3.1.0 release: media blitz

[chem]

Looking at the "we need more people thread"

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=1185

...I had an idea. What if we arranged a media blitz for the 3.1.0 release? A targeted list of websites and forums to get the news out, and an actual "press release" for the new version? With a couple weeks to prepare and a dozen or more volunteers, Angband could end up reaping the benefits of hundreds of new players. The release checklist on the dev trac only talks about rgra, the forum, and freshmeat. But rgra and the forum don't reach new users, and freshmeat isn't exactly a big game news site.

Also, 3.1.0's bug trac looks rather paltry. A new release could probably be wrapped up any given weekend. There's always 3.1.1 for the minor bugs.

So, shall we brainstorm? Anyone want to take a crack at a press release? And let's make a list of sites and forums! I'll start.

http://www.shacknews.com and its chat thread
http://arstechnica.com and its gaming forum,

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/frm/f/39309975

http://digg.com

http://reddit.com

http://slashdot.org

http://kottke.org

http://xkcd.com and its forums

[ekolis]

A few more:

https://www.happypenguin.org

https://www.freshmeat.net

[takkaria]

Looking at the "we need more people thread"

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=1185

...I had an idea. What if we arranged a media blitz for the 3.1.0 release? A targeted list of websites and forums to get the news out, and an actual "press release" for the new version? With a couple weeks to prepare and a dozen or more volunteers, Angband could end up reaping the benefits of hundreds of new players. The release checklist on the dev trac only talks about rgra, the forum, and freshmeat. But rgra and the forum don't reach new users, and freshmeat isn't exactly a big game news site.

Also, 3.1.0's bug trac looks rather paltry. A new release could probably be wrapped up any given weekend. There's always 3.1.1 for the minor bugs.

So, shall we brainstorm? Anyone want to take a crack at a press release? And let's make a list of sites and forums! I'll start.

http://www.shacknews.com and its chat thread
http://arstechnica.com and its gaming forum,

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/frm/f/39309975

http://digg.com

http://reddit.com

http://slashdot.org

http://kottke.org

http://xkcd.com and its forums

This looks fantastic, but I'd recommend not doing a massive blitz until the final release in the 3.1 series, or at least until it gets out of beta. For one, I'd like to have a user manual and a tutorial available so that the casual user can pick up the game and have a play. At the moment, the manual is up-to-date with 3.0.9b, but not any of the changes made in the development version.

[chem]

This looks fantastic, but I'd recommend not doing a massive blitz until the final release in the 3.1 series, or at least until it gets out of beta. For one, I'd like to have a user manual and a tutorial available so that the casual user can pick up the game and have a play. At the moment, the manual is up-to-date with 3.0.9b, but not any of the changes made in the development version.

That all sounds sensible.

I'd also wish this was a GPL release, as mentioned in the 3.1-dev thread. It seems perfectly doable.

[chem]

There have been many changes in trunk since 3.1.1, including several bug fixes. There are still ~70 issues in trac pending for 3.1.2 beta:

http://trac.rephial.org/report/1?asc=1&sort=milestone&USER=anonymous

Are there any plans for a 3.1.2 beta release soon? Any plans to try and get some mainstream website recognition of all the work that has gone into the GPL era of angband?

Does this page need to be updated? It is the first hit in a google search for "angband gpl".

http://rephial.org/wiki/OpenSource

[takkaria]

There have been many changes in trunk since 3.1.1, including several bug fixes. There are still ~70 issues in trac pending for 3.1.2 beta:

http://trac.rephial.org/report/1?asc=1&sort=milestone&USER=anonymous

Are there any plans for a 3.1.2 beta release soon? Any plans to try and get some mainstream website recognition of all the work that has gone into the GPL era of angband?

Something approaching what's in trunk at the moment will be released as 3.1.2 beta on the 4th January, weather permitting. A media blitz isn't something I'm planning to do for this release.

Does this page need to be updated? It is the first hit in a google search for "angband gpl".
http://rephial.org/wiki/OpenSource

"angband gpl" has brought people to rephial.org approximately three times since August, so it's not a priority, but yeah, I guess it should be updated sometime.