And the most popular spring game of 2012 is:

[Beherith]

Congrats! I try ZK every few months to see what you are up to :)

BA players who try ZK probably do so with their own lobby so don't receive the settings deployed by ZKL. This reduces the chance of ZK working. They also are likely to mess around with the UI because they know that you can do that in BA. This could also cause things to break.

Put simply if you come at ZK as a standalone game it has a much higher chance of working than if you switch to it from BA and keep all your broken settings and UI preconceptions.

ZKLobby has too much lock-in. It should not hide all non ZK games by default if it wishes to be included in engine downloads. Spamming players to download zklobby when they join a ZK game, and then auto hiding all other games when they actually download it is just plain underhanded.

[Google_Frog]

Afaik we're not aiming to be included in engine download. That wouldn't make much sense for ZKL because it's not just an exe sitting in the engine folder. I just stated an explanation as to why it doesn't work for many BA players. This is ok because they are not the target for gaining players.

[Silentwings]

Afaik we're not aiming to be included in engine download.

Yes, imo if ZKLobby is included in the engine download it should make an effort to be compatible with all mods, or it makes life even harder for new projects.

[Licho]

It is compatible with all mods.

All you need to do is untick "official only" filter on multiplayer page here:



thats it

It also allows easy hosting of other games even if you dont have downloaded yet:



The official only switch is unchecked if ZKL is started from spring installer.
It is only active if you started it as a standalone program.
But im not sure if this still works because the detection was hacky.

[Silentwings]

I'm pretty sure that when I installed ZKL about a month ago, using the installer than came with spring, it defaulted to showing only ZK games.

Sorry if I implied that ZKL was not able to handle other mods - I only meant to say that, if installed with spring, it shouldn't be hiding them. It's a good lobby and I know that quite a few non-ZK players use it.

[knorke]

I just stated an explanation as to why it doesn't work for many BA players. This is ok because they are not the target for gaining players.

well some time ago, BA players were the target for gaining players. Some of the adlines spammed in #main referenced to BA or even directly compared to it...

•ZK, the open sourced evolved BA
•Want to see what happens to BA after years of improvements?
•Try Zero-K carriers with automatic flying drones. Each has a mini-peewee inside!

in Poll "How did you learn about zK?" the most popular answer was "from spring"

It is compatible with all mods.

Last time I tried zkl could only host the mods listed in its dropdown menu.

[luckywaldo7]

Since when was BA not open source? Who wrote these awful adlines, they are worse than the CA ones. D:

I've tried about a dozen times in total, probably about once every six months average. Each time I've been greeted with a new bug or problem and instead of bothering to stick around and help fix them all, I just go back to my non-buggy BA because I'm lazy and don't care enough to help fix a game just so I can play it.

Instead of uploading a screenshot and maybe trying a later version, you expect hobby developers to spend their own money on a variety of testing hardware? Seems reasonable.

[Licho]

Last time I tried zkl could only host the mods listed in its dropdown menu.

Thats just your lack of understanding, this dialog never changed, you need to click "advanced" and specify full mod name, it can host any mod known to plasma system.

It has always been that way, combo box is there for convenience and each combo box item is tied to one rapid tag.

[Jazcash]

Instead of uploading a screenshot and maybe trying a later version, you expect hobby developers to spend their own money on a variety of testing hardware? Seems reasonable.

Like I said, I can't be bothered to put in the effort to make ZK work properly if it doesn't work straight out of the box. Maybe that makes it more my fault than ZK's. All I'm saying is I've had a range of different serious issues each time I've tried ZK/CA and it gets tiring to have new bugs arise after I've just got one fixed.

I'm also in agreement with all the reasons Alba gave for not playing ZK.

[very_bad_soldier]

ZK now does not use pure communism, but investment return system, your expansion is first repaid to you and then its shared equally (share % gradually changes).
This helps to maintain fast expansion even in huge games.

So I build a mex and then I get m from it as much as the mex did cost me? Mex incoming beyond that is then shared equally to all players? "share % gradually changes" sounds like not being transparent for the player.

My opinion is that lots of these ZK game mechanics are quite complicated and not obvious for the player. I remember the grid between mexes, overdrive, etc.
Is that still in place? I admit the last time I tried it is like 2 years ago but I didnt understand how this whole eco system is works.

[luckywaldo7]

The pylon system itself it actually very self-explanatory. In this video the player comes to understand the basics of it extremely fast. It also works for giving a very quick and intuitive visual overview of how a team is doing on economy: more area coverage and redder color means better overdrive economy.

The resource redistribution is awful, and many of us were highly opposed when it was only even an idea. To be fair, it was trying to solve a problem with communism where a player could build absolutely no economy, mexes or energy, and just kind of leech off his team, to the detriment of people who did contribute to the team economy.

On the other hand, while communism did have its downfalls, it was itself trying to solve a problem with individual overdrive, where someone on fewer mexes and more energy would be less efficient than a teammate with more mexes and fewer energy. Players needing to manually organize and redistribute energy ownership for most efficient net team overdrive is silly gameplay, and communism made it automatic.

And then of course, overdrive was developed to solve the problems of metal-makers.

So the economy system was born out of series of iterations in trying to solve problems. It could really use a solid analysis of what problems actually needed to be solved, and what problems can't be solved. (i.e., you can't make anything entirely idiot-proof)

[PicassoCT]

Its needs anti-economic bombardment- a long range artillery which sucks energy out of the pylon if hitting in his area. :D

Which actually means... pylons bombarded still got energy, pylons non-bombarded far away are suddenly running dry ..

[Google_Frog]

- I get frustrated Vet have access to unit they say there are usless while they alwyas kill you with it which is frustrating
- there is far much more noob which make the game experience terrible if you are use to the BA data base: long story short, after 10 game I was on top most dmg almost always.
- communist game completely ruin the expansion process that make you want to advanced to win ground, but thus u need more resources to defend it. When I did that I get 1/8th of the resources. -> I understand why I is popular: it is noob friendly so noob can learn staying behind. That the reason most experienced BA player are bored imo

The first one is fixed with a less stringent lock system because I thought it was scaring people away.

The second is a sign of a growing game but you can always start your own host.

The third is complicated but basically we refund mex cost. I would take some sort of mex sharing over the private income model because private income makes player layout rigid and leads to infighting as people have ideas about which mexes they should personally own. Of course that is only a problem in pub games but I assume that was what you were talking about because in an organized team game it should not matter that you have no personal incentive to expand.

[Godde]

Don't forget factory plop.
Getting a free factory, a steady income from your commander and communism is probably the biggest reasons why large public teamgames are possible on pretty much any map.

[Forboding Angel]

ZK has in the past used some pretty shady tactics in order to get BA players to play ZK, that much is pretty undeniable.

That said, dunno how much I care. The way I figure it, if someone wanted to play evo, they would have gotten it from desura, not by installing spring from this site. I don't really see ZK's being popular to be a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination.

I don't agree with a lot of the player gathering tactics though, but hell, it worked, so who can argue with results?

[smoth]

seems like a lot of baw and speculation.. whatever.

Gratz go to both zk and I feel honorable mention to xta, 3rd place isn't easy to hold around here.

[Licho]

Shady tactics, WHAT?? That IS deniable! I deny that!

If you mean advertising in #main when I was online.. well ok look at #main now ..

[gajop]

Yeh.. I preferred Licho's slightly silly spam in #main to today's autohost's ads..

[knorke]

they all suck.

[TERA]Host1 * 12 player(s) needed for battle "Team game autohost; rotating maps" [Balanced Annihilation V7.72, Emain Macha] ([SmuG]Cairus)
[x]TheHost * 10 player(s) needed for battle "TrueSkill Autobalance - 1400 maps - max 6vs6" [Balanced Annihilation V7.72, Tundra] ([SmuG]Cairus)
[18:05:06] * [TERA]Host2 * 6 player(s) needed for battle "Team game autohost; no map rotation" [Balanced Annihilation V7.72, DeltaSiegeDry] ([LOeT]Emission)
Reclaiming BA, one percent at a time! While you go retro, others go thePro. Sign up, before its to late!

#main was joyfull place of frohlocking until spam took over.

[PicassoCT]

i never licked that froh- whoever in main. Thats you and your froh-linguistic friends who did that..

I still wait for the ultimate speedmetall.. dsd combination.