A glorious suggestion from Teh Bacon on how to attract people.

Bacon_00 · Post by **Bacon_00** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 9:16 am

I was just reading Adept's thread on how to make Alleg more accessible. He mentioned that, when he first started playing, the intro video and game manual really brought him up to speed on what the game was. He read a review for it and knew the premise, what the gameplay was like, and why it was good.

After thinking about this, I went back to the main Allegiance webpage. http://www.alleg.net. To me, it's the gateway to the Off-Topic forum, the place I'm most active these days with Allegiance. Previously, it was a gateway to a game I'd beta tested in 1999 as a kid, and the picture of the scout and logo makes me nostalgic. "The best game you've never played" it says. Yes, it is. I feel a sense of frustration reading that. Why aren't more people feeling this nostalgia of such a great game?

Back when I first started playing, I read a write-up in PC Gamer. I was given the beta test on the included CD, so I figured it was worth a shot. After installing it, I am greeted to a kickass CGI video about some dudes -- and ultimately earth -- getting creamed by a rogue asteroid. Hell yes. Then the game screen presents itself, and there's some cool, electronic music playing. Moody. I like it. I join a game and prepare to fight. I know why I'm fighting, too. Earth got blowed up good by some rogue asteroid, and I want resources for my peeps. I'm into this. I feel the vibe. This is a exciting.

What's this? The gameplay is incredible? Sweet. Screw the story.

So I ponder all of this, and I go back to the intro page once more. This time, I pretend I'm a newbie in 2009. I was referred to the website by somebody telling me about a free MS game. A space sim. I like space sims, and free is pretty cheap.

This is what I see:

Random spaceship with a blurry texture over the logo. K.

"Allegiance is a free, online, multi-player space simulation game. You pilot spacecraft, flying in a team with other players, defending and attacking sectors in space. Allegiance challenges your tactical ingenuity, your ability to function in a team and your prowess at blowing stuff up. Experienced players take command and lead their teams to victory or defeat. "

Well that sounds kinda cool. Intense and definitely intimidating, but it could be fun. I better tread lightly as this game sounds pretty hardcore.

I'll go download it. I click "Download." I click around on the website a bit, see some screenshots. Game looks neat. Dated, but I still play old games on occasion.

I install the game. Up pops a logo screen. K. It's quiet. Kinda boring. I log in, join a game. WTF is going on? What is the set up of this game? What is the premise here? Wow, I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to be doing, or why.

Maybe I'll play for a bit, hop on TS and talk to some of the nice folks offering me tips. But, meh. The game is complicated and I have no emotional attachment. Very intimidating. Everybody's very analytical and calculating about the game and direct me to a bunch of player-written manuals full of text. I don't have time for this nor the patience.

A few days later, I don't have any desire to boot it back up again.

*pause*

Anyway, tldr version:

We have no emotion in our presentation of this game. We have no story, no mood, nothing. We have a very cold, very bare bones product with too much "documentation" and not enough soul. We're offering a game of baseball -- a game with no context or emotion other than the prepackaged thrill of victory or misery of defeat -- when we could be offering so much more, just as MS offered back when Allegiance was new.

Where is the in-game music from the CD? Why is the original intro video not present in the EXE? Where are the descriptions of the factions and their stories? Where the emotion?

It doesn't have to be much -- god knows the story isn't exactly Frank Herbert -- but there was enough of it 10 years ago for me to feel a connection to the game right off the bat and feel like I was a part of the story. All of that dissapeared after I got into the nitty gritty of the game, but without it I doubt I would have stuck around long enough to get to it.

Every modern game puts their intro video in the demo. Every game has a story that is presented before the gameplay. What we're doing is presenting the gameplay and figuring that since it's so good, it's enough. Newsflash: It's not.

In 1999, Allegiance wasn't a game of baseball with all of it's complicated rules on full display and precisely documented. It was a fight for survival in the remains of the earth that slowly presented it's depth as I got into it.

Which sounds more appealing?

Due to the length of this post, I'll offer my suggestions in reply form a bit later.

Weylin · Post by **Weylin** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 9:34 am

Could the installers be split into a Normal and Light version? First one having the video and music, the second one lacking these. (In case they have a really slow connection)

notjarvis · Post by **notjarvis** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 9:39 am

Weylin wrote:QUOTE (Weylin @ Dec 12 2009, 09:34 AM) Could the installers be split into a Normal and Light version? First one having the video and music, the second one lacking these. (In case they have a really slow connection)

Hmm - if we wee going to do this - we could probbly do a Hi-Res installer too, with all the hi-res mods (with some suggested minimum requirements fr them).

Just a thought

_SRM_Nuke · Post by **_SRM_Nuke** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 10:03 am

Your tl;dr version is also tl;dr.

Bacon_00 · Post by **Bacon_00** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 10:10 am

How's this for tldr;

http://tehbacon.host56.com/altAllegIndex.html

That's a rough idea of what I'd like to see improved with our presentation of the game. (key word is "rough." The faction descriptions are from Wikipedia. With enough time I could write substantially better ones.)

Bacon_00 · Post by **Bacon_00** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 10:17 am

If possible we could even embed the intro video into the website. Have it start streaming right as people find the site. The only obstacle is bandwidth, so that might be why the intro page is currently so bare-bones. If this is the case, linking off-site to YouTube sounds like a fine idea to me.

Heck, we could even make a new intro video that explains the story, but shows gameplay and explains a little about the game.

But it's more than the intro video. There is a whole backstory to Allegiance that I don't even know. Why aren't we exploiting this?

notjarvis · Post by **notjarvis** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 10:25 am

This idea reminds me of Adepts thought idea that we are thinking of Alleg. too much as a hardcore sport.

Perhaps we are and need to make it look like an interesting universe, and not just a hardcore game you have to work at to get into,,,,,

Bacon_00 · Post by **Bacon_00** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 10:32 am

notjarvis wrote:QUOTE (notjarvis @ Dec 12 2009, 02:25 AM) This idea reminds me of Adepts thought idea that we are thinking of Alleg. too much as a hardcore sport.

Perhaps we are and need to make it look like an interesting universe, and not just a hardcore game you have to work at to get into,,,,,

Yes, exactly. Make it seem like an exciting experience, not just a sport to get beat up in. Immerse them in the game. It doesn't need to last forever -- just long enough to get people excited to be playing the game not because it's a cool e-sport, like Adept said, but because you want to fight for your survival.

Or, at least, pretend to =)

Adept has it right on the money. We've stripped this game down so much from what it was, that it's just a sport for us to beat each other up in.

If we want newbies, we gotta change that... or at least change it enough so they don't realize what's really going on =)

Not to toot my own horn too much, but read my revised Alleg intro page ( http://tehbacon.host56.com/altAllegIndex.html ). Isn't that first paragraph so much more exciting than the current intro? Wouldn't watching a video of people getting CREAMED BY A MOTHER !@$%ING ASTEROID be so much more engaging than "Teamwork! Oh, and, here, look at this wiki so you don't piss us off when you newb it up and ruin our game" vibe of the current page?

Valiance · Post by **Valiance** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 11:03 am

I agree with Bacon.

Koln · Post by **Koln** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 11:04 am

There's a problem with your link to the video:

QUOTE This video is not available in your country due to copyright restrictions.[/quote]