Evolution RTS on Steam???
Author: Forboding Angel,
published 10 years ago,
Talk about an interesting day! Flood of people into the server actually managed to crash it for about 5 minutes earlier today.
There have been a lot of people having issues with various things (usually single player) and I thought I would address it here.
When you download the game form steam, all you are getting is the lobby. When you join the lobby, if you join one of the multiplayer battles, the lobby downloads the engine, the game, and the current map.
This basically automates the entire process. That said, a lot of people are going directly to the Single player tab and trying to get a game started, and that's reasonable. The lobby should warn you that you don't have any of the needed items. At the moment it doesn't though, so it is necessary to join one of the multiplayer hosts and get the downloads before you can play via the SP tab.
The Evolution RTS (and Spring Engine) community is quite small. Somewhere around 300 people or so. Many of us have been working on the engine or our own little projects for over 5 years. As an example, I have been working on Evo for about 5.5 years now, and working on things for the engine since 2005. We are a great community with good people and we welcome you!
That said, please remember that we work on the games and engine in our spare time. Everyone has gone hugely out of their way to help newbies today, but of course some people won't be patient and will just leave. That's ok, I don't blame them, but understand that this game and engine were created without a budget.
The lobby is confusing, that much is clear. After you understand how to use it it's quite simple, but for a total newbie it is a bit overwhelming, and although I am not one of the lobby developers, I apologize for that. However, there are no less than 4 lobbies that can be used for Spring Engine games. If you are having trouble and would like to try one of the other lobbies, just ask and we will point you to them!
There has been a small issue with some of the spawned multiplayer autohosts posting with the wrong engine version (Version 91 instead of 96). This is actually completely out of my control, but I am doing my best to help get the issue corrected. For now, use the EvoRTSDedicated and Plutonium hosts. They will work just fine.
Thanks for trying out the game. I hope you enjoy it!