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[Konrad2]

Wanted to ask why Battle for Wesnoth is not on facebook
any reasons for it?

[Dugi]

There is one, it just isn't very active.

[Konrad2]

I already found that site, but it isnt that what i meant, i rather meant something like this for BfW

[Dugi]

I don't think that exists. Maybe you could create one

[max_torch]

Wesnoth does need better PR. I live in the Philippines and I only found out about wesnoth because one day I decided to see how linux looked like, it was one of the games that came with the Knoppix portable OS. that was 3 and a half years ago. If I hadn't seen it there I probably never would've know about Wesnoth ever. Ever since that day, I have never met anyone else who knew about Wesnoth, even when I worked in Malaysia for a year. I have yet to meet another wesnoth player in the flesh.

[Konrad2]

ha, i have one person in my class who already knew about this game
he does not play it anymore though...

[sreek]

+1 max_torch
Yes wesnoth need more PR.

I also found out wesnoth through open suse DVD (i think version 10.1). It was bundles out in the game packages. That was my first linux distro and wesnoth was my first open source game. All hail linux and all hail wesnoth

[aquileia]

A few more distribution channels for Wesnoth wouldn't hurt... I too found it bundled on a CD. I think it was version 0.9.8 which came with a German computer magazine. So yeah, bundling definitely does help.

[max_torch]

Maybe getting a little offtopic here but:
So wesnoth is available on majority of linux/unix OS? So basically maybe if we popularize linux we will popularize wesnoth, maybe tell people that it will not get viruses like windows will?..
You know I wonder, how do you persuade a guy(or girl better yet) to check out wesnoth and then download it from the website and then stick with it long enough to finish An Orcish Incursion wherein they will experience the high of beating a campaign and then get hooked(moderately, not as an unhealthy addiction)?
Which part of wesnoth will be most rewarding for a beginner for them to try and then know instantly how to appreciate wesnoth? I don't know if any of my friends would care to play BfW as they are all playing DotA or LoL or HoN
Do you think we should start a new thread entitled "Wesnoth Persuasion Techniques - what the average person can do to help"?

[HomerJ]

torch, I get the feeling that wesnoth is more appealing to that kind of gamer that also wants to create their own stuff. From my own personal experience, I was brought here only by a link in a forum of a different game (glest if anyone wonders) where I was beginning to alter the existing stuff by simply xml modification. This almost naturally lead to wesnoth which was actually what I was looking for because it's tbs instead of rts.

However, this part of the gaming community might only be a small one compared to the casual gamers, social gamers, die-hard FPS gamers, etc.


Another approach could be the nostalgic feeling that surrounds wesnoth, so in principal wesnoth could be potentially of greater interest to the generation that grew up on 8- and 16 bit consoles and their games that wesnoth took inspiration from (for some reason that also applies to me).

How to benefit more from this is the hard question of course.


Then there is of course the chance to raise funds for producing a huge hollywood-like blockbuster movie from HttT. That should work right?


Greetz
HomerJ

[Paulomat4]

You know I wonder, how do you persuade a guy(or girl better yet) to check out wesnoth and then download it from the website and then stick with it long enough to finish An Orcish Incursion wherein they will experience the high of beating a campaign and then get hooked(moderately, not as an unhealthy addiction)?
Which part of wesnoth will be most rewarding for a beginner for them to try and then know instantly how to appreciate wesnoth? I don't know if any of my friends would care to play BfW as they are all playing DotA or LoL or HoN

I recently got a friend of mine to play Bfw and he has finished Heir to the throne yesterday. One of the points where he nearly lost interest was because of the difficulty of "the siege of elensefar"

I personally got hooked up by another friend. But that was when I knew nearly nothing about computer games, and it was my first computer game.

[Konrad2]

all reasons for playing wesnoth given yet dont apply on me
i love wesnoth cos its easy to play on difficulty hard and its like a big book and i love reading books too

[Velensk]

I'll say that the reason wesnoth appealed to me at first was because since my youth I've done hex wargaming. A lot of old Avalon Hill stuff and other similar things. Wesnoth was a simple system (though I didn't really understand it because when I first started playing a lot of things in the tutorial and interface weren't as explict) and played quickly.

The first time I tired it my interest died getting stuck on a campaign due to not understanding a few dynamics, running into bugs in other campaigns (the dark hordes) and being frustrated by luck.

A bit later I picked it up again (this was actually when I joined the forum) and the thing that made it shine for me was the fact that it was a simple system (which I now actually knew all the rules to) and yet was a lot deeper than it looked. This was when I origionally played through most of the campaigns and got into multiplayer. I spent quite a bit of time training at multiplayer and found that it was getting a little stale after a year (not that there wasn't still a ton of room for improvement on my part just that the process was not being as fun).
-Shortly after that I volenteered to be a playtester for Era of Myths as it was like wesnoth but it was a fresh way to play it. Shortly after that I was made maintainer and I discovered that wesnoth gave me a great deal of power to create things which gave me a new zeal.

Since then I've gone through cycles where I'll break, create more than play, and play more than create and such but there are many elments that have appeal. There's an element that appeals to my love of stratagy games that are quick and dynamic but still very deep, a part that lets me vent my creativity, and at times I also like to just ease my way through a single player challenge in my own way.

[Sapient]

I could be wrong, but I think there are very few games out there that are free with no commercial strings attached yet offer the same level of strategic depth in such an easily accessible way. This seems to be a niche area of gaming, for two reasons:

1.) Discerning gamers who care about strategic depth tend to be either a) willing to spend money on the latest highly-publicized commercial offerings, or b) similar to A but willing to abuse pirate / warez, etc. to get their fix, or c) don't care about the "easily accessible" part e.g. dwarven fortress

2.) Young gamers who only play free games on the other hand tend to not be too picky about things like strategic depth. Things like attractive visuals matter far more to them. They aren't necessarily looking for a challenge.

I first found Wesnoth in a link from an abandonware site. I guess you could say I'm pretty stingy when it comes to spending money on video games.

[iceiceice]

Wesnoth does need better PR. I live in the Philippines and I only found out about wesnoth because one day I decided to see how linux looked like, it was one of the games that came with the Knoppix portable OS. that was 3 and a half years ago. If I hadn't seen it there I probably never would've know about Wesnoth ever. Ever since that day, I have never met anyone else who knew about Wesnoth, even when I worked in Malaysia for a year. I have yet to meet another wesnoth player in the flesh.

I guess this "wesnoth needs better PR" point is discussed periodically, I said something similar once.

I think the bottom line is, it doesn't really happen because no one considers it their job to do this kind of stuff. If you want to appoint yourself "wesnoth evangelist" and make an effort to spread the word via facebook, twitter, what have you, I don't think anyone would stop you. And I think you are right, as I argued before I think the project might significantly benefit, broadly speaking and in the long run, from this.