Should we have spring advertised, or like put a sample CD/leaflet in Consol/PC shops for those who come across it, that may want to try it out?
Fresh players and wider community would be good for spring and it's reputation.
Promoting Spring to the outside world
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Complicated
- Posts: 369
- Joined: 06 Jun 2007, 18:51
Promoting Spring to the outside world
Last edited by Complicated on 16 Nov 2007, 02:00, edited 1 time in total.
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Complicated
- Posts: 369
- Joined: 06 Jun 2007, 18:51
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RavingManiac
- Posts: 81
- Joined: 18 Jul 2007, 07:06
A new player cannot join if there is no tutorial, so include the URL of http://quickstart.zjt3.com/
Nowadays, I don't understand why you suggest to advertise spring in a physical way. IMHO CDs, prints, ... are useless and outdated to promote Spring.
Moreover, gamers who buy paper press are not the ones who play a multiplayer only game.
I think a good way to promote spring has to be web. Good website, pics, videos, gamesites articles, ...
Remember this french article published on http://www.cyberstratege.com
Submitting this king of thing to popular gamesites would be efficient.
Moreover, gamers who buy paper press are not the ones who play a multiplayer only game.
I think a good way to promote spring has to be web. Good website, pics, videos, gamesites articles, ...
Remember this french article published on http://www.cyberstratege.com
Submitting this king of thing to popular gamesites would be efficient.
I am planning to put out a zine about Spring in two, possibly three cities in California when I have the time - which means during Winter Break. Between 2000 and 20000 copies if I can just find enough distribution sites. Black and white, obviously. I will then make a .PDF available for those who wish to try a similar campaign in their locale.
On that note, I need good greyscale images. I could edit them myself, but I may as well ask for some help.
On that note, I need good greyscale images. I could edit them myself, but I may as well ask for some help.
I would argue that 0.76b1 release is a minimum requirement at the very least.
However:
http://cs.selu.edu/~ssmith/BB/viewtopic.php?t=1735
http://www.darkstars.co.uk/2007/leaky-bucket-syndrome/
http://cs.selu.edu/~ssmith/BB/viewtopic.php?t=1025
http://cs.selu.edu/~ssmith/BB/viewtopic.php?t=1255
http://cs.selu.edu/~ssmith/BB/viewforum.php?f=35
http://newspring.clan-sy.com
http://cs.selu.edu/~ssmith/BB/viewtopic.php?t=1244
There are links to the mass advertisement threads on smoths forums and some other relevant threads as well as discussions and my blog post on wether drawing more players in via advertisement will actually work, rather than increasing our ability to retain players once they've arrived.
However:
http://cs.selu.edu/~ssmith/BB/viewtopic.php?t=1735
http://www.darkstars.co.uk/2007/leaky-bucket-syndrome/
http://cs.selu.edu/~ssmith/BB/viewtopic.php?t=1025
http://cs.selu.edu/~ssmith/BB/viewtopic.php?t=1255
http://cs.selu.edu/~ssmith/BB/viewforum.php?f=35
http://newspring.clan-sy.com
http://cs.selu.edu/~ssmith/BB/viewtopic.php?t=1244
There are links to the mass advertisement threads on smoths forums and some other relevant threads as well as discussions and my blog post on wether drawing more players in via advertisement will actually work, rather than increasing our ability to retain players once they've arrived.
It's not ready for that anyways.
Look around: the most popular mod (BA) has a learning-curve from hell. There is no single-player to speak of besides offline skirmishes (and getting into offline skirmishes still isn't terribly user-friendly out-of-the-box). There isn't even a mainstream mod that properly implements OTA so that OTA players can come in and feel familiar.
Maybe when Gundam returns to playability, when CA works on Vista, and Tower Defense and Pure provide some real exciting new mods to play, and maybe when somebody makes a solid single-player game that provides a decent tutorial. Maybe then, Spring will be ready for mass-consumption. But right now, it's a toy for people who're into the open source culture of playing with in-development stuff. Not something you can mass-promote. Right now, every single thing in Spring shows all the loose-ends of it's unfinished parts.
Spring is still for Spring players.
Look around: the most popular mod (BA) has a learning-curve from hell. There is no single-player to speak of besides offline skirmishes (and getting into offline skirmishes still isn't terribly user-friendly out-of-the-box). There isn't even a mainstream mod that properly implements OTA so that OTA players can come in and feel familiar.
Maybe when Gundam returns to playability, when CA works on Vista, and Tower Defense and Pure provide some real exciting new mods to play, and maybe when somebody makes a solid single-player game that provides a decent tutorial. Maybe then, Spring will be ready for mass-consumption. But right now, it's a toy for people who're into the open source culture of playing with in-development stuff. Not something you can mass-promote. Right now, every single thing in Spring shows all the loose-ends of it's unfinished parts.
Spring is still for Spring players.
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SwiftSpear
- Classic Community Lead
- Posts: 7287
- Joined: 12 Aug 2005, 09:29
Well... I'd be massively suprized to find out our total trialling population was larger than 50,000... and we've had about 3000 or so regular players who have spent a reasonable time playing spring, so I'd think that increasing our exposure market would be a good idea as well as ironing out the stuff that alienates new players... I mean, alot of the stuff that alienated new players 1 year ago is now fixed...
We definitely need constant work to make spring more user friendly. Better UF site/lobby integration will help if it ever happens, more single player development would help, better tutorials would help, but ultimately, for the most part the new UI is done. What we really need is good advertizement that not only says "hey, look at us, we're out here making this cool game" as well as "If you tried spring before, give us another shot, we've made lots of improvements"
We definitely need constant work to make spring more user friendly. Better UF site/lobby integration will help if it ever happens, more single player development would help, better tutorials would help, but ultimately, for the most part the new UI is done. What we really need is good advertizement that not only says "hey, look at us, we're out here making this cool game" as well as "If you tried spring before, give us another shot, we've made lots of improvements"
If you made this game look as professional work as TAGAP looks (www.tagap.net) THEN people might get interested about it... but thats not possible because mod makers arent the programmers who are making the game... and we are lacking lots of skills at many stages...
Some stats:SwiftSpear wrote:Well... I'd be massively suprized to find out our total trialling population was larger than 50,000...
80k accounts on the server currently, a (huge) part of it will be smurfs though. Still 65k unique IPs (ofc still doesn't say much with smurfs on dynamic IPs).
Approx. 2.4k accounts logged on at least once last week, 5k last month, 44k last year.
2000 to 20000 copies? That's a bit of a big estimate isn't it?neddiedrow wrote:I am planning to put out a zine about Spring in two, possibly three cities in California when I have the time - which means during Winter Break. Between 2000 and 20000 copies if I can just find enough distribution sites. Black and white, obviously. I will then make a .PDF available for those who wish to try a similar campaign in their locale.
On that note, I need good greyscale images. I could edit them myself, but I may as well ask for some help.
I would argue that of all the issues that we had a year ago although some of them have been fixed, if you put together their contribution to the problem, a large chunk remains.
This is mainly because that big block of red is full of taboo subjects, things that we are not going to fix because there's a large proportion of the community that ahve a vested interest in keeping them going.
Of that red block here is how I believe it is broken up:
Some of them will need a little explanation:
Spring website
This should be corrected in january, however it is a problem nonetheless and could be much bigger if it weren't for the new site design push.
Atari IP and TA Content
These are separate because people insist on TA content everywhere. Most of our screenshot page has TA units on it, our banners have them, even proposed new banners have them. This further reinforces the Second Atari IIP problem and increases the effect of several other issues such as primary mod syndrome.
Atari IP alone means our project has an instant 50 mile no go buffer zone around it that most sites or people refuse to touch.
TASClient monopoly
For 2 years lobby innovation was somewhat nonexistant. It went at a snails pace. Sadly this is a positive feedback loop because untill someone can demonstrate a viable alternative it will stay in place. On top of that, this alternative must be a sizeable way ahead of the current setup. The archaic platform has remained somewhat cumbersome and stifling to innovation for a long time. Recent innovation has only occurred because of Unity spring and aflobby posing competition.
AI collapse
Our AI community is almost dead. Lua has killed off most groupAIs and the end user is now unable to see any benefit in groupAIs, even though there are still things that only native code will be able todo that lua widgets can't replace so easily. That and the addition of masses of features to lua that threatened to break AIs totally and utterly forever. A lua <-> ai interface now exists but we should have had this months ago, great damage has already been done.
Primary mod syndrome
This pushes out other mods and stifles them. Nobody seems to want to actually do anything about it though but discuss it, and many of the solutions proposed are taboos such as starting a second server that are also problematic. Some lobby side effort has been attempted such as the extra tags I and trepan have added though.
Sadly some of these issues are self distorting. To many people the TA section will collapse in on itself making other issues look bigger, and some people don't really care about Ataris IP and dismiss it as a trivial issue which makes the Atari IP issue worse and making it look smaller.
This is mainly because that big block of red is full of taboo subjects, things that we are not going to fix because there's a large proportion of the community that ahve a vested interest in keeping them going.
Of that red block here is how I believe it is broken up:
Some of them will need a little explanation:
Spring website
This should be corrected in january, however it is a problem nonetheless and could be much bigger if it weren't for the new site design push.
Atari IP and TA Content
These are separate because people insist on TA content everywhere. Most of our screenshot page has TA units on it, our banners have them, even proposed new banners have them. This further reinforces the Second Atari IIP problem and increases the effect of several other issues such as primary mod syndrome.
Atari IP alone means our project has an instant 50 mile no go buffer zone around it that most sites or people refuse to touch.
TASClient monopoly
For 2 years lobby innovation was somewhat nonexistant. It went at a snails pace. Sadly this is a positive feedback loop because untill someone can demonstrate a viable alternative it will stay in place. On top of that, this alternative must be a sizeable way ahead of the current setup. The archaic platform has remained somewhat cumbersome and stifling to innovation for a long time. Recent innovation has only occurred because of Unity spring and aflobby posing competition.
AI collapse
Our AI community is almost dead. Lua has killed off most groupAIs and the end user is now unable to see any benefit in groupAIs, even though there are still things that only native code will be able todo that lua widgets can't replace so easily. That and the addition of masses of features to lua that threatened to break AIs totally and utterly forever. A lua <-> ai interface now exists but we should have had this months ago, great damage has already been done.
Primary mod syndrome
This pushes out other mods and stifles them. Nobody seems to want to actually do anything about it though but discuss it, and many of the solutions proposed are taboos such as starting a second server that are also problematic. Some lobby side effort has been attempted such as the extra tags I and trepan have added though.
Sadly some of these issues are self distorting. To many people the TA section will collapse in on itself making other issues look bigger, and some people don't really care about Ataris IP and dismiss it as a trivial issue which makes the Atari IP issue worse and making it look smaller.
BA is not pushing out other mods, im constantly telling people to talk to ca devs when they want something done. BA is and will stay pretty much as it is now.Primary mod syndrome
This pushes out other mods and stifles them. Nobody seems to want to actually do anything about it though but discuss it, and many of the solutions proposed are taboos such as starting a second server that are also problematic. Some lobby side effort has been attempted such as the extra tags I and trepan have added though.
Sadly some of these issues are self distorting. To many people the TA section will collapse in on itself making other issues look bigger, and some people don't really care about Ataris IP and dismiss it as a trivial issue which makes the Atari IP issue worse and making it look smaller.
i have no worries for people shifting into CA or s44 which is looking pretty nice.
And you seem to forget that roughly 90% of people i know came into spring because for them it was "TA 2.0" . For me, it still is ta 2.0 . Each and every mod i've played from gundam into s44 into ba into aa into xta has the same mechanics of the old ta on different skins.
Please do NOT conveinently forget that this is not by choice.. IF you will recall we dont really have a way of setting up a DIFFERENT type of resourcing, building.. etc So its nearly impossible to break away from a TA setup because the support for it IS not there..Sleksa wrote: And you seem to forget that roughly 90% of people i know came into spring because for them it was "TA 2.0" . For me, it still is ta 2.0 . Each and every mod i've played from gundam into s44 into ba into aa into xta has the same mechanics of the old ta on different skins.
I pledge myself to be your codemonkey.Fanger wrote:Please do NOT conveinently forget that this is not by choice.. IF you will recall we dont really have a way of setting up a DIFFERENT type of resourcing, building.. etc So its nearly impossible to break away from a TA setup because the support for it IS not there..Sleksa wrote: And you seem to forget that roughly 90% of people i know came into spring because for them it was "TA 2.0" . For me, it still is ta 2.0 . Each and every mod i've played from gundam into s44 into ba into aa into xta has the same mechanics of the old ta on different skins.
Sleksa, thats a moot point as your saying that BA doesnt damage spring by being the primary mod because people are starting to move to CA, the next primary mod.
Note that I did not directly mention BA so your statement should have been AA/BA/CA rather than singling out BA.
And I disagree with the resources statement fang. Smoth did fine with just using gold a lua resource in Tower defence, kernel panic has no resources in the TA sense save for time and strategy, nanoblobz makes resources meaningless, and supreme commander did fine with 2 resources yet it isnt slated for being similar to TA.
And I totally disagree with the reasoning behind the TA 2.0 ethos. We have already reached the vast majority of people who would be interested by this already. Most of this target audience has already visited our website, looked around, even tried it and stayed for months at a time.
However we cannot rely on users from a game community that was released in 1997 to expand our community. We have already tapped this resource, and we've exploited it rather heavily. It is a limited resource and it is not a sustainable resource either.
In order to really grow we need to look further afield which is where TA changes into a huge barrier that nobody is willing to scale or take down.
So if we really look at it, people do not come here for spring at all. They come here for TA mods. There's a limited number of these people, and we've already reached a large proportion of them. This is not good for spring. Good for your TA mods perhaps but not for spring.
Sadly the TA orientated people will never agree to anything that changes things for the better. Its taboo, its a barrier that mustn't be touched, and it doesnt matter if it all falls apart as long as their TA setup doesnt change at all, because as we all know, if that peewee dissapears from the site banner the weasel will get a bertha gun, and if that krogoth isnt plastered over the screenshot page then the laser tower will be nerfed, and if we dont mainly show off our flash spam in advertisements and youtube videos, then all our maps will grow eyes and legs and run off into the sea never to be seen again.
And as we all know, things always change. Either you change it yourself, or it dies off for you.
Note that I did not directly mention BA so your statement should have been AA/BA/CA rather than singling out BA.
And I disagree with the resources statement fang. Smoth did fine with just using gold a lua resource in Tower defence, kernel panic has no resources in the TA sense save for time and strategy, nanoblobz makes resources meaningless, and supreme commander did fine with 2 resources yet it isnt slated for being similar to TA.
And I totally disagree with the reasoning behind the TA 2.0 ethos. We have already reached the vast majority of people who would be interested by this already. Most of this target audience has already visited our website, looked around, even tried it and stayed for months at a time.
However we cannot rely on users from a game community that was released in 1997 to expand our community. We have already tapped this resource, and we've exploited it rather heavily. It is a limited resource and it is not a sustainable resource either.
In order to really grow we need to look further afield which is where TA changes into a huge barrier that nobody is willing to scale or take down.
So if we really look at it, people do not come here for spring at all. They come here for TA mods. There's a limited number of these people, and we've already reached a large proportion of them. This is not good for spring. Good for your TA mods perhaps but not for spring.
Sadly the TA orientated people will never agree to anything that changes things for the better. Its taboo, its a barrier that mustn't be touched, and it doesnt matter if it all falls apart as long as their TA setup doesnt change at all, because as we all know, if that peewee dissapears from the site banner the weasel will get a bertha gun, and if that krogoth isnt plastered over the screenshot page then the laser tower will be nerfed, and if we dont mainly show off our flash spam in advertisements and youtube videos, then all our maps will grow eyes and legs and run off into the sea never to be seen again.
And as we all know, things always change. Either you change it yourself, or it dies off for you.