I want YOUR marketing ideas

[ScarySquirrel]

Hello, everyone.

I have searched the forums for marketing topics to contribute to, but have found none.

Spring can still compete with other games, like Supreme Commander and StarCraft II, on the basis of its graphics and enjoyability. Zero-K, BA, etc. may not have the polish of these other games, but we still have some tricks up our collective sleeve.

I think there is still a chance that these games could scrape up a few more players. At least, it would make playing it much more fun for me.

Therefor, I would like to use a few of the limited number of posts I have before the unavoidable bannage to solicit your ideas for marketing the game. Just say the ideas, no matter how strange. We can sort out which ones are good and critique them in another topic, PM, or something.

Hold forth!

Note: Edited to add emphasis to an apparently ignored phrase in this post.

[PicassoCT]

Players who leave spring, usually are good, so if they win any competition there, maybe we could get them to promote Spring a little bit.

Like
"I won in Starcraft too, because i trained in Spring."

Another Idea is to get really big GameMags to cover you. And with the alltime low of pcgames right now, you can get nearly every pc-game mag to offer you a page.
I mean, even Indiegames get pages by now.

Last Idea is the Spring Screensaver- just leave Replays running while sleeping on LANs. Your Notbeook idles on a conference.. so why not have Spring autodownload some selected show replays, and let it do its thing?

Finally, biggest and most important thing. Those who want to try spring, want a easy app-like install. So link to complete and working installs, like the kernelpanic one, evo, zero-k. DO NOT Link to the Linux "How to compile your very own Spring" Tutorial. Most people know OpenSource - oh, forget it, most people dont even have heard the word OpenSource. Maybee think its a opened can of thai_fish_sauce.

Finally do not say its free. Say its the trial Version. Even complain how much money they take after three months, once you are addicted, and how grudgingly you pay. Yes, people are trained like lapdogs jumping through hoops, to believe that you auto-get-more- if you pay for it.

[Karl]

Finally do not say its free. Say its the trial Version. Even complain how much money they take after three months, once you are addicted, and how grudgingly you pay. Yes, people are trained like lapdogs jumping through hoops, to believe that you auto-get-more- if you pay for it.

... And making it soo that it would be a Donation to spring server and stuff witout let them that notice, and dont get sued.

[knorke]

Just say the ideas, no matter how strange.

maybe improve game, lobbies, website oh no wait something better:

like this but with a core commander

http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.ph ... =marketing
http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.ph ... =marketing

[Karl]

Just say the ideas, no matter how strange.

An Toolkit that does everything for you
Modelling , Texturing , Effects , Maps , Mission , Everything
and add Mutator support.

[AF]

Spring

Is not a game, advertising it as such is going to hurt not help

BA

Its been expressed that BA will have a marketing push, but not at this point in time. You're best waiting for the BA-R project to be completed later this year.

Zero-K

There are no threads about this here because such a thread would be more appropriate on the Zero-K website. I cannot speak for their plans although I know they are eager for a .Net web developer for their website.


Lobbies

Yes these needs avast improvement. Sure we have Satirik and Koshi talking about their fancy frontend UIs, but as of yet when I install spring and load the lobby, these UIs are nowhere to be found. Progress towards shipping is needed.

Mutators

Are and have been possible for a very very long time. Look at the test versions of XTA that depend on the last stable release. The problem with mutators is that they depend not on a game, but on a specific version of a game. The fix is to use the same archive name for the base game, but this leads to a lot of other problems.

[Karl]

Mutators

This is why a Native support then an Indirect mod support would be more valid. Also this way you can load up an Gadget only Mutator that does crazy stuff (powered by knorke) and having that fun in any Mod/Game!

[smoth]

You should either define what you think a mutator is or try what we have already. This post reeks of ignorance/misunderstanding.

[Karl]

You should either define what you think a mutator is or try what we have already. This post reeks of ignorance/misunderstanding.

With the current Mutator system we have also Dependancies and the Dependancies system requires an exact file name as far as i can remember. And this would cause a mess
possible solution would be by adding an additional drop-down menu on Lobby/Spring.exe that would optionaly load other Content.
I am sorry for the ignorance that I caused.

[smoth]

Mutators need dependencies otherwise you run into version conflicts. Once fang an I made a gundam vs ee mutator took a lot of work to happen and that was before gundam started really adopting lua.

[knorke]

It would be nice to have but also not really needed that much.
Currently all mutators are:
xta betas
kind of annoying for new players. I think it is only done because no xta dev cares for svn or rapid and it is always the same players anyway.

lol-mutators
(magneticBA, speedXTA,...) are not really relevant for most people.

BA chickendefense
I guess that has some right of existence. Does not really need any extra functionality though I think.

missions
not sure if it could be of use here.

Yes these needs avast improvement. Sure we have Satirik and Koshi talking about their fancy frontend UIs, but as of yet when I install spring and load the lobby, these UIs are nowhere to be found.

Download the game's installers then and not spring-engine plus game.sdz

marketing threads always derail into a discussion about installers, modding and other technical details but never is a video or webpage discussed or made. imo shows that Spring/its games appearently are not ready yet?

[Karl]

Mutators need dependencies otherwise you run into version conflicts. Once fang an I made a gundam vs ee mutator took a lot of work to happen and that was before gundam started really adopting lua.

for an Gadget it could work since obviously Widget already works in a similary way. For example an Gadget that checks for a unit's that got an value of 1200 and makes them to a value of 800 or similar.

lol-mutators
(magneticBA, speedXTA,...) are not really relevant for most people.

I would host these

imo shows that Spring/its games appearently are not ready yet?

How long got Spring developed? 8-9 years? Well it's time for making Spring RTS slowly "Marketing" Ready. But because its only a engine obviously that means it is the Game developers their "problemm" now

[smoth]

Not really that simple Karl say you had a "half cost" mutator that would be hilariously fail in grts.


We are responsible for ourselves *sigh* that is why there are giant threads about it if you would just use forum search.

[Tim Blokdijk]

Having more engine releases, maybe even time based releases would the best marketing possible.
Next to that, go nuts on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring%20(game_engine)

[KaiserJ]

heehee he told the squirrel to go nuts

from my own experience, personal contact is your best method... post in forums about spring, tell your friends, host a game for newbies when they arrive

i got here from youtube crosslinking... might be effective to have a "starcraft vs zk features" video, highlighting some of the awesome stuff like tactical zoom and the advanced commands that can be issued

[PicassoCT]

Well, time to make a stand against the "Spring is not a Game" notion.

Spring is the Game, the Gameengine, that needs to attract talented people. And that will not happen, if everybody splits up walking into his own direction. For example, lets assume - i would forget to mention that spring beats at the heart of jw, and somebody comes and starts to write awesome for it, be it lua, or makes map. And i forget to share this someone with the remains of the comunity.. makes sense from my point of view, but the comon good that is the spring engine, suffers.

So dont you come cryin, once those sub-com-unitys drain the pool, and spring dies of thirst. :D

[smoth]

Content devs are the end users of spring. Players are not.

For the same reason(people wanting to lump all the spring projects in one pile) people thing spring is a game with a bunch of shitty mods if ba.

So no, I reject your assertion Picasso.

[zwzsg]

Call me back when you'll do K.P. marketing.

[Jazcash]

Oh ffs not this again. We have enough of these threads. I can't even be bothered to read the posts in this one.

Spring and its games are not ready for marketing. It's like trying to promote an ice-cream with just the cone then wondering why nobody will come buy your ice-creams when you finally get the ice-cream itself in stock...

[smoth]

But but I'm new to spring and don't realize it has aids.