Decline in BA players

[Jazcash]

You're right. We have too many autohosts and not enough lobbies to view them all on.

[luckywaldo7]

I for one am very excited to see lobby competition on linux again.

About decreasing BA playerbase, it's decreasing because old players are moving on while very few new players are coming into the community. For getting new players, I would recommend making a BA installer and doing some advertising, even if it just mentioning BA out on random forums. Hang around the lobby even when you aren't playing and check periodically for newbies needing help in chat. For the vets, make a website and get people talking about balance again. Build a community that people enjoy hanging out and participating in.

[AF]

Moderator actions alone cannot salvage or destroy Spring. It takes content creators, developers, and players along with moderators to produce community trends.

The problem is that a lot of the actions put forwards fall apart because they lack that last crucial part of moderator intervention.

Like an arch that last center stone that keeps things stable, was absent, and when prodded, people like you immediately went silent and ignored all PMs.

So I accuse you of hypocrisy. We've had plenty of situations were players and developers have come to a loose consensus but moderation has been nowhere to be seen, and as a result either super hard routes have had to be taken yielding no results, or the effort has fallen apart. Just look at the great crusade to fix the BA autohost problem, then look at the battle list and tell me it worked without moderator intervention. ( Despite a means and an end being provided which required no new rules or special considerations ).

As community lead you have a credibility crisis. Where the forum and the lobby is concerned, you are meant to be the executive head, and you haven't ruled at all on any of the major issues, either in favour, against, or even to say it is not a moderation issue ( and if you have then you've been incredibly negligent in being clear and unambiguous, please refer to Tobis stint as community lead, when he had something to declare, he declared it, and he declared it goood ).

[knorke]

Who would even have the acess/rights to ban autohosts?
Or to limit hosts to 8 players or whatever else was proposed?
I guess those persons must be hard to find seeing how even removing broken links from channel topics is not trivial;)

[AF]

Its easy. If someone is running 10 autohosts, there should never be more than one empty host.

The point being that if there is more than one empty autohost, that autohost owner is spamming battles, and that IS covered by the lobby rules, it's an abuse of the protocol under the bot policy

[knorke]

If someone is running 10 autohosts, there should never be more than one empty host.

yes. But who can make him stop?
As in, who can type !ban evil autohost and it does something?
I mean it is all fun to weekly spam a 20 thread page with bla about that but in the end it does not matter if that person does not read it.

[Wombat]

Oh I fully expect the ba community to be a cancer that kills spring.

Comming from someone who was throwing so much trash on 'someone' who contributed so much (wont mention Argh's name here... oh damn)



@ thread, u made kitten sad

[AF]

If someone is running 10 autohosts, there should never be more than one empty host.

yes. But who can make him stop?
As in, who can type !ban evil autohost and it does something?
I mean it is all fun to weekly spam a 20 thread page with bla about that but in the end it does not matter if that person does not read it.

We already have people who ban evil players, they can do the banning of evil autohosts, and it's a lot easier since its easier for players to smurf than to setup a whole set of autohosts again. They're called moderators.

That we have 20 page threads is only because there is a void that is not filled. If moderators did this then we would not be talking about it, like when was the last thread on Gundams cannibalism of small paper weights? It never happened because it was never a problem!

[MileyCyrus]

How to solve BA dying off(for a while).
Whoever is devving it...
1)Lock team games to a max of 10 players.
I dont care how but this must be done.
2)Let a dedicated 1v1 player decide on balance.
3)focus balancing on strictly 1v1 games.

Do this and BA will get its hardcore fanbase back, keep doing the crap you have been doing and expect it do die within... a year?

If you fail to even see the problem dont expect to find a solution.

[Licho]

Because discussing does nothing to reverse the trend. Actions are what is needed, not forum banter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YawagQ6lLrA

[Senna]

Ban autohost, poor autohost, what they did against community?
dont forget autohosts keeps spring alive.

What mod can do is tell people to host only 2 autohost per mod.
esample:

X is autohost owner, He host 2 BA autohost
He host 2 Tech Anni autohost, 2 Zero K autohost, 2 chicken def autohost.

and other owner do the same etc, theres not many autohost owners.
i can find 5 decent autohost owners only, thats a max of 10 autohosts for BA and its well enought

[Licho]

Btw ZK also suffered massive decline same time BA did, I think it could be related to decreasing engine performance, broken pathing, crashes/broken visuals on AMD/ATI, ubuntu spring not working.

ZK is now slowly recovering, but im spending personal money on advertisment (costs $2-$3 per player download

Dunno what happens when I run out of money.

Oh and I think complaints about too many autohosts or big DSD games are not hitting the issue..

[Senna]

im spending personal money on advertisment (costs $2-$3 per player download

Erm and why? 2-3$ per player wtf? If u go out of money no more spring?

[Beherith]

He said personal money. Donations are used for the server.

[Licho]

Yes this is my personal money, its spent on google search text ads.

I think that long term what matters is balance of new/leaving players.
Even very small difference - like extra 5/month can make difference between growth and decline.


If you plan to spend money same way, this is what you can expect:

Probably not the cost efficient way to get players

It's interesting that mentioning "open source" in the ad hurts you General people dislike open source it seems, probably due to generally low quality. Silliest text "got brainz" appears to be working best at getting conversions (downloads).

[knorke]

I think it could be related to decreasing engine performance, broken pathing, crashes/broken visuals on AMD/ATI, ubuntu spring not working.

I agree. All those problems + others listed in faq weight much worse than "too high player limit on autohosts."
All the players that BA loses due to "too much DSD" or "balance not pro enough anymore" are long time players. That is sad and everything but those were only a few dozen in the first place anyway. Ever wondered why no new players are coming? BA game does not even have a real installer or homepage...

oh new postings appears.

google search text ads

Do you have statistics if they are working? I started internet explorer (to see google ads) and searched for varitions of "free multiplayer strategy game" but only got ads for lame browser games or WoW clones. Basically could not get zeroK or spring into search results without including it in searchquery...

[Licho]

After burning $50 in one month I set the limit lower, now it spends less so it probably stops displaying ads after given number of clicks/day.

[knorke]

Tbh I dont know if it is worth it then.
Even googling the actual ad text, eg "hardcore rts by hardcore players" does not find zerok
As smoth already said in another thread, you should probally post (a lot more) "news" on indiedb.
I browed around on that site a bit and it seems any news post gets at least some hundreds clicks or so in the first 1-2 days. (even my lame spring tanks account did get visitors) Planetwars gives you a "reason" to post news, many news updates are much lamer

[Licho]

Its set on keywords like "open source rts"

You pay for clicks - like 0.11$ per click on the ad - (and you need 20 visitors to get 1 downloader even with site ZK has).

Yeah news are better, it just needs person to make them, i dont have inclination/skill to make them.

[smoth]

I can share what I have learned on moddb/indiedb already offered to help proof posts for azare to help him get the swing of it..