Decline in the number of players

[smoth]

A lot has changed since you left man,

[SinbadEV]

A lot has changed since you left man,

for example... SinbadEV and smoth got OLD

[FLOZi]

Hi molloy!

and

A lot has changed since you left man,

[smoth]

You now hear my quote in the voice of Jeff bridges, far out man

[PicassoCT]

Remember, when we were younger, and TA was just released. Those were the days men.

[Gota]

Dune 2 blew my mind.

[Molloy]

The breakup of my 2nd marriage meant I didn't get a chance to play Dune 2 very much like I did when Herzog Zwei was the RTS to beat.

[McArcher]

I think, the reason for few players ingame is bad advertisement of the game. It concerns all free games. For example, in my country's gaming portal (http://www.ag.ru) such games as OpenTTD and all Spring games (Balanced Annihilation and others) are not even enlisted in games database. They don't exist there as games. So, people don't even know that such games exist!

I will try to contact AG's people and ask them to add OpenTTD and Spring games to the list. But it is a very small step. Such steps must be taken in every country. Moreover, we should somehow advertise the game in the internet. It is difficult for a non-profit (but very interesting) game...

Some promo actions can be taken as well. For example, holding a championship, free colorful CDs with a game by mail, fan clothing, ...

[PicassoCT]

Having Spring Replays as Screensaver on Lans would help :D

[knorke]

I think, the reason for few players ingame is bad advertisement of the game.

no, the reasons are still bad lobbies and bad ingame UI.
Can you still put your startposition so that your commander is stuck?
Is the camera -despite all widgets- still a noob trap?
No way to for new players to tell what maps & AIs work with what game?
Or what games even work at all? (look at all the threads of new players wanting to play game XY which does not work anymore)
kkthxbye.

spreading spring/spring games...omg its that time again.
All attempts so far were half assed, failed and do more damage then good.
Even the "official" facebook and moddb pages suck a rubberhorse.
not even starting with other sites...
ie see this:

http://www.chip.de/downloads/Spring-RTS_21642345.html
(chip is a big computer magazine in germany)
so it is german but maybe you can still see how they think "TA:Spring=game"
Basically every sentence is wrong.
or just click through the gallery: http://www.chip.de/bildergalerie/TA-Spr ... 42554.html






hey that is my screenshot
guess it looked kinda good back in 2007

Basically:
gaming sites DO NOT CARE about something like spring.
They just c&p whatever images they find.
That is why you find "the tree map", imperial winter and this fake/mock up screenshot:

are spread everywhere despite not really existing to the normal player.

So if you want gaming sites to feature spring give them something like a press kit. Like an "about" text that makes sense would be a start.
Otherwise they will just write crap.
But you know, just fuck it, this site has not even a proper screenshot gallery because fucking fuck? And you expect others to take spring serious...

[Wombat]

(chip is a big computer magazine in germany)

they called spring - game in wired as well :D

look at all the threads of new players wanting to play game XY which does not work anymore

like i said already, i blame admins for that. devs are untouchable golden cows here and they dont want to hurt their feelings, or something (its not that i dont appreciate their work, but if something doesnt work, why keep it in public ? more common sense maybe ?)
inc ban

also MT

[faceleg]

Realistically, how long would a UI like this take a lua virgin to hack together?

[smoth]

months.

[bobthedinosaur]

Has any one discussed taking the best from all of the mods and putting it together into one super massive awesome mod? That might get more players. Maybe we can retexture some of the models to bright florescent colors, it would get potential players attention?

[Wombat]

sarcasm ?

[Forboding Angel]

Even the "official" facebook and moddb pages suck a rubberhorse.
not even starting with other sites...

The facebook fan page is quite alright. The moddb page is also quite nice, thanks to me and smoth and others spending hours on it.

Springinfo is also quite nice and runs itself.
The new springfiles is beautiful.
The EvoRTS site is likewise very nice.
The ZK site leaves some to be desired, but it's still pretty nice. Far better than a lot of indie game websites.

Now this site... meh this site has always been subpar. I never cared for roflcopters design, and my dislike for it has grown over the years, but on the plus side it's a hell of a lot better than it was.

The spring site should be running a proper CMS like Wordpress or Joomla. Not this half ass html integrated css tabled bullshit.

[Wombat]

modb could still use some resources tho. springfiles, evorts and zk - ppl find them AFTER finding springrts.com, which still contains fugly gallery and these terrible vids. i know its about engine, but since its probably first website ppl see, i think there is too much spring in spring.

[knorke]

The moddb page is also quite nice

just click http://www.moddb.com/engines/spring/games and see how its fail.
Absolute Annihilation at top, need i say more?
If i was a potential game maker, which link would I follow from this site to start my project?


http://www.moddb.com/engines/spring/news
why not use that automatic news feed thing?

Springinfo is also quite nice and runs itself.

A websites does not "run itself."
Just some obvious things you could notice very easy: :/

videos do not work since ages
http://www.springinfo.info/category/news/other/videos/

"mods" instead of "games" in lots of places

outdated/broken widgets in database (ie blob shadows misses a file)

"Important Links:"
http://www.caspring.org/ old, link zerok
http://spring.clan-sy.com/ old, usef springrts.com
http://xta.darkstars.co.uk/forums/ dead
http://spring1944.com/s44/ its http://spring1944.net

The new springfiles is beautiful.

if you find the spring section, that is.

The EvoRTS site is likewise very nice.

cant see what is nice about this badly autoformated collection of text with facebook and rss feed frames next to it.
The last post is about some Desura thing but does not even tell what it is or link to its page. I guess it is something like steam but I cant tell that from the text, neither can i tell if i need an account/client/need to pay.
Scrolling lags my browser. Guess I need more giga ram.

Also who cares about design if the content sucks:
What is the use if some people ie try to clean up the "read me first" page but moderators refuse to remove or update old stickies? Why make screenshots if nobody will update the gallery?
Both would be most important for a good first impression to new players.

[Wombat]

actually i see 6 'games' to be removed from modb (7 if u add EE that is not working)

[faceleg]

...snip...

I'm new and I've found it tough to find a definitive source of information on Spring & the mods/games.

Some of the stuff on the Spring site seems very outdated - it took my workmate to convince me to download it and try it out, as I couldn't tell from the screenshots / videos available how good the engine was. Before I tried it tbh I thought the graphics etc were terrible.

Now I know, but if it wasn't for my workmate convincing me to try it I wouldn't have bothered.