User support - worth it or not?

[Tracker]

Lately I came across a little nonsense related to GoG.com and "us". The idea came when I read a thread requesting help with properly setting up DosBOX for playing - it seems some people either can't RTFM, or they simply have no interest in "tweaking" (okay, this may sound silly - what could be hard in setting up DB?) games and such. But consider this: with more and more people gaining access to computers, there are thousands of newbies and new oldies and casuals being introduced to this world of technology every day, and as far as I know they're the most attracted by games, and not fixing or making games. So they learn the ways of making those damned things work, or they either play something more accessible. GoG, being dedicated to retroGAMERS, has every game pre-configured for those who just don't have the skills/nerves for shit, and I presume (as not being a costumer) they only need to install those games and they're fine.
This is beautiful and such, but you have to pay for those games, and you get the support for your money. I wouldn't like to talk about piracy, neither to start a flamewar on this subject, so I keep it to the point:

- We've still got a lot of games which are abandoned/free in any legal way, but these are supplied "as is", with the only way of gaining support by visiting the forums, something which a lot of people can't/don't do. There are millions of reasons for this.
- Despite providing the most important tweaks on the bottom of the reviews, some people might skip the game if they have to do anything beyond double-clicking.
- Our games being decades old have heritages of forgotten systems, like as we're advancing towards the eighth generation of w1nd0w$, no-one really seems to care about DOS (by the way, this point has more importance in connection with old consoles/microcomputers (C64, ZX, etc.), but it's still true in emulation generally), so they might lack the necessary knowledge for setting up the game in the emulator itself.
- Casual gamers have conquered the gaming world in the past eleven years. Back then, when these games were written (and I'm talking about Wizardry, Nethack and such) by and meant for the community of "IT technicians", University students, and nerds alike - I suppose these meant all the same. The fact the Nethack itself gained a lot from those who played it, proves this. So, if we would like preserve these games for the future (because one of our most important goals are to keep people remembering and keep games from forgetting), we have to not only keep copies of the original ones, but also provide a user-friendly way to play them with the "plug-and-play" or "click-and-play" principle in mind, not to mention remakes.
- We, as a community are kept alive by the community, which means we have to gain new members who like me weren't even born when these games were written, and we also have to gain popularity. And because of the reasons listed above, we have to show and prove the qualities of the past, and this can be only done the way mentioned above - because maybe not even those who study IT would be interested in old software. Why would they be? Why would they care about something made with ancient tools if they use hi-tech stuff? You might think these thoughts are insane, but still, they have the chance to be believed by someone.

All in all, after this inhumanly long prologue (yes, this is only the beginning!), I'd like to hear your word on the next question:

- Shouldn't we pre-configure games by any means for users to save them precious time?

By "any means", I mean we could create costume configuration files for dosbox, or tutorials on setting it up. Making new archives with a portable version of dosbox or something would be terribly hard waste of time, so I'm more looking forward to a remote solution, which wouldn't involve modifying anything uploaded. Why is this important? First of all, IT IS important. For the sake of those who aren't like us. There are many of them. That's why.

So, how about this?

P.S.: Now as I completed this proposition, I came by some serious topics I'd like to cover in later posts, in the "AB vs. GoG". Note that I do not want to attack directly or indirectly those who are willing to pay a very, very few bucks for what they already have or simply love, but nowadays I'm starting to think we're both doing the same, except AB is made by the community for the community, free of charge... right?

[dosraider]

- Shouldn't we pre-configure games by any means for users to save them precious time?

By "any means", I mean we could create costume configuration files for dosbox, or tutorials on setting it up. Making new archives with a portable version of dosbox or something would be terribly hard waste of time, so I'm more looking forward to a remote solution, which wouldn't involve modifying anything uploaded. Why is this important? First of all, IT IS important. For the sake of those who aren't like us. There are many of them. That's why.
In short:
Adding costume conf files for dosbox is a bad idea.
Reason: for what version of dosbox? Every new release adds stuff, and the conf files are NOT backwards compatible.
So every time there is a new release you should update/adapt to the new version. Are you up for that never ending work???? And for how long? A month? A year mayhaps? And then leave and never been seen again as so many?

This is already a problem on GOG, several games include 0.72 whilst they run much better on 0.74 but yeah, upgrading and testing is time consuming .....

Simplest and best way to avoid all this is have as now a 'ready to run' dosbox compliant archive, if possible.

If sometimes a bit of work needs to be done to get the game running, so be it, it's emulator inherent to have to do some tweaks sometimes, after all, even on a 'real dos' PC you will have to configure your hardware.

And to be honnest, real hardware was never so easy as dosbox to get them games running.
If even a bit of configuring is too much, buy a console.

[Lulu_Jane]

What's with all the AB vs. GoG crap lately? We're both basically about the same thing, they just spread the fun of oldies in a different way.

[The Fifth Horseman]

We could offer pre-configured packages for DBGL as alternate downloads.

[arete]

Do we have enough slaves to do the meaningless, repetitive gruntwork, though?

[Ohne Mitleid]

I'm all for preservation of the games for the sake of keeping them alive, no matter what anyone's interest may be. Maybe they collect, maybe they like to play... whatever.

I would compare these games as collector's items or more like antique timepieces. Sure, you can go somewhere and buy an antique that someone else has discovered, refurbished, cleaned up and then sold to you. You could also search, discover, collect and get the thing to work on your own because of your interest in getting it to become alive again, not just some passing fancy.

Just calculating the amount of time and effort to create all of these auto-config packages is mind boggling. I have had problems of my own and try to solve them through research first. Sometimes I can't find the correct solution online, in the forums, or anywhere else, so I post. Why? Because I want to get it to work. I can't get it to work on my own so I ask for help, I don't expect someone to do it for me beforehand. That is called a sense of entitlement. I don't like entitlement attitudes also known as the point-n-click world.

I'm all for helping other people. If someone has a need, the forum should be an adequate enough place to at least start.

[Eagle of Fire]

Side note: people who consider old games interesting are usually not those who absolutely need ready packages to play those games...

Thus, the amount of work required to achieve this would exceed by about a thousand time the end benefits.

[Tracker]

I had no idea of the issues with dosbox becoming better - it seems it is true that maintaining thousands of games' configs is terribly hard. The AB vs. GoG crap is because of the *different way* - because if we have a game, then they could have it as-well, but if they have a game, then we just can't have that one. Copyrights, you know. And yes, I was unaware of the fact that the majority of people simply won't give a f..k about old games, no matter how easy it is to use them. It seems all is said and done about this topic.

[Lulu_Jane]

Not necessarily, I like Fifth's suggestion. Besides, it's always good to keep your options open, and making installation and running games as simple as possible is a great way to open up our userbase further :)

[Japo]

It's difficult because of the DOS platform, and because, as usable as it is to us, DOSBox concerns itself very little with user-friendliness, the developers have never looked interested in adding features to improve it. DOSBox even keeps that console, that's a alpha debugging feature.

Of course it's not a bad idea, you just need to find a way to implement it, and consider the cost.

As far as I go lately I have tried to make all the archives I prepared ready for the drag'n drop method (http://www.abandonia.com/vbullet/showthread.php?t=17498), using batch scripts in the cases where additional mounts were necessary etc.

[Luchsen]

DOSBox's status window is (ine)vita(b)l(e).

[Eagle of Fire]

I agree. DOSBox without a DOS interface would simply not be the same anymore.

[Japo]

I don't mean the DOS command line. If it's a DOS emulator of course it will have the command line, otherwise it would be a game launcher--which would be better for the purpose of this thread. I mean the log console that appears alongside the main Windows by default. I think Luchsen got me right, but I disagree with him. The log console is OK for debugging but in a release it's unprofessional. DOSBox is freeware but no program for sale would use it, and no other freeware I know does either.

[Eagle of Fire]

I am not sure what you refer to the console then. But for the command prompt, this is the main reason why newbies don't like to use DOSBox. Anybody who is not used to DOS dislike using DOSBox command prompt.

To get back to the thread subject, one thing we could do though would be to ask for members to post their favorite or best settings for a given game and then add them to the first post of the respective game thread. That might help a lot.

[dosraider]

To get back to the thread subject, one thing we could do though would be to ask for members to post their favorite or best settings for a given game and then add them to the first post of the respective game thread. That might help a lot.
Yes and no, you would get a lot of specific 'user setting' problems I'm afraid.
Some possible (probable) problems:
Joystick settings?
Output?
Window size?
Mouse specific settings?
[autoexec] section? (I know that can be avoided, but how many know ...?)
OS differences? (Vista-W7 specific mounts...)
CPU settings (not all are on a high end PC)
And a lot more.

I mean the log console that appears alongside the main Windows by default. I think Luchsen got me right, but I disagree with him. The log console is OK for debugging but in a release it's unprofessional. DOSBox is freeware but no program for sale would use it, and no other freeware I know does either.
I have to disagree with you, the console is extremely helpful when you run into problems.
And as it seems a lot of peeps have problems .....

[Scatty]

I have to disagree with you, the console is extremely helpful when you run into problems.
And as it seems a lot of peeps have problems .....
It is relatively useful, however I doubt those people who have bigger problems would be able to gain any help from the console window. If they already have troubles with operating DosBox itself...

[Japo]

Don't forget that whenever you disable the console by passing -noconsole parameter, if you need to you can read the same information that would otherwise appear in it, in the stdout.txt and stderr.txt files.

To get back to the thread subject, one thing we could do though would be to ask for members to post their favorite or best settings for a given game and then add them to the first post of the respective game thread. That might help a lot.

We already introduced a place for that, the optional
http://www.abandonia.com/files/games/24513/Abandonia_17.png
and other sections of the reviews. We usually include necessary DOSBox settings found by the reviewer or updater to be necessary for the game to run correctly.

Also as I said, something that I've started to do lately, to make the archives ready for the drag'n drop method (which is the only newbie friendly way to use DOSBox), is including a batch script whenever the game wouldn't work by just drag'n dropping the original executable onto the DOSBox shortcut. This script may include image mounting, loadfix, or even changing DOSBox settings (with the "config -set" DOSBox command) whenever the game won't run with the default settings. I include this information below the review, for the people who want to set things up themselves, but first of all I recommend using the supplied batch script.

You can see an example in Daggerfall, reading the "how to run the game", "notes" and "DOSBox infor" sections of the review, and inspecting the archive:

http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/27432/Elder+Scrolls+-+Daggerfall%2C+The.html

[Eagle of Fire]

So... Are you saying that we are discussing an idea which is already in effect on site? :mhh:

[Japo]

To a little extent, and even so in each case depending on the updater's discretion.

[DarthHelmet86]

Give a man a game set up to run instantly in Dosbox and he will enjoy that game, teach him how to use Dosbox and he will enjoy all the games.

We provide a ton of support for all the games onsite, including walking people through how to set them up. We have tutorials of all different kinds on how to set up Dosbox. We include details on trouble games on their review pages detailing how to get them to run. And some of our games include bat files that set up Dosbox to run the game for the people.

At the moment I think we provide enough support to allow anyone willing to read/watch/pay attention to get the games they want up and running in a matter of a few moments. The next step would be doing what GoG does and setting it all up for them and we don't have the staff or the time to do that. As such the point is moot, we provide all the support we can (and that is a damn lot) and until we get more active Updaters or people willing to set all these games up we aren't going to provide anymore.

On top of that let's face it no matter how much we preset up these games we will always get people asking questions that we have already answered or solved. So in the end all that work will lead us right back to the same place as we are know. I have no objection if people want to set this up as a side download, but if someone puts it up we will need to maintain it, update the version of Dosbox if needed, change the config to deal with common problems. I see this as causing only more work for people already over-worked with other things on the site.

[Japo]

I agree. I don't think we will ever be able to go much farther.

[Tracker]

Actually, the main inspiration for this whole b______t came from my recent times of messing around with various console emulators (I even installed some on my very limited J2ME supported phone... Yeah I'm insane) where people can usually open a game just like they would open a music file in a music player or a picture in an image gallery software or whatever you fancy as an example. Honestly I had no idea of the problem of the ever-changing emulation environment. By the way, making a game launcher out of dosbox isn't that bad, considering that if you really want to work with dos then you will probably use something like VirtualBox or a real 486 era IBM compatible - dosbox is already very, very optimized. Still, there were some useful thoughts around, like the one where people would send their favourite setups, and the reminder that reviews have already got some info about the compatiblity of the game. Whatever idea I think of involves infinite amount of work, and I don't even remember what made me to think of such things... Shouldn't we focus on more important problems regarding the site than dreaming about utopias? We have, for example, Abandoned Times, Retrolegends, and such dirty businesses running along, not to mention that nice pile of games lying around in the corner waiting to be reviewed. (Yeah, you might notice I quickly considered this idea of mine to be unsupported, but some of your points against it were fatal. Still, if we keep thinking, we might as-well come up with something useful, even if this isn't really urgent we should solve it from one day to another).

- Tracker

[Eagle of Fire]

DOSBox is not that optimized. There is still a lot of games which struggle to work on it or downright don't work and that's why DOSBox version is not 1.00 yet.

I guess they'll eventually get there.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Actually, that's something of a "selling" point in DBGL.
It runs off a single copy of DOSBox and supports creating "installers" for packages of one or more games that set them up with the end user's copy of DBGL.