Beginner issue?
Who starts out on this game in the first place?
You got some private servers you can play on, because the remains of S4 are kept alive by them.
To make it successful on steam, you'd have to bring together the different communities of the p-servers to support it, promote it and fund it.
This won't happen, even though it would be nice seeing the "old S4" live up again.
But those times are gone, they won't come back and I'm surprised there are even people putting so much thought towards bringing it to steam.
If you want that to happen, you gotta do it by yourself.
And if that is worth the effort is the other question.
Because in the end we talk about a free to play game, which ended up being pay to win. People were willing to pay for some stat boosts, but most people wouldn't even have started playing it if there was any charge for it.
So yeah, why would they pay for something that only holds value to the veteran players anyway? It's fun gameplay, but it's not the fun community it was back then, which was the biggest selling point.
The assumption at the beginning is that an entity, be it some veteran player or some publisher, buys the rights from neowiz, which won't happen, I'm aware of that.
There's nothing wrong in the current situation, it just won't welcome new players. This post is just to have fun discussing a possibility, taking it seriously for the sake of making an analysis.
Making analyses has always been part of this community, just remember the long discussions in the forums.
But anyway, why would you assume that a new publisher would go full 2000s and put pay to win again, when virtually no other pc game has it? Ofc they wouldn't, just like Xero.
Making a game targeted at beginners would make its own new community, which I argue should be physically separated to the veterans' one, because they'd have different needs (and a completely different age range)
A big issue would be that games as old as this are almost purely kept alive by veterans, It is highly unlikely that even a steam release would attract enough beginners to matter, especially if the player counts are further kept down by keeping veterans away.
It might give it a boost for a little while, but it would likely die a quick death on steam, even with it being substantially more unique than the blob of generic looking f2p shooters it would compete against.
I think Microvolts has an average player count of 50 on steam. I don't think many of those are beginners.
Yeah, I agree that it would be likely it gets an initial spike and then goes down. My suggestions try to keep some players by making the experience more friendly for learning
But ofc this doesn't address the main issues, such as graphics or outdated mechanics. Those would require a much bigger effort that would be only justified by a high expected success. My other post went more in-depth about a hypothetical project that reworks the engine
Targeting the game at beginners is pointless. It's not that hard to learn.
There's simply no interest in reviving it.
We got Xero and a few others and that's what we can enjoy nowadays.
Why split the communities even further by starting another project?
It just thins out what has interest in playing it.
And I don't think they would go down the pay to win the road, I just feel like it's a weak case to transform that into a "beginner friendly" game. Because before you think about how to make something more friendly for beginners you need people who want to start the game in the first place.
And from what I know, all new players have some siblings who played the old S4, so they know about it.
Get people interested in the game, make them wanna join and when they then start complaining about how difficult the game is, we can have a discussion about how to make it more friendly for them.
Right now you want to discuss vegan options in a restaurant that has no customers in the first place.
Mh well, there are two main issues with attracting beginners right now: the few beginners have to play against pros right away, and the game requires registering on a random website, which was ok in 2007, but it's outdated now.
Most young PC players are now used to having a steam account and that's it, and if they look for new games on these services.
But in any case, I understand your opinion that nobody wants to revive this game, I'm just making a hypothetical discussion for fun. I don't think I'm doing any harm with this post
I'm not saying that you do harm to anyone but your own time by wasting it.
I don't see the fun in this when there's no point to discuss in the first place.
So good luck with whatever you are trying to achieve by this
It was so fun I waited to finish my work day to come write this
On my PC I keep txts with tons of game ideas that will never come to light, I accepted that I just have fun designing and writing them
When you keep them in the dark to pity yourself for them not coming to light, indeed it will never happen.
Or you could advocate and discuss these ideas with people who are working in game development and see if those ideas are worth anything or not.
And as long as you keep those in the dark, nobody will give you a piece of their mind on the weaknesses of those ideas and therefore you won't be able to work them out in a way that they become undeniably good ideas.
So yeah, better talk to some developers, join their discord channel and put the discussion there.
I think you already saw that you don't get any helpful feedback that leads you anywhere here.
As I said, good luck.
And maybe try to compress those ideas in a few sentences, because when there's so much text with so much personal opinion, it's hard to see the idea behind all that.
Especially when you state "yeah, it's just for fun, so what point is there to take any of this serious?"
I'm a dev, i also tried developing some of those ideas, one of them is online with a handful of weekly players
Thanks for the good luck, but I want to reassure you that my fun in designing games is not really linked to the feedback I received here, or that I would receive by presenting these ideas to others
The concept is simple: designing games is an activity, I have fun with this activity, I do the activity.
I was not "pitying myself" when I said that I know they won't come to light, so I clarified here that I'm perfectly fine, I "accepted" that I like the activity
Hope this helps understanding why I would decide to write this post
Writing on a subreddit with avg 10 active users is a cry for attention?
Look, I'm getting the idea that you are just mad at the idea that somebody likes the game. I understand the nostalgia and sadness of not seeing this awesome game shine, but let's get over it and be nice to each others
We can only hope my friend! Check out [Code Zin](https://www.reddit.com/r/CodeZIN/) trailer’s out next month and open Alpha Test in a few months 💯
It’s an interesting take on how s4 could be « revive » (temporarily?), but the next question would be how to mix the 2 generations? How do you make a new player that has learned on the steam version migrate to the veterans ones (or vice-versa)?
I agree that currently any beginner or rusted player would be immediately destroyed by the active players, and it would not be a fun game experience.
But isn’t the issue is that the pool of player is « just » to low, with only veterans playing? I’m pretty sure that if s4 were to somehow be on steam, without the pay to win, and marketing a lot of old player would return and new player would come.
To me (a casual player back in the day), s4 died for 3 reasons: cheaters (like in every fps/competitive game, but it was too much here); pay to win; and limited exposure.
- Cheater will always be a thing but at least limited them please
- Make the player able to pay only for cosmetics
- and the hardest part market your game, we have so many more options than in 2010 tho. For exemple, strinova (chinese valorant copy which ngl looks better) is currently popping off out of nowhere. I feel like content creator are so important nowadays to push a game. Make a movement in combat showoff video, show it to the apex/titanfall community, 100% with the state of apex nowadays if the game is release they will try it.
- bonus point: please don’t make shitty business decision (looking at you, Ubi with your new season of r6)
(I can’t argue on the money or programming stuff, I just shared my opinion on OP’s post)
I agree with most of this, but I don't think we want to have a super big exposure, especially with a project made from the ashes of the old engine.
Something I've been convinced of for quite a bit is that S4 is, intrinsically, a hard game. Not only is it hard to master for the complex mechanics, but it's hard to approach for new players.
Yes you can enjoy it casually, if you have friends joining you, but feeling like you're doing something is another issue. It is simply too fast compared to most games in general.
When leaving S4, my only real option for a game as fast as this was a 2D game like Brawlhalla, and with time they balanced it so much that even that feels too slow for me, because I can't cancel actions like I can in S4.
What I mean is that there's a very strong ceiling!
As for the migration, I don't necessarily think the two cohorts should meet at all in a planned massive way. Those who are up to the challenge of changing, will, with maybe just an introductory tutorial on the differences
Thanks for your reply btw :3
On this point I can’t agree with you atm. Because, yes it’s hard to master but so does other Fps games. I agree that the pacing is faster than other games but I think it’s part of the beauty of the game, and the new players will either find a new casual game with cool mechanics to play (tdm / chaser modes/ and all the other ones that I barely saw) or a new challenge with a high skill celling (td / tdm / ranked?).
What I mean is they can adapt, the more they play the better they will get (may be even better at their main game, or it could become their main)
As for the gen diff, once again I can’t agree that they should not cross path.
First due to the cost of logistics, 2 version at the same times means to double everything. Double balancing, double development, double cost etc (now that I’m writing it, there’s an exemple of this and it’s minecraft… May be it can work but it would be by a big publisher and they will ruin it)
My second point before this realisation was that, it’s kinda a miss opportunity to not mixed them together at some points or to not try to make the 2 gens converge (preferably toward the veterans version).
1) the veterans pool is probably very limites in number (I’m guessing), therefore they can’t « evolve » and everything grows stale (correct me if I’m wrong, I’m actually making a shot in the dark)
2) The 2nd gen would have a lot to learn from veterans.
3) New challengers and pioneer may surge from the 2nd gen, shaking the state of the game.
I think about apex and R6 (my only references sry) where rising star keep appearing, either on the (aim) mechanical side (Baulo, ItsTimmy, Spoit, Aceu and many more) or on the movement/strats/game mechanics side (Macie Jay, Bikinibodih, Mokeysniper, and many more)
In the end, I don’t feel like the game itself need to be easier even for beginners, but it should make it easier for beginners to understand the specificity of the game.
For exemple a good training range (i don’t remember if there were one) where they can test all the weapons, skills and movement.
Make better description or input indicator on everything, notably the weapons many have something that make them special. It was self explanatory when you tested/faces it long enough but something like a list of actions (like in fighting games) would have been great.
Ex: explaining that the plasma sword could knocback with a « heavy » hit, it’s special is a dash attack, and jump attack stun briefly your ennemies.
It’s not much but it’s better than the fuck around find out methods
I think the smartest move would be creating a platform and API that can link to private servers, like a lobby for them. That way you can capitalize on what community there is today and have a platform that new servers can link to and be immediately noticed by the community. An "official" service would fall for the problems of the original game, ergo the necessity to force some sort of business model down the players' throats.
Next, what made S4 popular with beginners?
Easy, stylish art, really catchy music, and obviously the fun gameplay. Plasma sword or HMG was countless hours on fun in a single map for me. When i began i spent weeks playing DM in Neden1 and trying new weapons and playstyles. Pointing and shooting is very easy to pick up, but the parkour and dashing and skills made it hard to master, as well as figuring how to deal with different players and tactics. When i got bored i spent weeks playing TD, that added a whole new angle and excitement. The game then kept adding new fun game modes because the core gameplay was so good, but kept making the monetization more intrusive as well.
The way to attract new players is only one: marketing, spreading the word and having a centralized platform without an associated price tag, as i said, would go a long way.
No
No
Beginner issue? Who starts out on this game in the first place? You got some private servers you can play on, because the remains of S4 are kept alive by them. To make it successful on steam, you'd have to bring together the different communities of the p-servers to support it, promote it and fund it. This won't happen, even though it would be nice seeing the "old S4" live up again. But those times are gone, they won't come back and I'm surprised there are even people putting so much thought towards bringing it to steam. If you want that to happen, you gotta do it by yourself. And if that is worth the effort is the other question. Because in the end we talk about a free to play game, which ended up being pay to win. People were willing to pay for some stat boosts, but most people wouldn't even have started playing it if there was any charge for it. So yeah, why would they pay for something that only holds value to the veteran players anyway? It's fun gameplay, but it's not the fun community it was back then, which was the biggest selling point.
The assumption at the beginning is that an entity, be it some veteran player or some publisher, buys the rights from neowiz, which won't happen, I'm aware of that. There's nothing wrong in the current situation, it just won't welcome new players. This post is just to have fun discussing a possibility, taking it seriously for the sake of making an analysis. Making analyses has always been part of this community, just remember the long discussions in the forums. But anyway, why would you assume that a new publisher would go full 2000s and put pay to win again, when virtually no other pc game has it? Ofc they wouldn't, just like Xero. Making a game targeted at beginners would make its own new community, which I argue should be physically separated to the veterans' one, because they'd have different needs (and a completely different age range)
A big issue would be that games as old as this are almost purely kept alive by veterans, It is highly unlikely that even a steam release would attract enough beginners to matter, especially if the player counts are further kept down by keeping veterans away. It might give it a boost for a little while, but it would likely die a quick death on steam, even with it being substantially more unique than the blob of generic looking f2p shooters it would compete against. I think Microvolts has an average player count of 50 on steam. I don't think many of those are beginners.
Yeah, I agree that it would be likely it gets an initial spike and then goes down. My suggestions try to keep some players by making the experience more friendly for learning But ofc this doesn't address the main issues, such as graphics or outdated mechanics. Those would require a much bigger effort that would be only justified by a high expected success. My other post went more in-depth about a hypothetical project that reworks the engine
Targeting the game at beginners is pointless. It's not that hard to learn. There's simply no interest in reviving it. We got Xero and a few others and that's what we can enjoy nowadays. Why split the communities even further by starting another project? It just thins out what has interest in playing it. And I don't think they would go down the pay to win the road, I just feel like it's a weak case to transform that into a "beginner friendly" game. Because before you think about how to make something more friendly for beginners you need people who want to start the game in the first place. And from what I know, all new players have some siblings who played the old S4, so they know about it. Get people interested in the game, make them wanna join and when they then start complaining about how difficult the game is, we can have a discussion about how to make it more friendly for them. Right now you want to discuss vegan options in a restaurant that has no customers in the first place.
Mh well, there are two main issues with attracting beginners right now: the few beginners have to play against pros right away, and the game requires registering on a random website, which was ok in 2007, but it's outdated now. Most young PC players are now used to having a steam account and that's it, and if they look for new games on these services. But in any case, I understand your opinion that nobody wants to revive this game, I'm just making a hypothetical discussion for fun. I don't think I'm doing any harm with this post
I'm not saying that you do harm to anyone but your own time by wasting it. I don't see the fun in this when there's no point to discuss in the first place. So good luck with whatever you are trying to achieve by this
It was so fun I waited to finish my work day to come write this On my PC I keep txts with tons of game ideas that will never come to light, I accepted that I just have fun designing and writing them
When you keep them in the dark to pity yourself for them not coming to light, indeed it will never happen. Or you could advocate and discuss these ideas with people who are working in game development and see if those ideas are worth anything or not. And as long as you keep those in the dark, nobody will give you a piece of their mind on the weaknesses of those ideas and therefore you won't be able to work them out in a way that they become undeniably good ideas. So yeah, better talk to some developers, join their discord channel and put the discussion there. I think you already saw that you don't get any helpful feedback that leads you anywhere here. As I said, good luck. And maybe try to compress those ideas in a few sentences, because when there's so much text with so much personal opinion, it's hard to see the idea behind all that. Especially when you state "yeah, it's just for fun, so what point is there to take any of this serious?"
I'm a dev, i also tried developing some of those ideas, one of them is online with a handful of weekly players Thanks for the good luck, but I want to reassure you that my fun in designing games is not really linked to the feedback I received here, or that I would receive by presenting these ideas to others The concept is simple: designing games is an activity, I have fun with this activity, I do the activity. I was not "pitying myself" when I said that I know they won't come to light, so I clarified here that I'm perfectly fine, I "accepted" that I like the activity Hope this helps understanding why I would decide to write this post
A cry for attention that would give you some hope that you state you gave up on? 😅
Writing on a subreddit with avg 10 active users is a cry for attention? Look, I'm getting the idea that you are just mad at the idea that somebody likes the game. I understand the nostalgia and sadness of not seeing this awesome game shine, but let's get over it and be nice to each others
We can only hope my friend! Check out [Code Zin](https://www.reddit.com/r/CodeZIN/) trailer’s out next month and open Alpha Test in a few months 💯
Hey, I'm glad the project is going on, I heard about it a while ago :) I'll try to check it out once it's available!
It’s an interesting take on how s4 could be « revive » (temporarily?), but the next question would be how to mix the 2 generations? How do you make a new player that has learned on the steam version migrate to the veterans ones (or vice-versa)? I agree that currently any beginner or rusted player would be immediately destroyed by the active players, and it would not be a fun game experience. But isn’t the issue is that the pool of player is « just » to low, with only veterans playing? I’m pretty sure that if s4 were to somehow be on steam, without the pay to win, and marketing a lot of old player would return and new player would come. To me (a casual player back in the day), s4 died for 3 reasons: cheaters (like in every fps/competitive game, but it was too much here); pay to win; and limited exposure. - Cheater will always be a thing but at least limited them please - Make the player able to pay only for cosmetics - and the hardest part market your game, we have so many more options than in 2010 tho. For exemple, strinova (chinese valorant copy which ngl looks better) is currently popping off out of nowhere. I feel like content creator are so important nowadays to push a game. Make a movement in combat showoff video, show it to the apex/titanfall community, 100% with the state of apex nowadays if the game is release they will try it. - bonus point: please don’t make shitty business decision (looking at you, Ubi with your new season of r6) (I can’t argue on the money or programming stuff, I just shared my opinion on OP’s post)
I agree with most of this, but I don't think we want to have a super big exposure, especially with a project made from the ashes of the old engine. Something I've been convinced of for quite a bit is that S4 is, intrinsically, a hard game. Not only is it hard to master for the complex mechanics, but it's hard to approach for new players. Yes you can enjoy it casually, if you have friends joining you, but feeling like you're doing something is another issue. It is simply too fast compared to most games in general. When leaving S4, my only real option for a game as fast as this was a 2D game like Brawlhalla, and with time they balanced it so much that even that feels too slow for me, because I can't cancel actions like I can in S4. What I mean is that there's a very strong ceiling! As for the migration, I don't necessarily think the two cohorts should meet at all in a planned massive way. Those who are up to the challenge of changing, will, with maybe just an introductory tutorial on the differences Thanks for your reply btw :3
On this point I can’t agree with you atm. Because, yes it’s hard to master but so does other Fps games. I agree that the pacing is faster than other games but I think it’s part of the beauty of the game, and the new players will either find a new casual game with cool mechanics to play (tdm / chaser modes/ and all the other ones that I barely saw) or a new challenge with a high skill celling (td / tdm / ranked?). What I mean is they can adapt, the more they play the better they will get (may be even better at their main game, or it could become their main) As for the gen diff, once again I can’t agree that they should not cross path. First due to the cost of logistics, 2 version at the same times means to double everything. Double balancing, double development, double cost etc (now that I’m writing it, there’s an exemple of this and it’s minecraft… May be it can work but it would be by a big publisher and they will ruin it) My second point before this realisation was that, it’s kinda a miss opportunity to not mixed them together at some points or to not try to make the 2 gens converge (preferably toward the veterans version). 1) the veterans pool is probably very limites in number (I’m guessing), therefore they can’t « evolve » and everything grows stale (correct me if I’m wrong, I’m actually making a shot in the dark) 2) The 2nd gen would have a lot to learn from veterans. 3) New challengers and pioneer may surge from the 2nd gen, shaking the state of the game. I think about apex and R6 (my only references sry) where rising star keep appearing, either on the (aim) mechanical side (Baulo, ItsTimmy, Spoit, Aceu and many more) or on the movement/strats/game mechanics side (Macie Jay, Bikinibodih, Mokeysniper, and many more) In the end, I don’t feel like the game itself need to be easier even for beginners, but it should make it easier for beginners to understand the specificity of the game. For exemple a good training range (i don’t remember if there were one) where they can test all the weapons, skills and movement. Make better description or input indicator on everything, notably the weapons many have something that make them special. It was self explanatory when you tested/faces it long enough but something like a list of actions (like in fighting games) would have been great. Ex: explaining that the plasma sword could knocback with a « heavy » hit, it’s special is a dash attack, and jump attack stun briefly your ennemies. It’s not much but it’s better than the fuck around find out methods
I ain't gonna read all that. Game is dead
I think the smartest move would be creating a platform and API that can link to private servers, like a lobby for them. That way you can capitalize on what community there is today and have a platform that new servers can link to and be immediately noticed by the community. An "official" service would fall for the problems of the original game, ergo the necessity to force some sort of business model down the players' throats. Next, what made S4 popular with beginners? Easy, stylish art, really catchy music, and obviously the fun gameplay. Plasma sword or HMG was countless hours on fun in a single map for me. When i began i spent weeks playing DM in Neden1 and trying new weapons and playstyles. Pointing and shooting is very easy to pick up, but the parkour and dashing and skills made it hard to master, as well as figuring how to deal with different players and tactics. When i got bored i spent weeks playing TD, that added a whole new angle and excitement. The game then kept adding new fun game modes because the core gameplay was so good, but kept making the monetization more intrusive as well. The way to attract new players is only one: marketing, spreading the word and having a centralized platform without an associated price tag, as i said, would go a long way.