[SUGGESTION] Ideas on how to make the game more accessible

As someone that is somewhat new to the arena shooter genre, I love Xonotic. However, I was able to notice some things that seem like they would be somewhat easy to solve and would make the game much more accessible. Notably:

- The game has no installer for Windows other than Desura and it's not on Steam. It shouldn't be that hard to get it on Steam, although it comes with a $100 Greenlight Fee, and I could make a Windows installer myself.

- The voices have some rough edges. Notably the models taunt the same way every time and they curse while doing it. Both of these things make the game less accessible, and one could argue taunts are unnecessary in this sort of game anyway.

- The game music depends on the map, but most maps have 2 or 3 songs only that continually repeat. It's not that hard to grab CC-BY music and put in credits, and I know of some that would work great with this game including some with source files to fit the GPL. I have even read in some threads that there is music which has been submitted and voted to be included but never put in to the game.

- There is no good tutorial that explains what powerups do and what the HUD means. The powerups could also be more self-explanatory and the HUD could show text.

I don't mean to be insulting to the developers at all. I love this game and I hope it has a great future. I just think the above would make players (including most of my friends) think more of the game.

The game has no installer for Windows other than Desura and it's not on Steam. It shouldn't be that hard to get it on Steam, although it comes with a $100 Greenlight Fee, and I could make a Windows installer myself.

There is already a huge discussion about distributing the game through Steam, read it. An installer seems to be redundant as it´s way easier to just extract a package than clicking your way through a setup. It also would make the download larger concerning filesize. Another point is that the release versions are meant to be for every platform, meaning if we´d wanted to provide a windows installer there has to be another link to a another file. That doesn´t make it easier for anybody. If you are looking for the latest version of Xonotic and an easy installing process have a look at the autobuild script.

[...] one could argue taunts are unnecessary in this sort of game anyway.

If you don´t like them then just disable it in the settings.

The game music depends on the map, but most maps have 2 or 3 songs only that continually repeat. It's not that hard to grab CC-BY music and put in credits, and I know of some that would work great with this game including some with source files to fit the GPL. I have even read in some threads that there is music which has been submitted and voted to be included but never put in to the game.

Yes, there could be more music in Xonotic, I think most of us agree on that. But the problem is that some has to include it in the master repository (Xonotic uses git for managing file transaction) which takes some time. If you´d like to contribute go ahead! Or tell others to do so. Either way we´ll be happy.

There is no good tutorial that explains what powerups do and what the HUD means. The powerups could also be more self-explanatory and the HUD could show text.

Hmm... as far as I am concerned the HUD and the powerups are pretty much self-explanatory. Strength makes your weapons stronger/ you deal more damage and Shield protects you from damage. Same for the HUD: Health, armor, weapons, time, etc. If there´s anything to explain then it´s the gameplay and how you use the weapons. But there is already some planning going on concerning a tutorial.

- The game has no installer for Windows other than Desura and it's not on Steam. It shouldn't be that hard to get it on Steam, although it comes with a $100 Greenlight Fee, and I could make a Windows installer myself.

Please talk with some of the core team members at IRC(#xonotic @ irc.freenode.net) about this. From what I remember one of the first goal of Nexuiz (Classic) was to have the game distributed for all platform in one convinient package, so I'm not sure if an installer is really something Xonotic could benefit of. If the core team members aren't interesting in this you could still create an unoffical installer, I bet a lot of Windows users would like this.

- The game music depends on the map, but most maps have 2 or 3 songs only that continually repeat. It's not that hard to grab CC-BY music and put in credits, and I know of some that would work great with this game including some with source files to fit the GPL. I have even read in some threads that there is music which has been submitted and voted to be included but never put in to the game.

No need to grab random music with free licenses, there's plenty music for Xonotic already that haven't made into the game I think. The problem is not much more music will probably be accepted/needed as I've understood.

A map has only one music track. We can't have more tracks without having more maps, unless we get a music randomization feature. I think this is in the works.

I think all the problems described by OP are minor. There are major issues:

Bad default settings, amongst other issues --- http://forums.xonotic.org/showthread.php?tid=3904

Then there's THE malicious tick that the Global Government tells everyone to keep: strafe-jumping.

Promoting your thread i someone else ones instead of simply bumping your own with more serious arguments and solutions...

- The game has no installer for Windows other than Desura and it's not on Steam. It shouldn't be that hard to get it on Steam, although it comes with a $100 Greenlight Fee, and I could make a Windows installer myself.

Please talk with some of the core team members at IRC(#xonotic @ irc.freenode.net) about this. From what I remember one of the first goal of Nexuiz (Classic) was to have the game distributed for all platform in one convinient package, so I'm not sure if an installer is really something Xonotic could benefit of. If the core team members aren't interesting in this you could still create an unoffical installer, I bet a lot of Windows users would like this.

One stalling point would be the GPL and how the installation build tools relate to this licence as any Xonotic installer would also have to remain GPL compliant. Something I would consider is looking at a project like GIMP for Windows which runs as a separate project from GIMP and packages up GIMP into an .exe. You could even derive the entire building process from the scripts they use and simply credit them for the ideas. This will be way better than each and every time having to build the installer by hand - a low quality, unhelpful, inconsistent installer would do more harm than good.