Decline in the number of players

[PicassoCT]

They didnt sin enough, Rapture got to them..

[Cheesecan]

what spring needs are more capable (engine) devs, and less people that know what spring needs.

I don't mean to be critical of engine devs. You're doing a great job. But the way I see it you have 5/6 devs and spring is a 6 year old engine. That sounds quite alright, certainly not like a bad situation.

Despite those 6 years spring has yet to produce a game that could bring players numbering in the 1000's. Is that mainly due to the engine needing more work?

Spring has changed goals since the project started, from an easier goal to a more ambitious goal. But seems to me that 99% of players don't care - most of the community plays *A games exclusively.

Could it be that other games for spring are simply not attractive to gamers, e.g. spring has no Counterstrike or DOTA to draw the big crowds.

From my point of view blaming everything on the engine seems wrong because it's quite powerful, especially now with lua, certainly powerful enough to make many kinds of RTS games. The most serious issues like out of sync in multiplayer have been solved.

Do we even know that there's a market for free RTS games? Could be that after Blizzard has taken their considerable slice out of the potential player base, you're left with only a small handful of people willing to try non-commercial games.

I asked argh a few months ago how many copies he sold and he hasn't replied yet. As far as I know his is the only commercialized spring game. From lobby stats the other commercial games have a tiny player base. Not sure how developing the engine more will make a difference?
You're thinking features like say HDR, Bloom, PhysX, Motion Blur, whatever the latest buzzword now is(I don't follow games much anymore, my computer can't even handle dx10) and such things will draw game studios which will then make the popular games?

[PicassoCT]

Im gratefull for every challenge the devs master, that makes spring moar awesome.

Problem is that real games (and not just modifications) take a lot of time (and even moar if done in one-man-teams) so progress seems to go into slowmo, so what spring actually needs, is people making prototypes of there games, much like knorke does- brix and scripts and go.

Its the right approach to fun. Once your gameconcept works out, you can start adding the refined units, add animations, textures, sfx.
So there is nothing for the devs to do here, but for modders like me to rethink there approaches.

If it is fun, it will be no matter the looks. So make it fun, first, Picasso.

What i dont get is, that if you did like smoth, really refine it and everything worx, that then there is no big player boom...
(Im tired, excuse the typos) Now lets built a large huge, traditional spring collider.


We need moar players >> We need moar Games >> We need less bugs>> We need easier way to install >> We need moar Advertising >> We need exotic features >>We need to kill the currently popular way to dumb down spring to normal people skill (speedmetall, dsd) >> we should add longtermmotivation (planetwars) >> we need singleplayer (im fucking on it, once i have mutliplayer) >> we need moar players

There it is, spring threadmill in a bottle.

[smoth]

Multiplayer games have to reach critical mass to be a success, example:
starcraft II.
NO DEMO people bought tons of units on faith alone. Many people find it lack luster, it flipped off the lan community. Still was a sucess, why? It's starcraft II DUH

Transformers war for cybertron.
Amazingly fun game, great story, large franchise. Where did it go wrong, many transformers fans didn't even know about it.

Spring doesn't have the mass to attract people to it's smaller games. People come look for a game and leave. I watch it happen all the time in gundam. Players are not going to wait around for others. If they do not find other players they go somewhere else.

*A: Spring LARGELY rides on ta's coattails with people coming here to find ta in 3d cheesecan.You are seeing the total amount of people here for that. Otherwise TA fans play TA.

Spring will not be a big success, because it has no big name. TA while lauded by many people NOW was pretty well ignored for starcraft. Which was just as good but much more loved. People saying OTA was wildly popular and amazing have their beer googles on. The projects here which do borrow the big names:

Gundam: niche market, japanese gamers like turn based not rts.
SWIW: Yeah there are already a couple of solid starwars rts games.

non-big IP names
s44: there are already other very very nice wwII rts games. Currently they don't offer much special.
PURE: I am probably the only person here who owns a copy, it's lua doesn't run and I am STILL MAD that he has not patched it.

KP: really cute has a pretty cool gameplay but isn't lolbloomhdr. Needs more indie retro-douchebag-hipster support and it could do well. retro-hipsters are notoriously lazy and don't actually play anything.

evo not touching anything about my opinion on it.

errythang else: either in disrepair or not largely complete

[yanom]

Conflict Terra AFIAK is improving.... it has a (simple and weak, but new) AI now, a new faction, cool new units. Try it.

[smoth]

not largely complete

[PicassoCT]

peopl play sp though, so your argument only counts for multiplayer only

[smoth]

I doubt it very much that spring single player has much to keep people interested.

Players need a LOT of content to keep them entertained in sp.

also note that I talked about how much I enjoyed war for cybertrons single player

[PicassoCT]

Noted...
But smoth have you ever watched the parade of people going through the gundamchannel? Ever 2nd hour someone new comes along, saying he has heard of this game via word of mouth or recomended as one of the best linux games there is.

You dont need to keep them busy long in sp for multiplayer games to accumulate, just a way to get those in singleplayer then to join the multiplayergame

(Nub42 has pmed you to join a Gundam Game (or has started a similar chicken game) would you like to combine those two games?

Another helpfull thing (if the nubs only knew it) is the dumbdown of two players in one team... if one is only responsible for the defences (builtmenu consisting of towers and wallz) and the other one for war... you can make the nub ride along, without just sitting in the specseat.

I know, its anoying as hell, people requesting, without (in my case even with one single clue-on) a clue how much work this would need.

[Cheesecan]

Spring needs an editor like UnrealEd where you can create every aspect of a game, easily. Then maybe we'll start to see some popular mod like a DOTA for Spring that will pull some players. It's maybe only 1/100 games succeed so that means damn lots of games need to be created in a simple editor for any chance of luck. Too bad Spring was built to be backward-compatible with TA instead of being built around a solid toolkit. :D Wanna make a map? zomg takes 10h to render. Wanna create a model? use this program then that program and then this. Wanna animate? sorry we don't have any program for generating simple scripts to rotate a turret barrel. :D You get the point..

[luckywaldo7]

Go to making it then; let us know when you need some testers.

[Lord_Hector]

i only read first page but i will throw my opinion in here anyways

this game has strangely kept pretty much exactly the same number of online players for like the past 5 years from which ive seen, there is no seriously noticable decline in players, its possible op was confused by the decline in people using #main (some lobbies dont autojoin it :s)

it would be accurate to say there is a decline in the number of good players but o well, who cares about that

+1 to adding more mechanizumz in place for map rotation/game size variation to defeat the evil known as 8v8badsd

but nobody ever seems to want to take any action on this just cause :[

the newbs dont know it right now because all they know is 8v8badsd but they would be totally grateful for the changes!

GOD WILLS IT! DEFEAT THE EVIL 8V8BADSD!

[knorke]

Spring needs an editor like UnrealEd where you can create every aspect of a game, easily.

Isn't UnrealEd just a level editor with a scripting language (unrealscript) for stuff like elevators?
I dont think it allows to change "every aspect" of the game.

Wanna make a map? zomg takes 10h to render. Wanna create a model? use this program then that program and then this.

That is like, normal. You use a 3d modeling software for the model and make the texture with a graphic program. One only could argue that importing into spring should be easier or better explained. But what is the use to reinvent ie 3dmax and photoshop? It would take years to get to the level of those tools.
Oh, games need audio too.

It's maybe only 1/100 games succeed so that means damn lots of games need to be created in a simple editor for any chance of luck.

That would just spawn a million terrible variants of TA.
Though more small interessting games instead of "i spend 3 years on modeling 680 tanks"-projects would be nice because there is a chance that they might actually finish.

we don't have any program for generating simple scripts to rotate a turret barrel.

impossible. But most scripts can be/are c&p anyway.

#main (some lobbies dont autojoin it :s)

yes, thats so stupid.

+1 to adding more mechanizumz in place for map rotation/game size variation

already exist but not used.

[FLOZi]

knorke addressed most of those points quite succinctly but I will add that emphasis and explanation to 'That would just spawn a million terrible variants of TA.'

Spring Games other than TA derived ones require as many man hours on lua game-logic & UI programming as they do models and textures.

If not more.

There is no 'all-in-one' editor to create that, other than a human being. Such requests only highlight total ignorance of how a Spring game is built.

[PicassoCT]

I think the biggest problem is lack of credit. The "janitor-work" (making tools, easing workflows, fixxiing bugs), everything that you cant grab and play on, isnt rewarded with the attention and applause it deserves. It is done, by those who got fed up with it (FeaturePlacer by Smoth, Beheriths MapConverter) but do you see them get praise for it like it should? Havent seen the "Thx for no more Scanlines Beherith" in every map description yet.

You only here about such not hyped stuff only when it doesent work. Pathfinding screws for a month? Big Scream. Pathfinding runs well before for years? Not a single clap on the shoulders of giants.

Were there is reward, there is work. Thats why we have 5 people writing on new A.(humanlike tactical Behaviour Simulations)I.s. and noone writting a animation system. Get Credit for that work on the loadingscreens - problem fixxed over time.

[smoth]

Picasso, good code is never noticed because it quietly does it's job. The fact that most springers think that all making a spring game requires is a text editor for defs is a testament to the good work of the engine devs. The fact that most people don't know about feature placer running makes me proud. People who go into programming for attention really chose the wrong area to work in.

[PicassoCT]

Sorry that my sense for justice is tingling right now. So what do you think is the main issue, Smoth? Is it that rts as a genre is just fading out? Are we not easy enough to play? Maybee we shouldnt ask ourselves what to do, but what we would not do, for no reason in the world. Might be interesting what comes up...

Me... i would rebell if spring was going webbrowsergame...

[smoth]

I think that people playing games go to larger player bases. These larger bases of players produce a higher likelihood that the player can get a fair match. In spring say like s44, or gundam, new guy shows up, experienced lurker player(say myself or godde) shows up. We take it easy at first but all too soon find ourselves accidentally'd the noob.

That is very discouraging. Which is why noobs gravitate to ba dsd. They can hid in the corner and because the teams are so large if they are dead weight they do hurt the team so much. This and the fact there is likely an equally unskilled knucklehead on the other team..

This is my short version as I am posting from my iPhone

[YHCIR]

There is definitely less people than there used to be.

[Cheesecan]

Thanks, finally somebody but me says it!