Re: Marketing Plan Plan
Posted: 03 Dec 2010, 15:50
I put together some boilerplate that can be included on spring game homepages:
This would be on the homepage
This additional information would be included if the game wasn't packaged in an integrated installer.
This would be on the homepage
This is an optional addendum that I'm not comfortable with yetThis game is built around the ÔÇ£Spring RTS EngineÔÇØ which is Free Open Source Software and is fully compatible with most version of Windows and Linux (and to a lesser extent MacOSX) that provides a framework on which game developers can build real-time strategy games. This means that there is no ÔÇ£DefaultÔÇØ game for which ÔÇ£ModsÔÇØ are created.
To help conceptualize this, imagine that ValveÔÇÖs ÔÇ£Source EngineÔÇØ was made by a hodgepodge of volunteer developers while imagining ÔÇ£Half Life 2ÔÇØ, ÔÇ£PortalÔÇØ and ÔÇ£Team Fortress 2ÔÇØ as independent projects made by entirely different groups of game developers, and then imagine "Steam" being a third-party application optionally used to acquire and start these games.
This additional information would be included if the game wasn't packaged in an integrated installer.
To install and play this game you will first need to install some other software, namely the "Spring RTS Engine" and a compatible "Lobby Client".
[[[DOWNLOAD LINK GOES HERE]]
Why?
Due to the open nature of the ÔÇ£SpringÔÇØ initiative there are a number of competing and/or co-operating tools that have sprung up around the core ÔÇ£EngineÔÇØ. As such, to launch some Spring Games you will need to use external ÔÇ£lobbyÔÇØ software while some games feature more traditional in game menus. Some games feature installers while some need to be downloaded separately from the engine and placed in the right part of you file-system while others make use of what we call the ÔÇ£rapidÔÇØ protocol to automatically download updates.
Spring Games are started by one playerÔÇÖs computer running the game in ÔÇ£hostÔÇØ or ÔÇ£serverÔÇØ mode and all other playersÔÇÖ computers connecting by IP address to that ÔÇ£hostÔÇØ playerÔÇÖs computer as ÔÇ£clientsÔÇØ with the game and map specified in a text file passed to the Spring Engine executable as a command line argument. For single player games, the ÔÇ£AIÔÇØ assigned to opposing players or the external script defining the mission being played must also be specified in this command line argument text file. Fortunately one of the tools that has sprung up around the project is the ÔÇ£Spring ServerÔÇØ (not to be confused with an instance of Spring running in ÔÇ£hostÔÇØ mode) and a series of competing ÔÇ£Lobby ClientsÔÇØ. Some of these ÔÇ£Lobby ClientsÔÇØ even go so far as to allow you to download and install different games that also run on the Spring engine, which can sometimes be confusing. To add to the confusion, if you intend to play a LAN game (and you donÔÇÖt feel like mucking about in text files) you will need to run a local copy of the ÔÇ£Spring ServerÔÇØ on one of the machines on the network, all players (including the one running the ÔÇ£Spring ServerÔÇØ instance) will need to load be running lobby clients and connect by IP address to the computer running the ÔÇ£Spring ServerÔÇØ (including the one running the ÔÇ£Spring ServerÔÇØ instance, yes this means he is connecting to his own computer by IP address) and then, after setting up a match these lobby clients will start an instance of Spring on each of these computers. To further confuse the issue there are also ÔÇ£dedicated hostsÔÇØ which are bots that connect to the ÔÇ£Spring ServerÔÇØ and can negotiate starting games automatically.
