Newplayer effort

[iPad]

So has the newplayer effort gone down to dust or what? Either way would like to acknowledge the main playmakers in the effort even though its been struggling:

fiora (ahri)
healt (leet)
fork
me
24

[Shaddowknight]

Marketing Dept is at a bit of a low, 24 I beleive is actually too busy IRL and stepping down as head of it. If we are looking for a new person to be Head of it, but I don't know if the deans/sysops want to look within yet, or it will be more open to the general playerbase. Access to donation funds would be kept within upperstaff, but aside from that there's really not much else I can think of that a player would need from a staff side that would be needed to do the job, so it should be pretty easy to get someone in to just do marketing/advertising (in other words, no access to more sensitive information).
I could also just be wrong on what they need/would have access to. If a change in that is coming, it'll be announced before too long.

[iPad]

Its difficult gettin captains that are committed to starting these squads up to let newer players experience what twd'ing is like...the effort got lucky in finding good souls like fiora and fork (still continuing) willing to spend part of their twd time with this

[Morh]

What is this?

[Shaddowknight]

What is this?

I see this and immediately think of the one scene in Borat (think it was one cut from original, but available in deleted/extended whatever versions)

[Morh]

I see this and immediately think of the one scene in Borat (think it was one cut from original, but available in deleted/extended whatever versions)

That was helpful.

[iPad]

Morh it initially was an initiative by 24 to get more new players exposed to the TWD game but apparently has been dwindling

[Exalt]

Marketing Dept is at a bit of a low, 24 I beleive is actually too busy IRL and stepping down as head of it. If we are looking for a new person to be Head of it, but I don't know if the deans/sysops want to look within yet, or it will be more open to the general playerbase. Access to donation funds would be kept within upperstaff, but aside from that there's really not much else I can think of that a player would need from a staff side that would be needed to do the job, so it should be pretty easy to get someone in to just do marketing/advertising (in other words, no access to more sensitive information).
I could also just be wrong on what they need/would have access to. If a change in that is coming, it'll be announced before too long.

Like Qan and I had mentioned in the Distention thread, marketing staff have done absolutely zero (nothing, at all, for over 2 years now) for a very, very long time. That being said, new players are obviously a good thing, but the overall BEST bet is to do what we talked about in that thread. If you need to, read the part where my post comes up on the 2nd to last page or so, and see Qan's response. He has the emails to literally ALL the players that signed up their emails to TWD/Forums, and the VERY LEAST and absolutely FREE way we can market this game is to get old players back. If you want a population increase, you get players like me, who quit for 4 years and recently came back, to rejoin subspace and play again. Once you've grown up in this game, it sticks with you for life. There's a reason I've been so active in forums and in-game about saving the zone and subspace in general, and it's because I care about the game that I grew up in. There is a huge nostalgia factor, and I don't want to see this game go away by any means.

What I'm getting at here is that there have been literally thousands upon thousands of players who have played trenchwars and have at some point in time been very active for years at a time. At certain points, they quit, just like I did. Maybe it was due to real life situations like mine, or maybe it was boredom, or any combination of things, but things also change. The LEAST we can do is send out personal emails to all of those players, which I even stated I would write myself if needed (I am an English Major and professional freelance writer as it stands, so I know how to write professionally when called for, even if I don't do it on forums). What I'm saying is that even if we get 1/10th of the playerbase to even redownload the game and log in for a little while, see their old friends, talk to their old squadmates, things of that nature.. you just increased your playerbase by a good couple 100 people. Beyond that, they aren't total newbs, so they won't take 5 years to get good and enter leagues and things of that nature.

Get my point? This is the type of thing the marketing dept should have been looking into years ago, but have done absolutely nothing (or at least, as little as possible to keep their positions). It frankly is bullshit that these people even remain on staff. They ALL need to step down due to their immense failure. In the real world, when a group of employees fuck up for YEARS this badly, they ALL get canned and they door hits them on the way out HARD. I dislike useless people, and I dislike useless staff members who only want to be staff for the powertrip aspect. I care about this game, yet don't join staff due to the political nature and the bullshit that happens behind the scenes, because those who usually get power are the ones who want it the most, and when they want power, they want it for all the wrong reasons. This is why we've had such piece of shit staff members for so long, and why it is such an amazing thing to see ANY kind of transparency whatsoever at this point. Even then, the only reason it is happening is because staff are extremely desperate. They are full of amazing lower-staff people who care, but cannot get promoted due to political factors, a couple upper-staff who actually do care but maybe aren't great leaders, a couple really high upper-staff that I legit respect for what they are trying to do, and then a shit ton of useless fucks that haven't been canned for who knows what reason. Either way, the marketing dept was a huge fucking failure.

So besides that little rant, what the proposal is... is to send out emails to all those people that Qan has listed. Some of them can even be personalized by saying "hey, your old squaddie so and so misses you and wants you to play again!" or whatever else. Maybe they don't read the email, or maybe they do and don't care, but the point is that we try. It is also free, and uses none of that uses donation $ that has been sitting around wasted. At the very least, for how long it has been wasting around sitting there, did you deposit it in some form of CD or something and make some interest off of it at least? No, of course not. We also have no transparency of WHERE the $ was spent, beyond a few coders who some did actual work, and a few who did absolutely nothing, claimed it was due to not having spare time (even though they were getting paid), and then produced absolutely nothing (24/arobas). Yes, 24 definitely needs to step the fuck down for that.

Anyways, the email thing to previous players is the best, cheapest, easiest, and quickest way to get some players back into the fold. It isn't that difficult to do. I will volunteer myself to write the template if you'd like. I don't care. I like writing. It's my thing. It's why my forum posts are all novels basically (lol). Anyways, if the "marketing department" doesn't follow through with THAT basic premise, than this entire zone DESERVES to fucking die a horrible death, due to the horrible ineptitude of the staff members in power. If I was in charge, you'd all have a fire lit under your asses, but I'm not, so all I can do is write these angry forum posts and hope that someone pays attention.

Speaking of which, when you have so many "titles" in your forum signature, yet you have to ask the community for everything and for step by step instructions on how to do absolutely ANYTHING... it makes a mockery of the entire ordeal. I'm sick of staff doing jack shit and ignoring the community as well, which has been going on for 15+ years now. Staff ALWAYS ask the playerbase what they think or what they want or for new ideas, and they get good ones, but then they fucking ignore it because they are on stupid ass power trips and say "well, 99% of the playerbase wants "this" to happen, but "I" know better, because I'm an SMOD damnit!" and that kind of attitude is why people fucking loath staff members and think you are all pieces of useless trash. No, not every single one of you are. Actually, there are quite a few good ones, but staff are viewed as a whole, and there are far too many fuck ups/bad apples in the bunch. I sincerely wish that someone would have the fucking ballsack to get rid of all these clowns and hire someone with some fucking ability to get things done. I'd volunteer myself if I wasn't sure that it would never happen and I'd be a puppet on some useless fuckhead's strings. Cut the political bullshit and do your jobs to save this zone already, or quit fucking staff like men and accept your failure with a little dignity.

[Rule]

I think "new players" should be identified as that. Especially when it comes to league play.

Take major sports leagues for example, they identify the rookies, and the fan base follows them. They vote for rookie of the year.
New players are mentored on sports clubs, and same idea should be applied to trenchwars. Every TWD, TWL squad etc should have at least 5 rookies. If you don't it to mess with roster requirements, then make the roster cap 35 including rookies for example. Make it a TWL/TWD requirement for squads to have new players. Maybe even identify the players in TWD player base so we know the difference between a genuine newbie and an aliased loser squadding on his 8th name of the day.

At the moment new players for the most part can't even make it on to TWL squads. Vet's have no idea who most new players are, because staff allows a free range and diverse system of aliasing, which further kills identify, rivarly etc in this game. You want to make TW a more friendly place, kill off aliasing, trolling of new players etc - or watch the game continue its decline.

Trenchwars is not "friendly" enough for new players, and its not 1999 where you had a huge player base to work with. Its disappointing that staff does not realize how much trolling, aliasing, double squadding etc kills off the game.

If you want to bring new players into the game, change the way they are treated, give them recognition when they do well in leagues, elim etc, do interim squads like you are doing, or create something more permanent like 2 TWD squads that never fold, always stays active - and play each other often in dd, jd and bd newbies vs newbies - instead of vets slaughtering newbies.

[Demonic]

Like Qan and I had mentioned in the Distention thread, marketing staff have done absolutely zero (nothing, at all, for over 2 years now) for a very, very long time. That being said, new players are obviously a good thing, but the overall BEST bet is to do what we talked about in that thread. If you need to, read the part where my post comes up on the 2nd to last page or so, and see Qan's response. He has the emails to literally ALL the players that signed up their emails to TWD/Forums, and the VERY LEAST and absolutely FREE way we can market this game is to get old players back. If you want a population increase, you get players like me, who quit for 4 years and recently came back, to rejoin subspace and play again. Once you've grown up in this game, it sticks with you for life. There's a reason I've been so active in forums and in-game about saving the zone and subspace in general, and it's because I care about the game that I grew up in. There is a huge nostalgia factor, and I don't want to see this game go away by any means.

What I'm getting at here is that there have been literally thousands upon thousands of players who have played trenchwars and have at some point in time been very active for years at a time. At certain points, they quit, just like I did. Maybe it was due to real life situations like mine, or maybe it was boredom, or any combination of things, but things also change. The LEAST we can do is send out personal emails to all of those players, which I even stated I would write myself if needed (I am an English Major and professional freelance writer as it stands, so I know how to write professionally when called for, even if I don't do it on forums). What I'm saying is that even if we get 1/10th of the playerbase to even redownload the game and log in for a little while, see their old friends, talk to their old squadmates, things of that nature.. you just increased your playerbase by a good couple 100 people. Beyond that, they aren't total newbs, so they won't take 5 years to get good and enter leagues and things of that nature.

Get my point? This is the type of thing the marketing dept should have been looking into years ago, but have done absolutely nothing (or at least, as little as possible to keep their positions). It frankly is bullshit that these people even remain on staff. They ALL need to step down due to their immense failure. In the real world, when a group of employees fuck up for YEARS this badly, they ALL get canned and they door hits them on the way out HARD. I dislike useless people, and I dislike useless staff members who only want to be staff for the powertrip aspect. I care about this game, yet don't join staff due to the political nature and the bullshit that happens behind the scenes, because those who usually get power are the ones who want it the most, and when they want power, they want it for all the wrong reasons. This is why we've had such piece of shit staff members for so long, and why it is such an amazing thing to see ANY kind of transparency whatsoever at this point. Even then, the only reason it is happening is because staff are extremely desperate. They are full of amazing lower-staff people who care, but cannot get promoted due to political factors, a couple upper-staff who actually do care but maybe aren't great leaders, a couple really high upper-staff that I legit respect for what they are trying to do, and then a shit ton of useless fucks that haven't been canned for who knows what reason. Either way, the marketing dept was a huge fucking failure.

So besides that little rant, what the proposal is... is to send out emails to all those people that Qan has listed. Some of them can even be personalized by saying "hey, your old squaddie so and so misses you and wants you to play again!" or whatever else. Maybe they don't read the email, or maybe they do and don't care, but the point is that we try. It is also free, and uses none of that uses donation $ that has been sitting around wasted. At the very least, for how long it has been wasting around sitting there, did you deposit it in some form of CD or something and make some interest off of it at least? No, of course not. We also have no transparency of WHERE the $ was spent, beyond a few coders who some did actual work, and a few who did absolutely nothing, claimed it was due to not having spare time (even though they were getting paid), and then produced absolutely nothing (24/arobas). Yes, 24 definitely needs to step the fuck down for that.

Anyways, the email thing to previous players is the best, cheapest, easiest, and quickest way to get some players back into the fold. It isn't that difficult to do. I will volunteer myself to write the template if you'd like. I don't care. I like writing. It's my thing. It's why my forum posts are all novels basically (lol). Anyways, if the "marketing department" doesn't follow through with THAT basic premise, than this entire zone DESERVES to fucking die a horrible death, due to the horrible ineptitude of the staff members in power. If I was in charge, you'd all have a fire lit under your asses, but I'm not, so all I can do is write these angry forum posts and hope that someone pays attention.

Speaking of which, when you have so many "titles" in your forum signature, yet you have to ask the community for everything and for step by step instructions on how to do absolutely ANYTHING... it makes a mockery of the entire ordeal. I'm sick of staff doing jack shit and ignoring the community as well, which has been going on for 15+ years now. Staff ALWAYS ask the playerbase what they think or what they want or for new ideas, and they get good ones, but then they fucking ignore it because they are on stupid ass power trips and say "well, 99% of the playerbase wants "this" to happen, but "I" know better, because I'm an SMOD damnit!" and that kind of attitude is why people fucking loath staff members and think you are all pieces of useless trash. No, not every single one of you are. Actually, there are quite a few good ones, but staff are viewed as a whole, and there are far too many fuck ups/bad apples in the bunch. I sincerely wish that someone would have the fucking ballsack to get rid of all these clowns and hire someone with some fucking ability to get things done. I'd volunteer myself if I wasn't sure that it would never happen and I'd be a puppet on some useless fuckhead's strings. Cut the political bullshit and do your jobs to save this zone already, or quit fucking staff like men and accept your failure with a little dignity.

Your assuming we haven't sent those e-mails lol Myself/Krynetix and a collaboration with EG literally sent out over 10k e-mails to all connected addresses, which was almost like a newsletter stating what had changed in game, what was happening etc etc. Last one was sent in Octoberish time, before Kryn I presume lost time to continue. We gained a few old players on the back of it, Barton I think was one who returned for a period. Partly because I guess a lot of those old players have grown up/married/kids etc since they last played this game, and don't have the time. Either way I would hazard a guess at maybe a 1% return on the e-mails if we are lucky.

Quite happy if a player wants to take this on, and send out e-mails - I had tasked Dezmond I believe it was into looking at some e-mail software to send bulk e-mails cheaply by utilising donation money, but that hasn't come to fruition as yet either.

Anyways, point is, this isn't something that was ignored and was acted on last year but for whatever reason it wasn't as successful as we would have hoped/liked. Was it given enough time? probably not. Was it focused on by the individuals tasked with looking at it? Also hard to say.

[Demonic]

I think "new players" should be identified as that. Especially when it comes to league play.

Take major sports leagues for example, they identify the rookies, and the fan base follows them. They vote for rookie of the year.
New players are mentored on sports clubs, and same idea should be applied to trenchwars. Every TWD, TWL squad etc should have at least 5 rookies. If you don't it to mess with roster requirements, then make the roster cap 35 including rookies for example. Make it a TWL/TWD requirement for squads to have new players. Maybe even identify the players in TWD player base so we know the difference between a genuine newbie and an aliased loser squadding on his 8th name of the day.

At the moment new players for the most part can't even make it on to TWL squads. Vet's have no idea who most new players are, because staff allows a free range and diverse system of aliasing, which further kills identify, rivarly etc in this game. You want to make TW a more friendly place, kill off aliasing, trolling of new players etc - or watch the game continue its decline.

Trenchwars is not "friendly" enough for new players, and its not 1999 where you had a huge player base to work with. Its disappointing that staff does not realize how much trolling, aliasing, double squadding etc kills off the game.

If you want to bring new players into the game, change the way they are treated, give them recognition when they do well in leagues, elim etc, do interim squads like you are doing, or create something more permanent like 2 TWD squads that never fold, always stays active - and play each other often in dd, jd and bd newbies vs newbies - instead of vets slaughtering newbies.

I generally agree with you on most things Rule, however, we allow a free range of aliasing?? Kind of hard to force players to stick to one alias, and for TWD where we can, we do prevent multiple aliases being used which includes double squadding. How many TWD bans etc have we placed for this? Tons, but as you said we cant afford to ban for any length of time or guess what, we have no players for TWD.
Trolling is indicative of the game itself, and hardly limited to TW. Infact everything you have listed has been around since I started playing TW in 1997, pre-population boom. Also, look at the # of threads started due to staff trying to control troll's, we manage to get "riot's" which guess what, negatively affect the zone more than the original troll did.

You can blame staff for many things, and quite rightly so, but this is something that players need to take control of not staff. Until players do take that responsibility on themselves, it will not happen. Until you turn round to a troll and as a group say STFU instead of following like sheep nothing will change there either.

[qan]

Its difficult gettin captains that are committed to starting these squads up to let newer players experience what twd'ing is like...the effort got lucky in finding good souls like fiora and fork (still continuing) willing to spend part of their twd time with this

Rather than running newplayer squads, why not roster newbies on squads with the understanding that they'll need training -- then run a few games where it's some of team X's newbies + a vet or two and some of team Y's newbies? Maybe as a friendly match, no point change, just to get people playing?

Like Qan and I had mentioned in the Distention thread, marketing staff have done absolutely zero (nothing, at all, for over 2 years now) for a very, very long time.

For clarification, this isn't true -- marketing team just hasn't run an advertisement in a year and a half (that is to say, marketed the game outside of the game itself). The newplayer efforts were of course pretty strong, IMO, and the newplayer squads are a good idea, but as has been mentioned, they require a lot of time and effort. I think integrating new players onto TWD squads is a better way to go. But that requires the elitism of TWD to taper off a bit ... requires squad captains to be interested in training new players who show promise.

[2pac]

Demonic and 24 the BIGGEST useless staff members in this community and have failed to keep population above 500. Just disappointing if they were graded by public they'd get a D-. They spent more on TMAC funds than advertising in a month(which is a compliment). Just shows you they couldn't care less about population/advertising efforts.

[2pac]

-=- SYSOPS -=-
DoCk> System Operator
(DoCk@yaunet.com) - Bot core Creator/Developer


PriitK System Operator
(priitk@trenchwars.org) - Robo Ref Creator/Developer
- SSC Billing Operator
- Continuum Creator/Developer


-=- ZONE STAFF -=-
Arilou Lalee'lay Creative Director
(arilou@ds98.com) - Maps/Settings Operator
- Event Creator/Developer


Mr. Spam Dean of Staff
(mrspam@trenchwars.org) - Bot Developer
- Forum Administrator
- Web Site Developer


FlaBiN Dean of Staff
(flabin@trenchwars.org) - Forum Administrator
- Web Site Developer


Overstrand Local BanG Operator
(overstrand@trenchwars.org) - TWD Operator


Kingz Event Coordinator
(twkingz@yahoo.com)


KJW Public Relations
(kjw@paladen.net) - Forum Administrator
- News poster


Dantax Super Moderator
(dantax@trenchwars.org)


-=- DEVELOPMENT STAFF -=-
2dragons Game Development Coordinator
(abarton@holly.colostate.edu) - Bot Developer
- Web Site Developer


Mythrandir Software Developer
(mythrandir@trenchwars.org) - TWD Operator
- Bot Developer
- Web Site Developer
- Forum Administrator


-=- LEAGUE STAFF -=-
Epinephrine TWL Coordinator
(epinephrine@rocketmail.com)

THE PUSHER TWL Coordinator
(blutron@yahoo.com)

Cpt.Guano! TWL Coordinator
(trenchwarsleagues@yahoo.com)


Acid TWL Coordinator
(acidtwin@surfanytime.co.uk)




-=- Credits -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


Dgus = The original settings creator of Trench Wars
SilentDragon = For the original map
AkIlLa~ = For redoing the settings
MikeTheNose = For creating the very first elims
---------------------------------------------------------------------


staff below props to these guys



Strike Event Coordinator
(strike@exino.com) - News Poster
- Web Site Developer

Weaver Dean of Staff
(starwver_1@hotmail.com) - Forum Administrator



YoMama!!! Dean of Staff
(mama.is@paladen.net)

I'm forgetting a bunch but I can't remember from the top of my head.



With none of these staff onboard, you will quickly realize how the zone has went to shit. The failure of these original members were that they gave the position of staff to the wrong folks like demonic and all the staff below except a certain few they know who they are and I don't need to put names out.

[qan]

With none of these staff onboard, you will quickly realize how the zone has went to shit. The failure of these original members were that they gave the position of staff to the wrong folks like demonic and all the staff below except a certain few they know who they are and I don't need to put names out.

Wrong, though: Mythrandir is on current staff.

Also, people who quit don't ordinarily "give" their position to anyone. Just so we're clear. Staff is dysfunctional but not in the way almost everyone seems to think. And DoCk> was a nice guy but wasn't god's gift to spaceships, either. Nobody is. And PriitK continues to exert an unfortunately negative influence on how well we can run the zone.

I guess you forget that we used to ban people for a day if they sent two trash-talking ?help calls in a row; that racism in PM to staff used to be a banable offense; that we would ban, often several days, for just about anything. Abuse was rampant. There was little to no transparency. Staff wasn't afraid of its own shadow, but it sure didn't give a damn about losing a player or twenty between the cracks.

Not saying I don't think long-standing bans such as yours are generally pretty dumb ... but you don't do anyone any favors by pretending staff was somehow glorious then, and if only they hadn't screwed it all up back then we'd be in such great shape now. It had a lot bigger playerbase, and more interest in the game as a whole, sure. But overall...

(best Ron Pearlman voice)

Trench Wars. Trench Wars never changes.