A Proposition

[Reaver]

So I've got an idea for a way to help TW, and it would cost about $2200. Since I've brought up a similar idea before and got no where with it I assume if we're going to do it that I'll have to do it out of my own pocket.

I'm talking about buying a domain name (The majority of the cost, around $1000) and purchasing vbulletin ($300-600 depending on packages and addons) and then paying to have the forum customized (logo, theme, etc. probably another $300), hosting (around $5-$10 a month), SEO costs (around $300).

My proposition is this, if I'm going to invest all of this money, will the members of this forum help me with a little of their time?

What I'm essentially proposing is this: I invest the money, set up the site, pay for everything involved, members of TW forums post in this other forum for a few months to help it get up and running, I place an advertisement on the forum for TW (someone from these forums can create a banner and I'll place it) for a few months, as well as a section to recommend other games where continuum would have a stickied thread. Note that I'm not asking people to post on the new forum over these trench wars forum, I'm asking for people to post in addition to. Also note that I'm not asking anyone to kill their free time, just a few posts a week if we have enough members would easily do it.

Before I invest all of this money I'd like to know how many people would participate in something like this, the more people the more likely I am to do it. Ideally I'd need people that are interested in the game, not going to troll new members (at least not right away haha), and could post a few times a week. The game I'm talking about is diablo, diablo 2, diablo 3. If you're willing to do this please post back here or ?message me in game, if there's enough people then I'll spend the money

Edit: I should also add that there's some really good moderators on these forums, it'd be awesome if they'd be willing to help moderate for me.

[Downfall]

Ideally I'd need people that are interested in the game, not going to troll new members (at least not right away haha), and could post a few times a week. The game I'm talking about is diablo, diablo 2, diablo 3.

Im confused, how does diablo come into this? Is this forum primarily for diablo and they are our target population? Regardless, I'd be in for sure.

[Reaver]

Well to be frank, I figure our target audience is gamers. Unfortunately just about every gameforum.com and everything else you can think of is taken, and not for sale, and if it were it would be way more money. I figure if they play diablo they enjoy video games in general and would be willing to try other video games. Hope that clears up your confusion

[meddi]

Real money auction house is going to ruin that franchise.

Also, I don't really understand what Trench Warriors have to do with your Diablo site. Are you asking us to artificially inflate your [potential] site's activity?

[fLaReD]

yeah that diablo stuff kinda came out of nowhere..? what exactly will this forum consist of? how will you be able to get people from outside of SS to it? regardless, i'd be willing to frequent it.

[Reaver]

Alright I'll try to elaborate a little bit more. In terms of internet marketing your audience is very important, you have to understand the demographic very well. For instance, let's say I own a forum that is focused around medicare, medicine, etc. Chances are I can safely assume that the majority of my members are elderly. If I were to advertise TW on that forum, I would probably not get very many clicks, and even if I did the bounce rate would be very high.

Now, let's say I start a forum for diablo. The average user is most likely a gamer, it's a safe assumption that they play games besides diablo and that they would be interested in hearing about a new game.

I didn't specifically choose diablo out of personal interest, I chose it because the domain was reasonably priced, diablo 3 is set to launch within a year which would be a good amount of traffic if the forum is established by then. I hope that clears up the confusion, thanks

[Reaver]

Real money auction house is going to ruin that franchise.

Also, I don't really understand what Trench Warriors have to do with your Diablo site. Are you asking us to artificially inflate your [potential] site's activity?

uhh, I guess you could put it that way, I don't think there's any way to artificially inflate a sites activity, it either has activity or it doesn't. Now you could question whether the members were truly interested in the game (diablo), and I think that even if I put all of the money into this, if the forum doesn't have some kind of activity it wouldn't gather new members.

edit: I should also add that there's some really good moderators on these forums, it'd be awesome if they'd be willing to help moderate for me.

[Twenty Four]

I place an advertisement on the forum for TW (someone from these forums can create a banner and I'll place it) for a few months

Awe just a few months? You should have plenty of ad space on your forum. It's not like there will only be 1 spot that you can advertise and if TW takes up that spot you can't get any business.

Should spike that up a bit.

On a side note, I played D1 and D2 a bit. I don't actually play anymore as I'm too busy. I'd visit your forum, since it's you.

-24

[Twenty Four]

Careful though. A ton of people said they'd do the Money Tournament and only a few people actually did.

Don't make a business decision based on just the feedback you get here.

-24

[Reaver]

An advertising block for a few months is just a guarantee, anything beyond that is just gravy. I only want to work on guarantee's so that I give what is promised and if I give more then it's not an issue, which is probably what would happen. And as I mentioned a permanently stickied thread in the section for discovering new games

As for people not following through, yeah I anticipated, I was going to plan on having about 60% of the people follow through

[Downfall]

If someone decides to host a game of mafia here and decided to host it on the other forum at the same time .

Would be on both forums a bunch and it wouldnt be too much more effort for the mod to host the 2nd game (since he has all the numbers, just diff roles for different people)

Mafia 4 win

[paradise!]

Isn't $1000 a little steep for just a domain name? Or will we be getting an actually good domain name?

Idea sounds doable but i'm a little skeptic on how popular the site would be. This idea has more variables than if we were to just pay for ads on some random gaming site forums.

Personally, I say the money tournaments are not doing what we wanted them to do. Money is just circulating between the same players. I say dump ~80% into continuous ads on specific gaming forums who would be interested in this type of stuff, and kick back and see if anything changes. A bit of a more conservative approach, but less worrying involving.

[zih]

i would like to help you
i mean i can post a few times a week on it

i dont know a thing about diablo though :/

[Twenty Four]

Isn't $1000 a little steep for just a domain name? Or will we be getting an actually good domain name?

Idea sounds doable but i'm a little skeptic on how popular the site would be. This idea has more variables than if we were to just pay for ads on some random gaming site forums.

Personally, I say the money tournaments are not doing what we wanted them to do. Money is just circulating between the same players. I say dump ~80% into continuous ads on specific gaming forums who would be interested in this type of stuff, and kick back and see if anything changes. A bit of a more conservative approach, but less worrying involving.

Hey Paradise. (paradise right? - Did you give your forum name away too?).

If you're willing to put forth the effort to contact those websites, get the prices/deals negotiated, and present your efforts in a presentable format I'll be happy to go over it with you and upper staff. If it makes sense, let's do it.

Let me know what you come up with and keep me apprised of your results. (It's quite a bit harder than it sounds)

-24

[Reaver]

Isn't $1000 a little steep for just a domain name? Or will we be getting an actually good domain name?

Idea sounds doable but i'm a little skeptic on how popular the site would be. This idea has more variables than if we were to just pay for ads on some random gaming site forums.

Personally, I say the money tournaments are not doing what we wanted them to do. Money is just circulating between the same players. I say dump ~80% into continuous ads on specific gaming forums who would be interested in this type of stuff, and kick back and see if anything changes. A bit of a more conservative approach, but less worrying involving.

Well, I look at the domain name this way, a very cheap domain name could be had but then the SEO costs to get on the first page of google results for important keywords would go way up, and depending on how competitive it becomes it could be significantly more costly in the long run to achieve those same results than just going with a more expensive domain name that has the keywords in it and is an exact search.

I'm more or less tossing around ideas and seeing how much support there is because I'm not too confident in what's been done up to this point.