Spring RTS Engine

I am organizing the digg.com promotion when v75 comes out. Here are the details: http://cs.selu.edu/~ssmith/BB/viewforum.php?f=35. - EDIT -please read before posting.

In short, I need people who use digg.com to pm their email, as I'm collecting a list, so that I can inform them as soon as the submission goes up. For those that do not use digg.com, I recommend you to sign up now and start using it (it's an awesome site anyway). This is because the digg algorithm does not look kindly upon newly registered users mass digging an article.

P.S. For those interested, I'm going to post the article in the technology section, as that section gets a lot more views (although a slightly faster turn-around time). Plus we will get all the linux people digging anything linux compatible

Please hold off until the site redesign is finished?

The timing is not right for this. Not enough peopel will stick. I've submitted this to slashdot before; the project has been slashdotted even after it was mature - and the same thing happens. you see a bubble of new players for a week and then the same old faces.

and if you think that simpyl the new features will keep people here -you're wrong. that's a purely programmer's point of view - what the end user sees has remain basically unchagned since the last slashdotting (many many months ago).

What happens fi a horrendous bug slips under the radar and this gets veyr far on digg or slashdot and by the time we fix it thousands have suffered from it and are forver turned off by spring, crippling our image.

AF wrote:What happens fi a horrendous bug slips under the radar and this gets veyr far on digg or slashdot and by the time we fix it thousands have suffered from it and are forver turned off by spring, crippling our image.

tit

also, tell fnord and me when this happens so we can route everything through coral,

i think it would be better to do this at a fixed time, eg

you post on the forums something like AT 11 PM GMT ON THE 11TH JULY WE ARE GONA DIGG STORM

I WILL UPDATE THIS POST WITH THE ARTICLE LINK

otherwise it will just fail

also spam main lots :p

but i deffinately need to know exactly when this happens because if it gets digged to the front page, i wont be happy if i dont know and uf just breaks and falls down.

Dragon45 wrote:Please hold off until the site redesign is finished?

The timing is not right for this. Not enough peopel will stick. I've submitted this to slashdot before; the project has been slashdotted even after it was mature - and the same thing happens. you see a bubble of new players for a week and then the same old faces.

and if you think that simpyl the new features will keep people here -you're wrong. that's a purely programmer's point of view - what the end user sees has remain basically unchagned since the last slashdotting (many many months ago).

Well, If you followed the link, you would have realized that I'm nowhere near to submitting it yet. As for the small bubble of new players, I would agree that a lot will leave quickly, but this time spring is soooo much more mature and accessible then it was 2 years back (h[url]ttp://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/27/1644211[/url]). We'll also have linux community behind us which is completely starved of an RTS game. Please read my linked post and look at the graph which I'll keep updated.

iamacup wrote: also, tell fnord and me when this happens so we can route everything through coral,

Ofcourse

iamacup wrote:i think it would be better to do this at a fixed time, eg

you post on the forums something like AT 11 PM GMT ON THE 11TH JULY WE ARE GONA DIGG STORM

Will do

iamacup wrote:I WILL UPDATE THIS POST WITH THE ARTICLE LINK

Won't do: I don't trust the fact that all the diggs will be referred from the same site; and apparently the digg algorithm catches these things. I would really like to get a list of emails of least 15 regular diggers. I've experimented with digg some time ago, and found that newly registered diggers do jack shit in helping the article get into the "Hot in Technology", which is where we need to get - from there we'll easily get onto the front page -> OSS + linux + game = win on digg. (I wish we had a mac port cos then we would have the 4 greatest digg keywords!)

iamacup wrote:also spam main lots :p

Already stated in linked post

Look, under the hood its more stable, got some more features for modders - but even though stuff like that is big for us, at the end of the day, what the user sees is small incremental changes for the past few vers. That's the thing really; that the changes have been incremental.

Yes, LUA support is huge for the backend, but again, there's been only one or three things implemented with that that the end user sees, and none of them have been pimped out heavily.

So - at the end of the day, what does the end user see?

1) Back when the thing was slashdotted, Spring had, say, P amount of overall "goodness".

2) Now, what the end user sees is (P + 0.1) level of overall goodness.

So wahat's going to happen? Essentially the same thing that happened before - bubble -> almost regular. Maybe one more person will stick around this time.

So what can be changed? The site, the marketting, and a more polished frontend impression. That's all we can bank on. What we've tried before hasn't worked, so we at least have to try some thing different.

Dragon45 wrote:Look, under the hood its more stable, got some more features for modders - but even though stuff like that is big for us, at the end of the day, what the user sees is small incremental changes for the past few vers. That's the thing really; that the changes have been incremental.

Yes, LUA support is huge for the backend, but again, there's been only one or three things implemented with that that the end user sees, and none of them have been pimped out heavily.

So - at the end of the day, what does the end user see?

1) Back when the thing was slashdotted, Spring had, say, P amount of overall "goodness".

2) Now, what the end user sees is (P + 0.1) level of overall goodness.

So wahat's going to happen? Essentially the same thing that happened before - bubble -> almost regular. Maybe one more person will stick around this time.

So what can be changed? The site, the marketting, and a more polished frontend impression. That's all we can bank on. What we've tried before hasn't worked, so we at least have to try some thing different.

Okay let's use your analogy: Spring had P amount of overall "goodness". Now back in 2004, this P was very low; say 0.1. Now 0.1+0.1 =0.2; That's 100% improvement! That's what the user is going to see: More players, more/better polished mods, better AI, no longer digging into folders with to place maps & mods into it (with Slamoid single-player menu), LUA tutorials, linux support (don't underestimate this). It's the difference between an alpha and a late beta; the user may not see much difference, but they will feel it. They expect things to work, they don't want to have to take ages tinkering it just to get it to work & be stable.

EDIT: I missed your "more polished frontend impression" - I'm taking this into account that before I post on digg.com we'll have that.

That is where myself, lippy, AF, Tim B and anybody else who is helping with the Community Promotion initiative on Smoth's Site comes in.

*Cough*

They'll see them thar special effects

*Cough*

Humm, I dunno what came over me >.>

What we ened todo is sort out this site quickly then, sort out lobby, then wait after 0.75 untill everythings matured (1-2 weeks) and there are AIs and lua widgets and mod updates to take advantage of 0.75, and we're sure it works good, then repackage the installer with more goodies, widgets etc, then do this.

You're all making too much a big deal of it. FYI, Spring was slashdotted several time already, and there wasn't any server overload or mass influx of newcomer. So digg all you want, it won't make that much a difference.

Lippy wrote:more/better polished mods

Irrelevant. Everybody plays BA, every newcomer is told to play BA. Unknown-Files starting guide itself just say to get BA, like it's an evidence, without even mentionning the existence of other mods. Other mods simply don't exist as far as the average player experience is concerned.

better AI

Irrelevant. Installing an AI, and finding which AI works with each mod, is still so hard core that the newcomers, who need AI most, have no chance to get AI working (beside the two ones installed by default).

Any newcomer or retrying casual would just get the default installer, with the same XTA mods and the same maps. Maybe XTA effects improved a bit, but beside flashier dgun shots there won't be much difference. LUA, new mods, new maps, new AI, and all that are stuff that only people who stick for long and are curious will experience.

Digg is roughly 4% of the plan.

neddiedrow wrote:Digg is roughly 4% of the plan.

I just hope we get some nice "package" that includes a few popular maps and mods out before this mass promotion kicks in... I don't think newcommers really likes the id├â┬®a of having to download mods / maps from UF before they can start battling...

zwzsg wrote:You're all making too much a big deal of it. FYI, Spring was slashdotted several time already, and there wasn't any server overload or mass influx of newcomer. So digg all you want, it won't make that much a difference.

Slashdotted, but not on the front page and there was no Linux client then. But I agree that a front-page /. in itself will not make a big diffrence on the project other then taking Fnordia off-line for a day or so.

zwzsg wrote:Everybody plays BA, every newcomer is told to play BA.

It's what they play now, but that's far from static.

zwzsg wrote:Unknown-Files starting guide itself just say to get BA, like it's an evidence, without even mentionning the existence of other mods.

The guide I wrote? I specifically mentioned KP and EE as well (EDIT: and just added NOTA), in case you didn't notice.

KingRaptor wrote:

zwzsg wrote:Unknown-Files starting guide itself just say to get BA, like it's an evidence, without even mentionning the existence of other mods.

The guide I wrote? I specifically mentioned KP and EE as well (EDIT: and just added NOTA), in case you didn't notice.

Ah sorry, indeed you have. I don't know what happened. Maybe I failed at reading more than one line?

Ofc you can say 'we need this and this and... before going on mass promo.' But.. It's just not the Spring way. It has little milestones, and development goes slow. We need new ppl, especially devs.

Ppl need to see a product or campaign real often, before they even think about it. Really. So we need to get it out more and more, that's all. Spring is one of the best, maybe the best, of the OS games. Someday ppl will realize.

Besides that, every effort put into Spring is good. Whether it is development, or marketing. Ppl playing Spring and those unaware will eventually notice. Doing stuff is real good, certainly at this point!

So, go ahead and put this plan into motion. Just.. why this strange outside forums? Move the discussion and plans to here, please. Smoth's board feels a little creepy

Maybe some announcements in tv, magazines and websites which has a specialty at games.

BvDorp wrote: Smoth's board feels a little creepy