You'll notice that when you get into a server you'll have access to your OPTIONS. Also (just a thought), it might be a good idea to start off on the beta client, as it fixes the OPTIONS button not showing up on the main menu (as stated above).
Yeah, I found this out too late. And I have the beta client, I just assumed it installed itself and I was playing it. That's where the next part of my review comes in...
...So I've just joined my first Tremulous game (within seconds - again, awesome), and I'm greeted with a Spectator view of the battleground. Immediately I see in the bottom-left corner that I have a number of buttons to hit to choose how to enter the game (very nice for newcomers). I hit my CTRL key and pick the Alien team.
I'll fast forward a bit because I'm not sure how I feel about the gameplay. I don't think I've played it enough to get a feel for it, and honestly I have no idea what my objective is other than to kill the other team. These are questions that I know will eventually answer themselves. The fact that these questions aren't answered immediately are subject to your opinion of whether or not they
should be. Do you want to make it easy for newcomers to understand the object of the game, or would you prefer they do some digging in your forums/website/manual for more information first?
I'll fast forward to when I quit the server about an hour later, and before I exited the game I glanced down at the Copyright information and noticed the end year was 2006. This made me wonder if my version was truly 1.2, or if I was using the original 1.1.
I clicked on the "Mods" menu button out of curiosity and lo and behold, "gpp1" is there in the list. Damn. I guess I was playing 1.1 this whole time. I click on the gpp1 mod and load it... my screen turns white and it hangs, giving me an error that it can't find "ui/menus.txt". Sigh.
I'm still more than happy to troubleshoot and continue playing, I just hope this small scenario has given the developers an idea of a newcomer's experience. I'm sure many of these issues are addressed in the 1.2 beta (which I'll find time to play tonight), but I happen to be a newcomer with a fairly high amount of computer knowledge. That being said, I can promise you that you've had new players try your game and drop it NOT because of gameplay, but because of the lack of small, easy-to-fix explanations that only veteran players understand.
For example, if I wasn't the curious type, I would have assume that I was playing the 1.2 beta after installing it, since this is usually what happens to a game when you run a file that talks about being a beta patch. Now I know why this is called a Gameplay Preview, but I cannot begin to stress the importance of making this distinction to your new clientele. If people don't know how to access it, all these new features will be missed by some of the people who have never played Tremulous before. To make matters worse, people may leave assuming they can't play with the resolution they want (which I hear is fixed in 1.2, but if they can't find it... it's a vicious snowball, and I think you get the picture).
Again, sorry for the wall of text. I'm merely trying to land home a point. You already have this game built around a majority of systems (except for my Netbook
). Now if you build it around a broad range of technological aptitudes, you'll give servers a lasting, healthy supply of people. You don't need to treat potential players like idiots, but it might be better to treat them all like they don't frequently install games.
Just to reiterate: I'm still more than interested in trying this game out (when I get home tonight), and this review is only meant as a newcomer's perspective. I'm not angry and I'm certainly not trying to be disrespectful. I still hold this project in the highest regard.
Thanks again for lending me your eyes.
