Unveiling The Official Soldat Web Gather

[Proudest_Monkey]

Just so we are clear: your target audience is the people too dumb to install mIRC. These are the people you are planning on joining your gather and being able to comprehend the rules of. These are the people you want to play with.

Quick question--have you ever heard of the idea of mindshare?  It says that your product/idea is actually indirectly competing with many other things.

For instance, the DS is not only competing with the PSP, it is competing with new TVs, it is competing with new toys, and anything else which may take up a person's time.

IRC and this gather are one step past what most people would do.  Are you that blind to think that IRC isn't a niche activity?  People aren't going to waste their time going through a freaking tutorial for a game they most likely have just downloaded and know nothing about.  Why would you put that much work into learning/understanding how to set up such complex things as this when you could have already played so many other freeware games, or better yet, just gone on to the Soldat lobby itself! If you're foolish enough to think that IRC is so simple and everyone will take time to learn how to use it, then I'm sorry but you're sorely mistaken.  In my opinion, the life force of this game is the public lobby.

jrgp, if MM asked you to do this then I guess it's good that you did it.  I will say that it is much more simple than setting up/getting into the IRC gather (although, like someone else said, there really isn't an audience for it right now).

Sorry for the salty posts but I really want this game to do well.  I'm getting tired of players that think they're "elite" and that seem to be hostile to new players--they're just as much poison to this game as anything else.

[Veritas]

Just so we are clear: your target audience is the people too dumb to install mIRC. These are the people you are planning on joining your gather and being able to comprehend the rules of. These are the people you want to play with.

Correct. Or just people who want something different.

What difference exactly?

This isn't me being snarky -- when you create something, you need to know who your audience is and how your creation targets them. Is it supposed to be the middle ground between pubs and IRC? Great, fine, but you're going to need some sort of incentive for people to come to the gather from pubs, and some way of indicating IRC is the next step if they want a higher level of play. Right now all you have is a gather that is easier to use than IRC without any of the benefits of IRC.

[jrgp]

This isn't me being snarky -- when you create something, you need to know who your audience is and how your creation targets them.

I did not take any of that into consideration during the development. MM asked: "Joe, I'd like a web gather for Soldat. Can you make me one?" I said, "Sure." I didn't question him and I thought the project would be fun. I didn't put any thought to its reception.

And quite frankly I'm tired of your incessant b***hing.

[thegrandmaster]

I don't get why you're still complaining about this!?
It's OVER. It has been MADE and made to a good standard.
If people find that it's there, it will become popular. I would have most certainly used it if a guy ingame said "hey, there's now an official webgather! Check soldat.pl".

There's no real need to think too much of a target audience. The fact that it is NOT IRC and the fact that it is NOT a public server automatically creates the perfect middle-ground.
If you'd be so kind to help the game out by getting some people interested in playing, then use it and tell people on servers.

[Veritas]

There's a difference between criticism and bitching/complaining. Don't go into the professional world if you view handle the former.

[jrgp]

There's a difference between criticism and b***hing/complaining. Don't go into the professional world if you view handle the former.

Not really when the criticism doesn't stop or change.

[chutem]

Right now all you have is a gather that is easier to use than IRC without any of the benefits of IRC.

Mind pointing out these benifits?

[jrgp]

Right now all you have is a gather that is easier to use than IRC without any of the benefits of IRC.

Mind pointing out these benifits?

Logging, scripting, bouncers, lightweight, plaintext, choice between a bunch of clients, and others.

[thegrandmaster]

Those are benefits? meh

[jrgp]

Those are benefits? meh

For power users, yes.

[Veritas]

There's a difference between criticism and b***hing/complaining. Don't go into the professional world if you view handle the former.

Not really when the criticism doesn't stop or change.

What do you expect if you, the developer, don't address it?

Right now all you have is a gather that is easier to use than IRC without any of the benefits of IRC.

Mind pointing out these benifits?

Logging, scripting, bouncers, lightweight, plaintext, choice between a bunch of clients, and others.

I wasn't thinking of client related benefits, rather: large userbase, ability to get clan wars, multiple channels to socialize in, quality control via ops, and miscellaneous gatherbot features.

[L[0ne]R]

There's a difference between criticism and b***hing/complaining. Don't go into the professional world if you view handle the former.

Not really when the criticism doesn't stop or change.

What do you expect if you, the developer, don't address it?

It's a developer's choice to address or to not address certain things (that's exactly the reason why vehicles, weapon attachments and laser swords haven't made it into Soldat). And when same "criticism" is being repeated over and over and over again despite the fact that the answer has already been given multiple times - thats called b***hing/whining.

There's nothing new here to say, Veritas. You've made your point, we read it, we didn't agree, EOD. So how about you just accept things, go play IRC gathers and leave jrgp alone?

[Veritas]

There's a difference between criticism and b***hing/complaining. Don't go into the professional world if you view handle the former.

Not really when the criticism doesn't stop or change.

What do you expect if you, the developer, don't address it?

It's a developer's choice to address or to not address certain things (that's exactly the reason why vehicles, weapon attachments and laser swords haven't made it into Soldat).

All of these are explicitly addressed here? 

Address doesn't mean add, dogg.

And when same "criticism" is being repeated over and over and over again despite the fact that the answer has already been given multiple times - thats called b***hing/whining.

What answer?

[chutem]

Right now all you have is a gather that is easier to use than IRC without any of the benefits of IRC.

Mind pointing out these benifits?

Logging, scripting, bouncers, lightweight, plaintext, choice between a bunch of clients, and others.

I wasn't thinking of client related benefits, rather: large userbase, ability to get clan wars, multiple channels to socialize in, quality control via ops, and miscellaneous gatherbot features.

Right

• Large userbase: this system is new, it will take time before enough people know about and use it for it to be good.
• Ability to get clan wars: this can be implemented, in fact, I recommend that it is implemented.
• Multiple channels: needs to be implemented, right now all the servers are in NA? I would like to see AUS servers and i'm sure there are people who would want EU servers.
• Quality control: I'm sure that as this thing grows, there will be admins/ops on.
• Misc. bot features: Not sure what you mean, all !add etc is done through the web UI.

tl;dr: You say this thing is a waste of time, but all your reasons can be adressed, rather than saying it's useless, stop now, tell us what is useless/missing so it can be fixed up to your standard.

[jrgp]

Well 'misc bot features' include subbing and other features that should be added sometime soon.

There's a difference between criticism and b***hing/complaining. Don't go into the professional world if you view handle the former.

Not really when the criticism doesn't stop or change.

What do you expect if you, the developer, don't address it

The only ways I can think of addressing your criticism is to drop the project, which isn't happening, or put it into the soldat client, which might happen way down the road.

[Veritas]

You say this thing is a waste of time [...] rather than saying it's useless

You've got me confused with someone else man.

My beef with it isn't in what it does (gathers are awesome and should be encouraged)

The only ways I can think of addressing your criticism is to drop the project, which isn't happening, or put it into the soldat client, which might happen way down the road.

My main criticism is that you're not reaching your target audience (and that the audience isn't well defined in the first place), and that's the only way you get figure out how to address it?

I'm perfectly willing to help with ideas here, but you're going to have to be more specific in what you're looking to accomplish than "a gather for people don't want to get on or can't set up IRC." That's too small an audience to cater to, let alone create an official gather for.

[Proudest_Monkey]

You say this thing is a waste of time [...] rather than saying it's useless

You've got me confused with someone else man.

My beef with it isn't in what it does (gathers are awesome and should be encouraged)

The only ways I can think of addressing your criticism is to drop the project, which isn't happening, or put it into the soldat client, which might happen way down the road.

My main criticism is that you're not reaching your target audience (and that the audience isn't well defined in the first place), and that's the only way you get figure out how to address it?

I'm perfectly willing to help with ideas here, but you're going to have to be more specific in what you're looking to accomplish than "a gather for people don't want to get on or can't set up IRC." That's too small an audience to cater to, let alone create an official gather for.

Exactly.

Also, thank you for ignoring my posts, gentlemen.

If you weren't expecting criticism then I don't know.  I want this game to do as well as possible.

[jrgp]

I'm perfectly willing to help with ideas here, but you're going to have to be more specific in what you're looking to accomplish than "a gather for people don't want to get on or can't set up IRC." That's too small an audience to cater to, let alone create an official gather for.

Okay, how about a gather that has all the features of the best IRC gathers and more, just from a web perspective?

[thegrandmaster]

I don't know why you care so much about an audience. The fact its not in IRC and not an ordinary public server makes it fit into a different category.
The audience is also predefined in its existence. It's for the people here at SF, it's for the public server people, and for those who found IRC gathers hard to step into and use.
The people in IRC gathers will largely still play in IRC, because this webgather is bound to have a generally lower level of players, since its audience is more for the pub-players that want a step-up.
Also, this online gather will probably be more fun and community thing than IRC. If you join an IRC gather and you're *not quite* as good, they are so elitest and scorn you from coming from pub servs.
Soldat is meant to be a fun community thing and this webgather is an awesome idea to help that.

[Vtg]

I'm perfectly willing to help with ideas here, but you're going to have to be more specific in what you're looking to accomplish than "a gather for people don't want to get on or can't set up IRC." That's too small an audience to cater to, let alone create an official gather for.

Okay, how about a gather that has all the features of the best IRC gathers and more, just from a web perspective?

It will still be the same shit gather. Just add a possibility to join it via IRC.