HELP STEAM USERS! - Page 2

HELP STEAM USERS!

Old Evo threads before move to own site

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SinbadEV
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Joined: 02 May 2005, 03:56

Re: HELP STEAM USERS!

Post by SinbadEV »

I think we should take this opportunity to recognize some basic flaws in the user experience this launch has exposed.

The most obvious is that people expect single player... if you want to stop people from bouncing before they even play a match of your game, you need to have a big happy button that get's a new user into a single player campaign with integrated tutorial right away.
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PepeAmpere
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Re: HELP STEAM USERS!

Post by PepeAmpere »

This is prove that F*ing Angel is maniac. :cry:
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Anarchid
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Re: HELP STEAM USERS!

Post by Anarchid »

You just jelly.
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Jazcash
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Joined: 08 Dec 2007, 17:39

Re: HELP STEAM USERS!

Post by Jazcash »

FLOZi wrote:
Jazcash wrote:Was just browsing Steam and saw Evo on the front page. Suffice to say I was surprised :-) 91 Springies, holy shit. Gratz Forb, you definitely deserved it.

Here's to hoping Smoth's own personal works get the same attention one day!
He means it is spawning Spring 91.0 and it needs to be Spring 96.0.
Oh. lol. :oops:
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Funkencool
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Re: HELP STEAM USERS!

Post by Funkencool »

Jazcash wrote: Oh. lol. :oops:
Yeah that's how I read it at first too :regret:
gajop
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Re: HELP STEAM USERS!

Post by gajop »

SinbadEV wrote:I think we should take this opportunity to recognize some basic flaws in the user experience this launch has exposed.
Read a few threads in the Steam community and they mention the issues exactly as I guessed they would. None of these issues are specific to Evo, it's a trait shared by the entire Spring community. Couple of examples:
1) No matchmaking, slow to get into games and games tend to lack balance between players (some games like ZK have better balancing but you still play in games with much worse/better players).
2) Single player campaigns don't exist or are sparse (ZK?).
3) Games don't pre-download content so users have to wait extra each time they play (it's mostly maps, but sometimes even engines/games need to be downloaded, that's insane!).
4) UI is way too complex or badly designed.

In general we have a bad user experience, even though the games themselves are good. These are issues gamers (and not just casuals, even I stopped playing Spring games in part because of that) won't accept, and they should really be addressed. The problem is most people here prefer to make games than deal with the user experience :p
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PepeAmpere
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Re: HELP STEAM USERS!

Post by PepeAmpere »

exactly
muckl
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Re: HELP STEAM USERS!

Post by muckl »

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Last edited by muckl on 08 Apr 2014, 21:27, edited 1 time in total.
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Funkencool
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Re: HELP STEAM USERS!

Post by Funkencool »

gajop wrote: In general we have a bad user experience, even though the games themselves are good. These are issues gamers (and not just casuals, even I stopped playing Spring games in part because of that) won't accept, and they should really be addressed. The problem is most people here prefer to make games than deal with the user experience :p
The whole process is simple once you learn it. You just have to learn it first and that's the problem. The lobby definitely needs to be more informative.

I think the whole thing would benefit most from a small modal. If the necessary files aren't detected (first launch?) a small welcome window should pop-up and explain the situation, even if briefly, then start the downloads automatically (and probably send the user to download tab to watch progress).

Edit: It might even be a little redundant pointing out the problems, it's became painfully obvious with all the feedback.
Last edited by Funkencool on 08 Apr 2014, 21:41, edited 1 time in total.
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Jools
XTA Developer
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Re: HELP STEAM USERS!

Post by Jools »

SinbadEV wrote:I think we should take this opportunity to recognize some basic flaws in the user experience this launch has exposed.
Absolutely!
gajop wrote: The problem is most people here prefer to make games than deal with the user experience :p
That is not true. Many of use have specifically addressed the UI side of the game. But making a good UI is hard, but I think one good way to do it is just to pay attention to a lot of details. For instance, what the cursor shows when you mouse over something should be consistent with what action the mouse click triggers. Just a bunch of things like this.

Also, I think before you can make a good UI you must understand the process normal people use when wanting to accomplish a task. For instance, you can not require a normal user to enable the debug mode to solve a simple problem.
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SinbadEV
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Re: HELP STEAM USERS!

Post by SinbadEV »

There's a lot of things that could be fixed in the long run but based on the majority of problems people are talking about in the Steam Community one major improvement would be a nice big splash screen "installer" when you first open WebLobby in "Steam" mode (not sure how one would do this but anyways)... just a big "EvolutionRTS" splash screen that would install a default "starter" set of files with a master progress bar and a message (Target engine version, game, and campaign/tutorial maps)... all the code to do this has got to be somewhere in WebLobby already, just need to find it and put it up on first run... maybe one of those "read these things while we set stuff up" slideshows that will explain the basics of playing.
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Anarchid
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Re: HELP STEAM USERS!

Post by Anarchid »

The whole process is simple once you learn it
Dwarf Fortress is easy once you learn it. This is a non-argument.
just a big "EvolutionRTS" splash screen that would install a default "starter" set of files with a master progress bar and a message (Target engine version, game, and campaign/tutorial maps)... all the code to do this has got to be somewhere in WebLobby already
Doesn't have to go into Weblobby. Evo ships a slightly restyled version of QT Weblobby, so it could also ship an "installer" that would simply install weblobby, and put all the required bits of stuff where it's needed (engine, mod, most played maps...).

Would also help if evo hosts had a narrower default map selection.
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Funkencool
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Re: HELP STEAM USERS!

Post by Funkencool »

Anarchid wrote:
The whole process is simple once you learn it
Dwarf Fortress is easy once you learn it. This is a non-argument.
Well that's kind of my point. It's easy to overlook things from a learned perspective. I don't think weblobby's downfalls were from a lack of work input. It just needed an outside perspective from more than a few people.

Anyway I think the whole thing is non-argument since there's clear feedback.
Anarchid wrote: Doesn't have to go into Weblobby. Evo ships a slightly restyled version of QT Weblobby, so it could also ship an "installer" that would simply install weblobby, and put all the required bits of stuff where it's needed (engine, mod, most played maps...).

Would also help if evo hosts had a narrower default map selection.
Well my thought was that weblobby already has the functionality to download every needed bit automatically (same as when joining room). This could be used for any game.
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Anarchid
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Re: HELP STEAM USERS!

Post by Anarchid »

Well that's kind of my point. It's easy to overlook things from a learned perspective. I don't think weblobby's downfalls were from a lack of work input. It just needed an outside perspective from more than a few people.
Ah... that actually makes sense.
Well my thought was that weblobby already has the functionality to download every needed bit automatically (same as when joining room). This could be used for any game.
My point is that downloading a downloader for downloading is probably a few steps too many. Ideally, Evo's Steam package should already come with engine, mod, and some maps pre-packaged, by whatever mechanism, without further need for mediation.

Extra bonus is that pre-packaging assets relieves some of the strain on the Rapid system, which seems quite tasked recently.

This doesn't really have to be any external installer, i guess, maybe weblobby could get some kind "deploy those assets" mode or "isolation mode" in which they would be pre-packaged.

Actually, in fact, i think it already can do this! There's a "spring home" directory setting. Defaulting it to some directory already filled with needed assets will abolish the need to download them, so if Steam can guess an absolute path to where it will be installing the game, this should be easy.
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smoth
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Re: HELP STEAM USERS!

Post by smoth »

It's how I did gundam! But if you listen to knorke we never consider the user experience!
ismo
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Re: HELP STEAM USERS!

Post by ismo »

Hi all, only noticed this stuff yesterday.

I think that this, having game at Steam, is great thing. Also it will provide lots of valuable information (about user experience, issues, etc). There might be need for lobby tutorial (embedded into lobby) to minimize player churn (= people dropping out before even getting to actual game). Hmm however i know that doing such embedded tutorial is not 1min job.

Anyways great to see developers/etc vet players helping "non-rocket scientists" (don't like word noob :)) at steam / lobby. In addition, I think it points out that modern player generations have patience of 1/5 of older generations.

To my understanding this launch went way better than the launch of ID Software's Rage: http://www.psu.com/a016404/John-Carmack ... -marketing
(It was so bugged on my Radeon that I have never seen such buggy OpenGL code. After 2-3 patches it started to work a bit more properly :))

P.S. We XTA players converted two Evolution RTS "players" (I bet they had not played evo at that point) to XTA players. They somehow got to XTA battle room, UPDATE: I noticed that somebody has added instructions to Steam discussions to remove Evolution RTS filter, and naturally some are using other lobbies too. Anyways good thing if we get few new XTA players.
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smoth
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Re: HELP STEAM USERS!

Post by smoth »

ismo wrote:P.S. We XTA players converted two Evolution RTS "players" (I bet they had not played evo at that point) to XTA players. They somehow got to XTA battle room, UPDATE: I noticed that somebody has added instructions to Steam discussions to remove Evolution RTS filter, and naturally some are using other lobbies too. Anyways good thing if we get few new XTA players.
yeah but joining the evo matches and trying to pull players away is a bit rude, you guys could give them a week or so before you start trying to use evo as your recruiting pool
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Forboding Angel
Evolution RTS Developer
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Re: HELP STEAM USERS!

Post by Forboding Angel »

ismo wrote:P.S. We XTA players converted two Evolution RTS "players" (I bet they had not played evo at that point) to XTA players. They somehow got to XTA battle room, UPDATE: I noticed that somebody has added instructions to Steam discussions to remove Evolution RTS filter, and naturally some are using other lobbies too. Anyways good thing if we get few new XTA players.
Congrats on pulling the biggest dick move since nota.

gajop: Link removed, still a GPL violation
klapmongool
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Re: HELP STEAM USERS!

Post by klapmongool »

Forboding Angel wrote:
ismo wrote:P.S. We XTA players converted two Evolution RTS "players" (I bet they had not played evo at that point) to XTA players. They somehow got to XTA battle room, UPDATE: I noticed that somebody has added instructions to Steam discussions to remove Evolution RTS filter, and naturally some are using other lobbies too. Anyways good thing if we get few new XTA players.
Congrats on pulling the biggest dick move since nota.
Wow. That is low.
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Silentwings
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Re: HELP STEAM USERS!

Post by Silentwings »

That's just shameful. And it's not even shameful with sauce.
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