What keeps you involved?

[MrsGSH]

So when we were dating, GSH told me about his work with BZ2 and I have to admit I totally didn't get it, patching an old game with no support from the publisher as a personal hobby? Now I get why he's patching, but what I don't get is why you guys are playing. And actually, as far as I can tell, some of you aren't playing, you're testing. Very cool for GSH and obviously cool for you.

Culturally, the marketing is about the NextNewThing(tm), and here you are playing and enjoying something that is now quite long in the tooth--over 70 in dog years.

So my question is, what keeps you involved? And when did you hook up with other players online, either discussion boards or networked games?

**Again, I rarely play video games and haven't played BZ2, so remember I don't know anything, but I'm honestly curious.

**Actually, I'm a bit professionally curious. (I'm an applied linguist.)

[Col Klink]

I just love the game. Fell in love with it back in 2005 and have been hooked on it ever since...curse you Nathan. Just kidding. Serioursly, it's like an odd obsession that I can't seem to shake loose no matter how hard I try, and I've tried like several times without any success. Give em a good spanking for me Mrs GSH and tell em to never stop developing new patches.

[MrTwosheds]

Its quite a unique game, I cannot go to the shops and buy a new one like it. I have actually given up buying new games, the cost (new hardware etc) and frequent disappointment at what you get for it, have curtailed those old "must have" urges.
For me the thing that keeps me here is the way I can Mod the game, I love just fooling about with its workings. I also play strat every now and then, which is the very competitive part of the game, I am usually "a loser" at this as some members of the strat community are extremely "dedicated" to playing it. I have become very good at losing.

[Red Devil]

1. Overall design: This includes the building of bases, which contain requirements for increasing technical capabilities in combat units, the mix of armor and shielding on slow tracked vehicles and walkers with fast and maneuverable hovercraft, an excellent variety of weapons using different technologies, all resting on the foundation of a clever scrap system based on an exotic alien material call, "Biometal", which allows the creation of the above-mentioned buildings, units, and weapons.

2. Accessibility. All code for models, units, and DLL code are readily accessible and relatively easy to modify.

3. Extensibility: People are able to create endless variations based on individual ideas.

4. Involvement of original members of development team who are willing to fix problems and improve the engine with newer technology and who are willing to help others learn.

5. Communication: All of the above would be very difficult without the internet which allows us to quickly communicate our thoughts and distribute files.

All five create a synergy of unique individuals who enjoy both playing the game and creating new variations within it.

[MrsGSH]

1. Overall design: This includes the building of bases, which contain requirements for increasing technical capabilities in combat units, the mix of armor and shielding on slow tracked vehicles and walkers with fast and maneuverable hovercraft, an excellent variety of weapons using different technologies, all resting on the foundation of a clever scrap system based on an exotic alien material call, "Biometal", which allows the creation of the above-mentioned buildings, units, and weapons.

2. Accessibility. All code for models, units, and DLL code are readily accessible and relatively easy to modify.

3. Extensibility: People are able to create endless variations based on individual ideas.

4. Involvement of original members of development team who are willing to fix problems and improve the engine with newer technology and who are willing to help others learn.

5. Communication: All of the above would be very difficult without the internet which allows us to quickly communicate our thoughts and distribute files.

All five create a synergy of unique individuals who enjoy both playing the game and creating new variations within it.

If you only had your 1 & 2, do you think you would still be playing or tinkering regularly?

[MrsGSH]

How long did you play the game "out of the box" single player before you went looking for patches, other people to play with, other mods (not sure I'm using this word correctly), etc.?

Basically, how long was BZ2 a self-contained entertainment for you? And would you have remained interested if you hadn't ventured off to the "BZ2 world beyond the box"?

Thanks for humoring me and thanks for the replies so far.

[Red Devil]

i played Singleplayer (SP) and Instant Action (IA) for about a year before i tried MP, basically to familiarize myself with the game and i don't feel the need to compete and win so much.

i would have remained interested, but not as much as i am now. unsure if it is a feeling of mastering "my own little world" or if it is the enjoyment i get from learning new things or from sharing what i have done and seeing the enjoyment of others from it. maybe a combination.

if i only had the first two items in the above list, maybe not; it is rewarding to learn, but it means more when you can share the fruits of your labor and see others benefit from it and enjoying their camaraderie.

speaking of which... now that i am finally able to play BF3, i am hooking up with old friends from Battlefield 2 (BF2) who are very funny, fun to play with, and very good people.

[General BlackDragon]

There are no "nextnewthing" for BZ2's genra.

BZ2 is an interestingly different game design then other video games. Usually, games fall into a series of categories, First Person Shooter, Real Time Strategy, Racing, Sports, Adventure, Puzzle Solving, etc...

The FPS/RTS game types are primary, and are usually very separate. However, 1998 PC Game Battlezone, and subsequently Battlezone II, have found a way to combine the two very elegantly, and in a way that is smooth and plays very well. Neither element is subsided to the other, they're in relative balance. (Compared to C&C Renegade, which was primary FPS, and a very tiny bit of RTS)

As for longevity, This game is very easily moddable, allowing users to create maps and mods and new content as much as they want. And then we have GSH and Ken, who have kept updating and adding new things to the game, which livens interest and increases it's potential longevity even more.

So, all in all, it's a very unique environment. The game is still played mostly because it's the last of it's kind. I wish more games would be developed that take after Battlezone 1/2, but there really aren't any.

[Red Spot]

Most of what I could say has been said, however, not yet by me

So when we were dating, GSH told me about his work with BZ2 and I have to admit I totally didn't get it, patching an old game with no support from the publisher as a personal hobby?

Did he begin about it on the 1st date?

So my question is, what keeps you involved? And when did you hook up with other players online, either discussion boards or networked games?

My first real MP and modding experience was with this game. I played some MP before, but none really grabbed my attention. I guess that created some loyalty that keeps pulling me back to the game, and last couple of years also to some BZ2 related fora.
At some point I felt comfortable with my skills in the single player missions and starting looking for what else the game had to offer. Living together with some friends at the time, having a pretty good internet connection, trying and getting hooked to MP was easy. At that time I never really visited fora or used any other social network/tool to hook up with people as there were games up most of the time and if not, by the time FE got released you had several modders releasing work that today is mostly known in the form of G66 (Natty's work is best known but there where others that created 'MPI-mods'). Those mods gave you more than enough of a timesink to wait for a strat game to fill up, or just kick the AI around
Usually I just start the game I want to play and see who is, or isnt, online. Messenger is currently installed but however I look at it I cant feel any other way than that its just some sort of timesink that doesnt really enjoy me » so I better sink my time playing some games

[Iron_Maiden]

My dad gave me the game after he had already played it. I have loved it since I was young and consider it a major influence on my life*. I play Multi to interact with other people and keep the game alive.

[Ded10c]

Much of my reasons have already been covered by Red Devil, but I have a few more.

Since I was introduced to BZ2 in 2004 by a friend, I was amazed by it. I didn't actually start playing it until a few months later when I found a second-hand copy, and I played singleplayer and IA for about a year to a year and a half before I discovered bz2maps.com and Forgotten Enemies, and 1.3 about another six months after that. They kept me busy for a long time. Immediately after completing FE, I thought "Wow. I want to make something like this." and my modding began, albeit very slowly.

Since then, I've come to realise how amazing its storyline and soundtrack are (perhaps I should say the potential behind the storyline, as many of the best parts of it have been written by its fans). All the time I've been plugging away at mods, never actually getting very far with them. I was hanging out on BZ2MD for ages before I discovered BZU, and was still a fairly new member when it was shut down. I moved here and, at roughly the same time, was accepted into the beta testing team.

As to why I'm still with it... well, it amazes me constantly. It's the only game I've ever seen where the developers are still involved, where the community has such a big part in its development, when so much of its content and expansive story was actually created by us. I don't play it all that much any more because a decent game takes time and that's something I'm short on, but if I get a few hours free and I'm not doing something else I'll be making dodgy maps, prodding OFDs about, hacking a new race together or buggering up another modder's wonderful work (sorry Lizard ). N1 even managed to persuade me to start rewriting and expanding on parts of the soundtrack.

I also realised last year that the things I do with BZ have the possibility to help get me into university.

[bigbadbogie]

Battlezone 1 (1998) was one of the very first 3D games I ever played (in 2004)... and certainly the first I ever got into. The combination of unbeatable game-play and an impeccable storyline sucked me in from day one.

Naturally, I sought BZ2 after that and found it in the bargain bin at a game shop while on holiday in Queensland for $8.

It took me a couple of years to find Forgotten Enemies and Fleshstorm, and also the 1.3 patches. When I finally did, I then started playing around with the settings and creating my own add-ons to add to the game.

Since then, I have been constantly modding the game and creating content which gets better each time. I can honestly say that my next mod will revolutionise BZ forever.

QF2 is a total conversion mod which updates the game to have a graphical level equivalent of a 2006-2007 modern game... and I'm working on improving that. Naturally there are some graphical limitations, but I have found dozens of ways to 'hack' around them. With the continued help of GSH, I might be able to rectify some of these shortcomings.

I live in eternal hope that GSH will throw me a bone here and there.
That is what keeps me in the BZ frame of mind.

Anyway... here is some proof of QF2:



Still in pre-alpha stage to be sure.

[Axeminister]

What keeps me involved. I like to play BZ2 because it has elimates of FPS and RTS in one game. I can command stuff, or fight stuff, or both at same time which you don't see in most games. It keeps my mind busy, I like when I'm pushing on multiple fronts and then all heck breaks loose with a surprise attack from enemy. Being able to handle that with proper responses and strategic defenses/offenses is awesome for me.

How long did I play before I went online. Five years. I never had a decent internet connection until about 2004. I had bought Battlezone II in 1999 when it first came out. I played the single player missions so many times it was crazy. I played the instant action (vs computor) game even more. I was basically a First Person Shooter fan and would beat games like Call of Duty 1, Unreal 1&2, Serious Sam, C&C Renegade, and many, many others, then fire up a game of Instant Action vs the computer because the other games would be beaten after a few days and I would need a good game to play until I had money for the next FPS.
When I finally did get a connection I found BZUniverse and got the patch to 1.2 and immediately got the G66 mappack for it. I basically went straight to playing G66 because I had already played all the default maps hundreds of times without the internet.

[Shadow Knight]

I also bought BZ2 when it came out in 1999 after playing the demo pre-release. I loved it because it was so much different from everything else on the market and even today there hasn't been anything that's managed to get close to its gameplay, although C&C Renegade multiplayer gives off a similar vibe. The feeling of being in the midst of an RTS game in first person able to directly take part in the action is brilliant.

I played offline on my own for about five or six years until I got a strong enough internet connection to play games on, eventually finding out about BZUniverse and registering. That's when my modding took off until i got burnt out about a year or two ago, whereupon i signed up to projects in hopes to rekindle my modding desire. It did a little bit, but not enough to help the team any.

At the moment I just watch from the sidelines, occasionally logging in to post if I see an interesting topic like this one.

[Nielk1]

Battlezone was the 2nd game I ever modded, the first being Dark Reign. I was modding it before I had finished the base campaign and once the other modders had cough up (well I had never released anything so they were always ahead) I spent my time merging mods for personal play.

I liked the community as a whole but having started this whole thing at the age of 10 or 11 I took a good while to actually join a board and I took even longer to begin talking to members like GSH. I had even left the game for a time and returned after the release of the first public beta of 1.3 to find some enhanced modding ability but a pretty weirdly broken game. A number of members had run away with the removal of flying so I figured I should involved a bit more.

My first actual communication was an email to Avatar about how to create a Silo via an extractor back when he had not the slightest idea what he was doing, at least not int he BZ2 sense (he of course had some experience with BZ1).

Time passed, I continued to not release anything but tinker on my own, I joined a few projects and eventually got on the beta team where I submitted some assets and did a bunch of testing. Everything finally started to trail off once I reached the age of 20 where college was really starting to hit me hard.

It is likely because of this game, even if indirectly that I got into Computer Science. It is definitely why I have a job, where the website I made for this game was of great assistance on my resume.

Basically, where some have their aspirations and their chosen profession shaped by their family or their friends, mine was shaped here. That enough is reason to stay.