The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

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The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by roope »

This subject is something I really like to talk about, and I hope this topic would generate a lot of discussion.

While I'm glad that recently there's been actually quite many new players/old players returning to the scene, I feel like - no offense to anyone - they're in kind of the lower spectrum of skill level. And while I think usually players develop skill over time, it feels like that's not so prominent anymore. There hasn't been a new GRob, Pab or Spef in years. Maybe it's just chance, or maybe it's something else?

Nowadays most of the Elma scene revolves around EOL, and is very battle-oriented. So, new players stick mostly to EOL only, pretty much not knowing of/ignoring other parts of the scene like Mopolauta or IRC or external contest sites (I'd really love if more people actively played Kopasite and nindex for example =)). I think the toxic behaviour that is quite prevalent in EOL kind of infects the new players too, like "OK, this is this kind of place, this kind of behaviour is acceptable, I will do it too". And I don't think that's the way to go.

There's negativity about everything on EOL nowadays: players, replays, levels. Some claim it's just for fun. Some of it is real criticism. While I agree that it should be OK to joke about almost everything and to criticize levels, maybe it's gone too far nowadays. Nowadays new nicks almost immediately get called phantoms or get ridiculed otherwise. And at least I don't feel putting so much effort in my levels anymore, because most of them will get called shit anyways. It's OK to give actual critique to levels, as long as it's somewhat constructive. "Shit lev" doesn't tell anything, "shit lev because X" does. While for some it's just joking, they don't necessarily understand that everyone doesn't take it as such (especially these "jokers" are something I think new players really "learn" from). If a new player makes a level, we shouldn't say "your level sucks, you suck, and you shouldn't play Elma again", but instead encourage them so we would get more designers that we desperately need.

I'd just like more people to see the scene as a whole. I feel like nowadays people think more about themselves playing battles, instead of the contributing to the scene.
Of course we can't demand that from everyone, but I would like to see just a bit more ircers, lauta users and designers, just being norm fun people instead of grumpy evilers =)


I know I might just be incorrect, and I know it sounds cheesy as fuck, but maybe I still think we should strive for a more coherent community. Not only to have more fun, but to survive.

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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by kuchitsu »

I dunno, the "situation" depends on how you look at it I guess... Some people choose to see negativity everywhere, but when I come to EOL I usually notice Luther being fun to talk to, Nekit being adorable, people making good jokes, cool levels and sick replays. If negativity is contagious then so is positivity, so probably the best thing we can do is to act nicely, praise good battles, look on the bright side of life and so on, and hopefully it will have an effect. I'm probably saying stupid things right now because it's a difficult topic to discuss.

Regarding IRC, I'm usually afraid to go there because I know just what a timesink it can be. You start an innocent conversation and then suddenly boom, it's 1 am already. :D
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by Pab »

roope wrote:While I'm glad that recently there's been actually quite many new players/old players returning to the scene, I feel like - no offense to anyone - they're in kind of the lower spectrum of skill level.
Heh i actually think this is very interesting thing to discuss, would like to see comments on this, but since im not drunk enough ill talk about the other stuff.

I do think that EOL has become a meaner place lately at the chat. I don't really get upset easily at all, but i remember that not long ago i got a bit upset when i just recieved shit comments directed to me out of nowhere, it felt that they had actually bad intentions, maybe i was just in a bad day. I know its almost always joking and most of the times its very obvious that it is a joke, but sometimes it gets a little grey whether it is a joke or if it has some bad intentions, since there is a lot of it :]

I personally joke a lot but i try not to be mean. I tend to joke with new players too, but i love seeing new packs from new designers, i love seeing a battle on a first level of a level pack :] I surely have said stuff like "shit lev" or similar stuff, you cant always be positive, you get rage from playing levels sometimes, but im pretty sure i never meant to be mean. I got "shit lev"ed too many times, but also many "good lev". And also, very rarely, i got some very honest "thanks for lev very fun oke" kind of comments, which i actually remember them since they are very nice things to get when you put many effort on level making. Thats not the only reason for making a level though, its not like i lose sleep thinking on things like this, but its the topic on discussion :]

To be honest, it does feel like the old days were better (joined online in late 2007), maybe its just nostalgia kicking in. I felt that way for a couple years already, but i believe that feeling comes and go depending on my personal life too. Now i have less time to play, less motivation to make levels (i hope i get it again someday soon), and it feels like battle quality is getting worse and people are playing less (which is not very true). Its just that sometimes, some cool people goes away and leave a trace of emptiness in elma, few times in you heart :[ so you gotta concentrate more on the cool stuff that people are doing in elma, coz there is a lot of that too!
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by Sunshine »

havent personally seen any of this negativity
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by adi »

roope wrote: There's negativity about everything on EOL nowadays: players, replays, levels.
Couldn't agree more with roope. There are some very negative guys and at least one major spammer, which is already enough to kill the atmosphere. Could give some examples but orka write now.
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by BlaZtek »

I know two main spammers nowdays, one is kinda cute and the other one is kinda annoying. :|
I happen to toss shit in EOL instead of expose it to my real life surroundings. And for that I am sorry, but I try to be good most of the time. :?
People has always been shit, and will continue to be so.
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by ville_j »

I have thought about writing about this negativity many times before and now I feel like I have to finally do it.

When I rejoined the scene and first found the belma battles some of you can probably imagine what kind of a drop in the quality of the levels there was when I was used to playing only these great pack levels (alps, olliz levs etc.) before I quit. These new battle levels were rough, ugly polygons, no pictures, no grass.. it was just something completely different to those old quality levels. And when you criticized the response was "learn to play". That's how my "shit lev" comments developed and remain strongly in me still today. However, now-a-days those lines are more of a joke than anything else, but there still is some truth to them. EOL chat is not that convenient way of giving a proper feedback on levels, you never know if the level maker is even going to read or care about it, and who wants to write an in depth analysis in vain. So it's just easier to blurt some "shit lev" comment and continue life. However, I am able to elaborate on the topic and what issues I might have with the level, if the designer wants to go there. And I like talking about that kind of stuff, some days ago there was nice talk about one kuchitsu level where one apple was placed a bit annoyingly.

But it's true, it is probably more of my problem than anyone else's that I can really find the tiniest things to pick on. It can be these annoying brake-push starts, some overly precise jump/move or some trick at the end of the level. For me it doesn't make sense to make a 40 sec level where in the end it's some mega hard trick at the end that is going to affect your time +- 5 seconds. Also, there are different types of hard levels. Some are hard in a good way, some in a totally retarded and unfun way. These are just some examples but there are many things that I just don't understand why would anyone do that and may result in a shit lev comment. I never mean to truly insult anyone, but the discussion can blow out of proportion if someone takes the comment too seriously or says that I just lack some skills (which I don't mind, I am not insulted by that but it will most likely make me write more "funny" insults about the level). I think there is a lot lost in translation when people communicate via text chats and I do feel like people misunderstand me and my intentions, but I can't really blame anyone else except myself for not explaining myself better.

Anyways, maybe this explains something, maybe it doesn't. I understand the complaints in this topic, but I don't think I can change my behavior that much. And when you (adi and blaz) are talking about some specific people you might as well be direct and tell who you are talking about. Maybe people want to defend and explain themselves, the only way to resolve this issue is to talk about it openly.
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by FinMan »

I myself have found myself being one of these negative asses over the years and I'm not going to give any excuses for it, it's just childish and stupid. In the recent years I have been trying to find out ways to make non-productive feedback something more positive and trying to have a more chill and friendly approach. I also tried to apologize for anyone I have hurt and will try to continue doing so.

I think that being more friendly and more supportive instead of insulting is the way to go in the scene, I find people like Madness whose comments are often really straightforward and unforgiving really painful for the scene. This is not because those harsch comments are pointed towards people like Bjenn, Zero or Ramone. I don't care if I'm insulted and told to fuck off. This is because a less-skilled player who wants to make a level is very easily pushed away from the community because of such.

Another thing is level quality that ville already pointed out. I think making flat tracks, generally unhearted levels, uphills and pipes to hurt the community if there are too many of one kind. This has happened in 2008 with nekhills, past few years with Chris' flat tracks, sometimes with pipes etc. I think that we should try to encourage good and variant kinds of level design and try to avoid spamming one kind of levels/battles.

I would love to see more battle-based events happen in the near future too with nice arranging and good atmosphere. For example arranging a weekly battling event of some kind, for example multiplayer based, would make wonderful things happen and most certainly enlighten the community and give more energy to keep on doing your own thing in a casual Thursday night with a heart full of happiness, joy and ":D)".

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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by Madness »

Shit topic!
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by gimp »

Everybody I have heard talk about the negativity says "yeah man it really hurts the new players just be cool alright", and then typically a follow up of something like "oh but not me I am fine haha, yeah fuck yeah I am used to it and great at this game so it's cool with me".

So I see a lot of veterans saying the negativity is bad for new players but that they personally aren't affected. I have seen zero new players saying they're feelings are hurt. is internet bullying really a problem around here, or are we all just being a little too mushy gushy overly sensitive?

I want more new players and all, I just don't think this is a problem.
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by Tigro »

gimp wrote:Is internet bullying really a problem around here, or are we all just being a little too mushy gushy overly sensitive?
Being used to live in cancerous conditions doesn't mean the conditions aren't cancerous.

@roope: You say about not too many people doing cups, Kinglist, etc. Some people like me started playing elma because it was fun and I didn't really care about the community aspect (sound like a paradox now since the mopolauta and seldom irc is all I visit now), nor contests, nor cups... I just opened elma and battled what was currently up and spent 5 hours and then leave. The community is still too little and closed that even the elma wiki is basically useless.
Second, when a new player comes to elma online scene, it takes serious effort to get used to it, because of several factors. One of them is acrossish. People speak in many languages, plus some homebrewed phrases and I have seen "orka" being explained at least dozen times. Like we couldn't speak like civilised humans. Or okay, but then point newbies to glossary to get used to it. Another is the "gay lev" negativity (no offense towards Luther, i always found it funny). There aren't many people who are/were kind enough to teach newbies to make decent levels, apart from Mawane, who is gone. Who is the kind hearted personality in eol now? When I saw him online (on midnight in europe), it was the best time to be online, because there was no ))) spam, no gaygayshategakshitfak trashtalk like on twitch chat.
This can be easily overcome by making a friendly environment as for new guys, and for old mans too.
All it takes it not being insulting bitches but welcoming persons, and everyone will profit. It takes effort, I know, because there will always be some immature kid like I was (and prolly still am), but even them can feel good and enjoy the game an all of its aspects.
Something that I noticed happening was something like a ladder of superiority among kuskis. Simply said: Who is a better player, is a better person and is treated better than others (this applies to all mans maybe with exclusion of Bjenn who is awesome kuski and is still mocked for not being able to create a poll or 29Bjenn, which actually fuels itself with his "fu" replies, but that's not an excuse). The phenomenon could be easily observable on Spef, for example, who has risen enormously quickly. As his skill and TT rised, his status went up as well. There aren't many (if any) rookie/noob players who have the same amount of respect, unless they do something like a web utility or replay viewer or whatever (ofc it's big thanks to all of those, they care for the game and for people around here, do the extra mile). So basically the status in this community is earned. While status of being a pro or mopo legend is completely legit, I don't think people should treat others based on it.

tl,dr; Take an effort and be welcoming to new as well as old players to create healthy environment; stop approaching people based on their ingame skill.
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by Pab »

Tigro wrote:The community is still too little and closed that even the elma wiki is basically useless.
Off topic: Lately i've been adding content to the Programs section of the wiki, i would like to centralize all software elma related things there, to help developers and people to find this stuff and for obvious reasons. Dont really have to say this but ofc everyone can help adding stuff in wiki :D http://wiki.elmaonline.net/Programs
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by roope »

gimp wrote:Everybody I have heard talk about the negativity says "yeah man it really hurts the new players just be cool alright", and then typically a follow up of something like "oh but not me I am fine haha, yeah fuck yeah I am used to it and great at this game so it's cool with me".

So I see a lot of veterans saying the negativity is bad for new players but that they personally aren't affected. I have seen zero new players saying they're feelings are hurt. is internet bullying really a problem around here, or are we all just being a little too mushy gushy overly sensitive?

I want more new players and all, I just don't think this is a problem.
Without praising myself too much, I think I'm pretty good for seeing things as they are, objectively. That's kinda my thing. And I don't think I've/we've suddenly become overly sensitive, since so many people do agree there is somewhat of a problem. While there is an argument that the environment isn't very welcoming for new players, it's not only about them; it's not that fun for us veterans either. Regarding new players, I make these claims based on what I've personally seen. I've seen first-timers get shitted on by Bjenn so bad they're never seen again. I've seen new players ask simple questions and getting only joke answers, and not the correct answer, etc. It feels a bit like a "only the toughest survive" situation, where - like Tigro mentioned - you have to start from the bottom and earn the respect, if you decide to continue playing. What I'm also concerned about is how this molds the players that do stick around; for example ILKKA I think has adopted some of the undesirable behaviour quite well. What I'm saying of course isn't something that 100% always happens to everyone, there's plenty of good guys emerging from the midst of this "toxic era", but I still find the trend alarming and wanted to discuss if we could/should do anything about it =)
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by Chris »

There is supply and demand issue in EOL. Sometimes people will continuously ask for levels and I will just keep making them until I get bored or someone else start making levs. You cannot really supply quality levels all the time. The scene is small only maybe small percentage (10-15%?) of players draw any levs on regular basis. Beside that life as a designer on EOL it's often very unforgiving. You can put a lot of effort into level. Spend time testing it, then battle it for 40 minutes and have maybe 3-4 players playing it during whole battle time [edit: there are more people on scoreboard but they give up after couple of minutes] and then when battle ends someone maybe will hoyl it for 10 minutes and it's all gone. Nobody is going to play lev that you spend much over 1 hour designing. When I start lev that I design in 2-3 minutes (I dont make many flats nowadays) I have easily collect 10-15 players on scoreboard during 14 minutes battle and most of them will play all the time.

The soultion is that more people should make battles if you want more variety and thus higher quality of levels .
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by kuchitsu »

I think shown battles are good for male bonding.) Somehow feels like we are all close together when you can see everyone. So make more shown battles!
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by Bludek »

shown balles are the worst evil satan idea. pls don't. I hate when someone steals my style.
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by Thundr- »

Good timing to bring this up Roope. I had the exact same thoughts a few weeks ago, and decided to do a little research. But instead of discussing this among ourselves in the community, I decided to grab outsiders that have no connection to the community or eol, and interviewing them (6 people in total). In other words fresh mans who may just want to check out the online version of this game they played eons ago. The new player Fronk is one of those people.

I'm currently summarizing the entire thing and its a couple of pages long (10+) with just their experiences on how to get eol up and running and the entire experience. But I guess I can bring some observations from that here too:

Some observations from new players
1. The ingame attitude in terms of comments like "shitlev, !lev 0, this sucks" etc may have less impact on new players than you think. It is significant to also realize that the chat is often filled with jokes, puns, random talk about everyday things and what you are ate for dinner. Along with nice rec, gz for winning, and people saying hi when they enter or see someone join. Not to mention that every gaming community ever is filled with raging screamers, idiots and haters. Fronk instantly connected with some people for example, but also noted some people he didn't like. This literally happens everywhere you go on the internet right? There is no community that has all only angels of benevolence. Nor do they strive to be that angelic. All things considered, I think we are on the lighter side here in terms of attitude and helpfulness. The overall mood is mostly good, and that seems to carry a lot more meaning than we think.

2. 5 out of 6 people didn't make it into EOL in the first place because its ridiculously hard to install when you dont have a friend who is already playing EOL. I chose not to help them for this experiment, to see how they would manage on their own, and only assist when they hit a hard roadblock they could not overcome. Afterwards EVERYONE admitted this: "To be honest I would probably give up after reaching elmaonline.net and not finding a download button on the frontpage." There's actually a shitload of stuff thats wrong with the website itself from the perspective of a new uninitiated player. The site is designed for us, not for them. The first things you see is a large picture of the current battle, the main links are about battles, ranking, stats <- all things that are not interesting for a new player in the slightest. This is where all participants thought we were hostile, or rather non-caring. The website is basically telling them that we dont care if you want to join us or not, but good luck figuring out this on your own. There is no welcome message, no information about EOL, nothing that screams "download me" - all things you would normally see on the bloody frontpage of the main website for a thing.

They pointed out so much stuff that I had to simply make an essay about the entire thing. Things we are seemingly blind to.
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by John »

I think this has to do with a lot of factors. Average age of the scene has increased, playing and chatting is now made at the same place (EOL, no longer Elma 1.2 and #across), average skill level has increased making the scene more elitist for beginners etc etc. All of this creates a harsh environment in the scene. Then there's bullying, insulting and mongoing, serious or not, but it has become more of it the past 5 years.
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by Sla »

Interesting topic and opinions.

Im not too much on EOL now a days (30 mins limit connection, shit notebook and im enjoying a lot making and testing new levels), but as i played a bit, i saw too much very bad levels and i thought: Wtf lev? Why ppl make a lot of this? I think its always better to put a bit more effort in making them so ppl can enjoy more.

About Thundr- said: we all know most of us didnt pay for Elma, but a real thing is we play it, EOL do exists. When i tried to have EOL working again after some years, it wasnt that easy to get the elma.res file. Ofc its easy when u know where to ask or search, but imagine if u are a new player who wants to test a new game. But then again, Elma is not a free game so ppl just dont upload a working EOL-Elma as they upload, levs, recs, lgrs (me included). Ill pay for Elma the day i can and im in a better situation.

Maybe not on topic, but i think its a very good time to make some changes on EOL page for newcomers, as Thundr wrote.
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by Lousku »

Thundr's 2nd point gets discussed a lot, and I agree that it's a huge problem, but it's really not up to the community as we don't have the rights to distribute Elma.res. Maybe a deal with Balazs could be made now that he sees that touchscreen gaks are not the second coming of Elma's popularity - to no actual player's surprise.

As for balle levs quality, people keep mentioning grass and pics. It's a matter of opinion so I'll give my opposing opinion: I think it's sad when mans spend time putting grass and pics into balle levs. They're useless at best, obscure the view at worst, and the time would be better spent drawing actually used polygons. Okay, you enjoy the looks, but not everyone thinks there is value or quality in there.

Balle lev design in general... Well, I imagine once you're consistently churning out multiple levs every day, it gets hard to make creative levels that people actually enjoy. So flat tracks were probably the most efficient way for Chris to put value into EOL. There are mans who really enjoy them, they are always significantly differently played even if they look the same, and they're really quick to make. Yeah, most people got bored with them but he was giving valuable balles for those who did enjoy them. You can't please everyone, and often if you try to keep being original, you'll spend much more time and some of the results won't be liked by anyone at all. I mean, I'd take a variety of unique unenjoyable levs over monotonous "safe" levs anyday, but that side is reasonable too.
Chris wrote:The soultion is that more people should make battles if you want more variety and thus higher quality of levels .
Gotta agree with teh.

Oh, and Tigro's point about acrossish was just a litel bit funey... I mean, theers a handful of words that would take some explanation but the rest is just simpel changes that are figured out by anyone. Just playful messing and obv nat deterring anyone from the scene. Hell, they can bring in their own mongo language and if pipel prefer that, it will be adopted. =)
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by Thundr- »

Lousku: Very true, but the files contained in eol.zip is what I am actually refering to here. A simple thing such as not having the download button for that zip on the frontpage turned everyone away instantly. There is like 4-5 ways to reach the button for downloading the files going from the frontpage as your starting point. But believe it or not but only one figured out that Help > Download EOL is the shortest way. They got stuck in more convoluted alternate paths going through the eol wiki first and that simply was enough for the participants to give up.

From a new user perspective: Go to elmaonline.net > Where's the download button here? It should be flashing in my face.

People dont want to go to a website then start exploring it cover to cover in confusion. Assuming that they own an original copy of elasto mania. The necessary steps to download and install eol from the website as a starting point is a complete confusing mess. The information needed is not delivered in a consecutive and easy to understand manner at all. One of the people had like 3 tabs in their browser open before even having successfully downloaded the damn eol.zip (eol site, mopolauta, elma wiki). That turned them away pretty quickly.

We have to consider that potential new players might not be super-ultra-hyped to play eol, but are simply curious. The next Grob, Pab, Spef that Roope mentioned might have visited us and then simply gone away, because they couldnt figure out how to install eol, even if they had an original copy of elma on their computer.
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by SveinR »

I definitely agree with Thundr- here when it comes to making EOL more accessible. Another idea - what about having installation instructions as some youtube video where it's all explained in a clear manner?

One pretty obvious spot to have these download and install links on the elmaonline site, I think, would be right next to the "Elma Online Trailer" on the frontpage..
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by gimp »

Eol is a bitch to download for sure. That is the real problem in regard to not getting any new players imo, not sure if this topic is about that but yes good experiment and point thundr
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by Pab »

Google sensed the negativity too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XXlDS7TtwY
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by ofta »

i think the reason eol chat is aids/twitch/whatever is cuz of the very sloppy rules. if ppl can say exactly what they want with no ban or nothing they will. the designer issue can also be solved with rules. for example: for every 5 balles you join you have to design 1 lev or something. also regarding the "new player" situation: imo ppl seems to exaggerate how hard it is to join eol. just download some things and fill in some stuff. one of the main charms with elma is that not too many ppl plays it. i really don't like commercial/selling texts and guides so please stop that. if ppl find elma by themselves: fine. but please don't make it easier for them. i think many ppl are trapped in some fale auto-pilot we-have-to-expaaaaand mindset. just keep it clean. almost every game wants to grow. elma doesn't need that.
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by Sunshine »

yes its actually very telling that it took over 20 posts for someone even to mention moderation as a possible solution, probably people forgot such option even exists because currently it doesnt. forcing people to make level every 5 battles wouldnt improve anything though, quite the opposite and your first sentence in general is the only one i agree with. elma needs new players as much as possible and by as much as possible i dont mean million new players all of a sudden because thats not possible. at this point of the game as much as possible in my brain is just enough to keep steady influx so the playerbase stays at about the same amount it is now +- few. elma2 could change it if that somehow ever happens
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by Ruben »

Very simple rule that I follow: If you find yourself wanting to type "new" into the chat, make a lev in stead.
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by Grace »

Elma scene has always had that negativity about it; even going back to when everyone in this thread wasn't even playing elma. (obv not john, vj, svein.) To some people, it's actually endearing.

I remember in about 2007 - people clashing with jt/Sierra about being assholes to everyone, that just isn't going to change.

That said, yes I feel that inaccessibility is our biggest issue with drawing new members to EOL - and it probably always will be. Given the utter lack of respect shown to Elma in the last 10 years from Balazs; I think it's time to distribute elma.res publically without concern - It's happened to all other games from that era anyway.
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by Polarix »

Good work Thundr.
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by Tigro »

Haruhi wrote:Given the utter lack of respect shown to Elma in the last 10 years from Balazs; I think it's time to distribute elma.res publically without concern - It's happened to all other games from that era anyway.
And then Balazs rises from the abyss and sues us for one million dollars.
If we were somehow able to make this game an abandonware, all problems would be gone.
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by jblaze »

my 3 cents:
even if we often see some "negativity" in our scene, i think we dont have a reason to worry. great majority of us are good souls and rly helpful guys and we all know we can trust many of us. real unhelpful diseases were PJ and Death, which i dont see online anymore and i dont think anyone ever took their words seriously. (i myself had a good laughs thanks to them)
FinMan wrote: I find people like Madness whose comments are often really straightforward and unforgiving really painful for the scene.
i totally see irony in every line of him and i find him one of the funniest guys out there. Madness himself admitted that 99% of what he says is a bullshit
FinMan wrote:I myself have found myself being one of these negative asses over the years and I'm not going to give any excuses for it, it's just childish and stupid.
sorry to say this, but yeah, i noticed that almost everything you say is either an insult or objection or complaint. it doesnt hurt me in anyway as i dont absorb any bad emotions from the game (pointless), but i see your words as really negative all the time. its nice that you see it yourself and can admit it :p i know you are a good guy with good intensions though

im a member of only one game community besides elma which is Curve Fever 2. of course there are some nice people there, but A LOT of players are sincerely negative, with no good intentions and it feels like they really mean to be harsh and destroy someones playingexperience or mood, which is a rare view in our scene

and i dont think we need more strict rules, it works fine as it is

big problem is quantity of active players and newcomers, definitely yeah, and sad to see
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by FinMan »

the point about Madness was not if it's bullshit or not, but that it really does bring down less active players who may not see the big picture that well and therefore miss the non-serious stuff. Really, it doesn't matter what the point of those comments is if it hurts people in a way that makes them feel bad or uncomfortable in the scene. As it has been said, it doesn't affect us that much but the general situation is surely affected negatively.

also, dunno how my negative stuff is different from madness' in the way of negativeness, both just bullshit a fuck lot just like so many others.
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by Ruben »

I was for as long as the game was alive part of the Rome: Total War community. I'm still technically a member of the Sith clan even though I don't play anymore. But that game, oh my god the Elma scene is a field of flowers in comparison. There were some good guys for sure, they were the ones I actually played with, but most of the time it was just a giant shitfest. Clans were waring against each other constantly, the chat was full of bickering. There were so many feuds going that no matter when you were online there were at least two guys there who hated each other. Those were some really bad eggs that spoiled the fun for everyone. Imagine 10 PJ's who are really competetive, online all the time and 100% sincere in their flaming.

Nah, the Elma scene is pretty good =D
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by Madness »

I've never noticed any negativity on EOL, but maybe it's because I don't take things seriously and I don't assume that other people are serious and mean. I am sorry if anyone thinks I am negative and takes my random comments seriously, but that's the way I am. I always do it and I never think much about what I say. Like when I start my day at work and meet my co-workers I often say something stupid like "wow you look like shit today", "get out of my way (instead of hi)", "allah doesn't exist" etc. but they know it's not serious, we are all friends and we're just having a laugh. I thought it was the same way in EOL as we are a small community and we mostly know each other a bit, but obviously things can be misinterpreted if you can't see other people's expression or hear their tone of voice or if you don't know their personality/intentions or simply if you don't feel like fooling around. I am writing this because I just read niN's post in another topic and it made me feel pretty shitty to see that my random stupid comments caused him to feel bad. I was just mad because I couldn't solve the level at some point of time and randomly shouted "this is shite!" in the chat. It wasn't meant to be serious or even an actual critique of the level. There was no real intention behind it. I never thought anyone would take it literally as it clearly was a great level that must have taken a lot of time to make. It was just a random meaningless tantrum. I loved the level as I said at the end of the battle. I am sorry about how I caused you to feel, niN. I don't want you to feel bad on my account, you are a great guy and I appreciate what you do for the community. I've never intended to make you feel bad. Please, accept my apologies.
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by A.K.B. »

Elma scene always awesome, only occasional negative. We are adults though, so can push through this and get over ourselves.

Great scene, good banter, good weirdos. :)
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by pawq »

I think it's a very good tropic, not sure if it had a lasting impact.
FinMan wrote:I myself have found myself being one of these negative asses over the years (...) In the recent years I have been trying to find out ways to make non-productive feedback something more positive and trying to have a more chill and friendly approach.
Yeah... I remember when I first started online you were one of the guys who flamed pretty much everything I said or did (even though some of it was rubbish), it was very disheartening. But that changed at some point. Not sure if it was because my status has risen from a newbie to a regular, or because you became a better person, but at some point (2-3y ago?) I realised "hey, maybe FM isn't such an asshole after all!"

I can confirm, as a not-THAT-long-ago-newbie, that hating behaviour from the well-established people may be discouraging, so please do try to avoid it. I think it's fine if Madness flames with Bjenn, Ville with Orcc, and the others who know what this is about join in on the fun. But if you know that somebody hasn't been around for that long and doesn't visit lauta... maybe restrain yourself a little.
Ruben wrote:Very simple rule that I follow: If you find yourself wanting to type "new" into the chat, make a lev in stead.
I absolutely love this one! Gonna stick from now on (although I did more levs in the last few days than in the last few years :P).

As for the level quality debate: I think that sometimes any balle is better than no balle... Those 7-8 or so balles that I made in the last few days - 2 or 3 of them were (I think/hope) quite good, reasonably well thought through etc. But the others were really simple and done in 5 minutes. Why? Not because I don't give a fuck and am trying to flood EOL with crap. It's because there was no balle at the moment and someone wanted one, so I just went and made it asap, to give mans at least something to enjoy...

Overall I think I agree with the general consensus (?) that it's not that bad, but we could be a little better :) And definitely make installation clearer/easier!!! I remember struggling with it several times even after having played the game and being active online for a couple of years or more!

Finally...
Madness wrote:Like when I start my day at work and meet my co-workers I often say something stupid like (...) "get out of my way (instead of hi)"
Just yesterday, in a Tesco nearby, I wanted to be polite/witty when stepping away from a shelf to make room for someone else, so I wanted to say "I'll get out of the way". Only the "I'll" part didn't work very well. I think that person has probably never heard such a mean thing said in such a polite and calm voice!



EDIT:
I actually do feel like a newbie coming back after 2 years - what the heck is "osv.", and why does it end bene's every sentence?!
(No, urban dictionary doesn't know either).
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by Polarix »

och sä vidare, swedish. Directly translated: And so continue. But more commonly known as "etc"
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by Ruben »

Polarix wrote:och sä vidare, swedish. Directly translated: And so continue. But more commonly known as "etc"
And Norwegian "også videre." What are you a Swedish defector or something? Traitor! ಠ~ಠ
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by roope »

Pawq wrote:I think it's a very good tropic, not sure if it had a lasting impact.
I'm not sure if it's this topic or the natural fluctuation of the scene or a little bit of both, but it seems better now. I also think it's partly because of teh comeback mans like you and Haruhi that are not "corrupted" ¨=) Already just being active in these non-spam Mopolauta topics makes some difference for me, in positive way ofc.
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by FinMan »

Pawq wrote:As for the level quality debate: I think that sometimes any balle is better than no balle... Those 7-8 or so balles that I made in the last few days - 2 or 3 of them were (I think/hope) quite good, reasonably well thought through etc. But the others were really simple and done in 5 minutes. Why? Not because I don't give a fuck and am trying to flood EOL with crap. It's because there was no balle at the moment and someone wanted one, so I just went and made it asap, to give mans at least something to enjoy...
What comes to this one, I don't care if a level is unpolished or something but for way too many times all you saw being battled was 5-10 sec flat track levels. (example: http://elmaonline.net/statistics/level/217024) And not like there were just dozens of these but the number really was hundreds and hundreds, all day every day. That really felt like it poisoned the battle scene.

The current battle quality seems way, way higher than it used to be at some point(s).
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by Tigro »

FinMan wrote:The current battle quality seems way, way higher than it used to be at some point(s).
Credit to Chris who learned how to make levs.
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Re: The current situation the scene, Elma, and EOL

Post by Hosp »

osv = och sÅ vidare osv
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