Public SEOW demonstration campaign?

[rnzoli]

Hi all,
August is a slow month in the Northern hemisphere due to vacations etc. Maybe this would a good time to run a completely open, public SEOW campaign for demonstration purposes. My experience is that awareness about SEOW is less than desirable, so an open campaign would allow gathering more people to try it in a very easy way and hopefully, to like it. With the problems around AirForce War, this could be the last good time to capture more SEOW fans, before finally SoW:BoB hits the stores in December.


So here is an idea:
- we could run a "familiarization" campaign for "new users"
- the missions would be open to everyone, organized/independent, experienced or beginners alike
- MP passwords for Red/Blue would be openly available, so anyone can try planning for one side or the other (or both )
- the actual mission generation and launch would be possible only by the campaing admins
- before generation, the plans in MP would be checked, and if needed, corrected (deleting unreasonable plans, creating missing plan for the side, which doesn't have one )
- the mission would be launched exactly on time and last 1 hour
- the mission would be launched even with no human players, so as to allow the time to progress and statistics accumulate.

22GCT_Gross and his CO tentatively agreed to run such a campaign on their new and relatively quiet co-op server, as long as their data traffic quota allows it.
This could mean 4-8 missions, with about 4-12 expected players.
One mission could be run on a weekday (Wednesday European evening, the other at a weekend, maybe Sunday, European evening).

I was thinking about using the template for Crimea http://seow.sourceforge.net/Sevastopolskiy.zip

What I need now: ADVICE I have a lot of uncertainties:

- will it be enough to direct new users to the official documentation and this forum, to allow them to experiement with being a commander?

- will that template be good for new users, who know SEOW in a very limited way and expect relatively short TTA (time to action)?

- would there be some people giving us a hand in mission plan review, generation and launch (bulding and launching only required joining the 22GCT server at given time and giving chat command, all SEOW components are pre-installed on that server.) Edit: no need to fly the mission - once launched successfully, admin can leave, analysis will be done automatically also.

- did I miss something crucial? Maybe there is already such campaign ongoing somewhere?

[IV/JG7_4Shades]

Hi Zoltan,

This has been tried before a couple of times by Murdock, with limited success. Nevertheless, with the coop server run by 22GCT, it work better because of the automation possibilities.

Some comments:

The "Tunis beginners" campaign has proven very popular with those unfamiliar with SEOW. It uses the initial north African map, so has short flight times to action. Warg subsequently released the much heavier template called "Hollow Legions II", which contains a full set of ground and sea forces as well.

The "Sevastopolskiy" template by RAF74_Jazzman was one of the early test templates. It has an extremely heavy flak army encircling Sevastopol, which could casue frame rates on weaker computers. Maybe not a simple thing to run with high performance.

I think that it is too much to expect SEOW-noobs to learn how to use the MP by themselves. My experience is that most people don't have the time or inclination to school themselves from written material. A few words on what to do in sequence by an experienced commander is much better. Having said that, I am guessing most run-of-the-mill pilots simply won't be interested in the command side of things.

What is the GCT server time zone? Normally the guys would be supportive and willing to help out, as long as times are convenient.

Cheers,
4Shades

[rnzoli]

Wise words - if this thing was tried already, maybe it would be foolish to try again and fail again. With automated hosting however, it is also true that there is much less to lose, I mean, nobody has to sacrifice a whole lot of time in front of his PC, just hosting the event.

Regarding plannning, an instructional video on youtube may be more useful than the documentation Will keep that in mind, but the problem I face that I would have to read the documentation first to make such video

Thanks for the warning about the template. I have seen the Tunis campaign briefly, it's nice, but I am not sure how the desert would appeal to the people. Cmirko said he will try to help me out and create a Crimea template perhaps, as he would also like to host. As both 22GCT and 102nd_COOP servers are running around the clock, maybe the Wednesday mission could be run in Australian evening times on the 102nd COOP, and the Sunday mission on 22GCT? (From a common DB of course on one of the machines.)

[rnzoli]

Okay, I am polling at the "Zoo" , and while I initially expected the topic to fall staight through the front page , today it started to get some interesting replies (and questions as well).
http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/ ... 1361002085

[IV/JG7_4Shades]

Nice thread there - I will stay out of this one because I like to see comments from all parties without me biasing it.

Cheers,
4Shades

[Hitcher]

Brandle and I are running a public test campaign on the Sea of madness server using the New Guinea sector as a basis for a Battle of Coral Sea scenario:

http://www.scorchedearthxtreme.org/inde ... opic&t=393

We will be running this campaign on Tuesday and Sunday evenings at 2300 EDT (New York) and any other day and time we have nothing better to do. The main purpose of this campaign is to test the functionality of the automated coop application on the sea of Madness server, but it may also serve as a good opportunity for the public to try an SEOW campaign without restrictions.

[II/JG77Hawk_5]

Hi Guys,
in either of these test campaigns is there at anytime the opportunity for people to login as Axis or Allied Ranks and actually see the mission planner and stats pages?

I think that this is an important aspect of showing off SEOW as this is where it all happens.

If people don't see that in some way then it may be seen as just another co-op generator with the mission planning happening "somewhere else".

If not, how about directing them to Katana's wiki page on Scorched Earth?
http://seowdoc-en.swil.fr/index.php?title=Main_Page

This is a great overview of SEOW and would give a newcomer a good idea of what SEOW is about.

Hawk_5

[rnzoli]

Hi Guys,
in either of these test campaigns is there at anytime the opportunity for people to login as Axis or Allied Ranks and actually see the mission planner and stats pages?

There is only 1 campaign up yet, and I think there is such chance, this is what Hitcher wrote on S.E.X.

We will recruit assistant mission planners and dedicated campaign flight leaders as necessary, if there are any interested parties in those positions.

Unfortunately it's a little bit "hidden" in the rest of the post. There were 17 people showing interest in the UBI poll, maybe Hitcher could post an update to that as well, and bring those guys' attention to this chance.

The link to Wiki article can be also posted at the same time to make them better prepared to the challenge of working under the supervision of experienced commanders However, by the same token, I would also clarify that the test campaign allows them to experiment with SEOW without the need to install anything on their PCs, and they will practially meet only the MP interface, nothing else.
For an ordinary human being, it is quite scary to see all components, and the necessary software to be installed and configured for them.

So perhaps a direct link to MP User Guide would be less scary?
http://seowdoc-en.swil.fr/index.php?title=MP

(at the beginning they won't need to know all the magic working behind it )

[Hitcher]

As I have time this weekend, I will publish more information and specific instructions on SE Xtreme, UBI forums and anywhere else that I haven't been banned from yet regarding the Coral Sea public campaign. Yes, these instructions will include READ ONLY logins for the Allied and Axis forces with invitations to obtain actual Commander logins for same.

Using the automation of the Sea of Madness 24/7/365 server, interested participants will be able to plan missions and then join the server anytime to enter the appropriate commands for building missions and then fly them. This will require no use of the DCS program and will help showcase the wonders of SEOW and Zoltan's automated co-op server application.

[22GCT_Gross]

Hi to everybody
Hi to Zoltan (this comment mainly for you)

About this subject (and DSC controller) I suggest the following:
- people have to know that a certain campaign will automatically start on a certain server according with a scheduled timing (i.e. at 21:00 every day);
- people know that planning must be done within half an hour from scheduled time launch; MP passwords could be released to the CO at the squadron registration (so is needed a web registration module (for squadrons and pilots) where data have to be written into the sedc db);
- half an hour before launch time, DSC controller will kick every gamer from server, load the seow campaign map, build the mission, check pilots are correctly registered, and launch it at the scheduled time;

I trust this way could let seow playable by a larger number of gamers.

What do you think about?

[rnzoli]

Yes, I was thinking about making the process even more automatic than today, using a time-scheduler to stop an ongoing mission, load the campaign map, generate, and apply the laucnh password on time.

The problem is that I am acting as a campaign admin since beginning of September, and I have never seen a SEOW mission where everyone is ready on time

But the above could be done, unfortunately for the biggest part of work would be the automatic registration. I don't think it can fit my time in next few months. So I am thinking: would the automatic build/launch schedule feature be useful without any built-in control on registrations and MP password handling?