[SUGGESTION] Introduction video

I went watching a few reviews and videos that people made from this game. People always like the graphics etc, but think gameplay is a little boring.
That has one simple reason, they just have no idea how to play this game, the gameplay is boring indeed, if you like most new players do.
-They ust walk, which makes them REALLY slow
-Just use only one weapon. Since Xonotic is almost the only game with weapon combos, people don't expect that, and for that reason don't even try combos.
-Most don't know that there is a secondary fire at all.
-Some are so stupid they think the only way to switch is, or picking up a weapon (autoswitch), or running out of ammo.

There really needs to be some kind of introduction video, in which is shown how to REALLY play. Just a pro player, having awesome movement and doing a lot of combos with different weapons, who explains what he does.
Or just first explaining how the weapons work, the movement, and then in a match.
Just make a video with that, and make the game play it when people start the singleplayer.

Or make a tuturial.

JUST GELL PEOPLE HOW TO PLAY

If a person can't understand how to play Xonotic, then they really shouldn't be playing at all, because its so goddamn simple.

If a person can't understand how to play Xonotic, then they really shouldn't be playing at all, because its so goddamn simple.

That's not quite true. Quake Live is simple as fuck (it doesn't even have such an extended movement or weapon-functionality) but still newbs mostly walk around, don't pick up Items and don't use weapons propperly. That's the whole thing about being a "noob". You don't know how the game works because you just have installed it and you are getting destroyed by players who seem to have aimbot/wallhack/speedhack/invincibility (they mostly don't, they simply know the basics of the game). In Xonotic it's even harder to get some good experience, because the game is much faster, and you have to master much more things (movement, weapons, item-control, prediction) and the community is so small that you almost always will meet stronger opponents (at least in 1vs1).

What I was trying to say is, that telling a new player to quit the game if he doesn't understand the basics from the beginning is just ignorant and stupid, like this you scare off potential players.


BTT:
An instructional video-series that covers the basic stuff like movement-techniques, weapon-usage, resource-management and general tactics on the most common maps (not only 1vs1 but also CTF/TDM/other popular gts) would be something great that certainly would help new players a lot. Is there a official Xonotic channel on youtube? If not someone should create one and start posting such tutorial-vids there, aswell as actual gameplay-footage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0k7yIh9gjA
Actually I wonder if it's at xonotic.org (too lazy to check now). Electro tutorial is like.. a mystery!
It's some kind of work to create one video though (Audio, Video [editing + players who act (not a thing you do in 5 minutes - I can tell )]) and no player wants to watch 100 minutes of tutorial to be honest. I tried UrbanTerror and they force a tutorial video and was like "uh ok but I want to play now?".
Edit: ALSO the weapons are still changing so it would be kind of useless to have a tutorial video when the weapon could change a lot in 1.0.

I agree that making a short video or a tutorial level (a bit like this in Nexuiz but more robust and interesting) would be great.

The title could be "How to play Xonotic and enjoy it fully".

Yeah, wait for a proper stable release before making tutorials about things that are still being refined/changed (there are some big changes happening atm and making a video about something like the shotgun isn't wise because the shotgun will probably change soon). Also, there should be a selection of tutorials and not just one big one.

If a person can't understand how to play Xonotic, then they really shouldn't be playing at all, because its so goddamn simple.

That's not quite true. Quake Live is simple as fuck (it doesn't even have such an extended movement or weapon-functionality) but still newbs mostly walk around, don't pick up Items and don't use weapons propperly. That's the whole thing about being a "noob". You don't know how the game works because you just have installed it and you are getting destroyed by players who seem to have aimbot/wallhack/speedhack/invincibility (they mostly don't, they simply know the basics of the game). In Xonotic it's even harder to get some good experience, because the game is much faster, and you have to master much more things (movement, weapons, item-control, prediction) and the community is so small that you almost always will meet stronger opponents (at least in 1vs1).

What I was trying to say is, that telling a new player to quit the game if he doesn't understand the basics from the beginning is just ignorant and stupid, like this you scare off potential players.


BTT:
An instructional video-series that covers the basic stuff like movement-techniques, weapon-usage, resource-management and general tactics on the most common maps (not only 1vs1 but also CTF/TDM/other popular gts) would be something great that certainly would help new players a lot. Is there a official Xonotic channel on youtube? If not someone should create one and start posting such tutorial-vids there, aswell as actual gameplay-footage.

I bet you think that xonotic is harder than nexuiz.

Well, using the weapons right in Xonotic sure is harder than in Nexuiz. In Nexuiz you just picked up nex and mortar and you were fine. In Xonotic you actually have to use other weapons, since nex and mortar are not ridiculously overpowered.

But Nexuiz movement is harder for sure.

Not really...I could take anyone who used nex/mortar combo with another weapon easy. Plus, mg in xonotic is overpowered by itself, with nex all you need is two shots to kill.

Talking about duel; if xonotic shall reach a higher level it needs more tactics. That means a more advanced item system (e.g. only with mega items you can get up to 200, also make them harder to time), bigger maps that allow a more tactical play and eventually tiered weapons. Currently its like 50% aim, 40% positioning and 10% using brain while playing.

Weapon balance isn't that bad anymore after the rl update. And you PCL state in fact that nexuiz weapons had been easy for you too, so why care.

Talking about duel; if xonotic shall reach a higher level it needs more tactics. That means a more advanced item system (e.g. only with mega items you can get up to 200, also make them harder to time), bigger maps that allow a more tactical play and eventually tiered weapons. Currently its like 50% aim, 40% positioning and 10% using brain while playing.

Weapon balance isn't that bad anymore after the rl update. And you PCL state in fact that nexuiz weapons had been easy for you too, so why care.

I would concur with this. What do you mean by tiered weapons though?

That means don't try to make all weapons equally strong. Unofficially we already got something like that, as mortar, nexgun, rocketlauncher (after update) and mg are the strongest weapons in the game. So mappers should treat those weapons differently than the "lower" weapons. One can fool himself but lets be honest: if you give to the one player 100 armor + nexgun and to the other player 100 armor + crylink (by putting those items near on the map) then you don't get a fair deal. Furthermore it's easier to balance 4 weapons against each other than 8+. Needless to say that electro, crylink and hagar would still serve their purpose - just not as main battle weapon.

I think this is a great idea, ie, an instruction video. Even better, another tutorial map like in nexuiz. We can think that playing xonotic/nexuiz is obvious but I agree with Mepper that it isn't to everyone, especially this generation of the point-and-shoot fps players who perhaps have never been exposed to quake-like playing and thus the importance of movement and usage of splash weapons instead of just throwing a grenade or shooting an rpg, etc.

I think this is a great idea, ie, an instruction video. Even better, another tutorial map like in nexuiz. We can think that playing xonotic/nexuiz is obvious but I agree with Mepper that it isn't to everyone, especially this generation of the point-and-shoot fps players who perhaps have never been exposed to quake-like playing and thus the importance of movement and usage of splash weapons instead of just throwing a grenade or shooting an rpg, etc.

That post reminded me of something I don't think of outside the game: SPLASH DAMAGE PENETRATES SURFACES. Most players new to the game won't even think about that.

Electro tutorial is like.. a mystery!

Kdenlive barfed on Cube's computer and refused to do what it was told, so the project was sidelined. The source files still exist on my server (voice) and his computer (videos?) if anyone wants to pick it back up:

http://media.antzucaro.com/xonotic/electro_tutorial/

I don't want to shot down anybodys idea, but making a video is not so simple as one would guess, as I know fairly lot fo stuff about it now. As Antibody said, kdenlive is a pile of unstable crap on debian (and from what I've heard, it's no bettter on any other distros, bummer). I still would like to finish that video and doing more, however, what you need to keep in mind:

- you need a good script
- you need actors, who know the script
- you need a decent server where you can record your stuff, and also contact the server owner, that you might need rcon, or maybe even ssh access! The best is if the admin is one of the actors.
- you have to organise, gather the actors together to that server, and be sure you have some kinda voice communication too, and working for everybody (Mumble, Skype, TeamSpeak, whatver). Chat doesn't cut it, it's too slow.
- keep in mind, that sometimes you need to reshoot takes gazillion times before you can say you have a good one. For longer video, this can be 2-3 hours to record all the demos.
- After you finally shot all the demos, you have to gather the files from everyone! You never know what's the best take!
- Watch back all the demos you got, and choose the right takes
- Record said demos, with ultra.cfg . This is one of the most time consuming part, as a few seconds long part of the demo gets rendered and recorded sometimes in 10-15 minutes!
- Assemble the recorded videos in a movie maker app, cut it, add transition effects, music etc.
- Render it. It can take hours.
- If it's broken somehow, rerender with different switches.
- Upload. For a larger file it can take 3-4 hours again.

That's all you need to consider to make a video like the shotgun tutorial or the electro. For a longer project multiply these issues by the takes, the full duration and filesize of the video and several other things

This is just a video that someone posted on yt, testing and reviewing Xonotic (but in German). How he plays really shows hoe n00bs think about this game, people like this really need some kinda education on how to play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=you...LzDCHgdjoo

This is just a video that someone posted on yt, testing and reviewing Xonotic (but in German). How he plays really shows hoe n00bs think about this game, people like this really need some kinda education on how to play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=you...LzDCHgdjoo

Damn, that's pathetic. Whether or not we get tutorial videos made, we probably should try to put together a demo or some footage of some highly skilled players duking it out and setting it either as an intro or have it serve as a background on the title screen kinda like Warsow does. High speed action showing the game being played as it's intended with all of the techniques such as bunnyhopping, skiing, weapon boosting, weapon combos, etc. would probably be a good example for newcomers who would otherwise think this game plays closer to Call of Duty's deathmatch. Video would mostly be put together using unscripted ingame footage from actual matches played on official maps.

EDIT:
I bet even bot match footage can work for this, though actual players would be preferred.

He obviously enjoys running around the map, grabbing weapons and shooting at things while having nice graphics. How can you call that pathetic? Let everyone play the game the way he likes, it's about fun, isn't it?

Oh yes he enjoys, but he somewhere mentions that gameplay isn't very original. Which is not true.

And the is 10 times more fun if you really learn how to play

Not that I dislike the genre (I love it!) but that arena shooter thing was original 15 years ago, it's not like xonotic invented it.

Oh yes he enjoys, but he somewhere mentions that gameplay isn't very original. Which is not true.

What's supposed to be original in Xonotic?

Not that I dislike the genre (I love it!) but that arena shooter thing was original 15 years ago, it's not like xonotic invented it.

True, but I can't think of any that manages to mix in elements from UT99 (weapons, depth, variety), Q3A (competitive element and map design seem heavily influenced by this game), as well as some Tribes influence (focus on movement and some movement techniques). Nor can I think of any besides boring Warsow that moves as fast. In addition to that, only the original Quake (wasn't even an intended mechanic either) and Deathmatch Classic have an emphasis on weapon combos and those two don't even come close to focusing as heavily on them as Xonotic does. There's also shared ammo (only four ammo types which are used by alot more than just four weapons) between weapons which is present in Xonotic, but not even a thought in other games. Xonotic mixes these together in a way that no other fps does, you won't find another arena fps/tps out there that has all of this in the same game (at least I haven't, and I've played a helluva lot of arena fps), let alone have each element refined to the level that Xonotic does.

tl;dr Xonotic is VERY original for an arena fps

He obviously enjoys running around the map, grabbing weapons and shooting at things while having nice graphics. How can you call that pathetic? Let everyone play the game the way he likes, it's about fun, isn't it?

The fact the he enjoys it isn't pathetic, it's the fact that it's very likely that newcomers won't easily stumble upon major mechanics this game was built around, probably due to the direction that first person shooters took within the last decade (see Halo and Call of Duty, on top of that Quake wasn't very popular on console compared to say GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, and Time Splitters which didn't even have jumping). I didn't really see any combos, weapon boosting, bunnyhopping, or anything like that in the video and those are basic techniques in this game.

It's still mainly deathmatch or capturing flags - things that have been around since doom2 I think. The other stuff you mention is something that a new player wont notice/care about. But to discuss it anyway:
- fast movement + fast weapon switch + combos? -> cpm, painkiller and nexuiz ofc
- taking elements from other games and put them into a mixer isn't very original either. Unless you call having a huge amount of redundant weapons original.
- competitive element and map design from q3a? No, unless for you q3a = cpm.
- shared ammo -> ok maybe, but that's not really a killerfeature
- "let alone have each element refined to the level that Xonotic does" -> Seriously? I would say that at least the games where xonotic "stole" those elements from have them refined on a way higher level.

I recently tried redeclipse which has some original things as wall jumps, swords and a build-in level editor. But original doesn't equal quality, and that game for example is far away from the polishing level that xonotic has reached so far.

tldr;
xonotic isn't original or refined (yet), and flaming noobs is wrong.

At what point did you see me flame noobs?