Getting people into the game (split Cloning the classics)

[MikeyW]

Hello
Im very new and don't really have any experience about the history of tron apart from the feeling I get when I first started playing...

It's a mystery!

You need to use code to change your camera (and more to save the change). You need a code for everything. There isn't an easy way to learn what's going on. Double binding takes a while to figure out, same with grinding and brakes. Rubber was a mystery for months, I still don't really get what's going on with rubber.


Tron is such a simple concept but it takes years to master... like all the best games (board games for example), this should make tron massively popular. If you think the board games analogy is funny, take a look at how many regular players play on Yahoo chess, or backgammon, compared to tron, and it's quite sad really.

My point is basically tron is an awesome game and has a lot of potential to be not just a little more popular, but MASSIVELY popular, but there are some big barriers to overcome before this happens:

1. Complexity when you start playing. Tutorial mode needed (and more than a wiki page)
2. Simple knowledge of it - how to get people to be aware of this game ? (can barely advertise, need a cheaper way like a viral youtube video)
3. Modernisation of the community (no offence but when you see last post date as June 2009 on the forum, you get the impression that the place is dead)


Just my 2c... actually been waiting to say this for a while.

[sinewav]

I believe you are looking for this game.

[Phytotron]

I don't think he is, at least on the first point (and T20 hasn't done a good job of any of that, anyway). I've long suggested and supported more stuff being accessible through the menu (as have you, sine, e.g., a GUI for textures/moviepacks). I suggested the "tutorial" type thing for the local game years ago, but that got passed over for all the new zone-based game modes crap (which I suppose was easier to implement or something). And continue to lament that there's no gameplay manual that comes with the game. (At least with the Mac version. There used to be something of one, but no more.) Supposedly people are to rely on the wiki, but there's no explicit direction to it, and even if and when someone finds it, it's incomplete, patchwork, and generally messy.

With respect to advertising and stuff, that I don't care about. However, uh, isn't that what people have been doing with all these videos in the 'General' section? Aren't you participating in that, sine?

I don't know what he's talking about with the last post date being June 2009. This isn't the only forum, either.


Of course, what any of this has to do with this particular thread escapes me.

[Word]

does anyone else like to write/compile a manual.pdf until december?

[MikeyW]

This is the thing, I don't think a manual .pdf is going to be used that much. If you're in the game, you want a tutorial or something REALLY easy, otherwise the average player won't be bothered, and will forget it.

I've tried teaching the game to 5 friends on separate occasions after they see me play and say "wow, can I have a go?", but then it takes me half an hour to bring them to a decent level, and they just get frustrated and never play again. If 1-on-1 private tuition isn't good enough to keep people playing, a pdf, or a wikipedia page, or even a youtube video is not going to.


It needs an actual, interactive tutorial, maybe something that first tells you what to do, then gives you a series of challenges or something, like the special ops on MW2. Maybe like a maze to escape from with only 1 rubber, and as you practice more, the mazes get narrower and harder to escape. (since let's face it, the single player against a computer is daft).

[Tank Program]

I've never, ever, gotten a real life friend into playing Armagetron. I've rarely, rarely, gotten someone I know over the internet into playing Armagetron. This is not to say that I haven't had friends enjoy the game - they have. Nothing is simpler then left, right, slam into a wall. Rubber, double binding, none of that is essential to playing and I personally don't think a tutorial on that would have made a difference to anyone I know. I get the feeling that really, Armagetron is a love it or like it thing. The people that love it end up here. Everyone else is happy to play it but generally have better things to do.

Comparing Armagetron to board games like chess is an interesting comparison. There are loads of people that know how to play chess, but only do it on occasion. Like myself. I like chess, it's all right, but I've never had so much fun at it that I play it all the time.

[Phytotron]

Nothing is simpler then left, right, slam into a wall. Rubber, double binding, none of that is essential to playing....

Agreed.

Still, my old proposals for a "tutorial/challenge" local game mode:
http://forums3.armagetronad.net/viewtop ... 649#p43649
http://forums3.armagetronad.net/viewtop ... 051#p58051

Note that there's nothing about "special game modes" or stupid rules, nor should there be (this goes for any manual as well). Just basic playability. To quote myself, there should never be an instance when a player comes into a server and says "how do I go faster?" or "how do I turn?"

[gawdzilla]

I don't think tron is neccesarily more complicated compared to other games, I'd say less. Along the way you learn new things, just as in other games.

[MikeyW]

No, the game is simple, that's my point, but it is a mystery to beginners because it is very code-oriented.

[Goodygumdrops]

i'm going to take back some of the things i said about you, mikey

you aren't so bad

[AI-team]

I agree with Mikey

[Lord Pein]

I don't think tron is neccesarily more complicated compared to other games, I'd say less. Along the way you learn new things, just as in other games.

Agreed, compared to any MMORPG I have played, tron is extremely simple.

[Phytotron]

By "codes" you mean commands.