What would be an efficient use of FAF's funds to improve FAF?

@blackyps there are many threads on the old forum (eg https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=15268) about buying copyrights.

In one of the topics I read that the Nordics responded to FAF requests. The result of the negotiations is not clear. Did FAF ask Nordic Games to sell SCFA copyrights? Nordic Games did not respond? What was the result?

I am not aware of any game company responding to requests

@ftxcommando said in What would be an efficient use of FAF's funds to improve FAF?:

Do another user group study to see the onboarding issues now since the steamlink page was made more steamlined. If it's still a big problem, we're probably losing half the retention thanks to that. If nobody cares about that being a problem, then it's pointless to cite retention as a problem holding external promotion back.

YES

What about having an ACTUAL UX assessment of the onboarding process across say 20 people onboarding. Then iterate with improvements.

This post is deleted!

@gabrilend said in What would be an efficient use of FAF's funds to improve FAF?:

A couple years back there was a community run tournament for Overwatch called "The Scrub Cup" ..

Great idea

@rowey .. " integrate faf into steam.."

We can't package ourselves around the game and, say, pay the IP owner 2x of what they normally get for a sale?

@defiant said in What would be an efficient use of FAF's funds to improve FAF?:

@rowey .. " integrate faf into steam.."

We can't package ourselves around the game and, say, pay the IP owner 2x of what they normally get for a sale?

@blackyps said in What would be an efficient use of FAF's funds to improve FAF?:

I am not aware of any game company responding to requests

All I know I learned from the old threads on the forum. Here is one of them https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7358

 IceDreamer:

PilOt's already spoken to them after the breakup of THQ. Yes, doing this IS possible if Nordic were to allow it, but it would require expertise, time, and money and cooperation from other involved parties on the scale of making a brand new game. Parallelisation is not easy, and in effect requires the entire game engine to be rewritten from the ground up, not to mention that if this were to happen we would want to fix bugs, change the pathfinding, and do all sorts of other things too. It's a 2 year, 5 person full time project, and it's just not going to happen.

 Crotalus:

Since Nordic Games is a swedish company I contacted the chairman/owner of the holding company, Lars Wingefors, about this issue and he redirected me to their Business Developer Reinhard Pollice. I got the following answer:

"I am well aware of FAF and its effort. Its really great and we would like to support you but unfortunately at the moment we can't untie the situation. We hope to be able to do that in the future though."

Nordic is a big company and I guess they are not interested in cooperation with FAF as it doesn't promise much profit.

Let's politely ask the Nordic Games :

  • Make SCFA free on steam

  • Allocate money to improve the game in technical terms.

     Ze_PilOt's:
    

    t's a 2 year, 5 person full time project, and it's just not
    going to happen.

    This is the ultimate improvement program for SCFA. If you fix only critical parts of the game, I think, 1 year and  2 person full time project will be enough.
    
  • Pay monthly salaries to all major FAF developers so that they can leave their main job and devote themselves to developing FAF.

     I think the developers of faf would like faf to be their main job.
    

Koch Media is part of THQ Nordic. Kosh Media is the publisher of Iron Harvest. This suggests that THQ Nordic is not opposed to supporting projects with a small budget. Therefore, I believe that THQ Nordic support can be counted on.
Why is SCFA worse than Iron Harvest?
SCFA clearly has a larger player base.

The main question remains: what can we offer Nordic Games in return for their patronage?⁉

Let me get this right, you want Nordic games to first make the game free, and then pay for its development?

@blodir said in What would be an efficient use of FAF's funds to improve FAF?:

Let me get this right, you want Nordic games to first make the game free, and then pay for its development?

Yes, you got it right.
For example StarCraft II is available free to play.

@defiant said in What would be an efficient use of FAF's funds to improve FAF?:

@ftxcommando said in What would be an efficient use of FAF's funds to improve FAF?:

Do another user group study to see the onboarding issues now since the steamlink page was made more steamlined. If it's still a big problem, we're probably losing half the retention thanks to that. If nobody cares about that being a problem, then it's pointless to cite retention as a problem holding external promotion back.

YES

What about having an ACTUAL UX assessment of the onboarding process across say 20 people onboarding. Then iterate with improvements.

We already did that with one of our user doing that with professional background in that field around 3 years ago. But the insides improvements are still not implemented and probably never will be...

"Nerds have a really complicated relationship with change: Change is awesome when WE'RE the ones doing it. As soon as change is coming from outside of us it becomes untrustworthy and it threatens what we think of is the familiar."
– Benno Rice

@brutus5000 said in What would be an efficient use of FAF's funds to improve FAF?:

But the insides improvements are still not implemented and probably never will be...

What were the suggested changes, and why have they not been implemented?

"Design is an iterative process. The required number of iterations is one more than the number you have currently done. This is true at any point in time."

See all my projects:

Lack of time is the main reason for everything

"Nerds have a really complicated relationship with change: Change is awesome when WE'RE the ones doing it. As soon as change is coming from outside of us it becomes untrustworthy and it threatens what we think of is the familiar."
– Benno Rice

Paying someone to finish the Mac version would greatly expand the number of possible players. The game is old enough to be playable on macbook pros from the last 5 years or so. As some of the most popular computers on the planet, it could allow more players to join.

@thegman121 said in What would be an efficient use of FAF's funds to improve FAF?:

Paying someone to finish the Mac version would greatly expand the number of possible players. The game is old enough to be playable on macbook pros from the last 5 years or so. As some of the most popular computers on the planet, it could allow more players to join.

pretty much only answering cause i think you are exaggerating
• PC is surely more popular, mac is probably only popular in US
• new macs use ARM processors that cause desync (at least with players on X86 in multiplayer)
• You'd need a PR campaign to let mac users know that they can play FAF

TA4Life: "At the very least we are not slaves to the UI" | http://www.youtube.com/user/dimatularus | http://www.twitch.tv/zlo_rd

@thegman121 said in What would be an efficient use of FAF's funds to improve FAF?:

Paying someone to finish the Mac version would greatly expand the number of possible players. The game is old enough to be playable on macbook pros from the last 5 years or so. As some of the most popular computers on the planet, it could allow more players to join.

You seem to be massively biassed or are trapped in the Apple bubble. "Greatly expand", with a market share of <10% on desktop segment? Eh nope.

Also Apple has killed gaming on its platform itself:

  • They moved away from GPU standards such as OpenGL and Vulkan.
  • The forced all users to ditch 32bit. Even steam tried hard to support Mac, but 32bit games no longer work on M1/M2++ platform.
  • It's only a matter of time until you can only install stuff via their app store.

I assume Forged Alliance and FAF will never run on a Mac. (And I write this on a M2 Pro btw.)

"Nerds have a really complicated relationship with change: Change is awesome when WE'RE the ones doing it. As soon as change is coming from outside of us it becomes untrustworthy and it threatens what we think of is the familiar."
– Benno Rice

go all in. buy bitcoins.

Expressing my doubt that we need to keep all these millions of replays on the servers.

Mac users don't play games on their Macs

So it's a waste of time to make games for them

Most game devs don't bother. It's so much extra work to increase sales by less than 1%