New Game

[NUj6URfi]

I'm going to try to launch my game on 27th of July. I plan on launching for Linux, Mac, Android, Windows, and iOS. First, I need steam greenlighting. It's a 3D space MMO without fleet continuity. You get rank, but your fleet changes per play. I'll try to put it on greenlight on the 20th. Any launch tips? I hear servers at launch may get overloaded.... The server is written in C (a work in progress). Also each ship gets their own pilot. Each match will have at max 64 players, for now. Honestly, I hope at least 1 match is going on 24/7. The server will start a match with less but my goal is a full match all the time, before I publish ads(that will come later).

Thanks in advance,
Your friendly neighborhood toad!

[TheHardew]

Can you make it available to download without steam? I don't want to install it just for that. Also, is it going to be open-source? I could learn a lot from it.

[NUj6URfi]

I could, but I won't. I don't have the knowledge to build a website and include anti-piracy measures. It will not be open source. It's a paid game.

[megatron 0]

Uhhhh paid things can still be open source... have you not heard of space engineers? Keen Software House released full source which you can freely get off git and mod.

[NUj6URfi]

I never said they can't. I just said it won't be open source and is paid.

[megatron 0]

Also, is it going to be open-source? I could learn a lot from it.

It will not be open source. It's a paid game.

He asked one question, he didn't ask if it were paid. Can you see how your answer could reflect the opinion?

[NUj6URfi]

Yes, I can. I'm sorry for the confusion. BTW space engineers source is under a custom license, it doesn't give out assets, and to run a custom built copy, requires a paid copy. So basically buying the game also gives you source rights unless you just want to stare at a non working EXE. Anyways, confession time. I was being defensive earlier. I didn't know that. I never said I did so no lies here. And JSYK, I feel a bit mislead. You made it sound like you can get the full game and build yourself for free. Not that you need a steam copy and doesn't include assets. Anyways, I'm not angry, irritated, or any other bad emotion. I appreciate the knowledge.

[megatron 0]

I know the license, I did say:

[bold]paid[/bold] things can still be open source

Buying the game gives you source "rights" but you can get the source code "freely" not freely as in "unpaid". Also for people like myself and maybe the TheHardew source code is enough to learn off without needing to build it. It can give insight to designs and problems that can arise.

Don't worry about being defensive and sorry for the confusion! See it happens =]

[NUj6URfi]

Thanks for understanding.... anyway, tips? I see one was have a drm free version. It will require a login so I guess I could have a code entered on startup (to activate the game).....

[megatron 0]

Could do, or release day content?

EDIT:

Something you could do is buy one and get one free on release day? Will get friends interested in social circles and fill up servers. Of course this is depending on how well your game will fare.

EDIT 2:

Something else would be free copies to youtube game reviewers, will get you a wide advertisement audiences for almost no cost.

[NUj6URfi]

Could do but definitely won't be on launch (It might violate steams terms of use for devs if I had 1 version or I would require 2 versions to maintain... barely will have one release ready). It's a subscription game (free to download), but I might do on launch week buy one whole year, and get (2 or 3? opinions?) month for a friend (trial).

[megatron 0]

Understood I'm not a game dev so I don't understand how game releases work.

2 versions? Don't you have some kind of generic object loader? So you can pick say between type A and type B ships? Just ad extra models and what not?

2/3 months subscription is more than most ( Lucky if you get a month trial these days, actually yeah, free few day trial? ) so that would be nice.

[NUj6URfi]

2 month trial would only be with friend getting A YEAR.

Steam requires all payments through them so that's a nice level of consistency but a no-steam version means I need a secure keygen website that's hard to make (1 and 2) would need a version to accept these keys and not run through steam.....

[megatron 0]

(1 and 2) would need a version to accept these keys and not run through steam

Does steam sort out your server side as well? You can't send a pre built game to reviewers to cover for advertising?

[NUj6URfi]

Steam only hosts the downloads. I host the server. I can send a prebuilt game to reviewers, I just am low on time. My best hope is to send to reviewers when done and if I get greenlit, in which case I'll put the launch off by 3 days if reviewers have a good chance of reviewing me.

[megatron 0]

I figured as much I thought it was a bit weird the game needed* to run through steam.

I see time is always a problem. At any rate reviewing can wait as you said, possibly wait for any major bugs to be found and patched so they show off a cleaner game.

Something I've seen done in the music industry that raises awareness, "leaked" songs. I'm almost certain Machine Head ( Probably more Robb Flynn ) allowed two songs off their unreleased album to be "leaked" on iTunes. It got all the fans stoked and itching for the album to come out. Possibly unrelated to your problem but maybe worth thinking about.

* To avoid confusion:

would need a version to accept these keys and not run through steam

Maybe programming is getting to me, is that "and" to say the game can run without steam, or the "and" is to say you will have to modify it to be able to run without steam?

Sorry, it's 2am I'm pretty burned out.

[NUj6URfi]

megatron 0: It currently can run without but I also have no anti-piracy features. I was counting on the steam lib for that. I could build my own but it would need extra work. Also, I was going to have a list of active subscriptions from steam users even though the app requires a custom login as so all platforms can connect to the same server. So it would require a different plan, but right now I'll focus on the more secure Steam and wider audience (I think).

[NUj6URfi]

The server is actually written in Nim which compiles to C. ( nim-lang.org <3 )

[megatron 0]

no anti-piracy features.

Almost all the steam games I have used were of questionable repute*, though I found Arma 2, KSP and SE worth buying. Steams anti-piracy isn't the most secure, I'd wager any decent cracking team could get through any protection given enough processor time but that's a different topic.

Though I would say most game reviewers won't have the brain or skill to reverse engineer a game you gave them to try out for free, but then again it's a weird world. So a pre built edition without protection shouldn't be a problem given the reviewers can be trusted but as stated above and how popular your game becomes it's only a matter of time.

Rolling your own depending on complexity may even be better as they can't use pre found techniques as with steam and other DRM techniques, but of course this will take a lot of time so probably impossible with your time frame.


This is all I can think of and it's 3am I'm off to bed.

Good luck and wish you all the best!