Top priorities before Steam release:

[miketh2005]

A fun and intuitive tutorial for newbies to learn the basics. Animations for loading LAW / Barrett / knife throw might help newbies realize you need to hold these weapons down. Newbies should realize throwing knife is the same button as dropping your weapon. Etc.

GUI needs to be more intuitive for newbies. I remember when I first started I didn't even know there was multiplayer in this game. Trust me, newbies are really dumb. Single player should be off and to the side. No one plays that or wants to play that. I was so confused why this game was rates so highly by GameStop when I thought all the game had was the single player bots.

Banners for the forums and Discord is imperative in order to keep a player base.

I would offer some of the features for registered players to those who enter their email for a Transhuman Design account. Any marketer will tell you that getting a user's email is the #1 priority so that you can keep in touch and they can return as a player when they see new features released / new events happening. At least it will be optional which is more than can say for most free games.

What else do you think?

[darDar]

A fun and intuitive tutorial for newbies to learn the basics. Animations for loading LAW / Barrett / knife throw might help newbies realize you need to hold these weapons down. Newbies should realize throwing knife is the same button as dropping your weapon. Etc.

GUI needs to be more intuitive for newbies. I remember when I first started I didn't even know there was multiplayer in this game. Trust me, newbies are really dumb. Single player should be off and to the side. No one plays that or wants to play that. I was so confused why this game was rates so highly by GameStop when I thought all the game had was the single player bots.

Banners for the forums and Discord is imperative in order to keep a player base.

I would offer some of the features for registered players to those who enter their email for a Transhuman Design account. Any marketer will tell you that getting a user's email is the #1 priority so that you can keep in touch and they can return as a player when they see new features released / new events happening. At least it will be optional which is more than can say for most free games.

What else do you think?

You're a wise man and everything you said is pretty much correct and high priority..

However, that has been addressed to the devs and our " "publisher" " dozens of times for a long time without an actual result.

[Shoozza]

@Dardar it would be preferred you don't fill the thread with bad mood but contribute to it instead.

@miketh2005:
Tutorial: A tutorial isn't a small task. Would be easier if clientserver could use scripting. I personally only enjoy tutorials if they are optional and fun and some tutorials feel like work. There is more discussion necessary if we want to make a good one. Not against it but are you sure for 1.7.2?

GUI: In the next version the join game tab will be shown after you click on OK, the serverlist request starts automatically and will sort by player count. That should help a bit until there is a better GUI.
I'm not sure i understand what you mean with "off and to the side" for the "Start game" tab and for the current GUI I'm not sure where I would even put it. Can you explain or is the go to Join Game tab after Profile Selection fixing this?

Banners: If I get my hands on a good forums banner I'll add it. (BTW There is a link to the forums on the exit tab but probably too stealthy for anyone to notice)
I'll add a discord link when it's official and I have a banner for it.

Email: We already have email addresses from people who register on the forums but we rarely use it. I'll talk with the admins about it (I think we need a way for people to opt out for specific news/events things before we use it more). That said updates like discord shows them could be done without email

Thanks for the feedback.


Top priorities
- Fix serve bugs (flood exploits, etc)
- Make soldat work easier to work with full directory updates for steam updates
-- Save non default install data (mods, personal settings, downloads etc) in %appdata% (or ./config for portable mode)
-- Update the patch installer to migrate your settings (alternatively skip that and require clean install :/)
-- Update the full installer to work with the new setup.
-- Update config so save settings in the %appdata% or ./config folder

- Add missing script core changes already in unofficial server releases

- Implement chatmod (could be optional I guess)

..and more optional things here.

As for non code related things needed for Steam:
Banners
Thumbnails
Screenshots
Trailer(s)!!

Did I forget something?

[soldat-game]

Non sense Shoozza priority

[miketh2005]

@Dardar it would be preferred you don't fill the thread with bad mood but contribute to it instead.

@miketh2005:
Tutorial: A tutorial isn't a small task. Would be easier if clientserver could use scripting. I personally only enjoy tutorials if they are optional and fun and some tutorials feel like work. There is more discussion necessary if we want to make a good one. Not against it but are you sure for 1.7.2?

GUI: In the next version the join game tab will be shown after you click on OK, the serverlist request starts automatically and will sort by player count. That should help a bit until there is a better GUI.
I'm not sure i understand what you mean with "off and to the side" for the "Start game" tab and for the current GUI I'm not sure where I would even put it. Can you explain or is the go to Join Game tab after Profile Selection fixing this?

Banners: If I get my hands on a good forums banner I'll add it. (BTW There is a link to the forums on the exit tab but probably too stealthy for anyone to notice)
I'll add a discord link when it's official and I have a banner for it.

Email: We already have email addresses from people who register on the forums but we rarely use it. I'll talk with the admins about it (I think we need a way for people to opt out for specific news/events things before we use it more). That said updates like discord shows them could be done without email

Thanks for the feedback.


Top priorities
- Fix serve bugs (flood exploits, etc)
- Make soldat work easier to work with full directory updates for steam updates
-- Save non default install data (mods, personal settings, downloads etc) in %appdata% (or ./config for portable mode)
-- Update the patch installer to migrate your settings (alternatively skip that and require clean install :/)
-- Update the full installer to work with the new setup.
-- Update config so save settings in the %appdata% or ./config folder

- Add missing script core changes already in unofficial server releases

- Implement chatmod (could be optional I guess)

..and more optional things here.

As for non code related things needed for Steam:
Banners
Thumbnails
Screenshots
Trailer(s)!!

Did I forget something?

Do you think we will have enough servers for release? Can there be official servers queued up if needed?

Why was queuing for a server removed? That can shed players as well, as they lose interest waiting for a server to open.

I've never heard of bunny hopping in a game in order to run before or after Soldat. I definitely feel these things need explained especially for this generation of gamers. Actually, I don't think we need a tutorial, tooltips would work a lot better and get players right into playing the game. I think you can code it so that it see how much the player has learned and what they need to learn. E.g. If they aren't moving, a tooltip for controls. If they are not bunny hopping, a tool tip for that. For they aren't using jets, a tool tip for that. If they aren't using grenades, they may need a reminder. If they aren't holding in for Barretta/LAW, etc. preferably with a picture or animation (if someone wants to volunteer, or you can lift from another game) for the button. If there's one thing I've learned about players, they DO NOT like to read.

I've been wanting tooltips for scripting since forever. If you can't add that, at least use the on screen text scripts use, but I think proper tooltips would stand out and be more clear. To be less annoying they can go away once the action is performed besides being able to be closed manually.

I also worry about new players joining unconventional servers. If they join a Climb server, they would be wholly confused, think "what a weird game, not as described" and never look back. What are your ideas for this?

Can you sanction certain stable newbie-friendly servers and put them at the top of the server list for newbies? Perhaps highlight them like KAG does, and add a tooltip for this as well?

As for the GUI, yes, that would fix things. I think you should change "Start Game" to "Solo" and "Join Game" to "Multiplayer" exactly like KAG. "Start Game" would definitely be confusing to new players. You can add a banner that says, "Start an simple, unstructured game against bots by yourself," or something at the top of the menu so people don't think there's a story mode or anything.

I don't think these are "priorities if we can get to it before Steam release", I think they are absolutely needed for release or you risk shedding the new players you've captured forever. I'm hoping this can give Soldat a new lease on life, and these new players will turn into those who will pay devs for their work to make Soldat great again.

Also, what about the Early Access idea? Perhaps 1.7.2 can be for Early Access with everything you're planning to do now, and 1.8 can be the actual Steam Launch, with good graphical, scripting, and net code improvements.

[soldat-game]

I started designing a new function for script core. I know that the implementation of this will be much more work, not everything you have done in the last 8 years, but this will allow us to add amazing effects and moding.

Code: [Select]

function AddMediaObject(MediaPath:String; LayerType: byte; Layer: Smallint; PosX,PosY,ScaleX,ScaleY,Scale,Rotate,Opacity: single; Paint: boolean; Color: longint; FrameStart, FrameEnd, StrengthenFrames, DisappearanceFrames: Word; Duration, IfDurToStrengt, IfDurThenDisappearance: single; Loop: byte; IgnoreAudio:boolean): Word;

MediaPath: String;
- Allows formats (containers): .png .gif .bmp .jpeg .avi .mov .mp4 .mpg
- Allows codec: PNG GIF BMP JPEG AVI WMV QUICKTIME Standard ISO/IEC and standard ITU-T
- Allows audio codec:
- Max resolution: 3840?2160
- Max frames per second: 960
- The maximum duration (frames): 0..65535 frames (variable limiter type Word)
LayerType: Byte;
- 1 = Back (Back how in polywork, but effects example, weather and all the news example: flares, lens, light it is above)
- 2 = BackMid (Back how in polywork, weather and all the news example: flares, lens, light is behind this)
- 3 = MiddleA (Middle how in polywork but all activities of light penetrates through transparent parts)
- 4 = MiddleB (Middle how in polywork)
- 5 = Front (It covers everything including polygun. Work how in polywork)
Layer: Smallint; (In soldat scriptcore is integer)
- The values smaller than 0 they will be lower than the layers in the game assigned to the layer type.
- The values bigger than 0 they will be higher than the layers in the game assigned to the layer type.
- If the image one will be on the same layer as the other one the overwrite will occur as in the case of bigtext.
PosX, PosY: Single;
- Position x and y on map.
ScaleX: Single;
- Scaling the size in the x axis.
ScaleY: Single;
- Scaling the size in the y axis.
Scale: Single;
- Scaling the size in percents. Work if ScaleX=0 and ScaleY=0.
Rotate: Single;
- How in poly works. Determining the rotation angle.
Opacity: Single;
- The value opacity is given in percent.
- Value less than 0, will be treated as 0%
- A value greater than 100 will be treated as 100%
Paint: boolean;
- If true variable Color is taken into account.
Color: longint;
- If Paint is true a color filter is added how in polywork.
FrameStart: Word;
- If the graphic file contains more than one frame. You can choose frame from which you want to start playing.
FrameEnd: Word;
- If the graphic file contains more than one frame. You can choose frame from which you want to end playing.
StrengthenFrames: Word;
- For how many initial frames to resume graphic object. Example 4 = first frame 100% opacity, two frame is 75% opacity and third is 50% opacity etc. etc.
- 0 to off.
- It works if the file has more than one frame.
DisappearanceFrames: Word;
- For how many initial frames to switching off graphic object. Example 4 = first frame 25% opacity, two frame is 50% opacity and third is 75% opacity etc. etc.
- 0 to off.
- It works if the file has more than one frame.
Duration: Single;
- Work if the file has only one frame.
IfDurToStrengt: Single; (In soldat scriptcore is integer)
- Time to resume.
- Work if duration active.
IfDurThenDisappearance: Single; (In soldat scriptcore is integer)
- Time of disappearance.
- Work if duration active.
Loop: Byte;
- How many times should it be looped. 0 to off.
IgnoreAudio: boolean;
- If true will not play music from the file.
- Is auto ignore if it is not with music or low frame.


[CheeSeMan.]

I know soldat-game guy has some controversy around him(? dont really follow it but i believe so?), but really he seems to be one of the only guys still interested in scripting for Soldat servers. Maybe expand the team let him have a look at the Soldat server source code see what he could do?

@Shoozza Negativity is just something I think you would be used to by now, after years of disappointment you can not really be surprised by this what are we doing then? Every good idea I see you respond "maybe for next version"

I know you have posted repeatedly that anyone who feels they could help to PM you, maybe we can be more detailed on this front. If we asked for people JUST to rework the GUI would we have any volunteers? Maybe some developers are daunted by the infamous spaghetti code... maybe try to be more detailed on what you need to get the game we love where it deserves to be.

Also from what I gather from what does slip out from the existing developing team it does in any case "appear" that there is a lack of organization or lack of wanting to work as a team. This is just my judgement and maybe I am completely wrong, but it looks to me it would be highly beneficial for some sort of project manager to come in and organize. Again this is something I feel the community could provide, hell I know some.

[Shoozza]

@miketh2005
I think we have enough empty servers for it, I can host a few if necessary and I'll ask what furai and jrgp think about this.

I don't remember that queuing was ever an option, maybe i forgot about it. Afaik it was only happening when two people tried to joined before the server knew it was full.

There are already tooltips (more like texts) for movement for the first 3 startups of soldat next to the weapons menu.
Tooltips might help but also might be annoying if you know those things and just want to play your gather after reinstall.
Something I think we can work around with achivements for basic skill (you have to do all those things to get the achivement).
A little "quest" with a info on the screen (f1 menu).

One way to make sure people know they are joining non standard servers is to add a custom game mode filter and make it visible.
But that doesn't help if admins don't use that mode for their server.
Forcing custom game mode because you have scripts enabled isn't helpful either.

What would be a requirement for a noobie friendly server?

The naming "Start game" and "Join game" is correct as you can host a clientserver game or join an existing game.
So the start game tab isn't only for playing against bots but rarely used to host games these days. Is that the same for KAG?

I still have to talk to MM about the early access idea.

@soldat-game
I don't think designing apis is helpful. First there has to be an agreement that these features are needed and which ones are actually needed. Throwing apis at me won't work as you made some assumptions without discussing them. So there is no validation if this is needed, secure and can be implemented in this way.
I also don't think adding apis is necessary for the 1.7.2 release (besides the ones people already rely on due to unofficial releases).

@CheeSeMan.
Back in the day there where more positive people around. Thats how it feels. I'd love to see a more welcoming community. I always thought "thats how soldat is" but ignoring the issue won't help us. I'm sorry if the progress is disappointing but I try to not promise something and then not deliver.

People join the dev team because they have a certain goal, i normally ask what they want to help with. If the idea fits I just let them work on it. Maybe also discuss how it could be added to soldat and what to do with the potential downsides. Telling someone what to work on doesn't seem to work in volunteer work, at least it never worked in the dev team.

Atm there is only developing the game. There are some people doing art or the wm for example. Helloer wanted to join the dev team again. He wanted me to agree to all his ideas beforehand but I failed to finalize the discussion and he left. There was another person but after gaining access to the code left as well. Some people want to help but seem to not be able to show they are capable to do basic things, which means once they get hit by the code they either require intensive supervision or give up. That's from the dev side of things. There is the beta team which I need to clean up as well as there aren't really many people contributing. My idea was that the sub team leads would handle all their stuff and communicate with me regularly so I'm up to date. Not sure I see any place for someone managing this.

[soldat-game]

I am waiting for soldat soucre and f**k the devs

[Moroes]

I am waiting for soldat soucre and f**k the devs

Can't wait for your fork.
/s

[machina]

I am waiting for soldat soucre and f**k the devs

Can't wait for your fork.

A bit doubtful with these soft skills xD

[miketh2005]

@miketh2005
I think we have enough empty servers for it, I can host a few if necessary and I'll ask what furai and jrgp think about this.

I don't remember that queuing was ever an option, maybe i forgot about it. Afaik it was only happening when two people tried to joined before the server knew it was full.

There are already tooltips (more like texts) for movement for the first 3 startups of soldat next to the weapons menu.
Tooltips might help but also might be annoying if you know those things and just want to play your gather after reinstall.
Something I think we can work around with achivements for basic skill (you have to do all those things to get the achivement).
A little "quest" with a info on the screen (f1 menu).

One way to make sure people know they are joining non standard servers is to add a custom game mode filter and make it visible.
But that doesn't help if admins don't use that mode for their server.
Forcing custom game mode because you have scripts enabled isn't helpful either.

What would be a requirement for a noobie friendly server?

The naming "Start game" and "Join game" is correct as you can host a clientserver game or join an existing game.
So the start game tab isn't only for playing against bots but rarely used to host games these days. Is that the same for KAG?

I still have to talk to MM about the early access idea.

@soldat-game
I don't think designing apis is helpful. First there has to be an agreement that these features are needed and which ones are actually needed. Throwing apis at me won't work as you made some assumptions without discussing them. So there is no validation if this is needed, secure and can be implemented in this way.
I also don't think adding apis is necessary for the 1.7.2 release (besides the ones people already rely on due to unofficial releases).

@CheeSeMan.
Back in the day there where more positive people around. Thats how it feels. I'd love to see a more welcoming community. I always thought "thats how soldat is" but ignoring the issue won't help us. I'm sorry if the progress is disappointing but I try to not promise something and then not deliver.

People join the dev team because they have a certain goal, i normally ask what they want to help with. If the idea fits I just let them work on it. Maybe also discuss how it could be added to soldat and what to do with the potential downsides. Telling someone what to work on doesn't seem to work in volunteer work, at least it never worked in the dev team.

Atm there is only developing the game. There are some people doing art or the wm for example. Helloer wanted to join the dev team again. He wanted me to agree to all his ideas beforehand but I failed to finalize the discussion and he left. There was another person but after gaining access to the code left as well. Some people want to help but seem to not be able to show they are capable to do basic things, which means once they get hit by the code they either require intensive supervision or give up. That's from the dev side of things. There is the beta team which I need to clean up as well as there aren't really many people contributing. My idea was that the sub team leads would handle all their stuff and communicate with me regularly so I'm up to date. Not sure I see any place for someone managing this.

Yes, queuing was an option in 1.5 or 1.6 I believe, when Enesce took over development, I believe he added it.

Adding quests/achievements for simple movement controls is useless. The goal is to teach new players how to play, not incentivize them. We assume they want to play if they downloaded the game. So now we need to make it obvious to them how to play before they give up. Providing a quest won't help if they don't understand how to play.

Removing the tooltips can be an option on first start-up for experienced players. There can also be a button on the tooltips that says, "Don't show again." Which uncheck the aforementioned option. These tooltips can additionally be turned on from the same menu as above if needed.

You don't understand the lowest common denominator you need to develop for if you want to reach a wider audience. They can't be assed to use filters. Heck, there's a very experienced coder and long time Soldat player who didn't even know about filters when he complained on the forums about there being too many servers (back when we had 300+).

This is why the common filter option needs to be default (no empty, or full servers, sort servers by amount of players).

I would consider newbie friendly servers to be anything newbies can understand by looking at it. All the normal servers, HTF, INF, DM, TM, etc. One Shots, Saw and Law, Survival/Realistic, even TrenchWars is simple enough. Weapon Mods are not automatically newb unfriendly, whereas mode with no WM can be newb unfriendly like Climb, Last Stand, and Hide n Seek. Anything that requires you to input a command to play or anything with a high barrier to entry would be newb unfriendly.

A tooltip on first startup:

"We recommend the highlighted servers for newer players. Some servers are for experienced players and can be quite confusing if you're just starting out."

As for Start Game/Join Game, I've never hosted a KAG server so I don't know where that option is. All I know is that I press "Multiplayer" and it quickly loads the servers. Automatically starting on this tab is even better than KAG, but I think "Join Game" and "Start Game" will be confusing for new players. Think about it. A new player will think, "Okay I want to start playing this game...."Start Game"?...what is this? How do I get out of this? Is this the game? What the hell is going on? I'm done with this shit." *Rage Quit* I would give a tooltip if they start a bot game as well, explaining what they got themselves into. I don't even think it should have its own tab, it's useless. It's more for advanced players. Maybe Start Game should just be the Join Game tab and put the Start Game Menu off into the options.

[urraka]

I suggest we rename "Start Game" to "Create Server" and make it the 2nd tab.

Also, why not clean up a bit the servers list and make it look more like what we have here: https://soldat.pl/en/lobby? And I'd suggest a couple of changes there aswell:
1) Make password column the first one so you see the lock icon straight away.
2) In the Mode column make it something like "CTF (R)" for when realistic is enabled.
3) Perhaps it would be more clear if Players column was like "5/6 (+3 bots)". Or is it spectators? I don't even know.

This is why the common filter option needs to be default (no empty, or full servers, sort servers by amount of players).

Sorting by players would be enough. Filtering out empty/full servers by default would make it harder to find the empty servers. And it's very often that I find myself clicking JOIN on a full server until it lets me in (I'm sure I'm not alone here), so I defenitely don't want those filtered out.

[daaw]

People join the dev team because they have a certain goal, i normally ask what they want to help with. If the idea fits I just let them work on it. Maybe also discuss how it could be added to soldat and what to do with the potential downsides. Telling someone what to work on doesn't seem to work in volunteer work, at least it never worked in the dev team.

Atm there is only developing the game. There are some people doing art or the wm for example. Helloer wanted to join the dev team again. He wanted me to agree to all his ideas beforehand but I failed to finalize the discussion and he left. There was another person but after gaining access to the code left as well. Some people want to help but seem to not be able to show they are capable to do basic things, which means once they get hit by the code they either require intensive supervision or give up. That's from the dev side of things. There is the beta team which I need to clean up as well as there aren't really many people contributing. My idea was that the sub team leads would handle all their stuff and communicate with me regularly so I'm up to date. Not sure I see any place for someone managing this.

No shit, someone left again..

I really believe people simply don't want to work in that kind of environment, they want something in return .. some type authority / ownership of the project at least. No one wants to do something they dont agree with, soldat dev team is not a job.
Unless you are hardcore soldat fan you will leave sooner or later.

Why do you think why i left.. surely not because i was lazy .. and wouldn't even want to join back.  Also, comunity is fucking annoying. hahahhahahah


This is your MAIN problem whit soldat and not the saphhettigh code or whatever.

[miketh2005]

I suggest we rename "Start Game" to "Create Server" and make it the 2nd tab.

Also, why not clean up a bit the servers list and make it look more like what we have here: https://soldat.pl/en/lobby? And I'd suggest a couple of changes there aswell:
1) Make password column the first one so you see the lock icon straight away.
2) In the Mode column make it something like "CTF (R)" for when realistic is enabled.
3) Perhaps it would be more clear if Players column was like "5/6 (+3 bots)". Or is it spectators? I don't even know.

This is why the common filter option needs to be default (no empty, or full servers, sort servers by amount of players).

Sorting by players would be enough. Filtering out empty/full servers by default would make it harder to find the empty servers. And it's very often that I find myself clicking JOIN on a full server until it lets me in (I'm sure I'm not alone here), so I defenitely don't want those filtered out.

Good ideas.

[soldat-game]

People join the dev team because they have a certain goal, i normally ask what they want to help with. If the idea fits I just let them work on it. Maybe also discuss how it could be added to soldat and what to do with the potential downsides. Telling someone what to work on doesn't seem to work in volunteer work, at least it never worked in the dev team.

Atm there is only developing the game. There are some people doing art or the wm for example. Helloer wanted to join the dev team again. He wanted me to agree to all his ideas beforehand but I failed to finalize the discussion and he left. There was another person but after gaining access to the code left as well. Some people want to help but seem to not be able to show they are capable to do basic things, which means once they get hit by the code they either require intensive supervision or give up. That's from the dev side of things. There is the beta team which I need to clean up as well as there aren't really many people contributing. My idea was that the sub team leads would handle all their stuff and communicate with me regularly so I'm up to date. Not sure I see any place for someone managing this.

No shit, someone left again..

I really believe people simply don't want to work in that kind of environment, they want something in return .. some type authority / ownership of the project at least. No one wants to do something they dont agree with, soldat dev team is not a job.
Unless you are hardcore soldat fan you will leave sooner or later.

Why do you think why i left.. surely not because i was lazy .. and wouldn't even want to join back.  Also, comunity is fucking annoying. hahahhahahah


This is your MAIN problem whit soldat and not the saphhettigh code or whatever.

Im stoped play by a new way of moving (exhunter create this for fucking self climb servers) & change weapons system and KILL old movement system once on the move, the player always had a weapon movement regardless of whether he was crawling. (This kill balance weapons and barrett is op). Next case Shoozza kill fucking mouse movement so the mouse does not run smoothly aiming is difficult because it is not precise + lags on high resoulution. The last nail to the coffin was the revolutions of DarDar I absolutely did not want to play.
Now only fix scripts if someone asks me.

[miketh2005]

How about a Quick Play button which joins one of the "default" servers automatically? For newbs who just want to hop right into a game, like a .io game. Some don't even know what "servers" are.

Speaking of .io, anyone else think this game would be crazy populated if you could play it in a browser? With the popularity of .io games which are 1/1000 of the game Soldat is. Maybe you'd have to rewrite the whole code though?

[machina]

How about a Quick Play button which joins one of the "default" servers automatically? For newbs who just want to hop right into a game, like a .io game. Some don't even know what "servers" are.

It could be useful but what if there's no available server with free spots (I don't mean an empty server)? Then, such Quick Play button would have to tell the user that one could play single player instead or wait for a free spot on some already crowded server or decide to join and empty server and wait for some more people.

It would look a bit stupid if a Quick Play can't actually find a quick play for someone.

[Shoozza]

@miketh2005

Yes, queuing was an option in 1.5 or 1.6 I believe, when Enesce took over development, I believe he added it.

Must be 1.5 then (enesce wasn't involved in 1.6 and we used beta versions from some release to stitch together 1.6).

Adding quests/achievements for simple movement controls is useless. The goal is to teach new players how to play, not incentivize them. We assume they want to play if they downloaded the game. So now we need to make it obvious to them how to play before they give up. Providing a quest won't help if they don't understand how to play.

Removing the tooltips can be an option on first start-up for experienced players. There can also be a button on the tooltips that says, "Don't show again." Which uncheck the aforementioned option. These tooltips can additionally be turned on from the same menu as above if needed.

You don't understand the lowest common denominator you need to develop for if you want to reach a wider audience. They can't be assed to use filters. Heck, there's a very experienced coder and long time Soldat player who didn't even know about filters when he complained on the forums about there being too many servers (back when we had 300+).

This is why the common filter option needs to be default (no empty, or full servers, sort servers by amount of players).

I would consider newbie friendly servers to be anything newbies can understand by looking at it. All the normal servers, HTF, INF, DM, TM, etc. One Shots, Saw and Law, Survival/Realistic, even TrenchWars is simple enough. Weapon Mods are not automatically newb unfriendly, whereas mode with no WM can be newb unfriendly like Climb, Last Stand, and Hide n Seek. Anything that requires you to input a command to play or anything with a high barrier to entry would be newb unfriendly.

A tooltip on first startup:

"We recommend the highlighted servers for newer players. Some servers are for experienced players and can be quite confusing if you're just starting out."

As for Start Game/Join Game, I've never hosted a KAG server so I don't know where that option is. All I know is that I press "Multiplayer" and it quickly loads the servers. Automatically starting on this tab is even better than KAG, but I think "Join Game" and "Start Game" will be confusing for new players. Think about it. A new player will think, "Okay I want to start playing this game...."Start Game"?...what is this? How do I get out of this? Is this the game? What the hell is going on? I'm done with this shit." *Rage Quit* I would give a tooltip if they start a bot game as well, explaining what they got themselves into. I don't even think it should have its own tab, it's useless. It's more for advanced players. Maybe Start Game should just be the Join Game tab and put the Start Game Menu off into the options.

Nobody wants to read too much would suggest to keep the amount of the text down.

If the list is sorted by player count that would be fine. You don't want to hide server by default because if there are 0 players (4am) there will be no servers visible.

No shit, someone left again..

I really believe people simply don't want to work in that kind of environment, they want something in return .. some type authority / ownership of the project at least. No one wants to do something they dont agree with, soldat dev team is not a job.
Unless you are hardcore soldat fan you will leave sooner or later.

Why do you think why i left.. surely not because i was lazy .. and wouldn't even want to join back.  Also, comunity is fucking annoying. hahahhahahah


This is your MAIN problem whit soldat and not the saphhettigh code or whatever.

As you never really worked in the dev team you don't really know how things work there. But that's not a discussion for this thread so please don't post offtopic things. Thanks.

I suggest we rename "Start Game" to "Create Server" and make it the 2nd tab.

Also, why not clean up a bit the servers list and make it look more like what we have here: https://soldat.pl/en/lobby? And I'd suggest a couple of changes there aswell:
1) Make password column the first one so you see the lock icon straight away.
2) In the Mode column make it something like "CTF (R)" for when realistic is enabled.
3) Perhaps it would be more clear if Players column was like "5/6 (+3 bots)". Or is it spectators? I don't even know.

This is why the common filter option needs to be default (no empty, or full servers, sort servers by amount of players).

Sorting by players would be enough. Filtering out empty/full servers by default would make it harder to find the empty servers. And it's very often that I find myself clicking JOIN on a full server until it lets me in (I'm sure I'm not alone here), so I defenitely don't want those filtered out.

Hmm I'll look into the suggestions for rename.

1+2) yeah it should be visible somehow
3) how do other games handle that?

Agree with you on the filter server issue

How about a Quick Play button which joins one of the "default" servers automatically? For newbs who just want to hop right into a game, like a .io game. Some don't even know what "servers" are.

Speaking of .io, anyone else think this game would be crazy populated if you could play it in a browser? With the popularity of .io games which are 1/1000 of the game Soldat is. Maybe you'd have to rewrite the whole code though?

Not sure how quick join would help when you didn't even pick a game mode.
Atm there is only websockets (tcp) so the netcode would be different (not sure if it can be made to work well with action multiplayer games)
And yeah it would require a rewrite and would run slower. Maybe there will be a webassembly target for object pascal but it probably would require quite some work to make it run well.

[soldat-game]

Ohh Shoozza join on forum, why remove portrait hacker? :3    I know who it is, and you know who it is, and where it comes from