Why I pretend Soldat doesn't exist IRL. Is Soldat's strangeness its own undoing?

[pavliko]

When ever i tell people about soldat is just by a chance.
But anyway it will turn out like it does everytime .
They start to play it for a month than they leave it and say "its a cool game but i got better things to do" and finally they ask me "Are you still playing that s**t old game" ?

Guess it's just the will of the god(lol did i just said that?)

[Snow]

I'd love to recommend soldat to other, but due to unreliability and errors that make the game unplayable upon installation holds me back from spreading soldat as something I'd love to share wide. Plus theres also the fact that unlike most new games that come out, theres a tutorial, not a manual like soldat has so the newbie must instantly like soldat as it is in all its harsness when going online.

Bots help in learning how to play. Bots helped me, as it was a lot less embarrassing - dying so much or having trouble with even simple maneuvers like landing on a ledge. However, you have a good point... and that makes me think. How hard would it be to create a tutorial option for Soldat? Tutorial/training maps are easy to make. Soldat is script-able. If you could have an option for new players that took them through training and maneuvers - from just basic moving/flying to hitting static targets to finally duking it out with AI and all with text/messages on screen - I'd say that would make it a bit more friendly.

I've also been thinking, I don't know what you guys think. Plus, I want the opinion from everyone. What do you guys think of viral advertising? At the moment, I'm researching cheap marketing methods (for personal use - personal projects) and one of the methods that works quite well - is viral. So with Michal's permission, we could design flyers/posters/whatever that we could print off ourselves and post it up at certain places. Bring some flyers to lans, etc. If you can part with $5/10 out of your pocket for a couple of prints, it would be another way of contributing. At the moment, Michal has no other way of advertising, other than online. Soldat has quite a dedicated fanbase and I think that some of us wouldn't mind helping out in the effort to spread the word. We did have a trailer contest going (we still need a final trailer).

One of the things I wanted to do as I suggested in a previous post in this thread was to set up a booth to promote the game. In my city, we were supposed to have a game conference or event happening, but I haven't heard much over the last year so far. My idea is (should it happen... and I can do this) is to design it like an army recruitment booth. My backdrop would be a communist propaganda style poster with "Join the Soldat Army!" on it and I'd have a good long looping video playing of gameplay and all the different gamemodes, sub-modes. Could even give out free USB keys with a copy of Soldat on them. At the school that I work at, when we have job fares, some software companies do that. One company was a small company offering tutorials on software and even programming. They gave out keys - with a few videos on each of them.

Even trying to organize a Soldat game or two at your local lan/ lan events could help. Here, Lanageddon actually had a Soldat contest 3 years ago. (I found out after the fact... death!)

[scout]

I have talked about soldat with my old school friends, but most of them never really thought of trying it. Back in my old school days, most if not all of my classmates were talking about maplestory- the horror.

But still, if i were to try advertising or just talking about it, i would'nt recommended them to the current version(s) because of the said unreliability and unplayability. Instead, i'd point them to version 1.4.2 since in my opinion, is the most stable of the 'new generations' of soldat.

In other cases however, whenever asked about games i do play currently, i never do think of soldat. simply because, like most of the gamers these days, who prefer graphics over gameplay, I'm one of them like many of my friend are too. But theres no hurt of having abit of nostalgic gaming every now and then.

[croat1gamer]

Yeh, the bugs pretty much divided the community (1.4.2/1.5/1.5.1) and its one of the reasons that i dont play it that often, as i dont see so much familiar players anymore so the gameplay is decreased.

[pavliko]

Back in my old school days, most if not all of my classmates were talking about maplestory- the horror.

HAHAHAH ... same thing here :3 .
 But now everyone talk about call of duty and some online s**t, but no one even cares about soldat >.>

[scout]

true. I still do play soldat, but rarely touch multiplayer.

This is mainly what i think of the 'new' soldat generations

1.4.2- Rarely crashes.
1.5  - Lots of bugs and glitches.
1.5.1- Map remakes are horrible. Unecessary soldat portal/account system


The only thing which keeps me stuck to it, is the endless modding possibilities.

[Keldorn]

I got a star in French class today when I told the teacher that Soldat means soldier in French.

[homerofgods]

Join soldat on facebook. http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=soldat&init=quick#/pages/Soldat/10425427970?ref=search&sid=685645704.850852564..1

I want to bring more payers in, but I want a bugfree version first.
I know what you are talking about jrgp

[numgun]

I'd love to recommend soldat to other, but due to unreliability and errors that make the game unplayable upon installation holds me back from spreading soldat as something I'd love to share wide. Plus theres also the fact that unlike most new games that come out, theres a tutorial, not a manual like soldat has so the newbie must instantly like soldat as it is in all its harsness when going online.

Bots help in learning how to play. Bots helped me, as it was a lot less embarrassing - dying so much or having trouble with even simple maneuvers like landing on a ledge. However, you have a good point... and that makes me think. How hard would it be to create a tutorial option for Soldat? Tutorial/training maps are easy to make. Soldat is script-able. If you could have an option for new players that took them through training and maneuvers - from just basic moving/flying to hitting static targets to finally duking it out with AI and all with text/messages on screen - I'd say that would make it a bit more friendly.

I've also been thinking, I don't know what you guys think. Plus, I want the opinion from everyone. What do you guys think of viral advertising? At the moment, I'm researching cheap marketing methods (for personal use - personal projects) and one of the methods that works quite well - is viral. So with Michal's permission, we could design flyers/posters/whatever that we could print off ourselves and post it up at certain places. Bring some flyers to lans, etc. If you can part with $5/10 out of your pocket for a couple of prints, it would be another way of contributing. At the moment, Michal has no other way of advertising, other than online. Soldat has quite a dedicated fanbase and I think that some of us wouldn't mind helping out in the effort to spread the word. We did have a trailer contest going (we still need a final trailer).

One of the things I wanted to do as I suggested in a previous post in this thread was to set up a booth to promote the game. In my city, we were supposed to have a game conference or event happening, but I haven't heard much over the last year so far. My idea is (should it happen... and I can do this) is to design it like an army recruitment booth. My backdrop would be a communist propaganda style poster with "Join the Soldat Army!" on it and I'd have a good long looping video playing of gameplay and all the different gamemodes, sub-modes. Could even give out free USB keys with a copy of Soldat on them. At the school that I work at, when we have job fares, some software companies do that. One company was a small company offering tutorials on software and even programming. They gave out keys - with a few videos on each of them.

Even trying to organize a Soldat game or two at your local lan/ lan events could help. Here, Lanageddon actually had a Soldat contest 3 years ago. (I found out after the fact... death!)

I started with bots too. When I first found soldat, I got it on a dial-up so I completely ignored soldat's online part all together and had some fun with a trial and error fun with stupid bots by throwing grenades in their feet as they ran forth towards the enemy flag. And they were on my team. It was like a random sandbox fun with guns and s**t with no real goal until I discovered the online part of the game.

Soldat is a hard game to get into, so a tutorial as an official feature should be worth it. A text manual is old school and rarely people want to read some text guides with pictures to learn how to play the game. Not to mention there are tons of tips and tricks in soldat that should be introduced the new players like advanced moves such as super man flying, sprinting, backflips, delay flips and cannonball moves.

While it says easy to learn, but hard to master, it still requires a bit of research before you can get all out of it.

As for the distribution, soldat needs to be polished out first and its bugs eliminated. The product is flawed and thus distributing it wont lead to anything but problems and complaints and bad fame.

So NSC, as he is in control of soldat now, he should try cleaning up and fixing the game to be stable and clean.
Or even rewriting parts that are using unstable or unknown methods for achieving somethings. And adding important stuff like taunt editors or even having polyworks come with soldat since its the best and only best map maker out there.

The only thing which keeps me stuck to it, is the endless modding possibilities.

Endless modding possibilities? What a joke. All you can do is change the appearance through graphics and sounds and then have some gameplay changes with custom maps and scripts and those require either your own server or playing alone with them.

If you want REAL endless modding possibilities, try Cortex Command.
That game allows almost anything from custom units, weapons, missions and what not. I must warn you though, there are no good tutorials or guides to learn how to mod it and right now the best way is to learn is through trial and error and looking at other modder's works. Another issue is that the game is a work in progress and constantly evolving and it might change any second to a whole new game, with either providing new possibilities in modding and/or even breaking old mods from working completely or partially.

I'm currently writing an extensive guide on how to mod it, which should cover EVERYTHING, but I get constantly hindered by the fact that the game may change radically any moment.

But still, give it a try and play a few games with user made mods preferably.
If you need to bypass the demo limit to use the editors and cant afford to buy it, PM me.

[scout]

You do not understand. when i meant endless possibilities, i meant CURRENTLY POSSIBLE ones.

And no, im not interested in cortex command, at least not now.

 Oh sure you may think that soldat is limited in the modding- gosteks weapons sounds.. what else? But looking at the whole picture, isn't it something more significant? as a modder like yourself, you should know what soldat modding is like.

Frankly, id rather stick to what we have NOW, than something more complicated like cortex command. Isn't soldat supposed to be UN-complicated with no additional units and vehicles? Also i doubt soldat will ever become like cc, but lets face it, its already at its best with its 'endless modding possibilities.

And again, NO i don't intend to try cortex command, because ive already did. Ive seen the mods and such. yeah good stuff, such as yours no doubt. What its missing? Speed.

There im done. Soldat ftw.

[numgun]

Heh, I understand soldat has all it needs as a fast paced shooter and it provides everything that needs to be moddable, but if you ever want to go beyond to something more complex like making a whole universe with a story using a series of interesting missions with objectives, blowing shit up with a rich cast of stuff or just go nuts and do something that is not possible in soldat (vortex grenades, fuck yeah) then CC is the thing.

CC is more of a playground for creating your world or playing the ones others created right now, as soldat is about changing the atmosphere within the game, the feel of it.

Soldat and CC are very different and one wont replace another. Ever. Just mentioning it if you ever want to go nuts and make something totally different than what soldat allows, then CC is the next step.

[NTxC]

As for mentioning Soldat IRL, I do mention it when it comes to talk about games of my choice. I also try to convince people to get them to play it. But I rarely get them to play it longer than 1 day because of the current bugs and the soldat portal... all my friends seem to hate it. O_o

As a game developer I know how hard it can be to make a good, flawless game. I can understand eC's will for new game features and such, it's always exciting to implement new pieces of interesting game code. But a programmer's task is always delivering bug-free, fast code, as I said it ain't as easy as most people think, but he should really try harder. I know it can be hard to understand some parts of game code I didn't write but I often get how they work as soon as I start to really try to do so. Logical thinking is the most valuable thing when it comes to programming, and I'm sure that if eC would really, really try to find a bug's cause, he'd find it very soon.

I'll be honest here, the Soldat Portal kind of made Soldat's "old school" feeling go away and think of it as an entirely different game. What I'm trying to say is that not every new idea is very good for an old game, take the soldat lobby chat for example, nobody wanted to use it, because they wanted to play the game, not to chat after launching it. That's what the Soldat Forums are for. So the Soldat's oldschool feeling is gone for me, and I don't play it as often as I did earlier. Having to register an account to play just doesn't fit for this game, certainly not at this moment. It might fit for America's Army or other much more popular games but not here when we need more and more players.

That's what I have to say. Keep going, think logically eC, and you'll eventually have a perfect game. Take community members' words into account, don't include "new, revolutionary features" without consulting them, and always remember to fix bugs first... that's how I'd do it.

So, cheers fellow Soldat players :3 <3

[Ouchek]

I completely agree with you ntxc

[L[0ne]R]

Back during high school/college times (only year since I graduated, yet seems like so long ago D:) I used to tell everyone about Soldat.
Actually, many people found it great, nobody said anything like "ew 2d so crappy" - on contrary, everyone went "wow that's awesome, what's that game called?". Unfortunately when it came to actually playing it - most just couldn't get used to the game, got pwned hard and gave up soon.

I mention Soldat when it comes to talking about games, but I don't expect people to get too addicted to it. It's just too newb-unfriendly.

[Snow]

Also, wanted to add.. apart from having the option of a training feature, training on servers could also help. I remember a while ago, there were a few players who offered their time to help out newbies on newbie servers. I don't know how successful that was, but it is a very nice gesture from some within the community. If I can ever get my connection to work better, I may just do that. Once a day per week for a couple of hours - play with some newbies and teach basic to intermediate play (I may have played Soldat for a long time, but dunno if I'd consider myself a pro... I'm usually the 5th last person on the scoreboard :/).

[p0ppin]

I know its a bit far out there, but couldn't some sort of campaign mode help with the whole "getting started" thing?  I don't know about you but if I bought a FPS nowadays I'd probably go through the campaign first as to not totally suck when I finally got around to the online play.  It doesn't really have to be anything special, maybe a few sniping missions, an infiltration... stuff like that.  Level objectives that guide the new player into helpful tips he might not discover on his own.

[L[0ne]R]

Once a day per week for a couple of hours - play with some newbies and teach basic to intermediate play (I may have played Soldat for a long time, but dunno if I'd consider myself a pro... I'm usually the 5th last person on the scoreboard :/).

It's not as easy as it sounds. When I see a newb having a hard time - I try to give him some basic tips, but they either don't speak english, or don't see my messages, or think they're already too good to follow someone's advice.

I know its a bit far out there, but couldn't some sort of campaign mode help with the whole "getting started" thing?  I don't know about you but if I bought a FPS nowadays I'd probably go through the campaign first as to not totally suck when I finally got around to the online play.  It doesn't really have to be anything special, maybe a few sniping missions, an infiltration... stuff like that.  Level objectives that guide the new player into helpful tips he might not discover on his own.

A whole tutorial/campaign mode sounds like a lot of work though. But a map with sceneries that have some text with gameplay tips (maybe even with some scripts) - that sounds doable.

[Cyrix]

Well, Even MM isnt around here any more and its his creation. I love Soldat, always have, always wll. We just bottom line, need to get the word out. Send my a couple posters and i will hang them at the mall or arcade or something. lol.

[demoniac93]

I live an area where RPG's and MMORPG's dominate, and where people don't appreciate online gaming...

[Centurion]

When I say something about soldat then my friends are like: "LOL"
They've played it and they think it's a crap game.