Possibility of a Contingency campaign?

[Lord Apocalypse]

Rman, do you happen to remember how many downloads the 1.11 update got within a month or perhaps any of the other major releases?? I know I posted about them in the private bb oh so long ago...

[Rman Virgil]

Rman, do you happen to remember how many downloads the 1.11 update got within a month or perhaps any of the other major releases?? I know I posted about them in the private bb oh so long ago...

25-35k.... average. Sometimes shockingly more than 35k. MPlayer dl stats were higher....plus the stats for peeps playing MP - I joined Admin in May '99, so... But don't wanna stray too OT.

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[Lord Apocalypse]

I think it was still on topic, to a point anyway.

[Rman Virgil]

I think it was still on topic, to a point anyway.

Yea... to the extent we got into what I think is a valuable anslysis distinguishing the games audience based on Modes. This thread is focused on Contingency as the basis for CAM and that is very different than its role in MP and I believe the statistics would be of greater value in discussing the MP mode and Contingency does have its MP mode thread. That said, discussing Contingency in the context of ALL modes is useful. As for Contingency as the basis of a CAM, even in the absence of statistics, I think it a safe bet that it could very well be a total success with that game mode audience.

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[Iluvalar]

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I still think he can follow the Pumpkin pattern and introduce new stuff in a more staggered, spaced apart, timeline (along with associated balance changes). That release schedule model seemed to work out well for the tens of thousands of fans of the original retail, MPlayer, WZ community. It was like experiencing X-mas every few weeks.

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I don't believe this situation can hold the comparison. Yes, Pumpkin did released a work in progress and improved it a lot afterwards... But obviously, at least one of the knew what they were needing for a balance to be possible. I still find once in a while curious patterns I didn't never realised before. One of the was a game designer and he knew what the constraints he needed/wanted to follow in order to achieve the game.

Shadow wolf, however, is nuking the pillars in the name of the "variety". But they are what sustain the variety we already have and he dont realise it at all...

[Rman Virgil]

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@ Iluvalar: You could be right. It could turn-out that way in the end. But I think letting it play-out in actual gaming over time will be the true test and will also, possibly, yield worthwhile object lessons and even useful data. Actual gaming over time has been known to overturn even the most robust theoretical predictions with totally suprising, and satisfying, results.

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[Iluvalar]

+1 I'll agree with that. Here is a quote from my first post :

In any ways, I strongly suggest that you concentrate on failing to balance what you already have in contingency. The quicker you realize it's impossible, the quicker we gona have that next mod.

I consider starting a new campaign project now wouldn't be a valuable effort.
Schedule :
1- Fail Contingency
2- Learn from error and rebuild another mod
3- Talk about campaign.

[Rman Virgil]

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Iluvalar, there are some parallels here to the Science in Economics, don't ya think?:

Is Economics a Science? - It would be, if it weren’t for the people.

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[Rman Virgil]

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Let me posit this reiteration with elaboration.

1.) There are 2 distinct audiences here: Continginency for MP and Contigency for Campaign.

2.) The overlap of audiences is practically nil.

3.) Retail WZ introduced the Campaign Matrix FIRST.

4.) Over the course of 10 patches the MP Matrix was introduced gradually, altered along the way and significantly diverged from the Retail Campaign Matrix.

5.) Some components of the Retail Campaign Matrix NEVER factored into the MP Matrix - or even made it into the MP Matrix..!!!

WZ Creators followed a different schedule with a different agenda. SEE: "Is Economics A Science? - It would be if it wasn't for the people."

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[Shadow Wolf TJC]

@Iluvalar: Let me get one thing straight: I, 1st and foremost, created the Contingency mod as a primarily multiplayer-oriented mod, though I COULD (meaning I won't guarantee) one day (which could be anywhere from a couple months to a couple years) take one set of multiplayer balance data from it, tweak it, and adapt it for a singleplayer experience (regardless of how balanced it is). That's frequently what I see in games like Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars and StarCraft 2, as the 2 sets of data, singleplayer and multiplayer, might've shared a common beginning, but often tended to drift apart as time went by (as was especially apparent with StarCraft 2). Also, it's very unlikely for a singleplayer experience to need balance changes on as frequent a basis as a multiplayer experience. (Again, for example, while the multiplayer experience in StarCraft 2 continues to change to this very day, the singleplayer experience has remained virtually intact throughout all these couple years.)

Personally, me working on the Contingency mod was just me practicing for when I'd eventually want to develop my own rts game (which would've likely played differently from Warzone 2100 altogether, let alone the Contingency mod, despite possibly being somewhat of a spiritual sequel). Regardless of whether or not the balance fails, I'm unlikely to develop another multiplayer-oriented mod for Warzone 2100 in the future, though I could still learn something useful from developing my Contingency mod.

Once I'm ready to move onto other things, I may want to let others do the rebalancing for me. I'm aware that trying to keep the gameplay balance fresh for years would require that much time to support, and I'm personally not willing to devote that much time on maintaining such a thing. I'd burn myself out within only a couple months. (I'm already feeling fatigued when it comes to developing the Contingency mod.)