Spring RTS Engine

enetheru wrote:I don't see the downside of someone making video tutorials. please enlighten me.

It highlights a gaping flaw, and makes the rest of us look like a bunch of idiots.

Better to just fix the flaw eh?

Enetheru, forb:

MidKnight wrote:Stop discussing, start creating.

My point is that perhaps a new thread should be made in the development forum discussion making the installer and the lobby startups more noob friendly. Tbh, this is more a problem with the lobbies than anything.

[14:55:36] <Tdude97> Could some1 tell me what to do?
[14:56:32] * Tdude97 Slaps Tdude97 around with a large PeeWee!
[14:57:36] <Tdude97> how can i go play a game?
[14:58:02] <[Mr]Wayne_Rooney> what lobby do you use, tdude
[14:58:08] <[Mr]Wayne_Rooney> springdownloader? springlobby?
[14:58:28] <[Mr]Wayne_Rooney> easiest way to play singleplayer is to find and run spring.exe
[14:58:40] <[Mr]Wayne_Rooney> then you can pick from installed mods / maps / AI
[15:02:55] <Tdude97> what u mean?
[15:03:03] <Tdude97> lobby?
[15:03:12] <Tdude97> p, springlobby
[15:03:19] <Tdude97> o, springlobby*
[15:04:59] <[Mr]Wayne_Rooney> kk
[15:05:04] <Tdude97> thx
[15:05:04] <[Mr]Wayne_Rooney> well, to start a game from the lobby
[15:05:11] <[Mr]Wayne_Rooney> go up to "singleplayer" tab
[15:05:16] <Tdude97> okay
[15:05:30] <[Mr]Wayne_Rooney> then at the bottom, you select a map and a mod, and have the option to add AI
[15:05:44] <Tdude97> i dont have any maps
[15:05:46] <Tdude97> or mods
[15:05:50] <[Mr]Wayne_Rooney> im not sure what spring ships with these days, but if you're missing maps or mods or feel you want something else
[15:05:53] <[Mr]Wayne_Rooney> springfiles.com
[15:05:59] <[Mr]Wayne_Rooney> has all the stuff you need
[15:06:04] <Tdude97> thx!
[15:06:27] <[Mr]Wayne_Rooney> no worries. there are folders in the /spring/ installation path for mods, maps, AI etc
[15:06:42] <[Mr]Wayne_Rooney> its a bit tricky to get started with spring, but i think you'll have some fun :D
[15:06:48] <[Mr]Wayne_Rooney> cheers and good luck sir
[15:08:18] <[Mr]Wayne_Rooney> oh and i suggest either E323AI or SHARD for an AI opponent; they're great, they'll teach you good
[15:08:51] <Tdude97> lol, okay, thx
[15:09:39] <Tdude97> idk what map to download
[15:09:42] <Tdude97>
[15:09:57] <[Mr]Wayne_Rooney> well, you can look @ the most popular
[15:10:05] <[Mr]Wayne_Rooney> deltasiegedry is the most popular map
[15:10:10] <[Mr]Wayne_Rooney> and BA is the most popular mod
[15:10:24] <[Mr]Wayne_Rooney> ... not to say they are the best by any means...
[15:10:38] <[Mr]Wayne_Rooney> but its a good starting point, and they are compatible with the AIs
[15:11:24] <Tdude97> cool, thx
[15:14:40] <Tdude97> lol, thx, tho, im deliting this from my computer
[15:14:45] <Tdude97> takes up too much space
[15:14:51] <Tdude97> and its hard to understand
[15:14:58] <Tdude97> thx dude
[15:16:18] * [Mr]Wayne_Rooney facepalm :/

is this standard? maybe it is...

Look the guy was verging on mentally spasticated. We just dont need people like that in the community!

It's not easy to dl map and mod manually for many people. Many people who would enjoy that game dont even know how works folders.

Well if he's born -97...

KaiserJ wrote:is this standard? maybe it is...

Yes. The lobbies are woefully full of suck, all of them, and as a result the end user doesn't know shit from peanut butter, and the spring site needs to stop distributing the spring engine and instead rely on the games/mods for that, therefore, the end user would actually know what he was downloading.

triton wrote:We need video tutorial for ALL
-How to install spring on OSX, Linux, and Windows.
-How to use Spring downloader.
-How to download mods and maps
-How to choose a game (hm maybe it could be usefull ^^)
-How to learn basics in common mods : BA XTA CA SA etc.. (Spring 1944 and Kernel panic maybe :)

- http://springrts.com/wiki/Download, took me around 2 min to install spring on my notebook with linux on university, dont tell me someone needs tut for that, if he does, well, one retard less.

- SD/dwl mods and maps - i used SD only to download more 'rare' mods, nothing else, these 2 points comes to removing ShittyLobby from installer and put tas there.

- i dont understand

- lobby got spec option already

spring needs some advertise, not more tuts nobody will ever read/watch.

also it will end same as knip/pro annihilation so whatever

ok, some constructive idea CLEAN THE MESS IN SPRINGFILES/JOBJOL like altair map, instead of maplink, u get xta replay ;_; , search is fuked, and even if u find something, there is 482049230 useless results

regards

urmom

Wombat wrote: also it will end same as knip/pro annihilation so whatever

You're right on one point, I often fail

Also I wont start a long term project, ill just make 2 or 3 video and see if others guys help me to make more videos (my lack of vocabulary and my english accent could be a problem ^^)

Why does it matter if other people make videos? That shouldn't affect whether or not your tutorials are useful or not.

And any other tutorial than playing guide, should be written not video, & included with the programs themselves - nobody wants to watch videos on how to start a game

i think my particular noob would have been much better off using SD... he would have been able to download stuff automatically at least. just hard to get my head around it because all this stuff is 2nd nature for me.

this guy tried for 20 minutes and gave up, which is a fail, but at the same time, maybe the objective should be to reduce the download-to-play period.

my suggestion... package SOMETHING with spring. doesn't matter what. any map, any mod, and a compatible AI. make them appear as default options in SL or SD or TASC, so that a nub can log in, see "single player", see a start button, click it, and boom go.

idea:

maybe its the crack talking but i think i saw a nice machiosabre cartoon of a friendly commander with a teacher hat. how about, when someone starts a lobby for the first time, a little welcome screen pops up...

hi rookie! welcome to spring!

spring is an engine used for a number of different strategy games, all of which are hosted on this server as part of a larger community.

[lets try a game]
(starts spring.exe with a default map/mod/AI. something stable.)
[find out more about spring and the various projects it supports]
(links to docs, vids)

(opens up the lobby proper)

three options... play immediately, check out documentation (the videos etc mentioned) or "i know what im doing" for people who want to jump right into the lobby.

make the little window nice and pretty. something sexy that makes people go "oh, this looks credible, and not too complicated".

any pros / cons to this idea? im aware that quickstart menus exist, but i think they are part of seperate installers, not the basic spring install

i wouldn't want to choose which game/mod was pre-shipped. ideally we want something free of TAIP. KP is a very obvious choice to me, but then again, Z already has his own installer IIRC. CA chickens would be a great setup too... easy and fun to start, tough to master; it could hook people in quite easily. so let the arguments begin/continue.

nothing wrong with the idea of a video or documentation. but i doubt that someone who doesn't understand what folders are could benefit from one... and if anything, we want LESS time for people to play... i personally hate documentation, i always start the game and see how i'm able to do on my own, then refer to docs once i get a handle of what's actually going on

edit: instead of a fort for nerds, we need to redesign it like this



the hole is the installer
the slippery funnel is the installation process
the big bug at the bottom is 8v8 DsD

KaiserJ wrote:


the hole is the installer
the slippery funnel is the installation process
the big bug at the bottom is 8v8 DsD

i rofled :"D

for me, problem with spring, is installer, as such, i mean file, for example, i bet most noobs click spring.exe instead of lobby, wtf is that for anyway ?

Wombat wrote: for me, problem with spring, is installer, as such, i mean file, for example, i bet most noobs click spring.exe instead of lobby, wtf is that for anyway ?

Yeah, there should just be some basic lobby or something built into Spring.exe or some kind of system which gets players into a lobby and ready to play without having to figure out what does what. Tooltips with arrows and picture examples may be useful for new players.

well, you can connect to the lobby via spring.exe (whoever redesigned this did a very nice job tbh)

my only quibble with it might be that "connect to lobby" might be better stated as "multiplayer" (not for the sake of the accuracy but for noob friendliness)

and of course a full-screen lobby styled in much the same way as the spring.exe would be nice too and bring everything together, but is probably overkill

-How to download mods and maps



http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AUok- ... kOHI&hl=en

This lobby client has been available for months. Newbies to spring use it without any help. Most of you guys (like Wombat and Triton) are babbling and talking in circles about downloading mods and maps. SD users (SD USERS, not SD+TASC USERS) don't know what a mod or map is, they don't know anything about folders, they just join games and play.

KaiserJ wrote:maybe its the crack talking but i think i saw a nice machiosabre cartoon of a friendly commander with a teacher hat.

I think you are remembering nubtron.

I've introduced maybe about 6 of my friends to Spring over the years, none of them are still playing, in fact, all of them never played any more than a week. I've got bunches of conversations you could look at to see why they didn't want to play or couldn't but it should be pretty obvious by now.

Spring is a community project, it relies on your average Joe to make content and stuff. Nobody HAS to be here, nobody gets paid, there is nothing that requires people to do what they do. However, there are those that do help out, for example, lobby creators. Eventually, the lobby creators may lose interest or give project leadership to somebody else, this causes mix ups and problems occur.

With a free, community project like Spring, things are bound to go wrong. There is no solid team of developers and there is no official Spring content apart from the Engine right? When all the projects are made by different individual's with different motives, ideas and brain patters, things are gunna turn out as smoothly as a traditional retail game developed by a studio of a team of professionals.

CarRepairer wrote:-How to download mods and maps



http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AUok- ... kOHI&hl=en

This lobby client has been available for months. Newbies to spring use it without any help. Most of you guys (like Wombat and Triton) are babbling and talking in circles about downloading mods and maps. SD users (SD USERS, not SD+TASC USERS) don't know what a mod or map is, they don't know anything about folders, they just join games and play.

SD has it's own subset of problems. The most notable being downloads that eff up halfway through or never start to begin with, or SD kicking the user from the battle if the map refuses to download.

CarRepairer wrote: This lobby client has been available for months. Newbies to spring use it without any help. Most of you guys (like Wombat and Triton) are babbling and talking in circles about downloading mods and maps. SD users (SD USERS, not SD+TASC USERS) don't know what a mod or map is, they don't know anything about folders, they just join games and play.

my question, is how are people still getting to the lobby without this? seems like SD should be default for new users

nothing wrong with the more "advanced" lobbies... but for first time users i would assume SD is the best option