Unveiling The Official Soldat Web Gather

[DarkCrusade]

If everyone who's not convinced of your arguments is a rock, you must hate a lot of people and a lot of people must hate you.

[Vtg]

Hm, only those who do not read carefully or do not answer.

And I love rocks!!!

Off-topic (right now I'm trolling):
Happy new year everyone!!! (rocks too) !

[Veritas]

I'm pretty sure it's easier for a new Soldat player to register here than getting started with IRC. If you only care about old players, our community will decrease in number even faster. If we want new players, and we sure want, we must move on to new things and this gather is one possibility.

See the trick is to care about both old and new players, as we need them both.

The idea that this particular gather will attract any more new people is pretty ridiculous. A person who is already visits this forum already has plenty of information on how to get on IRC and play a gather. A person who doesn't rarely visits soldat.pl anyway, so how does this attract them? Why do you think they'll blindly stumble onto the gather and actually play one when it's so inactive? And it sure as hell does nothing for the people on IRC, who already have an active gather community.

If you plan on integrating this into Soldat, great, but do it in a manner that accesses the current, active gather community. All integrated chat needs is to be pointed at Quakenet for it to actually attract people, to repeat the same mistake twice is just aggravating.

[jrgp]

DarkCrusade, they're not trolling. They have good points; Vtg just isn't being as polite as he could be. As for the current work on Soldat itself, the other developers are getting real stuff done at a steady pace. Once I have the gather largely done (so the people in this thread contributing suggestions are fully happy with it), I'll then devote all of my Soldat related efforts towards the game.

As for integrating the gather functionality into the game itself, I think it's an option the other devs are interested in for later on down the line.

First of all - jrgp signed CLA about 2 weeks ago. He didn't see the code of soldat till that time. He joined the dev team cause he's helping maintaining servers and doing web stuff. It was MM's initiative to add him to dev team.

I just feel like clarifying: It wasn't MM's initiative to add me to the team--he had no idea I was interested in being part of the team at all. I asked him and he approved.

Anyway, I'm disappointed to come back to my computer and read the stuff I've missed just to see you all arguing while I'm trying to enjoy this fine glass of sparkling wine. Happy new years!

[Proudest_Monkey]

Ok...

so...

I have not read all the topic, since it's pointless to read all 'how great web gather is' and 'what a great job has been done'.

Let me state the facts:
The game is dying, because it's buggy and has no updates; less and less people play it.

Someone who does not know what is happening here could say: "I'm sure the main developers are working hard to make this game better, they know that there are fewer players than before, thus they must be doing some hard coding and debugging, they probably don't even sleep, I hope they will finish it soon!"

But what are the main developers really doing? Instead of fixing bugs, rewriting bad written code, they are creating next useless ****ing gather. Wait, I forgot, this is an *OFFICIAL* gather! This must be something exciting, because this is an *OFFICIAL* gather! Really? Now will I be able to play on an *OFFICIAL* gather? No, I can't believe it, I played many games and most of them didn't have one, but in soldat... YES! I do have an *OFFICIAL* gather! An *OFFICIAL* gather must bring lots of new players! Woah!

There are LOTS of gathers we can play on, many of them are often empty, because there are too many of them. Only #soldat.gather has 6 servers while there r usually 2, maybe 3 running at the same time. Who the hell needs another one for such a small community?

Maybe the new developer wanted to show that he is not that useless and is going to make something for this community? Sure, web gather is something that community can use. Maybe add customized skins? How love we shiny and colourful skins! It also lacks some music playing in the background, because while waiting for a gather I WANT TO HEAR MUSIC!

Please, close notepad++, give up server-side scripting for some time, and do some REAL coding.

Good job, keep following EnEsCe...

Completely agree.  This is such a niche feature it's nearly useless.

I will give them time, but really, stuff like this is a waste of time.  Instead of focusing on the current community, they should be focusing on expanding the game to a new player base so that it doesn't die!

I'd also like to say that new players are very unlikely to be playing in gathers, IMO.  The majority also aren't going to regularly be on the forums (the "community" for many here).

The majority of Soldat players (at least when Soldat was healthy) probably spent little to no time here at all. 

While it may seem like a good idea to add a feature like this, I really think that all of the time and resources should be put toward fixing the game itself.

Good luck to the dev team though.

[Illuminatus]

People don't join community right after game has installed, don't you think?

No, they don't. I wouldn't do either. But no one said so. Of course you will play the game in the standard modes first, try some bots, get used to the online gameplay and if you still have fun playing the game you will explore the area. You talk to other players, you search the interwebs for forums or information about the game, you maybe watch some videos about it, you perhaps even start to try mods or just replace some weapon-graphics...and eventually you will also find the webgather. And maybe you will like it and have fun or you somehow find out about the IRC-gather and play there.
Both ways are acceptable and there is no real reason to rant about it.

The idea that this particular gather will attract any more new people is pretty ridiculous.

I don't think that this is the (main) purpose why he made it. I don't think either that it will attract new people but it will maybe make some people play it longer.

A person who is already visits this forum already has plenty of information on how to get on IRC and play a gather.

I know how to go on the IRC and play a gather there. I regularly did some time ago. But still I would prefer the webgather to the IRC-gather. Just because of the simplicity. I don't want to work in myself to get used to the IRC again. I don't want to download, install and configure a new programm, register to quakenet (because I lost my old auth-information) just to play a sort-of "organized" game with some fellow strangers. With the web-gather I can simply login, choose the gather I want and have fun. Since I don't use the IRC for any other purpose I see absolutely no reason to get there if I can get the same fun on the web-gather.
It's not like old and experienced players always want something complicated if there also is a easier way. Having a forum-account doesn't mean I have to prefer the IRC-gather.

A person who doesn't rarely visits soldat.pl anyway, so how does this attract them? Why do you think they'll blindly stumble onto the gather and actually play one when it's so inactive?

What usually happend when a new Soldat version was release? People somehow changed to the new version although there was no update-notification ingame or some newsletter or whatever. It just happend and after some time most of them were playing the new version. Strange, huh? It's called word-of-mouth recommendation. If more and more people play the web-gather it will automatically become known. You could also advertise it with every new Soldat-version. And btw, it is "so inactive" because it got announced just 2 1/2 weeks ago and still is heavely being worked on. Give it some time!

And it sure as hell does nothing for the people on IRC, who already have an active gather community.

Once again, it's not for them. Get it.

If you plan on integrating this into Soldat, great,

I'm just quoting MM here:

Such thing should be implented in soldat and not some browser...

No, because nobody has time to sit with the game turned on. Everybody uses browsers and it is easiest and most convenient to wait for others while you're browsing your daily porn or whatever you do on the internet.

I bet 90% of the gather players use IRC

No problem, let them use IRC. This is a Gather for 90% of the population that doesn't even know what IRC is and doesn't intend on using it.

Instead of focusing on the current community, they should be focusing on expanding the game to a new player base so that it doesn't die!

So pls tell us you almighty what you would do to "expand the game to a new player base"?

[BeG FoR MeRcY]

Good job. Not need to install anything. just Join a gather and play it. Just servers are laggy. It might be cause USA Servers. If you want i can host 24/7 EU Server just give me the scripts and thats it.

[Proudest_Monkey]

So pls tell us you almighty what you would do to "expand the game to a new player base"?

Do the logical thing.

Put all of your time and resources toward releasing a new version of Soldat.  Fix the bugs.  Add new features where they're needed (possible account-based system, anticheat, auto-update, etc). After you're done with this, possible focus on updating Soldat's engine to allow for better visuals.  I must say that one of the things that puts people off about this game when I show them it is the lackluster visuals.  Not sure if this is realistic as I'm not a programmer, but that would certainly help.

But mostly, completely focus all of your efforts on ironing out bugs.  That means diverting any resources being put toward niche features toward a bug fixing effort.  Anything added to the game that is not focused on attracting new players should be ignored.

[Veritas]

I don't want to download, install and configure a new programm, register to quakenet (because I lost my old auth-information) just to play a sort-of "organized" game with some fellow strangers.

You took longer to write this post than it would to complete said actions. Once you get your client setup, it takes just as long to open up a webpage as it does to open up an IRC program. The perceived simplicity is great and all, but it isn't there in practice.

A person who doesn't rarely visits soldat.pl anyway, so how does this attract them? Why do you think they'll blindly stumble onto the gather and actually play one when it's so inactive?

What usually happend when a new Soldat version was release? People somehow changed to the new version although there was no update-notification ingame or some newsletter or whatever.

There's a notification when you try and join a server that's running a different version, dip.

And it sure as hell does nothing for the people on IRC, who already have an active gather community.

Once again, it's not for them. Get it.

I completely get it. I am in absolute understanding, and I am trying to help. The difference between a new gather being successful and a new gather being played a couple of times and then petering out is having enough people to give it momentum. You don't have people. Your audience may or may not even exist. To say "oh it will be popular because it's so EASY" is overly optimistic and I don't care if it rains on your personal parade to point that out.

[dnmr]

And it sure as hell does nothing for the people on IRC, who already have an active gather community.

Once again, it's not for them. Get it.

I completely get it. I am in absolute understanding, and I am trying to help. The difference between a new gather being successful and a new gather being played a couple of times and then petering out is having enough people to give it momentum. You don't have people. Your audience may or may not even exist. To say "oh it will be popular because it's so EASY" is overly optimistic and I don't care if it rains on your personal parade to point that out.

once the new version is out, there should be a flow of new players who are not as experienced with IRC (which is quite old and most kids these days don't even know if it's a type of food or a pokemon). So i guess there is a point, if everything goes as planned

[Meteorisch]

google mIRC

find a tutorial set it up

done in less then 5minutes

play the gather

yeah that was hard

less qq more pew pew guys

Adding crap stuf to a game that already isn't popular will make it only worse.

go advertise or something make ads what the fuck
anyway beside that fix the game first then get people.

[L[0ne]R]

google mIRC

find a tutorial set it up

done in less then 5minutes

If following a tutorial was that easy - we wouldn't have that discussion in the first place. You need to actually understand what's going on in the tutorial, not just blindly follow the steps (which don't even match for some people, or aren't clear enough).

That means you have to read all of that and try to make sense of it. Personally, I'd rather spend time playing, not trying to set up some weird-looking program.

[Veritas]

google mIRC

find a tutorial set it up

done in less then 5minutes

If following a tutorial was that easy - we wouldn't have that discussion in the first place. You need to actually understand what's going on in the tutorial, not just blindly follow the steps (which don't even match for some people, or aren't clear enough).

That means you have to read all of that and try to make sense of it. Personally, I'd rather spend time playing, not trying to set up some weird-looking program.

Heaven forfend someone has to read words and comprehend them. The very idea is insanity.

[chutem]

I think this project should definately continue. It is so much easier from a new-to-gathers player to get started with.

Compare

1. Go to soldat.thd.vg/en/gather
2. Click join in a gather

To

1. Download MIRC (Why all the guides recommend this, I find the webchat so much easier, oh well noobs wouldn't know)
2. Install MIRC
3. Setup MIRC
4. Join a channel
5. Say !add

Seriously, how intuitive is using IRC? With all the dumbf**ks running around these days, how many of them could find it in themselves to go the IRC way.

[jrgp]

(Why all the guides recommend this, I find the webchat so much easier, oh well noobs wouldn't know)

With webchat versions of irc you can't auto send commands, there isn't scripting, and there isn't any chatlogging.

I don't know how popular the webgather is or if it'll get used or not; I don't really care. It's MM's project and I'm doing it for him regardless.

[chutem]

You don't need to auto send commands, use scripting or chatlogging to join a gather though.

[jrgp]

You don't need to auto send commands, use scripting or chatlogging to join a gather though.

That's right; I'm just saying they're IRC features myself and others are very much used to and have grown to appreciate.

[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.

[jrgp]

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.

[thegrandmaster]

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.

Yeah - the webgather is aimed at a different audience.
Though it's not just for the idiots who can't install IRC and set it up.

I have IRC and played in some gathers. I'm not that used to the pace of them and so having something that is not so elite is a nice place to be.
I'd prefer playing in the webgather with people I recognise from the forum than playing with people who take it all very very seriously.
It's the middle ground between pubs and the elite IRC. For me, doing gathers was a big change from the pubs and having this tool with some good people in, is great imo!
I don't know why people are getting so aggravated about it. To me it shows progress, that the Soldat community here and others can enjoy.

I think the only problem is advertising. 95% of people ingame just don't know about it.
How to solve this? Well, I'll be advertising it in servers I go in. I'm pretty sure that when people know that it exists, it'll be used alot more. Maybe the new version could have a link to it somewhere?

A side note:
Another idea entirely is to encorporate the gathering system into the game, and link it to this new online gather. I remember hearing that it was not considered to implement it ingame because most people would want to be doing other things while waiting for a gather to fill?
Just sync the two together - problem solved?