Flight Club: Beta Release Thread

[MagneticDuck`]

Before anything else, I'd like to thank everybody who's already participated in flight club, and express my delight and gratitude in respect to the wonderful attitude that this community takes on when faced with a time and a place to play altitude well. Since my introductory post on these forums, a lot of things have happened and we've learned more and gained more capacities in contribution to our ultimate objective: to make a place where good altitude happens.

I'm going to make this short and simple.

Flight Club is a place where good altitude happens.

That's the bottom line. Now here are some facts about flight club!

**** Flight Club is not a machine; it is human driven. ****

If you want a machine that takes 10 players and churns out a good game, vanishing already has done a good job with ladder. The problem, however, is that people are intimidated by ladder. We've had success starting flight club in times of the day that ladder would not normally fill, and this is because flight club is not another Ladder. Flight club is flexible and managed by friendly admins such as myself, who do no more than help the players make good teams, and deal with things that happen.

**** Flight Club has only one rule. ****

No, it's not the rule you're thinking of. Flight Club's only rule is to try your best to play well. You can be a newbie or a pro, all that matters is that you listen to what people tell you and try to do the right thing. If you act like a dick, you'll probably just be excluded from the game, but to be honest I haven't seen this happen yet. In terms of rules, just think of it like this: flight club is a better pub with more organization.

**** Flight Club now has an automated server! ****

We're working on an automated server, and already have a beta launch up. It helps admins manage teams more effectively, reducing a lot of the confusion and difficulty of managing the games that characterized my first launches flight club as an ad-hoc gathering on the WH private servers. This automated server won't be anything like ladder; instead, it requires the presence of an admin (currently label, kafka and myself are admins) to manage the game.

**** Flight Club is going well! ****

I used to be frustrated about the state of altitude, but since launching flight club, we have proved that in the presence of an opportunity, we have good players who want to play good games on a day-to-day basis.

GLHF all, and thank you for flying flight club!

[tomato man]

I really enjoy playing in this server, wasnt used to play during my afternoons but this new server you made up is forcing me to spend more time on alti!!
Finally there is a server that can "compete" with ladder in terms of fun and for sure its a lot more relaxing to play tbd here that in to the ladder and im pretty sure that we couldnt play again some good tbd after apl end if you didnt made this.

The only thing that we maybe need are a couple of admins.

Originally Posted by MagneticDuck`

GLHF all, and thank you for flying flight club!

THANK YOU FOR RUNNING THIS KEEP IT UP
and sorry if my english is so bad

edit: PW IS:RULEONE

[abski170]

I am really enjoying Flight Club! The atmosphere is generally a lot more relaxed than ladder for me. So far, I think it's a less hassle and more fun version of ladder. There's not so much pressure to stay and play if something comes up midgame. People can live commentate. Captains can choose their teams... Oh! And it's very flexible!

I'm happy that many players of different skill levels have joined Flight Club. It seems that the flight club community is becoming more vibrant and engaging with each passing day.

I can't wait for new features and maps to be added! It's nice that we now have different game modes, too! I'd really like to see tournaments held there!!!

I wonder why not everyone is in Flight Club yet. Maybe they're afraid of our initiation rites? My magic spells?

[TAYLOOP]

Could even the last pro alive participate? I almost want to log in again to check this out. Sounds like the game is still doing well yay.

~Wolfe[PRO]

[Kafka]

Originally Posted by abski170

My magic spells?

Be careful of Dem's powers!! She has put a spell on my admin powers before!

ggs in the Flight Club, well done duckie

[MagneticDuck`]

I'm going to add some more feature to make things easier for starting games, but first we need a lobby map!

Here's my current design idea: png image

Players will be able to fly around and do some stuff, they will be turrets preventing planes from crossing the center line, and there will be places for planes to take cover. Jonus says he'll make a thing tomorrow; anybody have any suggestions?

[Mango777]

You spelled Altitude wrong XD


Oldurlhttp://i.imgur.com/BVo8pbY.png
I put a bunch of planes to fly around, and because it was TBD, I also put a base in the middle. Also, the Biplane and Bomber both have little turrets that don't do any damage. For some reason, I put the bases upside down. If you want, I can put this map on the Altitude maps list.

[MagneticDuck`]

Cool. I'm sure we can make improvements later, but for now any old lobby map will do! Send us a link please.

[Mango777]

Here: Download

[ABlank]

Please do not correct the spelling.

[MagneticDuck`]

You have my word! In the name of alitutude!

[MagneticDuck`]

Recently flight club, with the new improved lobby and an increasing amount of awareness by part of the altitude community, has been able to start good 5v5 tbd games every day somewhere after 14:00 GMT time, in many cases migrating to tbd ladder later.

With more admins, a more solid and fault-resistant server, and some more time to mature and solidify, my Great Plan to give some life to altitude will have reached step 1, and I can move on to step 2: learn about the community of continuum (substantially larger than ours, but similarly playing a 2d flying game abandoned by their developers and with a competitive community) and try to make some sort of mutual contact with them.

Cheers, thanks for flying Flight Club.

[Mango777]

That "Continuum" game looks really interesting, when did you discover it Magneticduck? I might try it sometime...

[MagneticDuck`]

Flight Club lives on intermittently, (essentially whenever I come online and stick around) and has defined its place in the game world: it is a middle-ground between the pubs and ladder. We scrape reluctant loopies and old-timers alike into the server when we have enough players online, and games start with as little as 6 players (3v3 tbd or 1dm). From then on, players come and go; it either dies out after a few games, or catches a sort of wave and continues to grow until we have enough players that we can comfortably start ladder, hopefully tbd (as ball ladder already has its own schedule).

Please, please join us. And to the admins I have assigned: please, please take initiative in getting it started. I feel this is important.

I still have yet to look into the community of continuum; I'll do this as soon as I get a patched version of wine (that's necessary to run it on linux) to compile.

We're all doing a lot of other things with out life, but let this be my prophecy: People of altitude, we can make this game go forward, step at a time, if we use our resources effectively. Flight club is designed to provide a place for people to get interested in altitude, and the rest follows.

[Kafka]

Originally Posted by MagneticDuck`

And to the admins I have assigned: please, please take initiative in getting it started. I feel this is important.

What time does Flight Club usually start up? I usually get online around noon U.S. Eastern (4pm GMT) and no one is there.

[MagneticDuck`]

It seems that kafka has already figured it out but for the record, FC started in full force today at around 18:00 GMT I believe.

One nice thing about FC is that it's easy to start with less than 10 players completely committed to doing a game, so it can start whenever there's at least one admin online and another 3 player to camp the server. 2v2 1dm is a nice way to start.