Obviously because it doesn't match your mushy vision?
AF wrote:Current spring games do not have this interface.
Not as default.
AF wrote:Can the end user launch this interface directly from the start menu or desktop?
Yes.
AF wrote: What about features?
Yes, what about them?
AF wrote:Even Zwzsgs frontend has more options.
I take it you dug thru the code, actually started it with a game that's setup for it or asked me about what it can do?
AF wrote:A new multiplayer lobby wont help that.
Good thing it isn't a new lobby then?
AF wrote:Bolting them onto a lobby is not a solution, its a stopgap.
How exactly would the ignorant user become aware that there are two separate executables involved if that interface is run full screen or w/o window decorations?
The last statement was not directed at fullscreen apps. Im referring to the singleplayer modes in current lobbies. They're useful but theyre merely classic windows UIs built into an existing windowed app.
My statements on missions are not that we should have no missions and they arent singleplayer in any way shape or form. I was stating that calling missions singleplayer and using them as a substitute for skirmish battles is horrible usability, and a slippery slope to ruin, one that new users are far more capable of blasting apart than the people on these forums making these claims knowing they're not entirely true to save themselves time on skirmish AI when everyone knows its not true.
Koshi, arguing that I should use my knowledge of this community to answer a question that is targeted at people who by definition lack that knowledge is folly. The answers to those questions are nonexistant to 99.5% of the playerbase and users without extended discourse with yourself or a significant investment of time and resources to learn the necessary fields and practices. A new player arriving here wont know about your UI, and when they see it, how likely are they to read the code/ask you?
Yes new users are ignorant, and they don't really have much choice in the matter, they don't know anything about us, so why must we make them do work to get the things they expect as standard? Its so easy to say they only have to ask, but of the thousands that come here every day, how many actually ask?
Licho wrote:Note missions system for Zero-K is meant for campaigns. We just need people to actually make campaign.
Campaign will of course use different visualisation - there wont be list of missions..
If somebody writes up a proper storyline and general background to ZK and the general direction of which characters prevail and which characters fall I'll be happy to write one or two decent missions.
Still mobo-less, so I've missed most of this, and please forgive minor typos, I'm on an Acer netbook with a terrible keyboard atm. Mobo *may* arrive tomorrow, according to our wonderful postal service (last time I take free shipping, ever).
1. Yo, Sinbad, KP meets your requirements. If you weren't busy writing a novel, I'd be inclined to say 'moar work, less talking', but meh, whatever.
2. Koshi: here are my thoughts. Please don't be angry with me for putting it this way, but even if I'd read that announcement (which I didn't) I probably would have not put a lot of effort into it, just as with Satirik's elaborate SP setup for his lobby. In that case, I had other serious reservations (performance was poor, and I would not have been able to customize it, beyond delivering art to his specifications), but the core issues were basically the same.
I think that ultimately, the problem with the Lobbies is that they're geared towards BA hardcore online play, the rest of this stuff is an addon or afterthought, not part of a streamlined architecture. I haven't tested what you have yet, I presume it's slick and it works, like all of the good things you've done with SpringLobby, but in the end, the issue that I see, as a game developer wanting to present a final product, is that if something like that already presumes operational understanding of the rest of a complex software product's UI (i.e., knowing what to do with SpringLobby, tab navigation, etc., etc.) then it's probably not the right presentation.
SP should properly be up front, and the simplest operation to set up- typically in a commercial project, it's about 6-8 clicks of effort from installer to playing the first mission in a campaign, maybe 10 clicks to set up a typical AI skirmish.
And presentation matters a lot- we want sexy graphics customized for the game, maybe some music playing, that kind of stuff.
Hence why I think that ZK's demo screen looks like it's heading in the right direction, although it's missing some things that it absolutely must have (manual amongst others). It looks like they're going to avoid --------sink problems and get it tightly polished and focused on the primary mission- no bells or whistles or un-necessary frills.
I'm not sure if there's a way to reconcile that with the Lobby concept of endless flexibility and power, frankly. The need to get delivery and entry into a game down to the bare minimum number of reading steps (again, see Warcraft III for a masterpiece in that regard- IIRC, the end-user had to read maybe 300 words to navigate the UI and start playing, and 250 of those words were fluff) and clicks is really essential.
Jazcash wrote:
If somebody writes up a proper storyline and general background to ZK and the general direction of which characters prevail and which characters fall I'll be happy to write one or two decent missions.
Johannes wrote:Just curious Sinbad, why do you make marketing plan plans for games you never play?
I struggle with that questions myself sometime... I'd already stopped playing when I wrote up all the "Using Spring" stuff in the wiki and make my chess mod and when I made all those experimental maps... I just like the "idea" of spring I guess... even though I don't really play RTS games anymore.
That was years ago sinbad, and spring has changed a lot since then, the dynamics of the gameplay, the gamplay, the lobby politics, the lobby players, the lobby itself, the way you download, the way its installed, its all changed, and yet you havent been there with it, you havent experienced it.
So how does this make you qualified to plan a marketing plan? Its important to test out and attempt to play, or at least to load the lobby up or install spring on a new machine, I make the point of playing at least once a month if I can, or at least spectating just so I dont drift too far from reality.
AF wrote:That was years ago sinbad, and spring has changed a lot since then, the dynamics of the gameplay, the gamplay, the lobby politics, the lobby players, the lobby itself, the way you download, the way its installed, its all changed, and yet you havent been there with it, you havent experienced it.
So how does this make you qualified to plan a marketing plan? Its important to test out and attempt to play, or at least to load the lobby up or install spring on a new machine, I make the point of playing at least once a month if I can, or at least spectating just so I dont drift too far from reality.
Not to drift too far off base here... I don't feel I am qualified to make a marketing plan... but I felt that I could contribute to a marketing plan plan because I've been reading lot's of marketing books recently... that said, when I get a computer that doesn't lock up when I try to use 3D I might get around to installing spring and playing a few rounds again... after playing Civ4 for a few days of course.
Don't worry about qualifications, darnit. If you've read 15 articles about 'net marketing, guerrilla marketing concepts and (preferably) have tuned in to the available talks / docs about the specific issues indie titles face (if you want a reading list, I *think* I still have some of that bookmarked on the dev box, ask me again via PM when it's back up (probably Sunday))... then you're qualified, kind've.
Really, what we need is for somebody to:
A. Have a plan.
B. Have the visual arts / basic web savvy to build content, even if it's just simple crap like cropping screens and plopping a title (speaking of which, zxswg, build yourself a logo or run a contest for that, so that you have a stock image).
C. Go do it. 99% of marketing isn't planning, it's execution. For indie titles, it's largely about the slow grind to get public attention.
Of all the projects we have here, only BA bests kernel panic in terms of sheer quantity of Art, mostly because its so easy to iterate or take huge quantities of screenshots.
Most of the execution necessary for us to be successful is not traditional or online marketting at all. Its not that we have a lot to do, its that people keep pandering around it but never actually tackling it. Simply fixing a handful of small but critical problems would result in a strong upturn in the natural growth of the playerbase on and offline. There's no lack of interest, and acquiring more isnt helpful unless we can provide a truly effective means of quenching that thirst.
A bottle with a child proof lock just doesnt cut it in a world of children, no matter how refreshing the stuff inside. Making it tastier wont increase consumption
AF wrote:Of all the projects we have here, only BA bests kernel panic in terms of sheer quantity of Art, mostly because its so easy to iterate or take huge quantities of screenshots.
But its true! Though I make no comment on the quality, most fanart for spring is littered with scenes from BA, almost all our you tube videos show BA battles, and the only reason our media sections etc aren't all BA is that we've made a concerted effort to highlight non-BA games.
Where is this glut of ba screenshots? I mean Christ the fgjl is > 1gig of pictures and crap assuming 1/4th of that is gundam related that is a lot. That is not counting mobbd, tau, sites that may have mentioned gundam, the old home page imageshack and here.
Congratulations! Recent advances have revealed Gundam to be the bigger photo whore!
No really, videos count because they require effort beyond pressing print screen, they need to be composed and cut together. There's the raft of load screens that get completely redone on a whim every year, and the awful abominations that shred the logo, the college dvd box courseworks, playerbars etc etc
Nobodies denying you have a large body of quality material, but its all too easy to underestimate BA art in terms of quantity.
