Whoa, a lot of things have been said here. Impossible to separate any sides though, as I think - like it was mentioned - every single person experiences this game and it's community, the time spent with them differently from different aspects, thus having different expectations that the game and it's community has to live up for - which is obviously impossible.
Let me give you my opinion, my experience, how I have lived these days spent with this game. I started playing in 2007, for the simple reason that we first got internet connection then. I was eager to try all my old games in multiplayer, because I could never imagine how it would be to play against other people in the galaxy.
I remember I inserted disc after disc and slowly found out that people on the internet who played those games were all dicks. They called me things like "noob" which I didn't know what it meant, I was being kicked, laughed at...
Then, somehow, I stumbled upon the old, weary, dusty disc of WWP so I thought I'd give it a try. And things were different. I joined a game (I believe it was a WxW) and after my very strategic and well-thought-out first bazooka hit, the guy said: "oh, you don't know the rules!". And that's where the difference came in related to other games. I wasn't kicked. He didn't leave the game. There wasn't even namecalling. He asked me if I spoke English so he could start explaining. That is the reason I sticked with this game.
Soon after, at the beginning of 2008 I switched to WA and it was really different, my first game I played was a Big BnA, which was way beyond my imagination that was built on WWP. But people were still nice, friendly, helpful.
Bringing back the time when one has the excitement of exploring a new game is impossible. To people like KRD, you can't show much new and as new generations come to WormNET, I don't think KRD will enjoy playing with them. Yes, I'm talking about the newbies, no insult intented, they are simply too young.
It's a natural thing, new faces show up, although it has been very radical in the past 6 months I think, this is only a guess, but I think some company sells the game in Brazilia now, lot of new players from there. I wonder if MI could check the amount of new people registering in the 6 months and compare them to the previous ones... something like that would be good, piecharts make you look smart you know...
Now for a few things mentioned.
First of all, I read KRD's article and I have to say I somewhat share his feelings.
KRD said something about not seeing schemes hosted like TTRR and he also mentioned the lack of quality maps, although we have the technology. Good point. As for the TTRR example, I believe it's the same symptom as BnG -
people can not play it! You don't enjoy doing something that you are simply unable to, right? Especially if there are countless of better possibilities, like Hysteria in this case. More fun for them.
Not to mention, in the old days, there was RRkit! There was HHC's tutorials (which still are up by the way, just barely visited I think and very outdated). The point is, there is no real step-by-step, "learntheschemein5minutes" tutorial on the internet! There is just none. There is TUS Schools, right? Still not released, even though it's basically working and that's a little critic to MI for not focusing on it.
Same that KRD mentioned with quality map making tutorials.
Personally I don't think W:A has changed in any bad way. It has changed for sure. But it is just the same as life. The life style we know today is different from 20 years ago. It changed to the way it is now because it was needed. Because there was a need which forced it to change to suit our needs.
Today's W:A doesn't want to experience the "2003 W:A". Today's W:A needed Hysteria, Kaos ...
I have to disagree with that. It's not what this game needed, I think there should have been a lot more focus on keeping the old traditions alive and nurturing the newcomers so they learn what the ways of this game, the older community is so that they can basically step in our footsteps. Of course, doing that besides assuring they have their room to jump into their creativity and create new schemes as well. Unfortunately, there were no enough enthusiastic people who shared this opinion, so this failed basically.
To finish, I don't only miss things - like the excitement of exploring the game, new friends, first clanner, first league game (
Tower) - but in my personal view, there are a few things that are just wrong in today's community. The biggest example is the clan's that don't play clanners. And the meaningless communities. I could go on and on...
There are a lot of things on my mind, I even made some notes what I want to mention while reading...
Anyway, these were my thoughts.
Forums
Poll
