Re-considering Steam alliance?

As Xonotic seems to need new players to keep living, maybe we should talk about this once more?

As far as I remember the main reason to not go to Steam was that the game is not finished yet.
However I've heard that there are games sell even in pre-alpha stage. And not for 0.99€...

The other thing is - if integrating with Steam would require some bigger changes in the game and it's engine?

Also: is the lack of players the only problem? How is it the only played server seems to be the Overkill* one?

*I once really liked Overkill mod, but now it feels just like Minsta with granades...

Besides Steam this game needs advertising long before 1.0. Slap a Beta label on it and advertise away. I would say just seeing from my server even 6-8 months ago lots of the players have left, I don't see those nick names any where, there were a lot of players on the FT server and quite a few of them are not on Xon any more. Some went back to Nexuiz some else were I guess.

As for minsta. Even though I don't mind it the minsta gets boring fast even playing my own Shotung server with the fast kills I can only stand it for 20 min or so after that its just the blind shooting the blind.

My point of view as a simple vanilla player:

Yes, there is a lack of players. When I started to play Xonotic 2 years ago, DCC public servers were often full, even the CTF server.
But now if you expect to play vanilla CTF or DM you must get 2 - 3 players on the server at first in order to attract enough people (it worked during the French WAN party that karamel organized , DCC CTF was brought back to life for a few hours).

As for the pickup channel on IRC, it ain't dead yet (there were some nice 4v4tdm matches yesterday), but activity has decreased considerably these last few months
Some good players are leaving the boat and others are just idling on IRC.

It makes me sad, because I like vanilla Xonotic and its community pretty much

It's up to the devs and none of my business, but I think advertising Xonotic would help keeping it alive.

Yes, it's strange, I never seen the Xonotic servers so empty!
Where is everyone?

Yes, it's strange, I never seen the Xonotic servers so empty!
Where is everyone?

Well people come and go in any game but just like any product it needs to be advertised to keep the turnover rate low and get new blood into the player pool.

You can see when Xon is mentioned some where there's a surge of new players but since most busy servers are minsta I think players get turned off from play non minsta server as there's no one on them.

Ready or not the game needs to be hyped long before 1.0.

Well seeing this healthy discussion get so many responses I guess its a non issue

Funny, as I'm experiencing just the opposite in North American servers. We have full CTF games and all the duels you want.

As for advertising: no one is stopping you from spreading the word! I'm certainly not against it. The devs are doing just that - developing!

Funny, as I'm experiencing just the opposite in North American servers. We have full CTF games and all the duels you want.

As for advertising: no one is stopping you from spreading the word! I'm certainly not against it. The devs are doing just that - developing!

Not everyone wants to play Minsta CTF and Duels. Hook+Minsta is not beginner friendly and after a while it just gets boring.

I thought the HUB servers were set up to introduce people to vanilla and have disappeared.

Also just because a few servers are busy it doesn't mean new blood in coming in and if it is its leaving fast. Even ESK/SMB Hook+Minsta is no where are busy as it was.

If you are expecting the community to advertise and the devs just dev then you'll just be stuck in niche hole with very small user base.

Community members come and go fast so depending on them advertising/promo is not going to work. A few will stick around for a long time but really who has the time to promo the game properly besides word of mouth.

First of all, I wasn't playing minsta CTF. I was playing full weapons CTF and TDM with a small sprinkling of duels before the night was through. There were all manner of people playing, a significant portion of which were completely new.

Secondly, you interpreted my "developers are developing" as meaning "developers should only develop", and that's not the case at all. Of course the developers can promote too. Do you remember my duel commentaries and casting? That's MY way of promoting the game. If people think that isn't the right path to getting the word out there, tough luck to them. I'm not going to do something that I don't enjoy, period. I give up so much of my time to this game and I deserve to enjoy it.

Lastly, everyone is different and can contribute in their own way. That's one of the beautiful things about such a diverse group of people! Of course people come and people go, but if we continue to make a good game then I feel like people will want to help advertise it. We ALL need to pitch in to make things work.