Soldat's goals for the future

[ds dude]

There is nothing you can do. None of you get it at all. Soldat is not a video game worth investing hundreds of hours into. There is only a few people that put enormous amount of time into soldat, assuming these people exist anymore.

There are too many other games out there that give people hundreds if not thousands of hours of gameplay.

Buying computer parts and building a gaming computer isn't as expensive as people think. Technology is growing fast so people are building gaming computers to run more advanced video games that they like. These computers can run games way ahead of soldat, obviously.

Back then, it was just soldat's time. Soldat fits the 2005 - 2008 days, I can't honestly see soldat thriving in 2012, 2013, 2014...

This isn't bullshit. I'm not telling you a load of fucking shit, this is real. This is what's happening. I don't think soldat died. I think soldat just ended, and on a good running streak too.

Sorry if I pissed anyone off. Haven't posted in a while.


Oh, and also, the creativity level for this game is pretty much 0/10. Anyone that looks at this game realizes its just some 2d side scrolling shooter that they have seen countless times. There's nothing innovative about this game. That's why games like Minecraft are popular as hell, because there wasn't something like it before.

So basically what I'm saying is, you have to be upright dedicated on this game if you want it to be popular again. You need to come up with new techniques to implement into this game that makes it different than other side scrolling shooters.

[Clawbug]

Name a single multiplayer sidescrolling "run and gun" shooter. Soldat is one of it's kind whereas there are multiple free Quake-like fast-paced 3D shooters(Warsow, Nexuiz, OpenArena, Sauerbaten, ...) many of which have far smaller player bases than Soldat has.

Soldat's strength is it's unique gameplay, it's very simple, fast and still allows high degree of control where pure skill is the dominant factor. The downsides are aging codebase and shrinking/shunk community, the game is considered dead or not "serious" by ex-players and many new people don't feel excited about the game because 1) it's old 2) it's small(community wise) 3) it's not seen as "serious" game.

The thought of "There's nothing that can be done" is utter bullshit. You sure remember the huge influx of new players in Spring 2007 when 1.4 was released, what caused it? Outreach. There are tons of people out there who would play the game, if they knew it existed. Many people wouldn't for whatever reasons, be them personal or Soldat related(see the downsides I mentioned). What the devs can do is to try to eliminate downsides as much as possible. What we as a community can do is to make people know about Soldat. Get them excited and curious. Create buzz, be visible as much as possible(facebook/twitter updates, active forum threads always on the first page, IRC discussions, anything). Simply there's a "huge" demand for this game, but no supply, because nobody lets people know about this game.

Take music as an example. No matter how good composer and songwriter you are, you simply can't generate buzz among the casual listeners(let alone general public as in MTV and radio stations and clubs!!) without huge investment in... outreach, exposure and publicity which is all generated by marketing! Today, marketing is everything when it comes to mainstream popularity. Soldat needs nothing of the sort, Soldat has never been a "mainstream" game, and never will become one. We're a niche. But as with small artists and bands too, we need marketing. We need to make people know about our cause, about Soldat so they can join us and make the game blossom again, as it did 5 years ago.

[dezerteuR]

I like the idea of adding a Tutorial mode to this game... You could add this one as another tab right at the first place before "New Game", containing a Tutorial on Ingame-Commands as well as informations and introductions on the game and it's features !

[ginn]

I like the idea of adding a Tutorial mode to this game... You could add this one as another tab right at the first place before "New Game", containing a Tutorial on Ingame-Commands as well as informations and introductions on the game and it's features !

that does sound good, possibly change the intro to be an actual intro movie rather than a demo.

[Clawbug]

Frankly I think almost everyone would rather disable the intro than have to ESC out from it every single time they want to play the game. Or does someone really want to keep it enabled for some reason?

[eeneku]

Well-made intro is good, cos it gives the new player a tour of the awesomeness the game can offer, but I also think it should be able to make disappear from the game itself.

[CheeSeMan.]

Frankly I think almost everyone would rather disable the intro than have to ESC out from it every single time they want to play the game. Or does someone really want to keep it enabled for some reason?

Well it can be disabled from the config.exe but I am sure you know that... but new players struggle to find the config.exe this also needs to be fixed!

And yeah an intro tutorial movie would be way cooler!

[Wolfskin]

Then yes, Soldat is ugly. But if the map looked like this:
http://tms.jrgp.org/2010/index.php?overview=1320

It could all be very different.

this.

[ExHunter]

Saying that a tutorial would bring only new bugs sounds.. idk.. whatever.

Ofc, fixing already bugs got a high priority, but this thread searches for solutions to get new players into soldat. Soldat needs to get beginner friendlier. That's a fact. In every aspect. Even good graphics make it beginner friendlier. Soldat without bugs would still nothing change about the problem, that we do not get new players into it. But Soldat without bugs is the first step to hold the CURRENT players and the possible future players.

[ginn]

the tutorial doesn't have to be interactive, it can simply be a video tutorial.

[ExHunter]

the tutorial doesn't have to be interactive, it can simply be a video tutorial.

^approve (even I didn't think of that possibility )

[Clawbug]

A intro-like tutorial, or a tutorial-like intro could be benefitical in a sense of encouraging people to employ common tactics for example in CTF, keeping your base clean, using nades to boost around, caps > kills, using taunts, even hinting about clan scene etc. If only people played for their team, the game would be far more exciting even in publics.

[Wolfskin]

I'd rather have a nice intro without tutorial stuff and a seperate video tutorial that pops up if you start a game or join a server for the first time.

Also one very important thing is to fix the ugly ugly menu. Shouldn't be too hard to give it a more decent look.

[Clawbug]

I'd rather have a nice intro without tutorial stuff and a seperate video tutorial that pops up if you start a game or join a server for the first time.

No, never make people play tutorial before they play the game! How does the player feel when he clicks on the "Join game" button and instead of joining a game, he's presented a tutorial? Won't be happy, I tell you. The interface should never ever do things it's not ordered to. If anything, there should be a separate button to start the tutorial, rather than forcing it.

I was thinking about short 10-20 second intro clips(Soldat demos with the player explaining the subject and showing it) which explain a single thing(nadejumps, CTF tactics, some common ways to trick players etc.) separately, which are being shuffled when the game starts, just like the intro is played back right now. This could surely be behind a separate button in the menu too, no prob with that.

Also one very important thing is to fix the ugly ugly menu. Shouldn't be too hard to give it a more decent look.

This I completely agree with.

[DutchFlame]

advertising for people to join a broken netcode game is quite useless if you ask me

[Clawbug]

That is simply not true. If that is what you believe, how come there are still people playing and enjoying the game? How do you explain the influx of new players in April 2007 when 1.4 was released and an effort was made to advertise Soldat? I guess it's not worth mentioning how the netcode was around 1.0.5b which many older players regard as the best version ever?

Netcode isn't an issue.

[DutchFlame]

oh yes it is, most people who are around don't care anymore and kept playing even though its bad. People who came around 1.4 are gone afaik else it would be much more popular now wouldn't it?

[Clawbug]

Many people, especially in the clan scene, have come after 2007. And many in the publics too. The last serious advertising campaign was over 5 years ago, it's no wonder that lots of people disappear from the game in 5 years, for whatever reasons. Also, for all it's worth, the new version is supposed to remedy the problems with netcode(even if it's a slight increase, it's still progress).

The main reason I think why people have quit playing Soldat is that there has been no progress. For example in 1.5 the Deathmatch gamemode was essentially broken(scoreboard did't work) and publics were filled with hackers for over 22 months. No wonder people abandon the game, as it seems dead for them. Now that Shoozza et al. are in charge, the release cycles are much more consistet, people can track their development through the weekly Developer Log on this forum and check the bugtracker(bugs.soldat.pl).

[dezerteuR]

If you say that this advertising campaign was so important and helpful for soldat and its popularity, why don't you or FliesLikeaBrick or somebody else restart such a campaign?

[Clawbug]

Because it's not a job of a lone man to do it, really. As I've mentioned before, the crucial part would be a community-wide push for making people know about Soldat. This would be best done when a new release is out, which is still some two months away according to Shoozza's plans.

Of course, if someone believes it's not advertising or an outreach which is the important thing in making Soldat more popular, they're free to voice their opinion. Thus far there hasn't really been any alternative ideas apat from "fix netcode and lags kthx" which obviously would not bring in new players to replace those who have left the scene.