Poll: Which would you like on the TribesNext frontpage?
To quote Kryand, Is some Tribes 2 content on an important Tribes 2 website objectively better than no Tribes 2 content on an important Tribes 2 website?
It doesn't take much effort. The difference between a dead community and a potential revival of this incredible beast of a game is a sum total of 3 lines of code.
I'm kind of stumped on this one so I want your opinion. Good idea or bad idea?
It doesn't take much effort. The difference between a dead community and a potential revival of this incredible beast of a game is a sum total of 3 lines of code.
$videos = array("UlAmFPL6xgc", "kIuDH5dTGpQ", "AB-mEvbj404", "igjM6KOm8ZE", "yR3Ftt07mDQ", "pOLmvS9lYJw", "-BjW1kN9P9k"); $rand = rand(0, count($videos)-1); echo("");
I'm kind of stumped on this one so I want your opinion. Good idea or bad idea?
Comments
Think about it. For all the whining and complaining people do about the low level of skill around here, do we really want to usher in legions of newcomers who have no idea what Tribes is or was, and have probably been raised on games like Halo?
I agree that having people come to Tribes looking for a good actually-three-dimensions shooter are much needed to keep this game going for another year or two, but rigging the front page with videos that would make people go "damn that's awesome", and then expecting them to not suck worse than the crop of players we already have is a bit contradictory to me.
Even if the old guard takes some newbies under their wing for training, how many of those newbies do we honestly expect will go "wow this game is hard but so very awesome!"
And haven't we already been over the point that Thyth doesn't control the site, but rather Krash does?
Every game DEPENDS on its clueless mass of newbies. The fact that we didn't get enough of them into the game is part of the reason tribes failed....Sure sure you can complain during a game "damn those noobs", but you also have to realize the games longevity depends on them staying hooked. And it is exactly that type of elitist attitude that pushes them away and in turn plays a part in the downfall of good games. Shame on you.....
If someone bothers to stick around and learn the gameplay, then more power to them I guess, but remember what's been said about the kind of crowd that a flashy youtube video attracts.
Look at it this way: when they start bitching and trying to say Halo is better, we can make fun of them a lot.
First off Shizuka is not right. Shizuka's whole point seems to be "we have enough noobs I don't want to deal with more". If you can't figure out why this is wrong please refer to my previous post.
Your point is actually slightly different. You think the difficulty of the game will scare folks away. And to this I also say you are wrong. Sure some folks will give it a try, get whooped, and then never touch it again. Thats not who we need though. Those are just common game hoppers. Who we need is the masses that make up any games market. They come in get their butt whooped hardcore and yet day after day come back for more.
Look at any game with a good population...Those types are all over the place. I never did understand this groups motivation for playing, but they are vital to any games health. We just need to hook them on this game and they will stick around....We get enough of them and then we can draw in other types of folks. Thats simply how it works.
Bottom line, if ya'll want to get this game kicking you need the brainless masses. Personally I don't care either way. I've had my fun in this game for a good number of years...Sure I wouldn't mind seeing it come back, but I'm not going to hold my breath either.
And getting to Thyth is one of the only ways to get a hold of Krash, no?
And it's not a matter of newbies getting owned. Most Goon Haven pubbies are pretty bad anyways. Besides, they're not worried about being good. They're having a good time.
(No but really, Thyth believes that a pointless logo is more useful than a youtube gameplay video. Really? Lulz)
In any case, a few random videos won't cater to the serendipitous access to this site. It's the same reason podcasts never took off -- people would rather get the content at 200 words per minute reading, than the 15 words per minute you get from listening to someone talk. Videos can complement well designed marketing, but anyone who thinks they are beneficial on their own is delusional.
I'll even outline some actions that would do so....
Videos- This is the first step. Its the ground work. Make up serveral videos per type of video. Get action scenes, comedy scenes, and whatever else. Make it so that whatever type of video a person likes to watch you have several of them.
Spread those videos out- Hit up video sites, other forums, and do everything to make sure they get seen. Make sure that on the video sites the hits on the video get pumped up so they show up on most viewed and/or currently being viewed.
Servers- The servers we have right now would be fine for the first few spurts of new players, but we need less artifical numbers on player counts. We need more spread of server types. Have them named for easy identification of gametype...classic, base, version2, or whatever else. Remember most people are idiots(even if its not the case its best to assume so).
get in touch with people- After all that ground work is done we can get in touch with sites. Think for a moment theres some popular sites that loved tribes....Penny arcade and vgcats come to mind...Hmmm didn't the guys at ctrl alt del play too? Also see if its possible to get old sites up to speed(ie planet tribes). This combined with all the previous work would probably bring in the most people....
All this is just off the top of my head, but it would be far more effective then a simple random video on the frontpage.
Time is money, kid.
@Videos: again, they won't do anything to bring in the types of people we need to keep the game going. Thyth has already laid this point out pretty well.
@Servers: as is said time after time after time, no one, absolutely no one is preventing you from starting up your own. Make fun of Goon Haven all you want, but it's still there and still strong because Beaz was willing to invest his time and money into building a good server and finding good people also willing to spend their time maintaining it.
In b4 "you don't even play!"
And to my knowledge thyth has not said that videos are useless. He has said that *random* videos won't bring in players. He is correct in that regard. What I am talking about is creating publicity and targetting videos to different groups interests. That is far from being useless otherwise commercials wouldn't exsist.
And why are you getting all defensive about servers? My comment was a very general statement about removing the artificial player counts and making it easy to tell what you are joining. Pretty much making it idiot proof and making everything look nice....Heck I've never even mentioned goons much less bad mouthed them. If anything tribes is about variety and thats what I was trying to point out when I said we need servers running the various types of modes/mods.
Though all of this was hypothetical as I doubt anyone would go through all this trouble. If it were easy it would of already been done...
I would also agree about naming the servers as described. Make it as simple as possible. Inflating the sever number with bots does nothing. Maybe even set some severs aside for those new to the game to practice on so they don't get obliterated right away and loose interest in the game.
If we don't start working on making changes this game it will go nowhere and will die a slow death, which I would not what to see. This game has a lot going for it and one of those is that It is free and It cost nothing to play so what does anyone new to the game have to loose.
We need to stop complaining and start doing something. Because if we don't start doing something people one by one will start loosing interest in the game and one day this game will die from lack of players. If people here really love this game, they need to step up and do what they can to get this site and game where it should be. I know there are people here with video skills, website skills, graphics/ images skills, and so on. We need to put those skills to work here. You would be amazed at what could be done if we put our skills together for the benefit of this game and site instead of complaining about everything.
Just my 2 cents.
And you know that videos on the frontpage won't make any difference because...? Anyone who refuses to explore possibilities just to defend his ego is delusional.
Speculate all you want, and predict all you want. This site used to enjoy way over 30% of hits from search engines alone. Why do you think nobody stayed?
I know that when I see an exciting gameplay video, I'm gonna check it out, look around for info about the game, and if I like it I'll find out how to be a part of it. Many people I know do this as well, and they'll go ahead and spread the game to people they think might be interested. The current player base has been decreasing steadily because we've reached the extent of our networks.
As Kryand pointed out, we had a continuously expanding player base in the beginning. Some stayed, some left, but we ended up with far more players than the pre-TN era. Some of these are returning players. Some of them are completely new. But people who don't know about this incredible game won't find out because they don't know how exciting and intense this game is, yet all they need is to experience the game through a preview or a trailer, possibly by a friend who showed them, which is how alot of people find out about modern games anyway. Thus, you'd be delusional to think that a good video wouldn't make a difference.
However, none of this can happen if the key website has no information about the game at all. Granted, a full blown website may be too much to hope for. But simple Youtube videos are enough to draw in some people, fresh new people, who become captivated and go out of their way to find out about the game, who will draw in more people from their networks.
I don't expect an astronomical growth rate in the player base. Maybe 1% or 2% a month in the beginning. But didn't we experience a huge explosion of players in the beginning? They came from gaming websites saying "An old game has been revived." How do you think they went from that, to becoming some of the regulars today? Most likely, they went on Youtube to find some gameplay videos, became inspired, and came here to download the game.
People who are in a curious mood go on Youtube to look up gameplay videos (many of which are not good). The less curious people just come here after hearing about it, seeing nothing on this site, and leave. The hand-selected Youtube videos effortlessly embedded on the frontpage are for anyone who has even the slightest interest in Tribes 2, as well as a simple and quick way to show people a game that they can see for themselves, and proceed to download right away.
I fail to see why you deny that three simple lines of code can make an impact, other than to defend your own stance, to not do anything, and to have what we've had for an entire year, which produced zero results.
How much effort does it take?
Ctrl+C,
Open up the HTML,
Ctrl+V,
A sum total of less than a minute.
Now, I ask you, is this better than what we have now, which produced zero results, the status quo which hasn't been working?
For people who think I take this seriously... I post here as a form of entertainment. As a demonstration I'll do this:
Insulting someone greatly decreases the chances of convincing them to do something, so...
Speaking of which (some of you may not have been around long enough to know this) but isn't what's happening now strikingly similar to something that happened in the past?
That's right. Warlovr refused to put in a rotation on his server. Why? He believes that it wouldn't change anything. Now, think about how much effort it takes to get his colleague to copypasta 3 lines of gracefully pre-typed code to a web page.
I'm not trying to make any associations but... is Thyth the Warlovr of TribesNext?
P.S. Oh, and thanks for creating the TribesNext master server and authentication system Thyth. Being able to experience again this incredible beast of a game in a world other than that cold snowy hell, I had a good time.
You are naive if you think word of mouth didn't play a part in the population growth you spoke of. That was the old school players hearing about tribes next and telling their current buddies about the old days. They come in and play a few games, but with so few people they don't stay. Stagger in other old schoolers and their friends till today. How do I know? Because it happened with my little group too.
And I find it funny in your post here you try and make it sound like the videos picked out are the best of the best, but in truth isn't it just a script to randomly pick a tribes related videos? I've made it clear that sure its *possible* for this method to bring in a few people. Though its unlikely to have any real drawn out effect. That was the reason behind my spurt of postings. Yes I shot down your idea, but I gave you what I thought was a better plan for your goal in its place. I tried to get you or anyone thinking about this on a larger scale than you have been. Would you rather have a halfassed attempt thrown together in two seconds(no offense to Kryand here but thats what that line of code is) or a real attempt to revive the game?
Though I seriously have to wonder if you read ANYTHING I posted beyond the line you quoted from me. You seem so hell bent on your cause you fail to see all the options there. Take off those blinders and look on the forums right now theres a very talented fellow named shadow offering to edit a very nice action movie into more of a commercial type deal. Look at my posts about reviving tribes altogether. Either of those would be a better use of your time then trying to get Thyth put a random video script on the frontpage.
And you know what? If all else fails make your own site. Get ahold of garage games see if they will let you use tribes2.com or encourage them to do so. Getting publicity for the tribes series will only help them and they were always reasonable guys.
By the way extremely bad taste attempting to compare those two situations. Its like a child throwing a tantrum cause he didn't get his way. If you want to revive this game you are going to have to be bigger than that.....
You're missing my point completely.
At this very moment, is it better to have a random pointless logo on the frontpage, or some gameplay videos?
That's it.
I don't and have never implied anything you assumed I implied.
DId you honestly believe that I thought simple frontpage videos is the end-all be-all that will solve everything? ::)
What if I just jump in at "Community splittings"?
I think that would be enough