Author Topic: IRC Freenode and Discord Channels!! Please introduce them to new players.  (Read 2402 times)

Golkombie

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New players download the game and try out multiplayer, then make a lobby instantly. Hosting a lobby is a problem for these players, because they can't see who is active, so they can't notify us to play with them. Often we just sit on our butts and carry on with our lives while people make lobbies wondering why there aren't any players joining. We can solve this issue by making them more active with the community. If we ever want to go mainstream with Steam, we have to build up a pre-steam player base. After all, we cannot have the game's success depend on such an unstable player base of steam players. Just look at the steam reviews! They could tear our reputation to shreds if one asshole thinks the game is mediocre for him. Regardless, it's our obligation as retainers of Megaglest to provide these players with links to our community channels on our website(where new players can see them easily).

Put a giant link next to the download link saying:Freenode IRC Community Chat hosted by Titi, Alket, Filux, Tomreyn and others; Discord Community Chat hosted by Golkombie and Issh(for being the first member)

My Megaglest Discord Channel
https://discord.gg/eEt56WB
A free chat and voice communication advice that supports encryption and free servers. Also, it has desktop and phone text notifications that can be read without maximizing or bringing up the app, so when something happens, people can be notified directly. This is important for our tightly knit community. I suggest everyone to use and enjoy this tool. Currently, it's very popular with League of Legends, Starcraft, Discord, and other mainstream multiplayer games. It's bound to become the mainstream tool for gamers. Why not tag along?

Freenode IRC
http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=megaglest-lobby,megaglest
The original, classic lobby for all megaglest users. Modders and players can be found here. We are friendly and don't bite. Contact us if you need anything.

Megaglest Forums
https://forum.megaglest.org/index.php
A hub of ideas where people churn their brains to a mess. Besides, who needs them when you have Megaglest? Regardless, this is a place where anyone can drop and say "hi" to introduce themselves and/or throw a party  :bomb: . Modders and Admins crawl around this place often. Just don't necro anything, since it's bad for everyone's health. Thus, if you ever need help slaying bugs or creating machinations of your own, come here and express yourself.

And also.... do the same thing for the in-game lobby!
Players do download MG from other websites, so please implement this. For example, put links above the chat room icon labeled Discord Freenode IRC Forums.
« Last Edit: 8 October 2016, 16:58:17 by Golkombie »
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filux

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The main problem is that most of those people from the lobby don't wanna play at all. Most of them are just clicking every possible button in game to check "what it does".

Plain example from today:
Code: [Select]
[15:56] ━━▶ Joins: MG_newbie_891
[15:56] ◀━━ Parts: MG_newbie_891

[16:01] ━━▶ Joins: MG_Lagger16_201
[16:01] ◀━━ Parts: MG_Lagger16_201

[16:03] ━━▶ Joins: MG_lokomotiv_618
[16:03] ◀━━ Parts: MG_lokomotiv_618

[16:08] ━━▶ Joins: MG_newbie_644
[16:08] <MG_newbie_644> tries to create a game
[16:08] ◀━━ Parts: MG_newbie_644

[16:09] ━━▶ Joins: MG_newbie_458
[16:09] <MG_newbie_458> left the lobby
[16:09] ◀━━ Parts: MG_newbie_458

[16:46] ━━▶ Joins: MG_FreezenHD_438
[16:46] ◀━━ Parts: MG_FreezenHD_438
[16:47] ━━▶ Joins: MG_FreezenHD_438
[16:47] <MG_FreezenHD_438>    <<   left the lobby
[16:47] ◀━━ Parts: MG_FreezenHD_438
[16:49] ━━▶ Joins: MG_FreezenHD_438
[16:49] <MG_FreezenHD_438>    <<   is connecting to 'Headless (MG-Team 2)'
[16:49] ◀━━ Parts: MG_FreezenHD_438

[16:50] ━━▶ Joins: MG_lokomotiv_341
[16:50] ◀━━ Parts: MG_lokomotiv_341

[16:50] ━━▶ Joins: MG_FreezenHD_438
[16:50] <MG_FreezenHD_438>    <<   is connecting to 'Headless (MG-Team 1)'
[16:50] ◀━━ Parts: MG_FreezenHD_438
Literally noone waited recommended 10 minutes (TWICE - BIG YELLOW MESSAGE IN THE THE LOBBY), so there are only 3 options:
1. They don't want play.
2. They want play but don't want read anything, well maybe some number on the building or on the bus or maybe even this is too much.  :P
3. They can't read.   :look:
How your propositions would help with such people when they will not read anything you will give them?  :P

Golkombie

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Have you've ever played a game where you wanted to try out multiplayer, so you opened the lobby and wait? But no one comes in the few moments you wait, so you become impatient and exit out of the game to check if there are any players. You see players on the side, but they appear to be afk. So you try your luck again and go into a lobby and wait once again. And again, no one came. So you question your computer and internet. You try again and again until you give up and mostly never come back. This is how I feel about most multiplayer games and it includes many of my friends. Here's a quote from a friend, "Yeah. I tried the game, but no one joined. There were lots of people, but they all had an afk tag next to them. Although there were a few active players around 5. However, no one joined in all of my lobby attempts. So I just quit. Like what am I suppose to do? Wait? Why wait when I can play something else like Overwatch?" This is the attitude of most people when they try multiplayer.

Your attitude is that these newbs don't have the quality to be megaglest players. Just by doing this, kills 90% of the playerbase. How many newbies did we have over the course of one month? A hundred perhaps? Yet we are unable to maintain 3 or even 1 at all. That's because we have NO convenient way to give them access to us. We are practically sittiing on our butts expecting them to come to us. I'm even surprised how some us, including me, even managed to discover our Freenode IRC. In fact, ONLY ME over the course of 3 years stayed loyal to megaglest. Everyone that joined after me has quit. Just last year, we had earth_breach, his brother, galaxy, and few others. Now, they've left and gone, but at least they've stayed 100-1000 times longer than the average noob thanks to me introducing them to our community chat. And, I really hope players like Edaq and Issh can stay with us at least a few months longer. Thus, that kind of attitude to welcome players is the most laid back I've seen in any game.

So we give them something to work with. Give them a link to all of our communities in game lobbies, next to the download buttons, on the frontpage website. We show them something while they are patiently downloading so they can talk to us and contribute.
tl:tr @Filux, blaming new players for being impatient and seemingly stupid rather than giving them something to work with is a horrible attitude for any developer who wishes to keep their game alive. That's why I am proposing this rather than to wait out the rest of our Megaglest days in silence.
« Last Edit: 8 October 2016, 18:46:04 by Golkombie »
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filux

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Do you know what e.g. this mean?:
Code: [Select]
[15:56] ━━▶ Joins: MG_newbie_891
[15:56] ◀━━ Parts: MG_newbie_891

when there is no line in the middle (so most cases maybe even ~ 85%):
Code: [Select]
[15:56] MG_newbie_891   <<   left the lobbyit mean this guy was in the lobby for shorter period than ~ 20 seconds because he even didn't fully joined IRC.

Are you suggesting that maybe he expected to find some guys to play, play a nice battle and also cook a dinner and then go walk with dog in those whole long 18 seconds?

If you are so impatient to wait at least few minutes for someone, then will you be patient to play at least some very short game like 25 - 30 minutes? Imo definitely No.
...Or maybe will you be patient to play some long game like 2,5 hours? :O (I participated not in the one such nice, long game)
They are no real candidates for players.

Golkombie

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Do you know what e.g. this mean?:
Code: [Select]
[15:56] ━━▶ Joins: MG_newbie_891
[15:56] ◀━━ Parts: MG_newbie_891

when there is no line in the middle (so most cases maybe even ~ 85%):
Code: [Select]
[15:56] MG_newbie_891   <<   left the lobbyit mean this guy was in the lobby for shorter period than ~ 20 seconds because he even didn't fully joined IRC.

Are you suggesting that maybe he expected to find some guys to play, play a nice battle and also cook a dinner and then go walk with dog in those whole long 18 seconds?

If you are so impatient to wait at least few minutes for someone, then will you be patient to play at least some very short game like 25 - 30 minutes? Imo definitely No.
...Or maybe will you be patient to play some long game like 2,5 hours? :O (I participated not in the one such nice, long game)
They are no real candidates for players.

I'll be simple. I don't like the way you think about introducing new players. Simply by pulling data, you assume that it's the players fault, why not the game? Give a suggestion or something. Add on to what we have. But no, you are suggesting that most newbies aren't worthy players. That's true for most players, but what about the few players that do have an interest? Are you simply going to ignore them? Look at me. I'm the one who got Earth_Breach, Mat, Galaxy, and several others last year to join IRC. Without me, they would've never stayed for the many months they had. In fact, I've never seen you, alket, jammy, david and anyone else ever suggest to anyone on IRC to ask them to join our channel. It's like you guys gave up. I got around 20 players in three years to stay for a few months. How many have you guys pulled in?

Besides that, the game interface is doesn't attract new players. Try Istrolid, Overwatch, any mainstream games. They have an interface that's user-friendly. Furthermore, they have a community that's easily assessable. What do we have? A bunch of people sitting in chat that appears to do nothing. The only information they have is to wait 10 minutes. WHO THE @#$@ WAITS TEN MINUTES FOR ANY MULTIPLAYER GAME THEY TRY OUT?????? WHO DOES THAT????? Why not give them an idea of what they should be doing; such as telling them to ping us, join us in Discord, join us in IRC, and goto the community forums.

Thus, please try with me. We are not moving forward with this generic mess. We are sitting neck deep in the desert, expecting rain to come anytime. Instead, why don't we create an irrigation system, cultivate some land, buy seeds, and grow a farm. We shall change ourselves to make ourselves more appealing to new players, rather than criticizing our possible playerbase. We can't simply judge a book by its cover.
« Last Edit: 8 October 2016, 22:39:34 by Golkombie »
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filux

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You are not talking on topic. Did you invited anyone to IRC or anywhere else in the 18 seconds (without full connection to IRC) when he was in the lobby? Be serious.

But lets talk.

I'll be simple. I don't like the way you think about introducing new players. Simply by pulling data, you assume that it's the players fault, why not the game? Give a suggestion or something. Add on to what we have. But no, you are suggesting that most newbies aren't worthy players. That's true for most players, but what about the few players that do have an interest? Are you simply going to ignore them? Look at me. I'm the one who got Earth_Breach, Mat, Galaxy, and several others last year to join IRC. Without me, they would've never stayed for the many months they had. In fact, I've never seen you, alket, jammy, david and anyone else ever suggest to anyone on IRC to ask them to join our channel. It's like you guys gave up. I got around 20 players in three years to stay for a few months. How many have you guys pulled in?
I guarantee you that every single listed old player invited much more players to IRC than you. Basically I may be wrong but besides Issh and edaq you are the next "youngest old player" here for now, because time spent in playing/in the lobby matters, not registration date and not first game date and then missing for many months. Where you were? on the Mars this whole time?  :P
You are fresh and more active in some areas now, which is good, but thinking about yourself like "I am the one, the best, and noone ever did this job" looks a bit funny.

Next thing.
We are successfully choosing people to invite. Few successful multiplayer games and signs that guy is looking for more occasions to play is a great candidate to invite.
If it is visible that person is not interested to play at all, or you can't catch him in the lobby because even typing simple "Hi" is too slow because he left the lobby invitation doesn't have point.
... same like there is no sense to invite trolls like you tried today with "pegunCZ". I played with him today twice and for now it is plain troll which is attacking own team members. Theoretically for now (if he will return) he is closer to be banned than invited by me to the IRC. Why there is not very high chance for his return? because he learned that his trolling tactic is not so successful and trolls are very unhappy in such situations.

...Besides that, the game interface is doesn't attract new players. Try Istrolid, Overwatch, any mainstream games. They have an interface that's user-friendly. Furthermore, they have a community that's easily assessable...
Yeah especially interface doesn't attract those new players which don't read. We probably should remove every single word from everywhere and instead use some pictographs/pictograms or maybe smoke signals :P.

...What do we have? A bunch of people sitting in chat that appears to do nothing...
Do you e.g. see in the lobby nazi or racist messages or with text that they will be happy to rape you with their tools...? Do you know why don't you see such messages? Because such trolls don't exist? :O or maybe they were plenty (and sometimes there is a new one) and this is thx to the "people sitting in chat that appears to do nothing".?  ;)

...WHO THE @#$@ WAITS TEN MINUTES FOR ANY MULTIPLAYER GAME THEY TRY OUT?????? WHO DOES THAT?????...
Hmm Everyone who really wants to play?  ;D
My personal record in the lobby without game was a bit more than two hours.
... and in spring lobby I tried to catch anyone once for like 12h without success because their crappy lobby and 1000000 versions of everything used all the time.

If I have some time to play and I see some guy waiting for ~10 minutes (as it is TWICE written in the lobby) instead leaving lobby in seconds then quite often I play with him at least once.

...Why not give them an idea of what they should be doing; such as telling them to ping us, join us in Discord, join us in IRC, and goto the community forums...
1. If you are suggesting pinging then you should know who is this guy and does he understand e.g. why operators are sitting all the time in the channel so he can't think that he should/can ping everyone per 5 minutes 24/7 because "he can". There is a really good reason why you can't ping non MG_ people by buttons from the game.
... but if for you there are just "people sitting in chat that appears to do nothing" then you maybe shouldn't invite people to ping others.  :P

next, Discord
Does is there a way to moderate the history? Remove some messages? Ban trolls? If any answer says NO then Discord is a very stupid idea.
... besides this as it was mentioned to you at least twice we have active and configured mumble which is open sourced, is doing basically same job like Discord, works on MG server so full access to all features, is active all the time, is empty for most of the time because people don't really need it.


Golkombie

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Quote
I guarantee you that every single listed old player invited much more players to IRC than you. Basically I may be wrong but besides Issh and edaq you are the next "youngest old player" here for now, because time spent in playing/in the lobby matters, not registration date and not first game date and then missing for many months. Where you were? on the Mars this whole time?  :P
You are fresh and more active in some areas now, which is good, but thinking about yourself like "I am the one, the best, and noone ever did this job" looks a bit funny.
Definitely in the past, but from since I joined, I've never seen anyone invited by the whole crew in the hundreds of hours I've been in since I joined. I do know that during the hours I wasn't on, there were a few that got invited to IRC. But, I'm sure that I\ invited the most people to IRC in the last 3 years since I've joined. I'd say around twenty. Thus again, I ask the question: What did you guys do during this time? If it was time restraints, then it's a perfectly okay excuse. However, people like you, Alket, Jammy, and david should've done a lot more to invite players. There are definitely people who are worthy of inviting into the community and I've done without fail to invite quality people. Perhaps, my time here is not enough to have a say.

And also, time spent as an old player =/= increasing level of quality or leadership. That's simply an excuse to degrade my position in this conversation despite me filling the same role(MG retainer) as you.
In addition, my arrogant tone is simply how I type when I get serious. In this case, I am serious about the future of the community.
@part 2 of your question:
During the summer, I was on vacation. During the year, my studies got more intensive, so I wasn't available. Then I had another vacation(this time family). However, I did pop in during these troubling times, I just never got to play a game.

Quote
Next thing.
We are successfully choosing people to invite. Few successful multiplayer games and signs that guy is looking for more occasions to play is a great candidate to invite.
If it is visible that person is not interested to play at all, or you can't catch him in the lobby because even typing simple "Hi" is too slow because he left the lobby invitation doesn't have point.
... same like there is no sense to invite trolls like you tried today with "pegunCZ". I played with him today twice and for now it is plain troll which is attacking own team members. Theoretically for now (if he will return) he is closer to be banned than invited by me to the IRC. Why there is not very high chance for his return? because he learned that his trolling tactic is not so successful and trolls are very unhappy in such situations.

Then provide a solution for the "2fast2furious" newbs. My solution would be a better chat system, so one can stay in a lobby while contacting other players to join them.

(the development got shutdown, but it's interactive lobby system is something to be learned from)
Otherwise provide a link to allow them to join IRC so they can switch between applications to inform us for a game.

I met him today, and I agree that no one would like him.  :thumbdown:
But for the few players that we could've welcomed, we missed by simply not putting links to our community. Sitting on our butts or servicings newbies is not going to change. Only adapting Megaglest to the present would enlarge the community. Thus, inviting new players to our community chats would is a plausible idea. Simply ignoring newbies and continuing our insanity is not going to improve Megaglest.

And also, our potential playerbase is very large, since the game is rated highly in linux download managers. That means Linux users have a higher chance of noticing us. I'm sure many Linux users are intelligent and many have visited us. We just have to give an impression that we are worth it.

@I answered why noobs leave so fast above. tl:tr, it's because they are frustrated and have low expectations. and trolls are trolls, they are hopeless  :-\ Thus, we should give them something to work with.

Is posting links next to important links aka downloads a bad idea? From what I see, you're being too conservative.

Quote
Yeah especially interface doesn't attract those new players which don't read. We probably should remove every single word from everywhere and instead use some pictographs/pictograms or maybe smoke signals :P.
Sarcasm noted and disintegrated. New game interface that has AAA budget funding isn't something we should treat lightly.
Yes, since doing the same thing we've done for the past 5 years is definitely going to provide a different result. Totally not! We should strive towards change rather than sit on our butts for Megaglest's ending. Move or Die. Though I'm the newest old player, I am the last newest old player in 3 years. That spells something and I'm sure other old players, including you, already knows it.

Quote
Do you e.g. see in the lobby nazi or racist messages or with text that they will be happy to rape you with their tools...? Do you know why don't you see such messages? Because such trolls don't exist? :O or maybe they were plenty (and sometimes there is a new one) and this is thx to the "people sitting in chat that appears to do nothing".?  ;)
Get Discord. It will save everyone hours. Half-jokingly aside, I don't see why we would have to follow your constructed scenario. And to emphasize, we do look like people sitting in chat that appears to do nothing. No joke.

Quote
Hmm Everyone who really wants to play?  ;D
My personal record in the lobby without game was a bit more than two hours.
... and in spring lobby I tried to catch anyone once for like 12h without success because their crappy lobby and 1000000 versions of everything used all the time.

If I have some time to play and I see some guy waiting for ~10 minutes (as it is TWICE written in the lobby) instead leaving lobby in seconds then quite often I play with him at least once.
Tbh, Spring is a bad example, cause the fun part came after twenty minutes of lobby frustration in addition to the constant downloads and versions. Thus, I hate it too.
Sometimes there are people who stay ten minutes. I applaud them for that. Sometimes I am that person who stays twenty minutes in chat and ping people like you for twenty times and nothing happens on multiple days. Maybe it's cause the notification system isn't notifying enough. Don't get me wrong, I'm not asking us to be babysitters. It's better if we drag them to us and see what we are doing(a.k.a. the message history, active, idle, afk features in Discord helps) than to babysit.

Quote
1. If you are suggesting pinging then you should know who is this guy and does he understand e.g. why operators are sitting all the time in the channel so he can't think that he should/can ping everyone per 5 minutes 24/7 because "he can". There is a really good reason why you can't ping non MG_ people by buttons from the game.
... but if for you there are just "people sitting in chat that appears to do nothing" then you maybe shouldn't invite people to ping others.  :P
I learned how to ping from the Warzone community IRC. When I came as a noob to Megaglest, no one was taught this except for the old players. I talked to a few Brazilians and they didn't know pinging even existed in the lobby. Yeah, it's sad to see old foreign players not know there was a ping system in place.
Add a try to ping notification and see what will happen. For instance, the ping notification text could read "Ping operators in chat for a game. If they don't respond in ten minutes, they are inactive". I'm sure this is better than giving newbies no chance to inform us. In fact, when newbies type in chat without pinging us, we don't know they are actually typing. It's important that we realize this and set up a system where we can be notified. We don't have to play with them, but we could sure use a system where they are more likely to catch our attention.

Quote
next, Discord
Does is there a way to moderate the history? Remove some messages? Ban trolls? If any answer says NO then Discord is a very stupid idea.
... besides this as it was mentioned to you at least twice we have active and configured mumble which is open sourced, is doing basically same job like Discord, works on MG server so full access to all features, is active all the time, is empty for most of the time because people don't really need it.
Yes, Yes, Yes, and Discord has other features that you can explore when you have free time. I could even voice chat on Discord with you when you have the time.

How come you're saying no to everything? Is trying really that hard? Is sitting on our butts really that worthwhile? You may argue that I do nothing but play and talk, but I don't see a positive response to ideas that may improve the playerbase. You're sitting there like sitting duck, waiting to get to shot.
« Last Edit: 9 October 2016, 01:46:19 by Golkombie »
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MoLAoS

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This topic is a bit of a waste of time really. Regardless of what you do almost no one is going to play MG multiplayer. It lacks distinctive features, so what reason to play it over professional games? It has no players, so its not convenient. It doesn't meet modern standards for art quality.

Why argue over who doesn't do what? Even popular professional games of ages past with better mechanics and assets are failing in multiplayer. WC3, BW, etc.

Golkombie

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This topic is a bit of a waste of time really. Regardless of what you do almost no one is going to play MG multiplayer. It lacks distinctive features, so what reason to play it over professional games? It has no players, so its not convenient. It doesn't meet modern standards for art quality.

Why argue over who doesn't do what? Even popular professional games of ages past with better mechanics and assets are failing in multiplayer. WC3, BW, etc.

It's not a pointless argument. Megaglest could easily be revamped into something unique. We just have to adopt a unique mindset. The mod by Coldstorm shows us how different Megaglest could be played out if we alter simple XML documents. In addition, multi-select building code by Titi_son has been made, so that mechanic would allow us to select multiple buildings under a single hotkey. For working the graphics and sounds, we could simply work on three factions only. Release those three polished ones, then add more as time passes. For the community and playerbase, add more convenient link to our community. Add a giant link to the frontpage of megaglest that screams DISCORD, FREENODE, FORUMS under a COMMUNITY subtitle.
To be honest, I'm just honest..

 

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