This is not a flaming post or w/e.


Just somethings I found myself questioning about. Over the past few sets the game dropped small amounts of members but we keep dropping even SOL saw the worst end of it (down to the point where we had onlyt 36 tagged). Now part of that is declining playerbase I understand.

On the other end we (like a few other tags) decided to actively step our game leadership wise and managed to double up in members. Now I know not all tags are capable of doing this but if atleast 4 - 5 more of us do that we could easily grow back into 1K area making us look more attractive for outsiders or retired players. What I'm wondering is what is stopping us from doing that??

i personally reached a cross-roads and have realised that the time required to achieve that is frankly, not worth it, as on a personal level, i get just as much out of the game chilling with 20 mates in a tag than recruiting and dominating.

I feel that EE is a recreational activity, nothing more!

Every alliance needs a recruitment head, and better tools to facilitate the task. For too long people have looked inward at the game to find players willing to tag, now it's time to find ways of getting players from external sources to improve the servers player base.

/looks to FB app

There should also be a way to try and siphon players from heavily populated online games like eRep or EvE.

well how many of the members youve got since you doubled up came from other alliances?

I was all gung ho about this when I first found EE. Had a lot of people ready to come back or try it out for the first time. I did things like posting ads on craigslist and leaving little hand drawn "business" cards on bulletin boards around the city. But I gave up when it appeared the game/company would be running on auto-pilot and the FB app was not in fact just around the corner. My time is too valuable. And the new guys wouldn't want to wade into a cesspool. The game needs direction before I dedicate anything more to it.

Step our game leadership wise?

I'm sick to death of this asinine suggestion.

SoF and SoL may have been big enough that they never needed to recruit from their contact lists before -- but most alliances have been actively doing it for years.

Believe me, it's a limited resource. The members that came back from these recruiting drives will fade, and fewer will come back the next time you try to get into contact with them.

If you don't understand this, it's easy to sit back and say "we did it, now why can't you?" but the reality is that it's only worked so well for SoF and SoL because they've been so lazy up until now. They haven't had to exhaust these resources to stay alive... so they're reaping the benefits compared to the rest of the server now.

In a couple resets, those members will be gone and they'll realize the situation everyone else is in.

Or, more likely, they'll blame the rest of the server saying that those members only left because everyone else was too lazy to bulk up and get enough members to give competition. It's bullfluff, but I expect they'll say it anyway.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

Fooglmog, we don't need guys that have no clues posting anymore.

i only have two things to say.

1.) Stop flaming makinso jeez

2.) Cypress does a damn fine job as head of recruiting in SoF and there is no doubt in my mind that she does a better job than anyone from any other tag recruiting/spending time on apps/ spamming oold vets. To see fooglmog try to cheapen what SoF has done is probably the most ignorant thing ive seen posted all set, and ive seen some pretty rediculous and outrageous s**t

I have thought about it for years, to recruit from math, jr. engineering, astronomy clubs and the like. The game itself would make a great learning tool, and I know they would enjoy the strategy aspect of this game .

My only hesitation is would the atmosphere of this game be suitable for a younger audience??? The game is also really set in its ways so changing the atmosphere is pretty much out of the question. So the question would have to be consider asis.

Maybe poly-sci majors, college students, or from other games.

/humps mak !

Chevs, I am perfectly willing to credit Cypress, Murf or Jacques Chirac with having done an outstanding job, if that's who you tell me did the work.

But having an untapped well is useful.

Hell, you may even be right in saying that whoever is doing the work over there is working harder than anyone else at the moment. But results are a great motivator, we'll see if that work ethic continues as it becomes harder and harder to convince people to return.

All I'm saying is that the advantage is temporary and has (probably) already peaked. Barring further mergers, the numbers will move back towards their previous level over the coming resets as the nostalgia returnees get their fix and drift off again.

This is a temporary advantage, brought on more by fortuitous circumstance than anything else. That's why the snobbery that goes along with it rankles so much.

Also, Chevs, if my previous comments are the most ignorant thing you've seen posted all reset -- you clearly don't proof read your own writing.

***

Prima, I think it would be entirely suitable for a younger audience. I literally grew up playing this game, during a time when it had a much more... colourful... atmosphere than it has
now. I think that as we get older, we forget far too quickly how much we knew and were exposed to when we were younger.

Besides, I don't think the game's atmosphere is as entrenched as you seem to allude. If we get enough new players from a different demographic, shear force of numbers will redefine the atmosphere. They won't behave the way we tell them just because we've been here longer.

Let them come, it'll be fine.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

i think what a lot of us have to realize is 10+ years ago a game like this is much more appealing than now.

this is a text-based game. it's kind of outdated.

if we converted this same game and spice it up with some graphics (like when you send jets out, you drag 50k jets and select PS, etc.) something like what's in those zynga games (mafia wars, etc.) then it will work better.

as of its current state this game is a relic. i do applaud the efforts of SOL/SoF and their recruitment, but you have to realize despite the best recruitment efforts as a collective whole, the game population has been decreasing steadily for the past 10 years.

i don't see this trend reversing without a revamp of this game. from a pure game design perspective i can see a lot of ideas that would make this game more friendly to access... and if i had time i would've gladly help the devs to do so (i remember offering some time to pang in the past but my real job was sucking most of my time...) i think changing the game from a developer standpoint is probably more effective in terms of reviving this game in the right direction than say pure recruitment

Even a Flash server would be worthwhile. Give them something to look at and interest them. If Farmville has several thousand players, and it's simple and boring as hell, then a flash game about war that allows you to attack other players should be much more interesting.

I mean, people buy FarmVille gift cards at Wal-Mart. If they're that obsessed with the game that they pay to get addons, what makes you think that this game couldn't take off under the same circumstances? It would obviously bring in a lot more people. And even if most don't venture to this boring, ancient text based game, some would.

Pay to join the server with the navy! That's a good add-on/patron benefit.

/random brainstorm

Amen.

It's why we (SancT) fluctuate so much.

I also second AxA and Foog.

You want to know the main reason Rage is merging?

To keep a strong enough membership to do what we want to do (war) we have to continually tap this resource with constant communique every set (been doing this for years now). And this takes so much time out of a very very small pool of leaders with the willpower to put this effort in.

It's a downward curve and there is no upward surge in sight, so why bother?

been trying to recruit these fools foreva lol

Maki, where did your additional members come from? Were they past SOL players? Players who've played in other clans? I would be very interested to know exactly how many of those new players are new to E:E.

TEST: Am I unbanned by nazi mods?

Yes!

Anyway. The game actually seems to be growing.. 750 + countries is more than two sets ago. Maybe the negativity and laziness needs to be replaced by activity and recruiting?

I think a lot of people would leave if the game totally changed and you'd be surprised by the results. Remember TEQ? A lot of people don't want a game that is new and improved, they want earth2025 and right now they have it in it's best form ever (disregarding the player base). I personally like the game just as it is. If I was going to ask for anything to mix things up in the game it would be some sort of clever solution to the land issue. Maybe the game needs some computer land bots? haha

I think if a lot of people quit being such big crybabies and we had a more positive atmosphere in the game that would be a huge step. This forum is one of the worst aspects of this game. It's full of name calling and fighting. Sure there are some good threads here and there and the occasional martian spam, but mostly it's negativity from the top down.

hhmmm atleast 8 - 10 of them are (or were) new or relatively new to EE purpy.

Actually, credit should go to Ivan and his recruiting drive on Facebook! That did wonders ;-)

Helmet being back also helped, some oldies stopped by just to see if it was true or not :P

Oh and Chevs Im far from flaming here I was honestly wanting to look into this.

Chevs was asking people to stop flaming you, so don't flame Chevs.

geez... flamer

I do think the game is slowly growing.

I don't think the carnage in alliance is over...

to many tired lazy ass alliances, that want to be able to play without any effort.


My prediction?
We have another year of slow growth, and occasional folding of alliances.

At some point, I don't know when, some upstart will figure things out, and bring changes to the game. and say fluff you to 14 years of tradition.

I can't wait for it.

our current 14 yrs of tradition needs to do.
Its the cycle,
creativity
relationship
competence,
mangagement
creativity,

We're in the deathroes of the end of a management stage.


Our tired old lazy alliances can last as long as that happens,
but as soon as 3-4 new allinaces figure things out...they have upcoming leadership and they are brigning new friends to the game,
us old alliances are going to ahve to step up our game, or fold.


My hope is that what remaining 2-3 active alliances we have, will give room to these newer alliances, one can even say mid-wife them.
Ha, Helmet and SOF as a midwife, what an image.


For me, as temtping as it would be to join one of these groups...
my 14 yrs of tradition would only stand in their way, and corrupt their evolution.

That is where I put my home.

I don't know when the first one is coming,
but when it does,
the one thing I can do, is put all my wight behind getting them decent pacts.

and wait for dominoes to start falling.


The game has great management,
its growing again,

I think its going to make the shift.
I don't think the majority of our current alliances will.

And that's a good thing. The way that we run ourselves currently.

Some AI countries you can use as landfarms sounds like a pretty good idea. :/

Couple things here:

1) FB App: This has been around the corner for a while; technically we could release it now, but the closer we get to release, the more we realize needs polish for new people to join; this recent spotlight on our community really made us realize how we need to present ourselves and the community better. The game now is great for ex-earthers, imho; but for a n00b in this fb-era of the web (even being online in the 90's meant you could figure a few things out at least, compared to now), it's still a few steps to go from "ooh shiny new game" to "playing the game"; the registration + country creation is a little more complicated because we have an actual account rather than just creating countries, and our help is less filled out (which we keep asking for help on but only a few people step up to the plate and then disappear). These are the sorts of things we want to address now before we open the floodgates. Plus things like the email reminders, and some furthering of the game-forum integration.

So it's on the way, and technically we could just open it now, but we'd really like to present a more polished user experience to help get n00bs into the game asap and keep them.


2) Flash/HTML5 game: that'd be cool, but it'd be massive massive effort, so don't expect that to happen right away heh. We've talked about something like this though, so it could happen in the future.


3) WRT recruiting from contact lists:

This is something we've done in Evo/RED for years; the problem we have now is that our contact list isn't that big; we can't recruit 40 people back from a list of 50 or 60 inactive players; sure we've had more people through, but if you recall, with GT and ES collapsing, many of our contacts were disappeared; and most of us never collected emails to start, just icq numbers which... are less used these days.


4) AI
I would love to do this; this is one of my next projects, but it'll be a bit of effort; so it may take a while.

when is enough " polishing " enough? you keep saying it is not ready / what are you using as a guide? a bench mark if you will. you don't know if you are there if you don't have a destination.

If it would be easier/quicker to launch the FB app...point the FB users to the Express server only at first while reminding them that there is a 'bigger' world/community just outside it's gates. The Express GDI rules are such that a new user would not be immediately land raped unless they went and did something foolish.

Why not have us test a Beta version of the FB app before releasing it?

And what kind of help did you guys need, qz?

Well, just the all the help info needs doing; for the moment we've been focusing on getting the wiki fleshed out as that seems to be easier to get a bunch of people to help on than to get somebody to sit down and write/rewrite the help pages from earth (we don't want to blatantly copy after all... plus we've changed things here and there)





I've had a couple people completely unfamiliar with earth beta test, and they're always like "so what do i do?"

getting people over that initial hump is, apparently, difficult...

ahahaha I was just kidding around given makinso's awesome disclaimer at the start of the thread. I guess since the rest of my post was more serious the joke got lost in that.

yeah likely chevs lol sorry bout that :-P my mind is kinda clutterd on pain meds anyways.

How would a fb ap work? Would be be a seperate server or would you be able to logon via fb and via the game site? I agree that it needs to be highly polished and not rushed too.

Flash... not sure about it, maybe open a flash server, unless it has a huge approval rating.

Recruiting old members, cool.

AI? Whats all this about.

What about language packs. don't think that would be too difficult. I know the Mars bunch would play if stuff was in Russian. In fact aim language packs at parts of the world which is starting to get basic internet + computers. Romanians and Indinesians seem to have been big players text-based games in the last few years. Why not target these guys and perhaps up and coming countries.

i'm not saying change the game. i'm just saying same game, with some flashy upgrades and hook it up as a fb app, etc. so it doesn't look outdated to convince people to try it.

i think once people play the game, they will realize the depth/etc. of it, the problem is no one will give a complete text based game a fair shot anymore.

its a trend amongst all text-based games. they all have an aging userbase who used to be acceptive of trying out a new text-based game 15 years ago and are still clinging on.

i've been active this reset for the first time in years, and the only people i could get back to playing this game are longtime LaF vets who used to play alongside me and are coming back for old times sake.

my point is that isn't really recruiting, i'm talking about fresh faces. ones that we can train to become the next generation of leadership for our alliances (like what happened when we were back in high school/etc. being all enthusiastic about leadership in your alliance, etc.) and take the workload off us so we can just run a half-assed country like a old retired vet should be doing instead of trying to juggle a RL job while keeping your old alliance alive for old times sake...

by the way its looking like, in LaF's case for example, when i get burnt out again, it will be time for h4x0r to come back from his sabbatical from running LaF. that's not what i consider "recruitment" or "growth"

I'll run LaF if you like. Just expect to war every reset lmao..

I disagree that this game is outdated. Its a quite niche community that would play a text based game regardless of the alternatives, but those people are still out there. Farmville and many of the popular fb apps don't to my limited understanding have much "graphics" either. I'm not sure adding graphics or "cool" things like that would really help at all... (i have VERY briefly browsed this thread sorry if what i say isn't really appropriate)

i'm not saying make this a "graphics" game.

it can still be mostly text-based. the core of the game is the same. but the extra "fluff" and the accessibility of something like facebook will make it easier for new adopters to digest

I think one of the big differences is that EE is not the type of game that the everyday bored person can mindlessly play. It obviously has a significant learning curve, and it is probably enjoyed most by those who: a) like to think about optimizing and efficiency and/or b) are interested in competing via the war aspect.

So that tends to limit the number of people who are looking for a game to a pretty small subset. Then add on the learning curve and the polarizing nature of the game (seen on the solo and alliance servers where some want to net in peace and others want to war, which tends to lead to loss of the player base rather than gain). I think it's not surprising that this game would have limited growth. Thinking back on all of our own experiences, I'd say the demographic is probably the middle or high school intellectual crowd that is looking for something to fun to spend some of their free time on. I'd say a lot of that demographic is occupied by the more time-consuming and addictive leveling MMORPGs.

But then again, I just randomly thought about this for a few minutes and it could all be wrong. The main idea anyways is that while advertising and the FB app will help, there is still only a small fraction of people who see it and sign up, and then an even smaller fraction who will take the time to learn it and become part of the community.

if your willing to write up the email memo ill mass send the fluff outta our member list. it must also say to join collab and not sol but leaving in the butt sex portion