Reading through the last couple of posts almost put me in tears... Oh God, I am gonna cry...
To me, what's more disappointing than the population crisis BattleDawn has gone through over the last two years is the sight of a few BattleDawn players constantly and desperately complaining about the current situation of the game as though there was no one around anymore and the game was closing its doors. While I also have seen a lot of the current players consistently praising 'old peeps' asserting the game is better with them around; don't take me wrong, I respect every old player but I believe this is just plain exaggeration.
Firstly, I am not going to summarize what has transpired over the past three years. Nonetheless, I've played the major part of last year, so I've been around long enough to tell and I believe that is the perfect occasion to share my perspective with the rest of you. What I'd like to assert is 2016 has been a mixed year for BattleDawn. Worlds weren't so empty compared to how they were during the second part of 2014 mainly because of the championship era. A lot of the worlds hosted two to, not so often, three serious teams competing against each other. The eras would essentially last depending on how much will would the contenders be ready throw on the table. So, generally the worlds were two-sided and would become one sided whenever one of the two teams succeeded on taking their major opponent down. A traumatic case would take place once in a while, however, meaning a server would breed little to no competition at all, and whenever there is competition in such world, one of the two major teams is of no match against the other either due to inactivity or the players of the other team simply lack experience and discipline. A case in point would be Mars 3 Era 85 where I managed to sneak
through the ladder-board and become the ninth player to achieve one of the highest scores and a 'not bad
' (according to you Milan, if you ever happen to come across this, hoping you will remember our conversation) power record worldwide. Like really, last August, the admins should have considered changing the name 'Mars 3' to 'George's no man's land', and I'm saying this literally. While I won't mention one tickers, personally being not a huge fan and having not forcefully played those in a while, I'd like to disclose that two and three tickers were decently competitive with the exception of Fantasy 3, which for the most part was one sided and headed towards the 4E alliance which consists of mostly Turkish players promoting Turkish nationalism in BattleDawn
. Often though there would be one of those exceptional 'CE-like' eras where I've had the chance to play literally all of them. With that being said, the game still breeds competitive eras whose contestants are part of a newer generation of very promising, mostly young players, unfortunately very discredited and underestimated.
Secondly, as I said before, I respect old players and very much. What I'd like to denounce is the idea that the game was better when they were around. Maybe. I wasn't around back then to tell. I surely had been witness as well as had long discussions with some of the old players namely Gaurav, Muha, Pantera, Psi, Alexander, Malicewolf and a few more. Those very productive discussions involved each player's perspective of said competitive era which took place in the so called 'Golden Age' of the game. Now the point I'm trying to make is, why look back in time? Why are we so wrapped up with the 'good old days'? Do you think the written memories should dictate how we live going forward with the game we all love?
It depends, I say. I think you can probably honor the old players' memory, but you can't live for them, because that means living in the past. Forget the past, it's gone, but glance back occasionally to remind yourself where you came from and where you are going. Us newer generation of smart and uprising players should inspire ourselves and listen closely to the old folks and aim to improve things every day while promoting the game, telling our friends in school or at work about BattleDawn, contact newbies in worlds and teach them how to play via Skype. Sometimes the problem isn't really a problem. It's just how we see it. Much like BattleDawn isn't dead after all, it's just our will to make it better.
Lastly, and most importantly, with the first day of the year coming to an end, my good wishes for all of you, I wish 2017 brings you health, prosperity and above all success. I hope 2017 will be a year of success not only for BattleDawn but also Tacticsoft games moving forward!
Good to see you around.