[Lorric]

There's a Let's Player who's done some good FreeSpace coverage, imma try to push him at BtA.

This guy?

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheOneTrueRenairen

He's my favourite FS let's player.

[Droid803]

I really like his stuff.

[FrikgFeek]

Too bad QuantumDelta doesn't play Freespace anymore. He used to get a lot of views for his playthroughs, maybe he could push BtA if he played it.

[FrikgFeek]

Wait, 2.22 isn't out yet? Which - what - the one with the beta testers, that was, what, 2.21?

Both of them are "the one with the beta testers" at least I'd assume so. 2.21 is a very obvious riff on Neon Genesis Evangelion, showing tester 3 in the opening and detailing testers 4-8 in the main campaign. So it would be reasonable to assume that 2.22 would deal with testers 8-12. Following the Evangelion theme tester 13 would probably be Epsilon 1 and 14 would be the whole Freespace playerbase(as we see it), I guess?


2.21 was recently re-released with sexy character animations and VN sequences that play from the journal instead of boring old text. It's just so full of spunk and I wouldn't say it "killed" 2.22 hype because it still showcases a lot of really cool small things that will be used in 2.22.

Though JAD being JAD 2.22 could be something entirely different and completely unrelated.

[Phantom Hoover]

I don't play JAD to marvel at impressive hacks to FSO's interface art, I play JAD for experimental, hilarious riffs on Freespace gameplay.

[FrikgFeek]

But most of JAD 2.21 is still basically "Kill fighters and treb beams" while hilarity happens and all of it is lampshaded. Though the bossfights do pull some creative and fun stuff.

It still plays really well, new interface art might not make a huge difference for you but it's a nice excuse to replay the campaign before 2.22 releases.

[JSRNerdo]

Make a BtA standalone. Push it everywhere. **** the lawyers. It's the only way to grow the base. The FSO installer is too Byzantine.

And get a two-sentence elevator pitch that doesn't need any FS knowledge as a hook.

WoD did literally this same exact thing though 

[Phantom Hoover]

i'm not sure it was marketed very heavily outside hlp and i'm quite sure that the anime bull**** cuts its potential audience down enormously

[DefCynodont119]

If WoD really didn't do that well, I really REALLY doubt Anime is the reason.

I liked the latest WoD, It had a cool story, but it didn't have that many big battles/Confrontations- WoD is fine without that, but it never felt like there was a real war going on.


Don't get me wrong, WoD is great.    I think BP, BtA, and Freespace may have me to used to the "Desperate War" aesthetic. hahaha.

[Phantom Hoover]

If WoD really didn't do that well, I really REALLY doubt Anime is the reason.

I don't disagree, I think without a wider marketing strategy it was inevitably not going to get much attention.

[karajorma]

I'm already discussing with Spoon how to get WoD a bigger audience elsewhere. I sure neither of us mind suggestions but given the reasons why Spoon started this thread, I'm sure that we'd both prefer to keep the subject of this thread on BtA and JAD.

[Phantom Hoover]

It applies to BtA as well, like Battuta said it would be a lot easier to get people playing this stuff as "a self-contained single-player space sim with excellent mission design" rather than "a good Freespace 2 mod".

[karajorma]

I agree, but you are facing a problem there of releasing a game that is using a significant amount of Freespace IP. You might get away with it, but it's a much greyer area than if you have a mod.

[FrikgFeek]

If Diaspora and TBP can get away with it then BtA probably can too. As long as you don't put Freespace in the name. Using retail assets would probably also fly under the radar since FS2 is 17 years old now and pretty much nobody should care about some nerd making a free game with that IP.

[Novachen]

Actually i do not think, that that would change anything here.

The Babylon Project is pretty much dead for several years now what is new mission related.
Even Wing Commander Saga is not so alive as you can expect. User Made campaigns for WCS are... where?

Also there are even only a few or even none playthroughs of these games.


I wrote news about BtA, BP, WCS, WOD releases and several other projects on a german gaming website during the last couple of years.

Also there is no problem in getting Freespace 2 for free. Actually i am sure, that i am not the only one here that have tons of GOG and Steam Keys for both Freespace Games left.

[FrikgFeek]

Getting Freespace 2 isn't the only problem. The other problem is installing the mods. The installer generally makes it pretty easy but the default configuration wants to dump 60 gigs worth of old mods on you and you have pretty much no idea what's good and what isn't without further research.

If you just had a separate full download for BtA anyone who discovered it could just download 1 package and play it. Pack it up with all the files you need and a FSO executable, install with with a simple .msi that can create a desktop shortcut to a wxlauncher set up for whatever you just downloaded. As simple as it can possibly be.

It's possible that a lot of people are getting turned away because installing mods and getting the right executable takes a bit of effort and research.

And seriously Cool spacesim name here[download and play now] is a lot more attractive than Cool spacesim name here[you have to buy and download this 18 year old game from somewhere else then mod it using an installer you've never heard of]. Having to go through even a few extra steps takes more dedication than just lazily clicking 1 download button.

[Novachen]

I had never the feeling, that the standalone release of the games helped them very much in terms of activity.

Promotion is much more important in my opinion.
If you have a well-documented installation guide like we have here or in foreign-language commuties or even people around, that would help in any questions, it does not really matter if a release is a mod or a standalone.
The bigger problem in running freespace was not the installation of mods, that is quite easy in comparsion to many other and more successful games. For me it was always the unlimited number of options, you have in the launcher. Without any guide any new player does not have an idea what to select. It does not matter if you have a standalone or a mod. The problem is the same.

But i think that promotion in general is much more important, because i am not sure if most of you here here knows, that there is a complete Starlancer Standalone Total Conversion based upon Freespace's engine out there, even for dreamcast, for nearly two years, for example. But without any promotion, you will not get any new players here.

So, spread the word . Create and updates forum threads in your gaming communites and in the GOG and Steam forums, where you can buy this games, regulary. Try to write Press releases. like every other publisher and developer do, even the team for Nehrim and a few others community teams did that, and send it to gaming websites to appear on them or write the news yourself, if your favorite magazine support that.
That is the thing that will really help.

[deathspeed]

But i think that promotion in general is much more important, because i am not sure if most of you here here knows, that there is a complete Starlancer Standalone Total Conversion based upon Freespace's engine out there, even for dreamcast, for nearly two years, for example.

Link?  I'm not having any luck with Google!

[Phantom Hoover]

I had never the feeling, that the standalone release of the games helped them very much in terms of activity.

Promotion is much more important in my opinion.

I don't see this as an either-or, Freespace mods need both better promotion and a quick, self-contained installation package to succeed. Because we probably can't get away with repackaging FS2, the way to go with the latter is definitely more standalones.

One of the biggest obstacles that kept me from getting into Freespace was the fact that I had to buy an ancient game that didn't even run on my OS just so I could totally replace it with an open-source engine and fan mods. The only reason I'm here today is that I figured out how to use torrents.

[karajorma]

My original plan for the launcher was that it would control the downloading and installation of mods. So all you'd have to install once you had FS2 was the launcher. Then once you ran it, it would (Steam-like) control everything from one single point. It would also check for updates and help keep your FS2_Open install up to date by downloading newer releases of mods and executables.

For some reason I've never fully understood the launcher team went off and did their own thing and Goober decided to write the installer in Java.