FreeGameDev

The last few months RE has become increasingly popular. I don't know exactly when release 1.2 is due, but there already are a lot of features to look forward to. I started thinking of a few ways to reach an even wider audience and came up with some ideas:

- New trailer, as was done for 1.0. There is also very recently a new trailer for sauerbraten (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... sTkLZhMI0I) posted on the Cube 2 homepage and it got me drooling all over my desk when I saw it. Although I like RE 10x better than Sauerbraten, I wanted to play Sauer right away after seeing it Just to say that a trailer can mean a lot.
- There is a RE facebook page that gets (not too often) updated with WIP for v1.2 and stuff but why not make this a part of the RE homepage? It's been unchanged for a long time now already.
- Dunno where the name Red Eclipse comes from, but why don't we do something more with the natural phenomenon that a red eclipse is? There are a lot of people here on the forum that would like to contribute and know their way around in Photoshop / GIMP. What if someone made a magnificent skybox with a real red eclipse in the background and then we can make a fittnig map with it? One that allows for lots of Parkour and fast action, because that's what RE stands for.
- Small blog posts on the website, could be every week or bi-weekly and can be very short. Just what's happening in the community, or a dev update or link to new community content, dunno.

If you have other ideas or feel that you can help with this, please respond here. I'm like addicted to RE and think that we shouldn't go for anything less than... world domination!!

When 1.2 gets released, a new trailer would be a good idea, I agree. I've seen the Sauerbraten trailer and HOLY MOTHER OF GOD they made the game look awesome. I personally don't use Facebook so I don't know how much content there is on that page (to be honest, I don't even know what the Facebook page of Red Eclipse is, as there is no link on the site and a search on Facebook for Red Eclipse yields no good results), but I guess a small ticker or so related to the developmentpage could help a lot, like how <CIA-32> (a bot) in the IRC always posts messages like "r2857 by eihrul (http://redeclipse.net/svn/2857) -> src/ (6 files in 2 dirs) -> better support for international characters", showing what has been changed. Or perhaps something like "Current development version: ([Insert Date Here])" would show that a lot would be happening, as I believe we have daily builds around here. Not sure about which would be best, but I agree, keeping the users up-to-date on what's happening on the front page would be a great idea. I agree there.

More maps? If they're well designed then why not? I don't see any reason to complain even though we already have a high amount of good maps.

Small blog posts, also a great idea.

Well, at any rate, I think it's important that the average user is aware that this game is constantly being worked on and improved, so they know that the development hasn't stalled. It's easy to think nothing is happening if you don't see it happening. I wouldn't know that they change something literally daily if I wouldn't have seen the all the messages by <CIA-32> on the IRC.

TheLastProject {l Wrote}:When 1.2 gets released, a new trailer would be a good idea, I agree. I've seen the Sauerbraten trailer and HOLY MOTHER OF GOD they made the game look awesome. I personally don't use Facebook so I don't know how much content there is on that page (to be honest, I don't even know what the Facebook page of Red Eclipse is, as there is no link on the site and a search on Facebook for Red Eclipse yields no good results), but I guess a small ticker or so related to the developmentpage could help a lot, like how <CIA-32> (a bot) in the IRC always posts messages like "r2857 by eihrul (http://redeclipse.net/svn/2857) -> src/ (6 files in 2 dirs) -> better support for international characters", showing what has been changed. Or perhaps something like "Current development version: ([Insert Date Here])" would show that a lot would be happening, as I believe we have daily builds around here. Not sure about which would be best, but I agree, keeping the users up-to-date on what's happening on the front page would be a great idea. I agree there.

More maps? If they're well designed then why not? I don't see any reason to complain even though we already have a high amount of good maps.

Small blog posts, also a great idea.

Well, at any rate, I think it's important that the average user is aware that this game is constantly being worked on and improved, so they know that the development hasn't stalled. It's easy to think nothing is happening if you don't see it happening. I wouldn't know that they change something literally daily if I wouldn't have seen the all the messages by <CIA-32> on the IRC.

I like your ticker idea! The messages you see in IRc can be followed on Sourceforge as well. you can see all commits there.

And, http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/redeclipse/timeline, which also has an RSS feed that is usable. I don't do much on the web development side, LuckyStrike-Rx does most of the design and just whacks up the content he is directed to (and even then, he is more layout, not code).

qreeves {l Wrote}:And, http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/redeclipse/timeline, which also has an RSS feed that is usable. I don't do much on the web development side, LuckyStrike-Rx does most of the design and just whacks up the content he is directed to (and even then, he is more layout, not code).

I understand, but what we're saying is that it would be more practical for general players to follow everything on 1 place It would be more attractrive than make the puzzle and gather information on different places.

If there is little time to update the website on a regular base, making the updates dynamically would be a good solution imo. This would only require a 1 time change in code. Also, if every dev could post a little comment / status update once in a while when they feel like it, it doesn't always have to be the same person that "must" do it.

Anyway, it's just ideas to make the game more attractive to outsiders. We don't need to be convinced anymore. But I like the skybox idea (dark skybox with stars and a red eclipse) and if someone could come up with one, I might want to give it a try to make a fun map around it. Or maybe the community can determine what kind of a map it should be and we can build it all together Sounds crazy but should be possible.

There were a project for community website, but That's a lot of work.
A compromise can be a News module on the website. (I don't think posting all the commit is needed, but just the important one)
Also creating more content pages on website (like orbital server browser, or small tutorial)

I still available for CSS/HTML or simple PHP works, just ask.

There is actually 4 news support :
Youtube http://www.youtube.com/user/RedEclipseFps (updated by me, but Quin should have access to it)
Desura (moddb, indiedb) http://www.desura.com/games/red-eclipse (need more update, looks there's some potential public there) I just posted 2 update there (release, and
Google Plus https://plus.google.com/117583850813117326286/posts (sleeping, maybe just reporting FB post there ?)
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/redeclipse.net

Just Trailer :
Vimeo http://vimeo.com/user6332594
Daily Motion http://www.dailymotion.com/Red-Eclipse#videoId=xhodpx
Game Trailerhttp://www.gametrailers.com/users/Red-Eclipse/gamepad/?action=fanmovs

There's also a fake/unofficial facebook I just found http://www.facebook.com/pages/Red-Eclip ... 5963516163

More spreading is the best way to bring User, so if anyone have other ideas. I suppose having a community manager will help for this, as I don't have enough time to post update anywhere and I have poor English.

I can make a new vid. for 1.2, but I must be aware 1 month before the release I've lost all source file for the 1.0 one unfortunately, but that's the occasion to make something better.

A news item on the website would be better than a seperate community website imo since there are so many social sites already. On the news module you can post status updates and links to other media.
The service Google+ is dead and will be stopped soon. You might wanna focus on FB, YT and Desura. I agree that the trailers should be posted on as many video sites as possible.

A very short "Coming Soon: v1.2" video would be nice on the homepage already and then an extended version of this when v1.2 gets released maybe?

Is it coming soon ?

hehe I dont know, you should know better?? It's been some time since v1.1 and Quin always says to release often. More than that, there is a lot of talking about 1.2 so I just supposed so I guess. Anyway, I mean that it wouldn't be a bad idea to do so when v1.2 is coming. We're just making plans, right?

Best way to get the word out to people is to tell everyone of this magnificant game I find myself playing other pc games talking about Red Eclipse and how it's free and fun FPS game. Then I shoot them my YT link (lol cause they might wanna know what it looks like). But a promo would be cool everyone just do their best to tell gamers about this game.

you should know better??

Not at all. The prob. with trailer is that the release always happen when I'm busy with RL. So I just connect one day after few month of inactivity, and notice the game is released

Well, I have a roof over my head for the next 4 weeks approximately, during this time I will be trying to tie up everything and release v1.2. Consider that warning then

The problem with any dynamic elements on the website is that we currently host it with SourceForge, and they do not allow any communication with external addresses whatsoever (you can't aggregate data from other places, basically). It could possibly work with Facebook's API (both for posts and commenting) because I believe it is done on the client side, and not the server. Either way, you will need to look at some sort of client based aggregation than server (DHTML, frames, whatever). Less than ideal, but you get what you pay for I guess (and we don't pay anything for it). --And before I get a flood of people offering to host it, sorry, but I simply cannot entrust our mission critical systems to a third party. I hope you all understand it would not be in the our best interest to give up control of it like that.

A twitter news plugin is really easy to implement and allow better custom than FB ones. It looks perfect fot a simple news system. (it's just an iFrame.)
4 weeks is short I'll try to have the SG, eventually (I suppose it's more important than the trailer). f1rst is supposed to do a real smg reload anim, but he didn't gave any news...

If someone else feel like he can make a good video, it would be great.

Its never realy imperitive that everything is done in time for the release; we are essentially in a state of constant beta anyway, we just make it look like we are a game ready for public consumption. If it isn't in this release it will be in the next one, or the one after that, and it will just contribute to the overall progress anyway. Don't worry too much about it

qreeves {l Wrote}:Well, I have a roof over my head for the next 4 weeks approximately, during this time I will be trying to tie up everything and release v1.2. Consider that warning then

The problem with any dynamic elements on the website is that we currently host it with SourceForge, and they do not allow any communication with external addresses whatsoever (you can't aggregate data from other places, basically). It could possibly work with Facebook's API (both for posts and commenting) because I believe it is done on the client side, and not the server. Either way, you will need to look at some sort of client based aggregation than server (DHTML, frames, whatever). Less than ideal, but you get what you pay for I guess (and we don't pay anything for it). --And before I get a flood of people offering to host it, sorry, but I simply cannot entrust our mission critical systems to a third party. I hope you all understand it would not be in the our best interest to give up control of it like that.

Woohoo, new release within 4 weeks ^^

If you're still looking for new maps, you're very welcome to include mine. It has seen quite some polish the last weeks: viewtopic.php?f=53&t=2119

It sounds so scary to only have a roof above your head for 4 weeks. What will you do after that?

Studying is boring.
Here, have a low-quality userbar.


Yes, made with one of those crappy online generator thingies. I don't have photoshop.

TheLastProject {l Wrote}:Yes, made with one of those crappy online generator thingies. I don't have photoshop.

Eh, Photoshop is overrated, especially when you can produce the same, or similar results in Paint.NET. It's a lot simpler and costs a HELL of alot less. By costs less, I really mean the program is free. Give it a spin. I used it to make my sig
/offtopic

inpersona64 {l Wrote}:

TheLastProject {l Wrote}:Yes, made with one of those crappy online generator thingies. I don't have photoshop.

Eh, Photoshop is overrated, especially when you can produce the same, or similar results in Paint.NET. It's a lot simpler and costs a HELL of alot less. By costs less, I really mean the program is free. Give it a spin. I used it to make my sig
/offtopic

System Requirements

Windows 7 (recommended),
or Windows XP SP3,
or Windows Vista SP1 (SP2 and Platform Update recommended)

ruben@ruben-MS-7379VP:~$ cat /proc/version
Linux version 3.0.0-12-generic (buildd@vernadsky) (gcc version 4.6.1 (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.6.1-9ubuntu3) ) #20-Ubuntu SMP Fri Oct 7 14:50:42 UTC 2011

Well, at least we have Pinta here.

Must agree though, Photoshop is overrated and I think GIMP is insanely complicated compared to other image editors.
Still, thanks for the tip though, Paint.Net used to be my favorite Windows graphic editor.

System Requirements

Windows 7 (recommended),
or Windows XP SP3,
or Windows Vista SP1 (SP2 and Platform Update recommended)

ruben@ruben-MS-7379VP:~$ cat /proc/version
Linux version 3.0.0-12-generic (buildd@vernadsky) (gcc version 4.6.1 (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.6.1-9ubuntu3) ) #20-Ubuntu SMP Fri Oct 7 14:50:42 UTC 2011

Sucks that you guys never have a good copy of Windows to fool around with, even if it's just WinXP. I know Linux does alot for you, but sometime i feel like you guys are missing out on the good stuff lol.

inpersona64 {l Wrote}:but sometime i feel like you guys are missing out on the good stuff lol.

Ya, like viruses and stuff. And Windows Vista ;)

sireus {l Wrote}:

inpersona64 {l Wrote}:but sometime i feel like you guys are missing out on the good stuff lol.

Ya, like viruses and stuff. And Windows Vista

This forum needs a reputation system. You'll get my first rep.