Rumblings about donations

[Akinaro]

People are spending thousands every month on really bad games/ideas on  crowd funding sites, and for most of time those games never leave beta stage or even alpha.
The same with Steam GreenLight. People are willing to give money for buggy games that also for most of time never leave beta stage.
And I cant stop laughing when someone say that soldat cant be move to steam because of bugs... compared to those games on Steam and crowd funding projects soldat is probably most polished game out there...

But...

So what if we donate even 2k-3k$ right now?
What you gonna do with it? Give to Shoozza and then what? He would dump his current work and make soldat 24h?
How would you divide this money to every person that made something for Soldat?
How you deal with legal stuff, because behind game funding you have loots of legal issues, and after all it still MM game even if he dumped it, how would you deal with it?
And most important, how donation give devs more time to work with it? It is moral bost, but in reality you need plan to make it real.


Its not like you give money and SHAZAM! You have game... Because of such thinking all those games on GL or any funding game end dead, because people didnt had proper plan to make it.

So even if its good plan to support devs by donation, no one gonna give cent if they would not have specific plan that contain what will be made, what is made right now and what people can expect.


EDIT. its respond to few post about donating from other topic, but it was moved instead of deleted.

[CCalp]

You raised some very important questions there, which will have to be answered by the devs mostly, though. I wonder how they think about receiving donations.

As for me, I just wanted to express my general will of giving some money away to support that game in any useful matter.

[darDar]

There has always been people who were willing to donate for Soldat. Back in days when MM couldn't afford BattleEye anymore there was quite a large amount of people who'd probably have donated but because of very poor communication between devs and the community that did never happen.

[duz]

For me, it's all about a business plan. We are on the internet hype, where a kid can make millions on Youtube recording crap videos at the bedroom. Soldat was and still brillant and there's no heavyweight competitiors. So, you can make money with it "easily", but you need a plan, this never gonna happen without a decent plan.

I think that devs should not only receive donations, but improve the reg system, limiting the color palette and some other customizations to reg players. The reg icon is another good stuff to add. As example, I guess that every competitive player (SCTFL at this moment) would be ok with a little annual tip (the reg) to customize the char.

We, the old players, are still able to contribute and help.

[Akinaro]

This plan should contain what is missing in Soldat: Advertising. Something that for all those years I never saw here, it was always "friend" or some buried site/forum where someone said something about Soldat.

And we all know that you can sell crap in box, and people gonna buy it as far as you advertise it good.

But to be honest Registration in Soldat was really bad made. Not in terms of supporting game, but what you get from it. Because you can love game, but money is money no one gonna give money for nothing.
Of course its should not be "pay-to-win" like modern games have, but you actually dont get anything that typical player would like if he would pay.
It should be really serious discussion about what should be cut from game and what should be added for register players that would encourage them to pay for it.

But for now its impossible to discuss it, there is not enough people here that look at this problem in a bit wider perspective that their own nose.
Not to mention that with current player base it would just make more harm than good if Soldat would change reg system. It would be probably better to remove it now and after 1.7 think what should be added for reg players.


Thats why Donation are only option for now, but just like Duz said, it need good business plan, but again, I dont see it gonna happen now or in future. Its too late and not possible with current user base.

[Petterkowski]

I'd have to agree with Akinaro on this one. Marketing and advertising Soldat is probably as important as debugging and polishing it. The netcode we had sucked for how many years now, yet it never stopped us from playing it. Outdated graphics were in my opinion what turned all these new people away from the game. That's why im very happy with the current path of improves and i'd really like to see a new menu suggested by Sipar. However, without marketing, we're completely reliant on gamers knowing about Soldat without us telling them.

And regarding steam, getting Soldat Greenlight was probably a difficult task few years ago. These days, so many crappy and unpolished games are accepted that the real hurdle is making Soldat stand out among the masses, which i think wouldn't be that hard because Soldat is what it is - best 2d shooter out there with so much potential. Anyways all these hurdles we're facing atm doesn't mean we shouldn't place Soldat on Greenlight. Quite the contrary. The site is visited by tens of thousands of gamers, and we are guaranteed to win some of them over with Soldat, most of whom will maybe purchase it from soldat.pl or another distribution portal that isn't Steam perhaps. It's not as prestigious as it was few years ago, but Greenlight is still an opportunity that we should not miss.

Regarding donations, no matter what amount of money we have, this sum won't be equivalent of the devs full time job pay, thus it should only be collected and spent on certain projects. For example, we want to improve the game's overall graphic by reviving the old fashioned Soldat menu and turning it into something like Sipar's vision. We collect the money and devs are paid to make a new menu in the set period of time. At least that would be my first choice and i'd donate for it if i was sure it's gonna be taken care of. Project 2 for instance, we want anticheat, we collect the money and pay for anticheat and devs are making sure we have this anticheat for the set period of time. Obviously we're not planning on replacing anyone's day job, that's why paying for certain projects makes sense to me and it's meant to be a little incentive for the devs as well. Spending money on fixing the netcode and stuff won't do the community any good because they are already working on that and they're not given any money whatsoever. So yeah, i'd donate for short-term projects that would take less than a month, but then again we'd have to hear some kind of a statement from them that it's worth doing. And no, it's never too late to make changes.

[urraka]

Yeah, let's talk about a business plan for something we don't own. Seriously. I'm not sure what kind of "business" arragement Shoozza has with MM (if any) but as far as I know we're all just free contributing. I don't think we can hope for any kind of business plan without MM getting involved again. I might be talking out of my ass here, but that's how I see it.

Donations sound nice and all but as far as I see it's just a way of saying "thank you" for what's already done. I know there are people with very nice intentions here but it's highly unlikely that the community could pull off enough donations to fund real development. "So what if we donate even 2k-3k$ right now?" <- People would just start bitching "DEVS GOT 3K DONATED WHY HAVEN'T EATS BEEN FIXED". I'd rather have that kind of money invested in some advertising that could bring some players.

[duz]

Yeah, let's talk about a business plan for something we don't own. Seriously.

We are not taking decisions, just agreeing about something that cleary doesn't exist and it's a good start point to turn games into a big deal, leaving the high school project phase.
You shut donator's mouth with a good project. If you know every step you're taking, these things won't bother the development.
Being pesimist, you will read criticizes everytime, even working for a huge company and making mainstream games like Battlefield 4.

[Akinaro]

People bitch even now, only difference would be additional word in their post containing "devs got donation" 

But what we can do right now? Only talk about it. This is our only option for now. We not gonna make any decisions.


And yes we know that its still MM game, and this small "bug" actually is reason where Soldat is now. Instead of keeping good game alive, its was like dumping old bike in park.
Because no one for past few years didnt thought about Soldat future. No one thought about Soldat in a bit wider perspective.
No one thought: "Hey! Soldat is cool game, players like it, but people start talking about all that HD crap, they like nice looking stuff. So maybe to keep game alive we could slowly remake it to fit new trends". Exactly what you doing now, but it should start back then not now.

Because making game is just half of work. You can work your ass off, without any free time for yourself, and you end with game played by 10 people once per week. Keeping player base flowing, sticking to some new trends in games to make game playable for new players, its second part of it.
Its not the first project and not last that Im watching, massive amount of games end in trash because people forget that game is more that this, you need advertising and sometimes show something new to keep it alive.
Game can have bugs and problems and people would still buy it {cough}assassin's creed, ARMA, half of crap from GreenLight{cough}. But as far as you spam about it and keep it fresh you dont need to worry about it that much.



Also why not getting help from users? Its the same as donations.
Ask for ads, banners, new remake maps, graphic, scenery... Anything that can be made without looking Soldat under the hood.
Because you know why no one make anything for soldat now? Because people realize that no one gonna use it as default.
So why not ask people for it? Give them guidelines, post what you need, simple examples, overview.
Pick best one, polish it a bit if you need... and small work is done.
People made all that before by their own will but they stopped, because no one care, So give them sign that you care and you are willing to put their work in game.
Look at latest Sipar Menu mockup and Ccalp interfaces... they did it for free in their free time... and they would be happy like little puppy if they would know that they can make something that would be used in game. Just say exactly what you need. Make guidelines... and wait for it.


And advertising?
The same, most of you know each other, so it would be even easier to pick few people, because is not 24h work, once per few days you would write/spam a bit on other sites and forums about soldat. the same time you would spend here on forum.
Prepare info about next release, overview of Soldat that can be put on other sites and forums, pic some graphic and ads made by user.
Write to game sites and forums about Soldat, Spam a bit about it on social media.
Talk with some sites with free games to set small tip/news about soldat.
If you would prepare proper soldat port for linux you could talk with some small linux dist. devs like Linux LiteOS to set Soldat as a default game in it, and you could advertise their system in game/site/forum so everyone would be happy. Most of those small linux dist are made by one or few normal guys that also look for new users. Even small info with link in greetings popup after installation would be good.
Make visible for everyone list of what is made now, and to do list. People like to know that is going on.



There so much possibilities, but you need to think if you would stick to current plan of making soldat, or you would make it more community project?
Because its now or never. With every month there is less and less people here and in game, So if you would not get this plan now... you gonna end with game played by 5 or less people once per week.
Because for now its look like you think that 1.7 would refresh Soldat a bit, and you keep all your hopes in it. Im not that sure about it to be honest, because what is point of refreshed game if no one know about it and most important part where players spend 90% is almost the same?