I am spending a ton of time creating a game edit, developing a first class website and trying to get my server setup to really support this game. Each day I come here and talk to the same 5 people over and over again.

How many people are there that are actively playing this game? 10?, 50? maybe even 100? I would be curious to know. I have popped a dozen different games and have 4 running currently and I've seen maybe 12 different people on my server in the last year or so.

If I was an outsider looking in, I'd be saying to myself, "what the hell are these people doing? Can't they see that this game is dead?" I do not know what to tell these people to convince them to try this game.

My original thought was to build a bad-ass online community that has all the bells and whistles and by doing so, I could get them there for other reasons and 'expose' them to Twar. I'm not so sure that's a good game plan now.

This community needs a new 'catch' to get new blood into the game. I'm fresh out of ideas......

I'm still around, dusted off my old MBBS Version a few months ago.
After some investment into the game i still add it to the menu of games.

With all the servers from Microblaster there are approximatly 531 total users on xxxx amount of BBS and TWGS That would only be correct if every single user only played one game. Myself I have 4 games that I play. It's not a very accurate number but it does give you some idea of how small the community may just be

That's not the total players from each server. It's the total players of the most popular game on that server. There are actually 200 active games in my database and 1346 players on 61 BBSs and 54 TWGSs. You have to assume that many players play in more than one game, and some servers don't delete inactive players.

There are BBSs that I know have TradeWars, but I haven't had time to create login scripts. There are also BBSs that I don't know if they have TradeWars or not, so my database is not complete.

You also have to consider that there are a lot of private servers that aren't tracked by me. JP is now tracking this for the latest version of TWGS, but won't have much data until most servers have upgraded.

Unfortinatly, there is no way to acuratly determine the actual number of players. Needless to say, it is a very small community at the moment. Most the BBSs that are still online are running on autopilot.

I have your TWGS listed, but I didn't know you were running HVS too.

The TW Facebook page now has over 800 people, up from about 240 less than 2 years ago. So there is interest. JP has been reluctant to advertise or promote.

My server opened in August, and I'm only creating games for a small niche' of players. I have 17 on my server, and I do delete inactive players after 30 days.

This winter will "tell the tale" as SG would say.

Ok, I have to ask. Why would JP be reluctant to advertise?

I dunno, maybe he wants to make sure the game has all the bugs out of it first... hehe.. TW, never will.

I agree, but I think it would be more a matter of the cost of financing an advertisement campaign.

He gets uncomfortable whenever I've tried to promote TW on facebook.

From what I've heard, once a facebook page gets up to 1k people, it goes "viral". The last time I promoted there I asked everyone to invite friends who may be interested to join.

You guys know better than I do how fast the IT industry is growing and how quickly it changes. First it was Myspace, then Facebook, now Google Plus is trying for a slice of that pie.

And consumers are fickle. You never know what "shiney new" thing they will be after next.

That's the campaign. "Come play Trade Wars 2002! The newest 'Old Game' available today!"

or The Ten Greatest PC Games Ever

Starting with...
#10: Trade Wars 2002

Released: 1990. Developer: Martech Software. Publisher: Martech Software.

For a surprising number of people, Trade Wars 2002 (TW2002) is the greatest PC game they've never heard of. This epic text-based space strategy game hails from a somewhat secret world of Bulletin Board System doors--early online games played on dial-up BBSs, which peaked in the 1980s and 1990s. Of the thousands of BBS door games programmed over the years, none has had the staying power of Trade Wars 2002. Long after the BBS era, the turn-based trading game continues to thrive thanks to Trade Wars Game Server, which hosts stand-alone games of TW2002 over the Internet.

To gauge the influence of Trade Wars, you need look no further than the popular massively multiplayer online game Eve Online, which many observers describe as a modern 3D version of Trade Wars. Another link to latter-day glory: Drew Markham, one of TW2002's ANSI artists, later directed Id Software's Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

H

Heh. Maybe not all the bugs, but it's probably a good idea if he gets some of the cool features he's been talking about done before launching a PR blitz. With a game this old, there might only be one chance every several years to bring in a bunch of new (and old) users all at once and reach a critical mass of fun competition.

Upgrades to v2.10 have been slower than usual, mostly because some ops are reluctant to give up their 25 ms move delay (which I mistakenly tested in wide release rather than just on my private server), but there have been about 160 activations for v2.10 (vs 220 for v2.07). There are about 70 v2.07 or earlier that have been online more than 5 days, and about 90 v2.08 or greater. Last month, while v2.08+ adoption slowly increased, there were a total of about 700 unique players in games. Now, keep in mind that these are only games that are exposed to the internet. Many private sites are not able to report activity.

There have been just over 600 activations, but the total number of unique downloads is over 3500.

The reason I am reluctant to advertise the game is because I don't consider it playable today for normal people. Why advertise a game that most people are going to be frustrated by? Until it's possible to protect players from hyper-aggressive players in public games, I have no control over the experience, I cannot guarantee that it will be a positive experience, or even anything like the experience intended by the designer. And if I don't expect players to have a positive experience with the game, why would I promote it? That actually does more damage than good for a game that I hope will have a future beyond the old, broken version currently being played.

As you know, I am trying to provide ways for public servers to support games that are more friendly to "typical players", and if that happens, and if gameops choose to support such games, then sure, I'd be happy to push this game.

At some point, a new game will be coming out. And if that game is even moderately successful, it will shine a spotlight on the original game. I would expect a lot of people to take a look at the game at that time, and what they see depends a lot on what I am trying to do here and whether or not I succeed. If players continue to have their way, and force the game to be played as they think it should be played, no amount of exposure will grow the player pool. But if servers are able to support less cutthroat games (whether by truce and/or PvP rules or whatever), there's a chance some players will give the old classic a try, and they might even "get" what it was that attracted so many people to it originally. I'd love to see that.

To my knowledge each version of TW2002 came with Bugs. These Bugs where by design by the original authors. And Players that found the bugs before anyone else did was lucky to have a experience that you can not put into words.
It was like x-mas to them.
Solving a puzzle is as much fun as playing the game.

So keep this in mind John when making changes.

We the Game OPs Promote and Support TW2002 or at least i do.
I remember going downtown to a Suite Office in sunrise or ft lauderdale years ago and paying $400.00 for a my MBBS version.
I still have the original copy on floppy disk and Manual.

TradeWars Lives in us!