Re: Marketing Xconq?

[Eric McDonald <mcdonald at phy dot cmich dot edu>]

Hi Bill,

On Mon, 17 Nov 2003, Bill Macon wrote:

> take a look at it.  If you guys want to attract wargamers who are interested 
> in designing their own games, Wargamer is a good place to start.  I think 
> there's potential.

Yeah, I went over there and found your message(s). Thanks for 
giving Xconq a mention.

>    It's fair to mention that many gamers are using a Windows platform and 
> not Mac or Linux, so a Windows version is important. 

Right. That is why I have made some efforts regarding that 
platform.

> the Xconq user base.  Even I have had trouble figuring out CVS, so I don't 
> bother any more.  

There is a new Windows build/install document called 
INSTALL-win.txt. You might find the description of how to use 
WinCVS useful. (If you don't, please let me know what can be 
improved.)

>Simple patch downloads to supplement the full install 
> should also be considered.

Hmmm.... Maybe. I'll have to look at what the largest files are 
and how frequently they end up being changed. I'll think about it.

>    I've tried the recent download and it works somewhat, but there are still 
> bugs and graphics problems. 

Bugs in the installer or Xconq?

> And so are most of your potential customers, 

I'm not sure that Xconq really has "customers".

>so the sooner a clean v7.5 can 
> get completed and released the better.  Once that happens, marketing efforts 
> should be more effective.

Once Xconq 7.5 is ready, and if it looks stable and playable, I 
will probably send out some announcements to relevant newsgroups. 
(Unless of course Hans or Stan want to do it, since their 
contributions to the project have been so vast.)

> Xconq's appeal to traditional wargamers.  One is some way of providing 
> conditional events within the game, like If-Then statements.  There's no way 
> to simulate politics and diplomacy by having some sides or forces inactive 
> until something happens (declaration of war, surprise attack, specific 
> objective taken, etc.)

Similarly, I think Xconq could benefit from a reinforcements 
model, where forces simply appear at certain turns. However, like 
other ideas, I think most of these should wait until after 7.5 is 
released. There are still a number of bugs that must be addressed, 
in addition to documentation and miscellaneous improvements 
(Windows Xconq needs to be able to successfully be launched from a 
working directory that is other than its installation directory; I 
had hoped to address this over the past weekend, but other things 
came up. Also prefs.xcq needs to be renamed, now that .xcq is 
associated with Xconq savefiles. Etc, etc....)

  Regards,
    Eric