2014 - A BB year in review

Published: 2014-12-31

Author: Teddi

It’s that time again where we perform self-critical analysis and constantly state how Life is the new DNF.

It’s been a fairly interesting year, especially with the summer -> fall handoff with both myself and Killermon becoming furiously busy during that time. However with that said work has been done, more notably on Lobby and Escape, with a fair bit done on the backend with Life. So with that said, lets dive in with gamemode analysis.

BBuild

It’s a sandbox environment. Aside from dedicated building areas (which there doesn’t seem to be a need for at the moment) and maybe some fun toys I’m fairly happy with Build. What I would like to see is someone on the team potentially designated as someone who organizes events. From time to time we get members willing to set it up, however their interest then peters out and BBuild events were always pretty fun - however initially I was the one setting them up, another team-member was also doing it but it was primarily X-mas based events.

One thing I want to do with BBuild is expand upon the rank system and effectively make it detailed. At the moment they’re stored pretty inappropriately maintenance wise and it just feels somewhat wrong. However this is at the bottom of priorities and there’s no need to get this sorted, especially as BBuild gets a low amount of traffic.

Possibly a revision of tools? It’s hard to say really.

Deathrun

Deathrun saw some random attention throughout the year, notably when we had a number of players on thanks to a streamer and the round system broke. The issue was rectified the next day fairly quickly, but it was rather interesting having to manually control the rounds :v. Beyond that, Deathrun is hard to improve aside from prettifying it up and possibly offering alternate playstyles (eg 3 lives per run and so on). That said, I don’t think Deathrun as a whole has the popularity it once had back in the day and maybe it’s time to retire it.

It all depends because due to a lack of feedback it can be hard to judge whether or not people genuinely enjoy it or not. However, there’s more below that may make such things more enticing.

Escape

Generally a fun gamemode that is unanimously enjoyed - especially for those that enjoy rushing. There have been discussions about releasing it however I don’t feel (and Killermon to a lesser degree) that it quite feels polished enough.  There’s two primary issues with Escape at the moment

• The ‘end-game’ isn’t quite right. You get there, walk in to elevator, you’re free. We’re not sure if it’s how we want it.
• We want some generally nicer graphics, a bit more control over the players and post-processing.

I think once the upper-two are sorted (with something from Lobby), we’ll be golden. Escape is something I want out there and I think it’s long overdue in all honesty.

Lobby

I’m not sure quite what I want to do with Lobby. As a social venue it’s not bad. I mean the portals are there, it can interface with Escape (although it needs some prettifying in that regard), the Deathmatch area is there (although not quite finalised) but effectively unless we pour all the ‘GM-Tower’ effects in to it, it’ll always be a sub-par one. It’s something we can look at improving given that the Lobby is effectively designed for Escape; but it’s something that beyond that doesn’t have much scope.

Surf

I’m at a point with Surf where I’m sort of happy with it, but I’m also not happy with it, to elaborate;

• Surf as a gamemode works well and it offers that niché to those that enjoy it. We get regular traffic on it and it does tend to fill up at times.
• The records system is working but needs to be expanded. This will be done in time easily enough
  • I also need to fix that bloody sql issue where it returns not quite the right stuff for display-sake
• Production quality wise -  the gamemode looks like ass and I’m not happy with that.
• Speed surf I think is a gamemode people will enjoy however it has an even smaller niché than skill surf.

So yeah, Surf I think is in a decent place right now, it just needs that polishing done to it more than anything.

Trouble in Terrorist Town

Problem with TTT is ultimately there’s little you can do to change it, bar changing the playstyle and items that go with it and adding incredibly obnoxious shit. I know some of our members enjoy it from time to time, but the question is it worth keeping up, and if not, what do we replace with it?

Again, suggestions are welcome here.

Life

Life has made major traction in all aspects of the gamemode; notably world objects and the item / inventory system (Thanks specifically to Killermon). I’m currently underway writing up the new resource system alongside the updated ‘use’ system. Both of them need a strong overhauling to match new standards, but the good news is that once this is all done - the core majority of the gamemode is officially done. The rest of it is essentially filler which (in theory) should all drop in to place.

I’ve also been manufacturing some external dev-tools which should also facilitate expedited development, especially where items and crafting are concerned.

Kaiden has primarily been working on the media-side of things garnering quite a few voice-actors and putting together some fantastic stuff for the story behind it and so much more. We’re looking to start releasing more images and video in the not-too-distant future.

BB in general

Ideally I’m looking for someone to step  up to the plate and willing to take on a role that involves handling the community from the platinum / ‘arcade’ side. Kaiden for a while has been managing both but we’ve discussed numerous times that ultimately he prefers the Roleplay side of things. I’m too busy managing the development side alongside Killermon which means technically no one is listening outright to what the community wants - and there are things that can be done that don’t require my direct intervention. So with that said, I guess you can consider applications open for some sort of management role within the team - should you want such a role. I’m open to ideas on this on what should / needs to be done.

Beyond that, have the ever typical promise of more constant blog posts, and enjoy the new year!

(Forum Thread: -  http://bbservers.co.uk/forums/index.php?threads/2014-%E2%80%93-a-bb-year-in-review.8370/