Ban AA

Molloy · Post by **Molloy** » 04 Sep 2006, 21:11

People want something TA based. And XTA is too unforgiving for noobs (crashers and zippers are really the main culprits).

When we get a faithful OTA mod, and have a better GUI, I could see alot of TA players coming over. If it became something like a 30% OTA, 10% EE, 10% XTA and 50% AA then I could see people being more flexible about trying new ones.

I frankly don't like Absolute Annihilation that much. It's bloody slow, especially in large team games. Defences are too powerful and the advanced economy is incredibly slow to get going. But there aren't really any compelling alternatives. I could see a proper OTA mod being appealing.. but we're really going to need a TA style radar targeting system before that's on the cards.

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 04 Sep 2006, 21:12

Ya know JC. I was hoping you would say something concerning single player. I have storyline and heightmap already written up for a 2 sided campaign.

I need the new map format preferably though, and the ability to cause events and crap.

I have redone almost all the sounds in EE, and they will all be ota content free next version. I am also making some uber spiffy buildpics as well. As I said in the EE thread. This will be the most professional version of EE yet. And single player would be one hell of a cherry on top if I could.

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 04 Sep 2006, 21:14

Molloy wrote:the advanced economy is incredibly slow to get going.

Compared to XTA's mohos?

Forum posts will not work. Most people do not do anything but load the client, look for a large game on a map they have, and join that game. If you want people to take interest in other mods, you must advertise it:

1) In-game or in the loading screen for a popular mod.

2) In the lobby in such a way that people don't just filter it out of the #main spam.

Post by **jcnossen** » 04 Sep 2006, 21:21

I have redone almost all the sounds in EE, and they will all be ota content free next version. I am also making some uber spiffy buildpics as well. As I said in the EE thread. This will be the most professional version of EE yet. And single player would be one hell of a cherry on top if I could.

So that leaves only OTA textures in EE right? Or not even that?
That's good news !

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 04 Sep 2006, 21:29

Oh, hey, why don't we get somebody with an autoserver to host a different mod? We have two often on, always AA.

Approach Zydox or Licho about hosting something else!

nobody2u · Post by **nobody2u** » 04 Sep 2006, 22:18

I like Archageal's idea. Someone could do something like a Spring email newsletter/digest filled with recent news, new releases, reviews for mods and everything else, etc. Or maybe a RSS feed!

diggz2k · Post by **diggz2k** » 05 Sep 2006, 00:07

Implement a good single player gui and a good campaign maker.
Mod makers could easily place units and design winning conditions through a gui. Then mod makers can make great single campaigns for their mods fast. Having single player campaigns wouldn't be a bad thing.

I'd imagine this is a version or two away though maybe more.

LordMatt · Post by **LordMatt** » 05 Sep 2006, 00:08

Oh, hey, why don't we get somebody with an autoserver to host a different mod?

Best idea in the whole thread IMO. I think a lot of players just want to play a game of TA though be it OTA, AA, XTA (I know that's why I play spring). And trying to get people to change that is going to be hard, and not clearly worthwhile. I agree that noobs should have more options easily accessable to them though.

AF · Post by AF » 05 Sep 2006, 00:09

Implement a good single player gui

Spring SP

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 05 Sep 2006, 00:33

Spring SP isn't included in Spring, because it's not GPL. That's Android's business, even if it's too bad.

Basically, though, I think that we need regular announcements on the Spring Message of the Day for new mods, and a mod browser built into the MP Client that ships with Spring. That would take care of 90% of the problem, which is advertising and promotional problems.

The "grassroots" approach doesn't seem to be working, and it requires modders to invest far too much time playing online and trying to beg up a playerbase... when they could be developing their mods. I never have time to wait 15-20 minutes just to engage a few people in NanoBlobs- I have waaaaaaay too much work to do, and now that I can compile Spring... my workload is going to get worse. 99.9% of my testing time with NanoBlobs is with NTAI, because I simply cannot afford to spend the time needed to build up a playerbase

And that's on top of my IRL problems and duties. I'm not a high-school guy, or even a college guy, with some discretionary time. I'm a working adult and I have family responsibilities, etc., that all have to get done before I can do stuff with mods or code or whatever.

In short... we need advertising, period. We have no equivalent of the PlanetAnnihilation site. We have no in-game advertisement support ala Steam, which most people find informative, not offensive- it's not like it forces people to do anything, it just provides information- and it can be turned off, if you don't want to know what's available for Spring.

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 05 Sep 2006, 00:46

I don't mind Steam's advertising too much. One ad per startup doesn't seem too intrusive. There are probably better alternatives though.

AF · Post by AF » 05 Sep 2006, 00:59

Actually Spring SP is opensource

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 05 Sep 2006, 01:01

Spring SP is GPL? Then why isn't included in Spring? That should really, really REALLY get addressed by the devs. It should be in SVN.

If it could be turned off with a single click, I think "daily ads" are perfectly reasonable, tbh. The advantages really outweigh the disadvantages, over the longer timeframe.

Not having good promotional tools is really killing Spring development. A lot of fairly good mods have been built, and have very tiny playerbases. I think the arguments by the M1NEMATs of the world, that if they liked these new things, they'd be playing them... don't really represent the audience we need to reach. It's all of the newbies who've never even heard of other mods, or who think that AA is the only thing worth playing for Spring.

I'm not worried about making NanoBlobs popular. I'm not worried about it being played by millions.

I am worried that new modders won't even know it exists.

Storm · Post by **Storm** » 05 Sep 2006, 01:03

Like a PR guy for all the mods.

Could do that no sweat. PM me when you update or upload your mod and I would post news on wherever they let me.

FizWizz · Post by **FizWizz** » 05 Sep 2006, 01:15

Another idea for Caydr, a bit less extreme than before, too:
Let interested modders produce an advertisement loadscreen for their mod, instead of bundling whole other mods with AA.

Maelstrom · Post by **Maelstrom** » 05 Sep 2006, 01:23

If someone is happy to run it and give me some webspace, I would happily make a mod (and map?) news site for Spring, with ads for new mods and the like. But I need to know if it will be supported before I do it, I dont want to waste hours of my time for nothing.

+1 to in lobby advertising!

Oh and Argh, if you ever need someone to play against in Nanoblobs, just give me a yell, ill come play.

EXit_W0und · Post by **EXit_W0und** » 05 Sep 2006, 03:07

Here's a thought - maybe bundle afew mods together in the download as a starter pack for new players. So folk looking for AA get EE, Gundam, FF or any other new mod in there as well. That way at least its no real amount of effort to download the mods to try stuff, they just go onto the lobby and say
"i wonder what that is" and they dont have to download it - they just try it.

I realize that mods tend to all have different release dates but it should still work if modders coordinate to update the mod pack.
This combined with having afew dedicated hosts for different mods would work quite well.

Sheekel · Post by **Sheekel** » 05 Sep 2006, 05:26

Min3mat wrote:if anyone gets aroudn to finishing one of those MILLIONS of ideas like that funny as hell lego one i'll give them a try

Im working on it man, Lvl 1 is almost done!

jellyman · Post by **jellyman** » 05 Sep 2006, 08:53

Maybe a try a 'new mod' day? Say first Saturday every month, come in and play a new mod. Hopefully there will be enough people interested in a different mod that if all of them come in on the same day there will be a reasonable number of games being played. But if people interested come in at all random times looking for a game there is a fair chance there is no one playing and they think stuff it I'll just play AA. I know I've logged on once or twice thinking about trying a new mod and then not bothering because there was no game.

Peace · Post by **Peace** » 05 Sep 2006, 14:31

EXit_W0und wrote:Here's a thought - maybe bundle afew mods together in the download as a starter pack for new players. So folk looking for AA get EE, Gundam, FF or any other new mod in there as well. That way at least its no real amount of effort to download the mods to try stuff, they just go onto the lobby and say
"i wonder what that is" and they dont have to download it - they just try it.

I realize that mods tend to all have different release dates but it should still work if modders coordinate to update the mod pack.
This combined with having afew dedicated hosts for different mods would work quite well.

This is by far the best idea. A mod starters pack would be awesome for beginners as mods are a little harder to access now. Just put a dl link to it that appears automatically when you join the lobby.

Myself I'm all for getting people to try new mods. Thing is I'm just not to sure "forcing" people is the right way. People will usually do what they want no matter what you try.

If you pack some mods with AA someone could repack it and host the download for example.

Spring RTS Engine

Ban AA