Ricebug on 2/1/2015 at 14:56
It's that time of year, boys and girls, when we look at the trends in Thief FMs. This list was carefully sanitzed by the mission authors, so there should not be any missing. It was also decided not to include New Dark remakes of older missions.
Inline Image:
http://www.bogadocious.com/thief/T2_FM_Stats.pngRenault on 2/1/2015 at 15:29
Lowest T2 total since the beginning. Then again, 15 years later, I'm just glad we're getting the missions that we are. I did kind of expect a large spike in new missions after New Dark was released, but that really hasn't happened. 2013's slight increase was more due to the fact that we had two contests that year, which resulted in a batch of smaller missions.
Random_Taffer on 2/1/2015 at 15:31
Quote Posted by Brethren
Lowest T2 total since the beginning. Then again, 15 years later, I'm just glad we're getting the missions that we are. I did kind of expect a large spike in new missions after New Dark was released, but that really hasn't happened. 2013's slight increase was more due to the fact that we had two contests that year, which resulted in a batch of smaller missions.
This kind of made me sad too. I was hoping New Dark would pull some old vets back that had moved on to other games due to dark's old limitations.
Calibrator on 2/1/2015 at 15:35
First, all my comments are based on the pure numbers of missions, not their quality or the amount of play time they amount to.
So what do we have?
- A steady decline of T2 missions.
- The number of TDM missions isn't really increasing either.
- T1 missions continue both at the same low level (IMHO it's both great and astonishing that T1 still gets so much love).
- T3 missions were a disappointment from the get-go but that's perhaps no miracle...
Even if you add the numbers of T2 and TDM missions together you don't see a positive trend.
So, based on these numbers, it's totally beyond me how people can say that the community is growing (in a different thread).
The only thing I see growing here nowadays is file sizes and the amount of happy birthday posts. :sly:
And, sadly, we have permanently lost some members/authors in the recent months.
So what can be done? More or regular contests?
Of course that's a lazy thing to say for a non-author but my impression is that there were more contests in the past.
Also: Is it really good to have so many different editing systems?
Renault on 2/1/2015 at 16:13
We're already doing at least one contest per year, on average, sometime more. In fact, the one currently running got a very good response, and looks to have about a dozen entrants.
It's hard to force interest. There are more tools available than ever for Dromeders, so it should be easier than ever to create levels. There's also some great tutorials out there recently from nicked, sneaksie, and Dale. It seems there is some "new blood" out there but we could always use more.
Kurhhan on 2/1/2015 at 16:24
Can anyone give the titles of all the missions of 2014 years?
Thank you.
bbb on 2/1/2015 at 19:56
Terry
Thanks again for this update. My first impression is always to be amazed at how many missions have been created over the years. It is a real testament to the extraordinary work by LGS and the persistence and hard work by those who run/contribute to this community. Thank you to all, I can't put into words how much pleasure this has given me over the years.
Sadly, the numbers do speak for themselves. The number of missions is declining and the thought of no more missions is like imagining a world wide famine. Not sure what can be done. I tend to put out a mission every 2-3 years because I always make them much bigger than anticipated and my time to work on missions is less that the past. I, for one, plan to finish a T2 rooftop mission in 2015 and I think after that I will focus on much smaller missions with lots more details and better stories/plots.
BBB
bbb on 2/1/2015 at 20:04
One other thought. It seems exceedingly difficult to get past authors to come back and make missions. New dark did not seem to do that.
What about a campaign to attract new authors to try Dromed out? Not sure how we would do that but there still seems to be high interest in playing missions and everyone who is a FM author started out as a happy player.
One idea is to set up a buddy system where a new author is paired with a new user of Dromed. That may take away some of the initial fair that making a mission must be an impossible task.
Any other ideas?
BBB
Random_Taffer on 2/1/2015 at 20:11
Quote Posted by bbb
One other thought. It seems exceedingly difficult to get past authors to come back and make missions. New dark did not seem to do that.
What about a campaign to attract new authors to try Dromed out? Not sure how we would do that but there still seems to be high interest in playing missions and everyone who is a FM author started out as a happy player.
One idea is to set up a buddy system where a new author is paired with a new user of Dromed. That may take away some of the initial fair that making a mission must be an impossible task.
Any other ideas?
BBB
I think that buddy thing is a pretty good idea. Not sure how that can be arranged and organized, but it's not a bad idea at all.
Death's Cold Embrace will probably be released at some point this year. I'm not sure if it will inspire anyone, but there's that. I'm also working on other Dromed things as well.
