Future of TU Menu or No Menu

General
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On the whole, I just like the choice dynamic better in a plaza based system. Right now, it feels like going to the plaza is an active choice in and of itself. The hub world isn’t supposed to act as another route, it’s supposed to be the center of everything. I feel like the focus of Tower Unite should be the Tower itself, not just being a platform for mini games. Anybody is free to play the games exclusively if they’d like, but that should be an option they have, not the default.

Switching playing games alone from being a core option on the menu, to an option in an in-game menu, obviously comes at the cost of some convenience (Or at least visibility). Though for people who just want to do that, I don’t think an extra click or two is really that bad.

Especially for games like these, options should be broad, and people should be able to play the way they want. Though I believe what makes a game a game, and not just a mishmash of random code and objects, is design intent. Mutators are a good example, some people prefer alternate gameplay feels, and those will be offered, but the default will still exist, because that’s the way these games were designed to be played. Similarly, I think Tower Unite is/should be designed as a hub for all experiences before anything else.

This is dragging on too long, but just an extra note for clarity: I think that if this new system is added, the old menu should not be an option. Since convenience shouldn’t be a factor, and playing from the plaza offers a broad, and in my opinion, the intended experience. Playing games only can still be catered for without having an entire different main menu dedicated to it.

Again, sorry if I’m saying things that are obvious, but I’m trying to be clear: I’m not talking at all about game world server browsing, that system is fine and can stay as it is.

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I think it’d be cool if outside the windows, there could be like an animal crossing type thing where it loads a low poly background that flies by, like going in and out of tunnels, looking at oceans, having landmarks in the background, etc. Just something to break up the very direct way of loading, that every game has

2 Likes
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I think the main issue here is that it won’t be just a matter of a couple extra clicks for everybody. Of course, we’re talking way in the future when load times and server stability have much improved, but there will probably still be those few cases where some people’s computers just won’t connect.

And no worries if the things you’re saying are obvious, I feel the same way about my own posts haha. I think at this point, I’ve been reiterating myself a bit so I feel like all of our arguments have been made for now. It’s been fun though, and I thoroughly enjoyed discussing this with you and everyone else who participated. I’ll probably stop commenting on this thread now since I’ve got stuff to do, but I’m down for a part 2 in the future if things change in Tower and there’s more to talk about. Heck, the devs are already working on new gameworld start screens, endless gameworld servers and have been talking about revamping the whole queuing system so I guess we’ll wait and see how that stuff goes :smiley:

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Yeah, that was definitely my last statement on the subject for now, I think I’ve said all there is to say. I always enjoy a good debate, and there were many good points all around. Thanks for the fun thread!

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I think pretty much everything that can be said has been already but I just wanted to add on to this little bit you mentioned at the very least.

This is something I’ve honestly been wanting for a while, both the Gameworld ports and the Condo lobby. Either make them useful, which I honestly don’t see happening any other way than removing the condo and game server browsers, (or at the very least only allowing access to them while in the locations) or just remove the areas themselves. Either choice is extremely drastic and probably a hard pill to swallow for most people so I don’t see it happening, but I personally think one or the other would be for the best.

I said it in the discord but I’ll say it here too, GMT Reunion, even with it’s bugginess and lack of content, and the fact that I only played it for the first couple of days it was open like everyone else, has been leagues more fun for me than TU ever was, solely because of the instant community and connectivity of everything. Despite being the better game in almost every other aspect, Tower Unite really suffers without them.

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Personally, I like the idea of the Condo lobby, and it seems so core to the whole “Tower” thing I’d hate to see it go, but as I mentioned above, I can’t think of a solution other than removing the condo browser, which I’m not sure is a good idea.

I’ll go off on a tiny tangent here, and say that my personal idea is add all the game functionality stuff to the score board (Obviously), but still have queue boards in the plaza (Not in a separate game ports server or map). Near the fountain so they’re accessible, but if you’re not near there, you can queue remotely from the score board.

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Even if I’m willing to sacrifice the convenience of having the browsers I completely understand why others wouldn’t want that. I do like the idea of having all the queue boards right in the center of the plaza. However, while I’m honestly not sure why the game worlds were moved to separate server, there was probably a good reason for it, so I’m not sure if that would even be possible.

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They were moved so that game ports would be consistent across all plazas (Not individual queue areas per plaza). I assume they could do something similar, but just have the queue system itself be universal, while the boards are in every plaza (If that’s possible).

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Ok I came up with some ideas while avoiding to do any of my work
I realised the reason I just want the menu goes was that it made the idea of connecting to games from the lobby unused meaning (just join the lobby if you want to and let others use the menu) would mean I would get into no games and such, then I would be forced to go back to using the menu to play the games

How about just giving the option to auto load into lobby, then do a big rework on the lobby game worlds joining system.
Let’s say we put the gameworld ports back into the lobby server, when you join a gameworld port it give you an option to just create a server from there, wait for a server with a certain map and auto join it when one appears, or just auto join any random server. (Although those kicking dickheads that kick you as you join a server may ruin it) and these would automatically put everyone who you are in a group with into the same thing as you, making the game ports work better without having to just go to the menu because no one will use gameports.
Then the thing which makes anyone’s condo no matter where they open it from show up in the plaza condo lobby.
Then if people just want to see more people in the lobby, making use of the currently disabled player ghosts to make players who are in gameworld hover near the gameworld port that they are in (if the games public) but I don’t see a need for that. And just put features like the wandering merchant be a lobby only feature and such forcing more players into the lobby servers (also the decreasing of the lobby 3 size will make you closer to other players in the lobby)