Marketing.

Hey Guys. Sorry I have not been present for quite a few weeks, since I popped up and introduced my self.

I have been under the weather with a bunch of work and just finished up a film shoot over the weekend.

So as I mentioned in lobby chat a few weeks back, I wanted to offer my help for free with marketing for Zero K.

I can assist in the production of any marketing videos you want to make. This includes giving input on directing the video and recording voice overs with with professional voice actors.

(If there is interest in my involvement in this area I would prefer it to be a consultation type arrangement where some one who knows the game intimately captures the game play footage, and I could either give input on narrative structure, or edit the footage myself.)

I also have found an avenue where a large number of potential new players could be found.

http://themittani.com/ is the premier news site for EVE online. Their target audience are all hardcore strategic game players. They also feature a number of articles on other strategy games as this is of interest to their audience. They recently covered Planetary Annihilation. I wanted to approach one of their journalists to organise an interview with one / some of the ZK devs in order to get an article on the site.

This would be a direct way to get in front of a large audience of the specific kind of gamers who are interested in in depth strategy games such as ZK. There seems to be a large degree of anticipation surrounding PA, and now would be a great to to get a spotlight shone on ZK.

I'll check back in in a few days if there is interest in me pursuing this and if so I will contact them and try and organise an interview.

Zealot.

i can be contacted at pete at 128bitlove dot com

Yeah some good video content for ZK would be good. Some humourous videos maybe? IMO the real way to grow the community would be to get it reveiwed on gamer sites and maybe even youtube/tv shows. ZK would have to be one of the better games that nobodies heard of

Professional voice actors you say? I am not sure that would help for propaganda, but we could certainly use them for the campaign.

Be very, very careful if it involves politics at all (or any of the other topics that spark flamewars).

Hey Guys.


In terms of interest in RTS games please read this article on the Mittani.com

http://themittani.com/features/interview-jon-mavor-planetary-annihilation

Yeah I wanted to try and start here but if we can put together a press pack we can approach other news sites and magazines as well.

1) I will start putting together a press release with info about the game, and input on key points would be welcome.

2)In regards to voice acting, yes it could be great for either campaign, or a promo video, or for comedy stuff.

I particularly like this as an example of a promo video.

It is short, It has compelling voice acting and it is focused on what motivates players to play the game. Rather than listing the features of the game.

3) I will start writing a script for a intro video like this, I would like input from players and Devs on this. I would also like assistance from an interested party to stage and film the in game footage required.

I would appreciate any input from the back story and campaign writers, so that I can base the intro video on this so that it all ties together and creates a window into an immersive world.

I too can help with recording footage at max quality. That is, i need to stop the water settings from crashing my spring on ultra first...

How about something like this?

TITLE - Choose Zero-K for your next holiday destination (zero-k.info)


The galaxy's favourite holiday destination - Zero-K
shot - glaive runs into middle of screen

Come to see the amazing beaches, stay to meet the friendly wildlife
shot - pan over sandy beach
shot - one sumo walks up jumping distance to glaive
shot - chicken queen exploding 50 glaives

Enjoy the unique charm and warmth of a loving community
shot - noob base. label "who is this noob" label "wtf are u building" etc. appearing
shot - second sumo approachs glaive from other side

See the wonder... of robots peacefully resolving their differences
shot - pan over massive battle
shot - glaive now surrounded by eight sumos

So come to the world of Zero-K, where there's always a friendly face to greet you.
shot - com shoots glaive. label "mwahahahaha"
shot - sumos all jump on glaive, fly off in all directions
shot - nuke land on com. label "lol" . fade to logo


--

Not sure if text is better spoken or as subtitle... btw have u ever tried jumping a bunch of sumos into one spot, its hilarious

@maurankilom has a point there. there is humor that might only show to people who already know the game, outstanders might have irritations.

you should decide what you want to show as primary target:

1)scenes of action with much booms and units clashing,but urelated to each other. all some with some nice graphics. this focuses on entertainment to a bystander/watcher (but: spring engine is nice but not up-to-date in graphics). add epic music to that and maybe some text in black fading between the scenes. personally i think the music matters very much and the images/cuts should be orchestrated to exactly match the music rythm.

2)scenes which show the pwnage of different unittypes and therefore point out different strategies and gameplay. if done well, each scene outcome unit is countered in the next scene, so the queue is somehow connected. this shows strategic depth. also add terrain benefit with hills, water etc. (text:"choose wisely where you fight and what you bring to it")

3)create a real story and tell it. like a scythe, which sneakes by some battling forces but just observes. gives the chance to introduce many things in a single string, and escalation to a final moment when the scythe kills something with nice boom...

Zealoty - That is a good promo clip, but bear in mind it's mainly aimed at people who have already heard a little something about Eve but haven't yet signed up. It piques people's interest and makes a very enticing offer ("Come explore the deep blue yonder, get rich, and find your destiny... IF YOU DARE!"), but offers basically nothing in the way of explaining what the game is other than "something about spaceships and exploring and it looks pretty".

I don't think that particular trailer would work very well for people who are completely unfamiliar with Eve. Of course, that's not a problem for CCP. EVERYONE has heard of Eve. They may not know much, but they've at least HEARD of it. They probably also know its reputation (which also serves CCP very well).

Zero-K's potential audience will know absolutely nothing about it. At the very least they'll need to be told (or better yet, shown) that it's an RTS, so that it catches the attention of our target audience. Playing on its legacy from Total Annihilation seems to be a big plus as well, as it gives people an instant anchoring point that is fondly remembered and well-regarded (even among people who only know SupCom and not OTA). But of course, we don't want people to think that we're just some kind of TA clone (or worse, "TA wanna-be"), so there's a delicate balancing act there.

I wish you the best of luck, and I can't wait to see what you do.

Lyth, that seriously makes our game look even sillier than it is.

@Zealoty1
The campaign story, insofar as it exists, consists of Ada, an Imperial human commander from the Planet Wars era (Probably around the 9th Planet Wars), who is hunting down the Free Machines and the Promethean, the first rogue AI. When her command unit is damaged in the battle, it puts her into stasis. She wakes up millions of years later, humanity seemingly extinct, and has to fight through various robot factions to try and figure out where the humans went/try and revive then/figure out what happened to the empire/track down the Promethean/et cetera.

We've been looking for people to make promo videos for ages now. We've had a fair few attempts but it's a lot harder than you'd think. The best in my mind is still:

@KingRaptor tried making a more narratively driven one. I find it really poingant and beautiful and captures the pathos of the storyline perfectly and brings a tear to my eye because THOSE POOR ROBOTS WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE ROBOTS, but I don't think the quality of the gameplay shown is quite as good (lots of staged shots that just look like units shooting at eachother and don't really show off the scope and scale of zero-k):


As I said though, the problem with The Mittani is it's associated with Something Awful. Goons are often not that interested in playing with 'pubs' and while this can be good for exposure it doesn't necessarily add to our playerbase. It's worth a try though. Particularly in the 'Planetary Annihilation looks cool, but Zero-K is an actual finished game you can play!' department.