Posted by: LiNcK
« on: September 11, 2016, 03:24:42 PM »Bit of a necro but so are most things in this forum. Right now I'm just here procrastinating writing my paper but I'll share my opinion, which can be boiled down to this:
I came back after hearing about RA3, made a ton of posts about it, got some nostalgia and reinstalled RA2 to try it out. Turns out DSL 2.2 was a thing and that was neat so I went on with it even though it looks like nobody cares about DSL 2.2? Anyways, Serge's amazing Component Freedom kept me around for a bit too since that's what I always wanted. I tried making some DSL-S bots that are more space efficient using that. Then, as always I posted them to my showcase and... ... Nothing... ...
Granted, my bots have always been boring. Since day one I've been making extremely similar popups with one or two halfway novel but useless bots a year so there's really not much to say about what I made when I came back, but still, I used to get pretty good advice and back-and-forth back in 2010 with DSL 2.1. There is really nothing to do here; RA2 has always been pretty bad at actual gameplay so the big thing about it was you showcase your stuff and enter tournaments. Looking at showcases now what you mostly find is "Pretty good" or "That's nice" which at the end of the day boils down to nothing. Tournaments take weeks or months to "pay off" with 2-3 minute videos and a simple "you lost" or "you won" because the battles are just 2 bots charging at each other until one dies. If the host wanted they could just retry until the bot they want to win finally wins and then show that.
Right now there's the Official GTM Tournament going on of which the main attraction (HW) is Retooled. I think its great that we are changing up the meta a little bit but what do we know about Retooled and where can we even talk about it besides the thread in RA2 Modifications? There's no showcases and there's no stuff such as the old posts of wedge testing and such. I actually want to enter the tournament for the of it (plus, I want to play RA2 with a purpose) but as far as I know I have nowhere to easily get info on Retooled quirks (if it even has any) or post my stuff to get critique... Even if I dig hard and find out all the info I want to make a good bot will I get anything more than a "Nice"? Because you know I'm going to be making an uninspired-as-hell popup regardless of what mod you throw at me.
There's just nothing much going on unless you're the Naryar, Serge, Mr. AS, etc. types that like to fully dissect the game aside from just playing it or are so bad or creative/novel that you get actual responses to your horrible or weird bot. At least that's my view of the whole thing as a guy that's always just wanted to just play and has always been bad/mediocre at the game and comes back from time to time to try it out (and TBH I was never really big on the community anyways so I'm just talking out of my ass right now really).
Right now my goals with GTM are: Install Retooled. Make a bot. Enter it in the Official GTM Tournament (without knowing if its even good). Disappear.
Maybe I'll get around to actually finishing a team for once (which is what I was doing a couple of months ago until I realized it was pointless) and finally submitting something to NarAI once my bae Naryar starts taking non-replica teams because I've always wanted to do that but never managed. There really is nothing else to do here for me which is why I'm not around...
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.
I came back after hearing about RA3, made a ton of posts about it, got some nostalgia and reinstalled RA2 to try it out. Turns out DSL 2.2 was a thing and that was neat so I went on with it even though it looks like nobody cares about DSL 2.2? Anyways, Serge's amazing Component Freedom kept me around for a bit too since that's what I always wanted. I tried making some DSL-S bots that are more space efficient using that. Then, as always I posted them to my showcase and... ... Nothing... ...
Granted, my bots have always been boring. Since day one I've been making extremely similar popups with one or two halfway novel but useless bots a year so there's really not much to say about what I made when I came back, but still, I used to get pretty good advice and back-and-forth back in 2010 with DSL 2.1. There is really nothing to do here; RA2 has always been pretty bad at actual gameplay so the big thing about it was you showcase your stuff and enter tournaments. Looking at showcases now what you mostly find is "Pretty good" or "That's nice" which at the end of the day boils down to nothing. Tournaments take weeks or months to "pay off" with 2-3 minute videos and a simple "you lost" or "you won" because the battles are just 2 bots charging at each other until one dies. If the host wanted they could just retry until the bot they want to win finally wins and then show that.
Right now there's the Official GTM Tournament going on of which the main attraction (HW) is Retooled. I think its great that we are changing up the meta a little bit but what do we know about Retooled and where can we even talk about it besides the thread in RA2 Modifications? There's no showcases and there's no stuff such as the old posts of wedge testing and such. I actually want to enter the tournament for the of it (plus, I want to play RA2 with a purpose) but as far as I know I have nowhere to easily get info on Retooled quirks (if it even has any) or post my stuff to get critique... Even if I dig hard and find out all the info I want to make a good bot will I get anything more than a "Nice"? Because you know I'm going to be making an uninspired-as-hell popup regardless of what mod you throw at me.
There's just nothing much going on unless you're the Naryar, Serge, Mr. AS, etc. types that like to fully dissect the game aside from just playing it or are so bad or creative/novel that you get actual responses to your horrible or weird bot. At least that's my view of the whole thing as a guy that's always just wanted to just play and has always been bad/mediocre at the game and comes back from time to time to try it out (and TBH I was never really big on the community anyways so I'm just talking out of my ass right now really).
Right now my goals with GTM are: Install Retooled. Make a bot. Enter it in the Official GTM Tournament (without knowing if its even good). Disappear.
Maybe I'll get around to actually finishing a team for once (which is what I was doing a couple of months ago until I realized it was pointless) and finally submitting something to NarAI once my bae Naryar starts taking non-replica teams because I've always wanted to do that but never managed. There really is nothing else to do here for me which is why I'm not around...