The only way you can be sure that you can do something, is if you have done it before. For SFO, this is a never ending strive that can never be reached, because after nearly 17 years, nothing like SFO has ever existed, and (most likely) nothing like it will ever exist again.
In 2001, the department heads of Macromedia (which was later absorbed by Adobe which eventually betrayed thousands of game developers besides SFO) never had a meeting where they discussed: “How can we future proof Shockwave in case someone wants to develop on the platform decades after it’s been abandoned?”
In short, everything done by SFO is “World’s First” within the browser-based/shockwave genre, and there is no one we can turn to or “hire” to help our cause. If anyone (and I mean ANYONE) had ANY marketable skill which we could use, then they themselves would have made a 0.1a build comparable to our circa 2k1 demo. After all, if someone is not able to duplicate 6 months of work behind 0.1a in 2k1, how can that person ever have the credibility to offer this community advice of any kind?
Last year, in 2017 we had a simple strategy: bring back as many of the old players as possible. For this reason, all game updates were targeted towards existing players (this included build improvements, and addition of new/update features). SFO has been starving for a new character for almost half a decade, and it was time to change the focus development of all future builds. Lastly, every active player from the last several years, as well as every person who has EVER supported our community was sent an email. In short, all was done in order to entice existing players to come back.
WHAT WENT WRONG: Our focus on Server-Side-Hosting and UPnP has hit some impregnable walls due to circa 2k1 Shockwave infrastructure that powers SFO. In addition, we learned that NOT having an email confirmation system (back in 2k1 NO browser game even thought of such things) showed that less than 1% of players used a real email address (or one that is no longer around).
WHAT WENT RIGHT: Core circa 2k1 back-bone systems were re-written, which allowed for SFO to be ready for further advancements (with characters like CAmerica, that allowed for AI-Driven effects with a dozen simultaneous projectiles on screen (such as: shields, eagles, etc). But more importantly, we crossed out a few failed ideas off the list. Sometimes knowing what does NOT work, is the most important experience that is a prerequisite towards future SFO advances.
So what about bringing in new players via advertising platforms ⁉ Believe it or not, we have already tried this with Facebook ads last year, and the end result was less than encouraging. The biggest problems we faced is that the router/firewall hosting problems were still present, and that SFO featured a circa 2k1 low-res GUI/Interface which proved to be unappealing with the new breed of console-craving gamers.
And so, we come to our next plan of action. A sysop-approved and sysop-created 3-step program to revive SFO and bring back the glory days of yore! This plan is composed of 3 different Dream Goals with realistic deadlines and budgets. We can all sit around and day-dream of “what if we could alter the last 16 years of this community”, but instead of pipe-dream ideas which are not based on reality, the following ideas are based on what CAN be done TODAY, with the limited resources that we have left.
STEP 1: DEDICATED SERVER DREAM GOAL: This would allow for die-hard staff/individuals to run a dedicated 1on1 for others to join 24/7. This would essentially fix all hosting/joining problems in the game at the expense of the staff and patriots (who would have to run the dedicated servers on their home computers). Starting a dedicated server would be as simple as pressing a button in the main menu of the game, at which point the screen would go black and sound would turn off. Others would join/leave play/win/lose and the dedicated server would just display stats on a black screen in silence. This final course of action should solve 99.9% of all hosting, joining, port-forwarding and router problems, since all dedicated servers would be operated by individuals who have guaranteed proper in-game hosting and router settings. Far future development ideas could include an automated in-game “reward system” for any player that host a server for any extended period of time (think: earn free colors and perks for running a dedicated server). DEVELOPMENT COST: 50 Dream Votes
STEP 2: NEW INTERFACE DREAM GOAL: Even if we advertise the game, who’s going to play it when they can’t figure out where to click ⁉ The new interface would be based on modern concepts of “idiot proof”. SFO would auto-connect to the first and only chat server and display a list of active/confirmed dedicated games. In order to cut back on confusion for the new players, there would be NO public chat (unless you choose to have it manually). Instead, you click “Multiplayer” in the main menu … click on a game to join .. and away you go … no chit-chat, just game. The end result would allow us to advertise SFO that would look and seem very modern. A change of title and an alternate logo screen is also possible. KEEP IN MIND: that the new interface will be designed for NEW players. Old and existing players can still access public chat and old interface if needed, but all newcomers will feel as though they are playing a console game. Click here to view YouTube trailer of the new interface. PROJECTED DEV COST: 120 Dream Votes
STEP 3: ADVERTISING DREAM GOAL: The Third and Final Step towards SFO’s Revival. Ads will be purchased for a single day, on a designated date and time when the in-game servers will be full of active staff members. All potential players will be spoon-fed by the staff and allowed to win in dedicated matches in order to maximize new user retention. All ads will be targeted towards a specific age/group/location with access to a PC. Initial ad providers could include: Google/YouTube and FaceBook (preference will be given to ad services that yield the best results and allow/approve our content) Total: 30 Dream Votes.
WHAT THE SYSOPS THINK: Dedicated Server + New Interface + Advertising = Powerful Combination. Yes SFO will still have issues that need tending to (be it bug squashes or character fixes) but for a split second, in the eyes of new players, SFO will seem like a real modern console-like game. Everything will look High-Res and Triple-A. The game starts by auto-logging you as anonymous and auto-joining you into the 1st public chat server. All will happen seamlessly in the background and the user has no way to mess things up. Even if they are brain-dead, as soon as they click the Multiplayer button in the new main menu, they will see a list of active/working/confirmed dedicated games they can instantly join. We can maximize lag compensation by disabling hyper jumps via the DWX game mode. New players don’t know the difference so they have nothing to compare it to, and the old-school pros can still do things the old-school way. Pros can pick their desired game mode, chat with others in the public chats, kill time in TMC, switch to the old interface, etc… But for new players, it will feel as though they are playing their favorite console game. And since the reason why they are here will be because of the Step 3 advertising campaign, we can maximize our chances of keeping each potential player by babysitting them with staff, and by providing them with 24/7 dedicated servers they can join without a need to configure their networking.
Also note that as far as the development, everything mentioned above can be guaranteed nearly 100%
in an absolute BEST CASE SCENARIO: each time we do an Advertising Dream it would bring in enough players to cover the costs for the next Advertising campaign, thus allowing us to re-build the community from the bottom up by tending to each potential new player personally. And in time, the new players could fund further game development via new and crazy dreams (such as Hail Mary plans to re-write the old network code by integrating a 3rd-party Triple-A networking solution via GV or a similar application that would run in the background of SFO). And all this would hopefully in turn, bring in even more new players to the fold.
The only way we’ll know for sure is if we try. So as it always been the last 16+ years, the fate and future of SFO rests in the hands of the remaining patriots left within our community.