Suggestions for the Website

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12 years 8 months ago #104048 by Emmeti
@Hairfu: about the startsite, I like your idea! I hope site owners (if still around) will take it in consideration.
If you say: let s make video tutorials in every language, to explain everything from how forum works to ooo, registration , leagues and so on, I am with you, it s easy to do and it would be helpful. If you think changing the panel, creating a sort of lobby and everything for an easier gamestart or whatever you think might push more new people to play swos, that is not only extremely difficult to do, I also fear it would not be as effective as you think, so , well, I disagree with that.
I helped a lot of people to start playing swos, I answered every question, gave link if asked, explained how ss.de and ranking works when asked, they never came back. I am sure they had all the info, they were not just interested in playing with us online, that s all.

@Dimetrodon: a lot to reply. I am not going to answer to every point, just to be less boring :)
Personal experience is personal experience: mine is different from yours and I still play online on ss.de (only friendly at the moment), so I don t think there s newbies way of thinking that could lead us to the perfect solution if not finding new members is a problem, I remember you this is old game after all, played on an emulator and with all the limits of winuae+kaillera (even if I really like it), so it s natural new generations look elsewhere (and not only because of that).
So I skip point 1-2.
Point 3: determination is what keeps people here (determination+love for the game, but love for the game can give determination, therefore I skip that), so if you lack of determination noone can help you.
Point 4 is very related to point 3, if losing is frustating and doesn t push you to improve, noone can help you.
It took a lot of time and losses to me to win some games, I had to change connection (it cost money and time ), I had to find the right controller (it cost money and time), I had to play and play , I lost and lost (it cost time and not only that) and I am still far from knowing half the things I have to know about swos and damn I still lose, a lot. Determination, interest in online playing and love for the game: no video, no panel, no forum will give you that.
Point 5: I think I did that challenge thing, lol, more than once. As you can see, it didn t stop me, and also I didn t know what mirc was. It took some time I know and... yes, if I had seen a video tutorial in italian in the homepage... :)

I think we could make a video, like Stromberg did in the past and maybe we could add subtitles (or voice) in every language or maybe different videos made by volunteers from every nation in ss.de,anyway I am sure we can find a solution together.

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12 years 8 months ago #104061 by dimetrodon
About determination, ofc everybody need some:
There are few people who have very strong determination. They will learn, play even with huge technical problems, against much stronger opponents, they use their time, energy etc.
There are many people who don t have determination. They run away from the weakest problem, they are lazy or just have better things to do.

But the interesting part is the people between this two extremes! And how much energy they need to put in before they will start to enjoy/love it! This is the question, and lack of determination noone can help you is not the right answer, as it target the 2nd extreme above, which is non-issue, imho.

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12 years 8 months ago #104064 by Emmeti
Dimetrodon, the point is we (me , you and the others) don t know why people (in general) don t play swos online with us. We can say about this one guy we met online once, but not 10000 other. First we should analyse what s the problem (if there s a problem), then find the solution. We don t even agree on the problem, it s very unlikely we can come with the right solution for a problem that might not be a problem at all.
The only thing we know is why we stay,so I don t need to put a scale on determination (and motivation and so on) , there s only: enough = you stay, not enough = you don t stay and being that extremely personal we shouldn t focus on what people want, that is something we don t know, but focus on what we (I mean as a community of swos players) are or want to be. I don t see why you need more people to join if they don t like something you like , if they find difficult what never bothered you at all. Once you know everything you need to know if playing swos online with people (that s what we do here after all) doesn t motivate them, nothing will. Maybe they just wanted to play the game online once a year with their buddies..., that doesn t mean you failed, that doesn t mean they didn t get enough info, they just didn t want to stay.

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12 years 8 months ago #104071 by dimetrodon
I agree with you in many things, the most important is: First we should analyse what s the problem (if there s a problem) .

I try to tell you again my opinion about scale of determination : Let s make a real scale, for own fun! Let s measure determination with number from 0 to 10. (Most people have 4-6 determination, many have 2-3 and 7-8 ... and very few have 0 or 10.)

If it is very-very easy (technically, basic things and etc.) to start to play, only people with 0 determination won t start to play. Let s say level 1 determination is enough. So eg. 99% of the people, who ever considered to play will start to play. And some will stay forever after getting familiar with this nice game, some will leave forever, and some will occasionally play.

If it is very-very difficult to start to play, and every try is almost fruitless with huge technical problems, vary hard to get any information etc., only people with 10 determination will start to play. So eg. only 1% of the people, who ever considered to play will really start to play. And some will stay forever, some will leave forever, and some will occasionally play.

Ofc the ratio of staying or leaving is not independent from the starting determination:
In the 1st case 99% of the people will start to play and have chance to fall in love with the game, but with many not so determined people many will leave, maybe at the end 9% will stay from the 99%.
In the 2nd case, the very determined people will very likely to stay after successfully started to play. Maybe 0.9% will stay from the 1%.

And for every level of difficulties there are a percent of player who may stay eg. 8. can mean 75% (I have not mentioned the fact, that more people have more friends, so the 100% is can be lot more in the 1st case than in the 2nd.) The numbers are just made up examples, (and can see statistically) to demonstrate what I wanted to say. For me, numbers are easier to understand than words, hope for you/others too. If not sorry for the math! :)

---

And what do you think what level of determination is needed today to start the game? I don t think it is a very high number in the scale, as we have good forum, helpful members, good guides. But also can not say it is very low, as many (ofc not so much determined) guy do not ever start the game. And if we can make it easier with 1 point maybe, it can mean lot more guy.

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12 years 8 months ago #104073 by Emmeti
hehe, that is interesting dimetrodon but we re both going off-topic, after all this is suggestion for the website :) , but please open another topic, I d be happy to talk about that.
I can only say... in my opinion you re wrong, because I am pretty sure the great majority of those 9000+ members of ss.de never had any intention to play swos online with us.

Staying on topic:
I think we should make video tutorials to help new guys in case they don t find people in chat to help them ...but first of all to help those who can t find the chat :)
Anyway, ss.de owners have the last word on this, because those videos would be useless if hidden in the forum or somewhere else, if owners are interested in that kind of change then someone could open a new thread to discuss about : who makes the video, what to put in the video and about language/translations, etc. etc.


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12 years 8 months ago - 12 years 8 months ago #104074 by dimetrodon
It is off-topic (or not) but I don t feel the great on-topic interest, you was who did not understand my point what is the reason for me to change (eg. HairFu s drawing can be a good way). Just tell me: You are right Dimetrodon , and I will stop arguing! :)

great majority of those 9000+ members of ss.de never had any intention to play swos online with us.
Maybe they don t know it is possible!

Next logical question: It not hard to register, but why they did it? I really don t know the answer, what is your guess?

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12 years 8 months ago #104075 by Emmeti
lol , sure I have no problem saying it s my fault we went off-topic of course, you just replied me, I just wrote it when I realized it...didn t mean to blame you for that :)

I am sure they had different reasons (potentially 9000+), the first one coming to mind: you register because you think you have to do it in order to download something restricted to registered users.

Obviously not only that, just the first one coming to mind.

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12 years 8 months ago #104079 by dimetrodon
No, I dont blame you to blame me or anything :) just joking a bit :) but will try to focus on topic.

I think it would be interesting to guess why they register/but not play.

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12 years 8 months ago - 12 years 8 months ago #104085 by HairFU
Look back. 3 years ago we had 226 active online playing members (if you also count players that play maybe only one ooo in a month). At the moment there are only 86 members playing the game online. 43,5% are polish guys, 17% from italy, 12% from germany, 7% from hungary.

2008 and today there was 34 polish players in online ranking (15% in 2008). So I think polish community is not recue so much. What is different in polish community and the rest of europe? Maybe a polish guy can explain how it s work for them?

But also I think this site needs some freshness. Look the site is on since 2004 or something. It is great, we all know it. But if you don t go with time you lose members. For example only 2 UK members play and UK is the 2nd place on registered people.
As Djowgers post his idea, maybe it is really needed something like a social network type of page (it could be still a own indeependend site), where you can add swos-friends to your profile and challenge them directly like I have try to explain with my new swos version (and I really think, the more easy and fast you can play the more people can test if they like to play online).

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12 years 8 months ago #104086 by Pallister
You wanna hear the easiest method to make it absolutely clear for all new signed up members how to use this great site and what they can expect from us? Well...there are plenty of tutorials existing in this forum. Just bring them together (information wise) to ONE tutorial with all needed informations and send an automatic Email to the signed up member. That s it...and noone has to make difficult and time eating changes on our great site.

I ll create such a tutorial in the next 7 days (I m very busy in doing my business, so I need a few days) and will open a Poll, showing the tutorial and asking for the community s opinion and possible improvements.

With that I m sure we can solve the mentioned problem without a huge effort and everyone can build is own opinion, if THAT was the reason for lag of new active members :)

All the best
Pallister

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