Marketing Plan Plan

[koshi]

Currently the only translations in ZK (CA) are unit help texts

Yes, I saw that for every locale there's an accordingly postfixed variable defined. My question now is if a different approach was explored at all, abandoned for technical difficulties or the like.

Anyone can join the project and add translations.

Wouldn't a contributor need svn access/ send patches the way it's setup now?

[CarRepairer]

No other approaches were explored. Maybe I'll revisit it. I read your posts about about the gettext thing but I don't know what it is or how it would apply here. Is there a link?

Wouldn't a contributor need svn access/ send patches the way it's setup now?

Yes. All one has to do is ask.

[koshi]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_gettext

[Hobo Joe]

Well, a fully finished game is a dead game. As long as there is a stable release which the developers and players accept, then the game is functionally finished - like the current version of TF2 or League Of Legends.

UT Quake CS and CSS would like a word with you

[Forboding Angel]

Wow, all that's wrong in spring and you guys zero in on multilanguage support?

[SinbadEV]

Wow, all that's wrong in spring and you guys zero in on multilanguage support?

Yeah. I know this is probably kinda westocentric and wildly speculative of me, but most of the people who have a computer capable of playing spring can speak English. (Though it does look like it would be a good idea for us all to learn Mandarin...)

Regardless of the accuracy of my assumptions, because the "Project is in English", I think it would be best to target the estimated 450+* million English speakers in the world first... Not to mention the fact that I don't see how a word of mouth campaign would be very successful across languages.

So yeah... while I feel that the discussion thus-far has been "nominally" pertinent any further discussion on multilingualism will be forked off to a new topic. (Not saying it shouldn't happen, just that I don't think the technical discussion of it is pertinent to Marketing)





*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_la ... f_speakers

[AF]

They're avoiding the obvious things which they seem to be continuously ignoring or putting up faux solutions. International support is a gold mine because it provides a huge number of possible branches of discussion to further delay focusing on the actual topics, and while being totally unnecessary, has some kind of credibility. Afterall most AAA games and such dont exactly make a big hoohaa out of their multilanguage support, some dont make much of an effort, and most consumers arent arsed.

Since we have english covered, the other major language thats feasible to support and has a real benefit is mandarin chinese, since most internet browsing people will have to deal with english anyway, and IIRC we already have a seperate chinese community that has somehow managed to avoid the "YOUR SPLITTING THE COMMUNITEH" arguement

[smoth]

no we are discussing things we can affect that we have not already done/started work on.

Lets see here chief complaints about spring:

- No singleplayer
well you kinda need to have your game done as far as gameplay and units before you can start on a standard campaign, unless you are just doing a run of the mill game which none of the spring projects really do

Spring requires a restart to change maps

Mission support, save/load support are being worked on

- Pathing sucks
Notice how the whole community seems focused on helping the devs improve pathing? I did.

- UI
have you been watching ZK, evo, grts, cursed?

- Lobbies could be better
yep.

- user friendlyness
teaching the game to new players
Both yan and I have put up video tutorials for playing

- installers
there are several different ones availble, koshi has one, z has one and the devs are looking at making the spring installer pluginable.

So language support is an interesting new topic to consider. which is why personally, I embraced the topic.

[zwzsg]

I dunno about you, but when trying a new game, I first want to run the things, and then play the tutorial or the first missions, and expect all I need to know to be fed to me through ingame messages or the sheer intuitiveness of the GUI and gameplay.

If a game required me to to spend 15min of watching youtube video just to know how to install it, then 1hr of amateur youtube video for each of the 50 fifty "mods", then I'd quit before starting.

Video tutorials do not make a game user friendly. Work on the game itself, steamline the process, make install easy, make a campaign that starts easy, use tooltips and other ingame cues to their full effect. But making a tutorial for a game that is kept harsh is a band-aid, not a cure. And video tutorial are the worst kind of tutorial: no way to search and index information, have to bear with nerds' voice, blurry image, and the excruriating draggyness of amateur vids.

I mean, it's nice that you made tutorial videos, maybe some people will like them, but don't mistake them for the solution to user unfriendliness.

[smoth]

It like many other things is better than nothing. Until the ui and gameplay are finalized a tutorial cannot be made(see singleplayer) which is usually the first level of every rts game. That is how the convention usually works.

[Neddie]

Well, a fully finished game is a dead game. As long as there is a stable release which the developers and players accept, then the game is functionally finished - like the current version of TF2 or League Of Legends.

UT Quake CS and CSS would like a word with you

CSS had an update in July. And besides, the proliferation of hacks and anti-hacking software is a form of updating.

[TradeMark]

What if we make the engine cost something... has anyone thought of that? Only problem is: who takes the money?

[Hobo Joe]

Well, a fully finished game is a dead game. As long as there is a stable release which the developers and players accept, then the game is functionally finished - like the current version of TF2 or League Of Legends.

UT Quake CS and CSS would like a word with you

CSS had an update in July. And besides, the proliferation of hacks and anti-hacking software is a form of updating.

After years of no updates, during which time player count was RISING. And hacking is a very small problem in css.

A game without updates is not a dead game unless it NEEDS updates and it's not getting any.

[Fulano]

I've tried to show a lot of people this game and it almost always doesn't go well. Here are some main reasons why:

The Lack of UI
They don't want to spend 30 minutes just figuring out how to get the game to run. My 12 year old brother-in-law was so excited to play this game but only played when I was there to start it for him.

It Won't Run on Average PCs
The requirements say 1ghz processor and 512mb ram but the game crawls with 400 units total with 2.7ghz and 2gb ram. These specs are pretty average for people I've tried to show this game. We don't care if you can see the heat waves rising from units, we want to play a game that's fun.

Still no Singleplayer/Multiplayer save support
Many companies even give up on multiplayer saving. Still, that feature is why my friends and I still play Age of Empires II and Starcraft. We play an hour max then save and continue later. We all loved TA but you couldn't save MP games, so it was packed away after the skirmish feature got old.

I know someone commented earlier about too many people saying what needs done and nobody actually doing it but I just wanted to share real experience in why I can't get people to play this game, no matter what kind of promoting I do.

[quantum]

I know someone commented earlier about too many people saying what needs done and nobody actually doing it

Actually people are doing what needs to be done. For example CA/Zero-K is progressing in its own newbie friendly lobby, installer, singleplayer, GUI, tutorial, etc. Other mod teams are sorting out their problems as well.

Performace is just a question of mods and their unit count. Save support is not a very hard problem if it just needs to be good enough and not 100% accurate.

[TradeMark]

It Won't Run on Average PCs
The requirements say 1ghz processor and 512mb ram but the game crawls with 400 units total with 2.7ghz and 2gb ram. These specs are pretty average for people I've tried to show this game. We don't care if you can see the heat waves rising from units, we want to play a game that's fun.

Turn off all special effects like bumpmapped water etc and try again? Also resolution smaller. I think the problem is that the default settings are too high? I dont know, i have no way to see the defaults...

Still no Singleplayer/Multiplayer save support
Many companies even give up on multiplayer saving. Still, that feature is why my friends and I still play Age of Empires II and Starcraft. We play an hour max then save and continue later. We all loved TA but you couldn't save MP games, so it was packed away after the skirmish feature got old.

Multiplayer save functionality would be pointless since the games will end in 1 hour at least, if they dont end in that time, then its already huge lag fest which you are unable to play anyways, or which you dont care enough to continue at next day... And how you gonna get the 16 players back to the DSD match you saved nobody would care to continue when its much easier to just start new random game with random people.

[Google_Frog]

this game

What is this game?

games will end in 1 hour

Which games? What if someone wanted one that didn't?

I played a 4 hour CA FFA, this is very rare but it did not turn into a lagfest.

[zwzsg]

I coded single player save support (and it could be extended to multiplayer). Not my fault BA refused to use it, not my fault players ignoring everything that isn't TFC's BA.

[TradeMark]

I played a 4 hour CA FFA, this is very rare but it did not turn into a lagfest.

Okay, if its not lagfest, its noobfest for sure. Btw, next time use quotes properly.. hard to see who are you quoting with such a short snips.

[Teutooni]

Spring marketing, let's discuss this! (again)