Soldat has all the qualities of a thriving game: a large but close community, a supportive fan base, competitive players, and of course, excellent gameplay. However, I do not expect that Soldat?s prosperity will be long lived. I imagine that within three years, if Soldat continues as it is at a constant rate, the community will diminish to a small player-base of veterans only. Newbies that play longer than a few months will be extremely rare. The player-base will be reduced to only a few loyal veterans, who play mainly for nostalgia.

Now this may like an extreme extrapolation of our times. However, I know first-hand of this type of situation. I saw this happen to my favorite game, an ancient computer game called Mechcommander Gold. Mechcommander started out in 1998 with a relatively large multiplayer base, as one would expect from a new and heavily advertised retail game. It was supported by Gamespy, Mplayer, and The Zone, along with many other similar services. There were clans, leagues, huge tournaments, and thriving message boards. Newbies flourished, jamming up every game in sight.

However, the game had very poor support from the developers. The expansion pack was refreshing, but it was the only change the game would experience. There was only one patch (a terrible one). Because the game remained the same for so many years, the player-base slowly declined, as people left to do more interesting things. Within 5 years, the game was reduced to a player-base of around 200 people, mostly avid veterans. As the percentage of veterans increased, the percentage of newbies exponentially decreased. The reason is this: newbies were constantly harassed by veterans, verbally abused and made unwelcome. The veterans grew cocky, and disapproved of anything a newbie did. By that time, the only new players were friends of a few veterans who copied their CD. With the declining number of players, there were few friends left to invite. The ones who did play were made unwelcome by the other veterans. It was simply no fun for them to play. The veterans slowly dwindled because of lifestyle changes or because of boredom.

Today, in 2005, seven years after its start, the Mechcommander Gold lobby has about ten players in it on a good day. The player-base is about 30. There has not been a newbie for over a year, simply because there is no one left to invite. Newbies are the lifeblood of any game. They are essential in keeping the community alive for long periods of time.

You may think that this is an inappropriate analogy, but examine closely. You may say that it is unfair to say that Soldat has poor support and few changes. I agree: Soldat has excellent support from its creator and beta team, and they frequently add new changes. However, the effects are the same. The changes being added to the game are extremely minor when compared to big picture.

The changes I refer to are weapon balance and new, small features. Weapon balance is important, yes, but has little bearing on a player?s enthusiasm for playing. Few players will feel extremely excited upon learning that the AK-74 now does %5 less damage. These changes are for the veterans. Newbies benefit in few ways from changes in weapon balance. New, small features are more interesting, but are still minor. Back flips are a cool addition, and Hold the Flag is fun, but these are not features that reenergize a veteran?s fading motivation to play. The only major change to occur recently is the addition of modifiable weapons. This feature has great potential, which I am sure will be capitalized upon in the future, since it is in its early stages.

In the long run, the minor changes will not amount to much when thinking about the mindset of a single player over several years. Because of this (almost) inevitable decline, the community of Soldat needs to consider these following points if Soldat is to continue to thrive for many years to come:

1) Soldat needs to link its newbies to its veterans more closely.
2) Soldat needs to maintain a large player-base.
3) Soldat needs a continuous freshening of gameplay.


1- If newbies are segregated from veterans, then the veteran player-base becomes more secluded and cocky. If newbies find veterans no fun to play with, they will gradually leave. Currently, there are a very large number of newbies that are not involved with the community at all. The reason for this is because Soldat is not an online-based game. At its core, Soldat is just a game, with online capabilities. Many newbies completely miss out on the online experience, and many try it out a few times and decide that playing against bots is more fun. If Soldat were to become primarily online oriented, the community would be much tighter. This would be accomplished by adding in a central ?lobby? (or, depending on the population, several lobbies), where all players could chat. By giving a location to players to be when outside of gameplay, the community is greatly enhanced. By simply letting everyone chat together brings out much more identity in each player. It also gives playing a game a purpose: whether it?s to play with a newly-made friend, test out a map with someone who asked for help in the lobby, or to challenge obnoxious players or clans to duels or clan-wars. This gives all the players who don?t visit a Soldat message board a place to be. This kind of central location quickly dissolves the lines between a veteran and a newbie. Anyone who plays and talks often becomes on the same level as others. The only difference then is skill.

2- Maintaining a large player-base is essential to keep the community thriving. Soldat could highly benefit from some low-scale advertising. Simple banner ads on pages are effective ways to draw the attention of many. The ads would be linked to a promotional page, which would feature up-to-date screenshots and small videos of gameplay. Some simple exposure is enough to entice the curiosity of many visitors. As of this point, Soldat is primarily propagated by word-of-mouth advertising among friends. By investing in some simple advertising, the community could grow significantly.

3- Most importantly, Soldat needs to freshen its gameplay. It shouldn?t just be a new idea, because that would become standard in a few months. It should be a change that would constantly be refreshing to play. I think that an excellent way to achieve this sort of change would be to implement something like this:
[URL]
Please review that thread before continuing.
This is a kind of change that will be perfect for the game, because it gives the community the power to modify the playing style on its own. It is powerful enough to add a new and exciting dimension to each game, while reserved enough not to change the flavor of Soldat. A powerful impact that this change would bring would be the way it affects the relationships between veterans and newbies. Veterans will be the ones using the specialized mapmaker and will be making exciting new gametypes, while newbies can enjoy their ideas and play in their games, feeling like a part of the community.

Although this is a very large change, it is still reasonable enough to implement within a year. Soldat 2.0 should include this or some other similar change that will make the game continuously new and enjoyable for all players. Such a change does not need to be immediately in development, but should be on the agenda.


By keeping these 3 points in mind, the development of Soldat can continuously increase. Although everything is currently under control, it is important to look ahead and plan for the future. By joining the newbies with the veterans, each player becomes more loyal to the game. By maintaining a large player-base, Soldat will constantly have fresh minds and personalities added to it. By providing a continuously freshening way of gameplay, each player will find enjoying in playing by experiencing something new each time.

Well, when it comes to adding new things, thats entirely up to Michal.

Having been a beta tester for a while (though not anymore) and thus talked and played with him a while, his sincere enjoyment in Soldat is adding new and quirky things to the game, like the backflip and HTF to note recent additions. He loathes bug fixing. His only drawback is that many suggestions that crop up he simply isn't capable of right now, and he's quite literally learning as he goes.


As for bringing the community as a whole into a greater focus, instead of the many divisions it's wandered into (tnl, gather, esl, irc, soldat forums, etc), this is indeed true and many vets are recognising this. Going about it though? hard to say... and who's the man to do it, and how?

..I think a good start is if someone made a 'newbie faq' and asked Michal to link it on soldat.pl, right above the downloads link. Something that illustrated the various communities and where to find 'em, general opinions towards weapons and such, and the little quirks in gameplay. Would at least forward those curious enough into the right directions.

Yeah, Michal's "learning as he goes" with the coding is an obstacle; I do agree that Soldat needs some kind of significant change/addition, though... And I think my fill-in-the-blank system accomodates that nicely.

Which brings me to thanking Swarmer for bringing that topic up--I'd been trying to hunt that thing down on multiple occasions, but couldn't locate it exactly (the countless similar topics everywhere don't exactly help, either). I can't help but wonder why it died so suddenly, especially the way things were going as far as popular opinion on it.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand... Which in this post happens to be my total agreement. Without a constant influx of new players, online communities can only shrink into oblivion--kinda like if the entire human race stopped having sex suddenly. No babies = no people.

I don't know that advertising is quite necessary, though. Soldat seems to be one of the most popular free games out there--I believe this simply because around my corner of the world, pretty much everyone is a Halo junkie. I'm seriously the only person I know who owns a DS, and without the Internet I never would have known such a thing as Smash Bros. Melee tourneys even existed, so the fact that Soldat actually gets mentioned once in a blue moon is quite an achievement in word-of-mouth advertising as it is. Oh, that and ads cost money.

Lastly, the thing about refreshed gameplay is beyond all doubt a reality--in the world of the Internet, to not be growing or changing is to be dying. The only time a developer stops (or should stop) improving an online product is when they don't plan on it being online much longer; whether it be because a sequel is being made, or whatever. The post mentioned at the start of this thread is the ultimate kind of addition because its potentially inexhaustable in its ability to keep the gameplay fresh. The weapons modding is also the same way, but an actual part of Soldat as of right now; as it stands, it is the future of Soldat, as moddability is the future of online gaming. Heck, it's not even the future of it--it's here right now! Firaxis even plans to release the majority of the code for Civ IV solely so players can mod the everliving crap out of it.

Oh, and Soldat does need lobby chat. That's an excellent idea, right there. The "newbie FAQ" is a sound suggestion as well.

Ah well, enough psychobabble from me... I've got a life I have to go live.

I reckon that all of the above are valid points, and that making new and refreshing ways to play is in the future updates in the form of new modes and moves.
it's better to have extra modes and moves, even if they'll never get used.
On a higher note, personally, I think this idea would double Soldat's player statistics alone.

its just going to get better and better untill i quit...then everything shall fall into ruins!

Soldat doesn't need large community as it's not a professional game. 1.x times were the best for many players mainly because of a small community.
Soldat doesn't need major changes and certainly doesn't need its weapon balance to be changed every time a new version is out. Michal adds some new elements in every new version and it's enough for me. The only change that I would appreciate as an active player is the improvement on Soldat net code.
Let's not forget this game is created by just one man and creating an equivalent of Battlenet for Soldat may be too time-consuming or just too hard for him, besides show me a game created by just 1 man which has such a great community? Let me give you an example of Soldat.eu.org - Polish Soldat portal - every year the amount of visitors at our site doubles, it has reached 1 million in 3 years; we predict it will be around 2 millions at the end of 2006. We do everything to gill the community up and urge new players to stick to this game. Community crisis? never. As long as we keep this game interesting (by creating leagues, tournaments and other events) Soldat will be popular.
One more thing, people predicted death of Soldat in 2003 and 2004 year. Guess what...

Every game will eventually fade away. The fact that a game could last 7 years with people still on the servers, or even have a running server, is pretty decent. not great, but decent. And considering I've never heard of Mechcommander Gold, that might have something to do with it...

Largely, what happens is just the game gets too old to be fun, and alternate games of the same genre come out. Games are an evolutionary process, and though we all love classics like Missle Command and Space Invaders, no one plays them for anything but a neat little game and nostalgia. If anything, there are a dozen clones of each classic game that are truely more fun to play.

And then what also happens is that too much is added onto the game in order to keep a fan base that the game becomes watered down or too complicated to catch newbies. For instance, when you have 30 weapons, one of them is bound to be so similar to another that it doesn't make much difference which one you select, which makes a waste of time and engergy, as well as a fairly good indicator that the game is poor quality.

While no one wants to see Soldat go away, one day, it will. At this rate, it will have a pretty good long life and I don't see any reason to mourn it before it's dead. Enjoy it like you do any other game and stop worrying about the inevitable.

I agree that a small community has its benefits. It really makes things more personal. I know that Soldat will stay strong for several years. It will probably increase in size. However, it is unreasonable to expect that this prosperity will continue forever. Having a relatively small community is great for the short term and is probably a positive thing. It strengthens the quality of the game and community. However, in the long run, players will inevitably move on, as the entire world changes around them. In a few years, the most basic and cheap computers will be able to easily run the most advanced games we have now. People will move on. Thats why new players are so important.
As I explained in the example I gave about Mechcommander, the community was large and was thriving for a long time. But the static nature of the game and the diminishing newbie population eventually locked the player-base to veterans, who left one by one over the span of several years, reducing the population to a mere fraction of what it was before.
Soldat will definetly not go through this state for a long time. But it will happen eventually. I think advertising in the future would be a good way to draw in new players. It does not have to be expensive, and the amount recieved in registration costs from the new players would likely cancel out the advertising fees.
As for the large-scale changes being too hard to implement, I think that it can be done if either one of two things happens: either Michal begins development now, at a very comfortable learning pace, so that it can be finished in a few years, or the development of the game is expanded to a team. With a few more people helping create the game, the development would be much more efficient. The second solution would be at the whim of Michal, depending on his personal preferences. I know that I would prefer making it alone.

Either way, I think Soldat should take a step in the direction of a primarily online-based game.

i havent read any of that.. but if you have THAT much time to write that whole essay just about the future of soldat.. err, get a life? :/

#1 is very important, probably even more so than #3. I hate how all the veterans say "Ooh, I've been with Soldat for years ever since its birth. Ph34r m4h 1337ness, n00bs." Quite honestly, I've never seen a game community that shuts its doors so tightly and rudely to new members such as this forum.

I think we can all agree that it is important to carefully study alexoner's post.

quote:Originally posted by .alex.oner.i havent read any of that.. but if you have THAT much time to write that whole essay just about the future of soldat.. err, get a life? :/

I think you should be the one spending more time in the life you supposedly have and less of it here, sir.

Aaanyway, I agree with Lieroguy, i've thought that way for a while now, strangely enough.

@lieroguy: I know it will die, but my point is to extend its life. The only way to do that is to start now. In 3 years, when it starts to die, we will be wishing we did something to keep it going. This is the call from the future. It isn't asking for much, just to be more aware of what could happen, and to start heading in that direction.
Also, implementing changes like that early would be great fun for everyone now, and would extend the games lifespan to a healthy degree.

I think Soldat just needs to be advertised more...
Whenever I tell someone about Soldat, they have never heard of it. So they most likely assume it's no good.
But once they actually try it they are usually amazed.
True, there are those who will never play again, and even those who will stop playing because the graphics aren't "good" enough.
But some actually become consistent players, I have gotten at least two people I know to become hardcore Soldat players.
I believe Soldat just needs more people to try it, and this can be achieved by advertising.
Yes, when "Major"s join the game it's kind of annoying, but the sooner they start playing, the sooner they get better.

Also, I think Soldat needs to be better integrated into the online community. This can be done with links to forums, IRC channels, and other sites, right in the game. I didn't know about soldat forums until more than a year of regular play!
The sooner a player is accepted in the community, the more likely he will stay.

Lately I see many players leaving because of school, work, or just life in general. We can't expect everyone to stay around forever, that's why we need new players. They will keep the game alive.

To conclude, I would just like to ask you guys to post links at whatever forums or other sites you frequent (don't spam though :P)
In this way we can secure a future for Soldat :]

I beg to differ about making the game more newbie friendly...
Just look at Counter-Strike. That game takes about 6 months of playing until you get to call yourself a good player. I'd just like a boost in gameplay.

same thing happened to the homeworld series, and the vets aren't very nice

Add scripting support, let the community design their own features. (Server-specific, ofcourse.) It can't be any more complicated than it is sorting through hundreds of suggestions, deciding which ones are the best and implementing them all on your own.

And if you stick around this game long enough to see it die... well I don't even know what to say to that.
wtf

@Zambino, imo the game has that arcady feel, ilke you can just pick it up and play. And I really think that that adds to it's charm.

@Swarmer, Soldat is already primarily online play. read the logo.

Well, basically, Soldat is a pick up and play game. You CAN just simply walk around with left and right, and you CAN just use the jet to move around. And you might even be able to just grab an AK, spray a clip into nothing, and end up with a kill. That is one of the reasons why Soldat was attractive. In phycological lingo, it gives quick reinforcement(newbie friendly, quick load time), intense reinforcement (fun deaths and ragdoll physics) and increases the frequency of reinforcement the more you play (Increased skill = Increased kills = increased reinforcement). These are the basics of a fun online game.

I can even say that no other game is able to capture the feeling of Soldat, as it is one of the most unique games that I've come across. So basically, Soldat holds the monopoly to this genre of games.

What is missing though, is the man power to keep the game running. As soldat is only 1 guy, we can't expect him to be doing much advertising. Therefore, it is up to us to improve the community, as we are the community in itself. In real life, a district that never improves turns into a ghetto, a country that never allows immigrants and trade crumbles. It is the same in Soldat.

Imagine Soldat as a country. In order for a country to recieve immigrants (Newbie players), it must show some form of benefit. Friendly welcomes, attention, and praise for contribution are all something that online players look for in a game. Without these, a player would find his/her "Good feeling" somewhere else.

Personally, I have seen this change lately, and have been working hard on it to keep it alive. My clan, ILOA (www.iloa.us), has a goal. This goal is not to win, but to TEACH. We want to take in the experienced, and allow them to learn the game, recieve priase, and feel welcomed in a closely knit clan. It is this clan that also gave me the impetus to Start on a project for Soldat, which I cannot disclose right now.

Now, solutions. The advertising idea might be great, but it is true that ad banners cost money. But there are other ways. My proposals:

1. Many new players say that the game has bad graphics. As mappers and modder know, that is definitly not true. (MM isn't much of an artist...) I suggest a player based campaign to revamp all default maps, as well as revamping the weapons and gosteks. Afterwards, MM can use these graphics to replace his own.

2. With the moddability of Soldat, we can easily create a much more attractive intro, as well as creating trailers and self hosted banners to increase newbie "wow" factor. Again, MM would add it in if the intro is attractive.

3. Get the word out. Post on forums and invite friends to play together. Accept the fact that they're going to be noobish, and TEACH them how to play.

With these three things, I'm sure Soldat can prosper for a much longer time, and hopefully, this game will be a lasting memory in ourselves, but before that, lets try to improve our beloved game. (Look at Half Life. CS was a modification of half life, and it ended up being more popular, even though it still has the gameplay of Half Life. If players revamped Soldat the same way CS revolutionized Half Life, then Soldat will definitly become a success.)

quote:Originally posted by Chakra`
..I think a good start is if someone made a 'newbie faq' and asked Michal to link it on soldat.pl, right above the downloads link. Something that illustrated the various communities and where to find 'em, general opinions towards weapons and such, and the little quirks in gameplay. Would at least forward those curious enough into the right directions.


I wrote an email about it to michal, like 6 months ago :)
He didn't care for it much I reckon, since he didn't respond.
I wanted to make a guide that will come along with Soldat and will pop up in the first time you open the game, and then you will just be able to access it through the game itself.

You can also add some guidelines and tips to how to conduct yourself in the soldat community in a civilized way.
ALSO explain what each slang word means. some dont even know what "gg" is. they just see others saying it in the end, so they do he same.

It could be a great tool to improve the community, unite it together and alow us to draw much more fun from this 2D simple game.

A... comprehensive Word or HTML downloadable pack with not only detailed instructions on how to get the most out of your game, but strategies and such, could do well.

I did this for the game Liero (hence the name), and wrote the first official Liero Handbok in .doc format. I had so many freaking hits it was nuts.

1) Soldat needs to link its newbies to its veterans more closely.
2) Soldat needs to maintain a large player-base.
What you need to do with these two questions is to define what a perfect newbie would be for Soldat. Those who got experience from other communities from online games mayhaps know that there are many types of people and several types are those who we don't want in the community, namely; griefers, hackers etc etc. Soldat got an "image" to uphold to the outside world aswell as to the inside, while the outside world image is whats inside, what to expect and if its a potential new "home" for the player. The inside world image is what can be changed, what do we want, what do we like, dislike etc, but it also contain what type of players do we have to show the outside to bring in new players. And when the developer uses this as his free time project, with barely any money involved at all, its not all up to him. Ask yourself, why should he care for you or new players? Would you if you were in his shoes?

Lately "some" veterans picked up a corrupted style which has spread like a plauge over IRC and ingame Soldat chats, they lack respect for any living creature but themselves. The true vets however in my eyes don't want that other type of veterans around but what can they do about it. Just as there are many types of newbies, there are many types of veterans. A loyal supporter should ask himself if he supports the game, michael or just his own entertainment. The newbies need to ask themselves, do I have something worthwhile to add to the community or perhaps I just want to entertain myself for a while. While its easier to stand for something negative those who try to make positive suggestions and improvements get beaten down. Why should the positive change the negatives entertainment? Because they want a game for all? Well that doesn't the greedy negative players think of aslong as it fits them.

In my eyes the space between newbie and veteran comes naturally, you get a power structure even if you never asked for it. What is going on however, is when the veterans don't let the "newbies" climb up in the power structure, because of the fear to be pushed off or having too many changes made to their own cost of their own entertainment. Now you shouldn't believe that all veterans try to keep newbies below them, there are many who appreciates dedicated players even if they don't dare to speak up (well maybe they speak but they show no course of action).

Oh and the fact that Soldat is free, lowers the chance to get mature players playing the game. If there was some kind of enforced payment option it could lead to the annoying negative kids leaving while those who really support the game willingly play, help and do their deal for the community.

3) Soldat needs a continuous freshening of gameplay.

I'll compare this to a MMORPG namely UO, which been around since 1997 and is still going strong. Its run today by EA and every player has to pay a monthly sub to play and get frequent updates. That method works.

Another comparison can be made between the Guild Wars method and Soldat. In GW you have to pay one time sum for the game then you get frequent updates, for every new expansion you have to pay another sum to get the new content.

Soldat has no enforced income whatsoever, hence no one should expect constant or frequent updates. End of story. No weapon changes, no UI changes, no nothing. We're at Michaels mercy, if he decides to shut Soldat down, then that will happen. We got nothing to say regarding this. Should be thankfull Michael have been open to a beta test team and a community expansion this large.

Veronica, you've got great points, but while some changes be good, others be bad. A sudden change, such as a sudden monthly fee would kind of ruin the give-it-a-go factor. THere was a well known RPG (can't rememmber the name) which suddenly stopped with its pay-once-play-all-you-want way of things and changed to a monthly fee system. This ultimately and single handedly caused the downfall of that RPG. Only the most hardcore and die hard vets continued with the game, while most left and new players were few and far in between.
Even if there was a 1-3 day trial, there'd be hardly any point to it, considering that players would be coming and going without expanding nor improving the community.

quote:[i]1 is very important, probably even more so than #3. I hate how all the veterans say "Ooh, I've been with Soldat for years ever since its birth. Ph34r m4h 1337ness, n00bs." Quite honestly, I've never seen a game community that shuts its doors so tightly and rudely to new members such as this forum.

There has not been a newbie for over a year, simply because there is no one left to invite. Newbies are the lifeblood of any game. They are essential in keeping the community alive for long periods of time


I must agree with this. >:(
When I was a new member of this forums ...I've got blamed for everything... :(

Layness: Read this , the rest are just comments on the other replies
The only thing that keeps Soldat from growing like a nuke is that it is maintained by one man.
No offense to MM , he's doing a great job , but making a game on your own is a very though job if you also want to maintain a huge community.
I guess that if MM allows some friends (Which he knows personally and live in his neighborhood (not over the internet)) to help him making this game , Soldat would grow alot faster.


Comments on other replies:
The thing about the newbies and the vets: I do not know why it is mentioned here...
If someone starts to play Soldat he/she won't join the forums immediately.
If then , that someone DOES go to our forums he/she probably just reads what's happening instead of posting him/her self.
If the player does post a topic , he/she usually asks a question that should be covered in a Soldat FAQ , with links , not a huge page that looks like a .txt document.
Only players with some experience will show up at the forums and start doing stuff , so I don't know why this subject got mentioned here because it doesn't matter a thing at the moment. I agree that some of you got flamed in the beginnig (I didn't) , but that doesn't stop the growth of Soldat. Besides , not all the vets are vets and not all the vets are rude.

The thing about the payment and trial stuff is going into a good direction.
If Soldat would get a username function , so that someone can register his name (Link name to forums?) and play with it would be a great thing. Hacking will decrease since they'd have to give a valid E-Mail address and their IP/hostnames can be tracked , same for lameness/noobieness etc.
Among the help of MM friends to Soldat this would be the best idea.

Grtz , DePhille

quote:Originally posted by Dairyquote:[i]1 is very important, probably even more so than #3. I hate how all the veterans say "Ooh, I've been with Soldat for years ever since its birth. Ph34r m4h 1337ness, n00bs." Quite honestly, I've never seen a game community that shuts its doors so tightly and rudely to new members such as this forum.

There has not been a newbie for over a year, simply because there is no one left to invite. Newbies are the lifeblood of any game. They are essential in keeping the community alive for long periods of time


I must agree with this. >:(
When I was a new member of this forums ...I've got blamed for everything... :(





Well so far i haven't been flamed for much at all, but I have still noticed how much some of the veterans act like elitist F[CENSORED]s

quote:Originally posted by Dairyquote:[i]1 is very important, probably even more so than #3. I hate how all the veterans say "Ooh, I've been with Soldat for years ever since its birth. Ph34r m4h 1337ness, n00bs." Quite honestly, I've never seen a game community that shuts its doors so tightly and rudely to new members such as this forum.

There has not been a newbie for over a year, simply because there is no one left to invite. Newbies are the lifeblood of any game. They are essential in keeping the community alive for long periods of time


I must agree with this. >:(
When I was a new member of this forums ...I've got blamed for everything... :(



When I was a newbie here, I didnt have much problem with being put down by the oldies and vets 'round here. o.o;

Also, there needs to be a way for newbie (and others) to get their maps tested. A testing server which would take almost any map and hold it on the map list for a week or two would be perfect.

Me any many people should be trying to get others to play the game. Its a great game and better then alot of the games out there that you must buy to play. If this game needed to be bought to play there would be very few people playing it since there is 3d games, first person shooters and stuff like that.
Newbies are the lifeblood like he said, Ive goten 3 people playing this game and 2 of them relly like it. One of them is going to register so im happy with that :)

Oh, and before i forget i must say, NEWBS ROCK. What do you think you have to be before you stop being called a noob? I have been playing for a mounth and a half last year and a mounth this year and continueing to play through this next mounth. Am I considered a newb? Im not sure because Im surprised that i still havent learned alot of stuff in the game probely because i quit for a year because i had soo many other stuff to do and forgot alot about things in soldat :)

Well if you want to ask.
In Pre 1.2.1 version soldat was harder to master.
Thus n00bs were just the ones who played very bad, no one dares yell "n00b" at someone that just owned him. (I'm not talking about a camper in a public)

Today it has a different meaning I guess, since everyone is calling others n00bs , soldat is so easy that you can "master" it in a month, so n00b has nothing to do with your skills anymore.

quote:Originally posted by Extacide
When I was a newbie here, I didnt have much problem with being put down by the oldies and vets 'round here. o.o;


Who says you aren't new anymore? You've been here for what, 5 months? New. And posting a lot won't make you any less new.

quote:Originally posted by MichalI think Soldat just needs to be advertised more...
Whenever I tell someone about Soldat, they have never heard of it. So they most likely assume it's no good.

i know what you mean. i invited a friend to try it, and he complained because he want it to be more like CS or Halo. i think that he can just stick that crap right now. this is a free game that is really fun, and i think he doesn't want to like it.

also, i think as long as things keep coming that are new and change the game, a lot of people (myself included) will stay interested in it. One of my favorite things right now is the weapons modding system. If that were to be further built upon, we could have a long time before people become uninterested in this game. The community is a major part of this too, i agree. one thing that bothers me is a particular veteran modder would not even offer and positive comments on a mod that i made, and i think if people get that negativity in other areas of the forums (being called a n00b) will keep them from playing soldat.

On a somewhat related note, the friend is on dialup, and was probably too stupid to figure out how to play online games.

Hurr, I'd have ter'agree with nfs. My friends seem to hate soldat just because, well, because they hate it. They don't exactly give a reason, but I guess it's the 2d thing.
I don't mind. I don't really like talking about games, or computers, for that matter.

What Soldat really needs is open source moddability.

Open sourcing would just lead to hacks.

soldat does need advertisement, or something. the biggest problem i see is just getting someone to download the game. i talk my friends into going to the site to download the game and i either get a "no way" as soon as they see the site or they give up at the soldat mirrors. granded, as long as you're not mentally handicaped or riddled with ADD you should be able to download and play the game no problem, but you have to admit you do have to jump through a lot of hoops just to download the game. here's an example of of the download being too "difficult": http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/index.php?fn=view_thread&t=431541&p=4 another problem i see often is a buggy install. check the link: http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/index.php?fn=view_thread&t=431541&p=16


the game gets old fast, or so i'm told. it's like they don't realize that you can play the game online. i think we need a promotional video we can pass around the net that shows all the fast paced online play. something that plays in a web browser, not a compressed file that requires unzipping. if you're going to do that then just download the game.

Advertising costs money. Either way, if Michal M wants to spread the word of this game in a way other than word from mouth, then he's going to need to bite the bullet sooner or later...

soldat is a shareware game, and michael, of course (not to crack on mm), probably does not want to have to pay for his game to be seen, since it is a shareware program. In my mind, i think he should bite the bullet, like captain ben said, because we all know and love this game, and we dont want it dieing anytime soon, which i dont think will happen soon. MM has spent alot of time on his game, and if i were him, i would spend the small amounts of money to get your game noticed on gameing sites etc. etc.

On Topic: The idea of the "main" lobby where people can chat and talk and such, would be a great asset to the game. Like what swarmer said, the "n00b" and the "veteran" can get to know eachother, you can make friends, and it would be a sort of, ide say, small chat room with 1 or 2 rooms in it to talk about soldat, set up clan wars etc. My vision of this is still the un-organized version of what it should look like. The game does need to be noticed. Ive been playing soldat since the begining of, ide say 2003, and not once have i seen the "n00b" stop playing after about a few months. What happens when they leave, i do not know, boredism, is my best guess, but that is why we need some "bigger" changes to the online community and some other in game opportunities. Many people do not realize the benefits of the online community. You get great help, and if your new yuo can introduce yourself to the veterans and other new players that are just joining. The ingame chat room idea would serve as a good addition to this probelm also, because alot of the new players do not know about the soldat forums the first time they play, but when they open up the game, and see the chat room, they can get info, and talk to people etc. etc.

Soldat managed to grow just fine without advertising.
And the fact is, new ppl are still trying the game today.
In the past the majority stayed.
Today the precentage of those who stay is declining, it has nothing to do with advertisment.
It a direct result of the game, the community and what they had become:

P.S: why does captain ben has a picture of Darknoddy in his sig!??!?! and who the hell is captain ben?!!?

Soldat is fine, its all this damn changing thats gonna corrupt soldat.

quote:Originally posted by reckonOpen sourcing would just lead to hacks.
I disagree - while open source may lead to more holes in Soldat being exploited, who would honestly have the time to read through all that source code in order to exploit a game which has a few thousand players at the most? Cheaters at the moment can write their own cheats without source-code. I think if Soldat was open-sourced, then it would be less vulnerable - someone with a lot of time on their hands could patch holes and bugs or write a better cheat-protection system.

However, I don't think papasurf31 meant releasing the source code, just being able to write scripts in order to mod Soldat, much like what is possible with the Half-Life and Half-Life 2 engines.

--

I don't think Soldat needs any advertising, either. I think it has more to do with the fact that Soldat is quite simple compared to most games. In fact, I've seen a lot more new players over the last two or three versions and the game has gotten some attention from the media.

However, after a few years, the game can get repetitive, mainly due to the fact that the only gamemodes I usually see are DM or CTF, with at the most 15 TDM, HTF, PM or RM servers. The game gets boring and repetitive, and people end up not playing. So really, the solution is more variety. Despite the low number of servers, TDM, HTF, PM and RM are good game modes. As are survival and realistic modes.

[/random bull[CENSORED]]

Yeah, after reading that and having more insight, it would be nice to see the soldat engine applied to different types of games.
A melee game would be nice.

quote:Originally posted by Okquote:
It could be a great tool to improve the community, unite it together and alow us to draw much more fun from this 2D simple game.


[quote][i]Originally posted by Ok
and who the hell is captain ben?!!?


Way to contradict yourself.
THere's a prime example of veterans towards new people. Although I may not exactly be new, I'm not a vet either.
Ok, aside from the retardedity you just displayed, you're very wrong. While Soldat managed to 'grow just fine' through word word of mouth and googling, I think you of all people remember when Soldat was advertised in a PC magazine, the number of players suddenly soared.

Awww Frogboy, you made an opinion! and with paragraphs and everything. Thats so cute ^_^


..but yeah. What everyone said. Good points.


So now what?

We should do something about it?

Uh....huh.

Like?

I'M WORKING ON IT!
Aside from Michal M advertising, I'd say that we'd have to get everyone here, new or 'vet' to drop all grudges they have, offer to help other players when they ask (or it's obvious that they need help in some way) and generally be friendly. In my view, guides or more in depth FAQs should be made that are interesting to read (so they get read) that also contain strategies and the like.
So I guess I better bite the bullet and be a nice and helpful Soldaten pirate.
But that's just me, what do you say on the subject?

[CENSORED] knows guv. As many people have suggested or noted, the community has become divided. How do you conjoin seperate communities and 'sub-cultures' into a whole, and not only that, but illustrate the path towards it for newcomers to be welcomed?

And not only that either...we're talking about changing and being more thoroughly dismissive of the negative characters within the community that alienate others. Trolls, angry players, anti sprayers and anti campers and so on....it ain't as easy as just saying "alright fella's, calm down."


My answer? religion. :)

I never said it would be easy. Or hard either, but take your pick: will it be HARD OR EASY?
It depends on cooperation. Maybe we could just ask everyone to do this, and maybe they would, but I highly doubt that it would ever happen that easily.

Personally, I think a lot of forumers and non forumers alike should pull their heads in, but that's just me. Arrr.

quote:If Soldat were to become primarily online oriented, the community would be much tighter. This would be accomplished by adding in a central ?lobby? (or, depending on the population, several lobbies), where all players could chat. By giving a location to players to be when outside of gameplay, the community is greatly enhanced. By simply letting everyone chat together brings out much more identity in each player.
Nonono, this would be very bad, the community doesn't need to be centralized, it should be spread out, spreading out makes sure it's not the same people running things everywhere, it gives new people, new clans, a chance to play without being in the veteran world, it allows them to take some iniatives of their own. Not so much an inner cirkle in which you plunge by joining but gradually evolution from someone who likes to beat his friend in this funny little game to someone investing time in the community.

Spreading gives air to the community. People need to discover [CENSORED] for themselves, start out ideas they have (clans, features, maps, sites, tournaments) instead of being overwhelmed by players with much more experience then theirs that take the game way more serious then they do. That's suffocating.

The community should be dynamic not static, a static community can easily be destroyed while a dynamic community might be less tight, but is stronger in the long run, because it evolves at 20 different places so it doesn't matter if a couple of ends run death.

quote:Originally posted by Chakra`Awww Frogboy, you made an opinion! and with paragraphs and everything. Thats so cute ^_^
...I did?

quote:Originally posted by Captain Benquote:Originally posted by Okquote:
It could be a great tool to improve the community, unite it together and alow us to draw much more fun from this 2D simple game.


quote:Originally posted by Ok
and who the hell is captain ben?!!?


Way to contradict yourself.
THere's a prime example of veterans towards new people. Although I may not exactly be new, I'm not a vet either.
Ok, aside from the you just displayed, you're very wrong. While Soldat managed to 'grow just fine' through word word of mouth and googling, I think you of all people remember when Soldat was advertised in a PC magazine, the number of players suddenly soared.



sigh what an idiot.
I'm asking who you are, and you're cursing me??
Why can't you just say "I am [name/irc nick/ ingamenick"] and get it over with.
I was wondering how you got Darknoddy's picture since I don't know you as an IRC guy (which is where he posted it like 3-4 days ago)

This is the just like those idiots who yell "n00b" to those who kill them ingame another "newbie" with low self esteam that feels a need to attack you because you're such a "mean mean veteren that thinks he's god"

And here's a prime example of a "newbie" or whatever u call yourself that turns right to cursing and makes Soldat into 1 kiddie cursing world.

And about the "retardedity" of my post, no one said anything about the efficincy of advertisments, I was saying its not the lack of it that 'causes player to LEAVE the game.
Which is the main problem of soldat today, the community isn't growning as it used to be.

Advertising will bring more ppl, but it wont solve the main problem. After all we also want them to stay.


quote:[i]Originally posted by Chakra`Awww Frogboy, you made an opinion! and with paragraphs and everything. Thats so cute ^_^


..but yeah. What everyone said. Good points.


So now what?


Now nothing as usual.
Lots of talking, lots of opinions, its all great.
Veronica makes plenty of great opinions, so does chakra, so many others who have been here for ages.
But you need to understand that they won't do jack [CENSORED] and you need to move your ass and do something yourself. or gather together with your eagerness for soldat and make something together.
You'll be surprised how easly you can make something official just by doing it good.

And following today's line of thought: you'll probably get fame and respect from others if you'll become a head of something official.

So there! you have all the motivation you need! gogogo power ranger!

Ok, last time I checked, 'Way to contradict yourself' wasn't a curse. Atleast, not in my books.
For the last month or so, I've been active in IRC and I can say that I got the picture of Dark Noddy here. Now the funny thing is, you are a prime example of what I was and still is saying. If you looked at the above where I'm quoted by you, you're saying 'It could be a great tool to improve the community, unite it together and alow us to draw much more fun from this 2D simple game.'
I pulled that from somewhere within this thread. Sure, you said that you're wanting a closer community (summarising), and then you totally ruin what you say by going 'and who the hell is captain ben!??!' Sure, you might not know who I am, I wouldn't be surprised if you've never seen me before on these forums (somehow), but it's that way you wrote it down. Out of all the ways you could have said it, you had to write it in a way that you'd feel and/or look superior. Why not ask (in a less arse-like way), 'I haven't seen you around, who are you exactly?', etc.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not offended nor searching for sympathy, but then you suddenly begin jumping to conclusions by saying that ingame, I get killed by new players and scream 'n00b' at them.
Maybe it's because I'm such a 'mean, mean vet who thinks he's God'.
And since I'm also 'self admittedly' a 'newb', I turn straight to cursing and, even though ten seconds ago I was a 'mean, mean vet'.

Lately you've been ranting about how Soldat is changing and there's no respect. Me (as you said, 'what an idiot.'), thinks you might be part of the problem.

Sigh, this could another flame thread, like all turn into these days, where you say something that I see as total crap, and I say something that you see as total crap.

I called you an idiot, because that's how I see someone who curse me for being just VERY VERY surprised about something.(yes calling my words retarded is offensive and much more then just calling me a retard as I see it)

But the following can be served as an example of how I once used to deal with guys like you.
here we go:
I'm sorry if you miss understood me, I've seen your posts for a million times (some of them were suportive, some offensive, I don't know you for your soldat identaty, I only know who you are.
I saw you sig, wich is rather new, and was just REALLY REALLY surprised as to how you got it (thinking the "transvestite" aka Darknoddy only published it on IRC).
So, what came up to my mind is that you actualy might be someone that I've known for some time from the IRC community (like only recently I found out Veronica is Ladymeow from IRC aka Vampire princess).
So my response was a normal surprised phrased of "who the [CENSORED] is this?" , that often is used as a bad context, though can be used as just a surprised one.
So I'm sorry if you got offended, didn't mean to do that, there was no need to call me names.

NOW! in the past, this solved so many arguments, before they even started! today? you'll either get kicked/flamed more or just laughed at.
So I don't do that anymore, because its useless and does not result to nothing.

Not to mention that in both cases my thoughts were the same "god, what an idiot".

So don't give me crap about me being the problem because I was teaching newbies how to play soldat on publics just for fun before you even knew about soldat.
I spent hours of my time teaching strangers, giving them links, trying to get others to stop cursing those who ask "how do I throw a nade" and actualy try and help them.
I spent hours of my time writing scripts, publishing a soldat radio and advertising other projects that had nothing to do with me so the soldat community will unite just a bit.
I made a hall of fame inorder to give the new guys a chance to see and talk to oldies, I gave everyone the right to speak and offer their opinions to create a healthy discussion betwin new players and old ones.
In my own Israel community I even tried to unite them by orginizing national team tests so that the israeli community will get into the world wide one, and will get more invloved.
There was a period when I even had TAUNTS! that gave tips in soldat CTF!
In the past kids used to either say "ty" or shut up and ignore it.
Today the best I'll get is "Don't tell me how to play [CENSORED]er".
The wrose is someone trying to ban/kick me.

You don't know me, you don't know what I did, so don't give me crap OK!?!?!?!?
I did more then I should have, and the reason I stopped is ungratefull guys like you!!

I'm starting to understand why Flieslikeabrick can be so touchy sometimes <_<
[CENSORED]ing ungratfull brats!!!!

OK, im am in love with you, i so see what your saying lol, you try to give help, then, people were thankfull, now everyone is too cocky to care i love you all but really grow up, and this is coming from a 15 year old. period.

Guys, try to stay on topic. Can't you 2 just realize that communicating on the internet might cause miscommunication sometimes?

Anyways:
I think advertising wouldn't be too hard. It won't cost TOO much money. MM could post a thread or announcement asking for donations. I'm sure he'd get enough to do some banner ads on some smaller gaming sites or some place. Well, how DO small games get advertised these days? I dunno much about it, but I don't think money is too big of an issue if we all help out. MM would also get more money from registrations from some new players.

I think Soldat needs a nicer looking website. Websites with black backgrounds rarely look too professional...
I think it should be the color of the forums. Someone should be the webmaster.

So this is what we should start doing:
- Revamp the website (with more descriptive and current screenshots).
- Make a short promotional video that can be played on the website.
- Contact MM about advertising and donations.
- Contact MM about a possible development team and/or begin research on the complicated coding stuff we mentioned.

ONTOPIC: all we can really do is talk about and discuss what would help and benefit this game, but it really doesnt mean anything unless MM does somthing about, because he is the creator of this game. Without his concent, the game sint going anywhere, which is why we should get ideas from this forum, and people that know him personally should talk to him and forward the ideas to him. Unless MM sees our posts, and sees what could help this game, he should probably consider it.

quote:Originally posted by SwarmerSoldat has all the qualities of a thriving game: a large but close community, a supportive fan base, competitive players, and of course, excellent gameplay. However, I do not expect that Soldat?s prosperity will be long lived. I imagine that within three years, if Soldat continues as it is at a constant rate, the community will diminish to a small player-base of veterans only. Newbies that play longer than a few months will be extremely rare. The player-base will be reduced to only a few loyal veterans, who play mainly for nostalgia.




This is the problem you stated.
Now you talk about advertisment.
Look back dude, soldat didn't start yesterday not a month ago not a year ago.
It started more then 3 years ago, actualy, alot more.
Within 3 years it grew communities, national and international.
Leagues, tournies, cups, it even has its own SPONSERS for crying out loud.
Which increased the growth rate.
The question you need to ask yourself (or rather more some of the obejctives) is WHY did it grow?
There were HARDLY any advertisments.
yet it just kept growing!
And today, when its advertised the most and has a huge community with more then enough resources, servers, leagues , cups, radio, gathers.
ALL! are much more stable, orginized , and well established.
YET, you're stating a problem that soldat will deminish!?
Ask yourself WHY? what is so different?
1- Did we reach the maximum amount of ppl in the world capable of enjoying Soldat?

2- Did the game Soldat became more doll and boring by its base?

3- Did it became too outdated? too old?

1- No, we haven't soldat barely holds thousands in its ranks.
2- Soldat has everything it had before and MORE exciting features.
3- a 2D game was "outdated" and too simple even 6 years ago.

Ask yourseld and ponder that question, because you can advertise all you want, the sindrom of ppl trying to game for a month or 2 and then leaving it won't stop , advertising only bring more ppl into something, it doesnt keep them into it.

Its not a problem of ppl leaving, ppl will always leave the game for something else, its a matter of ratio, Incoming vs Outgoing.
There is no doubt that there are more incomers than there used to be.

Question is, why are there so many outgoings? advertisment won't solve it, because eventualy the advertisment itself will only do harm once Soldat will have a bad Tag to it and then you can kiss it good bye.

Solve the problem from its core, don't just try to cover the side effects.

Soldat grew simply because it is a good game. People tell others how fun it was, and the word spreads. Everyone likes it and plays it. It's success is not unusual seeing how it is a good game. It is thriving, and will continue to thrive for quite a while.

The problem here is that we are not looking broadly enough. A few years of prosperity is great, yes, but over quite a while of time things will start going downhill. Every game will have it's peak population time, but after that, it very slowly diminishes into a forgotten game. I know this becuase I've experienced it. Think about the example I gave in the first post. The game was thriving, just like Soldat, and now no one's even heard of it. It happens. I have confidence that Soldat will last much longer, but in order to do so we have to be active about it.

I don't think I made this point clear: we should advertise only when we are ready to accept the large influx of newbies. This means to wait until we have some sort of chat system or buddy list thing implemented. Right NOW the problem isn't population. The problem at this moment is newbie vs veteran relationships. This can be solved with a more community oriented environment for Soldat, like the chat system. When that happens, you add in advertising, rake in a lot of newbies, and they enjoy it and make a lot of friends. That generation of players will be the lifeblood that keeps Soldat alive for the remainder of its life.

I guess it sounds pretty complicated and vague, and it's not as bad as it seems. All I am saying is that we need to focus interactions of players.

Ok, sorry if I offended you, i'll try to tone things down.
First of all, I've never been aware of half the things you've done, aside from the Soldat Hall of Fame and Soldat Radio, but you'd be surprised, because in game I actually do try to help, sure people might sling isnults at me for theinking they're 'n00bish', to tell the truth, I don't care, but I get al little satisfaction from helping. As I've never used the taunts (and I doubt I never will), I was never that serious. I gave links and offered to help when other wouldn't, so I wouldn't go to at lenghs to say that I'm an ungrateful brat. But hey, that's just me.
Now look at the post where 'the following can be served as an example of how I once used to deal with guys like you.' Now, you're awfully quick to generalize, I have no qualms against you, but you keep saying, 'why do you call me names?' and then jump in, all sudden and aggresively and call me a [CENSORED]ing ungrateful brat.

I'm saying this the best way I can Ok, get your [CENSORED] together. Sure, you've done heaps for the community, but you're going to ruin it all if you keep ranting like this.

P.S Spread the love :)

On a side note, I'm fairly sure Michal said a few months ago that if someone wanted to offer doing a new website design for him, he was all up for it.

Given that, if someone started a little 'FAQ thread' on commonly asked questions and things you think the average newb should be aquainted with knowing, I wouldn't be suprised if, when complete, Michal'd slap it on his site for ya.

Michal is a very responsive person to talk to, so feel free to if you think you've got something to offer and help.

quote:Originally posted by Okquote:Originally posted by SwarmerSoldat has all the qualities of a thriving game: a large but close community, a supportive fan base, competitive players, and of course, excellent gameplay. However, I do not expect that Soldat?s prosperity will be long lived. I imagine that within three years, if Soldat continues as it is at a constant rate, the community will diminish to a small player-base of veterans only. Newbies that play longer than a few months will be extremely rare. The player-base will be reduced to only a few loyal veterans, who play mainly for nostalgia.




This is the problem you stated.
Now you talk about advertisment.
Look back dude, soldat didn't start yesterday not a month ago not a year ago.
It started more then 3 years ago, actualy, alot more.
Within 3 years it grew communities, national and international.
Leagues, tournies, cups, it even has its own SPONSERS for crying out loud.
Which increased the growth rate.
The question you need to ask yourself (or rather more some of the obejctives) is WHY did it grow?
There were HARDLY any advertisments.
yet it just kept growing!
And today, when its advertised the most and has a huge community with more then enough resources, servers, leagues , cups, radio, gathers.
ALL! are much more stable, orginized , and well established.
YET, you're stating a problem that soldat will deminish!?
Ask yourself WHY? what is so different?
1- Did we reach the maximum amount of ppl in the world capable of enjoying Soldat?

2- Did the game Soldat became more doll and boring by its base?

3- Did it became too outdated? too old?

1- No, we haven't soldat barely holds thousands in its ranks.
2- Soldat has everything it had before and MORE exciting features.
3- a 2D game was "outdated" and too simple even 6 years ago.

Ask yourseld and ponder that question, because you can advertise all you want, the sindrom of ppl trying to game for a month or 2 and then leaving it won't stop , advertising only bring more ppl into something, it doesnt keep them into it.

Its not a problem of ppl leaving, ppl will always leave the game for something else, its a matter of ratio, Incoming vs Outgoing.
There is no doubt that there are more incomers than there used to be.

Question is, why are there so many outgoings? advertisment won't solve it, because eventualy the advertisment itself will only do harm once Soldat will have a bad Tag to it and then you can kiss it good bye.

Solve the problem from its core, don't just try to cover the side effects.




so do you suggest keeping the focus on keeping players in soldat rather than putting an emhasis on attracting new lots of new players? i can't say i agree. there will always be a percentage of gamers out there that will fall in love with a game like soldat and others who would not. exposing soldat to an many new players as we can will increase the number of players playing beyond a few months as well. you can't have hard-core soldat fans unless new palyers are introduced to the game. it's simple, you won't have much of a fanbase unless new players are being brought into the game.

lets face it, soldat main sucks. that page does not do this game justice. once you've selected your language you're greeted by this: http://www.soldat.pl/main.php
most players are not going to go over to the download page and dowload the game unless they have some idea as to whether or not they are going to like the game. at this point soldat relies of word-of-mouth to get the newbie to take that extra step and download the game. i'm ashamed to say it, but it took a lot of convincing for me to download the game. i kept going over to the main page and "eh, this looks like crap". sorry, but what is displayed on soldat main does not make the game look very good, at all. jebus, i didn't even know the game could be played online untill had the game on my hard drive for a few months. at the very least MM could put up a promotional/trailer video (something that plays in putfile or similar host) so you can get a little convincing before you make that next step to download the game.

i'm also told that the game is fun but gets old fast. i'm not sure why, but it's real easy to over look the fact that this game can be played online. like i said eariler, for the first month i thought all there was to soldat was bot killing. get a promotional video linked to a new and improved soldat main and make the online play known. if MM needs advertising $ then he can start up a fund and i'm sure we'll have no promblem getting the $ he needs.

Isn't it a little bit shallow just to look at the webpage and then judge, www.uo.com has been around for YEARS and its a horrible webpage but it does its purpose. Shallow people are likely to try out every game that got a kick ass website and that might aswell make them game hoppers which are just a waste of data on the internet. Soldat outgrew what it could handle allready, the tools to handle this large community just doesn't exist to the limit which is needed. I would wait for better tools ingame to handle the masses instead of luring more people into the allready tight sheep pen

Sure it could mean they are shallow. Either way, they're not going to be playing the game, which is not what we want.
It could also mean they are busy, or they have better things to do.

Here's the typical situation: some guy is playing counterstrike. He get's and IM and his screen minimizes. He gets annoyed. The IM is from someone he kinda knows, and all it says is "www.soldat.pl". He ignores it and resumes his game. At the end of a round, he decides to take a quick break. He clicks on the link, sees an uninteresting webpage, closes the IM window, and goes back to playing CS.
It needs a catchy, professional looking webpage that makes vistors think: "sweet, I gotta try this out!".

Well, I understand your claims and reasons.
I somehow get the feeling you don't really expirience soldat fully, which could be the reason to why you go to the path of advertisments and "public relations"
When I first saw soldat, it wasn't a webpage, it was a friend who showed me the game and nagged me to play it.
I first saw a 2D game, which automaticly ruined the impresion, Soldat is NOT beautifull, it is NOT attractive too look at NO matter how you look at it.

Its a 2D game, made by 1 person.

Once upon a time I was asked by an Israeli portal of games (who also hosts servers) to write a summery about the game in hebrew.
In the past I also wrote a guide to Soldat in Hebrew, I believe I still have it.

I noticed that within a month it went through channels and the israeli community started reading it and actualy learn from it.

Now that had nothing to do with fancy webpages, nor with a fancy screenshots or videos.
Because I did not post any.

Soldat is (or atleast was) great for its fan base and its foundations.
The game itself offers alot of options due to its simplicity. (Just like you can make more colors with just Blue, Yellow and Red than with 10 other colors)

What I actualy wrote in the Portal was about the communities and the fun that all types find in Soldat, I explained how it can be either just a game you randomly play and enjoy in public servers or even a fully orginized clan with lots of opponents to play against in orginized leagues and cups, I talked (pationatly) about how much fun it is to see so much actions in just 1 screen in this 2D game, of how the community can make the game much more alive then it is, how it is more involved and can influence the game itself unlike other games that are controled by mega corporations.

These are the things that attract ppl into this "ugly" 2D game, it took tons of nagging from my friend's side to convince me to even try the game, and that was because he enjoyed playing it with his friends and got so much fun out of it in the proccess that he was passionate enough to convince me.

Others who are just willing to try it, will need someone to explain to them what is there more to this game , besides shooting ppl while seeing blood come out of them with low quality yelling sounds.

So what I think would be best as you said indeed to create a connection betwin newbies and veterans, but not a random one, a well orginized one.

Which means, open a chat system lobby (finding a host server for that will be ultra easy with today's resources).
Create a section for "Newbies" have ops there that their sole job will be to explain and assist the new guys with everything they want, ingame basic tips, how to do things how to solve known soldat problems, how to get around, and what is that or that or whatever they ask for.

IRC is NOT! the place for that, you need it to be an ingame built in chat.
As for the FAQ, that's not a best name for it really, since I rarely read FAQ's untill I hit a problem, it should be "The hitchhicker's guide to Soldat" or something like that :P
Something attractive that will get those news guys to wonder "what's that" and go in and read it.

If I had time (and will) I would start work on that kind of guide, but allas I don't.
And I doubt someone who never even used taunts can be a guide to a CTF match or the world wide world, it needs to be someone who've been around enough to see and know what there is to know (because you can't expect someone to know everything, but you can expect someone to know how to find out).

And we hit the same problem again, who will do it? if you're eager enough you're probably not qualified to do it, and if you are qualified you probably can't be arsed *points at Chakra*

But I guess any attempt and effort will be appreciated, so again START something, DO something.
Ask for help or something, but be productive and start it .

quote:Originally posted by VeronicaIsn't it a little bit shallow just to look at the webpage and then judge, www.uo.com has been around for YEARS and its a horrible webpage but it does its purpose. Shallow people are likely to try out every game that got a kick ass website and that might aswell make them game hoppers which are just a waste of data on the internet. Soldat outgrew what it could handle allready, the tools to handle this large community just doesn't exist to the limit which is needed. I would wait for better tools ingame to handle the masses instead of luring more people into the allready tight sheep pen


i can't agree with your anology. tools? "tight sheep pen"? we have 200 some servers on an average day. that may seem like a lot but that number is alarmingly low for a free 10MB online game such as soldat. it should be much, much larger than that. as OK said soldat relies word of mouth to spread and IMO that is a horrble way to spread the game. it's lazy, cheap and this game deserves better.

i don't know what to think of OK's idea. i don't participate in the community outside of the soldat forums so i don't have much of a perspective on this. i love soldat but i have no desire to participate in the comunity unless it has some impact in game development (IE: weapon balance discussion and beta testing). it's my belief that the majority of players, particularly new players, don't really care about the community. this is not to say that the community isn't important, but that expanding it to include new players would acomplish little. on top of this, the soldat community does not accurately represent the fan base and i believe soldat's future is in an expanding fan base, or the number of avid players out there. expanding the community IS important, but i don't think it is nearly as important as introducing new players to the game.

@ok: yes, I would agree that the website has nothing to do with how fun the game is, but the point is that it wouldn't hurt to make the game more attractive. We've all heard testimonies of peoples friends who didn't think twice about leaving the webpage, and there's defintely countless more similar stories. People started playing this game for different reasons, but every single person who play this game becuase the website made it look cool is not playing it. And they are plenty of those people.

@algernon: the community doesn't seem crucial at this moment, but a chat system would create an entirely new community. It would be far from the same.
Here is the trick: Put the server list and chat room on the same screen. Make the servers graphical: like make each one represented by a big colorful button with the name of it nearby, and a button that gives a dropdown of the server information, such as the players in it. In this way, it would make the game feel like it was a place to hang out first and talk to friends, and if you want, you can all jump in and play a game. This would make the community so much more.

In my opinion, there should be a much wider language selection for the Soldat homepage, Currently the only current language options are: English, Polish, German, Russian, Estonian, Swedish and Hebrew. This would make it hard for someone who is unable to read any of these languages, and is given the link, Soldat.pl. This would be a major problem for asian players, considering that most asian teenagers, would not posess the English reading skills to comprehend the entire Soldat website. Not to mention many of the alternative language options(German, Russian, Estonian, Swedish and Hebrew) are not updated regulary. New language options should be something along the lines of:
Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, French, Spanish and Vietnamese.

And in response to Ok's idea of connecting up experienced players with newbies, it is a good idea, but a Chat in the Soldat lobby would most definately go totaly downhill, you would have idiots joining and spamming like hell until an Op bans them or something. A much better alternative would to include the option of connecting to a Soldat help channel via Jirc, thus making it easier for newbies to connect and keeps out the idiots, who would connect via the "Soldat lobby chat".

I dont think spamming would be a problem. A spam filter is easy to implement. Most chat rooms have it so you cant say too many things too fast. And I'm sure that with a universal location, there will always be several moderators on.

Well, spamming is just one of the many problems of having an ingame chat room to help newbies. Even if there are several moderators on at the same time, being in a universal location, it would make it easier for players to join the chat room, and start insulting other players in the chat room, and generally waste everybody's time, with ungenuine calls for support.
Whereas, if newer players were to connect to an IRC channel via a Jirc client on the Soldat homepage, being in a 'not-so public area' it would get less bull[CENSORED] from idiots and Moderators and Op's will be online almost all hours of the day.

I dont fully understand why everyone says it is a free game, are you not registered? It's shareware game and the best way to improve soldat is to register, let Michal get some money for his effort to inspire him to make some amazing changes and perhaps earn more money! I registered a few days after downloading the game (pre 1.2) and believe that I have honestly helped the process. If you're too cheap to save up $9 to register, which isn't a lot of money, then how can you expect days of programming to go into the game for improvements?

On the other hand if there's no changes to the game soon there may not be any more people to register, perhaps what is required is a bigger carrot to dangle (ie. something fantastic for registered users, other than interfaces and coloured jets).

So I guess it's really a catch-22, Soldat needs improvements to get people registered and it needs registered people to inspire Michal to make improvements.

I approve of the lobby chat idea.

i agree, leaving more of a carrot out 4 registerd users would make more un regged players want to register. The few things you get for registering arent that amazing, and paying 9$ for it, most people dont really care. So, IMO, i agree that we need to get more people to register, but it still wouldnt solce this bigger probelm. And yes, i still do approve the of that room idea. @ The spamming problem: there will always be spammers, there are spammers in every caht room, and every game, but we all have learned to deal with it, which is why if we have the chat room, you'd have to deal with it. Not everytime you go in there, people will be falming eachother etc. etc. If you dont like what you are reading then you can simply exit out. There should be more then one caht room thoguh, on different topics, because then that would lessen the chances of seeing or getting anoyed by a spammer. Also, jsut add a goddam spam filter, thats the easyiest thing to do. Just like on aim, that's perfect for chat rooms etc.

Rabble, as I said before, Spamming in the room's isn't the only major problem that we, a community would encounter if an in-game chat room was to be enabled. Also, I don't know what kind of chat rooms you go to, but the ones I join on a daily basis rarely have spammers because there is not much public advertisment for the channel. Not to mention the people in there are nice and the Op's usually have a fair judgement and will not ban you over something stupid(most of the time). If in-game chat rooms were implemented, the channel/room would be hecktic. Idiots will join, annoy you, start really annoying arguments, then leave(if not kicked/banned) on a constant basis, and there would most definately be more than one person doing this; players who have just been temporarily banned from servers and want to pass the time and very bored players would do these kinds of things. It's those kinds of things that a Spam filter cannot simply filter out.

It is much much, simpler to have a Jirc client on the Soldat homepage, for Michal and the community(the IRC community in particular). It could connect up to a Soldat help channel on Quakenet, where many Soldat based Channels are already established. This way, Michal would not have to spend time implementing an in-game chat system, and could just put another Jirc client on the Soldat homepage.

Chakra banned me because he wanted to have a special moment with amblin to ask him to make him an admin. How is that for a power hungry people using brit :)
And the funny thing is, nobody unbanned me for an hour, with atleast 6 more ops there, mostly present :|
So all you people complaining, I bet you do the same things you complain about, just not as regurarly as the people you complain about. I know Ok does too.
And I'm sure most others do too. Now, this is nice, a bunch of hypocrites arguing and whining about the community, whereas themselves do the SAME things they [CENSORED]ing complain about. How is that for a closure?

Outcast is partly right there, there are people talking yet working opposit what they say. So maybe the best thing before anyone propose changes should be to clean out our own closets first ;)

You can clean out my closet anyday luv ;)




(talking to Outcast)

Clean it yourself, I've got you figured out ;)

quote:Originally posted by LazehBoiquote:Originally posted by .alex.oner.i havent read any of that.. but if you have THAT much time to write that whole essay just about the future of soldat.. err, get a life? :/

I think you should be the one spending more time in the life you supposedly have and less of it here, sir.

Aaanyway, I agree with Lieroguy, i've thought that way for a while now, strangely enough.


yes, thats why i write essays about a online game, and i never leave the house and spend about 11 hours on the computer everyday! im so cool with my internet soldat friends lolz!

OH my, dear old outcast.

So someone banned u because you hacked the TNL forums.
So someone banned you because you abused your ops on Soldat Radio (Your [CENSORED]list is NOT a reason to ban someone)
So someone banned you because you just can't let 2 ppl have a discussion without you flaming them.
Get over yourself and understand you can't do those stuff, not even if you are the mighty "Outcast".
God help us with Outcast ey ;)

Besides, I'm sure you look mighty fine in a maid's uniform :)
You should give it a try.

Back on topic, the chat room is a problem just like anyother , ops can have bad judgment and new players can spam.
But if you get proper ops I don't think there will be a problem.
The chat rooms is NOT meant to make friends, its meant for newbies to get realtime assitance and explaination about stuff they wonder without them having to know the forums and be in contact with hostile aliens (mean mean veterans like me :) hehe..)

The point is that they will get an immidiate response from expirienced players who can pin point the great things about soldat and shad the spot light on them, rather then letting them find it out randomly.

@ Jap Man: Im talking about an online chatroom as an option when you etner soldat. Like when you see those tabs at the top of the soldat game (Join Game, Start Game, options Etc, make an option up there that says "Chat"). The chatrooms i was refurring to was like an aol chatroom, where everyone spams. But since this is a much much smaller community, and there wouldnt be as many spammers. Having a chatroom in a small based community with many moderators, would lead to a good chatroom and many would benefit.

quote:Originally posted by OkOH my, dear old outcast.

So someone banned u because you hacked the TNL forums.
So someone banned you because you abused your ops on Soldat Radio (Your [CENSORED]list is NOT a reason to ban someone)
So someone banned you because you just can't let 2 ppl have a discussion without you flaming them.
Get over yourself and understand you can't do those stuff, not even if you are the mighty "Outcast".
God help us with Outcast ey ;)

Besides, I'm sure you look mighty fine in a maid's uniform :)
You should give it a try.



Meh, I didn't hack the forums <_< There is no proof!
I didn't flame anyone, I was merely teasing Chakra for trying something he can't have and actually thinking he can.
And the banning on soldat radio wasn't exactly like that, I agreed on the whole unban redevil thing...There was another thing...I won't get into that or we can argue for 3 pages again.
Plus, people could show some respect, those [CENSORED]s, I rarely flame! I'm just a moody [CENSORED], not enough to get banned!
Also, god won't help you with me, I'm in his "hopeless" files.
And damn it, no way I would look good in a maid uniform...I think a nice suit would fit me better ;>

Personal critics and differences could be taken through PMs or isn't that as fun as posting it for everyone to see. Keep this thread constructive or else it will be ignored by the serious people. A chat would be nice, but with moderators who have been told to not give away their identity (soldat ID/nick) if they act from within the game. They should be known by their name only from that chat and switch name when they want to play soldat, to clear out any possible problems with people who love to brag. Also that would increase the probability that we would get good mods watching the chat, helping as support etc. Also by having such mods in the chatroom we don't create any more rifts between playerbases since they act on their own ground as to us "not-playing-soldat-but-only-admining-the-chat" meh now I forgot what I was gonna say next...meow on you.

quote:Originally posted by .alex.oner.quote:Originally posted by LazehBoiquote:Originally posted by .alex.oner.i havent read any of that.. but if you have THAT much time to write that whole essay just about the future of soldat.. err, get a life? :/

I think you should be the one spending more time in the life you supposedly have and less of it here, sir.

Aaanyway, I agree with Lieroguy, i've thought that way for a while now, strangely enough.


yes, thats why i write essays about a online game, and i never leave the house and spend about 11 hours on the computer everyday! im so cool with my internet soldat friends lolz!


Alex, do you ever post anything useful? You're the one wasting time by posting useless crap. Please exit this thread and resume your awesome life.

Rabble, I am very much aware that you and the rest of us are talking about an in-game chatroom, all because it wont be like an AOL chatroom, or because the Soldat community isn't that large, it doesn't necessarily mean that it would not get constant spammers. Every online game has it's annoying idiots, and I guess we have to admit that a fair bit of the Soldat community are rather annoying idiots who would make an Op's job hell, if an in-game chatroom was implemented.

Well OK! we GOT IT!
Chat room = good idea
Annonimity = perfect for the job

NOW WHAT?

I'll try to get official support for this .

I'm thinking of a Soldat "Browser" that will lead to a website implimented "IRC client".
Which will allow the admins to access the room and support it from every place with just internet on it (Like work for example.)

Now question is, how hard will this be.

I know this sort of thing already exists in the program emule/edonkey and has helped me plenty of times without being apart of that community

P.S: Rabble! please stop blinding me with that horrible color!!! :S

quote:Originally posted by OkWell OK! we GOT IT!
Chat room = good idea
Annonimity = perfect for the job

NOW WHAT?

I'll try to get official support for this .

I'm thinking of a Soldat "Browser" that will lead to a website implimented "IRC client".
Which will allow the admins to access the room and support it from every place with just internet on it (Like work for example.)

Now question is, how hard will this be.

I know this sort of thing already exists in the program emule/edonkey and has helped me plenty of times without being apart of that community

P.S: Rabble! please stop blinding me with that horrible color!!! :S


The future of the community is in your hands now "young" Ok :p

I don't think a link to an external chatroom would be good enough. Most newbies still wouldn't go there. It's not impossibly complicated to make a chatroom in the actual menu. I think having the menu on the same screen where the server list is is a crucial detail. We need all players to get exposure to it, regardeless of whether they want to talk or not.
Someone should do some research on DirectPlay or in the future, XBox Live for Windows.

A chat room that can be easily accessed by any Soldat player?

#soldat.forums is just crazy enough, this would be hell though. You would most likely not manage to have a sane conversation.
Go ahead though.

is irc mentioned anywhere on soldat.pl ? ..could be a starting point. If anyone can find, download and play a relatively unusual 2d sidescrolling multiplayer counterstrike-meets-quake game, i'd imagine more than a handful know how to use an irc client.

quote:Originally posted by b00stAA chat room that can be easily accessed by any Soldat player?

#soldat.forums is just crazy enough, this would be hell though. You would most likely not manage to have a sane conversation.
Go ahead though.


Help chats are not new, there are ways to maintain peace.
A good example are the help channel on IRC.

(23:40:03) -G- [#help] Welcome to #help. Please just ask your question and don't spam it.


Now other than saying it, they actualy have a filtering system that kicks someone if he types more then 3 sentences in like 3-4 seconds
I'm not sure the exact one, but its harsh, its not hard realy, all you need is good admining.
And yes swarmer keeps missing alot of major points, you need to look at the big picture, its all peachy that it will be fine for the players but we also need a reliable admin arsenal for that we need easy access.
Also I see no problem with a build in browser inside soldat meant just for that chat.

quote:Originally posted by SwarmerI don't think a link to an external chatroom would be good enough. Most newbies still wouldn't go there. It's not impossibly complicated to make a chatroom in the actual menu. I think having the menu on the same screen where the server list is is a crucial detail. We need all players to get exposure to it, regardeless of whether they want to talk or not.
Someone should do some research on DirectPlay or in the future, XBox Live for Windows.

Nonono, this would be very bad, the community doesn't need to be centralized, it should be spread out, spreading out makes sure it's not the same people running things everywhere, it gives new people, new clans, a chance to play without being in the veteran world, it allows them to take some iniatives of their own. Not so much an inner cirkle in which you plunge by joining but gradually evolution from someone who likes to beat his friend in this funny little game to someone investing time in the community.

Spreading gives air to the community. People need to discover [CENSORED] for themselves, start out ideas they have (clans, features, maps, sites, tournaments) instead of being overwhelmed by players with much more experience then theirs that take the game way more serious then they do. That's suffocating.

The community should be dynamic not static, a static community can easily be destroyed while a dynamic community might be less tight, but is stronger in the long run, because it evolves at 20 different places so it doesn't matter if a couple of ends run death.

quote:Originally posted by b00stAA chat room that can be easily accessed by any Soldat player?

#soldat.forums is just crazy enough, this would be hell though. You would most likely not manage to have a sane conversation.
Go ahead though.


Heh yea... conversations are quit madening.. and theres almost always someone talking on that channel...

quote:Originally posted by Ok
Help chats are not new, there are ways to maintain peace.
A good example are the help channel on IRC.

(23:40:03) -G- [#help] Welcome to #help. Please just ask your question and don't spam it.


Now other than saying it, they actualy have a filtering system that kicks someone if he types more then 3 sentences in like 3-4 seconds
I'm not sure the exact one, but its harsh, its not hard realy, all you need is good admining.
And yes swarmer keeps missing alot of major points, you need to look at the big picture, its all peachy that it will be fine for the players but we also need a reliable admin arsenal for that we need easy access.
Also I see no problem with a build in browser inside soldat meant just for that chat.

Help chat? :/
I thought it was for "chat", arranging sessions, etc.
A flood control is necessary, but I doubt a sane, qualified person is willing to moderate a built-in chat.

It's not that I'm against it, I just don't see it working out without being utter non sense.

I know, and guess why?
Same reason again, the community.
If I look 1-2 years back, I come up with names of ppl who would do the job happly and do it good.

http://selfkill.com/www.soldat.pl/chat-en.html


was right in the menu below 'forums' on www.soldat.pl . Connects to #selfkill and #esl-soldat on quakenet.


'k link doesn't come out right when you copy and paste it, but it's still there. 'tis a Java chat client.

you lil [CENSORED]!
When I asked you about it! you said you don't know!!!
what a chav <_<

quote:Originally posted by Swarmerquote:Originally posted by .alex.oner.quote:Originally posted by LazehBoiquote:Originally posted by .alex.oner.i havent read any of that.. but if you have THAT much time to write that whole essay just about the future of soldat.. err, get a life? :/

I think you should be the one spending more time in the life you supposedly have and less of it here, sir.

Aaanyway, I agree with Lieroguy, i've thought that way for a while now, strangely enough.


yes, thats why i write essays about a online game, and i never leave the house and spend about 11 hours on the computer everyday! im so cool with my internet soldat friends lolz!


Alex, do you ever post anything useful? You're the one wasting time by posting useless crap. Please exit this thread and resume your awesome life.


no, i dont post anything usefull, i just find it amusing seeing how some people almost revolve their life around a game, well, mabye not their life, only the time they are awake..

Good thing people are different then alex, now you dont have to post in this thread anymore. Thank you and out of the door you go. Devoted people are hard to find, if your amused by watching them I think you should go find another hobby to do. Such as, hug kittens, pet animals at a zoo, get a dog and walk with it, open and close a door until it breaks. I vote for 1. Hug kittens nicely.

quote:[i] I vote for 1. Hug kittens nicely.



You would, wouldn't you ;)


These types of ppl, cannot be productive, so they thrive upon making fun of others and by that getting recognition.

If this was TNL forums or Soldat Gather forums, you'll see alot more comments like that.
Its kinda funny that once upon a time this forum was the last place to find sanity, today its about the only one.
And to be honest, nothing had changed in here.

Yes, posting an intelligent thread that took me not much time automatically makes this my life...
I do other things with my life, like hugging kittens violently.

Don't you think you're living nostalgically, Ok?

quote:Originally posted by SwarmerYes, posting an intelligent thread that took me not much time automatically makes this my life...
I do other things with my life, like hugging kittens violently.


Rawr *paws and pouts*

But anyway its hard to believe a topic is intelligence since thats just a definition word out of point of view (I consider myself pretty stupid). Michael needs to do an official statement where he want this game to go so we can scheme and plan around that. Or he could let the community lead the way which would probably end up in carebear hell but whatever *shrugs*

Well, seeing as Michal isn't doing much on that end of the bargain ....



[IMAGE]





You never knew religion could be so damn sexy, until now. (providing you're not aquainted with OneGram)


Note to admins/moderators - feel free to edit image link to something more hilarious and humiliating.

I dont think a forum admin could do anything worth mentioning really. And your the last meower on earth to be voted for admin, over my meowy body!

Was hoping you'd say that. >:)


Ahh s'only a joke taken too far really. My humbleless way of annoying b00sta. But 'back in the day' when Styx (previous soldat admin) was fairly active (even on irc), he did help keep the community together with an official forum server. Kept a really tight lid on things around here too, until he seemingly lost interest...

Oh god, chakra, a priest? now I've seen everything.

Great thread.
When Soldat first became popular I thought it would be like that for max. one year. But today Soldat is still getting bigger.
I always watch the lobby server statistics and they are always increasing or staying on the same level. The only time I remember the
player count was decreasing was after a couple months of version 1.05b. It's probably because the next versions were more
newbie friendly and better looking.
Swarmer you make very good points. I agree with all you've written. I think Soldat will live as long as I keep interest in it or I give a possibility to let other people control it. If I stopped
doing that, the game would slowly become as Mechcommander. That's why I want to release the source someday. We have a great
community and I'm sure it would bring a lot of exciting stuff. Previous experience with the Map Maker and Admin proved this. And
I don't believe it would lead to hacks. If someone would make a hack there would be another person that would fix it. Why do you think
Wikipedia works? Because good ultimately wins.

Now for some detailed comments:
//1) Soldat needs to link its newbies to its veterans more closely.
This is something that I can only help with. I don't think centralizing the community is a great idea. It sounds like a communist idea,
every institution in Poland was centralized in Poland for 50 years after WWII and it didn't turn out well. If something goes wrong in a centralized
system the whole thing goes down. I think better information on WHERE the community IS, would solve a lot of problems.

//2) Soldat needs to maintain a large player-base.
So it must be newbie friendly and addictive (or whatever you might call playing for a long period of time). The main reason why
people don't 'stick' to the game is what I hear:
a) It just gets too repetitive/boring after time
b) It's too hard at the beginning.
a. This is something that I always think about and I don't see a really good solution other than completely changing the whole gameplay style.
Or maybe some people just don't get it. Or this happens because of lack of point number 3, stated by Swarmer.
b. In reviews about Soldat I see that the game is just too hard online. If your average life time is 20 seconds it can get frustrating.
To overcome this feeling that this game simply sucks because you can't play it there must be some kind of hope for growth.
The best idea I can recall right now is a really detailed game play manual (like Liero Handbok), or faq that would be easily accesed on
soldat.pl or in the game. The current manual covers all the things in Soldat but it isn't really a strategy guide. If someone was interested in writing something like this
and I 'ignored' it, then don't take it personally I just have too much going on in my mind. If you want to do something like this try to contact me
(in different ways to be sure I get the message).
About advertising: It would bring more people. I haven't researched the subject so I don't know where I would start but it could be an idea. I remember the biggest increase of players was after Soldat was shown on G4TV, almost a year ago. It was simply amazing how much players came back then.
But I think, as someone stated, we have to first make adjustments to the core. Everything will naturally fall in place if that would be fixed. The perfect way would be if every player that downloads the game becomes a frequent player. We would have hundreds of thousands of players every day.

//3) Soldat needs a continuous freshening of gameplay.
Now this is the biggest problem. The Soldat game engine is very poorly written. I started writing it, nearly 4 years ago and I didn't have
very much knowledge about doing such a big thing, I just had a strong will and determination to make a game like this (you can use this line as great motivational text :) ).
It's very bad, I can't easily add or change stuff. Fixing stuff is even a problem, fixing bugs produces new bugs and so on. This
is a result of a badly written engine. The only solution is to rewrite the whole thing using my current knowledge, a completely new game.
I will do that, but that's a story for another day.

quote:Michal M. wrote:
people don't 'stick' to the game
People don't stick to the game? 4 friends of mine who started to play Soldat one year ago didn't stop, even though they got beaten all the time. And personally, I've been playing for more than 3 years now and I still do, even though I'm not a strong player. On a side note, it's true that most newbies don't live long in a game and get pissed off easily. The only way I found to avoid that is to play fair with them (like letting them kill you, and kill the fast and experienced players instead).

Other than that, I saw strategy guides on several japanese websites, and I guess there are more guides in various languages.

I think the real appeal are the custom maps. The latest map auto-download feature was a grrrreat improvement and it shouldn't stop there. This is perhaps one of the strongest part of Soldat. Allowing to change the map you play on is a real anti-boredom. (At least this is mainly what kept me playing until there)

I'm not sure advertising Soldat every here and there is a good thing, sometimes this is what bring hackers... popularity has its evil sides you know.
As for the "continuous freshening of gameplay", I don't think you can improve Soldat every month. That would be when it becomes open-sources most likely. :>

ok...so..

if someone makes a strategy guide to assist the 'newbies' on the various techniques required to get by in the game...
...and a little guide on just where you can find the multitude of communities in Soldat, and maybe even a few details about them...
...and perhaps, maybe, let someone redesign your site for you..


..and if someone offered to do it ..


..you'd let 'em slap it on the site?

Actually, I'd be willing to recreate the site and include somewhat of a guide on it, preferrably with the guidance of the higher-ups around here if I had the opportunity to.

quote:It's very bad, I can't easily add or change stuff. Fixing stuff is even a problem, fixing bugs produces new bugs and so on. This
is a result of a badly written engine. The only solution is to rewrite the whole thing using my current knowledge, a completely new game.
I will do that, but that's a story for another day.

;)

Aha!
:) God has spoken, and finaly we have something to work with (knowning what he's willing to help us with).

Btw the idea of newbies contacting more veterans isn't for them to control them. its there for there use or they can just ignore it.
Consider it like "Information" in a bus station, or a train station.

The centralizing thing, is just like democracy my friend.
(Didn't want to use this until MM responded)
You don't know the community MM you've never been that involved, which is fine but you can compare it to a country with no leadership, where the "strongest" survives.
It need democracy, democracy allows everyone to vote! everyone OVER 18!(in most places anyways) that's inorder to make sure that the person is old enough to make his own choises.

So a leadership, someone to have the power so efficiantly use the resources and make sure everyone gets their share of .. fun in this case.

This game is fun and games, and you can change it (and need to indeed) but its a community game, the community is a part of the big picture no matter how you look at it.
I think that we just want you to set a path, you say its harder for newbies , well its hella hard when everyone curses you for sucking so bad, its hella hard when you're banned because you're not known.

So as I see it, its your job to make the game better, and its our job to make it a nice place and welcome newcomers.
But just like we help you beta testing the game and give opinions and suggestions and descoveries that you can't make on your own (lack of time).
Please help us set a guide line, help us improve the spirit of the community and show us tips and suggestions to do so.

P.S: I realized that I need to email you twice inorder to get an answer only AFTER I thought of the idea, I'm not complaining btw, I'm just saying that I forgot about it since we started emailing about other issues.

Tip for all of ya: PM michal, don't email him ;) (muhaahah the spammage)

quote:People don't stick to the game? 4 friends of mine who started to play Soldat one year ago didn't stop, even though they got beaten all the time.
Yeah well, that's true for everybody that is here. The interesting part is why others leave the game. Unfortunately we can't ask them because they are not here :).
I didn't really focus on the community in the past because there was so many other things that I had to handle. Bugs, faulty anti-cheat system, lobby server downtime, people having old crappy hardware, that all made be busy and I had to fix it. Now Soldat doesn't have any major problems so it's a great relief and you can see me doing more stuff like better mods support because I finally can.
Now, I agree that we should focus on making the community a more friendly place, making guides, giving more information about everything will help make the whole Soldat world more solid. So, throw out your ideas, that's what this thread is about, I will try to help in everything that I can.

Why don't you share the coding with someone else?
I'm sure you know alot of people that are capapble of doing this , and that could most probably fix the 'poorly written game engine' (Quoted) (Soldat v2?).
But if you do this make sure you know the other one personal so you can beat him up if he sells the sourcecode for 999999$ :)


Also I would wait with declaring stuff as being official. If you declare the wrong stuff official and publish it on the main page alot of people will hook off.
For example , it's better that the new manual should be written over months , not days or weeks.

I think the community should be expanded here , in the forums. Alot of bigger games have their community base in their forums , that's where all the people can meet eachother so personally I don't think the community is 'bad' , unless sometimes people acting like morons to newbies (Even MM was a newb!).

Grtz , DePhille

quote:Originally posted by Michal Marcinkowski

The interesting part is why others leave the game. Unfortunately we can't ask them because they are not here :).


Wrong Wrong Wrong!
We can, and we did.
The reasons in total are the following:
1- The game became just too damn easy for everyone, which made it so damn hard and you die too fast

2- The community became just 1 huge pile of @#%# and makes every game look like a Jerry Springer episode. (that's a quote btw)

One was a beta tester I knew that decided to leave the beta team because its made out of and I quote "more then 50% idiots" and then stop playing soldat at all.
And that's someone that didn't even had an argument with any of them, that one realy surprised me :).
He was a realy productive guy and very helpfull in many ways.

There is a VERY small precentage that left simply because they didn't have much time for it anymore but that has nothing to do with Soldat.

I never even ONCE! heard someone saying he quits because he got tired of playing Soldat.
Everyone who quits says he always has a hard time not installing it again.
Its an addiction my friend, its like drugs, no one quits it because they got tired of it :)