I have talked to many people about the state of our lovely game at this point. There are not as many active players as we used to have years ago, things changed. It’s not as alive as it used to be. However, the game still lives. We still see people thriving for duels and mix games every day. New projects happen, Discord replaced IRC, new tourneys replace old ones. The new tourney is hosted on a regular basis now, every 2 weeks there is a tourney for individual modes. That’s the best we ever had since Sauer has serious regular tournaments. We are also getting a new regular team tourney (more about that in another post).
A lot of people simply complain and complain, yet, they do nothing about the situation. Complaining can be either useless or even counter-productive. You might think you will feel better if you bitch about this lovely game that brought you joy many of times and now it’s failing you. Oh why, you stupid game! I thought the same, several times. I am quite sure, many other players had similar thoughts. But let’s be honest, just bitching and repeating the negative comments and posts isn’t good for us and it’s not good for the game either.
One day, I started to wonder. Maybe it’s us who are failing the game, and not the game failing us. This is an open source game and you don’t pay anything for the game and you can still customize it as much as you want. However, we are not creating anything for the game, we are not doing any kind of the work and we expect it to be better. No logic, right?
But things are starting to change. SauerDuels crew got 5 new additions (Bertolt_Brecht, h8, Ignis, Lokio, notas). Five people decided to join the team (Frosty, Origin, raffael, Redon) and help out with future projects. The same crew is planning to start a new regular team tourney. The tourney should occur at least once per month.
There is also a change in the editor community. Lately, we can see more people mapping and making maps. We definitely got some new maps and some other CTF maps are in progress. These are really great news since we need new maps and new content for a new Sauer release.
I talked to one of our active community members, Gangler. He said he wouldn’t do things like writing Sauerworld posts, but he will continue with supporting mappers, hosting mix games and supporting and helping out to clans and other clanless players.
Gangler:
I told you that I don’t have many skills but everyone can do something if he wants and have time so this is the only Important point. #noexcuses
He is actually doing a really nice job with hosting mix games regularly and helping out mappers with creating new CTF maps.
We should take a look at some other successful game communities. One of the examples is the Age of Empires 2 community. Here is an excerpt from the article posted in 2014:
It’s been 15 years since the release of Age of Empires 2 but it still has one of the most active, loyal fan bases of any RTS. The lobbies are still filled (and when the official lobbies went down the fans made their own multiplayer system), they coded their own mega balance patch, and they even created their own expansion pack in lieu of official support.
It’s no wonder then that the World Series of Video Games are funding a $120,000 prize pot for the Age of Empires 2 Championship, the biggest tournament in the game’s history.
They didn’t wait or rely on the developers or official support, they made their own patch, expansion packs, new content etc. I bet we can also create new content and help out mappers in any way to create new maps.
What we can do for Sauer:
- Make new maps or help mappers (comments, ideas and any kind of the feedback)
- Stream mix games and duels
- Produce some useful content (write articles, create videos, create or help out with guides)
- Contact game reviewing sites to post about Sauerbraten
- Start a guide for newcomers to easily become more competitive
- Write a SauerWorld/Discord F.A.Q or “Getting Started” (similar to above)
- Recommend it to friends/colleagues
- Start a tourney or help around with existing one
Anyone willing to do help with some projects for Sauer or anyone who has ideas for some new projects in Sauer but doesn’t have skills or manpower to execute them, please leave a comment and/or contact me on Discord.
Definitely check our forum section for maps and leave some feedback for the mappers!
Everyone in sauer needs to read this
I like the new liking possibility. Usually Im too lazy to write comments but now I can just press the button and my job is done here.
Great post man, right now im working on a cleaner and less buggy version of my older hudgun menu so stay tuned for that.
PS:
Give me this https://i.imgur.com/gWSihqN.png and I’ll be your slave forever
nah but seriously I would do anything to revive flagrunning, maybe even host tourneys ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° )
I do not understand the thing “Timer counting the time that was needed to do a flagrun”… timer for your own flagrun I guess?!
Due to popular demand the flagrun server is up. Please consider donating some euros so we can get the domain and website up again? :)
I like the shout out for letting Sauerbraten not die (eventually) in vain.
The community should produce more content (albeit some more or less the same).
I couldn’t stand the cheaters so I created a private server hosting the spaghettimod game (aka “zombie”) mod version. I just invited people I trust. Been running for a year now. There may be more people like me running private servers, so the game might be more alive than you think.
I created one new map. Would like to upload it somewhere. I tried quadropolis.us but for some reason I could not create an account there.
Quadropolis has a old registration system where you have to be accepted by an admin in order to get your account. (idk exactly how it works)
On the Mapping Discord(https://discord.gg/GqRkcP) there are still some admins/moderators around that can make you an account so you better go there and ask for one!
Ah, okay, thanks!
So nice to see that there are people who still care about this great game.
“Anyone willing to do help with some projects for Sauer or anyone who has ideas for some new projects in Sauer…”
I forgot to mention I wrote a web application that will show the players in a game, and a visual representation of the map currently being played. Also, it shows who has connected in the past several days.
It uses a javascript two-way connection so this reporting can happen in real-time, and gets its information from the Sauerbraten game log file. I would be happy to share this code with anyone who is interested.
http://sauertracker.net/
So it has already been done… very good!
From the log file? I do not understand that. Every sauer server opens a second port the extinfo port that is used to get information from that server.
There is a sauer server log file in which text messages are written indicating who has entered or left the game, or which map is in use. You can read those messages in “real time” as they are written using “node.js” software or equivalent.
The messages can then be interpreted and new information can be sent to web browsers monitoring the game.
I was not aware of the extinfo port. I do not use it for my server and supporting web application.
What are the chances of Sauerbraten getting on to Steam? This surely would expand the games user-base hugely.