GTM is reclining

[Mr. AS]

Not gonna lie, GTM's gotten pretty stagnant over the past few months/years, and this is coming from a guy who's been trying to stay positive about the state of the forum, as opposed to pessimists (not naming names here) who would always say that "oh gee wow, the forum's dying, I bet GTM won't even last until 20XX". While they've been mostly wrong, I still feel like GTM has definitely been in a state of decline for a while now. Even if I haven't been really vocal about it until now.

So, what's the problem with GTM ATM? The members? The admins? RA3? Could it be the Illuminati??? Right now, there's several problems with both GTM and RA2. Firstly, I'll be starting off with GTM, and how we can Make GTM Great Again^tm. The first step being to build a wall and make Advanced Robot Combat pay for it, of course.

GTM has so much random clutter and bloat. You have all of these forums and features, yet only 3/4ths of it gets used, if that. Let's go over a few examples:

• Reputation: Was largely unmoderated and only really served as a meme circlejerk to get people's e-peen up for nonreasons such as "he's cool". There was a reason why people dismissed guys like Goldenfox who complained about rep, since it was always "just a number bro calm down". This was until one day Trovaner decided that he has way too much time on his hands and manually deleted a fraction of the spam upvotes, and now hardly anybody uses it. Could this be because circlejerkers were the only people actually using it? Possibly. I do know one thing though, reputation distribution has slowed down to a crawl. Seriously, the first page goes all the way back to mid-May. From here, you could either reinstate reputation for every member (if only to get people using it again), or get rid of the system entirely (since reputation is basically just e-peen, regardless of if there's a circlejerk or not).
• RA2wiki: Almost completely abandoned. The past month of "editing" has resulted in a few meta-pages being edited, mainly member pages and forum stuff. Wiki editing really sped up while the Wiki Trivia contest was going on. Would love to see that be a weekly thing with an ongoing leaderboard, or at least for it to become more common.
• Member websites on the front page: Why are these still a thing? Beetlebros website I can understand, as it has a few tutorials and all the BBEANS stuff on it. Meanwhile the Starcore and Darkrat sites are just glorified download links, and the actual webpages themselves look like they crawled out of some Angelfire hellhole. The files for these can honestly just be thrown into the downloads section, if they aren't already in there.
• Just as an aside, Madiaba, Darkrat, Clickbeetle, ACAMS, and Starcore are admins, yet 2 of them aren't active, Clickbeetle only pops up once every year to drop a hot load of new stuff onto GTM, Starcore only shows up when his name is called, and ACAMS only shows up when Obama's name is called. I feel like these members would be more appropriate as Veterans. Even Trovaner himself has had some activity issues lately, but I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt for now considering he's the most active out of any of the admins.
• RA3 section: I understand this was all set up before the game was released. But come on dude, RA3 sucked. Everyone got salty, and I'm pretty sure all the guys that were showing up because of RA3 left a week after it was dropped, if not sooner. These boards can be condensed into one universal RA3 section. I don't see discussion blooming any time soon, especially when it doesn't seem that RA3 is getting updated any time soon.
• Game Development: lol this assumes any GTM member's gamedev projects have gotten past the tech demo phase. Subforum itself is also dead AF.
• Politics: Almost the entire front page of this is just ACAMS, MNB, and I sh**posting. The front page also goes all the way back to last year. This can just be part of chatterbox.

There's also the problem with the forum being flat out boring. There's no drama or huge forum reactions for the most part anymore, it's usually just "oh that's nice" and then you move on with your day. Last bit of drama I remember was RA3's release, and even then it was more so criticism of GI and the RA3 subforum rapidly fizzling out rather than forum drama. Remember DSL 2.2? The forum's reaction to that was nothing compared to DSL 3's release, and that was a beta! You didn't have an onslaught of people tripping over each other trying out the new components in DSL 2.2 like you did with DSL 3.
Right now GTM is that leftover flat soda at the party that nobody drank. There is a reason why you see older members rejoin the forum, only to leave again soon after. I've seen so many people do this over the past 5 years that I've been here. Usually they only stay for a month, 6 months at the very most. Vets drop like flies because there really isn't much to do once you've reached the top. Only guys I've seen actually come back for real is Redace, Geice and maybe Reier. 3 guys out of the something like 30 or 40 "hey guise remembah ME??" reintroductions we've had.

Another issue is just the game itself. When you think about it, RA2 is literally just rock-paper-scissors with robots. Imagine pokemon with only something like 10 pocket monsters, and half of them aren't even viable. There's a few pretty set-in-stone archetypes when it comes to Stock and DSL (although DSL is slightly more forgiving), and anything you can build in DSL is usually applicable to Ironforge as well. Metagame's not gonna change by adding more shapes to put on your robot, bro. You can argue that hybrids add more variety to RA2, but those are the worst of both worlds in most cases. Hybrids are what you enter when you don't want to look like a tryhard. People who actually want to win enter popups or SnS, sometimes HS if we're talking stock here. Not to toot my own horn or anything here, but the whole point of me making Retooled is to introduce new variables to the metagame that weren't previously available because of strict rules regarding certain components, like making car steering actually viable, or attempting to balance the cheatbot2 components. _{Beta release coming soon, lots of new stuff and bugfixes, promise.}

Lastly, tournaments. People have actually been fairly vocal about the state of tournaments, and I keep hearing rumors of a league-based regularly-occurring tournament crop up ever since BBEANS, Battlebots and Clash Cubes fell out of grace (note: there has not been a BBEANS or CC tournament for over 5 years), what's the current state of this league/tourney series? Surely the mod team has talked it over quite a bit? I remember Kill bringing up a league a few months ago (maybe in late 2015), only for the idea to go unacted upon, and now apparently Yugitom is hosting it? I also remember Click tossing around the idea of a BBEANS 7 a few times over the years, but you know for a fact that BBEANS 7 is not happening any time soon.

tl;dr This isn't some "THIS WEBSITE STINKS, I FUKKIN HATE THESE PEOPLE" saltpost, just putting my 3AM largely insomnia-induced thoughts on the current state of affairs out there. Yes, this could have gone into FOTEPX's thread... but this way it's more likely to spark a conversation, and for you to actually notice it instead of just going "oh that's nice".

and yes, the title is intentional.



edit: thanks for nothing sli.mg

[RTC]

To be brutally honest, when you get down to it, GTM is a website dedicated to a relatively obscure game that received no major advertising that caters to a specific hobby, and that's putting it lightly. The fact that the RA2 community is going as strong as it is, considering it was released 12 years ago, is really a testament to the loyalty of the community to the game. Look at how much we've advanced the game from its initial starting point, and it's absolutely ground-breaking. I know that a lot of the members on here weren't responsible for these feats, but much as you watch the Olympics and feel pride when your nation wins a medal, we should give ourselves as a collective a pat on the back and commend ourselves for what we've done.

Have we done all we can do with the Robot Arena series? Robot Arena 1 is a dead-zone. Robot Arena 2 has been squeezed for almost every drop it has and been put on over-time, and Robot Arena 3 was a tragedy. I really appreciate the Re-Tooled pack you've been doing to increase the diversity of the game and hopefully add some more playtime hours to the game itself AS, and mods like the Robot Wars pack have been instrumental in increasing my interest in the game also. But the necessity for a new robotic combat game (one that is actually somewhat close to good) is really what we need now. There's only so many times you can fill the cracks of one game (especially such an obscure game), before people move on to other things and leave RA2 behind.

[Squirrel_Monkey]

With regards to tournaments, how do you expect a large one on the scale of CC/BBEANS to function when nobody even enters? I know I could certainly run a large tournaments, and I know there are other members willing to as well. We simply don't have enough people without a "big name" tournament.

I totally agree on the whole Meta thing. All I do these days in enter some tryhard 1WD bot unless it's banned and then I enter some funky stilt thing. I have no motivation to build anything new when I feel like I have a pretty good example of most archetypes already. I really want to get into DSL 2.2 but that seems to be entirely Mechavore discs which is even worse than the old razor tip meta.

[R01]

I do think that GTM has been getting a bit more active in the recent few months.

To address some points:

• I've noticed that there's still a lot of "he's a cool guy" kind of reputation upvotes(some upvotes also seem to be invisible?) and giving everyone the power to use it probably wouldn't be good. Having something between normal and advanced user would most likely help in this case. Funny enough, the one rep I got seems to be for a legit reason since I found out how to fix the F2 cam. Personally I don't care too much about rep but do find it nice to get some. It can possibly show that this member is just a cool guy or friendly user.
• I've been actually thinking about doing some wiki stuff, like adding my thoughts to some of the bots since I disagree with what the wiki writes there, or to add pages of other bots that took part in recent tournaments, however for one I think that this has all been established by veterans, so I would be that one new user that completely causes chaos or just adds pages of bots that aren't needed on the wiki(from what I've seen, only the big Starcore AI pack as well as only BBEANS and a few other big tournaments have pages)
• I wouldn't mind keeping those links there, sure the websites don't have your modern simple metro look(but honestly f that, it doesn't need to be modern style to look good) but they still work for what they're supposed to do.
• Don't really see anything negative in them keeping their admin titles, if it blocks new admins then simply increase the number
• RA3 is basically dead, but putting everything into one section wouldn't really work because showcases and all would be mixed, so I guess it has to be kept that way, either that or it's one section with sub sections similar to the RA2 showcase, that would work in that case.
• Hasn't gamedevelopent recently had posts with that robot combat test? While I don't see stuff ever reaching the final game state there, it can still be a nice section and give inspiration to other people, we might see something completed there some day, so keep it.
• I guess, haven't really seen anything of this section, but I thought it would be more serious than that.
• Drama isn't exactly needed. As for the forum reaction, RA2 is sadly a old game and after a while you've seen most of it. DSL3 was something completely new while 2.2 was a update. However I'd rather have a good small community than a big bad one.
• Yes that's true and it sadly limits the creativity you can do, however on the other hand people should enter bots even if they aren't the most effective things. With the recent tournaments which are easier than the older ones, you can try other stuff out, take my VS as an example, yet it still got far to 5th and 6th place. I've been thinking about a tournament which would encourage completely different build styles or if a weapon limit on popups and HS would change stuff.

@RTC
True. I think if RA2 was just a bit more stable or had modding tools easier accessable then this thing would still be going on, I do have a idea about online multiplayer(but guess it will be bad anyways). If a new game happens it would be nice if most of the stuff was plain text in the files, because editing a AI .py or quickly repositioning the arena hazards is much easier than having to repack files a thousand times.

[Merrick]

Everything dies eventually.

[JoeBlo]

I just came here to see a photo of the logo on a sofa chair... was not disappointed

With regards to tournaments, how do you expect a large one on the scale of CC/BBEANS to function when nobody even enters?

This is a valid point..

A major tournament isnt on my radar right now but I wouldnt even think about running another proper Clash Cubes unless I was confident I could utilise a 64 bot bracket with at least minimal byes.. anything too far backward from previous entry lists would basically tarnish the special feeling and history of CC or BBEANS.

Id much rather run a new idea to cater for the 16 of so dedicated entrants

But I can see the general point in this topic so Ill stick around and do whatever I can to help boost this website... whatever that may end up being

[cephalopod]

AS's points are definitely solid and a lot better thought out than many other 'GTM is dead' posts. 100% open ears to what we can do to get the place foxed up.

(I realise I typoed that second to last word but considering I'm wearing my Foxic tee it's too fitting)

[Philippa]

100% open ears to what we can do to get the place foxed up.

You rang?

[Hi5er]

I have returned, hopefully for more than six months too! Haha. Let’s see…

But you raise an interesting point. My return was largely based on the fact that Robot Arena 3 was releasing and Robot Wars was coming back on the telly. From looking into those it rekindled my love for this game and I had a “wow, I remember that” moment and I sought out a download of the game; I even forgot I had an account here and tried to make a new one…

The game itself is the biggest problem I think, but the problems the game faces I think robot fighting in general suffers with as well. The majority of “good” bots in both real life and in the game are spinners, or you get some crazy niche design that really shines in real life that can’t be replicated in the game, like Razor – This issue comes down to the game not being deep enough. Perhaps an expansion of the game is needed. More parts, more possibilities. I know we have the mods, but like you say, there are still standout designs in every version that everyone can just slap together – maybe a big stock expansion pack would go a ways to help? Flails, CO2 flippers, the flamethrower, crushing arms, more burst motors, I don’t know, maybe trying to migrate everyone over to DSL would be a start instead?

In terms of activity, users need a buzz like you say. When a new game comes out, everyone tries everything and tests it out. This is an old game now, everything has been discovered, all the weapons have been tested, the glitches have been mastered. DSL 2.2 should have had more of an impact admittedly, but what can you do?

The key is to promote interest in the game, get a reason for people to play. A forum wide tournament is certainly a start, get people talking, get members seeded (custom titles based on their seeding?), get peoples reps up for exceeding expectations, get the wiki updated with new and old member profiles that are now active, where’s my wiki page? Badger? R01? Boto? Wen needs a whole site dedicated to him for Christ’s sake. Remember the BBEANS parts you would win like pre-stacked supervolts? Incentives like that should be brought back as well.

All of this requires dedication from a group of reliable admins that will obviously be sacrificing a great deal of their time to make all this happen. It’s a lot to expect from someone, but keeping a game like this alive takes work! And I think it’s worth it… Definitely my favourite robot combat game across any format.

[toAst]

There's also the problem with the forum being flat out boring. There's no drama or huge forum reactions for the most part anymore, it's usually just "oh that's nice" and then you move on with your day. Last bit of drama I remember was RA3's release, and even then it was more so criticism of GI and the RA3 subforum rapidly fizzling out rather than forum drama.

please tell me you didnt just cite lack of 'forum drama' for gtm going downhill. i don't think this community has lasted over a decade and a half because of an ample supply of 'drama' that is petering out. i feel like i had more to add to this but this melted my mind a little bit and im frankly unsure of where i am or why

[yugitom]

I was trying to quietly run around and organise what I'm about to divulge but I guess that now is the best time as any to start working with the community on this one.

Not too long ago, I started talks with the admins and mods about a GTM tournament. This would be an official tournament in which members would receive prizes for doing well. Not only that but it would also debut a tournament ranking system. I will probably detail both of these concepts in more depth in a later post when I have the time and a keyboard.

I hate to think that, due to the state of entrant apathy at the moment, that the stature of the tournament alone wouldn't revitalise interest in most builders. So, I'd like to call to action now, and possibly at a later date in its own thread, all builders in the RA2 community to get stuck back into building and really make it clear what you expect from this official tournament and what it would take for you to join, even if it's just telling me your favourite metagame, it would be really appreciated. In return, I will promise that I will do everything I can to make sure the project will go smoothly.

The RA2 league (Kill's, not GK's) hasn't been completely abandoned but Kill has expressed his interest in helping me with this project over the league. Btw, I was on the hosting team for that but Kill was always the host.

Really hope I can help the state of the forum with the influence I have.

[toAst]

ohh right okay now i think i remember where i was going. i agree with some of the forum reorganization related stuff, i posted a map of sorts as a suggestion myself in the other thread. the ra3 thing i disagree, collapse the middle two sub forums but leave it be. idk. just read my post in the other thread i guess.

i like the wiki thing too.

the admin thing and the website thing can be left as is. it's not something that's a huge deal, so long as we have one active admin and the websites still work. you don't need an army to police a quiet village. society isn't crumbling over here

oh, reputation. is that what happened? someone went through and kind of just flipped through all the positive rep in the forums for the last year and tossed out what they considered 'spam'? so many more important things that could be done. and spam, as it seems most people on this forum define it, seems to be 'anything i don't immediately like, or that might be a joke'... so what has screwing with the system achieved but mildly annoying some people and confusing others? put it back and let it be or don't have it at all, being a weird little puke about such meaningless nonsense is the kind of sh** that drives people away q.e.d.

and not to do something that i absolutely hate but: this could probably be mashed together with the other thread that was having the same exact discussion... ew. don't make me post like that

[toAst]

just for anyone reading who didnt catch the other thread: https://gametechmods.com/forums/index.php?topic=19219.0

[Jonzu95]

I honestly enjoyed reading Mr. AS's post. I can proudly tell that you guys aren't going to get rid of me. I'm going to stay in the community as long as I have passion for Robot Combat. Now I'm completely aware that I haven't been doing much in the forum but I did release the texture pack. I hope people will give it a try.  Also what you guys said about having a big tournament similar to BBEANS, with ranking and all, we really need one. I feel like it could make the community more competitive.

I would also like to add that I kind of agree with the drama thing. That's what brought people together and kept the forum more active. And what comes to the reputation and ranks? Well you've heard my opinion over million times so I don't need to add anything to that.

Ps. I would love to see the entire forum getting rebuild and having less categories.

[09090901]

Anyone who doesn't like drama has obviously never seen venko's old showcase before it got cleaned. good times

Serious tho, I agree with AS. Drama probably isn't the right word, but I agree that nothing intresting really ever happens anymore. Not really sure how you're gonna fix that though.

I like the idea of a official tournament, but I can see it being pretty depressing if we only get like 16 entrants.

[Meganerdbomb]

Bring back playground

[Mr. AS]

Nice to see that the forum-wide tourney idea isn't completely stagnant. I personally think Ironforge would work pretty well as a place to start (since it's so balanced), or DSL 2.2 (since you'll probably get more people to enter). If you need tourney prizes, just hit me up in my PMs or on the ole discord.

Bringing back playground might be something to consider. It was certainly one part of the forum where you (and a lot of other members) were able to have fun. It just kind of disappeared one day for no real reason other than Trov not liking it.

There's also the problem with the forum being flat out boring. There's no drama or huge forum reactions for the most part anymore, it's usually just "oh that's nice" and then you move on with your day. Last bit of drama I remember was RA3's release, and even then it was more so criticism of GI and the RA3 subforum rapidly fizzling out rather than forum drama.

please tell me you didnt just cite lack of 'forum drama' for gtm going downhill. i don't think this community has lasted over a decade and a half because of an ample supply of 'drama' that is petering out. i feel like i had more to add to this but this melted my mind a little bit and im frankly unsure of where i am or why

Yeah, like Geice said, maybe "drama" wasn't really the best word to use there. Not talking about petty YouTube-tier drama here, I was mainly referring to widespread forum discussions as a community, rather than a few guys giving an apathetic "yeah ok buckaroo" and that being all there is to any given thread. People throwing sh**fits at each other 24/7 obviously wouldn't be good for the forum in the long run.

With regards to tournaments, how do you expect a large one on the scale of CC/BBEANS to function when nobody even enters? I know I could certainly run a large tournaments, and I know there are other members willing to as well. We simply don't have enough people without a "big name" tournament.

Obviously it's a far cry to make a new tourney series and expect 64 entrants the first time around, but I'd like to remind you that the first [RA2] battlebots tourney had 16 entries, and the first BBEANS only got something around 25 or 30. I think that as you host more and more tournies under a familiar name, more and more people will enter. I only started entering battlebots after Freeziez/MassimoV had already hosted 4 or 5 of them, because it was still the hot new thing. I even thought that IRL was hella dumb at the time.

[playzooki]

I was trying to quietly run around and organise what I'm about to divulge but I guess that now is the best time as any to start working with the community on this one.

Not too long ago, I started talks with the admins and mods about a GTM tournament. This would be an official tournament in which members would receive prizes for doing well. Not only that but it would also debut a tournament ranking system. I will probably detail both of these concepts in more depth in a later post when I have the time and a keyboard.

I hate to think that, due to the state of entrant apathy at the moment, that the stature of the tournament alone wouldn't revitalise interest in most builders. So, I'd like to call to action now, and possibly at a later date in its own thread, all builders in the RA2 community to get stuck back into building and really make it clear what you expect from this official tournament and what it would take for you to join, even if it's just telling me your favourite metagame, it would be really appreciated. In return, I will promise that I will do everything I can to make sure the project will go smoothly.

The RA2 league (Kill's, not GK's) hasn't been completely abandoned but Kill has expressed his interest in helping me with this project over the league. Btw, I was on the hosting team for that but Kill was always the host.

Really hope I can help the state of the forum with the influence I have.

honestly i think just a double elim tourney with no gimmicks and unlimited entries in some widely used metagame would work for this, like BBEANS - even people who do not build often (like me) would at least be able to re-enter an old bot, to at least make the tournament bigger and encourage people to enter. if you can get this idea off the ground and get it to work well then it would be great.

[R01]

I have returned, hopefully for more than six months too! Haha. Let’s see…

Was thinking about mentioning that in my post. I'm sure there are members here who will be here for a long time

The game itself is the biggest problem I think, but the problems the game faces I think robot fighting in general suffers with as well. The majority of “good” bots in both real life and in the game are spinners, or you get some crazy niche design that really shines in real life that can’t be replicated in the game, like Razor – This issue comes down to the game not being deep enough. Perhaps an expansion of the game is needed. More parts, more possibilities. I know we have the mods, but like you say, there are still standout designs in every version that everyone can just slap together – maybe a big stock expansion pack would go a ways to help? Flails, CO2 flippers, the flamethrower, crushing arms, more burst motors, I don’t know, maybe trying to migrate everyone over to DSL would be a start instead?

True, not that much is possible. I've thought about how one would build a robot combat game, and some features would just be very complex and time consuming to add. RA2 was good for it's time(it did lack some stuff back then, but most was luckily addable via mods) but for a game from today's time it sometimes seems to lack features, like having actual chassis armor instead of a simple hp bar that finishes off your robot once it reaches zero.

Some things like crushers sadly won't work well, I'm thinking about trying something out with the 180 degree beta motor, but even then it would be hard to get grip on an enemy and hold it(this is the biggest problem of crushers/clamps), dunno if tyres will help with that.

Another big problem is that this game is a perfect representation of the battlebots judges, they don't care if you flipped and rammed that bot, if you didn't do damage you don't win. Via all kinds of glitches we've been able to build very damaging bots, defense on the other hand hasn't really got anything(in fact even less since DSA is the only choice). The game is just so focused on damage which is why we see so many SNS, Spinners or Popups.

I personally think that people should be encouraged to try out new designs, you mentioned a stock pack(which I was originally thinking about as well) but the closest thing we have to that is DSL, which might be worth checking out. Sadly Frenzy Hammers as well as Mechavore discs are currently completely unbalanced. Doing Co2 flippers isn't really possible, I would've loved to give burst motors a co2 usage instead of electrical, so the closest you would probably have is what I did with my Atomizer series, using burst pistons on burst motors.

In terms of activity, users need a buzz like you say. When a new game comes out, everyone tries everything and tests it out. This is an old game now, everything has been discovered, all the weapons have been tested, the glitches have been mastered. DSL 2.2 should have had more of an impact admittedly, but what can you do?

The original DSL as well as Ironforge were two completely new games while 2.2 was more of a balance patch with only a few small new components, so it didn't interest people as much, also the community wasn't as big as it used to be when it got released. I've heard that DSL turned a bit into what stock is, having 3 main types of bots that were just the best and I have a feeling that this resulted in many builders not being interested anymore.

I wonder if limiting the weapons of spinners or certain other stuff would help, then again I wouldn't exactly want to limit creativity either.

The key is to promote interest in the game, get a reason for people to play. A forum wide tournament is certainly a start, get people talking, get members seeded (custom titles based on their seeding?), get peoples reps up for exceeding expectations, get the wiki updated with new and old member profiles that are now active, where’s my wiki page? Badger? R01? Boto? Wen needs a whole site dedicated to him for Christ’s sake. Remember the BBEANS parts you would win like pre-stacked supervolts? Incentives like that should be brought back as well.

Heh, I was thinking about that, however looking at the existing members, those are old veterans, sometimes legends, and I wouldn't feel right to have a page on there.
As for the prizes, I've seen them, and while they're interesting in one way, they are mostly there to remove annoying stuff(which raises the question why there isn't a mod for that anyways?) and I feel like this would cause builders to build super efficient main meta stuff again. Will post more in yugitom's part of the reply.

All of this requires dedication from a group of reliable admins that will obviously be sacrificing a great deal of their time to make all this happen. It’s a lot to expect from someone, but keeping a game like this alive takes work! And I think it’s worth it… Definitely my favourite robot combat game across any format.

Quite a lot you mentioned is something that members need to do and not admins :P Of course there's still a bit of admin work requred, but the forum can be perfect, if the members just don't want to interact then it will stay quiet.

I was trying to quietly run around and organise what I'm about to divulge but I guess that now is the best time as any to start working with the community on this one.

Not too long ago, I started talks with the admins and mods about a GTM tournament. This would be an official tournament in which members would receive prizes for doing well. Not only that but it would also debut a tournament ranking system. I will probably detail both of these concepts in more depth in a later post when I have the time and a keyboard.

I hate to think that, due to the state of entrant apathy at the moment, that the stature of the tournament alone wouldn't revitalise interest in most builders. So, I'd like to call to action now, and possibly at a later date in its own thread, all builders in the RA2 community to get stuck back into building and really make it clear what you expect from this official tournament and what it would take for you to join, even if it's just telling me your favourite metagame, it would be really appreciated. In return, I will promise that I will do everything I can to make sure the project will go smoothly.

The RA2 league (Kill's, not GK's) hasn't been completely abandoned but Kill has expressed his interest in helping me with this project over the league. Btw, I was on the hosting team for that but Kill was always the host.

Really hope I can help the state of the forum with the influence I have.

I'm not exactly too happy with having a tournament ranking system like that, I feel like it would only encourage more to be successful and as such lead back to the classic sns, spinner or popup designs, while I'd rather encourge more free building with completely different designs.

Not too sure about the prizes either, I was thinking about doing some for my tournament idea but am not too happy about it, would much rather have stuff available to everyone.
If you look at the BBEANS one, the batteries are basically ones that remove annoyance and technically would fit better in a tournament mod(where such stuff would already be added to make building easier) than being something like that.
Even with just cosmetic/reskin items, are we really going to turn this into a mobile free to play where people will be like "it's just reskins"? It goes to the above point, if people really want those things they will go for the most effective designs, and honestly I think it kills off activity to see the same HS design winning every time.

Nice to see that the forum-wide tourney idea isn't completely stagnant. I personally think Ironforge would work pretty well as a place to start (since it's so balanced), or DSL 2.2 (since you'll probably get more people to enter). If you need tourney prizes, just hit me up in my PMs or on the ole discord.

Bringing back playground might be something to consider. It was certainly one part of the forum where you (and a lot of other members) were able to have fun. It just kind of disappeared one day for no real reason other than Trov not liking it.

Good luck trying to build something in ironforge that doesn't flip itself over and ends up crawling up the wall while being upside down.
I originally loved the mod when I got into it, it seemed like a better stock and gave you a lot of freedom with the smaller components.
However the more I got into it, I started missing some things like having triangle armor pannels from DSL, caster wheels and all that stuff and building a robot that's actually stable turned out to be an impossible task.

Isn't chatterbox supposed to be the playground replacement?

[Jonzu95]

Isn't chatterbox supposed to be the playground replacement?

Back in the day there was both Chatterbox and Playground. Playground wasn't very moderated though.