How long will W:A survive?

[Anubis]

The online section of a game can easily die, when servers are shut down for example. And for many, W:A's online features are what makes it "live". If you join WN at any time and can't find a single person to play it is basically "dead". So if T17 closes the doors we can officially say W:A is dead. It might run fan-made servers but in this conversion time it will bleed many wormers that just played casually.

It can also individually die, for me W:A is almost dead because 1. most wormers I used to play with don't play, 2. the scheme I liked the most has no real activity anymore. Your scientific analysis doesn't really fit anyway because a game can't live and can't die to begin with. xD

[raffie]

Die in this sense mean no more online activity, you don't have to take things literally.

I voted 40+ but obviously it all depends on actions we cant predict, like for example if T17 come out with a Worms game that has everything that makes WA awesome, like the physics engine, (REAL) customizability, etc and then builds upon that to make it even better and have new awesome flashy graphics. That could be a killer for WA, but it that ever gonna happen? Maybe T17 goes bankrupt in 5 years or maybe they eventually will grow tired of making Worms games? (not :p ).
Another question; is WA going to continue to be updated, or developped for? Rubberworm and Project-X have changed WA drastically the last few years, who knows if I still would be playing WA without PX or Rubberworm?

No-one can predict these things so anything is a guess 

[philie]

if T17 come out with a Worms game that has everything that makes WA awesome ... and then builds upon that to make it even better

LOL

[KungPow]

If I'm not mistaken, Wormnet generates almost no traffic for T17's servers, since games are hosted in the end user's network (except for HostingBuddy and WormNAT2 users). It's not like they're spending millions on a Data Center to maintain Wormnet running, so they have no reason to shut it down.

[Marko]

Even if they had a reason, I don't see it impossible for us to make our own server, Cybershadow playing around with a little coding and making it as a default server etc etc
Even if not, there's always community servers which could basically serve as the same thing.

W:A has more users than some newer Worms games, I certainly hope, in fact I'm sure T17 is not a bunch of faggots like EA who shut down Battleforge after just two years of users spending insane amounts of money to get more items.
One day they just announced: "We encourage you to spend your ingame money because there will be no refunds. The server will run for a month and then shut down. Thank you for understanding".

[TheKomodo]

One day they just announced: "We encourage you to spend your ingame money because there will be no refunds. The server will run for a month and then shut down. Thank you for understanding".

People like that need to cease to exist.

[Anubis]

Even if they had a reason, I don't see it impossible for us to make our own server, Cybershadow playing around with a little coding and making it as a default server etc etc
Even if not, there's always community servers which could basically serve as the same thing.

W:A has more users than some newer Worms games, I certainly hope, in fact I'm sure T17 is not a bunch of faggots like EA who shut down Battleforge after just two years of users spending insane amounts of money to get more items.
One day they just announced: "We encourage you to spend your ingame money because there will be no refunds. The server will run for a month and then shut down. Thank you for understanding".

Lol I actually have BattleForge, I really liked it, never spend cash in it besides the initial purchase to play it. So nowadays you can't even play it at all anymore? No way to play single player offline?

[Marko]

Komito - agreed

Nope, there's no way to play it anymore but there is an amateur project, some fans are making new battleforge from scratch
You can find more info here, it's going to be completely F2P: https://www.facebook.com/BattleForge-Reborn-1631379693773798/timeline/

It's soon to be released, in a month or so, but not sure

[Y2JID]

10 years? unless old skoolers have a huge come back

[TheWalrus]

In my opinion, unless there is an influx of new people from another location, WA will slowly die.  Look at it this way: The composition of wormnet at the beginning, back in 1999, was mostly north american/brazil/uk/france/spain/germany.  You could look at the list of people in the lobby and it would be tons of USA, canada, UK.  Now the number of people from those countries is relatively small.  USA is possibly the largest group of gamers (pure speculation) and are represented with a tiny fraction of wormnet overall.  Speaking from my countries perspective, about 90-95% of the USA pros no longer play or are on extended leave. 

I left for many years after 2003, and returned in 2009 for a very short time.  Prior to this, I had never ever seen a russian flag on wormnet to my recollection, maybe one or two at the very most.  By 2009, there was a absolutely huge contingent of russians, as well as other eastern european countries represented.  Now, it appears the russian invasion has tapered off quite a bit.

Now, if you are following me here, a very clear pattern emerges as to the game being widely distributed and played in different countries that otherwise didn't play the game before.  You would imagine for a new base to enter in now would take:

1.  A monumental rise in popularity based on a powerful gamer with a huge base playing the game continually (think pewdiepie), if you don't know who this is, go to youtube and check out how many subscribers he has.

2.  The game being distributed widely in a market that it otherwise hadn't before, possibly japan or china, but it seems that don't necessarily take to western games not named starcraft or LoL.  I'd say it's unlikely at this point as even korean worms was never really that popular.

3.  A move by team17 to solidify its user base around the classic worms games in the form of actually contracting CS and deadwood in a meaningful way that makes it worth their while to dedicate time (they have 0 interest, as the financial incentive isn't there for them).

4.  A new spiritual successor to WA that brings all of us over, because they finally put out a product that combined the facets that we all love and put out a cohesive product that pulls us in (insanely unlikely at this point, in fact it seems to be going in the opposite direction).

Those are the only four factors I can actually foresee turning the tide, and none of them are really remotely plausible, but I hope that any of these things could happen.

[j0e]

deadwood

[TheWalrus]

deadwood

Macbook Pro is autocorrecting shit since OS yosemite upgrade.  It's pretty annoying and I need to disable it.

[Anubis]

So after a few days it seems 40+ years is winning, I find that very unreasonable simply because there exist no similar case of a MP online game to live that long. What's like the oldest running MP game besides W:A? Quake still has a community I know of, hmm can't think of anything else tbh. I highly doubt it will go for 40+ years, Walrus summed it up pretty good so I would agree on maximal 10 years from now on.

[Kradie]

At least people aren't a cynic. It's good to have hope. WA doesn't have to rely on old school people, that's a bit selfish. I do agree if TuS goes, half of WA will fade and continue to fade from there.

[JayP]

2 posts in 1 year, I'm on a role!

Seriously though the game will last for as long as the server is kept open. I would be along the same lines as a lot of people here though. When I go online a lot of my old mates don't play anymore, or if they do it's few and far between. That and I was never much good with the rope except for my awesome Shadows!

There is no real element of achievement anymore apart from running leagues such as TUS, so when you finish a game it's like yay but no ranking points etc... Even in the games I play today I look at the ranking element of it.

What needs to be done to keep the game alive is an update at the start of Wormnet (And I admit I don't know I haven't been online for a while) That gives a link to the TUS website to promote new players to come to the website to learn what the community is about.

As was said Team 17 could decide one morning that they are going to be awesome and create a game based on WA with a new interface, weapons, schemes etc, but not messing up the mechanics of the game.
Alternatively what could happen and as an opportunity for someone out there who is into creating games etc. Would potentially be to go to KickStarter, make a campaign for a new game based off Worms Armageddon as a Spiritual successor. Instead of Worms it could be called Slugs (If you get my drift)

I am thinking Mighty No. 9 and the Nostalgia for that is immense as it relates to MegaMan.

Overall from thinking myself the community would be dead 10 years ago, to see it still going in 2015, I honestly think the Community is what will keep the game alive ultimately. The only problem is with a game like this at this age, it's very easy to get into the "what we had, or this is how it works" rather than looking to innovate, even on a website as awesome as TUS there are things that could be done, such as a dedicated chat for game challenges and a link directly into the hosting of the game rather than going through Wormnet.

Alas that's my rant! Long winded and less about the point then the original question, but that's me