no respect for spring

[LordMatt]

In our case, it's about our time investment. I've been here for over two years now, Sleska. If you think I'm going piss away the time I've invested in my latest game... you're a lot stupider than I think you are.

Spending a lot of time on a game doesn't entitle you to get players. If people would rather play something else that's their option. I hope you guys make mods for your own enjoyment, rather than to get players, because most of the time you aren't going to be successful in competing with a commercially developed game with 10 years of tweaking by fans (RL will get in the way, other people won't like your idea as much as you did, you have difficulty advertising to players, etc.). The sheer amount of work it would take to actually compete with TA boggles the mind.

Make a game that is better and people will flock to play it.

Tested and proved wrong.

Really? XTA people converted to AA because it was better, AA people converted to BA because it was better. I really don't understand how you objectively measure that a game is better than BA et al, except in that it gets more players. Any other measurement is subjective and colored by your own biases and time investment.

[DemO]

The idea that filtering out alphabet mod games to new users will have no impact on the alphabet mod's playerbases is pretty mad unless you are assuming that alphabet mods never take in new players and simply sustain themselves with the playerbase they've had for a long time. Just because the mods (and spring as a whole) havn't shown growth in active player count DOES NOT mean to say that the popular mods don't take in new players. They do, and its the only way these mods can sustain a consistent player base because people, believe it or not, leave and quit playing alphabet mods ALL THE TIME. The new players just happen to replace them in about an equal number, hence why the size of the active playerbase is stagnant rather than appearing to decrease/increase significantly.

About releases being set back:

I actually think this is a good thing. I'm happy to see IW run on such a long development cycle without regularly releasing any sort of game content to the public. I want this project to wait until it's FINISHED before making a full scale release. When the project is finished, well balanced, well polished and hopefully set to be well marketed and appealing to people, it will have by far and away the best chance of capturing and maintaining a solid playerbase.

Much of the reason why other projects fail IMO is due to being unfinished. These unfinished projects are released and either left that way or repeatedly updated over a period of months but the developers fail to advertise changes and updates well (with the exception of CA which has obviously recognised the importance of informing the playerbase and making it easy for them to update CA using their excellent updater program).

Good example from my perspective is Argh's P.U.R.E. This is (afaik) not a finished game even in Arghs opinion, and to pretty much everyone in the lobby will appear to be in some sort of alpha/beta testing phase when they see a single game hosted. Theres no reason for people to think otherwise. The project has not been advertised well and the community outside of these forums probably isnt even aware of what P.U.R.E is. If the game was finished, people expect it to be announced as finished (perhaps through a news page/banner on the lobby) and consistently advertised on release and supported by at least a small number of people to get it off the ground in terms of hosting multiple games, available to play at all times in the day. Remember that the majority of people in the Spring playerbase probably don't even check these forums, so announcing a release on these boards won't capture much attention.

And further about unfinished games, reference to this article to as an example of how the same problems Spring mod's have establishing a playerbase applies in other genre's, even with high profile commercial releases backed by huge development costs and advertising campaigns: The ends of MMO's as we know them

If projects with huge development costs and advertising campaigns backing them can't succeed due to releasing unfinished content, how can you expect a Spring mod to do so?

This is a serious crux of Spring. To date I havn't seen a single project that truly deserves the title of being a complete, fully fledged release. IW is on track to be the first. I hope the developers of this project intend on addressing the full range of different development areas before releasing a final build. For example having a decent and original UI is something you'd expect from a well developed RTS project, although to date everyone uses more or less the same default UI that we see in every mod, with occasional aesthetic touches here-and-there.

[AF]

You cant really say it was better when talking about AA and XTA. For one a lot of XTA players started playing both XTA and BA/AA out of frustration from a lack of games. Most XTA players still do.

In my opinion the only 'better' there is involves a large dose of opinion with a dash of personal taste, if your talking about graphically then I would say XTA was better for a long time, BA is still playing catch up, but in terms of game play, which tbh is the only notable distinction, you cant judge as its simply which style you prefer.

But when comparing XTA to AA/BA/CA, taste and preference are the deciders not quality.


Warlord, sleksa train of thought did indeed come to the correct conclusion, only the conclusion he wanted wasn't a valid arguement for you, but rather something to make you post something along the lines of "wtf how did you come to that conclusion?". I would suggest you minimize what time and effort you take trying to plug up the sink hole that sleksa is widening for you to fall through. You've made your point.


May I also point out that rarely are players joined at the hip to a single game, just as a facebook user probably has myspace and bebo accounts, and that gmail user probably has a hotmail and a yahoo account too. By the standards touted here all XTA players are BA players not XTA players, half the BA player base aren't BA players they're CA players, and half the CA player base are BA players, and they all change every 5 minutes.

[Argh]

What are you trying to do to the current playerbase then

Nothing. I've done zero, zip, nada to "convert" people. Neddie put up an autohost, that's it.

Oh, like the current playerbase is invariably trying other stuff?

As far as I can see, looking at the stats, they're not.

But if you mean that you are going to host your own servers/lobbies, Its naturally ok.

Meh, I could do that from here, using a redirect IP to send people to my cable modem.

It's not a technical problem, and it doesn't require that much bandwidth. The problem's mainly with the Lobby applications needing to be re-directed to a new location on the Internet. If it comes down to that, I'll do it.

From my perspective, Killing and making it invisible are the same thing.

Only if BA doesn't, oh, I dunno... actually get out there, like we are, and compete for new players... you don't really get that, do you? We're doing all of the work here, BA gets a free ride.

That was not what i meant. What i meant that if you assume that every dominant mod should be "hidden", like zwzsg said, it will create a never-ending wheel where the the dominant mod changes constantly

And this is bad because... ? I fail to see your point here. If the dominant game changes a lot, with new releases... gosh, that's awful You might have to learn a new game, even... omg.

Spending a lot of time on a game doesn't entitle you to get players.

No, but it entitles me to a fair shot.

I hope you guys make mods for your own enjoyment, rather than to get players

No, we're actually quite serious about players. If we don't see any, then our time investment was wasted.

Lemme use an analogy here.

It's like hosting a party, basically. Imagine spending 7 months of your life, on one party. You searched the world, for the best cognacs, you researched the best new party music, you hand-made thousands of decorations.

When you announce that it's starting, a few people show up, and say, "gosh, there aren't enough people here yet, and there's that party down the street that already has dozens of people hanging out, and everybody says we should just go to that party, because it's already started, let's go there".

I mean, did the recent adventure of Sprung not pretty much encapsulate the entire problem, people? I dunno what he came to play, but it was obviously NOT OTA, yet within a couple of hours, he's another BA player!

If you think that I want to have anything to do with a system that works like this, you're crazy.

The sheer amount of work it would take to actually compete with TA boggles the mind.

Yes, it would boggle your mind, watching how much work we have to do... you have no idea why we're this pissed off, do you?

The idea that filtering out alphabet mod games to new users will have no impact on the alphabet mod's playerbases is pretty mad unless you are assuming that alphabet mods never take in new players and simply sustain themselves with the playerbase they've had for a long time. Just because the mods (and spring as a whole) havn't shown growth in active player count DOES NOT mean to say that the popular mods don't take in new players.

Well, I guess that the alphabet mods are going to have to start competing with those of us who've invested months and years making better-looking products, then. Welcome to reality.

Remember that the majority of people in the Spring playerbase probably don't even check these forums, so announcing a release on these boards won't capture much attention.

Right... you want me to waste more time, post-release, on hanging out in the Lobby, having llamas complain that I'm "spamming". No.

I havn't seen a single project that truly deserves the title of being a complete, fully fledged release.

KP and E&E 1.42 come immediately to mind. Not to mention all of the alphabet-soup mods, like NOTA or LLTA.



I love how you guys keep ignoring it, when I bring up how the commercial world works, and how it's not like Spring, and it's not like Spring because Spring doesn't work.

E&E 1.42, according to your calculus and all three of your basic arguments, should be dominating the Lobby by now (or, at the very least, dominating all other new games), because it's pretty clearly "finished" by any reasonable stretch of the imagination, doesn't suck, and is original and novel.

As much as that project's been controversial here, and as much as I've been the instigator of said controversy, meh, most Lobby players aren't ever here, and I seriously doubt that has anything to do with its share of Lobby players.

Yet, it has a lower audience than P.U.R.E. 0.55, which is supported by an autohost only.

And I sure as hell don't think it's as good of a game as E&E 1.42. Nor would anybody who's not an idiot. Fanger produced a fairly solid game. It's well-balanced, after some minor fixes. It's pretty much bug-free. It's a lot better looking than a typical *A mod.

And almost nobody is playing it.

Your logic flies in the face of an immense volume of facts, people. We've watched this happen, again and again and again. Caydr pretty much dropped AA because of this problem, yet it didn't change anything, BA picked it up, we're right back to square one.

I am not going to play ball here, and say, "gosh, these people are right, what was I thinking, I should consign P.U.R.E. to be played by maybe 10 people a day for a month, then drop out of sight".

I don't care if I have to host another server and have an entirely separate Lobby, if it comes down to that.

I would rather that we found a community solution to a serious community problem, but hey, I've gotta do what I've gotta do.

[DemO]

Competing is not the same as manipulating the spring lobby in your favour. I've said before that competition is welcomed.

You're pretty much missing all of the points I've made, so I give up trying. Even if you do hap-hazardly go through with your version of a filtering system, that alone isn't enough to make a mod popular. The sooner you realise this the better.

I'll hopefully end my input to this by outlining some other things that would help a mod gain and sustain a playerbase:

1. Create a website for your mod. It should be easy to navigate and instantly grab the interest of people who click the link. Once their interest is gained, they will naturally delve into the other content of the site to find out more. This also ties in largely with (2) as a promotional/marketing tool. Furthermore, include forums and any other features which let the user actively interact with the site and mod related content outside of actually playing the mod itself. (News posts they can comment/digg or stats/leaderboards for example).

2. Constant advertising, promotion and marketing of your mod. Especially vital in the early weeks building up to and following release. Ideally, advertise, promote and build up hype for your mod BEFORE release day, making for a suitable number of release day players. Making a big impression in the first day is a great way to get other people to notice your mod especially if there is a lot of hype and talk about it in the Spring community and lobby, and if you do well at this even outside it.

Announce the release date of your mod to as many other places/forums etc on the internet that you think may be interested in checking it out, and leave links to promotional content such as screenshots/videos and the mod website.

3. Make it easy for people to find, download, install and play your mod. Mods such as BA have achieved this which contributes to their dominant influence on newcomers to Spring. This largely ties in with (2) in the sense of establishing a decent sized playerbase from day one. If you can't do this through advertising and hype, group up 20+ people in the community who are willing to actively promote and host games for your mod in the first few days/weeks following release.

4. Make sure your mod is in a suitable state for a widespread release. Make sure your mod has a lot of depth in playability, that its fun to play, interesting to play and crucially that users can play it for hundreds if not thousands of hours and still have fun. (TA mods have this in abundance due to a steep learning curve and depth of gameplay options.)

5. Listen to feedback from users and be prepared to update/patch your mod if necessary, otherwise large portions of your playerbase may leave due to being frustrated/annoyed/unimpressed with certain aspects or features of your mod. Make it easy for users to update and keep track of the progress in the mod. (CA Updater is a great example of this)

And for the record, it baffles me that you compare commercial releases to those in Spring. You assume that once you've made your mod, you upload it to a site and magically a playerbase will appear, grow and sustain itself without any considerable attempt to even inform people that it has been released. You can't expect the Spring community to just jump on something without putting effort into encouraging them to do so. Hell, you can't expect anything to be successful without substantial backing and work, unless it is a totally exceptional product and gets lucky. Needless to say, none of the Spring projects fill this criteria.

The alphabet mods lack in many of the same areas, but they are lucky enough to be riding off the back of the popularity of a 10 year old game and other mods which have occasionally went through active promotional periods, each time contributing a small amount to the growth of the overall playerbase. BA could have a hell of a lot larger playerbase than it does just now.

[Argh]

You're pretty much missing all of the points I've made, so I give up trying. Even if you do hap-hazardly go through with your version of a filtering system, that alone isn't enough to make a mod popular. The sooner you realise this the better.

No, I'm saying that your points are mainly undermined by the main problem, which is that when we get a game well-advertised (see SW:IW) we're still going to see the same, broken dynamic:


1. An installer that is "inclusive", yet doesn't allow products to differentiate themselves with pictures.

To be sure, what LordMatt did was a massive improvement over the previous system. But, as I predicted when it was set up, it hasn't worked very well, for the reasons I stated when it was set up.

2. A Lobby system that means the effort required to gain an audience share is disproportionate to the returns.

Until you've tried promoting a game... I'd really advise you to not rail against those of us who have. You have no idea what it's like.

3. A main website that is not attractive, and doesn't showcase our products.

We've already produced the art and design foundation for a revamp... all we need is some relatively minor action, to get this made into a reality. It's not like the coding problems are insurmountable, or even that hard to overcome. But we don't control the site, so this remains in stasis until somebody who does will agree to let us make changes.



At any rate, I totally agree with your 5-point plan, and am gradually implementing it, as I get closer to complete with P.U.R.E.'s next major release.

Where I strongly disagree is with the idea that these things are likely to produce a good outcome, unless the basic system changes. We do not have a good, healthy system here, for the game designers who keep this place moving.

I know that people like Sleska are under the impression that if we all dropped dead tomorrow, things would be fine, but they would not be fine- we're the people who keep the development process rolling forwards. The coders don't say, "meh, we need to add new features to Spring, because BA needs it", they're mainly doing this for us, and I think it's all that keeps them interested in the project, tbh.

All we're saying is that when we go get players from outside, we want to be able to establish a relationship with them, on an even footing with everybody else. The current system is NOT EQUAL, therefore we have serious reservations about continuing to participate. TBH, I thought I was the only game designer who was pretty much sick and tired of this, but it appears that the rest of us are at this point as well. You guys who just play the games have no idea what would happen, if we all abandoned Spring's Lobby system entirely, and cut out our players from the current system. It would be a massive disaster for you and the games you like, basically.

I'm saying that we need a workable compromise. I think that a Lobby-filter system is one such idea.

I'm open to any other solution that has a real chance of making things happen. What I'm not open to is pretending the status quo isn't broken.

[Neddie]

Ten years of balancing evidently has little meaning, since it can result in so many subtly different blends.

[KDR_11k]

Make a game that is better and people will flock to play it.

Tested and proved wrong.

Really? XTA people converted to AA because it was better, AA people converted to BA because it was better. I really don't understand how you objectively measure that a game is better than BA et al, except in that it gets more players. Any other measurement is subjective and colored by your own biases and time investment.

So it's only good if it's popular and it'll become popular if it's good? Uh, what?

[DemO]

I agree that the current system is not a "healthy" one, and is lacking in a lot of areas that mean the positive impact of promotion and marketing efforts is diminished by other areas that are lacking.

BUT, I am sick of reading that alphabet mods are the culprit and its their fault. The people who are constantly debating over the current state of Spring as a whole and specific elements are the SAME people who can actually do something to change it.

The current and potential playerbase would benefit from changes just as much as the developers. If the current system is unfair because, hypothetically for example, BA is included in the installer but other mods are not, then don't blame BA and it's playerbase for this, blame the guy who decided that BA should be in the installer whilst other mods shouldnt, the same guy that implemented it, AKA THE DEVELOPER.

This is why I refer to the hypocricy. The developers are the only people who can instigate and implement change in Spring, and they are the only people who can be held accountable for the current "system", because sure as hell the casual BA/CA etc players didn't implement it. The playerbase just tags along and makes-do with whatever the status-quo is, yet time and again developers lay blame (or at least imply it) on the users.

[KDR_11k]

Noone's saying BA is a culprit, WZ is just saying BA is draining his players away. It's not BA's fault, it's just regular population dynamics.

What is he supposed to do about "fixing" it? He already has his splitting plan, what else can he do?

BTW, the installer includes plenty of mods and doesn't give precedence to BA. The only advantage Ba jhas is that it's the established main mod.

[DemO]

BTW, the installer includes plenty of mods and doesn't give precedence to BA. The only advantage Ba jhas is that it's the established main mod.

Yep that's why I said hypothetically. I was just using a made up example.

[Argh]

Noone's saying BA is a culprit, WZ is just saying BA is draining his players away. It's not BA's fault, it's just regular population dynamics.

I totally agree with that. I don't think "BA sucks". I don't want to destroy BA. I've played BA, I can see why people like it, and I've emulated some of the gameplay in P.U.R.E., which is the best tribute I can give. I think that improving the situation for new games will ultimately help everybody.

And, meh, I've been doing stuff. We have a new website design, we just need it to be coded, and voila, we're there. I've started a promo campaign for P.U.R.E., and I'm going to revamp my website, etc., when I get nearer to done. Anything else I can do, that I think will actually work, I'll be happy to try. I just don't want to be told that stuff isn't broken by the same guys who think that BA's the only game worth playing- they represent the status quo, and they see any change as bad change. Sleska et al would get a lot more hearing from me on these issues, if they offered real solutions, instead of just telling me everything is Ok. They're not, which leads me to believe that they just don't understand what's really been going on very well.

[zwzsg]

So if sw:s becomes dominant in 2010, it will need to be filtered so that *superior* mods will get a better chance to form a playerbase

Yes. If SWS:S becomes dominant in 2010, then the PURE installer should come with a preset filter hidding the SWS:S games.

So basically what you are saying is that Since BA is the dominant mod it needs to be killed to let other mods grow.

No. I did not say BA needs to be killed. I said other mod needs to be protected from its influence while they grow.

But what happens when, lets say EE becomes the next dominant mod, instead of harmonous setup where every mod gets played, And smoth starts a second witchhunt to kill E&E in favour of his own mod?

That is just too retarded. A game needs to be killed because its popular to raise unpopular games into its place ?_?

No. The popular game do not need to be killed. But the new game needs to be kept seperate so they don't get trampled over. Like, when you're breeding salmon, you keep the babies salmon separate from the adults, or else the grown-up salmon eat them.

Do you know how long BA has been developed really? its not just NOiZE's work. It started from 1990's with chris taylor's work, later continued with uberhack, and caydr, with people possibly contributing scripts/models/whatnot into it and later on continued by NOiZE to balance it, and saktoth and CA team to provide some LUA things into it, during the time of over 10 years.

Longer development time does not equal better game. Their very little effort was spread over many years, so what? Also, I find trying to count Chris Taylor and Brave Sir Robin as contributor to BA a bit far fetched.

There is no solution to this from the playerbase's side. You need to adapt to them, not them to you.

Or to build your own separate playerbase.

Yes Fang basically had the chances to form a solid playerbase really, but he fucked it up by going haywire tt.

There's truth to that.

That was not what i meant. What i meant that if you assume that every dominant mod should be "hidden", like zwzsg said, it will create a never-ending wheel where the the dominant mod changes constantly ~~

??? You must have misunderstood us. We're not talking about hiding BA in the BA installer, nor even hiding BA in the Spring installer. Just hiding it in mod-specific install. And even, not even a complete meticulous removal of all hints it exist. Just, clear the game list of BA games so, let's say, SWS, game stand out more, other lobby channels so they end up in channel where it's SWS that is talked about, and anyway removing all that once:
- SWS playerbase gets big enough to always have open SWS game.
- The player understand sufficiently what's going on to tick out filters and join other channels.

Anyway, I should be making a new better Kernel Panic installer, and promote it outside of here, instead of writing that post.

[Felix the Cat]

If you think that content packages are "games", you are likely to support independence on the part of each content package, including separate promotion, web site, forums, and lobby (whether functionally or actually separate from the current Spring lobby is debatable).

If you think that content packages are "mods", you are likely to support inclusion of each content package in the larger Spring community, and are more likely to oppose any sort of independent lobby as taking away from the Spring community.

I guess you could also phrase it as whether you believe Spring is a game or an engine. Engines run games, games run(have) mods.

[Warlord Zsinj]

I'd say the majority of content-makers want to see this implemented, and BA really has nothing to lose by allowing it to happen, so let's see it get done!

[Felix the Cat]

I'd say the majority of content-makers want to see this implemented, and BA really has nothing to lose by allowing it to happen, so let's see it get done!

Pending Fnordia's response on my questions, it's up to content makers to implement whatever they feel needs to be implemented.

That said, a generic, skinnable lobby supporting single and multi player would be nice - that way, content makers don't have to find programmers on top of everything else.

[Warlord Zsinj]

Well, not quite, we need the lobby to be able to have a straight forward 'filtering' system, and we need it to look for a 'custom profile' in the mod directory when it loads, and for certain things to be customiseable in that directory without causing conflicts with any other mods (as in, someone using the 'SWIW profile' should have no difficulties playing with someone in #main who has also seen the game, and should still be able to adjust the filter to allow some or all mods to appear.

An easily skinnable lobby would be great too, but the custom profile thing is really what we need now, a custom skin can come later.

[Felix the Cat]

Well, not quite, we need the lobby to be able to have a straight forward 'filtering' system, and we need it to look for a 'custom profile' in the mod directory when it loads, and for certain things to be customiseable in that directory without causing conflicts with any other mods (as in, someone using the 'SWIW profile' should have no difficulties playing with someone in #main who has also seen the game, and should still be able to adjust the filter to allow some or all mods to appear.

An easily skinnable lobby would be great too, but the custom profile thing is really what we need now, a custom skin can come later.

The entire point is that the entire user experience, from download to starting up a game to playing a game, needs to be within the realm of your own game. It sorta defeats the point to just use the same client as everyone else except filter it, because then the client is not part of your unique game experience.

IMO a successful non-*A Spring game will be one that, for all intents and purposes, is a separate game. The main lobby server can be used because it's possible to control the user's experience such that it appears that the user is playing on your own, game-exclusive lobby, which makes it easier to develop because you don't have to set up your own lobby. I don't even think a game's lobby should have a filter option - there's no reason for users of Game A to be able to choose to view games of Game B, C, and D, because they are not Game A and hence it defeats the entire point of Game A having its own, unique, independent user environment.

[Warlord Zsinj]

That's fair enough felix, and I'd love to have the manpower to be able to make my own lobby.

But Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was Spring - and SWS has been going for longer then most major office block construction times . Certainly that would be something for us to aim at in the future, but for the moment, we have a problem that needs to be dealt with and can be quite easily fixed by minor adjustments to the way the lobby works currently, and allowing it to look for a mod profile provided by the mod maker with their download.

This change needs to be made before 'full game packages' can be produced - it is the progenitor of those larger changes, but those cannot be looked at until these changes are made. And while we could wait months for those changes to appear, these changes could be made very quickly.

EDIT: I also entirely disagree with you regarding mods being able to block all other mods with no ability to unblock them. If that is the case, then you really should move to another server - as you're really not adding anything to the Spring community in general, just mooching off the free server.
Either way, that is a side discussion for another time, and can be discussed later. I think, given the difficulty we've had just getting some people to accept these changes, and how easily they will jump on what you have just said, by bringing that up it becomes far less likely for us to get any sort of filtering, let alone complete and user-nonadjustable filtering (which I personally quite strongly disagree with).

[Argh]

I also entirely disagree with you regarding mods being able to block all other mods with no ability to unblock them.

I agree, that's not what we actually need. Just a config that specifies that we want other games / mods blocked by default, if playing X game. IOW, if somebody opens up P.U.R.E., it'd show P.U.R.E. games, but the user could just hit a button or hit a key, and it'd un-filter the games list. I think that would be the right way to go.