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Collin Pruitt | 20 Jan 2012 06:07

RE: More players and mobile clients

I'll just discuss mobile clients first, since that seems to be the big topic of discussion recently:


The only thing that I can think of that would make a mobile (smartphone or Android/iPad tablet) viable is seriously dumbing-down the game, because in it's current form there is simply NO WAY to play the game on a touchscreen interface. There's too much to try to control within the limited framework using a gyroscope and a touchscreen, and you certainly couldn't compete against people playing with a proper computer.

I've had multitudes of experience with touchscreen devices, both phones and tablets, and I can tell you for a fact that none of the games available on those platforms have the same level of intense concentration required to play as Netrek does. Angry Birds is the most that I've seen so far, and that's flinging a stupid bird into a wall of blocks to kill a pig. You're not trying to avoid enemy fire and return it the same, or trying to coordinate a planet capture under heavy enemy fire, or trying to ogg (or counter-ogg) a starbase.

There is NO WAY. Plain and simple.

Furthermore, the only way that I could possibly see for you to dumb the game down would be some strange deathmatch-style game that looks like Netrek with a button for phasers and a button for torpedoes that fire straight in front of you, with the gyroscope as a way to turn. But that's not Netrek at all. There's none of the challenge or team-based gameplay involved in that.

And, about getting more players:

It's a niche game, and you can stop trying to make it into something that it's not, unless you want to fork it and go your own way, because to make it into something that it's not is to make it into something other than Netrek. It was a "mainstream" game back in the days when computers weren't the most mainstream of devices around in the first place and the players weren't typically normal people, and you're trying to make a game like that appeal to a generation that lives off of fancy 3D graphics and particle effects all over the place?

I've tried many, many times to involve people in Netrek - it just doesn't work. It's too hard to learn, too hard to get "good" at. It takes way too much time to get decent at playing it, and time is a rarely-seen commodity in the modern world. And furthermore, who are any of the people that you might just get involved in the game, going to play against? Bots aren't the funnest playmates. The community died out a long time ago. All of the remaining players after that quit over time. I very rarely even check the metaservers, and when I do, it's one or two people playing on Sturgeon and that's it. If you call that a "playerbase", then I had might as well call Netrek "alive and well".

If you want more players, then get the infrastructure for netrek.org into the control of people who actually care about the game and who have played the game in the past year or five. Go out and buy us some Google Advertisement spaces. Put ads on popular Linux/UNIX sites (like DistroWatch, or LWN, or specific distro websites, or Omg!Ubuntu!, or maybe even Linux.com). Get a Facebook movement going. Go and re-build the netrek.org website into something that doesn't look like something I vomited up yesterday. Make our clients look uniform (and decent at that). Make configuration of the clients easier with some sort of a built-in wizard. Start up regular clue games, and get some of our old clue back into the game. 

Overall: get the word out (ads and Facebook), make it easier to get started (new website, built-in configuration wizard, helpful old clue), and give people a reason to keep playing; give the game "staying power" (the "dream" of playing in clue games - heck, maybe we could start up the old INL). We might even need a newbie server to prevent new players from getting rewled out of the game by seasoned clue.

Then, maybe (that's a HUGE "maybe"), the game might revive. More than likely, it's too far gone to save. But, you're free to try.

I've hashed and re-hashed these topics many, many times before. If you want to be completely stupid and go off on a wild tangent and keep trying to build some stupid touchscreen-able form of Netrek, then you can keep wasting time on that and not the real problem. If you want to conquer the real problem, then get serious and do some of the things I said to get the community going and stop bickering like idiots. 

Get some work done on getting the game going again and get a healthy community back, then you can possibly consider trying to make something for mobile devices. Until then, forget about it.

Completely. 

Drive the notion out of your mind and burn it in a fire.

--
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Anuj Kumar | 20 Jan 2012 16:30
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RE: RE: More players and mobile clients

In the entire time that I've been subscribed to this thread, this is the first post that has actually made sense. Well said. 
 
-Anuj (slut) 
 
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 21:07:28 -0800
From: collin-X+/8lN8G1XhBDgjK7y7TUQ@public.gmane.org
To: netrek-forever-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org
Subject: [netrek-forever] RE: More players and mobile clients

I'll just discuss mobile clients first, since that seems to be the big topic of discussion recently:

The only thing that I can think of that would make a mobile (smartphone or Android/iPad tablet) viable is seriously dumbing-down the game, because in it's current form there is simply NO WAY to play the game on a touchscreen interface. There's too much to try to control within the limited framework using a gyroscope and a touchscreen, and you certainly couldn't compete against people playing with a proper computer.

I've had multitudes of experience with touchscreen devices, both phones and tablets, and I can tell you for a fact that none of the games available on those platforms have the same level of intense concentration required to play as Netrek does. Angry Birds is the most that I've seen so far, and that's flinging a stupid bird into a wall of blocks to kill a pig. You're not trying to avoid enemy fire and return it the same, or trying to coordinate a planet capture under heavy enemy fire, or trying to ogg (or counter-ogg) a starbase.

There is NO WAY. Plain and simple.

Furthermore, the only way that I could possibly see for you to dumb the game down would be some strange deathmatch-style game that looks like Netrek with a button for phasers and a button for torpedoes that fire straight in front of you, with the gyroscope as a way to turn. But that's not Netrek at all. There's none of the challenge or team-based gameplay involved in that.

And, about getting more players:

It's a niche game, and you can stop trying to make it into something that it's not, unless you want to fork it and go your own way, because to make it into something that it's not is to make it into something other than Netrek. It was a "mainstream" game back in the days when computers weren't the most mainstream of devices around in the first place and the players weren't typically normal people, and you're trying to make a game like that appeal to a generation that lives off of fancy 3D graphics and particle effects all over the place?

I've tried many, many times to involve people in Netrek - it just doesn't work. It's too hard to learn, too hard to get "good" at. It takes way too much time to get decent at playing it, and time is a rarely-seen commodity in the modern world. And furthermore, who are any of the people that you might just get involved in the game, going to play against? Bots aren't the funnest playmates. The community died out a long time ago. All of the remaining players after that quit over time. I very rarely even check the metaservers, and when I do, it's one or two people playing on Sturgeon and that's it. If you call that a "playerbase", then I had might as well call Netrek "alive and well".

If you want more players, then get the infrastructure for netrek.org into the control of people who actually care about the game and who have played the game in the past year or five. Go out and buy us some Google Advertisement spaces. Put ads on popular Linux/UNIX sites (like DistroWatch, or LWN, or specific distro websites, or Omg!Ubuntu!, or maybe even Linux.com). Get a Facebook movement going. Go and re-build the netrek.org website into something that doesn't look like something I vomited up yesterday. Make our clients look uniform (and decent at that). Make configuration of the clients easier with some sort of a built-in wizard. Start up regular clue games, and get some of our old clue back into the game. 

Overall: get the word out (ads and Facebook), make it easier to get started (new website, built-in configuration wizard, helpful old clue), and give people a reason to keep playing; give the game "staying power" (the "dream" of playing in clue games - heck, maybe we could start up the old INL). We might even need a newbie server to prevent new players from getting rewled out of the game by seasoned clue.

Then, maybe (that's a HUGE "maybe"), the game might revive. More than likely, it's too far gone to save. But, you're free to try.

I've hashed and re-hashed these topics many, many times before. If you want to be completely stupid and go off on a wild tangent and keep trying to build some stupid touchscreen-able form of Netrek, then you can keep wasting time on that and not the real problem. If you want to conquer the real problem, then get serious and do some of the things I said to get the community going and stop bickering like idiots. 

Get some work done on getting the game going again and get a healthy community back, then you can possibly consider trying to make something for mobile devices. Until then, forget about it.

Completely. 

Drive the notion out of your mind and burn it in a fire.

--
To post send mail here: netrek-forever-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org
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Nota bene: Please be civil and treat list members with respect.

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Dave Summa | 20 Jan 2012 17:43
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Re: RE: More players and mobile clients

Here's my two cents:
 
Time would be better spend massaging the presentation and the interface so that it's more attractive while maintaining the essence and playability of the game with a few simple upgrades:
 
Control:
 
It's difficult enough to learn and become proficient with using Keyboard and mouse as input devices.  I have a usb nintendo/playstation type controller that if some support were written into the game may attract some younger players who are more familiar with this type of interface.  
 
Graphics:
 
Enhancing the graphics should be a no brainer and have no effect on the existing gameplay model.  The ability to scale up the view from a size perspective would be a plus espescially for an old guy like me that can't read small fonts anymore...And of course enhancing the graphics should broaden the appeal to a younger generation of players.
 
Messaging:
 
Attempting to play the game while attempting to follow a slew of rapid fire text messages just adds to much to the complexity.   Maybe a stretch here but there's plenty in terms of freeware out there that can convert text to voice and vice versa.  Incorporating that into the game would be useful.
 
Speaking of messaging - Trolls:
 
Trolls are the most significant factor contributing towards the death of this game. 
 
It's pretty discouraging to come up to speed on something this complex while trying to contend with a gaggle of obnoxious sociopathic jerks and thier incessant verbal abuse of players.   If you have no self control to the point where you can't selectively vocalize thoughts towards constructive comments versus publicly tearing others down ... then the server admin needs to deal with you ... as in you need to demonstrate that you have set Karth.
 
It's idiotic and folks should recuse themselves permanently if they have no self control and can't keep thier mouths shut.  The future of the game (if there is any) has no use for the likes of you and yours and frankly Trolls have caused most of the damage. 
 
Just my not so humble opinion.
 

From: Anuj Kumar <anuj_kumar80-PkbjNfxxIARBDgjK7y7TUQ@public.gmane.org>
To: netrek-forever-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org
Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 10:30 AM
Subject: RE: [netrek-forever] RE: More players and mobile clients

In the entire time that I've been subscribed to this thread, this is the first post that has actually made sense. Well said. 
 
-Anuj (slut) 
 
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 21:07:28 -0800
From: collin-X+/8lN8G1XhBDgjK7y7TUQ@public.gmane.org
To: netrek-forever-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org
Subject: [netrek-forever] RE: More players and mobile clients

I'll just discuss mobile clients first, since that seems to be the big topic of discussion recently:

The only thing that I can think of that would make a mobile (smartphone or Android/iPad tablet) viable is seriously dumbing-down the game, because in it's current form there is simply NO WAY to play the game on a touchscreen interface. There's too much to try to control within the limited framework using a gyroscope and a touchscreen, and you certainly couldn't compete against people playing with a proper computer.

I've had multitudes of experience with touchscreen devices, both phones and tablets, and I can tell you for a fact that none of the games available on those platforms have the same level of intense concentration required to play as Netrek does. Angry Birds is the most that I've seen so far, and that's flinging a stupid bird into a wall of blocks to kill a pig. You're not trying to avoid enemy fire and return it the same, or trying to coordinate a planet capture under heavy enemy fire, or trying to ogg (or counter-ogg) a starbase.

There is NO WAY. Plain and simple.

Furthermore, the only way that I could possibly see for you to dumb the game down would be some strange deathmatch-style game that looks like Netrek with a button for phasers and a button for torpedoes that fire straight in front of you, with the gyroscope as a way to turn. But that's not Netrek at all. There's none of the challenge or team-based gameplay involved in that.

And, about getting more players:

It's a niche game, and you can stop trying to make it into something that it's not, unless you want to fork it and go your own way, because to make it into something that it's not is to make it into something other than Netrek. It was a "mainstream" game back in the days when computers weren't the most mainstream of devices around in the first place and the players weren't typically normal people, and you're trying to make a game like that appeal to a generation that lives off of fancy 3D graphics and particle effects all over the place?

I've tried many, many times to involve people in Netrek - it just doesn't work. It's too hard to learn, too hard to get "good" at. It takes way too much time to get decent at playing it, and time is a rarely-seen commodity in the modern world. And furthermore, who are any of the people that you might just get involved in the game, going to play against? Bots aren't the funnest playmates. The community died out a long time ago. All of the remaining players after that quit over time. I very rarely even check the metaservers, and when I do, it's one or two people playing on Sturgeon and that's it. If you call that a "playerbase", then I had might as well call Netrek "alive and well".

If you want more players, then get the infrastructure for netrek.org into the control of people who actually care about the game and who have played the game in the past year or five. Go out and buy us some Google Advertisement spaces. Put ads on popular Linux/UNIX sites (like DistroWatch, or LWN, or specific distro websites, or Omg!Ubuntu!, or maybe even Linux.com). Get a Facebook movement going. Go and re-build the netrek.org website into something that doesn't look like something I vomited up yesterday. Make our clients look uniform (and decent at that). Make configuration of the clients easier with some sort of a built-in wizard. Start up regular clue games, and get some of our old clue back into the game. 

Overall: get the word out (ads and Facebook), make it easier to get started (new website, built-in configuration wizard, helpful old clue), and give people a reason to keep playing; give the game "staying power" (the "dream" of playing in clue games - heck, maybe we could start up the old INL). We might even need a newbie server to prevent new players from getting rewled out of the game by seasoned clue.

Then, maybe (that's a HUGE "maybe"), the game might revive. More than likely, it's too far gone to save. But, you're free to try.

I've hashed and re-hashed these topics many, many times before. If you want to be completely stupid and go off on a wild tangent and keep trying to build some stupid touchscreen-able form of Netrek, then you can keep wasting time on that and not the real problem. If you want to conquer the real problem, then get serious and do some of the things I said to get the community going and stop bickering like idiots. 

Get some work done on getting the game going again and get a healthy community back, then you can possibly consider trying to make something for mobile devices. Until then, forget about it.

Completely. 

Drive the notion out of your mind and burn it in a fire.

--
To post send mail here: netrek-forever-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org
More info: http://groups.google.com/group/netrek-forever/
Nota bene: Please be civil and treat list members with respect.
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Joe Evango | 20 Jan 2012 20:54
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RE: RE: More players and mobile clients

The troll factor is one of the major items that drove me away from the game. People wanted to spend more camping on observer slots, flinging insults and driving people away from the game rather then playing or using that time to contribute.

Had ads running monthly, pulled all of them because it was a waste of time and money trying to pull people in only to have them driven away by the political nonsense stirred up by a few bad apples.

Unfortunate because the community had people willing to contribute and invest time and money to build the game but due to a few extremely unsocial individuals those people have moved onto other projects.

Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 08:43:17 -0800
From: steelhook-/E1597aS9LQAvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org
Subject: Re: [netrek-forever] RE: More players and mobile clients
To: netrek-forever <at> googlegroups.com

Here's my two cents:
 
Time would be better spend massaging the presentation and the interface so that it's more attractive while maintaining the essence and playability of the game with a few simple upgrades:
 
Control:
 
It's difficult enough to learn and become proficient with using Keyboard and mouse as input devices.  I have a usb nintendo/playstation type controller that if some support were written into the game may attract some younger players who are more familiar with this type of interface.  
 
Graphics:
 
Enhancing the graphics should be a no brainer and have no effect on the existing gameplay model.  The ability to scale up the view from a size perspective would be a plus espescially for an old guy like me that can't read small fonts anymore...And of course enhancing the graphics should broaden the appeal to a younger generation of players.
 
Messaging:
 
Attempting to play the game while attempting to follow a slew of rapid fire text messages just adds to much to the complexity.   Maybe a stretch here but there's plenty in terms of freeware out there that can convert text to voice and vice versa.  Incorporating that into the game would be useful.
 
Speaking of messaging - Trolls:
 
Trolls are the most significant factor contributing towards the death of this game. 
 
It's pretty discouraging to come up to speed on something this complex while trying to contend with a gaggle of obnoxious sociopathic jerks and thier incessant verbal abuse of players.   If you have no self control to the point where you can't selectively vocalize thoughts towards constructive comments versus publicly tearing others down ... then the server admin needs to deal with you ... as in you need to demonstrate that you have set Karth.
 
It's idiotic and folks should recuse themselves permanently if they have no self control and can't keep thier mouths shut.  The future of the game (if there is any) has no use for the likes of you and yours and frankly Trolls have caused most of the damage. 
 
Just my not so humble opinion.
 

From: Anuj Kumar <anuj_kumar80 <at> hotmail.com>
To: netrek-forever-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org
Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 10:30 AM
Subject: RE: [netrek-forever] RE: More players and mobile clients

.ExternalClass #ecxyiv1038778506 .ecxyiv1038778506hmmessage P {padding:0px;} .ExternalClass #ecxyiv1038778506 body.ecxyiv1038778506hmmessage {font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma;}
In the entire time that I've been subscribed to this thread, this is the first post that has actually made sense. Well said. 
 
-Anuj (slut) 
 
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 21:07:28 -0800
From: collin-X+/8lN8G1XhBDgjK7y7TUQ@public.gmane.org
To: netrek-forever <at> googlegroups.com
Subject: [netrek-forever] RE: More players and mobile clients

I'll just discuss mobile clients first, since that seems to be the big topic of discussion recently:

The only thing that I can think of that would make a mobile (smartphone or Android/iPad tablet) viable is seriously dumbing-down the game, because in it's current form there is simply NO WAY to play the game on a touchscreen interface. There's too much to try to control within the limited framework using a gyroscope and a touchscreen, and you certainly couldn't compete against people playing with a proper computer.

I've had multitudes of experience with touchscreen devices, both phones and tablets, and I can tell you for a fact that none of the games available on those platforms have the same level of intense concentration required to play as Netrek does. Angry Birds is the most that I've seen so far, and that's flinging a stupid bird into a wall of blocks to kill a pig. You're not trying to avoid enemy fire and return it the same, or trying to coordinate a planet capture under heavy enemy fire, or trying to ogg (or counter-ogg) a starbase.

There is NO WAY. Plain and simple.

Furthermore, the only way that I could possibly see for you to dumb the game down would be some strange deathmatch-style game that looks like Netrek with a button for phasers and a button for torpedoes that fire straight in front of you, with the gyroscope as a way to turn. But that's not Netrek at all. There's none of the challenge or team-based gameplay involved in that.

And, about getting more players:

It's a niche game, and you can stop trying to make it into something that it's not, unless you want to fork it and go your own way, because to make it into something that it's not is to make it into something other than Netrek. It was a "mainstream" game back in the days when computers weren't the most mainstream of devices around in the first place and the players weren't typically normal people, and you're trying to make a game like that appeal to a generation that lives off of fancy 3D graphics and particle effects all over the place?

I've tried many, many times to involve people in Netrek - it just doesn't work. It's too hard to learn, too hard to get "good" at. It takes way too much time to get decent at playing it, and time is a rarely-seen commodity in the modern world. And furthermore, who are any of the people that you might just get involved in the game, going to play against? Bots aren't the funnest playmates. The community died out a long time ago. All of the remaining players after that quit over time. I very rarely even check the metaservers, and when I do, it's one or two people playing on Sturgeon and that's it. If you call that a "playerbase", then I had might as well call Netrek "alive and well".

If you want more players, then get the infrastructure for netrek.org into the control of people who actually care about the game and who have played the game in the past year or five. Go out and buy us some Google Advertisement spaces. Put ads on popular Linux/UNIX sites (like DistroWatch, or LWN, or specific distro websites, or Omg!Ubuntu!, or maybe even Linux.com). Get a Facebook movement going. Go and re-build the netrek.org website into something that doesn't look like something I vomited up yesterday. Make our clients look uniform (and decent at that). Make configuration of the clients easier with some sort of a built-in wizard. Start up regular clue games, and get some of our old clue back into the game. 

Overall: get the word out (ads and Facebook), make it easier to get started (new website, built-in configuration wizard, helpful old clue), and give people a reason to keep playing; give the game "staying power" (the "dream" of playing in clue games - heck, maybe we could start up the old INL). We might even need a newbie server to prevent new players from getting rewled out of the game by seasoned clue.

Then, maybe (that's a HUGE "maybe"), the game might revive. More than likely, it's too far gone to save. But, you're free to try.

I've hashed and re-hashed these topics many, many times before. If you want to be completely stupid and go off on a wild tangent and keep trying to build some stupid touchscreen-able form of Netrek, then you can keep wasting time on that and not the real problem. If you want to conquer the real problem, then get serious and do some of the things I said to get the community going and stop bickering like idiots. 

Get some work done on getting the game going again and get a healthy community back, then you can possibly consider trying to make something for mobile devices. Until then, forget about it.

Completely. 

Drive the notion out of your mind and burn it in a fire.

--
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Nota bene: Please be civil and treat list members with respect.
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Dave Summa | 20 Jan 2012 21:45
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Circling back to my original suggestions...

Control:
 
It's difficult enough to learn and become proficient with using Keyboard and mouse as input devices.  I have a usb nintendo/playstation type controller that if some support were written into the game may attract some younger players who are more familiar with this type of interface.  
 
Human interface is the largest challenge in the learning curve...and control consistes of phasers, photons, speed, tractors, and direction ... simple in comparison to many current first person shooters.  Plenty of folks have good reflexes but suck at using keyboards for control, improving control inputs/options and making them easy to use levels the playing field for twinks.  Why would a twink stick with netrek if they have no chance at making a kill for first 6 months in the learning curve...?
 
Graphics:
 
Enhancing the graphics should be a no brainer and have no effect on the existing gameplay model.  The ability to scale up the view from a size perspective would be a plus espescially for an old guy like me that can't read small fonts anymore...And of course enhancing the graphics should broaden the appeal to a younger generation of players.
 
Better visual cues can go a long way here, i'd also like to see some indication of the other players ships status (shields/damage) on the tactical display.   
 
Messaging:
 
Attempting to play the game while attempting to follow a slew of rapid fire text messages just adds to much to the complexity.   Maybe a stretch here but there's plenty in terms of freeware out there that can convert text to voice and vice versa.  Incorporating that into the game would be useful. 
 
Many text messages like 'ogg the base or player x defend planet y' could be represented by screen icons to the right of the tactical display versus trying to catch them in the text windows...some buttons to send these messages would be a significant improvement
 
 
 
Nothing i've suggested here alters the fundamental nature of the game but would help better package it for the masses ... if you are looking for a revival we need to improve ease of use and mass appeal.
 

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Zachary Uram | 20 Jan 2012 21:31
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Re: RE: More players and mobile clients

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 2:54 PM, Joe Evango <joe@...> wrote:
> The troll factor is one of the major items that drove me away from the game.
> People wanted to spend more camping on observer slots, flinging insults and
> driving people away from the game rather then playing or using that time to
> contribute.
>
> Had ads running monthly, pulled all of them because it was a waste of time
> and money trying to pull people in only to have them driven away by the
> political nonsense stirred up by a few bad apples.

I didn't realize we no longer had ads running. A pity.

-- 
Zach
http://www.fidei.org

--

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Dave Ahn | 20 Jan 2012 17:45

Re: RE: More players and mobile clients

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 12:07 AM, Collin Pruitt <collin <at> collinp.com> wrote:
If you want more players, then get the infrastructure for netrek.org into the control of people who actually care about the game and who have played the game in the past year or five.

It's odd to argue that the people who pay for and maintain the infrastructure on a purely voluntary basis would do so without actually caring about the game.  I didn't realize that playing the game was a requirement to host the servers and to make sure that the web site, etc are up.  I've decided to take corrective action based on our detrimental impact on the community.

Bob, Karthik:  Shut it all down.  Send me the bill.
James: Pass the ball.
Joe, Andrew, John, and countless others: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.

Maybe I'm wrong, but last I heard, anybody could step up to buy and place ads, get a Facebook movement going, rebuild the web site, improve the client UI and usability, and start up regular clue games.

The ship is on fire and sinking, and the young kids are yelling at the old geezers on wheelchairs: put out the fire.

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Zachary Uram | 20 Jan 2012 18:53
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Re: RE: More players and mobile clients

Some good points have been raised/rehashed. There was a brief period
recently of intense discussion and several developers expressed
interest in working on netrek, but they all have gone eerily quiet
since and I guess lost interest. Finding talented developers who have
the interest and the time available seems incredibly difficult. Yet
other open source projects don't seem to have such a problem. What is
netrek doing wrong to attract development?

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Collin Pruitt | 20 Jan 2012 19:22

Re: RE: More players and mobile clients

On 1/20/2012 12:53 PM, Zachary Uram wrote:
> Some good points have been raised/rehashed. There was a brief period
> recently of intense discussion and several developers expressed
> interest in working on netrek, but they all have gone eerily quiet
> since and I guess lost interest. Finding talented developers who have
> the interest and the time available seems incredibly difficult. Yet
> other open source projects don't seem to have such a problem. What is
> netrek doing wrong to attract development?

We have no community. There is no reason to develop. How hard is this to 
comprehend? Why develop for a project that has no future or hope of ever 
being used again?

Focus your resources on getting the community going first. Worry about 
development second. We have three fully-functional (by some definitions 
of "fully functional") clients and a server already, development isn't 
our top priority right now.

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Zachary Uram | 20 Jan 2012 21:19
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Re: RE: More players and mobile clients

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 1:22 PM, Collin Pruitt <collin@...> wrote:
>
> We have no community. There is no reason to develop. How hard is this to
> comprehend? Why develop for a project that has no future or hope of ever
> being used again?
>
> Focus your resources on getting the community going first. Worry about
> development second. We have three fully-functional (by some definitions of
> "fully functional") clients and a server already, development isn't our top
> priority right now.

That is a valid point, however not everyone has the same points of
motivation vis a vis development. Some may only get involved if there
is already a vibrant community of active users, others may be
challenged by a less active community and relish the chance to have a
big impact. I think we're talking about two tracts, which are mutually
dependent in my view, to pursue for reviving netrek (everyone I think
can agree it is for all purposes dead as an active community).

First: creating buzz about the game, getting broader exposure (I'm
sure many gamers have never heard of it.)
Social media can be a good tool for this, but it doesn't do much good
if you get a nice influx of newbies and they are turned off by the
graphics, the messaging system, the lack of guidance, and a host of
other issues. So this brings up the second tact.

Second: have a desirable (however you define it) gaming experience for
the newbies when they do come. We should make things as easy as
possible for them. There is a lot that can be done which won't affect
classic netrek gameplay at all. We must be aware that netrek now
competes against literally tens of thousands of other games. How can
we get their attention? I think netrek will always be a niche game
because it does have a steep learning curve (that in itself is not a
bad thing) and right now there is not active communities of players OR
developers.

So whoever will revive the game must have a coordinated approach that
accounts for both of these different problem sets.

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Collin Pruitt | 20 Jan 2012 21:50

Re: RE: More players and mobile clients

On 1/20/2012 3:19 PM, Zachary Uram wrote:
> First: creating buzz about the game, getting broader exposure (I'm
> sure many gamers have never heard of it.)
> Social media can be a good tool for this, but it doesn't do much good
> if you get a nice influx of newbies and they are turned off by the
> graphics, the messaging system, the lack of guidance, and a host of
> other issues. So this brings up the second tact.
>
> Second: have a desirable (however you define it) gaming experience for
> the newbies when they do come. We should make things as easy as
> possible for them. There is a lot that can be done which won't affect
> classic netrek gameplay at all. We must be aware that netrek now
> competes against literally tens of thousands of other games. How can
> we get their attention? I think netrek will always be a niche game
> because it does have a steep learning curve (that in itself is not a
> bad thing) and right now there is not active communities of players OR
> developers.
>
> So whoever will revive the game must have a coordinated approach that
> accounts for both of these different problem sets.
I'm going to address these points all at once:

My approach would be to (in loose order):
a) Remove a lot of the useless features from clients. Make it so you 
won't hit a random button and the message window will disappear (yes, I 
know that can be disabled in the configuration of any decent client, but 
it's still annoying.) Which brings me to my next point;
b) Create a cross-platform configuration wizard *and* a configuration 
file that is compatible with all clients.
c) Make the clients look the same. For heaven's sake, COW looks like an 
Atari game without the graphical package, Mactrek looks strange to begin 
with, and Netrek XP looks like something out of the 2000s. No insult to 
the respective client developers, but looks are a lot of the deal, sadly 
enough.
d) Possibly, create a newbie server. Set requirements to play on that 
server, and if you surpass those requirements, you get disconnected and 
instantly redirected to the metaservers. Make it so that, any new client 
installs automatically default to the newbie server unless it's disabled 
in the client configuration file (wizard).  This will prevent newbies 
from getting rewled off the ordinary servers by more experienced members.
e) This is an idea that would take a lot of flak if actually 
implemented, but there might be the necessity to implement a curse word 
censor. Maybe we could have a single "safe" server for that. I'm not 
sure, though. That's a whole discussion within itself.
f) Possibly, get Paradise going and onto the metas. As much as the older 
clue will hate it, if it attracts players, then we need it. Paradise has 
that whole "chaos" part to it, and it's much more expanded, than 
ordinary bronco is. It's the same thing that makes some people like 
Sturgeon more than others.
g) Get INL going. But that's far in the future.

In addition, we need to have a whole marketing team that handles getting 
ads everywhere, getting a social media presence, and such things as 
that; generally getting the word out about the game. There's got to be 
some people out there that want to play the game, they might just be 
hard to find. They're more than likely going to be the UNIX-y type of 
people, too. In addition, they need to pull the emails of every old clue 
that we can possibly find, contact them, and see if they would be 
willing to come back and play some and teach some newbies. It's a long 
shot but we might get a few back.

And, this is directed specifically at Dave Ahn:
If I could get access to the netrek.org server, I personally would be 
willing to renovate the website into something more usable. I'm not sure 
who exactly administers the netrek.org server - wouldn't that be Tanner?

And a general question, who runs playnetrek.org? I used to know this but 
I forgot it a while back.

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Allen Tipper | 20 Jan 2012 19:30
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Re: RE: More players and mobile clients

I have always wondered what happened to that myself, Zach. I have some
time to code on it, if there's someone leading a development effort,
but not the time to run the effort myself. As I said in that
discussion, I can probably toss in about 8 hours a week; that alone
isn't sufficient for anything really significant, but it can certainly
add value to a coding effort.

I've often wondered myself how Netrek could properly attract open
source developers; I'm no PR expert, but a lot of the problem, at
least to me, is that no one has heard of it. When I talk to my
friends, even my techie friends, and mention Netrek, they have no idea
what it is. I can't even show them a real game, since there's pretty
much never T-mode on the servers. I'd have to do something like get
together 8 folks at once, or preferably 16, and set up a formal game.
I've even seriously considered doing just that, but time constraints
tend to get in the way.

Netrek is a unique game, and there's nothing else with the same depth
of play and strategy on the market. As many Indie games prove, it
doesn't need to be especially pretty to attract a loyal following,
just interesting. Take a look at Dwarf Fortress and the following it
has as an example. I'm just not sure how I can really even advertise
it or show it off when we can't even get T-mode going currently.

   -Allen Tipper

-------------------------------------------
Insert witty .sig here

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 12:53 PM, Zachary Uram <netrek@...> wrote:
> Some good points have been raised/rehashed. There was a brief period
> recently of intense discussion and several developers expressed
> interest in working on netrek, but they all have gone eerily quiet
> since and I guess lost interest. Finding talented developers who have
> the interest and the time available seems incredibly difficult. Yet
> other open source projects don't seem to have such a problem. What is
> netrek doing wrong to attract development?
>
> --
> Zach
> http://www.fidei.org
>
> --
> To post send mail here: netrek-forever@...
> More info: http://groups.google.com/group/netrek-forever/
> Nota bene: Please be civil and treat list members with respect.

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Zachary Uram | 20 Jan 2012 21:30
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Re: RE: More players and mobile clients

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 1:30 PM, Allen Tipper <akerasi@...> wrote:
> I have always wondered what happened to that myself, Zach. I have some
> time to code on it, if there's someone leading a development effort,
> but not the time to run the effort myself. As I said in that
> discussion, I can probably toss in about 8 hours a week; that alone
> isn't sufficient for anything really significant, but it can certainly
> add value to a coding effort.

Yeah, people who were interested expressed initial estimates on time
they could devote and areas of interest, but after that they all went
silent. You can't force people to be passionate so I figured best to
just wait for people to get something going and then we can bring on
more interested devs.

> I've often wondered myself how Netrek could properly attract open
> source developers; I'm no PR expert, but a lot of the problem, at
> least to me, is that no one has heard of it. When I talk to my
> friends, even my techie friends, and mention Netrek, they have no idea
> what it is. I can't even show them a real game, since there's pretty
> much never T-mode on the servers. I'd have to do something like get
> together 8 folks at once, or preferably 16, and set up a formal game.
> I've even seriously considered doing just that, but time constraints
> tend to get in the way.

I've had the same experience. Perhaps a training client could help
with the initial exposure to netrek. Keeping track
of everything and being aware of all the layers of team play and
strategy is impossible for a newbie, they just see netrek as a space
battle game, and then as they learn and peel away the layers of the
onion they finally get clue and appreciate just how deep of a game
netrek is, but the problem with that is it takes years to fully
mature. So we should focus on making newbies initial exposure to
netrek as fun as possible. Have killer graphics, quality sound, a web
bases stats/ranking system so a player can login (or have it all
public) and see all of their up to date stats. I can already hear
people groaning, "Stats don't matter!" But it *does* matter to the
newbies and most modern popular games have some sort of public stats
system available now. I wish I could lead such an effort, but I don't
have much programming experience nor experience coordinating
developers so I think someone with lots of experience should step up,
but such people tend to be very busy.

> Netrek is a unique game, and there's nothing else with the same depth
> of play and strategy on the market. As many Indie games prove, it
> doesn't need to be especially pretty to attract a loyal following,
> just interesting. Take a look at Dwarf Fortress and the following it
> has as an example. I'm just not sure how I can really even advertise
> it or show it off when we can't even get T-mode going currently.

Good point. I'm sure with enough ad dollars we could get all the
players we wanted, but then the essential question is retention. If
they try it once or a couple times and have no fun and leave forever
then the ads are just wasted money.

-- 
Zach
http://www.fidei.org

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James Cameron | 20 Jan 2012 22:06

Re: RE: More players and mobile clients

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 11:45:39AM -0500, Dave Ahn wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 12:07 AM, Collin Pruitt <collin@...> wrote:
> 
>     If you want more players, then get the infrastructure for netrek.org into
>     the control of people who actually care about the game and who have played
>     the game in the past year or five.
> 
> 
> It's odd to argue that the people who pay for and maintain the infrastructure
> on a purely voluntary basis would do so without actually caring about the game.
>  I didn't realize that playing the game was a requirement to host the servers
> and to make sure that the web site, etc are up.  I've decided to take
> corrective action based on our detrimental impact on the community.

I disagree with your proposed action.

I also disagree with Collin that the infrastructure should be in the
control of people who play ... there's no sign that the people who play
either know about infrastructure control or can provide content and
coding.  If there was a sign, we'd have a row of contributions already.

I also disagree that placing the infrastructure in the control of people
who play would increase the number of players.  In my experience, this
reduces the number of played hours by the number of hours dedicated to
the control task.  Zero sum game.

Still waiting for content and code contributions.

-- 
James Cameron
http://quozl.linux.org.au/

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Collin Pruitt | 21 Jan 2012 00:30

Re: RE: More players and mobile clients

On 1/20/2012 4:06 PM, James Cameron wrote:
> I also disagree with Collin that the infrastructure should be in the
> control of people who play ... there's no sign that the people who play
> either know about infrastructure control or can provide content and
> coding.  If there was a sign, we'd have a row of contributions already.
>
> I also disagree that placing the infrastructure in the control of people
> who play would increase the number of players.  In my experience, this
> reduces the number of played hours by the number of hours dedicated to
> the control task.  Zero sum game.
>
It's not that I don't agree with what you said before - it's highly like 
that, if something were to change, it probably would have changed by now 
- but I personally believe that more would be accomplished with the 
infrastructure in control of the people who play. Currently, at least, 
there's a lot of *interest* in doing stuff, but no stuff being done, and 
that's because I feel that people are reluctant to contribute when 
nothing has changed to show that it will help anything. Everything is 
still *exactly* the same as it was... six months ago, maybe even a year 
ago. I believe that the fundamental infrastructure of the game being 
transferred to the control of different people would signify that a 
movement is underway to change the game, and might help to encourage 
more people to contribute if there's some hope that said contributions 
will bear fruit to the overall health of the game.

It's more the psychological factor in the equation than the actual 
change that makes me push for this.

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James Cameron | 21 Jan 2012 02:38

Re: RE: More players and mobile clients

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 06:30:26PM -0500, Collin Pruitt wrote:
> On 1/20/2012 4:06 PM, James Cameron wrote:
> >I also disagree with Collin that the infrastructure should be in the
> >control of people who play ... there's no sign that the people who play
> >either know about infrastructure control or can provide content and
> >coding.  If there was a sign, we'd have a row of contributions already.
> >
> >I also disagree that placing the infrastructure in the control of people
> >who play would increase the number of players.  In my experience, this
> >reduces the number of played hours by the number of hours dedicated to
> >the control task.  Zero sum game.
> >
> It's not that I don't agree with what you said before - it's highly
> like that, if something were to change, it probably would have
> changed by now - but I personally believe that more would be
> accomplished with the infrastructure in control of the people who
> play. Currently, at least, there's a lot of *interest* in doing
> stuff, but no stuff being done, and that's because I feel that
> people are reluctant to contribute when nothing has changed to show
> that it will help anything. Everything is still *exactly* the same
> as it was... six months ago, maybe even a year ago. I believe that
> the fundamental infrastructure of the game being transferred to the
> control of different people would signify that a movement is
> underway to change the game, and might help to encourage more people
> to contribute if there's some hope that said contributions will bear
> fruit to the overall health of the game.
> 
> It's more the psychological factor in the equation than the actual
> change that makes me push for this.

I think what you perceive is an effect of responsibility.  When someone
is in control of something, they have a clear responsibility to act, and
so they act.

But in the Netrek technical community we have generally given
responsibility to people who have demonstrated their ability to act.

The main trouble with requiring those with responsibility to also play
... is that we instantly lose infrastructure components when those
people stop playing.  It has happened before.

Allowing non-current players to control infrastructure improves the
infrastructure available to the player community.

-- 
James Cameron
http://quozl.linux.org.au/

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Dave Ahn | 21 Jan 2012 05:58

Re: RE: More players and mobile clients

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 4:06 PM, James Cameron <quozl-kJBlkiJxCS9aa/9Udqfwiw@public.gmane.org.org> wrote:
I disagree with your proposed action.

I'm disappointed, James.  You could have played along.   :-)

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 3:50 PM, Collin Pruitt <collin-X+/8lN8G1XhBDgjK7y7TUQ@public.gmane.org> wrote:
And, this is directed specifically at Dave Ahn:
If I could get access to the netrek.org server, I personally would be willing to renovate the website into something more usable. I'm not sure who exactly administers the netrek.org server - wouldn't that be Tanner?

No, on both accounts.  The production netrek.org server requires strict access control and consistent up time.  It is not for developing a new home page.  If you are serious about your offer, then proceed with your work on a development server.  I can provide one if you don't have one.  Once you are done, the production server can be updated.  If you commit to long-term maintenance, we can discuss and grant access to the production server.  But the very first and obvious thing to do is to contact Andrew, the listed webmaster on netrek.org.


And a general question, who runs playnetrek.org? I used to know this but I forgot it a while back.

Joe.

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 6:30 PM, Collin Pruitt <collin-X+/8lN8G1XhBDgjK7y7TUQ@public.gmane.org> wrote:
Currently, at least, there's a lot of *interest* in doing stuff, but no stuff being done, and that's because I feel that people are reluctant to contribute when nothing has changed to show that it will help anything.

This is conjecture, but we can test it.  Netrek.org's scope is primarily Netrek but secondarily the derivatives of Netrek - past, present and future.  If those interested in reviving the game or its derivatives feel that infrastructure is an issue, post publicly here or mail me privately with the specific grievance, and I will do my best to address them.

Everything is still *exactly* the same as it was... six months ago, maybe even a year ago. I believe that the fundamental infrastructure of the game being transferred to the control of different people would signify that a movement is underway to change the game, and might help to encourage more people to contribute if there's some hope that said contributions will bear fruit to the overall health of the game.

My own conjecture is that hostility is the primary reason why potential and actual contributors disappear.  I have observed many threads over the years that attack, discourage or even demean such people.  The secondary reason is that nobody is stepping up to lead a new effort in spite of the hostility.  That is a shame.

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Collin Pruitt | 30 Jan 2012 07:16

Re: More players and mobile clients

On Jan 20, 11:58 pm, Dave Ahn <a...@...> wrote:
> No, on both accounts.  The production netrek.org server requires strict
> access control and consistent up time.  It is not for developing a new home
> page.  If you are serious about your offer, then proceed with your work on
> a development server.  I can provide one if you don't have one.  Once you
> are done, the production server can be updated.  If you commit to long-term
> maintenance, we can discuss and grant access to the production server.  But
> the very first and obvious thing to do is to contact Andrew, the listed
> webmaster on netrek.org.

I'd like to take you up on the offer of a development server, since I
don't have a reliable machine to test on at the moment. I need an
environment that can emulate netrek.org's current setup (software-
wise) as closely as possible, so I know what I have to develop on.

Side note: Please excuse the time delay in my replying, I've been busy
with a lot of personal issues recently and haven't had time to write a
response.

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