Spring RTS Engine

Counterpoint: the success of indie game bundles on steam.

Best Spring video hands down:

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

Not to rain on your parade, but BA videos have the huge drawback that BA looks uglier than a high rise full of dykes. Not to worry, the remodelling effort should make it much purdier. I'd put the showcase video project off till then. Think 3 months from now.

Also, that should help us cast off from Atari IP, making BA more sellable anyway.

I agree that the modeling effort will greatly improve the image and apeal of ba

luckywaldo7 wrote:Counterpoint: the success of indie game bundles on steam.

These are games that are known beforehand by many, have highly consistent logos, artwork, branding, media, and have been running for a while.

These bundles also have far better descriptions of individual games in that its not a pack of content, its a price tag that gets you a tonne of games, spring videos require the user to pick apart the video to figure out which scene was from which game.

Spring videos also have a habit of using games content and gameplay to advertise spring as a game, rather than those games, suggesting they are all mods of or parts of the spring game, a game that doesnt actually exist.

If your advertising your Halflife mod, do you plaster the Valve logo and say 'come play Valve!' 'Valve needs more players'? No.

What about the Orange box? Why are you likely to pay for it? Because of the reputation of the games inside? Because a friend recommended you? We dont have that reputation here, we're new, brand new, and we have only what we say to go on. No big multinational vouching for us. No plethora of awards, or AAA status.

My point being that a game bundle does not look cheap simply because it is a bundle of games.

Cheapola tackyness cheese is the default impression. Just because some bundles have only 4 or 5 games and pack in some well known longtime indie games coupled with a price tag you can set and a slider for charity, doesnt mean us putting 10 games in a video and calling ti spring is going to work.

Even still, what do you think the stats are on people who bought the indie pack and never bothered playing? Be it because they bought it in goodwill as a donation on principle, or they never got around to it, or they paid a penny and never could be arsed.

If it did work then we wouldnt have threads like this, there'd be a nice upwards curve, instead we have natural organic growth.

AF wrote:

^ That is tacky cheesy.

I'm not saying marketing "Spring" is the best way to do it, but a spring install that could come with, off the top of my head, say, Gundam, Kernel Panic, EvoRTS, Spring 1944, and Cursed, is much much closer to an indie bundle then it is to that. In fact it is, frankly, an insult to the content developers to try comparing spring to that.

Not to mention, until the individual games get set up with their own servers (only PURE has afaik), any attempt to market the games individually will make no sense as soon as they connect and see 2 dozen different game in the battle list.

I agree with luckywaldo on all of his points, with the minor exception of the one about different servers. We can have separate games on the same server; all you need are view filters!

Actually I haven't really made any points, except that I didn't like his comparison.

About the filters, I knew that was going to be mentioned, because that will be an option built into 'zklobby'. Although as the various games mature and gain more players, it might be something to think about.

CarRepairer wrote:Best Spring video hands down:

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

defenitely missed this one... great video!

(i was expecting donkey kong. also good.)

luckywaldo7 wrote:Not to mention, until the individual games get set up with their own servers (only PURE has afaik), any attempt to market the games individually will make no sense as soon as they connect and see 2 dozen different game in the battle list.

Pure DID, and doesn't any more.. wasn't successful. AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO BOUGHT THE THING?!?

CarRepairer wrote:Best Spring video hands down:

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

my ears

BaNa wrote:Not to rain on your parade, but BA videos have the huge drawback that BA looks uglier than a high rise full of dykes. Not to worry, the remodelling effort should make it much purdier. I'd put the showcase video project off till then. Think 3 months from now.

Also, that should help us cast off from Atari IP, making BA more sellable anyway.

While I don't disagree, I've had people tell me that BA screenshots/videos look "pre-rendered". Most people really don't care if the models are low poly, the *OMG 3D* effectively makes most people ignore model quality.


I've showed BA to literally hundreds of people and not a single one has mentioned how old the models look in screenshots/videos. Occasionally some will bring it up after they start playing the game, but the only people who really make a big deal about it are long-time Spring players, as if they have something to prove to everyone that Spring is above some vague standard that they set in their own minds. And most of THOSE people are people who don't play BA. I'd say 90% of BA players don't give a fuck that models are old.



Having said that I can't wait for the remodels cause that will really make anything with OTA models shine.

I thought BA was ugly when I was a noob. At the time, however, I knew it as "Spring." With the new maps and all of these non-*A games, spring's really looking nicer than what it used to. We should advertise that!

MidKnight wrote:I thought BA was ugly when I was a noob. At the time, however, I knew it as "Spring." With the new maps and all of these non-*A games, spring's really looking nicer than what it used to. We should advertise that!

I agree, I was just pointing out that people around here make a bigger deal about BA ugliness than they need to. There's definitely some sexy stuff around here though. :)

Seems like you are trying to say that the people who want to see ba look better have no interest in BA. That is you are implying it, and further implying that people who do have graphics on their mental checklist are doing so because they have some haughty image of what SPRING should be instead of what BA could be?

yes, we definitely need to advertise spring non-TA sexiness, to get more ppl, who will end playing ba anyway !

but seriously, someone go make more vids

luckywaldo7 wrote:About the filters, I knew that was going to be mentioned, because that will be an option built into 'zklobby'.

Pretty sure it is already in the other lobbies.

I'm trying to say that people should relax about how it looks. We've been hearing you (you know who you are) whine about it for a good 3 or 4 years. Yes it's not the prettiest thing, but I just don't see why such a huge deal has been made over that for years.

Although yes, I would say that the people who make the most noise over BA being ugly play it very little, if any.