Getting more gamers!; A thread to try find a way.(Promotion)

[Hoi]

A discussion like this arrises about once a three months.

[Jazcash]

its all futile. no one listens...

We're a community screaming at nobody to deal with issues.

[Caradhras]

I just hoped that someone would at least explain me, why we cant have spring in official repos.

[BrainDamage]

moronicness of packagers, because spring is in mandriva official repos whom contain only free software since 2 years

[Caradhras]

Is there a way to get it in anyway?

[smoth]

I think stories do help give lasting meaning to the games. Also some people do not want to deal with the online retards aspect. Spring is rife with them and many noobs do not always get to play and hear spec moar, they often hear "boom" ally d-gun or people barking orders at them. I do think tutorial missions would be good. However, I am not sure if this would work right. A lot of lua would have to be written.

People are too busy not making stuff to make stuff.

[manolo_]

or videos

[MidKnight]

A huge issue is out of the box experience

To run spring, one has to:

1: find it (which in itself is a challenge )
2: click download tab and download (we need a gigantic "DOWNLOAD LATEST WINDOWS VERSION" button )
3: install (making sure you know which lobby/ais to pick, and having a stable Internet connection)
4: find out how the moo to start it
5: once you discover that spring.exe and a dozen other links are crap, start "spring battleroom")
6: figure out what the heck the interface means, or why TASClient gives you map/mod errors
7: download base content, maps, and mods
8: start TASClient, and try and learn the horrid interface (sorry satirik )
9: either join a game and get yelled at by others for being a noob, or....
10: figure out how to make AIs work, or what chicken defence is, or figure out how a luaai works
11: start a game with the ai and hope spring doesnt crash
12: PLAY!

the verdict :

Compare with, say, Glest:

1: find glest (relatively easy)
2: download and install glest (again, easy when compared to spring's install routine)
3: start it up (very rarely crashes)
4: set up game using the simple and intuitive (although full-screen and wasteful) interface)
5:PLAY!

the verdict: bad gameplay!

There's a reason there aren't any spring players who arent computer literate, and also why springs dev:player ratio is so high though that may be a good thing, less "OMG TH1S 5HIAT SUX PL4Y HALO!!1!1!

[R-TEAM]

Hi,

have only quick overseen the last 3 site posts to this thema ..
but i musst say ->
have last 3 persons show spring - he like it ALL!
One like more CA, the other S44 .. and the Third dont know if he like
Metropolis [interesst mod but with complicated income] or EvolutionRTS ..
I have he show the Game - all say "awesome.."
He look at the requirements - good - all can play it ...
Then i show him the Springconfig - not easy but he get it all.
Then the widget horror - THIS is realy a first stop [one of the Three
become more "mmnmmmnmmmm..." :\ ] - it is not hard to set all the widgets
for ONE time - but change it for this mod to this config, and for this mod to
this, and NOT a "per mod save" but a silly global config save - realy Horrible ..
And then we come to -> "and if we play 3 hours and then save we can play next day
or next weekend to end ?" .. mhhm mhhh mmhhh mmhh - it is a save button in the Game...-
"and -? who the problem?" .. mhm hhmmmm - but no load button ->
WAT !!
This it - NO play - no one from the three have 8h+ time for one game!
He all have Jobs,studie or other to do, so ATM , sorry - it is only for interesst
for player withou job and many Time or multimillionears with many time or die-hard
fans that play it and dont sleep between Job-play-job ....

So - without save/load the game will never become a big community.

Ragards
R-TEAM

[AF]

Here is my solution that will help us enourmously:

• BA website
• BA lobby server
• BA installer
• BA frontend
• BA CD/DVD/iso
• BA forums
• BA logo

Face it, right now BA is the only game here capable of lifting off right here and right now with a ready made userbase, and it would earn its developers far more credit out in the wild then in sitting in the spring engine nest in nappies.

It would also serve as an advertisement of what the spring engine can do, and solve all the arguments on nonTA mods as the BA ppl can just say 'we left, you cant blame us anymore!!!!' as well as helping enormously with the Atari debacle improving the odds of this engine surviving any legal intervention

I would estimate that the list would take 2 days at most to tick off.

[Caradhras]

AF, your post is pointless.

It doesnt matter which mod has the potential.

You have to advertise Spring and show the people the potential of the Engine through the variety of possible games. Then you can say, try out BA, try out this and that.

[Gota]

that's not how advertising works..
You don't fill people's heads with tons of facts and small features..
you focus on just a few things and add tons of visual content to what your saying.

[Caradhras]

No, you didnt get my point.

First, if we advertize every game/mod independently nothing will be achieved.

Second, which brand is better?

"Spring"

"Complete Annihilation revision 12327325"

And if you advertize for the mentioned game, you have to make the other games/mods known too, because not everyone likes the same game.
You have to concentrate on a single brand or name and Spring as a brand has great potential, i think.
Balanced Annhilitaion or Complete Annihilation is weird in terms of a name for a game. It doesnt make any sense to anyone who does not know anything about TA.

[YHCIR]

A huge issue is out of the box experience

To run spring, one has to:

1: find it (which in itself is a challenge )
2: click download tab and download (we need a gigantic "DOWNLOAD LATEST WINDOWS VERSION" button )
3: install (making sure you know which lobby/ais to pick, and having a stable Internet connection)
4: find out how the moo to start it
5: once you discover that spring.exe and a dozen other links are crap, start "spring battleroom")
6: figure out what the heck the interface means, or why TASClient gives you map/mod errors
7: download base content, maps, and mods
8: start TASClient, and try and learn the horrid interface (sorry satirik )
9: either join a game and get yelled at by others for being a noob, or....
10: figure out how to make AIs work, or what chicken defence is, or figure out how a luaai works
11: start a game with the ai and hope spring doesnt crash
12: PLAY!

I agree with this^^

also IMO the things inhibiting more players are, in no particular order:
1. Steep learning curve of BA + most people that play online are highly experienced
2. Nobody wants to play with newbies online
3. Complicated setup. There needs to be a link on the download page to EVERYTHING needed to play, e.g. get this, this this. Or just an independent guide on the wiki or elsewhere.
4. fairly "busy"/complicated lobby. It would be great if TASclient had a newbie splashscreen menu with a few buttons: play online, play vs ai, go to advanced mode.

[Gota]

Supreme Annihilation does.
It has a good name and It is also less confusing in terms of widgets cause it has its own widgets and doesn't allow any others.

Let's concentrate on advertising it..

Now let's be serious for a sec.
Spring is an open source game it travels by word of mouth.
All we need to do is streamline the peripherals.
Lobby function,profile and user handling,download of maps.
WE need a large installer with tons of maps both large and small.
Widgets need a unified release schedule imo.
Meaning there is one date n the month in which all widgets are updated.Mod makers can have the latest releases exactly when they are finished.

But the installer has to have tons of maps as default.
Shame widgets are just released to everyone...
If it was more of a per mod thing it would have been much better and much less confusing for new players.

As if it wasnt enough players had to get mods and maps now they have to also understand what widgets they have to use and for which mod..

[Caradhras]

Under Linux i just add the repo, mark the needed packages and install.

So, the engine itself is already streamlined, hte problem are mods and maps, as you said.

I have an idea, we could have some kind of repo for mods and maps.
So a maintainer creates a zipped file, which contains a bunch of mods and maps.
Most important the one keeps it up to date.
So, as a noob, you download it unzip it et voilá.

I volunteer.

[AF]

Spring is an open source game it travels by word of mouth.

People dont play spring, they never have, there is no game called spring. It is an engine, and the sooner you see that, the sooner you realize that your just confusing new people by advertising a game that doesn't exist then bombarding them with the actual games once they're here.

We don't want to advertise spring to players, we want to advertise the games that use spring to players. Which would you rather buy? A copy of the unreal engine? Or a game that uses the unreal engine?

AF, your post is pointless.

It doesnt matter which mod has the potential.

You have to advertise Spring and show the people the potential of the Engine through the variety of possible games. Then you can say, try out BA, try out this and that.

Caradhras, BA can easily become far larger than this community could ever sustain simply by standing on its own two feet. This would not harm spring as a game simply because spring is not a game, it is an engine, a library of code, a set of foundations not the ballpark built on top. Thus when they play BA theyll see its built on spring and can hop over to other spring games.

[YHCIR]

Supreme Annihilation does.
It has a good name and It is also less confusing in terms of widgets cause it has its own widgets and doesn't allow any others.

Doesn't matter what you think, what matters is how many people agree with you and actually play a mod.
IMO CA is a technically good mod, but people still play BA.

Lobby function,profile and user handling,download of maps.
WE need a large installer with tons of maps both large and small.

Yes, as bad as it sounds, and even though it will suck up bandwidth and be a nightmare to maintain it will help newbies.
Although SD pretty much covers it, just need to include a few of the popular maps/mods in an installer package, it's one less hassle for new players.

Widgets need a unified release schedule imo.
Meaning there is one date n the month in which all widgets are updated.Mod makers can have the latest releases exactly when they are finished.
As if it wasnt enough players had to get mods and maps now they have to also understand what widgets they have to use and for which mod..

Na, widgets are an added extra. You don't have to use them, and having the most up-to-date is not always essential, afterall they usually just close/safely-crash without taking the whole game down or making it unplayable.

People dont play spring, they never have, there is no game called spring. It is an engine, and the sooner you see that, the sooner you realize that your just confusing new people by advertising a game that doesn't exist then bombarding them with the actual games once they're here.

This is a very good point.

[Caradhras]

No it isnt a good point at all.

Spring is a platform for playing RTS games and as a platform for RTS games it has to be advertised.
You cannot fill the mind of people with a hundred names. The community needs one single brand, where people can gather.
That is Spring! Spring is still no game. Its nice to hear, that you already noticed that.

And stop your mod vs mod gibberish, it does help anyone.

[Jasper1984]

Thanks for your replies. I am making some notes. I think we need to look at the path gamers take from learning the game, to becoming a player:(This should also be in the promotion improvement document.)

• Where do they enter the websites, and what do they see? If they want a page like the about, features, screenshots/videos or faq can they find it easily? Can they later as gamers find the tutorials on the website?
• The sequence after finding the game(windows) (MidKnights post)The windows does installer optionally put icons on the desktop and menus? Does the directory of spring have an easy 'start' button, the bottom directory should only have stuff the player uses.(I don't know how the spring install on windows looks like.)
• Installing on linux is already fairly streamlined. It could still be improved by getting spring in the Ubuntu repo itself, and getting in the Add/Remove program.
• Getting mods/maps.
• Availability of online games/single player, and how to improve it.
• Learning to play. Make text tutorials? Comic-like tutorials? In-game tutorials?

Other things for the document:

• How they find out about the game. We could increase the amount of people with sites like digg and reddit, 'fan-of' icons for websites (what mods already have icons?), google bombing. However, should be ethical about it.
• What features to market.(Selling points, as JAZCASH said, for instance, opensource.)
• Do the game/mod names make sense? The names for the *A games could be better.(As Caradhras said.)

And of course, also how they find the game. Spring it self has a nice icon, maybe the mods/games should spread them also.(And maybe 'fan of:' sort of icons.)

So, the engine itself is already streamlined, hte problem are mods and maps, as you said. I have an idea, we could have some kind of repo for mods and maps.

I think that springlobbies downloader is a better idea then the repo, since then windows users can use it also, and it can be used in different ways. Maybe springlobby should be used more on the windows install as well. I haven't used it lately, it is not included on Ubuntu 8.04 at least.(Rasterbar-torrent thing not included in ubuntus repo. Nice if it got fixed, imo.) So i have not seen it lately, but there are a bunch of ideas(with mockups) on the forum, for instance here.
The downloader needs more peripheral user interface to be more user friendly. Like a list of maps with their pictures. A tab where you can download games, also with pictures and some text sounds like a good idea too. I think if you do the downloader on the program right, that you don;t need to ship too many maps/mods with spring itself.

No it isnt a good point at all.

I agree, in any case, it is besides the point. Lets just look at both trying to promote spring and its mods/games in general, and how we could promote specific mods.

And stop your mod vs mod gibberish, it does help anyone.

Indeed, please stick to the topic; promotion.

BA can easily become far larger than this community could ever sustain simply by standing on its own two feet.

How would the community not be able to maintain it? Not enough autohosts?(Thought it was either near or already there that a single server can serve multiple games, besides some of the players can host.) Flushing the forum with newbies? Flushing the games with newbies would be positive, because they wouldn't get owned by eachother so much.