Promotion/Advertising for Spring

[Google_Frog]

Lol, "professionally designed gameplay". One of the biggest things I've learnt from the PA forums is that Supcom:FA has exactly the same sort of bugged engine problems that we have.

Who are these "core spring people"? Also everyone in this thread is ignoring ZK and ZKL with the one-click idiot proof installer which comes with a singleplayer tab (it's not that good but it's there) and hides other multiplayer games.

[MidKnight]

I visit after 4 months and ouroboros. I guess it's inevitable, though.

[smoth]

@Google because that would ruin his strawman.

I am not sure what his agenda is, I think the kid has a very odd perception of things. Best bet is to keep doing your thing. proof is in results, and work not pontificating produces results. his comments in this thread directly contradict past statements that he made not too long ago, so I guess the bigger question is what suddenly changed his attitude? Why does he now feel all projects are little more than unit packs? I know he and I have disagreements but IMO the REASON he suddenly feels this way *might* have value. To be honest, I find the SC2 APM thread to be better reading, as far as getting some really good ideas, particularly the posts by luckywaldo. otherwise I was ignoring this thread until nightcold posted his derisive drivel about the spring projects.

[Neddie]

Google, I don't think many people discounted ZK and ZKL - I certainly didn't. That is needless hostility, that is.

I was hoping some of the core community members would gather and decide on what to do next, assign tasks among themselves, then do it….like how things are done with the engine developers.

If things were up to me I would have taken the BAR models and made the gameplay something similar to TA and SC(a professionally designed gameplay, not a mod styled one)...

I'm just going to engage with these two statements.

By "core community members" I must assume you mean "people who do things within the community, who for some reason do not include engine developers". These people, myself and most of the people who have participated in this thread included, do assign tasks among themselves and act on them. They work on a variety of different projects which collectively constitute what Spring has; games, maps, AI, tools, documentation, whatever. They just don't follow a single vision... and neither do the engine developers.

As for the second point, you're articulating your ideal vision. We could stop there, but I want to note that it starts with an inaccurate distinction between "professionally designed" and "mod styled" game play. Game design is game design is game design, and many professionally designed games are utter pants. The main difference between professional and amateur design is that in professional game design somebody is paid for it, and there are few good professional game designers out there who didn't become good as amateurs first.

[PicassoCT]

Lol, "professionally designed gameplay". One of the biggest things I've learnt from the PA forums is that Supcom:FA has exactly the same sort of bugged engine problems that we have.

Who are these "core spring people"? Also everyone in this thread is ignoring ZK and ZKL with the one-click idiot proof installer which comes with a singleplayer tab (it's not that good but it's there) and hides other multiplayer games.

Im on of those ignoring you. Please elaborate further

[PicassoCT]

I was hoping some of the core community members would gather and decide on what to do next, assign tasks among themselves, then do it….like how things are done with the engine developers.

You assume quite a lot about the engine devs. Yes, some of them have the overview (kloot, abma, jk) and do actually some planning (although that looks more like bug weeding and keeping, the various TODO-tumors the engine develops from drive-by-deving, in check).

"Here ya go shipboy,http://www.cplusplus.com/! learn your handiwork, and one day you ll b come captain of this vessel. Do not and youll be cleaning pots all day long, till we are back at your mothers harbour.
Arr, your mother, does she still sound like a dieing whale, when boarded?"

[Forboding Angel]

i like to think that spring is like a game with mods that lacks a main unit set/game. Sadly there is a lack of a word for that, so it makes things trouble some.

Jesus you are just full of drivel. Dunno where to even start with this.

I like how you make all these grandiose statements while only having really played *A.

Here is a protip for you, the *A crap here is trash. That's nothing new. There are a few good ideas among them, like NOTA, but for the most part they are trash.

Spring is an engine, not a game, numbnuts. The sooner you figure that out, the sooner you'll start making some sense.

You have some idea that BAR will outshine everything here, most notably, ZK and Evo. I name those two because they are the most prolific and advanced games currently openly available for play in spring (RIP Gundam). ZK is of course much lower on the totem pole (before anyone jumps on a bandwagon, I shall remind you that the lower on a totem pole something is, the more prominent it is... Don't blame me because you have a shit education), and all things considered, it's a good thing. *A is a cancer, and it always has been.

The fact that *A is still tolerated is a disgrace to the engine and to us all. *A in spring isn't simply pirated content, it is literally Stolen content. See, that's what it's called when you rip content out of one engine and cram it in another. That isn't piracy, that is theft.

But back to my point, you think BAR will eclipse everything here. Sorry to burst your bubble, but there is an excellent chance you will hate BAR. It will not be BA with remade models. For one thing they are having to script the units from scratch again, bereft of the *A crap. Since you know nothing about anything I can see why you would think that that is irrelevant . The funny part is that many of the units in BA are balanced around bad scripts. Most notably, the flash tank. It has a firing stutter (one that I demonstrated years ago) due to a shitty script. It is balanced around this.

Since it is being re scripted from scratch, it will not behave in the exact same way. You will see this repeated across the entire project.

So this BAR will rule all tack that you've been clinging to is only so much smoke.

That isn't to say BAR will suck. Quite the opposite I'd wager, but you won't like it.

Your entire point is drivel, as are all of your statements.

Oh, and lest I forget... "We" should advertise spring? Who's this "we"? You got a mouse in your pocket? You should do nothing of the kind, as anything you put out will be full of fallacies, bad logic (as demonstrated in this thread) and complete fail.

Moreover, you still don't even understand the simple concept that spring is an engine.

[CarRepairer]

If things were up to me I would have.........

Everything is up to you.

Take the BAR models and do whatever you want. ZK is using some of them right now and has for a long time. Advertise the engine in any way you wish.

You have the ability right now. Do you have the will?

[Tilgor]

I didn't play spring 3 maybe 4 years and i see community is slowly dying :/

Anyway i think now is best time to advertising Spring, Plannetary Annihilation is in Alpha and it cost is ridiculous 90$ for early access. We can do some noise at youtube and fansites about free Spring. Now Spring looks even better than this alpha and ppl are excited about games like TA (like me).

Today i saw screens from BAR and this looks really nice, i think much better then Plannetary Annihilation models.

[Forboding Angel]

$90 for early access is not ridiculous. It is a closed alpha that you can buy into, period.

The retail game will of course be priced competitively.

Spring is not "Slowly dying". Jesus, such crap... Come back when you have statistics to support your claims. As it is, we have statistics that point out that spring as a whole has actually grown.

[AntiAllez]

Are you serious?

May well be that the number of accounts increases, but they are not active members
I entered spring 2 years ago and since then has perhaps lost half of its active players. That is like facebook with 800 million followers but only 8 million of them really use it. I dont have a any statistics for both, but who really need this? Iam not a politican...

[Google_Frog]

With no statistics where do those numbers even come from?

[CarRepairer]

The stats are all readily available in the wiki. http://planetspads.free.fr/spring/stats/graph_104.html

[smoth]

dunno, this doesn't look terribly good..

[Google_Frog]

I think the unstacked graphs are clearer.


Here is a decent graph about retention.


The planetspads have issues with autohosts and idle players. The graph below (takes a while to load) doesn't have these issues but only shows data for ZK.
http://zero-k.info/ladders/games

[AntiAllez]

this is quite interesting- why we lost so much players from france and not noted countrys.



probably mainly zk and other mods are concerned, do you think this is due to the problems with the new version?

[Google_Frog]

Spads is french. ZK has a lot of autohosts from Czech. Those graphs are unreliable and very few people know exactly how they are unreliable. All I know is that at some point (maybe still) autohosts were counted as players.

Many of the graphs make no sense which does not lend credence to the ones that we go for to gather information. For example look at this one: http://planetspads.free.fr/spring/stats/graph_131.html
Are there ever 40 people waiting to play these games?

[smoth]

well, it looks like this year we are at a decline and it would be really good to find out why.

[Rumpelstiltskin]

Release bar with one faction, installer and good premade shortcut keys that are accessible in game and a final closed LUA set and I'll come back to play it.
I don't like ZK gameplay/flat balance but it do like how easy it is to play it.
Key bindings have basically been left to text editing in BA(at least last time i tries it a few months ago).
I want my "select all units of the same type visible on screen shortcut".
I want my commander select shortcut key...

Finally I am not interested in playing starcraft/warcraft 3 like games with manually activating unit abilities.
I want a TA styled game where what counts is unit maneuvering and not shifting building queues in labs or activating special unit abilities.
This is what many players were here for and played TA mods for..
Call it whatever you want...Balanced annihilation, Supreme commander, Planetary annihilation.
This is the type of gameplay I enjoy as a player.
Am I willing to develop it myself? I have no time nor do I have the inclination to.
I am simply replying as a former player who knows exactly why he stopped playing.

[Tilgor]

$90 for early access is not ridiculous. It is a closed alpha that you can buy into, period.

The retail game will of course be priced competitively.

Compare OLD Supreme Commander and Plannetary annhilation. I can pay 5$ for finished game with more features and much better graphics or i can pay 90$ for early access buggy game. Yeah it is not riddiculous.