TurboSlug22

Wow thanks very much! Yea its looking like holding off might be a good option - we dont mind doing a number on ASSS to get our mervbots working. We just cant adjust anything the bots do.

Hm This is helpful, but perhaps if you understood we do not have the source to many of our bots any longer... we would need our bots to be able to function with ASSS as is. Is ASSS configurable in such a way as to support such a situation? EDIT: I just saw your update... sounds like this should be possible to do then?

Hey guys, DSB is looking to convert to ASSS (I know.. we're forever behind the times) Just want to know if we can seamlessly transition our mervbot bots (i know i know) without having to configure them. Will they run without issues? The guys think so, but theyre not sure so our higher ups wont budge until we can confirm Cheers, EDIT: Just to emphasize, we dont mind overhauling ASSS - but our bots have to be 'as is' EDIT2: this may be in the wrong discussion area - i just realized that.. sorry

Wow lol that game looks like a great game to speed run... if i was into that sorta thing. Looks hard and random enough to be interesting. I'm not sure how it helps us generate new users though..

Maybe youll spend a few hours in dsb too .. ok, youre right.. thats silly talk lol

A sincere thanks to PoLiX for taking the steam project off my hands! Now that theyre free - I've picked up a new project. Thats right, its rapid fire time. This project requires minimal effort and should yield marginal yet somewhat guaranteed results - which is better than no results for what little effort is required. Cutting to the chase: For those of you who've never heard of SDA... Basically these are a nieche community of guys that play a game over and over and over just to beat it 2 seconds faster than the last guy. Take a look at these choice clips: Master of Orion 2 - beat in 39 SECONDS jesus christ http://speeddemosarchive.com/demo.pl?MasterOfOrion2_small_custom_easy_SS_039 Blaster Master beat without deaths: (This game is HARD near the end) http://speeddemosarchive.com/demo.pl?BlasterMaster_Deathless_4227 Elder Scrolls Morrowind - Well the box says 200 + hours - this dude beats it in 7 minutes & no cheating ofc http://speeddemosarchive.com/demo.pl?Morrowind_730 Here's my all-time fav post on SDA: Duke3d in 20 mins. No, not the first level, the whole damn thing folks. Thats each level in less than 30 secs pretty much - on some levels, this guy moves so fast my eyes literally cant keep up with it and I know all these maps. Apparantly this took 10 years worth in practice to nail, according to the comments... http://speeddemosarchive.com/demo.pl?DukeNukem3D Alright so anyway - why am I on about SDA here? I think it takes incredible practice, incredible attention and dedication. Thats the very same kind of skill refining that our community makes use of with our high skill ceiling especially if you consider that newer games are often too forgiving for hardcore gamers. Long story short, I bet a lot of those ppl who contribute to the SDA community would enjoy playing SS in the same way they enjoy refining their awesomeness at those games. So - I decided to throw together some speed demos of my own - Ill record some noob flagging all the flags in our flag game and time him - I think the previous record was like 3 mins 30 secs or something. Who cares really. The point is - we post the vid there - it gets a news piece on the front page, and everyone gets to hear about a game theyve never heard about before. Should be win/win...

I don't think we should even support the Shift+Tab Steam Overlay in Continuum. It's irrelevant to the purpose of trying to get Continuum on Steam in the first place. Yeah, it might be a nice feature and all, but it would cause a lot of issues for Continuum and would require PriitK/Snrrrub's expertise, which I would also think neither are willing to do or would even agree with the idea of implementing the Steam Overlay in Continuum. We really don't need anything from Steam or Valve more than just getting Continuum published in the games listing to attain a theoretical population boost and permanent attention for the game. EDIT: And replacing the default hotkey "Shift+Tab" for laying mines would be an extremely controversial thing. If this happens, at least half of the community will be flaming angry with pitchforks and shovels. (EDIT3: I guarantee you that there will be replies here strongly and extremely disagreeing with having the Steam Overlay in Continuum, especially as "Shift+Tab") EDIT2: "Alt" already plays a role in enlarging the radar. Sorry bud, but all the hotkeys are taken. I had my map button remapped for a while but yea... i wasnt aware we didnt need to provide the shift+tab functionality - thats one less thing to worry about just trying to cover all the angles Thanks again to PoLiX for taking this one out of my hands - now that theyre free, ive picked up a new project - see my new thread

OH hahaha I totally forgot to bring this up - but the guys in my zone came up with a REALLY good point regarding steam... Shift+Tab in a steam supported game brings up the steam chat We should alter the config file in the client we send them to have a custom Mines key set to avoid that issue... Edit: Maybe left alt? and remap the 'show map' to right alt or something

Can I ask that you post (privately at least) the replies you get from them? I know the chance is small, but we may be able to suggest some useful ideas to include in replies..

Sweet! Your last post (i wanted to reply to but didnt have time) had a very good point that im glad you mentioned. I think a reasonable counter to the concern that there would be rampant cheating is that our zones have active moderation - I mean, its an obvious retort, but I just thought I'd suggest it Dont tell my g/f, but that is the most beautiful thing ive seen in years. Hands down.

WE REALIZE that you want to increase population... FINE... BUT YOU NEED TO STOP WITH THE CONTACTING OF DIFFERENT COMPANIES until polix or someone else steps in.... preferably if someone can get Ghost on here. I Think you've done a great job getting the ball rolling, but your ARE NOT the person i'd (and i think other people agree with me on this point) want dealing with this. Pass it off to polix or someone else. YES i realize it means waiting... oh well. You have to wait. Like i have said MANY times before.... WE DONT KNOW YOU Yes, i know, and i havnt contacted anyone since my first post here. You dont need to freak out about this - ive said many times, i have NO fixation with being the guy that talks with these companies - I am not talking with these companies. I am not taking ANY action Jesus. lol

This right here is about the sum of the entire problem with you and your idea right now. In my opinion, is that no one around knows you, so they don't know your motive. As stated before, your motive is the fact that your own squad in your league is dying. That in itself gives us less reason to trust you. You may have been around for however many years. That doesnt mean shit. You just joined SSforum not too long ago, and your preaching to a choir that has discussed this in the past. Yes you got the ball rolling, FINE. Let the people who know what they are doing and have a lot more of an interest in the community instead of their own self-interest, get to work. Just an FYI: almost everyone else in this topic has been here for a good deal of time (on the forum, not the game). The point im trying to get at is this: WE DONT TRUST YOU. No offense or anything. It seems like you want to do something. GREAT. thats FINE. But when that risk involves the possibility of subspace getting shut down by the rights holder, we don't trust you to deal with this with finesse or something.... Wrote this when i was tired so if it doesnt make sense... sorry. Above post is entirely IMO. -rb I really appreciate your forward nature here, no bs.. Thank you Naturally i understand the position this forum has with regard to me... I also expect taht it is no condolence to you to say so but I truly do have the values of the community at heart, it is also the case that the communities values are also my own interests. I dont think you can call it a selfish interest if its also a mutual interest In that regard, ill please ask that you judge me by the substance of my efforts instead of guesswork over what i might really be up to. The fact of the matter is, if i wanted to hurt this community, i wouldnt be here trying to work with you and furthermore, i certainly wouldnt accept all your criticsm and adjust my proposal in line with them. Now... Ive said it before, but i want to say it just one more time, the notion that BDE can cause us grief is very real but lets please think about that for just a moment... First, BDE would have to undergo considerable expense and effort to shut us down. Even then, our continuum client is almost nearly or own (priitk's) IP. So...... if they did mess with us, then the outcome is yes, we have some turbulence but through the enormous drive by the community to keep the game going, I'm sure we'd get a new, and even more independent version of our continuum client. This is growth for us. That said though, I am sure BDE has bigger fish to fry with the Xbox subspace game... And they can even get some $ out of that maybe.. As far as what my alterior motives might be.. Well i dunno what to tell you - feel free to contact my collegues at DSB and ask them about my tone when discussing this project - I mean, our team is the soil the seed of this idea has germinated in, perhaps they would be able to tell you more about me. Keep in mind half of my zone hates me for the same "get-er-done" additude that you guys have been riled up by... In that regard, you can talk to my immediate supervisor who i'm on good terms with - the_snake - as well, TlordTango is regular contributer to many of my ideas, this one included. Perhaps they'd be a good place to start

Hello everyone! Its a great sign that there's been no criticism here about this idea since my last post earlier today... I take that to mean that we're ironing out the kinks and getting close to an idea that nobody disagrees with! Given the events that occurred today on my computer while I was asleep I am led to believe however that there are some people who dont like this idea. At this point, I just want to say, all im doing here is taking your ideas and putting them together into a reasonable actionable item that you guys can run with. I also (wanting to know how i'd offended people because I honestly haddnt intended to nor did I think I had..) took a very careful read over my posts and found something that I said that could be misconstrued... Therefore, I would just like to take the time to emphasize that at NO time could I ever bear to bring upon this community any ill will. My honest and sincere intention when approaching gamersgate was to show this community that our client is interesting enough to make negotiations possible with 3rd party distributers and that we have a lot to offer. I only want us to enjoy a revitalization of our community and there are indeed MANY ways this can be achieved. You will notice that this idea was presented to you in an entirely different form and since then, it has evolved having taken into consideration each of your valid comments and concerns. So in reiteration, there is no need to attack the messenger, when all you need do is voice your concern. Incidentally even if the course we want to take as a community is the same course we've always taken, well, I can also see a clear path to ensuring that route as well so if thats what you all REALLY want... then i can help you achieve that as well. I just want to present you all with what we all think is a resonable idea that we can run with. So once again - its needless to go to extremes and involve my personal life here. These are OUR ideas, not mine... attacking me wont make your ideas go away. Lets voice our disagreements with these ideas instead, that works best to make bad ideas go away. So at this point, I'd just like to ask: Is this a bad idea as far as everyone is concerned?

Well, the process is laid out here: http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/FAQ.php I was going to send them the email in the first post of this thread WHEN YOU GUYS THINK ITS READY - along with a link to dl the client. I think when youre first presented with Continuum though its sometimes hard to see the good gameplay elements involved and confusing to know what you should be doing, so perhaps we can include some gameplay footage just for steam to see... Ie, not something that we'd intend to include with the client that steam would be hosting.....

I think blocks might be right that it might not be worth it to pay them to affiliate with them, we should be able to achieve an acceptable alternative through arrangements with other organizations. I dont think we should totally rule out the idea of putting together a fundraiser for this in the event that nobody interesting wants to host our client though..

If you haven't contacted Steam already, please DON'T. I realize this is your idea to pitch the Continuum client now to different distribution platforms, but I think you're going about it in a counterproductive manner. Contact with Steam should be done in an exacting and professional style, which you haven't shown anyone you're capable of. We are a charity case more than we are a legitimate business proposition. Steam isn't going host us for any amount that's worth paying them. *Sigh* I told you, I'm not contacting them without you guys Steam is a big fish - gamersgate is a little fish - it was also very attention getting wasnt it? Great now lets focus on the prize please Edit: Incidentally, i dont need to show you im capable of anything other than taking your ideas and putting them in motion. I am also not in any way attached to being the guy that contacts these people, however, im very confident i can handle it:)

Not saying that that's the right message for the job, but I think it's the length/style that it's gonna have to be in an email. Explaining SubSpace versus Continuum is too complicated for such a message, so I just stuck with Continuum. It would be good if we could stick some of TurboSlug's selling points in there though. I didn't mention how distribution could be beneficial to Valve because it could be seen as pandering, insulting, or requiring of more information than is provided at the time. This is the sort of thing that might actually go over better in a paper letter(?). You could get away with a longer message that way, and then continue communication over email. A paper letter is probably less likely to be handled and ignored by some low-level lackey. Edit: BTW, someone should update getcontinuum.com to say it runs on Windows 7. This wont be a cold call - i plan to first bombard them with questions. Their page says they dont talk about numbers until we give them our bit. It puts the control in their hands. The reality is i cant give them our bit until i know how much revenue they WOULD make if the client was sold for $5.. .so i get to ask them fun questions... And im sad to say it, but Ori is to thank here... We need to ask them about how many users they expect to see our client and by extension how many people do they expect to download it - only then can we gauge a quantity to pay them for compensation for hosting this thing for free... Good point about the pandering - maybe something like "We feel proud to expand steam's free content with our client" instead of saying that its good for them Edit: Ori, you seem to like to repeat yourself, can you go into more detail about anything else you might like to know about steam's storefront?

I have no ego involved here Here is my ss experience: Awesome idea "A" comes into existence - nobody agrees on implementation, nothing happens The community needs action - it needs success and it needs failure, because every failure is an opportunity in disguise. Lets just carefully do SOMETHING.

alright, broke it up into 2 paragraphs to address wordieness I dunno how else to convey all our selling points in fewer sentences I think we're covering a lot of awesome selling points there... any ideas to condense it?

Its included in the notion that our game has stood the test of time and many of our gamers are 'lifers' I dont want to get too wordy saying its fun & shit - saying we still have players after 10 years speaks volumes to them... they know about stuff like that - killing floor is already dead and its brand new - for instance

I'd like to have both angles ready to go actually - pinch the sympathetic nerve and also... offer them money if they refuse - but only if they refuse Incidentally can you elaborate on what changes are needed exactly to the continuum client? I dont think any are needed, i own X3 off steam and its identical to the version available on cd as far as i know can you elaborate?

They would ask that much because if a game was posted on their servers for sale for $5 and 10,000 people purchased it and part of that money goes to the rights holder then we can deduce that their revenue would exceed $1000. Therefore, if valve is to be compensated for hosting a game for free, we ought to expect that they'd want to be paid an amount that would match what they would expect to make in sales if the game WERE available at cost. Ie, we'll have to compensate them for the revenue they'd stand to make if it was posted for a cost instead of being free (which it would be) So, i think we're gonna need more than $1000 to garner their interest

Dude, I don't mean to bash on you, but hell no. I don't want advertisements in my free game. On websites is another issue, but that's up to the website admins. I can't imagine that Steam would bite on this either. My understanding is that the people at Valve are pretty cool folks -- our best bet would be to appeal to that. We're looking to revive one of the first online multiplayer games. It's player-run. The installer is tiny compared to the other games there. We don't pose any competition to existing games they produce or distribute. If you play it like they'd be crushing a cute kitten by not hosting us, we might have a 10% chance at getting hosted. What you want to do with your $1000 is your own business, but historically, spaceships and money do not mix well (except in HS). yea, i dont think steam cares too much about adspace - im sure they're swimming in it. And ya, i agree, it sullies the game to have ads. What you said about appealing to their human side... when i read what you said it rang true, thats totally the angle to take here - if we give them puppy eyes and ask them to take us under their wing - we've got a great shot at it. Plus it wont hurt to throw money at them... What youre saying about spaceships and money not mixing... its got a nice ring to it... but please remember that this money is changing hands in the opposite direction than what normally causes problems for us... I think we're ok to pay valve to host the client for free. I think theyre going to ask for more than $1000 though, can i get some help on that?

Ok, so lets pool our barganing chips together here and see what kinds of things we can offer steam of value. We have the ability to add LVZ banner ads to our zones and similar banners to our webpages. - problem here is that this involves a lot of coordination and convincing to get individual sysops and server admins to post the banners. This means we need everyone's buyin in order to make that offer to steam. Frankly im not holding my breath but perhaps this is not entirely unreasonable. And of course we can pay them.. in that regard, I really do want to put a fund together for "advertising" That we can use to pay off steam and other DDS sites to host our client and as well to post our own banner ads on games websites and etc. My question is, where can i send that money? What other offers can we make to steam that they might find interesting? Next question is, well... ive already got some contact info for an admin with steam who can negotiate these deals so..... I'm confident i can negotiate with them but if someone else here feels more confident than me, please say so. Is anyone out there willing to match my $1000 towards this fund?

1. Concision 2. Old thread was too long, this is a new idea & a new thread 3. Continuum at cost looks like a no-go for many reasons (But before we drop that idea completely, PoLiX can you please touch base with Ghost Ship Et Al. and see if there is any way we can get a contract with BDE and a clause in our continuum service agreement that allows us to distribute the client freely as well as make it available at cost with proceeds going to rights holders.. maybe there's some life in that idea) 4. Here's the 'new' idea: I'd really like to get the continuum client posted for free on games websites like steam etc.. there's no way they'll do it if there's nothing in it for them so I expect they will want us to pay them to have it posted. Personally, I have $1000 that I can put forward and Id like to see if we can maybe get a fund of some kind going where we can approach steam and make a reasonable offer to them. And before that lovely fellow Ori warns all of you that im trying to steal your money, perhaps we can let PoLiX or someone else you all trust handle the fund. Anyone willing to donate to get steam to post the client? I CAN guarantee that if continnuum was on steam, we WOULD have a HUGE boom in our population. The reason why: I have 200 people on my steam friends list ( that sorta thing happens when youre awesome ) and when I log in and start playing SS - a popup will appear on each of those 200 people's steam clients saying "TurboSlug22 is now playing Continuum" And they will click that message and ask me "Hey man, is that game any good?" Like they do with every other new game I buy. Regarding our proposal to steam, here's what im working on so far: " Dear Sir/Madam, Thank you very much for taking the time to consider our offer. I represent the Continuum community and we are very interested in making our client available on steam's storefront. With our population slowly dwindling over the years, we are very confident that our community and yours can come to an arrangement that can benefit us mutually. Continuum is one of the first MMO's, that is fun enough to have stood the test of time by maintaining our community for over a decade. Continuum's strongest feature is its very unique fast-action gameplay that we believe is a genera of its own. We would be proud to see our client made available as free additional content for steam's users to enjoy. Due to the isolated nature of our community of roughly 10,000 active players, you may be surprised at how many of us havnt heard of steam. I guarantee you they will have after they've had their dreams realized and their future secured. It would truly be a godsend to our community. I expect that many of us would become loyal to steam as both new customers and great sources of word-of-mouth advertising if we are able to come to an arrangement. Our selling points in summary: *10,000 relatively untapped potential customers *Free content for steam users *Minimal resources required to make a 5 meg client available *Reaffirmation of steam's brand image - steam cares about the gaming community We eagerly await your reply, -me" Please criticize .. and also, for Christ sake, this is a rough draft, lets not flip out about it being not correct.