I think the trick with hype is to post lots of nice pictures of it before you actually release it. However hype also makes it seem crap when you do release, even if it's good. So you can either be a sleeper hit or you can be a hyped failure, or you can go in between and not hype much but enough to get people to play, then everyone goes 'wow this is really good' and tells their friends. I didn't realise how hyped king was until people played it and seemed to be expecting something else, I figured seeing as I posted plenty of pictures they'd know what to expect but apparently posting pictures makes people fill in the gaps with stuff they wish was there, so next time I release something I'm going to have to avoid posting pictures. I'd suggest going easy on the hype, unless you're commerical, in which case it doesn't matter if it sucks because first day sales are what's important.
But smashball isn't the average game...it isn't a simple FPS. To many, it probably seems harder to approach - same goes for empires. Furthermore, they work the PR machine pretty well. The artwork for the game is pretty damn good, and they made that clear very early on. I work for a company that can't seem to figure out how to advertise, so it's nothing new to me. I'm sorry you're near unemployment, but that's no reason to hate the people who are doing well. Maybe try to drum up support on moddb...fileplanet...etc.
Honestly, i don't think you can market a game like smashball the same way you can typical multiplayer shooters. From what I can tell from comments, there are two major reasons why the typical CS junkie is turned off by the mod. 1. It has the appearance of a sports game with guns instead of a shooting game with a ball. As a general rule, narrow-minded "hardcore" gamers 90% of the time stubbornly refuse to give sports games a try. Its a cultural thing, i believe, but its pretty silly. Most of my friends are like this, and I feel really ashamed. 2. The steep learning curve turns off a lot of newcomers. True, theres a nice tutorial in the game that introduces the concepts but in order to really succeed with them its necessary to practice for a while offline. While I personally have nothing wrong with this, there are lots of gamers (typically younger ones) who are used to simplified, maybe even watered-down gameplay that are offended at the thought of having to take time to master the games skills before entering an online match. Basically, I believe that Smashball's greatest strength will be in its competitive possibilities. This is where the team really needs to milk the mod. Once the league has been established and has had a couple seasons, people will take notice and give the mod another chance. As I wrote in the other thread, I also think that you could draw a crowd just by regularly posting matches on youtube. Unlike most games, smashball lends itself well to spectating. edit: Since this is the neotokyo thread, I suppose I should write what I think about it. I think its gimmicky and contrived. We need more innovative mods instead of just "dm with a fresh coat of paint" ones. People are always impressed by shiny things. But as time passes, the graphics and art will make less of an impact and won't attract the same attention. Sure, flashy art design attracts people, but if the gameplay is not innovative and interesting the art alone won't keep them playing.
Also the screenshots I saw for smashball looked rather unappealing, neotokyo looks nice, and looks make people inclined to try things. It's like the difference between an ipod and a plug in USB battery powered MP3 player. Functionally there is little difference, but the ipod looks nicer so people buy it, regardless of how much crappy extra software you need to use it. It will get them to buy it to start with however and until that changes I doubt you'll see any reduction in graphics. Longevity isn't really a commercial idea because if people are still playing your old game they aren't buying your new game, and even if they are, how long they played the old one after buying it is irrelevant, you don't get more money the more people play it (unless you're blizzard). It's the reason why so many godawful movie games keep getting made. Personally I have expressed little interest in smashball because I don't imagine I'll enjoy it. I don't particularly like team oriented games and I don't like sports games, and I don't expect it to be a very innovative deathmatch game if you ignore the sport element, if I want deathmatch I can play UT3 which is basically the apex of deathmatch to date as far as I'm concerned. Blowing the crap out of stuff with lovely visual and audio effects, slick controls, and a dude telling you how awesome you are. Also comes with a nice variety of additional modes with other stuff thrown in to make it a bit different like titan and vehicle maps. If they had kept the sexy announcer in it'd be pretty much perfect. I like empires because I don't have to think about my team very much, I can just get in a tank and wreck shit up, in an engine I know well and love the responsiveness of. Of course I can also play with a squad if the opportunity presents itself, but as it so rarely does (the reason I dislike team games is because team games require other team-spirited people to be enjoyable and there usually aren't any) the game remains fun when you play it like battlefield or UT TDM. I know very little about smashball but the initial impression I get is one I don't think I'd enjoy, so I feel no compulsion to find out more about it unless I get very bored.
I think the commercial perspective doesn't really matter much to free mods. Also, really shiny commercial games cost a whole lot of money to make. Why don't you like sports games? You should at least give smashball a try. Though it may look like a deathmatch game, I would say its actually closer to Tribes than UT. Movement and momentum are the key gameplay elements that make a truly unique experience. You really owe it to Krenzo to at least take a closer look at his game before completely dismissing it as being something that you're not going to enjoy.
The commercial perspective does indeed not matter as much to mods, and mods should focus on longevity because that is more or less their function, to extend the life of their game, however selling it is still important to make the mod stand out. I don't like sports games because I am not, by nature, competitive. I have no desire to test my abilities because I already know what they are, more or less. I have no desire to strain them because I don't see any benefit in needless effort, and I have no desire to improve them because videogaming abilities are not useful for anything other than playing videogames. I also am acutely aware of the fact that every time I kill someone or score a goal I'm annoying a lot of people I don't have any reason to dislike, so the idea of pwning people isn't appealing. I also don't want to be 'the best' because that implies I feel as though I am not good enough unless I am 'the best'. I am always good enough in my own mind, so I don't feel as though I need to prove anything. As sports games usually lack any visual appeal or creative elements, while being highly competitive, I don't see any fun in them. I also dislike simulators for the same reason. I ignored the 'you owe it to the man who made empires' element because that is about as helpful to smashball's marketting as a note from krenzo's mum asking everyone to please be nice to him and try his game because he's very sensitive and she doesn't want her little boy to be upset. The majority of people who may play smashball have probably never played empires or if they did, didn't like it, so that won't carry much weight. As for me I'm an ungrateful little twat so I still feel no compulsion to try smashball. To forestall a question I predict along the lines of 'why the hell do you play games then?' I play games because they occupy my mind and take me somewhere else, just like music, books, some films, attractive young ladies, good conversation, and morphine.
I had to 2 players for repated team/spawnkilling aswell as flaming everyone and telling other people using mic in regular ways to STFU the 2nd time I played this... a very friendly community, indeed.
you´r unlucky and you play without admins in the server. but what game dont have jerk to ruin the game?
What really suprises me is the lack of an FGD being released with the mod, making custom map creation pretty much impossible, and the lack of available SM offsets (or whatever) which makes server administration rather difficult.
It's acceptable that you want to rage, but at its heart Smashball is small appeal, I think. I haven't yet played the game and this is despite downloading two different release versions and the latest one from steam. This is because of a few reasons: 1) i'm not into sports games, 2) If I was, Smashball is completely different from anything else (apart from mebbe speedball 2 that I played back in the day and is being re-released now) 3) I don't actually like the idea of a small game-within-a-game arena as much as I like sprawling landscapes or epic battles, or even small streets of cities. 4) It seems like a "pr0" "l33t" game, and i'm pretty crap at that mentality - I get killed a lot and don't like to own too much or I start looking at whether the teams are stacked or not 5) It really seems like a pr0 l33t game, where you have to get up to level to play or you'll be pretty useless. How do I get into a game like that? Is there even a point in me playing if I have to be useful from the get go? Oh right, and the videos don't help me at all with the gameplay. It looks like a lot of people zipping across the screen in twitch-gaming and jumping. I love jumping and flying games, but twitch gaming not really that much...is there any thinking involved? Any tactical stuff that isn't based on clan-gaming competitiveness and closed-team operations? The problem with that idea of smashball, and I only have that kind of idea about the game, is that it makes it look like I can't join in the game and just play while being useful. I don't want to be a waste of space for a few days before I can have fun and not be shouted at. In Empires I could build things, in Neotokyo I can pick up the Ghost and tell people where to go...in Fistful of Frags I can go for the objective, and it doesn't matter anyway because I can respawn. Most of the games I play are either single player, easy to play, or allow me to do things without becoming too much of a nuisance, and hopefully still have a bit of fun. Maybe it's just because i'm old now, but I don't particularly want to give myself grief because i'm not good at the game. I'm not good at most games, I still end up being fairly decent and above all, remain useful. Although I still haven't played Dystopia yet either or COH (despite installing both) so maybe i'm just lazy lol I'm going to say this again, because I don't think i've said it enough and even if I may be wrong. NeoTokyo rewards caution. Camping is negated because of the ghost and choke-point rushing is toned down because of the different classes and camouflage, and you don't die in 1 shot like CSS. I may be wrong, I am a lot...but I think they've hit upon a nice medium between camping and rushing. It may be that once we're all experienced at the game it will become even more tedious than CSS, it may not. But for now? It's quite interesting and even fun. Still, nothing really gives the rush like getting your Empires team to fall like an avalanche against the enemy, but as it's tiring I need to play other games where i'm not always responsible for the team. Playing an inf as a responsible vet in Empires is hard...you have to be the one making sure everything is getting done, instead of just doing your own thing. Commanding is much more rewarding in that respect, which is why I do it a lot. tl:dr version: Ikalx babbles a lot.
I've yet to see any intentional TKs, aside from those that happen at round end when everyone starts shooting randomly. Compare this to emp: you have some griefers....then you have people who jump in the CV and drop 15 armories...and then the people who push tanks around with jeeps...and in that game, if half your team doesn't know how to play, it;s no fun. You all get raped. In Neotokyo, even if your team sucks, you can have a little bit of fun taking some of the other team down with you. I've many times won, or seen others win rounds single handedly with good tactics. Emp just can't do that... As for smashball, it's a sports game with tons of jumping. I DLed it, but I have yet to even start it a single time...one day I will, but it doesn't seem my type of game.
the forum is working now neotokyo forum http://forum.radi-8.com/index.php go complain their now, or say thanks atleast
http://www.game-monitor.com/GameSearch/neotokyosource2/Neotokyo.html 291 players on a Friday night, I'd say it's definitely settling down like every other HL2 mod.
Imagine if empires had their PR... I mean, we can keep 200~ on a friday night, though that's a high point.
NeoTokyo is doing pretty OK compared with the most popular HL2 mods, players at time of posting: Zombie Panic Source: 354 Insurgency: 302 Neotokyo: 274 Empires: 58 Smashball: 20 It's generally pretty disappointing how low these numbers are. I blame WoW.
