DON'T LET BZFLAG DIE!! PLEASE READ THIS

[Mopar Madness]

Live streaming of the Riker Cup battle would be ballin, I mean, that is the biggest event in BZFlag and easily the most competitive. If 1v1's can bring in a small crowd, a stream of that might really be cool. As for Youtube "infatuation", I wouldn't call it that really, seems to suggest a negative connotation. Youtube is a good way to spread the word about games, just look what it did for Minecraft. I'm not saying Youtube will get us 4 million downloads like it did Minecraft, but if it gets us 400 downloads, it will have done its job.

[SkillDude]

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[Mopar Madness]

If I'm lucky enough to make it on the Riker Cup team again, I'd even be willing to do in-tank broadcasting, IDK how well it would work though, Rikers takes a ton of concentration, the broadcasting would come second.

[blast]

What you are failing to realize is that a lot of people do download the game. Counting only the Windows 2.4.0 32-bit installer, there are roughly 100 downloads per day. Counting all the files we host, there were 1,668 Downloads in the last week. We get 200 visitors a day to the BZFlag.org website. From March 24th through April 12th, there were 4190 people that hit the BZFlag homepage. Of those, 1510 next hit the download page, and 552 hit the media page (and of the 552, 115 then hit the download page).

So the problem isn't people finding the game. It's keeping them. They fire up the game, get confused or frustrated, and quit playing. I've done this myself with some of the open-source games like Rigs of Rods and Flightgear (which both could be great games, but just lack polish, have some major bugs/limitations, and are not initially intuitive).

So, ideas are great, but please do a little research and thinking about what the actual problem is. The issue is retention. It's hard to retain players when the game is ugly, inconsistent, buggy, and unintuitive.

[Mopar Madness]

well, the reason I almost quit BZFlag when I first started was the counter intuitive controls. I couldn't even figure out how to get out of the base in Boxywar since I didn't know how to jump. The default config needs to be geared more for 1st time users with shift being jump, t chat, y team chat, u whisper, i whisper enemy, drop flag space bar, radar controls tab,q,w,e,r, shot keys a,s,d, and the mouse controls as-is except add a shot key on middle click. z,x,c,v are also in great positions for other useful functions, can't think of what they should do though right now. Next time I'm at school, I can check to see if they have flash on the school computers, if they do, I could some time over the summer make a controls tutorial using flash. If a simple flash movie tutorial was added to the game for teaching controls, it would help a ton.

[ryanfesta]

JeffM, what was the video that you posted as a link?? My jaw dropped when I followed it!! I love every feature of it (except no flags, shots, jumps, etc.).

[JeffM]

JeffM, what was the video that you posted as a link?? My jaw dropped when I followed it!! I love every feature of it (except no flags, shots, jumps, etc.).

Like I said, I was sure you would not understand it. That is just a graphics demo so I don't know you can infer what the gameplay that doesn't exist yet is like.

[dartman]

well, the reason I almost quit BZFlag when I first started was the counter intuitive controls. I couldn't even figure out how to get out of the base in Boxywar since I didn't know how to jump. The default config needs to be geared more for 1st time users with shift being jump, t chat, y team chat, u whisper, i whisper enemy, drop flag space bar, radar controls tab,q,w,e,r, shot keys a,s,d, and the mouse controls as-is except add a shot key on middle click. z,x,c,v are also in great positions for other useful functions, can't think of what they should do though right now. Next time I'm at school, I can check to see if they have flash on the school computers, if they do, I could some time over the summer make a controls tutorial using flash. If a simple flash movie tutorial was added to the game for teaching controls, it would help a ton.

Some of that actually seems less intuitive than the controls as they are now.

[blast]

If a simple flash movie tutorial was added to the game for teaching controls, it would help a ton.

And how, exactly, would we add a Flash movie to the game...? That's kinda silly. If you want a tutorial, make an interactive in-game tutorial, not a static movie that doesn't reflect the user's ACTUAL controls. With an interactive tutorial, the game could actually tell the player what keys to hit based on THEIR configuration. If they're using a joystick, it could tell them to hit joystick buttons. If they're using a non-standard keyboard config, it could tell them to use those keys.

[ryanfesta]

I know someone is going to go against me on this, but I highly recommend using W to jump, E and R to shoot (for a rapid shot spread), and F to drop the flag. My brother discovered this control set on a GU map, and it greatly helped him. I recently adopted this, and it is very helpful for quick reactions and fast shots.


This is just a suggestion for the controls. If you have a different key mapping, don't hesitate to send me a message or post them here.

[JeffM]

Keep your threads on topic. There are other threads about keymapings.

[JeffM]

Next time I'm at school, I can check to see if they have flash on the school computers, if they do, I could some time over the summer make a controls tutorial using flash. If a simple flash movie tutorial was added to the game for teaching controls, it would help a ton.

Flash is not cross platform and would not work on all our distributions with out additional installs, as blast said, if we put the work into a tutorial it should be in game. We can't even get an update release out and you expect to get movie support?....

[ChaoticFangUp]

Hmm?
"Don't let BZFlag die!"...eh?
Well, I did introduce BZFlag to 6 people myself, no one liked it.
They prefer Blood-shooting games.
Well, everyone has it's own taste, plus, don't you just love the people playing right now?
People say: "Gain some, lose some".... well, I say that Veterans stay forever & BZflag has quite a lot of those!

Cheers,
Pyro.

[Wildmejohn]

cdogg9200, I will be short with you here.
BZFlag... at start, it sure was a huge and a great game.
One of rare awesome 3D games.
However, there are many better games now, because people made money out of it making it.
Here, at BZFlag, people upgrade it only on their free time!

So you see, it will be hard to pull people from better games that they play like 5 hours a day (addicts).

PS - I just want to warn a few people on this Thread that it shows how you are trying to pull a back-stab Flame on the OP.
Cmon, be nice.

Cheers,
Fang.

================
As a newbie to BZF; not experienced in any programming, I'm thrill with this game - for a man of 60 years. Maybe I'm not qualified to have a valid opinion but here goes. I hope the game remains, for starters. We all (newbies) can learn by doing and watching others. Like any activity; you get better by involvement with better people. I'm not against learning new stuff just that I'm a little set in my ways, get my drift. No, I'm not a gamer but enjoy this game over any other OS games. I wish to express my thanks to anyone & the developer for creating and maintaining this game.
Sincerely,
John

[sn0w_m0nkey]

This game has always been, and should always be the quirky little open source game it has always been. Those who played the original 3-D arcade versions of BattleZone (and Red Baron) understand what and perhaps recall what this game offered, on top of being freely available.

When it came out, those of us on unix/irix machines gravitated to it (Linus Torvolds released his original kernel around the time I believe). While technological advances presently offer ideas of change, the essence remains - tanks blow each up (ffa, ctf..), client/server connections (lag, jit..), players (drama, competition, leagues..), and development (smart people donating their minds and energy..who we should be very thankful for) all remain as game characteristics.

The community has of course changed over ~two decades and people have come/gone (RIP players who have passed on) but the spirit of this game continues. Not everyone is meant to play this game (and maybe not everyone should play it) but I do believe it will continue for many years to come as a quirky open source game that it is.

Thank you Tim and Chris, and the countless hours devs have put into this game, and let us players keep working towards respectful conduct (it is our responsibility) and be grateful for the privilege of this:
Join Game->Select Server->Connect
-sm

[mochawarrior]

Well some people don't update their bzflag because they think its fine well its not you have to update it to get the new servers, I know this by experience when me and my dad wanted to face each other and some other people but he didnt have half the server that I did so he had to update his bzflag. So people who are reading this check to see if your bzflag is at the newest please because we saw some people still trying to find a game with old bzflag.

[mochawarrior]

Gah sry cant type please try your best under standing the post above.

[blast]

On Windows, we nag you ever time you launch the older client. Also, you can edit posts...

[mochawarrior]

We dont use Windows we use linux (fedora 16 atm)

[JeffM]

Then you are in the minority of our users.