The problematic part is the netcode and the poor weapon balance.
People look up games before they start playing them, if the game has no clan scene or doesn't have any competitive aspects, nobody would pick them out.
Most people don't just "start playing" a game. They don't dedicate themselves to it at all unless they like it. And that requires:
1) the player actually plays the game(instead of just ignoring it after seeing the horribad 90's visuals - 640x480 native resolution WHAT THE FUCK, very ugly and non-user friendly GUI from 90's WTF)
2) the player actually
enjoys the game and thinks it has
future potential - nobody wants to play a game which is "dying", as in, it's not being maintained(new versions come out every few years as it has been a norm with Soldat).
Nobody wants to play a game which has no active player base, for which you can't find servers with players in it. This is a real problem for Soldat, because you can't even play it without other players! These days there are only a handful of certain servers which have players on them, the rest sit empty for days if not for weeks.
Netcode and especially weapon balance are not big problems, they don't keep people from actually liking the game, unlike horribad visuals(which tells them "This game is crap LOL!") and lack of perceived future potential("This game is 10 years old and has no players LOL!"). Netcode and weapon balance become problematic only after the player perceives them as probems which takes them enough time to actually figure out if they even like the game in the first place or not.
Also, how would a casual newbie find about clan scene when it's not present in public servers at all? There
are no clan players in public servers - even your usual "msn/xfire/skype" clans are gone. Public players don't give a fuck about clans these days. There is
no "clan scene" in publics anymore! This too is a horrible sign about the state of the game - people don't know or don't care about clans at all. How would such players get into SCTFL?
The reason amount of participating clans has been on a decline in SCTFL is that old people quit and there aren't enough new people to fill the void. For example the latest SCTFL 20 had some 73 topics in "signups" section of the forum, while for SCTFL 18(summer 2011) this was 99, for SCTFL 16(summer 2010) this was 126, and for SCTFL 12(summer 2008) this was 170. So, in essence, the amount of participating clans in SCTFL has more than halved in 4 years and has been on a strong decline ever since 2008.
Back in 2005-2006 while I was still active participant in SCTFL games, there were some 70-80 participating clans. For example in SCTFL 7(late 2005), there was only
24 participating clans. SCTFL 8 only had 79 signups(if I counted the threads correctly
from here).
So, 2006 -> 2008, from 79 signups to +150 signups. How? There's a clear and sure reason for this. Any clues? It was because of the actual
marketing effort put in by the community for the new Soldat 1.4. You can look at the
forum stats and see for yourself how in April 2007(when 1.4 was released) there was a huge peak in users online, new people registering, new topics opened and new posts made. That was the real turning point fo Soldat which essentially doubled if not tripled the player base compared to what it was in 2005-2006. That was Soldat's prime time.
What helped alot was 1.4.1 and then 1.4.2 following. What messed things up was 1.4.2 with it's many bugs and broken maps(e.g. the red side of ctf_Nuubia had a buggy poly which made all the objects and players jump around, you couldn't stand still or run) - which were fixed by the beta team in less than 48 hours after the release of 1.4.2. MM announced 1.4.3, but it never became reality and EnEsCe took over, wanted to make 1.5 and
made the players play with nearly unplayable maps for some 22 months!So, back to the facts - the numbers. In 2007 there were some a bit less than 6200 new members on this forum. In 2008+2009+2010 there were some 6400 new members. How about 2011 and first half of 2012? Less than 750 new members. This is fucking pathteic, don't you think? In essence this means that Soldat's growth rate has dropped to less than 15 % for the past 2 years, of what it used to be in 2007 as a whole year! If we don't forget the fact that after 1.4, there was only 8 months(May-Dec) for growth, the growth rate has dropped to less than 7 % of what it used to be in early summer of 2007!
So, why did things go wrong after 1.4? First, MM stopped development. EnEsCe took over. As we know by now, it was a mistake and only lead Soldat towards it's ruin. Then MM had to take an action, handed development over to Shoozza and the rest of the team. They have been working on Soldat for the past 18 months. What has happened? What has changed since EnEsCe messed things up by horrible leadership and care for the game?
Nothing. A few new versions have been more than welcome, but the focus is on wrong parts. Shoozza(while being a great person, mind you!) talks about compilers, refactoring, new IDE, Linux support, Mac support, moving to OpenGL, yadda yadda yadda. Who gives a fuck? Not a single
player at least! Preparing for the future? Future is now, not after half a decade!
Problems:
- People think Soldat is dead! They see no future for the game - they don't dedicate for the game. They aren't excited at all.
- New people look at the game, it looks like shit and even more so when streched to their 16:9 HD-resolution. Many give up.
- Some players play the game on their Windows Vista/7 computers. While the game is 10 years old, it runs SLOW! FPS less than 20 on a modern laptop? Fucking bullshit game. To make the game run correctly, they need to google for solution, or visit this forum, and then finally enable the compatibility mode + other settings from Windows.
The player has to fix the game because the game is broken as it is! Honestly, do you buy a car just to find it has two flat tires and then fix it so that you can drive it? No fucking way. You find something better.
- Even if everything goes well, it's hard to find players to play with. Loads of empty servers everywhere, nobody playing the game around you. Need to play on servers in other continents.
Fixes:
- Get rid of the 640 x 480 resolution altogether! Make either 16:10 or 16:9 native resolution, preferrably 16:9 Full HD. Yes. 16:10 is better, but it has phased out. "Nobody" uses it now or in the future.
- Better GUI and server browser, focus on simplicity, intuitivity and ease of use. Integrate Soldat Config to the game itself, or the Soldat GUI to a standalone program which launches the game.
- Fix all the small annoyances
- Make a marketing stunt! Reddit, gaming forums, friends, everyone. Spam them! Not only once, but constantly. Bad rep? Fuck that, any publicity is good publicity!
Is it really that hard? Stop fucking dicking around and do something which matters for
new players! Be beautiful! Attract them! Be reliable and provide them a promise of a better future! Show them that
Soldat is not dead!
