Everyone is blaming the upcoming death of dxmp from different aspect of view - some say it is fast fire rate killing dxmp, another ones think it is aliasing, third ones think it is because dxmp is not popular on steam anymore. To resolve dxmp death and prevent it from happening, we should first investigate why it is happening, to get some kind of liable proofs, don't you think so? Only saying why it is dying, without proof is not good enough...

What I can say only is that exactly 2 years ago, there were at least 2 times more active players. I don't know what went wrong so badly in last 2 years that player count dropped so much. It never dropped so much in the history of DXMP yet.

DXMP forever. I'll never let it die. Currently I am recruiting players from another game to DX. Rpg players but still players. I am making an rpg map and hosting rpg maps which suit their preferences to make the transition easier. Screw clans. Screw clanwars. Stop wasting your tine and start bringing players to the community from other communities. Stop arguing on forums and take action(I'm a hypocrite for saying that but really). When I show people this topic they say things like:

"My *loving* God,the part that got me was talking about how to address each other"

"Shameful"

You're part of the problem if you just sit around and watch it die.

Okay so I think one thing everyone can agree on is that everyone wants DXMP back to what it was although there are different opinions on how to do so.

What can we take away from the five pages of this thread and produce it into something productive and some thing that will bring it back to life?

There are a wide variety of skills here that people have and while we may not ALL get along and agree, the reason we are here is because we love DX. The only places I've seen (forgive me for me ignorance if there are any more) is here and Steam that actually give a toss about bringing DX back.

It is very possible that if we put all this bickering aside and channel that passion into producing something that will restore the glory. Something that will cater for the majority (let's face it we can't please everyone). But it can't be done with a few people, it needs to be a community effort.

If we produce/created some fresh content(whatever that may be) and everyone contributed to the whole PR thing and put the word out. Something that will want people to blow the dust off the old cd in the box/ download it.

There are lots of small packages and coding scripts all over the place that if combined and catered for would add up into a really nice package.(server packages/graphic enhancements etc). Along with a few other things added in (fresh content' for example, lets face it the standard 6 maps although classics are outplayed IMO).

A directory like what chinny is doing for all the maps from which I've seen on his blog are along the lines of what I was thinking for an example.

Again it needs to be a community effort, with the right PR, Content and Community it's all possible to bring this old Betsy back to what it was.

DejaVu wrote:Everyone is blaming the upcoming death of dxmp from different aspect of view - some say it is fast fire rate killing dxmp, another ones think it is aliasing, third ones think it is because dxmp is not popular on steam anymore. To resolve dxmp death and prevent it from happening, we should first investigate why it is happening, to get some kind of liable proofs, don't you think so? Only saying why it is dying, without proof is not good enough...

What I can say only is that exactly 2 years ago, there were at least 2 times more active players. I don't know what went wrong so badly in last 2 years that player count dropped so much. It never dropped so much in the history of DXMP yet.

Hmm yes.. obviously the ravages of times are even far stronger than what you performed to do in order to reduce the player count, 7 years ago.

Considering all of the circumstances, the amount of players in DXMP right now is perfectly normal, if not surprisingly large.

To improve the situation, a better game has to be coded, mapped and otherwise designed, on any engine. The engine and the amount of work needed to put into it will depend on how much one wants to improve the player numbers and how big risks one is willing to take. The continued popularity of DX1 and the vastly larger player base than we had 13 years ago work in our favor.

I think the main problem with this community is that it has too many mods being developed at any one time, DXMP'ers are segregated into their own mods here and there. We are still waiting for Cozmo RPG v3, DXSM, FaceTown, Hengsha RPG and Undead Revolution. I would love to see the makers of all these mods work on one collective effort for example. Also people are frightened to host these mods as work in progress for the most part, exceptions being Cozmo RPG v2, Cagematch and Animals vs Humans (all popular and well loved mods).

So putting a foot forward if there was some sort of ball rolling?

DX's multiplayer was subpar when it was released and 12 years of time passing hasn't done much to help it. New players aren't going to stick around for the good old times like us. The number of issues with MP are numerous and fixing them all would require a lot of time and skill. The entire game needs to be redone. If we had a few Dejavu clones it could be possible. But even if everything was redone in a way that appealed to new players, the current players probably would prefer the vanilla ATDM/0A servers where they can use their leet rifling skills.

Most of what you say is true, but the ending is ambiguous at best.

There is nothing wrong with the design of the multiplayer itself. I am talking about the online concept that the developers went with. It was certainly the most obvious and reliable solution given the resources they had available to develop this patch to begin with. And, had they focused on multi-player game from start, I don't see any particular reason why they wouldn't have gone the very same route again and just left less mistakes in while developing existing ideas further.

Now, not only is there nothing wrong with the design itself, the playerbase has in fact sticked around because of how it is. Due to some particular nuances, mostly the lure of editing freedom, there is a portion of players and modders that actually do not know the game, but that is irrelevant to my point. Fact is that scrapping original game design is a slippery road to put it very lightly, and will cause far more disagreements among the modders than patching the actual game would.

If anyone wants to go completely different route with multiplayer design, then I honestly do not envy them. Certainly doable, just far less likely to succeed by any margin. Among other things, you have to think of content for one. In PVP (original DXMP design) players are 90% of the content game longevity wise. In PVE (which you likely support) you provide 90% and players represent 10%.

DejaVu wrote:Everyone is blaming the upcoming death of dxmp from different aspect of view - some say it is fast fire rate killing dxmp, another ones think it is aliasing, third ones think it is because dxmp is not popular on steam anymore. To resolve dxmp death and prevent it from happening, we should first investigate why it is happening, to get some kind of liable proofs, don't you think so? Only saying why it is dying, without proof is not good enough...

What I can say only is that exactly 2 years ago, there were at least 2 times more active players. I don't know what went wrong so badly in last 2 years that player count dropped so much. It never dropped so much in the history of DXMP yet.

I applaud your efforts with the upcoming mods you made and such. But, your incident was one of the factors why the player count is so low. Anyway, I felt the player count went up during the release of Deus Ex 3. Making new players potentially trying the original game. Now that Deus Ex 3 is kinda old news now. The new players died out. This community is basically built off old players who come and go. As well as the American side of Deus Ex is dead. The game is basically Euro dominated. Most old players I have chatted with said Euro's never attempt to join our servers cause of ping. But, they rarely hear complaints when we join there servers. This is a big issue with Deus Ex.

Vaan wrote:i really dont see the problem with aliasing

With respect, you're not a modder, RPG mapper, coder, clan leader, you have no stakehold in DXMP, nor are you a permanent player, therefore your statement is true of your experience, you've had no reason to be trolled, aliased, harrassed etc or for your server or your work to be challenged in this under-handed way. Take it or leave it, I'm not interested until aliasing is removed.

Vaan wrote:i really think we just need more active admins..

Totally agree, but that is another story too, which upon examination will boil down to two or three people.

And we need the begginers server back if you want new players to stick around...

Beginners server again, did it really serve beginners? My memory is pros coming on and playing to the limit of the kill-throttle, waiting outside and inside those expanded spawnrooms (little battle areas). By making the spawnrooms bigger and linking them together on Smuggles, it turned into a worse sight, beginners often never left that spawnroom. Deja is kidding himself. What he really did was temporarily destroy mods and 0-aug, forcing people to be raped by auggers. It was entirely to serve the politics and agenda of auggers. Deja don't kid yourself you did any great sacrifice, it was quite the opposite, you gave people no choice and at the end of the day, you created a place where beginners were coralled and then killed, so bad that you had to create a kill throttle. They were quite happy avoiding you and auggers in the first place. Go figure why.

Chinny wrote: I think the main problem with this community is that it has too many mods being developed at any one time

This coming from the man who decided to break away and make his own Hengsha map and publicly call for the cancellation of the demo and the first map. With respect, you are full of it, dishonest and you see the whole thing as some kind of competition, that there can only be one winner.

Hengsha was a PR opportunity, but you decided Cozmo 3 was more important. Then when you did arrive, I tried to fit you and Chees by creating a hub map that offered spaces. Then even, we gave you the opportunity on MSN to change the project, change the map, or work with us, but without even telling us, you told Eidos it should be cancelled and that you were going to make a "better" map. PR opportunity is now well gone, but you're sitting there on forums, blaming other modders/mappers for making "too many" mods.

So why should I or anyone else take you, Deja and Ken seriously? In your case, your competitiveness is the issue.
All you three mainly do, is blame other mappers and modders and players, rather than yourselves.

Like I said, I can't help you guys until you are a bit more honest about the situation, that includes removing aliasing.

I did my part in the last two years, 8 months of fulltime work on Hengsha, not including another 6 months of part-time work. To put that amount of work into something is pointless, if someone can enter server, alias and talk metabolic end product about the mod, or spam until people leave, or spam so that everyone goes to another server. The competition in this game is killing the game. It's not my only reason for knowing aliasing is part of the problem, but even the modding community is affected by it too.

I've had conversations on MSN with one person here, who literally could not live with the fact that Blade had more guests.
Rather than focus on his business and how to improve it, or take on feedback/requests, he continued to refuse to host certain maps, and as a result the server emptied, yet he still tried to blame Blade and have an issue with Blade's server being popular, he didn't see it as his own failure to listen or improve his server. This is so typical of the mentality of people with a stakehold in DXMP and it is impossible to coach and develop people stuck in this competition mode.

L.O.X. wrote:Most old players I have chatted with said Euro's never attempt to join our servers cause of ping. But, they rarely hear complaints when we join there servers. This is a big issue with Deus Ex.

Another example of how players/editors are ignoring the target audience/market. GODZserver had the worst lag in the history of gaming, but Euro's played there, go figure why. Godz had lams, easier kills, a wide variety of map and quality of map and map size, author etc, kinda like what Blade has got going, but with lams.

Poor wrote:DX's multiplayer was subpar when it was released and 12 years of time passing hasn't done much to help it. New players aren't going to stick around for the good old times like us. The number of issues with MP are numerous and fixing them all would require a lot of time and skill. The entire game needs to be redone. If we had a few Dejavu clones it could be possible. But even if everything was redone in a way that appealed to new players, the current players probably would prefer the vanilla ATDM/0A servers where they can use their leet rifling skills.

Humans are so retarded... We're a species that demands change, but are frightened by what is new/foreign. When the change is implemented, because of this fear, we often don't like the change and resort back to our old ways. As Poor was saying, even if the dx community did manage to overhaul DX, most players would still prefer the old version.

I hardly think that is the issue here. The numbers of current players and potentially returning few veterans do not compare to a healthy player-base of a reasonably populated game. I think that much larger issue is the lack of hands that would make it happen *and* agree on the same goals. It has to be said though, that if you want to design utterly bizzarre metabolic end product then it would be no wonder that neither the past nor anticipated players would receive it well. A new option is not always better than the old one, if the previous was made by people who knew what they were doing and the latter by those who thought they did.

I'm really sorry you see it that way Shadow, I just want to release work that I am happy with. It's all fun for me making maps, the day it isn't fun will be the day I stop. I don't see many people releasing maps these days and I think it's quite sad as we had great success with the mapping challenge two years ago for example. I hope we are still cool as I think we have worked well in a team before and we managed to create the Cozmo RPG v2 map - probably the greatest collaboration map the community has seen to date (although I'm hoping for Cozmo and Chees to take that crown off us soon).