask that you only listen this one time to the words of an old great.
Afterwind, or At-War as you may refer to it(I'll never accept it sry), still suffers from many issues from the time I played, and even still, it has gotten some more. When I log in, there is no feeling of community that it once had, I knew literally everyone who played and though it was quite niche no one had an empty face behind those colored borders. The game mechanics were fluid, simple yet fun to play, with the knowledge of turnblocking to the extent that it was, and that no one will understand lest they played it, it brought the monotony out of simply stacking infantry, and waiting for someone to get bored enough to rush you, or make a mistake 30 turns down the line, it brought a flavored unreliability and unknown factor into the game that I've never seen replicated in any such strategy game, and I deeply yearn for the days when it was still in the game, even after all these years, having truly tried to play all versions successive to it.
The game has become stale, the metagame, though slightly advanced since I played, is too little for any experienced player to enjoy for time to come, everyone grows tired of the same game, and I was well liked in the community for ridiculous innovations, truly I believe this to be the reason I was considered "good", more-so than others, people like myself are few and far between, and I know without us; it will be taxing on all players, and retention will be lower, as we see these days. I will not suggest that it is outright dead, but I will confidently say that it is not as large as it could be, and as it always could have been. PD will always reign supreme, and people will still complain about the same issues until they are fixed, the solution to defense is not to alter the values, but to bring back something that changes up the game from attack vs defense, to bring back Turnblock. At least, that is my opinion, and always has been, and that's all I'll say on that subject.
Upon returning, I noticed a few things, firstly, my legacy; vain as it is, exists only in the form of zizouism, few(Relatively speaking) know of the great community events and divisions that happened between the Dalmati-SRB-WBL-Whatever else rivalry, the clns these days are not so starkly divided, the soul of the game has decayed from a community to simply a game, that happens to have groups in it, for the most part. All old coalitions were removed from the lists due to inactivity, all old players were quickly removed from the rankings due to dilution of ranks, which I will remark on now.
Scenarios. Scenarios. The bane of my existence. Between the map makers guild of AW and the inherent imbalance of SP you get from the games, it has removed every nice point of the pseudo-culture we had on this game, they took the mock RP and turned it into real RP and completely ruined any charm it had to the jokes, then actually made it a real movement to take their already diseased cells and spread them even further into the metaphorical body that is Afterwind. In a matter of months I went from #7 to off the top 50, what took years erased by a matter of months. I wouldn't be so peeved if it wasn't for the next thing I'll touch on.
What this showed, was what I can only perceive as a sheer disrespect for the old guard, and player base who so loyally played their game for years, and offered time and time again to improve it, because its success was as important, if not more important, to the player than the admin. This is not to say Ivan and Amok have some sinister disdain for the old players, perhaps, they are truly unaware of the situation that many of us feel, I have spoken to many friends, former enemies who I once wanted nothing more than to be rekt in vidya, now brothers in feels as we reminisce on the old days; feeling the same concept; yearning for the past, the good old days, that didn't have to end the way it did.
People still complain about the same things. They were attempted to be addressed, but in the wrong way, and instead of going all the way to fix them and make the perfect game you did only a slight patchwork job, isolating your core base and removing their sense of belonging as they were disregarded time and time again. This is not to talk about SRB mind you, if you ask Hugosch, Caulerpa, Kasap, Aristosseur, even god forbid Gardevoir, all of them will have a great many suggestions they felt wasn't taken seriously enough, and the ones they did were not implemented to a degree that you could say is "sufficient". I would say, simply, Amok & Ivan have lost their heart for the game, and so too their players did, and we now look upon a husk of which I cannot describe to those who did not experience beta to pre-turnblock AW.
So to sum up my long post, I do not condemn Ivan and Amok, but I will never understand their decisions leading up to this point, the game was so perfect that I still some years later get strong nostalgia to play again only to be disappointed heavily upon my return, increasing with each repetition. So I ask, since it is my understanding that you have lost your heart for the game, as Admins, shown quite blatantly by the lack of updates for an insane amount of time, is there anything that we the community who still hold the game dearly could do to restore your zealousness?
Whatever this game is, in its current state, I don't want it, and I feel like a lot of people don't want it. You can ask anyone around and I'm sure they'll all have something to say about its current state, and how they wish it would improve. I miss the old days, and though I know they will never return, I was promised into the new version that there would be something to look forward to in its wake, and I'm still waiting for that.
So, an appeal from the community, and if not the community, then just myself, Please Amok & Ivan, how can we assist you? I'd really like to have the game I so enjoyed back.
No they are not, also Pinhuehue don't pretend to be on the moral highground, I know exactly what you did, I was part of it, did you forget? Delete, lock if you want. It will not make a difference.
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You know, the one thing that characterized me and differentiated me from all other players is that despite being a massive faggot myself, I was the only one who ever did attack all the shitty 2nd generation mods and called them out without fear of confronting all the active mods at once. No one else is willing to fight the complete battle, that post from Tunder3 is typical in this fashion. I, on the other hand, stand for what I said that only the first generation mods were worth it, and ironic is that they put mods because of people abusing the clock, the game owner making 10 min turns and going afk. Back when many games were 2 min, that was an aberration. Fortunately for them they got lives, probably wives and jobs too. Too bad somehow they got it all wrong when leaving pinheiro, caulerpa, hugosch, vril, tzeentch, mathdino (loooool)...
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please tell us your main name and tell us more stories about the old days.i wanna hear more 
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Hi. Sorry, I don't have the time to address every point you're making, but here are a few thoughts. Was the game really better? Or are you looking at the past with nostalgia glasses? It is possible that the community was better - but that's usually the case when a game is smaller and has fewer players. Pretty much every time you will enjoy a community of 100 way more than a community of 10000. We haven't lost our hearts for the game, although it's natural that we're not as excited about it as in the beginning. Apart from that, we now both have families with little children and regular jobs. This leaves precious little time for game development. Still, we try our best. I come here every day to reply to my mailbox full of messages and provide necessary tech support. The reason why there are no updates is because we're spending all of our time on the new HTML5 version and are unwilling to tinker with the dying Silverlight. Also, you have a ridiculous notion that there's a "perfect game" that atWar can be turned into. If there's one thing we've learned in the years we've spent on atWar is that it's impossible to please everybody. For every change you roll out, 2 people will be cheering and one will be whining - and that's a good case scenario! Obviously, the game can be improved, but while we come closer to your version of a "perfect game", a legion of other players will be posting very similar messages about how the game used to be so much better and had such potential, and how they got disregarded and left behind.
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Sacrilege => AW is perfect... arguably, better than r/l, as evidenced by all the people playing. It is just becoming ... more perfect... ♥
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This is his main acc... and the fact that he know some of those people and how he actually talked ( to much bragging about himself ofc.) it sounds logical.
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Seems like there will be no more tales 
---- Don't ever look down on someone unless you're helping him up. Don't ever treat someone else the way you wouldn't want others to treat you. We're all people. 
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With the old tb system wouldn't you need 15min + per turn as you would have to move each units individually to play optimally ? I don't get how that would make more intressting cw or would require more skill than stacking. But I have heard that people in the old days were playing 2min per turn, so I think that i must be missing a point.
---- You win battles by knowing the enemy's timing, and using a timing which the enemy does not expect. Miyamoto Musashi
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Yes. Europe (no +) two minutes turns was the standard setting for a while. I think it was mainly because all tactics were still in it's beggining and there was no over thinking before all single movements made. Also: laziness.
---- "Whenever death may surprise us, let it be welcome if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear and another hand reaches out to take up our arms".
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I don't think with 4min xD
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I first found this game in late 2011, November to be exact, I enjoyed myself as a guest for a while before I made my current account in march/may, not for sure, but I bring this up because I found this game on the cusp of greatness, and I've watched many small errors From all parts of the community slowly degrade the game, yes many, I don't think a single issue is to blame but rather all of them together, from small scale mod corruption to fruit being a king troll, and everything in between. But with that being said, the game was dragged through the dirt, and it still shines like super nova, in pool of total strategy game shit, and it's very fixable, we as a community and as in we I mean those who honestly care and not those who are here for the ride but bail on cleanup, need to put our differences aside and make small steps towards a better game, many small parts of progress can reverse the the many atrocities we have concurred on our beloved game. It's time to stop talking about it and do what we can to fix what we have broken.
----  We are not the same- I am a Martian.
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There was no time. xD I remember playing ShaiBB or Counterpart in 1v1 in 2 minutes and I was just autisticly moving units all over the place. Lmao
---- "In atWar you either die a hero or live long enough to ally fag and gang bang some poor bastards." ~Goblin "In this game, everyone is hated." ~Xenosapien
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nobody cares.
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I haven't had time to answer this but, I will now.
I have asked myself this same question, and I would honestly say the game was indeed better. Throw all the unnecessary variables out such as quality community, competitive gameplay, balance, etc. The base game, with turnblock, was much more complex and fun to play. I think though the community will of course get worse, the game should maintain a standard of quality of always wanting to be at its best, and it is my opinion and the opinion of a great many players even today apparently, that it was the best version yet.
I understand completely, and I'm glad, I think everyone is appreciative to hear this; I believe pulse put up a nice solution of just talking about how far you are in development or what not every so often, it doesn't matter, I'm sure everyone just wants to be assured it is alive and kicking still.
I use the term perfect loosely of course, what I really mean is near perfect, achieved through simplicity applied to issues. Obviously some ideas are better than others, but, what I really meant to say was some were seen more easily than others (be it through moderators, spamming, appeal from authority), and some good stuff got lost in the wind. I try to stay versatile and when the turnblock change rolled out I was initially very anti, then, after a while I supported it a bit, only because I thought the game might need to be changed up; and I liked that wallglitches wouldn't work anymore - but I still feel it lost a lot in that change and I think it would do some good to bring it back. so to sum up my response, I am trying to be objective in making these posts and wipe away my nostalgia, and yet even when I do that, I see a good game. I think this is somewhat supported when new players who didn't play during that time, who had turnblock explained to them, said "Hey that's a good idea". So, I speak for the community when I ask what we can do to help, and also requesting that you be a little more active at least in communication with us. I then speak for myself by saying the game was a lot better with turnblock huehuehue.
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This is how I feel too. 3v3 games and CWs now have a very stale meta of spammy strats - perfect defense, imperialist, etc - and world games no longer require tactics. If you're winning, you can just mass an insame amount of units and march on to your enemy, no need to worry about walling, about getting into cities to avoid being turnblocked, just spam and attack. I think the game lost a lot of its skill ceiling with the removal of turn block. The majority of the complaints at the time were how the new players didn't know what the hell had happened - and instead of addressing that problem, it was decided to remove that feature. I'd also love for turnblock to come back and a little popup appear the first time a unit was turnblocked, so that new players can see what exactly happened and what is turnblock.
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Old System enabled some positives over the current system 1. More strategies were used, there was more variety in selections countrywise and practically anything in EU terms anyway was a viable choice. 2. Defeating gangbangers and ally fags was easier than it is now where it is very hard to fight 5 or 6 v 1 even if vastly more experienced. 3. Certain aspects of the 'skill' level were higher, walls were more important and turn priority was indeed of much more importance than it is now (still very important). 4. You could win being vastly outnumbered troop wise. The trouble you have is that to bring back old tb even as an option would cater for a very limited amount of players (I genuinly don't think more than 30 or so), I would play it sure, but feel like it would be a lot of work to cater for a very small number of players, If it is easy to implement then I would like to see it, but if it is a lot of work is it really worth admins time compared to the other things that are being requested by the community?
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I didn't see this until now, I've already stated my mind and said what I think about the game now, but I just feel I have to support your words for the most part. The only thing I kinda disagree with is your opinion on the community, but only partially. I also think the community was better 2 years ago, but the key word is "THINK" or "feel", objectively the only difference is more players nowadays, and as someone said it's natural to have a better touch with community and players when you know most of them because there are 100 active players, when it's 1000 you can't really have that kind of a strong connection. The community was the main reason I played, I enjoyed just to come and chat with friends, I remember talking for a whole night with Hugosch, mod/cln channel etc. and not playing at all. I also confess I thought the tb change will be the greatest update, oh boy I was wrong, it was the worst update actually that made the gameplay more dull and monotonous, like an FPS. I like that Barrymore quote which Accqui stated. With this time distance I think the turnblock should have stayed but also the tutorial for new players should have been greatly improved, and TB mechanics explained much better, Back then, probably like 10% players actually knew how it works. But I like the new ELO system both 1v1 and in cln wars much more than it was before, at least it seems much better. But switch back to TB would be impossible and terrible.
Hahahaha, this really made me laugh, 10/10 for comedy part.  At least you could have written your main account so that we know with whom we're speaking with. But yes, I was obssesed with taking SRB down, but on Europe+ map, not via mod powers. I didn't even ban anyone from SRB, maybe once or twice for a short time.
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Sorry for my very late reply as well. I did read the start of the topic, i was planning to respond; but i never did. The reason i'm not much online is mainly because a lot of my friends are not here anymore. My coalition (BM) doesn't even exist. And although i'd really like to play again, I don't like the fact that it will probably take me weeks/months to get on the same level again as i was a few years ago. I will probably get beaten by a average rank 4/5 player; while 20 players are spectating my game and telling me how to play. And when seeing the most games are either scenario's or custom games, i don't really consider to start playing that. That being said i agree with most of what you both say. Its nostalgia now, and i have a good feeling about the game in the past. But i'm not sure old times might come back. Maybe if i see that a lot my friends back in the game; i might consider taking the time to get back in action. It might be weird to say, but the fact that i hated SRB (and most of its members), gave a real competition. That is what is missing now. I even became 'friends' with Fruit, who thought that was possible? But I liked getting into a fight with you Then to the turnblocking: I was a great supporter to get rid of it, and i'm honest to say i was wrong. The main reason for my support was that, in a 4mins game, it took me 3mins to block everything i could, 30seconds to restore all the walls. And just the last 30seconds that remain, i actually did some attack moves. But looking back at this; its now more about 'who has the most units'. The old turnblocking system also gave a strategic element in the game, although the 'startlevel' was higher then it is with the current game. Still a lot has improved on the game, and a lot of efforts have been taken into suggestions we made, its something that cannot be ignored. But also the game changed, and the players changed with it. Not only is the community bigger, but they also play other games/rules then we used to do.
---- Exceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.
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I also think it's ZOG because he used to blame on mods every bad thing which happened in his life... But let's not turn this topic into that, please, it doesn't even matter. Old times won't come back, and for the game itself it's probably better, I guess half of the players would leave if tb was implemented now... People usually like mindless shooting, unit stacking and things like that in games. More simple = better for popularity, probably, I wish I was wrong. Some players, including me, would probably love to have the old system back but it won't happen I guess. Still, personally, I wouldn't come back since college and other activities take all my free time...
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Nostalgia... nostalgia everywhere...!  Not good for the community...
In my opinion, that would be considered being a coward... and the friend part an excuse since you could easily make new friends in less than a game. I'm really curious... since everyone that seems to have tried the former tb system misses it are old important players and mods, haven't you tried talking with admins so that they install an option for being able to play with the old tb system? They will listen to you for sure and it would probably be possible to implement in the new html version as an option, that way we would all be able to try it and judge for ourselves wether it was better or not. Everyone happy, no more complains about the past and everyone centered in the present and enjoying themselves without all this sad nostalgia.
---- Don't ever look down on someone unless you're helping him up. Don't ever treat someone else the way you wouldn't want others to treat you. We're all people.
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you know... just from the tone of this post, have we possibly found ourselves the creator of the original encyclopedia dramatica entry for aw?
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well... what? Isn't that true? XD
---- Don't ever look down on someone unless you're helping him up. Don't ever treat someone else the way you wouldn't want others to treat you. We're all people.
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interesting
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I have no sympathy for oldfags such as yourself. You lot are the cancer of atWar, and the fact that you're unaware of it proves your perpetual inability to fix the issues that you yourselves are plaguing the game with. You insist, since you're older players, that you be given some special, elite treatment, and if newer players must be shoved in the backseat, so be it, as the only thing that you veteran players teach them on is how to be as cold and heartlessly cruel as you are. Thus the cycle of xenophobic mannerisms and behaviours continues in the glitch-infested, cacophonous abyss that is atWar, not fucking Afterwind. The name changed years ago, fucking deal with it. You sound as if you're a bunch of conservatives afraid of the slightest modulation.
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 my death metal band finally found a name 
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Hm.... ok? Which veteran player is that cruel to deserve such words? I mean, if you think that way, you must have met some player that actually behaves like that, right?  You could have also been a little less harsh with your opinion 
---- Don't ever look down on someone unless you're helping him up. Don't ever treat someone else the way you wouldn't want others to treat you. We're all people.
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