Bainwalker wrote:I know, it's more their voices annoy me. It's a small petty thing I have and I know it doesn't matter.
I've seen some mature kids, they still bug me most of the time.
Age isn't the real issue anyways, it's people that don't play properly.
Unfortunatly, games are not only defined by their rules, but also by their players.
Well, I allmost fell out of my chair when I saw so many new servers having popped up and beeing actually filled up totally. However, I also noticed that there are more players without a microphone now, and that the level of teamplay has decreased. From time to time one gets into a top squad, but that seems to happen more seldom now.
I observed this effect in a hobby game (pbm strategy) I was involved as a developer: We also targetted the wrong audience and could not integrate the sheer numbers of new players into the community and its playing style.
However, one must simply accept quantity usually comes with a lowering of quality.
Maybe the PR designers and developers are going to engage a public relations guy, who will
target specific, more mature audiences the next time. Clearly, attracting vBF2 under 16 years can bring a lot of trouble, while getting players 25+ will certainly rise the gamplay standard here.
If I trust the statistics in our own forums here, approximatly 30% of the playerbase is over 25 years old, a lot more that in vBF2. Still, I do believe that
age parameter might not be the only problem, but also the
quick growth of the community. To battle this enemy I advise to emphasize the teamwork factor in the representation of PR even more. This could be done by putting a slogan on the installation procedure of PR, or use the in-game information/advertisement banner in the main menu. Possible slogans with pictures could be ( and please do not laugh at them because they are stupid examples...

:
* "Lonewolfing makes impotent"
* "Sniping can dangerous to Your health"
* "PR is no fun without teamplay"
* "Got Mic? No? Get one. Its cheap. Its good! Amazon..."
Another example would be extremely short tutorial videos, showing what is good for PR fun and what not: Make people realize that not the engine, but the type of gameplay is the most important fun factor for PR.
Training of new players is very important, otherwise the culture of PR gameplay that has evolved over many months now will be diluted and changed, most probably, for the worse. To overrate this effect might not be too good, however, to ignore it might be fatal. It is important to remember what made PR such a success: The availibility of a great set of rules (mod, developers, etc) and a crystalizing community that used them.
gibbon-6