Steam: Greenlight

[elwing]

Commercial game: NO!

 

I have to disagree, the mod has to stay free if you want to attract both player and mappers, but making a nice standalone package containing the mod and a nice campaign as a commercial game would be quite nice and normal.

Edited September 2, 2012 by elwing

[Tels]

I have to disagree, the mod has to stay free if you want to attract both player and mappers, but making a nice standalone package containing the mod and a nice campaign as a commercial game would be quite nice and normal.

 

While I do think this can work, the problematic part lies in the "create a nice campaign". Frankly, if you can produce a nice campaign, it doesn't matter much on what it runs, because there are plenty of free (or to-be-licensed) game engines.

 

Basically, that boils down to creating your own game content and is almost 80% of the work of creating an entire game itself. Unless someone could semi-automate some parts of it, there is always a HUGE lot of human labour involved.

 

Using a toolkit like TDM gives you a huge advantage (working engine, lots of assets), but it also imposes restrictions (doesn't really make sense to do a racing sim with TDM), but you are still left with creating the story, the concepts, the audio, the mapping, doing translations, betatesting, releasing it, finding ways to make money etc etc.

 

If it was that easy, someone would already have done it.

[RPGista]

I would probably use images from the top community picks (not necessarily only them, but at least go through them first), as there are several particularly beautiful missions it would be in your ineterest to show off - Im thinking Saint Lucia, Heart, Score to Settle, Business or Fiasco.

[PPoe]

Ive put together a little preview, to show for those without Steam how Greenlight looks:

 

Most of the team members wants to wait till TDM will be standalone. That is fine. We can use the rest of the time to clarifie which screenhots and videos + description will be shown to the Greenlight users.

 

Edit:How to show just a preview of the picture? I will edit this post when I will find out how to make to show just the picture preview..

Edited September 2, 2012 by PPoe

[Diego]

"not meant for mods"

That's a big red light right there. I don't like taking advantage of a system, and I bet there will be other opportunities once the mod becomes standalone.

[Melan]

Shots from Alberic's Curse are strongly recommended; there is some photogenic stuff in there.

[MoroseTroll]

Diego:Technically, TDM is still a total conversion. When it become standalone, it will be a game. But it was never be a mod .

[jay pettitt]

"not meant for mods"

That's a big red light right there.

 

How would you feel if any of the dozens of other projects that started life as a mod before setting their sights on a standalone release (Air Buccaneers HD perhaps?) pimped themselves on Greenlight?

Edited September 3, 2012 by jay pettitt

[_Atti_]

On name change:

 

I dont have a problem with the name of the mod/game as The Dark Mod, it's cool, even though it has meta-game meaning, easily confused with Team DM, or light adjustment tweaks

 

What i think would be wise to adjust to however in future, is to not call maps FM-s..There is no original commercial thing here, TDM is all for community. It should be just 'TDM mission'. Calling something a fan mission for a mod is getting too much of a second hand feel. TDM is a fan thing already.

Edited September 3, 2012 by _Atti_

[jay pettitt]

Most of the team members wants to wait till TDM will be standalone.

 

This is a behind the scenes team member decision right? And not from this poll. Because I'm seeing 9 10 votes for instant greenlighting and 7 for delaying - it's just that the 9 10 are split between two options.

Edited September 3, 2012 by jay pettitt

[7upMan]

PPoe, I for one like and support you idea. I'd just like you to switch the language of your Steam client to English and make the screenshot anew. Right now all those Polish characters look a bit strange to the un-initiated.

[PPoe]

Its Czech language, not Polish=). The profile is already deleted, sorry for the wrong language setting.. I hope that most of you get at least the basic idea about the look of greenlight.

 

This is a behind the scenes team member decision right? And not from this poll. Because I'm seeing 9 10 votes for instant greenlighting and 7 for delaying - it's just that the 9 10 are split between two options.

 

No, its not.. If you take a look at the names, you will get the idea what the TEAM members want. And I thing that their votes are much more important, they created the whole thing. (Altrough Im not exactly sure who is a mod maker and ho isnt, so I may be mistaken.) I for example, did nearly nothing for the mod so far, thats why my opinion should be taken with less value..

[jay pettitt]

Ah, weighting. I see.

[MoroseTroll]

What about

as a tool to attract potential gamers on Greenlight? Edited September 3, 2012 by MoroseTroll

[elwing]

Basically, that boils down to creating your own game content and is almost 80% of the work of creating an entire game itself. Unless someone could semi-automate some parts of it, there is always a HUGE lot of human labour involved.

 

never said the contrary, I was just meaning that it would be possible to sells things based on the dark mod, through keeping the whole FM free is mandatory to atract player and mapper...

 

 

What about

as a tool to attract potential gamers on Greenlight?

 

yes, it's a nice video, but it is really dark, it would be better to make sure it plays in front of a black/dark background, it wouldn't also hurt if gamma would be increased a little bit and if it would be recorded with higher FPS it feel laggy in some parts...

[MoroseTroll]

yes, it's a nice video, but it is really dark

Hey, it is The Dark Mod! I'm kidding - Actually, I agree, it's too dark there.

... and if it would be recorded with higher FPS it feel laggy in some parts...

Agreed once again, this fly-by video requires a faster hardware.

[jay pettitt]

What about

as a tool to attract potential gamers on Greenlight?

 

I get dodgy sound popping on that. Springers will hate the idea, but the blackjack instructional video ain't bad.

[MoroseTroll]

You're right about the sound, but I think it's possible to remove the original dodgy sound track and apply its cleaner version, mixed in Audacity etc.

Edited September 3, 2012 by MoroseTroll

[ungoliant]

framerate, anti-aliasing, and sound popping were all pretty bad in that video, but the idea is spot-on. If that was done with a spline, just export it and send it to someone with a fast machine and let them re-record?

[MoroseTroll]

Good idea . Anyone would like to help?

[demagogue]

My vote from the start is we need to wait until we go standalone for this. The main reason being, you do not want your opening offering to alienate your target audience, because once you turn them against you, it's not favorable to get a second chance. So the first offering needs to be the best candidate.

 

More explicitly: a mod where you need to install Doom3 in advance is not a viable initial offering to get full-support, and it's only going to sabotage our chances for offering it after we go standalone.

 

The other reason is because going standalone by itself is going to be a big boost in momentum, and it's that kind of momentum we want to capitalize & build on to make this kind of move (which again you lose if you go too early). The only other thing that might compete is a campaign release, but I'm counting on going standalone before that, and a campaign isn't going to stop people from being alienated by it being tied to Doom3.

 

Think about it. How many people still have Doom3 even installed on their computers anymore, or gungho to dig up the CD & reinstall it? You are reducing your target base to like 10% of what it would have with a standalone candidate. Also, people on TTLG *still* talk about TDM to this day thinking about 1.0 ("I don't like it because the footsteps sound bad & the AI has problems"). The initial offering is the one that sticks; and if it's not standalone, then for a lot of our potential audience, it will never be standalone in their minds, they don't have Doom3, so for the next century they will assume TDM will never be for them and they'll never read another press release for it again.

 

I mean, I think you guys are talking about the "competitive" angle backwards. Don't think about it in terms of the competition out there. We need to think about it in terms of building a core group of support that's the biggest it can be, the most mobilized it can be, & really energetic to push it in forums. It's about *us*, not *them*... So in my mind there's no debate we need to put the best candidate if we do it at all, and the current version is a no-go from the start.

[Sotha]

Agrees with demagogue.

 

What is the rush to greenlight anyway? I think it will not go anywhere if we use a year or two for standalone.

[jay pettitt]

TDM is what it is. If it's not ready to be promoted yet it never will be. It is a Mod/Total Conversion that's aiming for a stand alone release. TDM's origins are nothing to be ashamed of. I'm not sure Greenlight is right for promoting TDM as a mod - but for letting the world know that the standalone project is happening, that's a not to be sniffed at and the fact that there's a playable version right now in the form of the mod - that's a good thing.

 

If some ttlgers still think of TDM from several versions/years ago, maybe it's because there hasn't been sufficient promotion. They'll catch on given enough time.

 

@Sotha The rush to greenlight would be to take advantage of the shiny new thing that's there to be taken advantage of. There will be other things in the future of course. But once you've made a decision not to do something, in my experience it's unusual not to carry on not doing things. It'd be better, I'd argue, to get in the habit of promoting when the opportunities exist, rather than waiting for the perfect opportunity. That way you'll be ready when it comes. Especially when there are people happy to do the doing.

Edited September 4, 2012 by jay pettitt

[Tels]

TDM is what it is. If it's not ready to be promoted yet it never will be. It is a Mod/Total Conversion that's aiming for a stand alone release. TDM's origins are nothing to be ashamed of. I'm not sure Greenlight is right for promoting TDM as a mod - but for letting the world know that the standalone project is happening, that's a not to be sniffed at and the fact that there's a playable version right now in the form of the mod - that's a good thing.

 

If some ttlgers still think of TDM from several versions/years ago, maybe it's because there hasn't been sufficient promotion. They'll catch on given enough time.

 

@Sotha The rush to greenlight would be to take advantage of the shiny new thing that's there to be taken advantage of. There will be other things in the future of course. But once you've made a decision not to do something, in my experience it's unusual not to carry on not doing things. It'd be better, I'd argue, to get in the habit of promoting when the opportunities exist, rather than waiting for the perfect opportunity. That way you'll be ready when it comes. Especially when there are people happy to do the doing.

 

I agree with that, it is like adding your App to the Itunes store when there are 100 apps, or adding it now, where there are 1 million apps and it is completely swamped away. No matter how good, wether people will even notice it depends on random chance - if it doesn't appear in the top 100 it is invisible to 99% of the user base.

 

Plus, I find it funny that there was always that arguing that "going standalone" is not possible, will take ages, might not be achieved - and suddenly it is talked about like that is a 100% certainity that will happen soon.

 

Truth to be told, we have NO idea if we go standalone 2013, 2017 or ever, and while we do have made a lot of progress, there is still the chance that v1.09 will not even happen - you have just to look at the ever shrinking core team and their ever shrinking contributions to see that this might be possible. (Or just look at the wiki. The last 500 contributions in the last 300 days were done by about 6 people, 2 of whom only did a handful of changes. We desperately need fresh blood. And we are not getting it if everyone else plays the new BlackMesaSourceMod because that is what is trending on the net, Greenlight, or wherever, and TDM isn't even an entry)

 

So I find it quite a bold move to postpone anything to "after going standalone". If we had that attidue a few years ago, we would never have hit v1.00. And despite some people getting the wrong impressions of our first versions, a lot of people DID notice us at all.

[SiyahParsomen]

Waiting for stand-alone and publishing immediately as a mod... I think both of idea has some very good reasons. I would say wait for stand-alone, but the current situation is really not good as tels said. Publishing immediately as a mod seems better to me in this case.