Soldat needs a fresh start

[smiluu]

"Kick the donkey in the balls and hear it croaking"

Wouldn't it be cool to have helicopters, jeeps, mechas, nuclear bombs, lasers, percs, classes, skills experience points with all that shit, santa hats, moving platforms and movie-like interactive single player mods? Oh but no, you picky whiny antique sticky fanatic bastards and lazy developers want nothing groundbreaking and new so how about we focus on the stuff we already have then? Fanmade trailers say Soldat has seven game mods, but so far we've seen propably ungh.. like.. three of them? It's a shame, but no can do. Since they're now there let them stay there because it would be waste to let go of the fine work behind it and if we get lucky some bunch of hardcore fans waxing and rubbing their horny and moist passion-red excaliburs to any aspect and opportunity to experience Soldat, might actually get a little grasp and taste of it.

I don't know how this generation's mainstream games keep their fanbase refreshed on their new, old and the not the most obviously gamemods.. Well I don't know do they actually manage that at all, but I do know that if they do, it's not a way which would work for independent games and it's minimalistic communities with simple ideas very much similiar to Soldat. The games your neighbour's little Patrick and Susan got for present from their Pa and Ma this christmas either have very lacking or ridiciliously complex system for this and plenty of other things, which all in the end pretty much relies on the sorta 'political power' which it's publishers have in place. (I don't like games today so much)

Well now, how to squash those demasculated and microscopic testicles of our independent selves and make them bloom bigger like a bundle of roses and flip flop the parts we not so much know about in front to display, without running our groins wet forum to forum spreading the word of this chunk of dying shit? I think I have an idea. Let me introduce it along with this hysterically majestic but logical name.



Operation: "VOTE GAME"

Anyone here familiar with the 'nextmap voting' system they use in Cube 2 Sauerbraten and Red Eclipse? They're both freeware games so feel free to check them out, if not then read how I explain why just something like THAT would be perfect for Soldat.

I know what you're thinking by now "we heard this idea already and meh too much hassle", but that's not all.. The "nextmap voting" idea in the examples presented above not only allow players to vote for next map, but the game mod and rulesets as well. Imagine playing a fine match of your typical CTF with a nice and sophisticated company either relatives or complete strangers, now you have repeated the same map and same goal few times with them, you get tired of it and you want to change server in order to try another mod just for the change..

But unlike before now you get this reasonably huge window on your screen at the end of every game which has a list of all Soldat's game mods with the mod representative maps to choose. Instead of changing the server you can get to see if the bunch of players present in the server feel as adventurous and experimental as you. You can choose the mod, map from the server's maplist, if any of R/S/A should be turned on or maybe even the server selected scripts, and then submit the vote to the list of other votes submitted by other players. If you think somebody else's idea is better than your's, you give his choice a vote and finally the choice of most votes will be what you will play next. First you could be playing CTF, next minute you could be playing HTF, INF, Rambo and whatever else there was again, your daily gameplay and experience will have better chance for constant variety. Too much fuck in your head? I know I kinda blew it during the most important paragraph, so I made a little mockup:




Notes, suggestions and details:

- Feature and all of it's content fully customizable and optional to the extend you find fit
- Game is necessary to "pause" after the match is over or something like that instead of changing map immediately
- Time limit for this "pause" obviously
- Old way of voting stuff should not disappear anywhere
- When "voting a game" while ingame the votebox with it's content (with more space maybe for all of it though) will appear just like the voteboxes we know so far does
- Vote game screen will popup once the match ends and can be closed/reopened with the same old menu button
- If two or more choices in the "End of the game exclusive screen" are equal on votes the voting will now center only on those choices and will pick randomly if still no solution
- Ingame "game votes" will not pile up and compete with each other, rather will be dismissed and passed in the old manner

Pros:

- You can play anything everywhere
- Likely publicity to unpopular game mods
- Hosts won't need millions of different servers
- Chances to say "GG" or just swear during the hype, lol

Cons:

- Could confuse the fuck out of people
- Less beginner friendly
- Undesirable decision might make people disconnect
- Waiting

Interested and got more in your mind? Or just want to punch my bowels out of my ass? Tell me about it.

[Monsteri]

Ooh brilliancy, I'm tired to people knocking every freshening idea out, damn, Soldat is OLD, 10 years.
The people leaving are growing up.

I love rambomatch, but the frequency of the servers is absolute zero.

Seriously with dropping and dropping amount of players this kind of tightening would be an awesome thing to the game, may not be as newbie-friendly yes but in my eyes this system would be easy to learn. There are more servers than players at times, I would love to see players gathering together more, not be spread to 2vs2 in every server.

Server names could become a problem though, and undesirable decision might make people disconnect.
The servers could have a main mode, e.g. TW, and when someone votes for a CTF match, the server would switch back to TW after the round is complete, unless there is no revote for a different mode during the CTF round. It would solve the name problem and partly the player problem, as they would know that the server will switch back to TW soon which they love, but hate CTF.

Waiting. Well, if voting for a different mode would happen like the voting for maps happens, I would see no huge problem whatsoever. However the server should switch to the voted mode only after the current round, because continuously changing gamemode would be a pain in the ass.
It is 3-4 and you are losing the round, but you're having the enemy flag and running to your own? You're going to save the round? Well too bad, mode changed and you lost.
So yeah, gamemode should change only after a round. But admins should be able to change it whenever the fuck they want.

Also, instead of some ass big multivote I prefer something like this:

People who don't like the mode being voted could just hit f11 and vote for their preferred gamemode.
A big notification: ''The game mode will be changed to X after this round'' should pop up, for teh newbie friendliness. (As if we had any newbies)

Also this shouldn't be a forced option to servers, especially some gather servers could be screwed up by people voting a different gamemode. Give it a yes or no option.

-got to go, edit incoming later-

[machina]

I'm sorry, but I don't see the point of giving people possibility to choose so huge stuff on server. When I want play TTW/CTF/HTF I go for the server where all people want it. And there's no mess. Players those wouldn't enjoy playing some mod instead of mod that they have voted - they wouldn't care about game so much. So, they would ruin the game and whole fun.

But... Something like this wouldn't be a bad idea as the server script.

[smiluu]

My point was that there ISN'T any ttw/htf/rambo servers let alone players. To achieve big something must give. This system works well in Red Eclipse and Sauerbraten so I don't see it failing in Soldat either. In Red Eclipse I don't need to join to a different server and wait for players to join when I'm in a server packed with players already, I can always try my luck if people there want to play a match of my choice next. Majority will vote for what they desire, naturally. This is not a suggestion to copycat some lame modern warfare leveling up feature, it's a suggestion to polish and stick out what Soldat already has.

It is 3-4 and you are losing the round, but you're having the enemy flag and running to your own? You're going to save the round? Well too bad, mode changed and you lost.
So yeah, gamemode should change only after a round. But admins should be able to change it whenever the fuck they want.

This one is a problem for the already existing vote features as well and IMO should have customizable settings as well. Soldat should be a little more organized at areas like this.

It'll be easier to have it all in one multivote, trust me with this one. You vote the mod you like, the map you like and everything else on one go with few clicks. It'll take longer to vote and load everything you want together one by one.

[Monsteri]

Oh well since you replied already I'll just start a new post.

But... Something like this wouldn't be a bad idea as the server script.

Eh... So if it was a script you'll be fine? It would be cooler as official and it could be officially announced, which could bring some old blood back. Read this again:

- Feature and all of it's content fully customizable and optional to the extend you find fit

Now you may realize: Oh, but server owners could choose if they want this feature at all, and they would be able to limit it! I can brag Leo to turn this fking stupid thing off!

So it wouldn't make much of a difference if it was a script, but if it was vanilla it could be much better made. You know, menus and all that shit.

I've seen people to vote the CTF/HTF/INF vanilla maps before in a server where it's not the appropiate mode, and when the votes passed it was always fun. (Too bad that it is blocked in lrs now by a script)
Oh and this:

My point was that there ISN'T any ttw/htf/rambo servers let alone players.

This one is a problem for the already existing vote features as well and IMO should have customizable settings as well. Soldat should be a little more organized at areas like this.

Yeah true, but IMHO this doesn't need an option - the new map should always begin only after the current one.
Also if we make everything to have an option, the game will end up with thousands of options I wouldn't mind it being customizable though, since I'm not a server owner.

It'll be easier to have it all in one multivote, trust me with this one. You vote the mod you like, the map you like and everything else on one go with few clicks. It'll take longer to vote and load everything you want together one by one.

But since it would be a huge ass box in a tiny resolution game, it would need a pause to vote - I don't want any popups on my screen while in huge fight. Or if you meant that you should be able to choose the map, script and so on, of course I agree with that.
The actual voting screen just shouldn't be big, because as I mentioned above Soldat has too tiny resolution for that and there is no much space in the game screen left.
 There could be a problem when you think you've got a better idea than in the currently running vote.. But since the mode would change only after the current round, you could always hit F11 and vote the mode you like more. More frequently passed vote would replace an older vote.


Edit: Also think about a multiserver for those less popular gamemodes, a server where you could vote for RM, HTF, DM, TDM, and PM, but not for CTF or INF and such. That would be badass.

[smiluu]

What I meant everything should just freeze whenever a match is over, what it does now is just switch map immediately. I want it to FREEZE and proceed to the next map after set time like 30 seconds or something, there you will have your popup and time to think what to vote. Wipe the screen out with ESC or whatever button you open your ingame menu with and use it to open it again. Best way would be merging this screen with the original menu somehow. Using the vote any other time would be just like voting anything else you've voted so far. The "F11-No F12-Yes" box will appear there normally, maybe just needs to be a little wider if the necessary information wont fit in.

I can try to illustrate it better with better mockups later.

[Monsteri]

Yep but the thing is, I wouldn't like freeze.

Soldat is so fast-paced game and rounds are over so quickly, that it wouldn't just fit and it would feel clunky to wait half a minute at the end of each round.

[smiluu]

Yes indeed, however I'm talking about the end of the game not individual survival rounds. The fast-pacedness you so adore barely vary if you get a little time to decide what to play next.

[Dusty]

fresh start would be the game completely created from a scratch

[L[0ne]R]

tl;dr, sorry. I'll try to read it more thoroughly later.

IMHO game voting should be kept to just ONE thing - either gamemode, or game style, or map, but not all 3 at once.
Every server is usually set to specific gamemode or game style for a reason. If it's Leo's CTF - people join there to play realistic CTF. If it's a regular DM server - most people join there to play just regular non-realistic DM. If people want to play a specific gamemode or specific gamestyle - they should join a server that meets those requirements, not try to change the current server.
If they absolutely MUST vote for a gamestyle AND gamemode change (which I imagine would be extremely rare) - they can ask a server admin, or do it in 2 parts - first vote for gamemode, then start a new vote for gamestyle, then start a vote for a map. Sure it's not simple, but cases when that's needed would be very rare, so IMHO sacrificing that for a simpler and more intuitive menu is well-worth it.

As for script voting - I can't quite imagine it working since different servers have different scripts installed, not all scripts are compatible with each other, and again - certain scripts are there or not there for a reason. If really necessary - enabling or disabling a certain script should be done via commands, not via a clunky built-in list. For example thats how Multimode or Last Stand servers do it, and it works just fine.

-----------

To be honest, by "fresh start" I imagined a complete revamp of the game, not just the voting menu. :S

[smiluu]

Fresh start as in giving up some of the old habits and trying something new. In this case it's the fact you go to Leo's CTF solely for, well.. Leo's CTF.

Rather now you will search for your preferred game mode and it could appear anywhere anytime. It's seriously not as complicated and inconvenient as you make it sound like and it's not like the Leo's CTF players will disappear completely. And like as I said it should be an optional feature, if Leo's server/players don't want to fresh themselves out then at least give others the opportunity.

edit:

Servers with this feature on could have a distinguishable name and server list filter for, something like "Free for all" or "All mods" maybe?

[machina]

To be honest, by "fresh start" I imagined a complete revamp of the game, not just the voting menu. :S

Well, little things can start some bigger changes...