Advertising spring

[knorke]

www.springrts.com sucks for attracting new players.
media section: There is only one screenshot that shows how the game is played (camera + interface visible, Thats the "CA + IceUI" one.)
The s44 image shows ping over 2500, the starwars mod is beta so a random noob cant played it.
The description in the games section just says:
A Star Wars themed game set in the troubled post-Return of the Jedi era, SW:IW features over a hundred units for the fractured Galactic Empire and Rebel Alliance fighting for control of the galaxy.
Nothing that you have to sign up, what a random noob wont do. Yet spring is advertised with this mod. wtf.

Other screenshots are of The Cursed, which while (like sw) a very promising game is not the mod a noob should try first: No games online, probally somewhat buggy etc.

The help/strategy section sucks. Lots of "blablabla you must expand", long boring texts that tell really nothing but just sound like marketing speech by EA how great the new C&C will be. Random noob just wanted to know how to rotate buildings or how to add a bot.

[AF]

Springrts.com shouldnt be used for advertising spring games, and we Ive pointed out, you dont advertize spring tiself for maximum new players, you advertize the games theyll be playing! Imagine advertisements for unreal engine on the TV instead of unreal tournemant etc, do you think EA will get more players advertising their game engine, or their games?

Having said that, I showed a friend and he said he doesnt like futuristic space games, so I refreshed, and I refreshed and 9/10 images were Starwars.

[knorke]

I showed a friend and he said he doesnt like futuristic space games, so I refreshed, and I refreshed and 9/10 images were Starwars.

I always get the same images, in the same order.

Springrts.com shouldnt be used for advertising spring games, and we Ive pointed out, you dont advertize spring tiself for maximum new players, you advertize the games theyll be playing!

lol
Thats not the point, new players will have to visit this site to get the installer etc. Also they need a page to learn about where to get maps etc.

I quote the CA homepage:
Complete Annihilation is a game for the Spring RTS engine.
...
...
Download:
1. Get the Spring engine and multiplayer lobby.


How is linking to springrts.com "advertising the engine and not the games ololol", like is always said?
springrts.com has a list of games and media for the games,both just suck. If it were to advertise the engine they would probally be benchmarkes, rendertests or diagrams of how the engines layout.

[AF]

All you've done is point out how much epic fail the CA community are at distributing their game. Autogenerating a spring installer with the current stable CA revision shouldnt be hard. Zwzsg does it all the time, heck even argh manages it.

I need to update the stamper.darkstars.co.uk templates, but the old url still redirects here

[knorke]

My experince with springgames that had they own version of springengine included (ie pure) was that the versions mess up each other settings. And, why should each mod include the same files?
So if i play kp, ca and xta i must download the springfiles three times, install each in a seperate folder and download all the maps three times?
Maybe also have seperate servers for each game
So, you will still need a seperate download of only the mod-files for players that have spring already installed. Thats the way its done atm.

All you've done is point out how much epic fail the CA community are at distributing their game.

Actually i wanted to point out how you want players to go directly to the individual game homepages yet make a script that puts springrts.com on every screenshot, be it gundamRTS, s44 or whatever. But I didnt feel like making a fail-image with white border etc.

[AF]

The stamper tools purpose was not to advertize spring but to make it easier to use my logo. The intention was I would extend it to have other logos.

If anything that site was aimed at testing out php image modification for my portfolio.

The shared settings problem is something we need the spring developers to address, and not every game may use the same spring files. Lets say spring 0.9 was released which broke a mod? Would it really be wise for them to advertise themselves as download this archive, shove it ehre there and there, then download spring and watch ti all fail?

Or should we make ti easy for them and provide them with an isntaller that does everything the end user needs to do, and provides a proven environment.

[knorke]

What other sense than advertising does a logo have?

My mapfolder is ~2GB. Iam sure many have more maps. Should I add another 2GB for every game?

No idea what to do with outdated mods. Most are still active so they can adapt. So far, all games still being developed and will probally "never reach 100%." AA died but tons of mods continued it. If you want to play it, maybe get an old spring engine.

What about an end-user, that does not want to play the same mod every time but try out new stuff? How can you tell a new that his kp install can also run lots of other games if all traces of springengine are hidden?

Imo its best to say: Here, there is this engine and it can run this games,just copy to the modsfolder.
It used to work with halflife?
No need for "shoving" around stuff?

So far, pure is the only mod with a modified spring.exe i know of? Even if they were more, wouldnt it be better to add support for more than one spring.exe? Like the mods include a new exe-name=spring_xta.exe tag.

[imbaczek]

spring supports:
- multiple configs with --config option
- multiple data dirs (installation dir, a dir in the user profile, a dir in my documents, a shared dir for all users)

no need to copy your 2GB maps folder to spring game directories, if there were more than one. (i have about ten... most aren't used often, but still.)

[knorke]

oh, cool.
at the moment i only have one sprng installed + an older version for replays. (and one with only basic files for testing moding) The maps/mods are in the installation dir.
What would I need to do to combine both map folders and maybe a third if i want to try pure again?

[SpikedHelmet]

S44 has a custom installer that does everything an end-user needs to install Spring + S44 files and play what is essentially just S44. What's wrong with that?

The next logical step for the Spring engine is for games produced on it to be packaged and delivered independantly. If you're nice, we may also include just the S44 game files for you to stick in your Spring\mods\ folder.

But when delivering a game to the open "market" it is much better to say "Here, here is a game. Run the installer and you will play it." and not even mention fail TA mods, rather than tell people "Okay, download the Spring engine, which will give you some old space robot RTS game. Then go to another website and download a bunch of maps. Then put our game file in your mods directory there. Now dive into the bullshit of the Spring community."

[CarRepairer]

... Now dive into the bullshit of the Spring community."

But they'd be missing out on all the fun.

[knorke]

S44 has a custom installer that does everything an end-user needs to install Spring + S44 files and play what is essentially just S44. What's wrong with that?

nothing, its good. cool for lanparties escpially i think.

The next logical step for the Spring engine is for games produced on it to be packaged and delivered independantly.

I dont agree because a server with only one springmod would probally not have enough players to support online gaming.
ie I like to play s44 every now and then if there is an open battle. But I would probally not log into in separate s44 lobby. So with the combined playerbase each mod gets more players. Yes, olol most people only play BA. But those people do not join an open game of a different mod even if they only have to download one file: They would not play another game if they need to download, install, config it etc.

By "separiting" the games more the playerbase just gets more split up, whats the logic behind that?

If you're nice, we may also include just the S44 game files for you to stick in your Spring\mods\ folder.

Why would you not want to do this? And why would you even want to mention all the *a mods. "The Specialists" (hl mod) can be advertised without mentioning counterstrike as well?

[zwzsg]

Springrts.com shouldnt be used for advertising spring games, and we Ive pointed out, you dont advertize spring tiself for maximum new players, you advertize the games theyll be playing! Imagine advertisements for unreal engine on the TV instead of unreal tournemant etc, do you think EA will get more players advertising their game engine, or their games?

The next logical step for the Spring engine is for games produced on it to be packaged and delivered independantly.

But when delivering a game to the open "market" it is much better to say "Here, here is a game. Run the installer and you will play it." and not even mention fail TA mods

[...]generating a spring installer [...]. Zwzsg does it all the time[...].

To be honest, it's not working that well for KP. Made pictures, videos, got hosted on ModDB as a standalone game, attempted to advertise KP on some far forums, but all I got was the random noob idling for five second on my empty autohost then leaving forever.

I still wish we'd get back to having the springrts.com hosted download include most major mods like it did once upon a time.

[knorke]

is modDB that popular among gamers? I play lots of freeware stuff but only heard about it due to spring.

[21:08:21] * Now talking in #main

[21:08:28] <[FZero]Draq> anyu1 want to play keernal panic
[21:08:34] <[xXx]knorke> me me me
[21:08:40] <[FZero]Draq> join zkp

i was amazed, sometimes it works!

[imbaczek]

i think the problem with KP is that it doesn't appeal to a lot of people... kinda like high culture art. neat, but not for everyone.

[Caydr]

You know, it's true, there's not enough people playing spring. We should figure out some way to advertise it. There's a lot of quality mods but people only play AA. Now that I've stated the obvious, one of you go do something about it.

- Some guy from 2004

Seriously, for **** sake someone sticky one of these. I've been gone for 3 years and I come back and there's not one but two of these _still_ on the front page of General. I'm coming back in 2012 and I swear if there's one of these Swiftspear you're banned.

[zwzsg]

It's not the only topic that keeps coming back >_>

[Caydr]

Oh! Oh! I know that was going to turn into a zinger but I am too ignorant of your l33t ways, lay it on me.

[zwzsg]

I was thinking debate about the GPL license meaning, drama about comm napping, AA/BA bashing, Let's make an Advance War mod threads, etc...

[SpikedHelmet]

You've got to do more than that to sell a product these days Zwz!

But I feel your pain, really, S44 has had like 30,000 downloads or something from around the web but fuck me if I ever see more than 30 people in #s44 or playing a game at a time (right now there are like 10)

I think the main problem is the rather confusing nature of how Spring games are currently played, ie joining some random chat lobby server thing, waiting for some game... no easy way to actually start a singleplayer game or anything. Hell I had to write a tutorial on how to start a single player game -- wtf game has to do that? Spring completely lacks a front-end user interface (like click on an .exe, game opens, you're brought to a main menu, can choose Single or Multiplayer, options, etc, from there -- no need for a fucking tutorial just to get a game going).

BUT I agree with whoever brought up Unreal engine and Unreal Tournament as an example of how Spring should really be; independent self-packaged well-developed games where interaction with the world is done through our own means and not through springrts.com, which itself should become mainly a developer's resource and gathering place. Unfortunately Spring has remained in many ways an extension of Total Annihilation, with games developed on it viewed more as modifications of Total Annihilation 3D, rather than independant projects based on the Spring engine code. Even we developers are guilty of this.