Java No Void EggWars...? Really?

[Alissa Smith]

Just gonna point out that this really isn't true: https://www.cubecraft.net/threads/eggwars-maps-without-void.207204/#post-989590
It didn't get much attention seeing as the experimental eggwars mode wasn't a thing back then, but still pretty relevant. I also remember this idea being pitched forward in a few other suggestions, but this is the only thread I could find that specifically suggested this mode.

Ok

 

[Rqhan_]

I cringe on my past self

 

[Thaus]

OK, so let's try and be civil here :D

I want to try and provide some answers to the questions raised in the original post by @TheFastBowler

1) It was an idea I talked about with Rubik, Cam and the other people in management. After "Double Egg Mode" I wanted something that changed the game significantly. The idea and concept was to remove part of the game that can be very frustrating for all players. We have many requests for games without void before so I thought it would be fun to see how it affected something like EggWars.

2) I believe that was answered in part one but it was a collective decision.

3) Because we want to see people's opinions. A lot of the time people will spam and constantly go on about how they just want 1 thing and it is x. Then when we do that they either don't care or hate us for actually doing it.

4) This is market research. It's "Experimental". The whole idea for this is for us to release changes that we can play with that yes, may break the game completely but at the end of the day testing an idea internally with staff doesn't give us a good idea of how it works for our community. Many people play our games in ways we have never imagined which means we wanted to test.

5) Why should it be scrapped? It is possible to add updates to the game and keep Experimental around. We may remove it when we have nothing we want to test but I think it's a good way of coming up with new ideas for games/updates.

6) I liked Blockband, may it rest in peace.

7) Yes, No Void changes how PvP works, that was the point. It changes a key game mechanic. For us to see how players play it's interesting to change parts of the game that are taken for granted. In the case of No Void it is no longer an easy kill just to knock a player in to the void. Instead players might have to be sneakier to remove eggs first then aim for kills.

8) I think the maps are OK. Again this is an Experiment, a lot of effort goes in but not as much as would for a full release. The thing we're testing is a concept not the maps themselves.

9) Water is there to add challenge to the layouts so it's not as simple as walking to an island. It provides an obstacle and yes, becomes frustrating - it's almost like it was designed to make you avoid fighting in it... ;)

10) Skipping a few points, I believe Lava should damage players in someway, I'll follow up with a developer and see what's wrong with that as yes, that would make it ridiculously easy!

Absolutely, Experimental modes are not designed to be fixes in any way. We have plans for quite a radical overhaul that's in progress that no doubt will annoy a lot of people but at the end of the day we want to try and provide a positive player experience to the most people we can. From the voting that we get from in-game I can see that 43% of votes rate the experiment as 5/5 while 28% rank it as a 1/5. 2-4 are all around 10% meaning that this Experiment is quite polarising (like Marmite you either love it or you don't).

Thank you for your feedback though and I hope my answers provide you a little insight as to what we were thinking and some reasoning behind what we're doing. Let me know if you need any more details and I'll provide as much as I can :D

1.) Being a server with around 1k players (I hope I'm right), you're bound to always have suggestions that are going to be similar. And yes, it's great to see the management trying to do something the players want, but one thing I don't understand is... Why implement that suggestion out of so many other more popular threads such as this? Or if anything, why wasn't the community given some prior vote to it? A vote on the CCGN discord, or heck a vote in-game may have preceded the experiment and may have even saved time. If you knew that the players would dislike an idea, would you implement it?

2.) I think that the collective management should decide based on player polls, to save time and prevent rant threads like this. By doing a poll, you can easily find some form of interest in every player, making it easier to also make your decision. Not to mention, I don't think it's that hard to do so.

3.) It's great to see the server take a turn and try out the gamemode (hence why it's an expiriment), especially since it allows you to see the player's taste. However, why can't you simply verify in a simply poll before trying it out? Making a gamemode that players may have interest in rather than a gamemode that nobody may have interest in is a large difference. As @Orangeric88 said, it would save time and possibly money to start up a gamemode that has shown relative popularity in the server. The best way to do that without actually having a gamemode? Either by analyzing the success of other servers, or by making polling the community. I simply think it would've been better to poll the people before actually making or releasing a gamemode.

4. ) Since CCGN is a large community (although it has been declining), there will always be unique tastes. That's because everybody's different. But obviously, it seems that you used a hasty generalization, and a false appeal to novelty. Just because there are unique tastes doesn't necessarily mean that the community will enjoy it. Just because something is new also doesn't mean that it'll be a success. If anything, the reason why the no-void is boring is that it no longer requires the same risk, skill, strategy, and timing. Speed bridging is always a risk. Having a void means, do you starve out the other team and overwhelm them? Not to mention, with a void, it was possible for 1 person to beat a team of 10, even with their egg. Having no void negates all of that, and it's no longer the same EggWars... More like MoneyWalls without walls, and especially with overpowered...

5.) As I stated in 4.), updates things don't mean that it'll be fun. You can update fortnite all you want, and some people like me, still won't like it, for various other reasons. Also, going back to business, isn't it more risky trying to improve a game that's not very popular? Why not do other eggwars tests to see if No-void is even the most popular base idea? As in my previous hyperlink, other ideas have had a lot more forum support, why not test those ideas too? Are you really going to go all in for an idea that already has shown unpopularity?

6.) Blockband was interesting to say the least.

7.) Yes it's different but difference doesn't translate into something fun. And making one fighting in water is a death sentence, and super tedious AND super long. It's horrible, new things don't mean good things. It was even harder to defend the egg in void, because you could easily be detected when building a bridge. In fact, I would argue that void eggwars requires more strategy, especially with the fact that one miscalculation would result in your death. In no-void, the egg is just there laid out, it doesn't require that much skill to break an egg, even with campers being there. Of course, you will need your team for both modes, but is no void really that much more strategic?

8.) Does your stance in whether a map is good or not matters? I thought that the server was for the community?

Well, if the maps aren't great, people will get a bad taste on what the concept should be and therefore assume that the concept is immediately bad. If the team makes good maps (if you want to know what people think is a good map and what people think is a bad map, read the above paragraph), people will possibly like the concept.

Maps are important, the gameplay has to be done somewhere... Maybe it's a really good idea, but the maps are killing it...

9.) Water is simply, the most annoying thing in pvp. Especially in overpowered. Simply said, it's tedious, and it's not very fun to deal with.

Next time, the management should check with the players to see if it has the potential of being a popular game, and when presented, I think maps should definately be the best possible, as maps seriously determine the type of gameplay one will do. I don't know what'll happen to No-Void eggwars, but for myself personally, I think it would be better to try out other gamemodes.

 

[TheFastBowler]

Ok so it's a lengthy reply because I've replied to a few people. It's rude at times but don't get too offended by it. It's just my personal opinion.

@johncoles

Spoiler: Reply to John

OK, so let's try and be civil here

Sure! I will in the direct response to your reply since you've taken the time to read this thread and actually responded with a valid reply.

1) It was an idea I talked about with Rubik, Cam and the other people in management. After "Double Egg Mode" I wanted something that changed the game significantly. The idea and concept was to remove part of the game that can be very frustrating for all players. We have many requests for games without void before so I thought it would be fun to see how it affected something like EggWars.

Yes, but I feel you could have taken into consideration how frustrating it could become by removing the void? Players who lack PvP skill have essentially no chance anymore, and the void was an essential part of EggWars. The gameplay is hugely contrasting from what the original EggWars gameplay is like, and is not EggWars at all. I remember joining Cube in 2016 because of EggWars, the fun, old one, majority of which still runs today. No Void EggWars is not EggWars.


Good that it was a collective decision, but I feel the players should be heard out more. I don't believe that there was too big of a suggestion/a huge push from players to remove the void from EggWars. It was a minority, as far as I know. As noscope said, if you implement player's ideas rather than ones that Management come up with, there'll be a lot more chances of success.

3) Because we want to see people's opinions. A lot of the time people will spam and constantly go on about how they just want 1 thing and it is x. Then when we do that they either don't care or hate us for actually doing it.

True. But I feel that there have been a lot of common opinions that have not been put to work (as far as I know). Yes, I've referenced it quite a bit, but the appeals system needs a lot of work.There are several other opinions and suggestions that people have given, that have a lot of insight and are quality suggestions. As I mentioned earlier, I think it was a minority that requested the removal of the void. I don't think that it was a good idea, and quite a large number agree.

4) This is market research. It's "Experimental". The whole idea for this is for us to release changes that we can play with that yes, may break the game completely but at the end of the day testing an idea internally with staff doesn't give us a good idea of how it works for our community. Many people play our games in ways we have never imagined which means we wanted to test.

Fair enough. I get what you mean with this point. I was a little triggered by No Void at the time, and questioned your market research. I would agree with you in saying that Experimental is a form of market research, so fair enough.

5) Why should it be scrapped? It is possible to add updates to the game and keep Experimental around. We may remove it when we have nothing we want to test but I think it's a good way of coming up with new ideas for games/updates.

Now this is something to address. I don't think you guys are focusing on the correct things, which is why I think it should be scrapped.

I feel you're focusing on too many things that aren't exactly improving player experience. Yes, I've over-referenced this, but the Appeals System, especially for Sentinel bans, needs a LOT of work. I also feel your current playerbase will benefit and enjoy receiving more relevant and satisfactory updates on the normal games, rather than experimenting. It doesn't seem like you're focusing on bringing out the right content. There are several significant changes that could be made to existing games such as EggWars, SkyWars, and TowerDefence, suggestions for which are widely shared on this very platform. Unfortunately, most, if not all good suggestions tend to come with a hint of criticism, for which Quetzi is deployed to answer something totally swaying off context, with replies that make it sound like he is incapable of reading.

6) I liked Blockband, may it rest in peace.

Clearly, as it outshines No Void EggWars, and Double Egg EggWars. RIP Blockband.

7) Yes, No Void changes how PvP works, that was the point. It changes a key game mechanic. For us to see how players play it's interesting to change parts of the game that are taken for granted. In the case of No Void it is no longer an easy kill just to knock a player in to the void. Instead players might have to be sneakier to remove eggs first then aim for kills.

The gameplay, as mentioned earlier, now does not seem like EggWars at all. It's quite similar to FFA/Assassins. It doesn't require too much sneakiness in egg removal - I, and many of my friends - have been MUCH sneakier in normal eggwars. There's no sneakiness aspect added. The void, I feel, was the core of the game. Removing the void is like stripping the clothes off a person and letting them run naked.

8) I think the maps are OK. Again this is an Experiment, a lot of effort goes in but not as much as would for a full release. The thing we're testing is a concept not the maps themselves.

While they may be "OK," I think you being "now one of the world's largest Minecraft Networks" as stated in your About Us section should mean your maps should be a lot better. I'll stick to what I've said, I think these are one of the worst maps Cube has ever had. "OK" is not good enough. In all of Cube's history, their maps have been the aspect of Cube that lasted and always was in good shape. Not anymore, or at least in that sorry excuse for a map, Mario.

9) Water is there to add challenge to the layouts so it's not as simple as walking to an island. It provides an obstacle and yes, becomes frustrating - it's almost like it was designed to make you avoid fighting in it...

EggWars seems to be a PvP game. You get points from getting kills, and there's a kill count in your statistics? Then why the hell are you trying to remove the PvP aspect? It's a PvP game. People love EggWars for those reasons. Trying to create designs to avoid people fighting makes it seem like you're not even trying to create something fun.
READ THE "HOW TO PLAY"
It specifically says "destroy all enemies."
You win by doing that. It's crucial. It's extremely important. Do you want to create longer, dragged out games? As it is, a lot of the players complain about campers. Then you go along and make fun of it in an FFA map with signs, and now you somehow "experiment" by giving the players exactly what they didn't want.

You've already got crappy rules about camping. You know how easy it is for someone to rush to mid for 10-15 diamonds, break their bridge, and then start a diamond gen, purchase a punch bow and camp? It takes a maximum of 5 minutes. There are so many players who do this, it's not even funny. Just because the egg is still not broken, doesn't mean it's not camping. "Protecting the egg?" They can do this camping strategy of breaking bridge+punch bow without shelling their egg. Is that still defending the egg? No. It's creating a stalemate, with the aim to frustrate players, which is exactly what you've done with the water. See what I'm talking about? There's already a pre-existing problem in EggWars that you haven't fixed even with the camping rule, because the rule is poorly crafted, yet you still want to "experiment" with stupid ideas such as removing the void and creating longer games.

NOBODY wants longer EggWars games with stalemates.

Absolutely, Experimental modes are not designed to be fixes in any way. We have plans for quite a radical overhaul that's in progress that no doubt will annoy a lot of people but at the end of the day we want to try and provide a positive player experience to the most people we can. From the voting that we get from in-game I can see that 43% of votes rate the experiment as 5/5 while 28% rank it as a 1/5. 2-4 are all around 10% meaning that this Experiment is quite polarising (like Marmite you either love it or you don't).


Thank you for your feedback though and I hope my answers provide you a little insight as to what we were thinking and some reasoning behind what we're doing. Let me know if you need any more details and I'll provide as much as I can

I'm sorry if my answer sounded a bit rude. Thanks for your reply and insight.

As referenced earlier, a positive player experience would be created by fixing problems with the existing gamemode. I do not think that the void was a radical issue on Cube and rant threads were not created about it. Camping on the other hand, has had several rants. I remember back in 2016, the amount of threads requesting enderpearls in normal mode of EggWars, alongside Overpowered, and for good reason. It's implemented now, but there are still issues in EggWars that should be rectified.

@Quetzi

Spoiler: Reply to Quetzi

Now if only there was a way to give feedback about experimental modes...


View attachment 148656


If you don't like a particular experiment, vote accordingly, it's something we take notice of. The whole point of these experiments is to try out new things, some will be good, some won't be. I'm struggling to see where your suggestion is here though, get rid of no void? Sure, we'll do that or not based on the feedback we get. In the meantime if you really don't like the maps you could just not play them and play regular EggWars instead.

I feel that you don't seem to read threads half the time. Whenever I look at a decent thread (that usually involves even a bit of criticism), you reply with some garbage answer that looks like you don't know the context of the thread. You use that screenshot to say that we should vote the rating? Let me remind you "Management," that you guys have also added a message at the end of the game that says to leave your opinions on the forums. I don't give a damn if you weren't involved in crafting that message or not, you clearly seem to have no idea about what's going on anywhere. Not in your responses, and not on your server. My honest opinion? It was a mistake for Cube to hire you. You bring pathetic thread replies that have no relation. Do you even have the skills to respond correctly to a thread? Do you need a guide to learn how to read and then respond to a thread? You don't just look at the goddamn title and then blurt out whatever the hell you like.

Except that isn't what this thread is...nor is it the concern I was addressing. Thread asks for a game mode to be removed -> respond with details of how that decision will be made -> suddenly I'm complaining about feedback /shrug

Re-read the thread.
May I also remind you

Now if only there was a way to give feedback about experimental modes...

The forums is a platform for feedback and suggestions. Or do you not want them anymore?
Sure. We'll all just shut the hell up and not give you our opinions. In a month from now we'll see 12 eggs, no eggs which would mean unlimited respawans, and no sky, because we'll just be trapped into a 2*150*150 area for EggWars.

@Younisco

Spoiler: Reply to Youn

With the countless, countless, COUNTLESS requests for Money Walls to come back, this seemed very fitting as EggWars and Money Walls have the same general objective/s. I also understand that market research before releasing a game may be necessary, however it is a lot harder than you think - there will always be split opinions about something, and not everyone will agree with what management will do. As a result, it's the risk taken by management which was to release this gamemode.

Market research is meant to provide an insight into the opinions of the consumers, whether they be split or common. As John says, the idea of experimental eggwars is a form of market research. However, I do not think that releasing such a bizarre concept, players opinions should be taken into account. Surely, man hours were put into the development of No Void EggWars. My question is why? I don't think such an unearthly idea was ever asked for specifically or in majority? But there are other ideas that were heavily requested, yet Cube seems to spend time on creating this?

I, personally, have no issues with the idea of Experimental Eggwars. Logistically, it seems like an awesome way to come up with some cool, gimmick-y gamemodes with drastic changes without disrupting the regular Eggwars that people know and love, whilst receiving feedback from the community.

Fair enough. But I think the experiments should be logical. Removing the void isn't.

The loss in players came due to the transition between 1.8 to 1.9 - nothing to do with ruining the premise of Eggwars.
Experimental Eggwars gamemodes do get tested within the team, and issues do get brought up then and refined.
Unnecessarily pointless gamemodes, like your aforementioned "No islands", "No eggs" and "4 eggs" Experimental Eggwars will most likely not be added - we have honest staff members in the team who will say the truth about if a gamemode is stupid. Hiding behind a mask will not improve the state of the server.

Yes. 1.8-1.9 created the player count drop. That's quite true. I think I implied that by saying "that Cube later killed" - which meant due to it being a 1.9 server. EggWars brought Cube success, which was drained by it being a 1.9 server.
The no eggs etc ideas were used as exaggeration. I do truly hope such stupid ideas are never implemented. I think the staff is smart enough to notice it.

I mean, you can do that if you want. You'll eventually have to stop, eat, and armour will break if you're continually getting hit. It's just an endeavour to waste time, in my opinion, which doesn't really benefit you at all.

It makes the game extremely lengthy which I don't think is the right approach for EggWars.

If you think it should be a completely different gamemode, then suggest it! What should it be called? What features should it have? Why should it be implemented? Why shouldn't it belong in Eggwars?

As I said, I don't think Cube should waste time on such experiments. If they want to experiment, it should be features for the main game of EggWars. Experiment ways of removing camping. If No Void is a subsection, it should never be mixed with the original EggWars, no matter how much positive feedback it receives.

Thanks for the thread though. It did bring up some issues with the gamemode that hopefully will be fixed. :]

:D

Spoiler: Alissa Smith's awesome reply

Yes yes you are right once again Mr Management guy, the players are all wrong here for getting a stupid gamemode nobody asked for whilst you ignored the gamemodes people did ask for/suggestions for other games that could have been implemented instead.
Yes Mr Quetzi you are so right, the management team is always right. The entire 400 player evening cubecraft player count agrees with you, very nice philosophy you have Mr Quetzi sir, well done. Once again I apologise on behalf of the players for being angry and making a thread about this gamemode!

Thank you for coming to my ted talk

Brilliant stuff.

@Orangeric88

Spoiler: Reply to Orangeric

Have a community (twitter, forums, in-game announcement, etc) vote. Before you implement a new game, I think a community vote would be a great start. Even though you guys might be scared on leaking 'new games' the fact is you're really not. If you add a bunch of suggestions on a poll, no one will exactly know which ones will get added. (you can also hide the stats on what the poll).

This way, management still gets a say on what should be implemented, the community can get what they want, everyone's happy (maybe). I know this might not be smooth but it's worth a try to see how it works out.

Would be a cool idea. It would also reduce the amount of time they waste on coding and developing the game, they'll actually spend time on something that majority will enjoy.

Actually, in my eyes, I don't think voting's enough. I think this should be another way of feedback (as its more descriptive). Numbers can mean a lot of things. Some people might even click 5 just for the heck of it (not much thought). In fact, I think with more threads like this, it would be actually further helping you guys out with new experimental eggwars (as you now know what people hate and not repeat it again). With numbers, you don't really know why the person choose it really. All you know is they like it (not the reason why they liked it). I actually give props to Bowler here for actually spending the time to explain the issues with no void maps as he's giving you incite from a different perspective.

Couldn't agree more with what you've said. Rather than shutting down threads with criticism, listen to it. They always contain feedback. Cube has to take qualitative market data (which include descriptive feedback such as threads), rather than quantitative data (voting numbers and statistics) into consideration as for a Minecraft server, qualitiative data is exceedingly crucial as players will often tell you what exactly they want and what they hate, and it's fine to hear that they hate something you made, because you have to face it eventually.

I will respond to @xx_360noscope101's reply some other time.

Thanks for reading this. It's a lengthy reply because I tried to reply to as many as I could.