Market Gardening Arena
Picture this: you're an accomplished jumper. You've done all the jumps
from jump_academy_classic_b. You laugh at the timed course. You
have at least 3 Tempus servers bookmarked. You've got it all (mostly). But
you need more. You need a place where you can put your skill in practice.
And maybe assert your dominance over ennemy gamers.
Enter... MGA.
Get your Market Gardener ready and jump right in. Here, you will learn that all your carefully honed skills at rocket jumping will be thrown out the window. Be aware at all times of your surroundings, for UFOs going at Mach 5 may collide with you so fast that you'll only realize what happened after looking at the kill feed.
Forget about the concept of doing jumps with style. Most experienced ennemies you'll encounter will use the nastiest tricks and jumps to get you. If you do not adapt quickly, you may find yourself with 3 revenges to get and a K/D of 0. Honor doesn't exist in this mode. Spawncamping (called "souping"), bhopping and low jumps are a common sight and are oft-used techniques.
Outside of Tempus, did you ever came across a situation where shooting your rocket above you while jumping is a sound idea? You'll quickly learn that this is not uncommon, far from it. When the player you thought was way above you is instantly in your face, you will learn that catching your ennemy off-guard by falling thrice as fast is an important skill to master.
Wonder why your opponent, after a failed attempt, still swings his shovel at you? It's because they hope you'll be dump enough to immediatly jump away from them, which will allow them to surf your rocket and kill you. They expect you to be bad, and it will pay off.
Don't think that your experience from Hightower will simply carry over.
Jumping vertically at your opponent will get you nowhere, because
even so this technique can work in casual games, it is so dangerous
to perform in MGA that anyone doing so should be considered already dead.
Until you know what you're doing, I repeat, do NOT jump
vertically.
If you don't know the risks, try doing it against a Top 100 player.
Yes, MGA has a ranking system. Even though ranks are an unreliable way to guess
someone's experience, do expect the amount of nasty tricks, bitch moves and general
bullshit to exponentially increase the higher your ennemy's rank is. Note: if the rank
is hidden, you're gonna have a bad time.
Note: Unless you happen to eat rice three times a day, ping is never on your side.
Of course, exceptions are commonplace, I get my ass kicked by rank 150+ players
almost daily, and manage to win against players from the
leaderboard. Ranks only tell
you how long a person has played in endured MGA. But if, by some ungodly chance,
you end up becoming a regular, You'll have the pleasure of meeting the "others".
A lot of veterans are playing regularly, so you'll remember their names. You'll then
instantly know the amount of FUN you're gonna get from your play session.
(But you'd better die with honor, or no balls.)
While you could think based on what is written here that MGA is a toxic
place, it's very much not the case.
Heh. You're right not to believe it. Some people have H₂SO₄ coursing through their
veins because their mom never loved them. The most racist players are actually
the sanest ones but you'll never get to meet them because all of them were
deleted by ban-happy "moderators". But most players are respectful and
some might even stop killing you to point out your mistakes. Though you shouldn't
assume this from everyone. It's only by playing and getting your ass kicked
that you'll improve, and all good players know that. Going easy on newcomers
can only do them harm in the future. (And you'd prefer them taking a beating
from you rather than from one of the handful of literal gods on the
server.)
Sadly, a lot of newcomers try their luck in MGA too soon. I personally say that if you're not capable to complete all the jumps of jump_academy_classic, you should stay away from MGA. If you don't, chances are it's not going to be fun for you, who won't know how to jump well enough to simply navigate the map properly, and for your opponents, who'll feel like babysitters. (Either that or they completely destroy you, making you ragequit.)
One last thing: as of august 2023, there are regularly unofficial tournaments
taking place on the EU server. If you play regularly you will eventually hear
about one of them. If you do, don't hesitate and ask how you can enroll!
They are usually taking place on saturday evenings. Tip: ask a certain
Kool
Edit: no one does tournaments anymore. The fun has finally been killed.
Servers
You can play MGA on the classic jumpacademy servers, but they all have the
processing power of Indian Internet café machines. Moderators also have
a reputation of not giving a shit. If you only want to play MGA and live in
Europe, you can go to the Gardening Frenzy Rumble's MGA server
(82.153.70.143:27015), which is
devoid of new players (but often just devoid of players, period).
Edit: As of august 8, 2024, this server has imploded. never 4get
Never give up. And welcome to MGA.