I just had (again) another discussion with Flexman about the topic, how less players are playing TS.
He likes to see my and maybe other opinion here, like the following one, to motivate the community, the developer and JGG to take more care about the promotion of Turbo Sliders. More or less, that might be his wish, like maybe many others...:
My and opinion and especially TS 0.86 players might agree with that, is:
In TS 0.86 until summer 2004, there were full servers and even there were only 2 servers, they were full most of the time with up to 16 players.
Today, when we go online in TS 1.00, there aren't (anymore (anymore sounds still optimistic)) so many visited servers.
I started TS 1.00 already 300 times maybe already and a lot sessions were already just to see, who is online and it ended, that there were so less players, that i quitted "playing" TS again for this daytime.
New players have maybe more luck, since they play with 5 until 10 players in DemoServers with EasySlider (that EasySlider is so "promoted" is another strange story for me...).
But many Fullversion players are just not playing with new players, since they are by far no concurrence in the normal case.
So, i can just repeat what i told to Flexman: "I can by lucky, when i go online, that i meet more than 3 players on a server, which isn't a demoserver with EasySlider as car..."
But i told him too, that i can imagine, the developer of TS won't do really something to promote Turbo Sliders, since he must concentrate on the development.
The promotion is a task for JollyGoodGames, but i don't expect so much, since Jani P., the Creator is relative busy and is no TS player at all, too.
So, the community can do work to promote TS, too, for helping TS and themselves. But, and i can really understand that, that cannot be expected too, actually.
The fear of Flexman and others might be now, if TS 1.x would keep in its status with these relative empty servers still for the next 1, 2, 3 or more months (?).
My comment to him was for example to upgrade the Demoversion in the future to the status, TS 0.86 had. This means, the Demoversion would be nearly like the current Fullversion, just with the difference, that it keeps at the version 1.00 and only the fullversion contains the updates to 1.xy and maybe some special offers of JGG, like the possibility to participate in coming official JGG TS Cups, where only fullmembers can take part or something, where recorded races will be sended in, to win something, which would be only possible for fullversion players...
Well, maybe you see, i have so far no really convincing ideas and i'm no expert at that. But maybe you can take this as argument:
At the moment, there are less players. But the number of players buying the fullversion is still increasing.
With the upgrade of the Demo to TS 1.00 in the future, then the number of people playing TS would raise like in TS 0.86, i can imagine or: i hope
Finally, since the extra features to buy the fullversion won't be such a big step like it is at the moment, in relation less people would buy the fullversion. But in absolute, there would be more players buying it.
Example calculation:
Now:
Community / Month = 500 players (??)
New Fullversion Players / Week = 2.5 (0.5%)
With Demo = TS 1.00
Community / Month = 2000 players (?)
New Fullversion Players / Week = 5 (0.25%)
Simple calculation, based on the hope, it would be like the effect of TS 0.86...
Disadvantages:
More Tracks and Cars _published_ by new trackmakers or carmakers...
It's of course nice, when players are making new tracks and new cars.
But: when the tracks are more or less bad and the cars too AND they will be published...well, i am no friend of this.
Driving a car, like Shopping Kart is a funny thing, when joking with it at a track, which contains a supermarket
...but nothing for normal servers.
Jazzyclubs city and rallye cars are relative nice instead. Now with his new formula one car, which is actually relative good, i think, though only in zoom 0.8 really playable at his formula one tracks, so cars in the speed of the default cars might be still one of the best solutions since the track has no need to be too big like it must be, when it's made for a fast car...
Tracks: many bad tracks are published and still are. Bad in checklines and in different designquestions.
The Playtrix.net server has not much self initiative to care about the tracks, which are on their servers, since their servers are still the most visited one.
Back to the topic
...
another dsisadvantage is, that TS 0.86 would be no more place for DemoPlayers as game to create and test own tracks and cars.
Though, cars they can already test with the demo, as i remember correct...sorry, that i am not sure, at this case.
Well, another problem might be, that the sites linking to the demo version of TS should be informed and have to change the details about the demo etc., but that's not that big problem, if it is one, i think.
...There are some more problems, as i remember, but i forgot them already, since i made a 30 minutes pause before submitting this post
In this server you have 4 hours per week where you can hope to find a cup with 10 players.
