Spring RTS Engine

KaiserJ wrote:hey, the video is pretty good... but really, its just showing 13 year old models for the first part, not to hate, but there is a lot more out there to impress visually if that's what you're after

for example :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDM_R4CZFC0

That has some better models but for the most part it's not really much more visually impressive. But I wouldn't show someone that if I was introducing them to Spring, not because I dislike gundam, but because gundam is almost never played, not really by any fault of it's own but it's just not. I wouldn't want to get them exited over something that they'd only be able to play very occasional games with. And besides, when I show people Spring it's to get them to play it with me, and hopefully get involved, and seeing as I play BA mostly it'd be a little deceptive to show them a trailer focused on non-*A mods.


When people start playing an RTS, they really don't give a crap about graphics. Trailers, pictures etc. show graphics and unavoidably it's what you notice, but once they pick up the game and actually play it graphics are barely even thought of. Whenever I get someone to play Spring, they'll say something negative about the graphics after watching the trailer or seeing a SS, but once(if) they play it, it won't even get mentioned.

so why do none of these spring trailers show gameplay but instead flashy 2 seconds clips with funny colors set to tacky epic music?

knorke wrote:so why do none of these spring trailers show gameplay but instead flashy 2 seconds clips with funny colors set to tacky epic music?

Because watching slow gameplay doesn't get you excited and make you want to try a new game.

spring is not ugly, especially on newgen maps

Hobo Joe wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mKhQD2SVqw

Yeeah that trailer does show way too much 3do close-up. And too much dsd.

The language errors, ugly scanline attempts, blur, and effects of that video gave me a headache. Also all the noobbases and dsd....

Too much DSD? if its more than 21%, then you are right its too much...

http://mapinfo.adune.nl/alltime_mapstats.html

Hobo Joe wrote:But show people this and tell me what their reaction is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mKhQD2SVqw

I've shown it to like 20 people and they all say the same things: old, ugly, bad, etc.

Hobo Joe wrote:

knorke wrote:so why do none of these spring trailers show gameplay but instead flashy 2 seconds clips with funny colors set to tacky epic music?

Because watching slow gameplay doesn't get you excited and make you want to try a new game.

Have you tried showing dotwars? they show tactics in fast forward:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILsQlqI46bw

knorke wrote:few animations, no idle animations in any spring game ive played.
some maps look like a microsoft paint texture floating in space (cometcatcher...)
features and trees hardly ever seem to fit the landscape, look like thrown in.

smoth told me once he wants to give his mechs some idle animations in the future, but i dunno how far his progress is

btw the modells of s44, gundam are really awesome, also i like the kernel style and the ideas of many minimods of certain people

In terms of Models, Gundam is the best-looking, but in terms of putting it all together including the effects and whatnot, I think I'd say PURE, KP and XTA do the best job. Gundam's effects seem sort of lacking. I'd put CA on there too, but shieldspam is utterly fugly and features so much in the game, plus some of CA's models are really jarringly hideous.

I was going to say something about CA but i think my opinions are already clear and theres no need to piss more people off.

Gundam i think does a good job putting stuff together. It has custom ui elements and such, but still relies a bit on the hideous built-in spring ui.

PURE, KP, and XTA all do a good job, especially the first two. Only problem is the first one costs money, and not many people know about kp. I think that all games like KP and PURE demo that have complete installers should be clearly linked on the front page, or linked on a page that has a massive link from the front page, so people can visit this site, download, and get a single player game running (because these high quality packages have campaigns and single player modes). They also have completely or almost completely revamped the UI for better noob and user friendliness. (i hope to bring xta up to speed there eventually)

So basically, we have some WONDERFUL projects NOT BASED ON TA IP (baw baw baw well whatever) that dont get alot of love that need more media attention:

• PURE (not listed first just because people will click and say "WTF NOT FREE" put it second or third)
• Gundam
• Kernel Panic
• The Cursed
• E&E (this mod needs love!)
• EvoRTS
• S44
• NOT CA BECAUSE ITS NOT NOOB FRIENDLY (yet?)

Im sure theres other projects i havent mentioned.

Sorry for weird post but i feel like spring is reaching its golden age (or at least it is getting closer to it, which will be when IW is released to the public), but the community is dwindling.

Hobo Joe wrote:And yes, gameplay is a million times more important than graphics, and I couldn't care less what it looks like if it plays good,

Indeed. Spring-based games tend to have bigger battles than most other RTS games. If it looks too good the FPS will suffer for sure.

TheFatController wrote:We are extremely luckily we don't have to listen to focus groups and marketing types trying to force style over content.

But also unlucky that people do not take advantage of the information available to improve their titles and reach a greater audience.

CarRepairer wrote:

Hobo Joe wrote:I'm mainly bringing this up because whenever I show someone Spring their first reaction is "wow, that's ugly".

only thing we lose with bad graph are 10 y old kids who prefer epic graph than gameplay

Wombat wrote:

CarRepairer wrote:

Hobo Joe wrote:I'm mainly bringing this up because whenever I show someone Spring their first reaction is "wow, that's ugly".

only thing we lose with bad graph are 10 y old kids who prefer epic graph than gameplay

i thought that are 90% of the fanbase

Yep, considering ba is 90% as well. funny how those correlate...

hmm... we should make some age poll

i dont think theres many 10 year olds playing this game

mostly its 15-17 year old teens...

TradeMark wrote:hmm... we should make some age poll

im not sure I want to formally know that the average player is like 8, it would reduce some of the satisfaction I get from crushing them

I'd think 17-21 yo would be more common than 15-17, but thats just a guess...

Also 13-14 yearolds can potentially be really good at rts already... But maybe not of the kids that we have here.

*Jumps up and down*

an age poll would be interesting TBH

apart from jaz, i just sort of figured we were a bunch of old farts...