How to get XTA/BA players to play non-TA mods

[Boirunner]

The question is, how do you get people who are now playing ba, aa, xta, llta, funta, all the other tas to play a non-ta mod like nanoblobs, gundam, ee, swta, etc.

i have seen many people on this forum complaining about the fact that this does not happen, that ta-style players tend to stick to ta based mods. smoth in particular likes to complain about this.

well, i have the answer. how do you get ta players to play non-ta mods?

YOU CAN'T! STOP TRYING!

why? it's pretty obvious. most people came for for the ta, and they get the ta. they like ta. they like the units, the feeling, the graphics. they like the solars, the mexes, the flashes and the peewees. i am one of those people.

i played ta when it came out, read about a 3d remake and came here for it. and i like it.

learning a new rts is hard. it takes hours and hours of playing to get into the balance of a game. it's not something you do just for the hell of it, it takes serious effort. and there are tons of RTS games on the market. Company of Heroes looks interesting, Supreme Commander looks interesting, C&C3 looks interesting. i could start playing any of those. there is no real incentive to start playing a game just because it happens to share the engine with one i like!

so what can we do? are non-ta mods doomed to failure and obscurity? no!

ADVERTISE NON-TA MODS ELSEWHERE

you should not be trying to gain your playerbase from the existing spring community. you should not try to make less people play ba&speedmetal and more people play your mod. you should get foreign people to come in and play your game!

if you have a mod, make a website with a forum! make a manual, unit guide, faq, all that stuff. start advertising it in other gaming communities/rts boards. have autohosts running so someone is always hosting your game! make your own channel in TASclient where you make people go who are from your own community.

this way, you get players who are actually here for your mod, not for the ta. this makes all the difference. to reiterate my point:

IT'S MUCH HARDER TO GET SOMEONE WHO CAME HERE FOR THE TA TO PLAY YOUR MOD THAN IT IS TO GET SOMEONE WHO ISN'T HERE YET TO DO IT!

you should see this yourself. the same thing holds true for speedmetal players, btw. so many people talk about getting people to stop playing speedmetal and play something else. THAT IS STUPID! if people like speedmetal, they should play it. if you want more people playing your map of choice, then you need more new players!

gundam or star wars ta are perfect examples for how this could work. i'm sure there must be thousands of RTS playing gundam fans out there. get in contact with THEM to make gundam a bigger game, don't try to get TA guys to change. There must be thousands of RTS playing star wars fans our there who have never heard of swta - the same applies here.

in the other thread, lots of people made the point that the large mods here are games in their own right.

IF YOU THINK THEY ARE GAMES NOT MODS, THEN TREAT THEM LIKE GAMES NOT MODS!

a game has its own website. its own advertising. its own tournaments, game guides, hint files, gamefaqs entries, forums, chatrooms, logos, ...

you can't expect other people to treat your mod like a game if you yourself treat it like a mod!

THE SPRING COMMUNITY IS A TA PLAYING COMMUNITY

and i'm not talking about the forum superstars here, but the people actually playing the game! they all play TA games! all the excellent players play TA mods! all the action is in TA!

i know some people don't like this fact, and wish to change it. that's not going to happen! the amount of people who exclusively play TA mods is probably over 95%. and i'm pretty sure there is not a single player who exclusively plays a non-ta mod. ACCEPT THIS FACT PLEASE!

well, so what if you make a mod, finish it so it's playable, make a website, advertise it, and do all the stuff i suggested aboke, and still nobody plays it?

GUESS WHAT MAYBE YOUR MOD SUCKS!

if you can't get people to play your FREE GAME, mabye it's because THEY DON'T WANT TO!

to make myself clear: i haven't played any non-ta mod to decide if they actually suck. and none of the non-ta mods that i know of have made an effort to advertize themselves outside of the community. so they might be really good, but nobody knows about them.

SO STOP COMPLAINING!

now to reiterate my points in a short manner:


() PEOPLE WHO CAME FOR THE TA WILL PROBABLY NOT PLAY YOUR NON-TA MOD!

() THEREFORE YOU MUST FIND PLAYERS WHO DID NOT COME FOR THE TA!

() ALMOST ALL PLAYERS ALREADY HERE CAME FOR THE TA!

() THEREFORE YOU MUST FIND NEW PLAYERS FOR YOUR MOD OUTSIDE OF THE THE SPRING COMMUNITY!

() TO DO THIS YOU MUST ADVERTISE YOUR MOD AND PRESENT IT AS A FULL GAME!

() THIS TAKES EFFORT AND TIME!

() SO STOP COMPLAINING AND GET TO WORK!

seriously!

i came here for the ta. i won't play gundam. i won't play ee. i won't play swta. i won't play 1944. i won't play whatever the fuck else. THOSE MODS MAY BE THE GREATES THING SINCE SLICED BREAD BUT I WANT TO PLAY TA OK?

and before anyone brings up kernel panic: first of all, nobody plays it and i'm not complaining. second of all, it's more like a funmap ala tower defense and takes like 10 minutes to learn and an hour to be good at, and thirdly, KDR made it, not me

anyway, back to being angry:

YOU VERMIN! THE CONSTANT COMPLAINING ABOUT PEOPLE PLAYING THIS, NOT PLAYING THAT, THE "OH GOD SOMEONE KNOWS GUNDAM EXISTS!" POSTS, STUPID IDEAS ABOUT "NO SPEEDMETAL WEEK", IT'S ALL JUST BULLSHIT! LOOK PAST MY ANGRY AND SEE FOR YOURSELF THAT WHAT I AM SAYING MAKES SENSE!

really. i hate complaining.

and i could have wrote this in a less angry manner, but so what.

[Quanto042]

+1,000,000,000,000!!! Fucking RIGHT!!!!

Its about time somebody posted this! Thank you Boirunner, you are a gentleman and a scholar!

[Cabbage]

It's like you read my mind ^^

+1,000,000,000,000!!! Fucking RIGHT!!!!

Its about time somebody posted this! Thank you Boirunner, you are a gentleman and a scholar!

[FLOZi]

Plenty of TA players do try S:44, so your analysis is flawed, to say the very least.

[AF]

I think he has a point in that non TA based mods should be targetting new users not TA players.

[Wasp]

New users come to spring all the time, so it makes sense to advertise on shore.

[tombom]

New users come to spring all the time, so it makes sense to advertise on shore.

But most of them come to Spring for TA because that's what it's usually advertised as.

[Wasp]

And...? Catch what you can :)

[Fanger]

For someone complaining about people telling you what to do and not do you sure are telling everyone else what to do and not do.

1. IF I want to whine about something I will whine about it, this like playing TA because you want to play TA is a behavior I may find enjoyable and thus will engage in simply because it relieves emotions and stress in my mind. Dont tell me whether I can whine or cant whine..

2. YOU do not speak for the whole damn community and the other people who browse this forum and the new people who come in. Some of them may be interested in coming in because they enjoyed TA, but unlike you they may be open to trying new things. Just because YOU dont feel like trying a new mod, does not mean that every new person, and every old person in this community feels the same.

3. We are going to advertise on spring because of point number one, and because of the fact that some people may be possibley interested in trying new mods. SO DONT FREAKING TELL ME WHERE to advertise. Some people on here might want to play something other than TA, and I and anyone else can continue to advertise for their benefit. Stop being an arrogant SOB and assuming that we are attempting to GET YOU to play our mod..

NUFF Said..

[Boirunner]

Some of them may be interested in coming in because they enjoyed TA, but unlike you they may be open to trying new things.

this may be true in theory. but look:



it's all ta.

of course i can't speak for the whole community, i haven't even been active on the forums very much. but the REAL community - the one that actually plays the game - likes ta, and doesn't like non-ta based mods. you can't argue that, it's a fact. i am just asking people to accept that fact and plan with it instead of complaining about it.

(also ranting, but yeah whatever.)

[j5mello]

i would just like to say i came to Spring having never played OTA.

i play all different mods. Im willing to test out any mod atleast once to see if enjoy it.

the biggest point is not everyone coming here to play TA based content is so close minded that they won't play other stuff. And those are the people they are trying to reach.

Your arguement follows along the line that since Nintendo released Mario for Wii no one else should bother trying to get other people to play games.

(NOTE: Wii=Spring ENGINE; Mario = TA (Content); other games = uh... other games)

[Boirunner]

i would just like to say i came to Spring having never played OTA.

i play all different mods. Im willing to test out any mod atleast once to see if enjoy it.

that's cool, and i respect that. however, you are in the minority.



now, time for some formal argumentation. let's start with two obvious facts:

FACT 1: Almost all games played are with TA-based mods. Proof: See the stats page, or just look into the lobby at any given time.

FACT 2: A person who has tried a mod and liked it will want to play it again. Proof: Players play games they like multiple times. It directly follows that people must enjoy playing them again and again after having tried them once, otherwise no games would be played.

Now, from fact 1 we can easily show this
COROLLARY 1: Few people currently playing Spring want to play non-TA based mods. Proof: Players play for fun. They will play the mod that gives them the most enjoyment out of their time. If ta-based mods are played most, people must like them best.

now, combining fact 2 and corollary 1, we can see that few people have tried non-ta mods and liked them. now, there are two ways this could be:

OPTION 1: few people have tried non-ta mods, and a lot of them liked what they tried.

OPTION 2: lots of poeple have tried non-ta mods, but very few of them liked what they tried.

well, in my opening post, i was assuming option 1, i.e. the non-ta mods don't suck, it's just that no one tries them. that's why i recommended advertising to other people, because experience shows that ta-mod players won't change.

of course, if it's option 2, then the mods just plain suck and all the advertising in the world wont bring new players. i do not assume this.

[Pxtl]

The irony is that this thread was created by Boirunner - the original idea man behind the mod that least resembles TA (at least visually) - Kernel Panic.

But yes, I think modders would do well to try and promote their mods as free games outside of the Spring community. While I enjoy EE and KP, I know that a lot of Spring players came because they wanted more TA.

The problem is that even for *new* players who never even played TA, they're pushed into the world of TA mods (and the endless process of learning and practice required to get into them) since that's what most lobby-games are. And after investing all that time, it's hard to work up the interest in other mods.

My advice is the same as BoiRunner's - focus on getting people from outside of the community, like pimping on Moddb.com, HappyPenguin, etc. And for the love of god, provide some documentation! Can anyone even explain what the little red dots over the Nanoblobs units mean???

[Fanger]

I think the real issue is this:

this forum is full of modders who all like their mods,

I mean Truer words have not been spoken..

additionally:

There are many things known that are unknown, and many things unknown that are known...

[Boirunner]

I think the real issue is this:

this forum is full of modders who all like their mods,

I mean Truer words have not been spoken..

wow. you quoted that PART OF A SENTENCE twice, but both times cut off the actual argument following it.

There are many things known that are unknown, and many things unknown that are known...

thank you for actually arguing your point instead of just posting random quotes?

[Fanger]

I would argue a point, but like our advertising this thread is entirely pointless and will do nothing to get people to stop acting in a manner they are already acting. Humans are creatures of habit and as you yourself have pointed out tend to want to do one thing one way and avoid others.. so yeah.. take your own advice..

[Boirunner]

I would argue a point, but like our advertising this thread is entirely pointless and will do nothing to get people to stop acting in a manner they are already acting. Humans are creatures of habit and as you yourself have pointed out tend to want to do one thing one way and avoid others

by that line of thinking, nothing is worth doing anyway. nobody will ever start playing different mods and nothing will ever change. if that were true, why do anything at all? why make the effort to create something if you believe nobody will ever enjoy it?

[Fanger]

Apparently you havent discovered the concept of the journey is half the fun.... People dont make mods to win penor contests, people make mods for the same reasons people draw pictures, the only reason we try to get other people to play them is in the hopes they can enjoy it with us..

The doing is the part that is worth it, not the end..

this is such for manythings

and thusly..

[Neddie]

Yes, because your experience, limited as it is, trumps all.

This is why I'm trying to organize an advertising push outside, and this discussion is irrelevant.

[AF]

Non TA based mods generally fail because their maintainers spend 99% of their time arguing over why non TA based mods arent being played in threads like this.