I love this game, and I've been playing it for a couple of years now.
Like many projects - but especially open source project I think that nexuiz limits its potential success through one key factor:
Integration of the community.
I know you disagree, just stay with me if you can

I don't know much about software. I'm a long term linux user, and my only field of expertise is audio work - I'm a sound engineer.
I see a recurrent theme with pretty much all OSS sound software and I see the same thing with nexuiz.

- Professionals in a field are usually not good with understanding the workings behind the tools that they use. They just know what they like. Same goes for players.
- Developers do not like working with people who do not understand software, but I think they should anyway.

There are two Digital Audio Workstation projects that I think demonstrate this extremely well. Ardour and Reaper. Ardour is much older than reaper. Has a very talented base of developers, is open source, is very stable, has all the functionality you need but is unusable in a professional environment because its paradigms hurt the workflow for all common tasks so much that it's by a ridiculous factor slower than DAW's of equal or less ability. What lead to this in my opinion is a pretty hostile attitude towards the end user. It was a long and tedious process to even get into the mailing list, and once you're mainly getting ignored anyway.

Reaper started out very minimalistic with a small group of developers and had a precompiled (not svn) version with installer ready for testing that was updated almost daily during alpha/beta phase.
They spread the word through all recording forums, and quickly had a base of thousands of testers. The core of the project became the forum. The developers I felt took themselves out of the equation for the most part. If a request was approved by a good part of users, and it was doable, it was immediately integrated in the next version, where it either got thumbs-up or down by the rest of the testers (tester=anyone).

I changed from Cubase SX2 (€400 program at the time) to reaper (unexpiring shareware) during its beta phase and never looked back.

They did it by giving up their preconceptions of what they want it to be like, and let the end user decide. The result is the IMO fastest and most versatile DAW that is out there right now.

I think this pretty much translates to nexuiz.
What I think you should do is reach out to the players, and ask them to comment, and if they do: LISTEN.
I know that this is happening - it's happening with pretty much every software project, but I don't think it's happening nearly enough.

We do listen to CONSTRUCTIVE comments, but not to your "this sucks" you're blurting out all the time (not referring to this post of you, but to your complaints about other things, e.g. the shotgun and test99).

If you want something done - tell how to change it to make it better. If there are reasons it is done like that - fine, you then have to accept it or propose another solution that still fulfills the original demands AND your wishes. You don't HAVE to like a particular map. If you want an in-game change and it isn't agreed on as a main feature, it still can become an option that's off by default - and later be changed to on by default.

Also note that each map has an audience, and not necessarily every map is for everyone. Some maps are intentionally weird which adds to the fun, like, augenkrebs, tripzone, nordiccatsle71 (although the author probably intended it for "everyone", it is not, but still has its - small - fan base), eggandbacon (although that one actually attracted the general audience, but I MEANT IT AS A JOKE) and loof. Others are challenges for VERY skilled players, and not for the general audience, like test99 (which is currently the only map of that type). If you don't like a map, it's the map's fault and not the game's. Remember the name of the map, and don't vote for it in the future.

Well, it was people like you who made me stop developing features people want. I want a game that is fun for ME too. After all, it's a game, and the developers want to enjoy it too.

Please adjust your attitude before complaining about things that may be that way for a reason, even if it's a reason you don't agree to, it may be one that many others (and yes, these are mere players too) do agree to.

Personally I think, there isn't such a big problem in your mentioned part (community has it's voice and div always ask(-ed) for most of the things regarding gameplay of nexuiz), but rather in general separation of various parts regarding the project and it's size. What I mean is: there are various kind of persons and their experience varies in different fields: graphic artists, modelers, animators, sound engineers, coders (various sorts), mappers. Being skilled in one separate thing usually does not make your production qualitative enough to be included into the release because there is lack of communication between specialists of different fields (which would be a must in serious company). That means being good at 2d does not mean that you could easily create a menu, cause there is lack of info how to do it, being very good at modeling does not mean that your model will work cause you might not know what are the requirements for the model to be included and how to create that type of model, being good at sound production does not mean that the sounds your produce will be used, cause sounds might be required in some mono/stereo format, be specific length, etc, while being a coder you need to know all the stuff what the modeler, animator or any other person might experience and have ability to fix it. Same goes to mapper cause you might find troubles understanding what are current capabilities of the game, mapping engine you're developing with. What I mean is that some even lame (nobody requires nice model, menu) but very documented prototypes exposing all the available functions of the particular part of the game (renderer, mapping engine, etc...), while other people following them could fit to this model and because of their experience bring up qualitative models instead. It's very hard to produce something more than eg. minor menu, gun patches having no previous knowledge of the structure of the whole game. End of rant.

Please direct me to the thread where I've been just saying "this sucks" without giving any advice for improvement. If I did, it was unintentional.

You haven't said that. Div was annoyed by a lot of community who were abusive (I might be included), so he is angry a bit. In addition, community had it's voice but some persons used their voice to attack div, who was the solo dev. Div left and so we have the current situation.

EDIT: wording fix, still bad grammar, i suppose

Add to this that many maps were made by totally unexperienced people. I don't blame them, it actually is good that they are learning how to map. But you can't expect a tZork- or Strahlemann-ish map from a newbie. But even if they are newbies in the mapping department, this often just means the maps look bad, but still play very well. So don't judge maps by the first impression

Then there is many things the community is very divided about. For example. should it be possible to laser above building walls. There are good arguments for and against it, coming from different parts of the player base.

My solution to such things is to offer choice - which is why the map farewell_laserfun exists now. It is identical to farewell, but has no invisible ceiling. You can do the same: get NetRadiant or QuArK or some other map editor that supports Nexuiz, and do edits to maps, and post them here for discussion. Minor edits like this really aren't hard to do.

If your ideas get rejected by the majority here, don't be upset, though. You can put them on your own server. I will also happily host such maps, if the edit actually helps in some way, and is technically okay (i.e. not conflicting with anything else). For example, feel free to make a "test99 noob version" that everyone can beat, by making all dark walls portalable walls, putting less turrets, making the long jump easier, etc. actually, that would be a fun project you could try, and simple to do. Just don't call the final result "test99", but maybe "test99_for_dummies" or "test99_easy" or whatever.

oskar669 wrote:Please direct me to the thread where I've been just saying "this sucks" without giving any advice for improvement. If I did, it was unintentional.

That was referring to our conversation on IRC regarding the portal gun and test99. You offered no constructive help, but just complained. I looked up your previous posts here, and also found mostly complaining from your part. See my previous post on how to actually help and improve the game. It really isn't hard, just start out with the simple things.

I don't think it's fair to drag in-game discussions into the forum.
Being a testing server and a couple of people named [dev] I expected them to be in some way connected to either the map or the portal gun feature.
If you made it through, you either knew what the portal gun was before you entered it, and you knew that you can create a second in-portal within a short timeframe. Otherwise it is not challanging, it's frustrating.
But that was not related to the game development, just the map design and its use of the portal feature.

I agree that to beat test99, you must know the portal gun. test99 therefore is not a map you can play as first introduction to the portal gun.

Not even test01 is good enough for that, as it is already too hard - and more importantly - too easy to die in the third part, and the fourth part takes guessing. That's the hole the author of test00 filled - which is a nice introductory map for the portal gun, and not too hard.

Basically, the test* maps should be played in the order their name indicates

How the hell is it related to community voice? Post in the gameplay section if you want portal to be changed and let people vote.

The problem is that I know exactly what unexperienced players want - they want unlimited attempts with the portal gun, and fire both portals separately, and be able to shoot portals everywhere, go in both directions, and take the flag with them.

That such a thing would be totally disruptive to CTF gameplay wouldn't enter their mind. Once such a change gets in, and people use it, the same people will complain that people build portals between both flags, and capture all the time

Also, note that such a change would break existing maps, that quite some people already like. So it probably is too late to change such things. However, it never is too late to add more options. After all, it's up to the mappers which weapons to place and which not.

Going between both ways and shooting wherever you wish should not be a problem if you make portal destroyable with one shot of sec shotgun so even recently respawned player could destroy it. Furthermore, it will allow portal(game) speed boosting techniques (ceiling -> floor).

Alien wrote:Going between both ways and shooting wherever you wish should not be a problem if you make portal destroyable with one shot of sec shotgun so even recently respawned player could destroy it. Furthermore, it will allow portal(game) speed boosting techniques (stairs -> floor).

Perhaps destroys itself in x number of seconds as well. Also, jumping in an inny without an outty = instadeath LOL!

Just saying...

[-z-] wrote:

Alien wrote:Going between both ways and shooting wherever you wish should not be a problem if you make portal destroyable with one shot of sec shotgun so even recently respawned player could destroy it. Furthermore, it will allow portal(game) speed boosting techniques (stairs -> floor).

Perhaps destroys itself in x number of seconds as well. Also, jumping in an inny without an outty = instadeath LOL!

Just saying...

Yeah, this is the case where I'll definitely agree with you. Sepearate fire modes for in and out would work for several cases. First and most important: assault mode to teleport your team (ut99 checkpoint) instead of respawning far away, second ability to create such CTF maps as
flag -------------lava----------------- pedestal----------lava--------------------flag
*****------------------------------------**********------------------------------------**** where the only possible way to cross would be speed boosting technique with portal. Third would be ability to create portal quest maps, which I've been trying to do for self fun. It's almost impossible to align portals because of arc angles or you need to create low ceiling.

I don't want this to turn into a discussion about the portal gun - I think it's a great idea, but that's not the point of this thread.

You know just as well that this forum is moving rather slowly, and that nexuiz is slowly loosing players even though the graphics and the interface have improved, and it is still one of the most balanced multi-player FPS's out there.

Right now we have about 100 players online at a time - I don't think any of you would think over their heads if they expected 10 times as many.

Obviously the developers and designers are those who made this game what it is, and you are free to do whatever you want with it.

I don't personally have a lot of problems with this game. The one mayor annoyance for me was the removal of the public feature in 2.4 and that it is now only possible to play keyhunt on a very limited number of maps.
- And I've already started a thread on that half a year ago.

This one is not about complaining. I don't even really hope to change anything. I just wanted to give something to think about.
I think the community that drives and tests this game at the moment is pretty thin, and I would like to see more players in the forums trying to improve things.
This could be a simple "for feedback go to forums.alientrap.local" message in the menu.

Use dedicated server for net games.

I know just as well you just joined and you're pointing your finger saying "do this, do that, you guys aren't working hard enough!"

We welcome your new perspective but consider your audience and understand the culture a bit more before making assumptions about who we are and what WE SEE.

I played nexuiz for 3 years now. And it would be retarded to think that there is not enough "work" being done here. I just don't think it's pulling in the right direction.

Your post points out exactly what I'm talking about. You consider yourself a closed community. Very few people actually enter into the decision making for this game, and I think it hurts it's popularity.

If that's how you want it, fine. I don't care. I'm not complaining, I'm just giving my view on what I think is the problem with most open source projects - if having no user base can be considered a problem.

I see the same thing happening with: Rosegarden, Hydrogen, Ardour, Jamin...
Projects that do a very good job in that regard are Blender, Gimp (although not always), Reaper, as mentioned.

Alien wrote:Use dedicated server for net games.

Not good for throwing in a couple of maps, choosing a gametype or two and clicking "start" - which is what I did pretty much every time I played 2.3, and is impossible with 2.4.
I tried. It got annoying enough to just stick with the regular servers. And judnging by the decline in servers from 2.3 to 2.4 I think that's how a lot of people felt.

http://forums.alientrap.local/viewtopic.ph ... highlight=
http://forums.alientrap.local/viewtopic.ph ... highlight=
poll:
http://forums.alientrap.local/viewtopic.ph ... highlight=

The main difference between blender gimp and reaper and nexuiz is that one is a game and the others are tools.
There are fewer grey areas with a tool, a new feature either makes it better and easier to use or not, whereas a game is subjective. Games are about fun and people have different concepts of fun.
Therefore i think it's ok if nexuiz does what the devs want it to do.
"You can't please all the people all the time" ay.

oskar669 wrote:I played nexuiz for 3 years now. And it would be retarded to think that there is not enough "work" being done here. I just don't think it's pulling in the right direction.

Do you mean, in the direction you want it to be pulled in? What you see in the game and what the developers see in the game are two different things. divVerent has a very intimate understanding of the game and the engine. He prioritizes things that he feels need to be completed first. Sometimes these are bug fixes, sometimes these are user requests and sometimes they are simply what he enjoys coding. This is a hobby for him, he does what he can for other people when he can but there are few others who are contributing code, none to the degree he is/has/was/will.

oskar669 wrote:Your post points out exactly what I'm talking about. You consider yourself a closed community. Very few people actually enter into the decision making for this game, and I think it hurts it's popularity.

Well the stuff I just said above, combined with divVerent holding the only basic direction of the game in his mind is what lead to his overall stress and latest disappointment with the community where he announced he's leaving. Now morfar is stepping up to give some direction.

Playing the game for 3 years doesn't mean you've been on these forums, it doesn't mean you've been on IRC, it doesn't mean you have an idea of the ~bigger picture~. It says you've been observing your view of the game for 3 years but there are many other views to consider.

I feel like you've neglected to understand any of these things and you're just standing on the sidelines telling the team to hustle.

The people who help the game go in a direction and the people who contribute and make div's life easier.

For an open-source game, Nexuiz is doing pretty damn well.

oskar669 wrote:If that's how you want it, fine. I don't care. I'm not complaining, I'm just giving my view on what I think is the problem with most open source projects - if having no user base can be considered a problem.

No user base? A lot of the user base is underground, on private servers. The IRC channel has ~1/2 of what warsow's has (90 to 180) which I'd consider pretty good as Nexuiz isn't as competition focused as Warsow.

oskar669 wrote:I see the same thing happening with: Rosegarden, Hydrogen, Ardour, Jamin...
Projects that do a very good job in that regard are Blender, Gimp (although not always), Reaper, as mentioned.

I think Nexuiz is actually in it's coming of age and there will be a big surge of new players coming in after the 2.5 release which brings in many new features that will surely make it stand out. The look and feel is tighter, the options for expansion greater, the models, effects and sounds improved and the documentation and related applications have grown.

I don't understand the server problem at all. If you create a server in client, it will be visible in lan. If you create a dedicated server, it will be visible in the master server list. What's wrong here?

Alien wrote:I don't understand the server problem at all. If you create a server in client, it will be visible in lan. If you create a dedicated server, it will be visible in the master server list. What's wrong here?

Ease of use I suppose. But it really boils down to quality vs. quantity. Most servers in the public server list are assumed to be on dedicated servers. Sure the numbers may have been higher before but so were the pings if they are hosting them off their home connections.

Setting up a server config isn't all that hard. I have faith that the number of well managed dedicateds will go up soon. You need to think of right now relative to the 2.4, the 2.4.2, the svn and the future 2.5 release. If you're focusing on 2.3 vs. 2.4 you are very misguided. We are in a transition period.

I seen no problem at all with the server count, as most of them are empty most of the time. If reading some documentation editing a few text files it to much to ask of a person, this person is not suitable to administer any kind of public server IMO.

tZork wrote:If reading some documentation editing a few text files it to much to ask of a person, this person is not suitable to administer any kind of public server IMO.

I agree.

You expect a surge of players from a graphical overhaul, and I think that's flawed thinking. I understand what incredible talent it takes to take the quake1 engine to where darkplaces is now, but to your general player it will just look like a game whose graphics are 5 years behind in time. Todays shooters are close to photorealisitic, and a community project will not be able to catch up to that, and shouldn't even try to in my opinion.

Some of the most popular online games are still the first warcraft, starcraft, quake-3... for a reason. They stand out in gameplay and nothing much has happened since them that offers an attractive enhancement. Graphics are meh... nobody really cares after the first wow effect.

I don't want to make the game go in my direction - frankly I take offense that somebody would interpret my post this way. Maybe I failed miserably to explain myself, otherwise this is just unnecessarily hostile.

If you want to talk about the public servers - please continue it here: http://forums.alientrap.local/viewtopic.ph ... highlight=

4 of my friends and I used to play nexuiz more than once a week - the problems that were introduced with 2.4 pretty much stopped us from playing the game at all. The problems we had are here: http://forums.alientrap.local/viewtopic.ph ... highlight= and here: http://forums.alientrap.local/viewtopic.ph ... highlight=
Second one is something that just sucks that it once worked, but then doesn't, but not a feature that I necessarily need. First one took hours to figure out and still poses a lot of problems.
I'm a linux user since 1998. I've edited my fair share of configuration files, but I can't stand the attitude that you should be comfortable with doing that so you are qualified to start a public server - since I can't host, I have to explain to them what to edit so we can play, and that really puts a damper on things - damper enough to go... meh, let's just play some Go or poker.

These points would be mute if there were at least some servers that offer keyhunt or lms without bots and with some usable maps - problem with the map system is that since 2.4 keyhunt doesn't work on 90% of that maps that it used to work with in 2.3

But this is already getting way to concrete. My point was that if you guys want to get the player base you deserve, you should start listening to the players. If this is your own private playground, and you don't really care about what any one else is thinking, that's fine too, if you'd rather be alone among yourselves.

One way to do that is to make some alpha/beta releases of the new version instead of SVN checkout. You would remove one stepping stone for someone who wants to test the game, and I'm pretty sure you will get much more feedback.
You know SVN, I know SVN... point is most people don't, and I don't think anybody will get hurt if you make it easier for less computer savvy people to test it. It's not like the SVN using base is that much smarter... a monkey can compile... it's just smaller.

Rad Ished wrote:The main difference between blender gimp and reaper and nexuiz is that one is a game and the others are tools. ...

Games are bugfixes against stress and boredom.

The only big difference in software is how versatile it is. An OS will sell better than a gimmick that's supposed to run on that OS. And that's where opensource has a problem:
In commercial projects, success means increase in ease of development, while in opensource projects, which are mostly non-commercial, success means just more work. That's why opensource projects need clever logistics to survive on the market.

Bad Rad... Baaaad baddde Rad
*Edited by mod.

He wrote mute but meant to write moot, I was merely pointing that out. What is offensive about that?
..........yeah ok ceebee fair point