Cursed Ravine

[Lewin]

kontr, let me tell you a story about this community...

The forum represents a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of players of KaM Remake. Most people here are the "hardcore" KaM players who are highly skilled at the game and like to play it a very specific way: 60 minutes PT, x1 speed, and only certain maps which don't encourage "camping" (which some players might call defending). These hardcore players are also known as TeamSpeak players because they hang out of the TeamSpeak server kamts.eu. They typically despise those who they call the "randoms", which is most people playing on public servers. Most KaM Remake players seem to like playing Cursed Ravine (defensive/campy maps) with 75-90 minutes of peacetime, and x2-x3 speed, which is very different from the way the hardcore players play. I'd say these "random" players are more casual, they want a fast paced game with more defending/sieging (rather than large open battles that harecore players have) and typically have a lower level of skill. This makes sense, not everyone wants to spend 2 hours on a game of KaM, and defensive maps give you a chance to stay alive and train an army if your opponent made a bigger army right after peacetime ends.

From my point of view as a developer, we want to please everyone who plays KaM Remake. However, our community is pretty much exclusively made of hardcore players who are extremely loyal and helpful to us in developing the game (and are also my friends). It's possible that when casual players dedicate enough time to the game to join our forum community they become so skilled that they get tired of the "casual" popular style of gameplay and end up joining the "hardcore" players.

I find it disappointing when there are clashes between the popular/casual players and the hardcore players. Some hardcore players are elitists and believe that everyone should play the game their way, and are rude and dismissive towards anyone who plays the popular way. They tell us developers we should remove x2/x3 speed, limit the number of towers each player can build, make 60 the maximum PT, etc. so everyone is forced to play their way (which they call the "correct way", I find that kind of arrogant). They seem to forget that they are actually a small minority of the total KaM Remake players and their way of playing is unpopular with most players (although they are also the most loyal/active/helpful in the community so from our point of view we want to support them and their play style).

KaM Remake needs casual and hardcore players (since different people have different amounts of time/effort to dedicate to the game), I just wish we had some casual players in our community so their opinions could be heard too, and hardcore players would be more welcoming/understanding when someone different joins our community, instead of being like "lol you play 90 PT noob we are the TeamSpeak masterclass" (joking)

The way I see this topic: kontr is a strong player at the casual/popular style of playing (Cursed Ravine, 90 PT, fast speed). He came here looking for the other top players of this game to challenge them. Unfortunately everyone here plays the game very differently to kontr, and therefore there were some misunderstandings. kontr could probably soon learn to be highly skilled at the hardcore way of playing since he understands the game mechanics well. But that's his choice, he can play the game whatever way he likes. Remember that they are two different skills: kontr is skilled at casual/popular, players here on the forum are skilled at hardcore. It's pointless to argue who is better, they are completely different ways to play.

So kontr, I hope you now understand why people responded to you the way they did. Please don't be put off by some people seeming arrogant and rude, mostly people are friendly here. I really hope you join our community because I would love to have players like you here to give your opinions! You play the game in the most popular way, yet your voice is rarely heard by us developers of the game. If you have any questions please ask

[dicsoupcan]

Lewin made a pretty nice summary here, although personally i rather have 60 pt 1x speed. people are free to play any other setting but i absolutely despise those settings because often i am bored because my base is pretty much done and all i do the last 30~40 minutes is building towers. on top of that it is near impossible to plan and time your city building and fight very well on higher speeds (although 1,5x speed might be an exception to this). Besides that i have played so much cursed ravine i am pretty sick and tired of playing it again in a normal way, the last few games i did there i just challenged myself to just make one type of soldiers and see if i can win that way.

i will never say there is a correct way to play kam, but i do say that such high pt and gamespeed is really not my style especially since there is not exactly a challenge in it anymore. top that off with how long cursed raving games can get since most pub players are not exactly inclned to attack very fast (often i start sieging before they even begin to think about getting out of the base) it is not how i want to spend my time. and lastly but surely cursed ravine is totally not a map to be played 1 vs 1 imo, there are other large maps which suite this role better.

[Ben]

Lewin has always been sympathetic with the general public of the Remake; which is nice as they certainly need an ally xD The only thing I disagree with in his post is this:

Remember that they are two different skills: kontr is skilled at casual/popular, players here on the forum are skilled at hardcore. It's pointless to argue who is better, they are completely different ways to play.

If he meant "better" as in skill, then this is very wrong. Although there are plenty of "randoms" who are quite skilled in their own gameplay, 60pt players will still clean them up ease.

[pawel95]

I haven't really asked you to remove x2 and x3 speed. I rather wanted to stop it before it has even started

[Ben]

That's kinda irrelevant now. What I think is important now is to respect that if people want to play on, in our opinion, insane speeds, that's their own right.

[Freddy]

That's kinda irrelevant now. What I think is important now is to respect that if people want to play on, in our opinion, insane speeds, that's their own right.

I don't see the problem in the speed alone (I manage to build on 2,5x with a smoking mouse). What I see lately is people expecting to learn the game by playing the same maps on 2,5x speed over and over again. Not only they do not learn much, they also ruin the games for everyone.

I don't mean this as a rant or anything, they can do whatever floats their boat. Just an observation.

[Lewin]

I think if we hadn't implemented multiplayer speed there would be less people playing the game now. I think it's a shame that the majority of people only play one map though.

[dicsoupcan]

I think if we hadn't implemented multiplayer speed there would be less people playing the game now. I think it's a shame that the majority of people only play one map though.

the extra speed would indeed not even bother me that much if people played other maps, i mean the faster the games go the faster i foten clean them up. but i've onloy seen cursed ravine lobbies that i get sick of it even with using only one type of units..

[Duke Valennius]

I think if we hadn't implemented multiplayer speed there would be less people playing the game now. I think it's a shame that the majority of people only play one map though.

On that subject, multiplayer speed is actually reason why I stopped playing this game. Maybe I was just plain lucky, but before its introduction, I had played about 20 games (if memory serves), and I enjoyed them all, even if I got my ass kicked, which was almost always. But at least players would say "gg, thanks for game, bye". Some time after MP speed, situation degraded to this state: I sit in the room ready to start game, map different from Cursed Ravine, with game speed lower than 2x. Most players do hit & run (disconnect before I type "hi"), some of them repeatedly. Those who stay for a few seconds will type "2.5x 2x", with occasional "noob", and leave before I have a chance reply them (some guy even wanted 2x on Coastal Encounter Scored). If by any chance I get into game (on Cursed Ravine of course), most people just quit before peace-time or after 10 minutes of game, not even saying "crap, i must go" or something.

So yes, you have more players, but I still think it was easier to get a complete game with fewer players, let alone decent one. Don't get me wrong, I would be first to vote for higher game speed, but I would think of maybe 1.5x or 1.75x max. But hey, that's just me

[pawel95]

That's kinda irrelevant now. What I think is important now is to respect that if people want to play on, in our opinion, insane speeds, that's their own right.

I don´t see a problem in my post. Why should it be irrelevant?

To Disco and all others. I think we can´t change that in a "fair way" (unfair would be to delete cursed ravine ) You can see that in ever other game that people have their favourite 3,2 or 1 map that they play on. Like Lewin nicely said there are hardcore players (that don´t play every time the same map because it´s boring) and the casual/normal players (that don´t want to invest more time into KaM, that´s why they don´t want to try new things out because maybe they will fail?! So they decide to play Cursed Ravine, where they know what they have to do and how they can get army at end of Peacetime )

[L.W.]

Hi
My favorite map!



cheers
L.W.

[Da Revolution]

Nothing better than a game that takes six hours. I wonder how many people were still in it at the end.

[sado1]

Well, I bet it was x3 speed then...

[Ben]

The game probably took over 3 hours to play. Seriously, who has time for such long games? And even if you did have such leisure time, you still have to have toilet breaks, food breaks, and other basic necessities.

[dicsoupcan]

The game probably took over 3 hours to play. Seriously, who has time for such long games? And even if you did have such leisure time, you still have to have toilet breaks, food breaks, and other basic necessities.

well some hardcore people have potties near them and most likely a large supply of fastfood too