madpeople wrote:QUOTE (madpeople @ May 30 2011, 03:17 AM) (yes, you can argue that you returning active dev here would get R6 finished, but your changes could also lead to the longer term goals of R7,R8 etc being finished, not just the short term goal of R6 which was the objective here).
no. on that the contrary, me returning active dev means pushing R6 to a very low priority. There are tons of more important things to do before needing new code. That's where I totally disagree with FAO's plan. Actually I think they have no plan at all to save this game, they're more like Steve Ballmer at MS who doesn't realize what is happening to its company.
This game doesn't need R6 today. Here is why:
This game is dying since 2002. People completely forget that since then the total number of people having Internet connected Windows PC (with broadband) has greatly increased each year. and yet Alleg either gained a few or lost a few. Even if Alleg had gained numerous players over the years it globally has lost a lot of players actually because the global 'potential' population greatly increased meanwhile.
So the diagnostic is pretty obvious: Alleg is dying.
Because it's old. no. Because we show our potential 'customers' that it is very old by featuring the 'made in 1999' pixelized cinematic in the
main page of the site. I bet most of them run away upon seeing that '1st impression' crap. Way to ruin all the changes we made all these years and all the new mods/hires stuff. It's like screaming 'join us, we're a plain vanilla 1999 game with nothing new'... good one here. Get ride of that crap already plz.
Then the very few who eventually try to go further have to create an ASGS account and then download the game. no biggy here, expect meanwhile they might want to see the forums (so they click the community link on main page)..and bam nothing to see except that 'news' topic. Bah whatever they've just created an account so they can use it to log in the forum. WTH. can't? They need to create another account for the forums?! "oh lol to hell with this, bye" ... some tenacious ones might still go on. And so create another account. and then start yelling because they can't
OpenIDconnect (or Facebook connect or twiter connect, whatever). yeah the site is like the video trailer of the game, it uses 10 years old technology. don't panic this is normal ! a 'Like' button to 'socially' promote the game? don't even think about it!
Then they eventually see the forums and the posts. WTH no ranking system?! no filter?! gosh this is really 1999 in here (well for the old enough ones) oh whatever, download has finished they'll install the game.
I won't mention the potential issues the might have installing and launching the game (UAC, default folder, etc). If they succeed the AU happens.
yeah finally, they're in. oh a 'training' button, cool they go there. Then what?! do they learn how to fly without a joystick ? is the 1st tutorial about how to switch the mouse mode. no. the 2nd one ? the last one? no. nowhere it is explained. And don't start me on the default key mapping (wth no classic WASD to move?! and what about non-US keyboard layouts. Try to do the training mission 2 with a foreign keyboard...lotta fun, bye bye rest of world).
Eventually only the very "nerdy" people who took time to read the "
academy crash course" will learn about the mouse mode (but wait no mouse mode during training mission fly! haha gotcha noob!)
Anyway who does that in 2011? Who read tons of instructions before trying a game ?
certainly no one. You download, install and play. The game guides you and explain everything.
So you see, from eventually a lot of potential players, i'd say 99% if not more simply don't even got to play a regular game. They give up way before. The whole new comer experience is a just like a b&w old movie NIGHTMARE.
Simply because this site and the in-game tutorial/training mission are terrible. The game is not old, it's the 1st experience that is old and repulsive.
And then after, for the very few (< 1%) who manage to go further, there is the huge complexity of the game, the strange 'wait time to play' , the "bullies", the booting, the drama, etc.
so no R6 is very very low priority. There is so many things to do before that, things that don't requires old C++ coding skills...
But well all we see is that our Steve Ballmer(s) are concerned about a multimonitor issue.
god damn it, wake up!
)