Author Topic: Let's talk, HLP!  (Read 82135 times)

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You seem to be forgetting the reason multi died out: it sucks!

Yes definitely. FSO multi died out solely due to bad netcode. Let's ignore the fact that niche games with good netcode also saw their multi die out due to declining interest and the network effect.
The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell.

 

Offline jr2

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You seem to be forgetting the reason multi died out: it sucks!

Yes definitely. FSO multi died out solely due to bad netcode. Let's ignore the fact that niche games with good netcode also saw their multi die out due to declining interest and the network effect.

How many posts did we get in the BtRL threads alone asking for assistance in multiplayer?  How about on moddb?  Now consider the average user, if they stuck around long enough to manage to download from over-crowded servers (or knew how to torrent) would simply drop the game and move on, unless they were really persistent, with a generous helping of patience.  Typical gamers aren't, that I've seen, hence the console: boop the power button, click two buttons, drop into Halo 14, and charge the enemy team with guns blazing (or camp out and snipe, whatever fits the bill).

 
How many posts did we get in the BtRL threads alone asking for assistance in multiplayer?

do you understand how ironic it is, given the themes of this thread, that you are giving us advice on how to attract new users to FSO based on a mod release from a decade ago?
The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell.

 

Offline Kobrar44

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Barely anyone ever would play multiplayer, that is true. But it is also true that barely anyone ever plays the campaigns that are released these days. That is because, the only thing FSO can ever be at this point, is a very niche project, for a very small but dedicated community and barely anyone ever is going to play it. Even with big releases like Diaspora or FotG, the multiplayer would maybe be played for a couple weeks before becoming mostly dead again. That is the reality. If you think that's not worth being passionate about, what are you even doing here. Because if multiplayer becomes viable, and once a year someone shows up on discord saying hey lets play freespace today, I would be all for that. I plan on playing BtA before death, too.
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Offline jr2

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How many posts did we get in the BtRL threads alone asking for assistance in multiplayer?

do you understand how ironic it is, given the themes of this thread, that you are giving us advice on how to attract new users to FSO based on a mod release from a decade ago?

*sigh* because nothing has changed since then.  We still have awesome mods, TCs, upgraded FS2 assets, the whole shebang, always being updated, etc, every once in a while we get a burst of new users from a really popular mod, and then it fizzles out.  Multi gives people something to do with the FSO engine while they're waiting for the next release of Diaspora, for example.  Otherwise, they play the release a lot, and then eventually move on.  The other answer to the problem would be a bunch of mid-to-high quality campaigns / mods for a popular release, but that only lasts as long as the replay value of the user-made campaigns.

 

Offline karajorma

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In the end this is pointless.

Whether or not work on multiplayer results in an active multiplayer community the fact remains that there are some of us who want to actually PLAY the game in multiplayer mode. And at the moment we can't. So even if work on multiplayer results in only one or two games a week, at least those people are happy. If the coders involved are happy with that being the conclusion of any work they do on multiplayer (and I know I am) then it really doesn't matter whether this will result in a massive multiplayer community since that is a bonus objective anyway!
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

[ Diaspora ] - [ Seeds Of Rebellion ] - [ Mind Games ]

 

Offline Colonol Dekker

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The Internet certainly wasn't standard issue amongst my social circle when fs2 multi player was ongoing,  that's another factor.  Think back 20 years or so. 

But now,  if fs2 was a working thing,  I'd certainly be more inclined to try a quick fs2 brawl than wait ten minutes for ed arena to work.
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I would LOVE to do FSO multi. I haven't tried because I don't know anyone to do a LAN party with and I know that internet multi is garbage right now. Just because some people here don't say much about multi doesn't mean there's no desire. I just don't want to sound like I'm whining about it, especially since I am a novice coder at best and wouldn't have the foggiest idea of how to optimize or replace current net code. I keep quiet because there's nothing I can do about it.
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those who understand binary and those who don't.

 

Offline General Battuta

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LAN is garbage too. Played the entire FS2 campaign on 5 player LAN, nonhosts were lucky to get two kills a mission.

 

Offline karajorma

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Yep. There isn't really any difference between the code used for LAN and online games. LAN games obviously have a lower ping but the problem isn't just that.

But whenever I try to read the netcode (especially the rate stuff) my brain dribbles out of my ears.
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

[ Diaspora ] - [ Seeds Of Rebellion ] - [ Mind Games ]

 
In the end this is pointless.

Whether or not work on multiplayer results in an active multiplayer community the fact remains that there are some of us who want to actually PLAY the game in multiplayer mode. And at the moment we can't. So even if work on multiplayer results in only one or two games a week, at least those people are happy. If the coders involved are happy with that being the conclusion of any work they do on multiplayer (and I know I am) then it really doesn't matter whether this will result in a massive multiplayer community since that is a bonus objective anyway!

I don't think anyone here would deny that there are people who enjoy multi and it would be good to get it working for their sake alone. But this is a thread asking "how do we get FSO to thrive again" and there are people pushing "fixing multi" as the answer to that almost to the point of it being concern trolling. FSO thrived just fine around 2010 or so on the strength of its single-player content alone, and that's what we want to get back to.
The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell.

 

Offline karajorma

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Let's just look at the numbers.

FS2 had a fairly loyal, long-running multiplayer community after release. FS2 sold only 30,000 copies in the first 6 months.
Diaspora and BtRL both managed to get around quarter of a million confirmed downloads each in the same sort of timespan (we have absolutely no idea how many people downloaded the torrents).

Now is the multiplayer community you could get as a result of that going to be the saviour of HLP? Probably not. Unless we somehow manage to satisfy an itch that can't be scratch by other space games, we're not going to become massively famous off the back of multiplayer. But even building a community equal to the original retail FS2 one is worthy. And I find it very hard to believe that is not an achievable goal if the netcode was fixed.
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

[ Diaspora ] - [ Seeds Of Rebellion ] - [ Mind Games ]

 

Offline chief1983

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I think considering how long XvT lived, and the fact that Star Wars has almost always had new media in one form or another keeping people interest in the universe, FotG could be distinct from TBP, WCS, and Diaspora in that regard.  It was why I revived FotG in the first place, the XvT community was dying as the game got old.  It wasn't until I was too far in to realize that the game's multiplayer engine itself wasn't up to what I had hoped it could do.  But I'd love to do whatever I could to help make that change.  No offense to any other projects but I really think FotG has the biggest change at bringing constant multiplayer interest to the platform, just because of the constant interest in the IP it is based on.  Although that's also the most likely reason for it to get a C&D, so...we'll see what happens there.

And TBP and Diaspora are both very good games.  If multiplayer had been better, I wouldn't be surprised if people would still be playing them both now.  Yes, many games die, but I think that's more on the publishers than their community.  If they stop releasing new content, or encouraging the community and interacting with it, it will often die, with exceptions for hugely popular and competitive games.  But mods in this community can be added on to by anyone.  Anyone can create their own content, including multiplayer missions, etc.  Many games that have died have no such mechanism for involvement like that.  The sandbox can often keep people coming back.

We could all be wrong though, in that people just don't want a multiplayer experience like we could ever offer.  People seem to be getting used to just dropping into random battles at the click of a button.  Or joining ongoing games that never really end.  Lobbying up to start a game and sitting there waiting to start may be beyond people's threshold for the most part these days.  But some aspects of that are still things that could be helped technologically.
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"You may not sell or otherwise commercially exploit the source or things you created based on the source." -- Excerpt from FSO license, for reference

Nuclear1:  Jesus Christ zack you're a little too hamyurger for HLP right now...
iamzack:  i dont have hamynerge i just want ptatoc hips D:
redsniper:  Platonic hips?!
iamzack:  lays

 

Offline karajorma

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I think considering how long XvT lived, and the fact that Star Wars has almost always had new media in one form or another keeping people interest in the universe, FotG could be distinct from TBP, WCS, and Diaspora in that regard.  It was why I revived FotG in the first place, the XvT community was dying as the game got old.  It wasn't until I was too far in to realize that the game's multiplayer engine itself wasn't up to what I had hoped it could do.  But I'd love to do whatever I could to help make that change.  No offense to any other projects but I really think FotG has the biggest change at bringing constant multiplayer interest to the platform, just because of the constant interest in the IP it is based on.

I'm not going to disagree with you on that score. Interest in Diaspora is nowhere near as high today as it was ten years ago simply because BSG is no longer on TV.

That said, Knossos means that interest in any IP will have much more bleed over to other projects than ever before. When Diaspora launched, the only way we could get people to play the other FS2_Open games is if they came back to the forums after playing and looked for them. Now we'll have them sitting there every time you play the game, waiting for you to try them out.
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

[ Diaspora ] - [ Seeds Of Rebellion ] - [ Mind Games ]

 

Offline PIe

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I discovered FreeSpace relatively recently, and I have a few observations.  I found this place because of Diaspora, I think from a Kotaku article on BSG games.  I discovered Wing Commander Saga and the Babylon Project from http://diaspora.hard-light.net/links.html.  I say this because links to other FS2 based projects are quite valuable, just not if half of them are dead.  This leads to:
1. The projects tab on the home page really needs to be cleaned up.  There are a ton of dead projects there.
2. Since much, if not most, of info on getting started is in the forums, it's really hard to find.  Plus, even when you do find it, it's more often then not completely outdated.  For instance, to download Diaspora, you have to wade through a long post by Karajorma, when I just want to download the thing and play it.  Even once you get to the download links, if you don't scroll further, you won't discover that there are some necessary patches.  No offense to Karajorma, but for me, and I think many others just joining, it would be much better to have links directly on diaspora.hard-light.net.  Also, moving the essential threads to the wiki would help a lot.
3. The wxLauncher or equivalent needs to be much more prominent.
As far as the OP goes, I have some interest in joining an Aide team.  Also, replacing the current Captcha with Google's reCaptcha would be nice.
Overall, my main beef is that a lot of HLP seems deserted and in serious need to updating.
[6:23 PM] PIe: why do I have the feeling that I shouldn't be able to give orders to 22nd armored hq
[6:24 PM] Axem: 22nd armored hq, i order you to get me a cup of coffee
[6:24 PM] PIe: and donuts
[6:24 PM] PIe: BECAUSE THIS IS THE GTVA POLICE
[6:25 PM] Axem: :O
[6:25 PM] Axem: am i under arrest
[6:26 PM] [`_`]/: no, just please step out of the myrmidon
[6:26 PM] [`_`]/: you have so much to fred for

[9:50 PM] Sottises: wait did you do vassago's verge?
[9:50 PM] Sottises: .. dirge?
[9:50 PM] Axem: yes
[9:50 PM] Sottises: ohh
[9:50 PM] Sottises: well I have that and JAD too
[9:50 PM] Axem: :)
[9:50 PM] Sottises: what a contrast of themes lmao
[9:50 PM] Axem: isnt it
[9:51 PM] Axem: super grimdark thriller about unknowable alien intelligence and over the top colorful action about friendship
[9:51 PM] PIe: jad is grimdark???
[9:51 PM] Axem: :skull:

 

Offline karajorma

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It's pretty nice to hear from our target audience. :yes:

1) Yeah. the Diaspora website is in dire need of an update. In fact most of the project websites could use an update. The problem is that very few of us actually have the skills to do anything serious in the way of an update (and those that do are busy). That said, cleaning up links isn't a particularly big problem so I'll look into that now.

2) & 3) Both of those two problems should hopefully go away once we switch over to Knossos. For those who haven't been paying attention to that thread, Knossos is a Steam / GoG Galaxy style combined launcher and installed for FS2_Open games. The idea is that users will be provided with an interface that looks like this





Knossos should provide access to all our FS2_Open mods and games in one place. So instead of that release thread all new players need to do is be told to download Knossos and click on Diaspora to install it. Since Knossos will be able to detect that upgrades are available there is no need to manually find and download patches.

Diaspora is actually already available via the Knossos beta version but I don't think that's something that we should be pointing first time users at yet. In the meanwhile, I'll have a look at the release thread and see if I can clean it up a little. 
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

[ Diaspora ] - [ Seeds Of Rebellion ] - [ Mind Games ]

 

Offline PIe

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That looks quite nice, functional as well as good-looking.  I'll look at the thread.
[6:23 PM] PIe: why do I have the feeling that I shouldn't be able to give orders to 22nd armored hq
[6:24 PM] Axem: 22nd armored hq, i order you to get me a cup of coffee
[6:24 PM] PIe: and donuts
[6:24 PM] PIe: BECAUSE THIS IS THE GTVA POLICE
[6:25 PM] Axem: :O
[6:25 PM] Axem: am i under arrest
[6:26 PM] [`_`]/: no, just please step out of the myrmidon
[6:26 PM] [`_`]/: you have so much to fred for

[9:50 PM] Sottises: wait did you do vassago's verge?
[9:50 PM] Sottises: .. dirge?
[9:50 PM] Axem: yes
[9:50 PM] Sottises: ohh
[9:50 PM] Sottises: well I have that and JAD too
[9:50 PM] Axem: :)
[9:50 PM] Sottises: what a contrast of themes lmao
[9:50 PM] Axem: isnt it
[9:51 PM] Axem: super grimdark thriller about unknowable alien intelligence and over the top colorful action about friendship
[9:51 PM] PIe: jad is grimdark???
[9:51 PM] Axem: :skull:

 

Offline JSRNerdo

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I'd probably play multi but I'm garbage at the actual dogfighting playing of FS2 which is why I usually play on medium and not insane but I'd still be down to play a round or two of multi. Agree that singleplayer's more important though.
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Offline Snail

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Umm... Hi. It's Snail. I'm hoping a few people remember me. It's been a while. About once every year I decide to have a look at that one website I used to visit literally every day and... Man, it's always weird. My life has changed so damn much since I stopped coming, but this place is always still here (with the exact same front page and forum interface). It seems like nothing at all has changed, everything's just gotten slower. Which I guess is the issue being addressed in this thread. The new home page looks great and I really hope the social media stuff gains some traction. I'll add that I think Reddit's a good place to start if we want to draw new people in. And that standalone things like Wings of Dawn or TCs based on existing IPs like Fate of the Galaxy seem like a great way to gain some mass appeal for exposure.

Honestly, I don't really have much input other than that, and I don't want to derail the thread with my nostalgia or anything, so I'll just add some general positivity and good vibes: I'm really ****ing glad you guys are still here. This game and these forums were such a huge part of my life and some of my best memories are of me in my bedroom or at my grandma's house playing Inferno and Blue Planet and of course ****posting on these forums (or embarrassing myself on IRC). It seems like a different world to me now, but as long as HLP is around it's never really gone. I hope that's always the case. While I'm saddened to see that things have slowed down significantly compared to the scene 4-6 years ago, I'm really glad that you guys are actively working on it. I've always been in total awe of how uniquely intelligent and hardworking the community here has been, and based on that alone I'm confident there's a way to breathe some life back into this place. I'm not sure if I'm in a position to contribute to the great FreeSpace resurgence of 2017 myself, but I'll just say I wish you all the best. Love you guys. :D

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Holy **** it's Snail.

Ok, now I can read your post.
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