KZmod is not dead. Read why in here.

Soulfather,

I've never really spoken to you though I've been around a long time and still remember the original hype and ideas surrounding the mod dating back to watching it being talked about on IRC. No matter what, the mod was always going to be less popular comparatively to 1.6 kz, that's just sorta how it's always been when it comes to originals versus. remakes (take for example mods such as fortress forever; potentially a bad example cause of tf2 but it still sorta applies, leagues and ladders were geared up to transition and the game died almost instantly). In regard to the work you've done (and others, though I have no idea who was involved) well done, and I apologies that years of effort haven't yet paid off, though I think there is still hope.

I didn't read too many of the responses here but I played the mod when I think it was in beta or some other stage and didn't really like it, I then played it again later down the line when it was properly 'released' and had a lot of fun with it. Despite being in no way shape or form involved with the community, nor playing the game enough to completely understand it (especially the new modes and what not) I still think there is an immense amount of hope for the game, thus a few thoughts;

My main point boils down to XJ. It is completely beyond me as to why (this could be your fault, or previous management here at XJ) this site wasn't more involved in the building of the community. Sure, XJ has done it's best at promotion through a subforum and updates on the main page but why wouldn't you integrate a world-record list on XJ instead of having a stand-alone site? I think this decision had you guys pretty much shooting yourselves in the foot. I think I visited the website 2-3 times to see which players had transitioned to kzmod (right after pizza told me he was getting into it) but other than that I never really found myself returning, whereas, XJ is visited everyday a large playerbase who (if it was thrown in their face) I'm certain would become more involved. If newsposts and links were on XJ instead of a standalone site there is no doubt in my mind I would be far more interested, alongside a copious amount of others. If I were you guys, my first step would be transitioning all content, worldrecords, everything, over to here. This game is far too small to segregate the community even further, I mentioned a long time ago that even games such as hns (when the community still existed) should have content on this site as to keep the community together, helping both XJ and the other 'spinoffs' that come with it. XJ is the 'official kreedz community' so a mod that has been worked on by a guy that's not only an honorary member, but has been around forever, not being on here, is beyond ridiculous.

I mentioned above pizza; when pizza told me he'd started playing mod more than 1.6 it sparked my interest. I would argue that a large part of kz's popularity is it's players dedication to the active members within the community. If anything, having players such as pizza who are involved in both helps the game tremendously, thus reiterates my point above in transitioning the communities toward one another instead of creating distinctions. Even simple steps such as runs of the week, or tj movies from kzmod, posted here on XJ, would only help. Even myself, who as mentioned previously has watched the game 'develop' from the get-go, would be far more interested if I could at least see what was happening inside of the game, so again, these things need to be posted here.

XJ just recently changed all of it's management, so assuming the issue was lack of communication previously, and not you actually wanting a standalone website then I would talk to XJ and try and resolidify a connection in moving forth. You had a HUGE community here in which many players are happy to help, I never even saw kzmod looking for help, regardless now that I know you are, if there is anything I can do personally to help, please don't hesitate in contacting me. In case any of this was mentioned in posts above, apologies, I'm in a rush and didn't read through all posts~

Goodluck and I sincerely hope you can pull it all back together.

Hello SoulBrotha, I am glad you're back, and even gladder that you're trying to bring kzmod back up again.

For me, the game was better than 1.6 kz, and one of the reasons I "stopped playing" (for a few months) was because I had no pc. I can't possibly fathom why would anyone prefer 1.6 over kzmod, which is basically the same thing with more features and LESS CHEATERS! And yes, I could barely notice the difference in movement between 1.6 and kzmod, and even so, if there were a difference, it doesn't mean it's automatically a negative concept.

Now, on to the second reason I quit kzmod AND 1.6 kz was (So it's actually not kzmod's fault per se, and yea you've heard it before) because of idiotic random bhop slowdowns. I just can't play a game that feels more like a lottery than something that takes actual skill. But I can't stress enough that its both 1.6's and kzmod's problem, and it was just getting irritating as hell. I don't know, maybe it's just me, that doesn't change the fact that it greatly reduced the skill factor for me and that I felt like I was playing russian roulette more than anything else. Like I said, maybe it's just my problem, if so, then so be it. But, If the bhop weren't so broken, then kzmod would be the best game ever actually, in my opinion.

In response to the "why did it fail" question, well, I think it was because of the demo release situation. Yes, you lost kayne, but a quick replacement should've been found. But another thing is, that I completely disagreed with Raptor's logic there. He basically said that "oh, when you guys submit more demos, we'll release them, but for now, I see no point in releasing demos". That was definitely the wrong approach in my opinion. For one, it produced no content whatsoever (anything new like newsposts) and basically made it pointless to visit the site. And two, it basically demotivated wr holders to record because they basically thought a release was never gonna happen, and they were already waiting for one. Do 2-3 demos (or even one) not deserve a release? In my opnion, they definitely do. I personally don't need 60 demos per release to find said release enjoyable. As long as there's some new demos and something new to watch, it makes me happy as a visitor, and makes me look forward to visiting the site more.

What I propose to you, if you do get the site up and running again, is to have a "release" every week, NO MATTER WHAT. What do I mean by no matter what? Even if there were no demos submitted for that week, just write a quick update by making a newspost saying "sorry, no new demos this week". Ironically, I actually think that this idea would prompt people to record much more and we wouldn't see these newsposts saying "no demos for this week". I actually think that you would've had at least 2-3 new demos every week for a long time. This idea basically kills two birds with one stone, it produces never ending new content (newsposts about demos, whatever amount) and it would let record holders know that the demo releases are active which would've greatly motivated them to make more demos (in my opinon, at least it would've for myself).

And please ignore the "let it die, give up" comments. Best of luck.

I don't know much about the matter but if the community was integrated in XJ by increasing the admin base to accomodate for the new releases/news/post-requirements it would make the biggest difference.

I would like to extend my thanks for the intelligently written, constructively critizing and critical posts on this page (hoping mine stay on this page....if not....go back a page!).

Hats off because you guys are all RIGHT. I would like to pull the rabbit out of the hat but, i can't yet. I just can comfortably say this post was made for a reason.

Keep bringing more of this type of post please if you have more constructive ideas that I can literally work with and turn into a reality.

I agree with napz the reason I never really played it (I tried it a couple times can't remember what versions) was the animations. Just didn't like the feeling/look you get when jumping. If download links etc are provided I would be willing to give it another go and provide feedback

Yeah animations was probably not a good description. I will give it another go tonight (not sure if I ever did actually play the last release) then get back to you.

XJ's playerbase isn't huge and the only scenario I see kzmod expanding it's community is trough 1.6 kz. CS 1.6 is dead. Make an educated conclusion. My expectations about kzmod's popularity weren't huge from the outset but were more than a ballpark of 50 people on gameservers after a few weeks. That's sad.. kzmod has too much to offer in terms of everything and for everyone. I guess the essential thing that scaring people away is kzmod being not exactly 1 to 1 experience to 1.6. Although, it is very similar, it also has thrice higher fps that tastes differently.

Regardless what was said I loved the game and I wish we would give it one more try, but this time putting a little more into PR. A small but signtificant factor I disliked about kzmod's community is the website it has which looks very gray and doesn't really make me wanna visit it too often. It would not matter though if we merge communities which _sounds_ really great. Although it does sound great, I'm having a hard time imagining how we'd draw that line, separate things, handle such a big content and all that. It would probably take us to re-code the site and make it look more of a windows based concept since it'd probably become a 3 newspost per day site. Well tbh there is at least one gaming site I know that releases 2-3 newsposts per day and it's fine.

Anyway, I'm probably a little out of the flow from you guys, all I want to say is I can't recall anything I would like to change in kzmod, it's totally up to par as for me. I'm just happy to see you guys (SoulFather and Raptor) coming back with the new strenght, we're here to support you. Let's start evolving with smaller.

Originally posted by SoUlFaThEr

I screamed for years for people to assist us with a admin staff.
I had one angry demo admin.

I believe KZMOD has a great future, it just needs more attention. While I agree 1.6 is close to if not perfect, KZMOD has come pretty darn close over the years.

Some people don't like change, but if it's a change for the better people will automaticly become attracted to it, what I mean is that if you want KZMOD to be the next thing, it would need to have everything that is already available in 1.6 (eg. maps, detailed lj plugins et), and then you can build on it from there. People have been playing KZ for years and have adapted to things and that's just how it is, so someone may find it a turnoff if something is different in terms of movement and techniques etc.

The things I noticed while playing was the lack of maps and player animations not being the best, I'm not sure if you can port maps over from 1.6, but if that is so I think more people would be more attracted, as I'd think everyone would want the old content available, even if it's not up to source standards.

On to the animations, I heard someone mentioning the aesthetics of KZ and I strongly agree, while it is funny for a while I doubt people would want to watch Evil-Homer in ROTW's in the long run. Many people start trying out KZ because of how cool it actually looks. What could be an idea is to get in touch with the CSPromod team, as they have more or less duplicated the 1.6 player animations in Source.

Attracting more players to the mod shouldn't be so hard, take a look at China f.ex. Chinese servers have thousands of people playing KZ on a daily basis, and I think many would be interested but they simply don't know about the mod because of the language barrier, and the fact that it's free makes it more attractive.

I take off my hat to everyone involved with this mod, I want to see it succeed but it needs some final work to be the next thing, so I hope the people involved aren't totally burned out working on it.

About the models and animations, it isn't due to lack of effort on our part, it's because no one so far has offered to animate for us. If I tried it the end result would probably would not look any better. These aesthetic problems could be fixed if someone with a talent for animating steps up.