State of the Forum

[Cheesy111]

Take out the 3rd-6th place prizes for Tournaments.  Many of the people who receive these don't really care about them, and some end up unused.  Instead use these to make separate, smaller PvP events throughout the week with these as rewards (no forum icon).  These events should be faster than tournaments and newb-friendly, meant as a way to start joining the community and learning the metagame.  Most vets don't really care about a few K in electrum, and it should be easy to entice newbs with a big monetary boost.  These events should be non-rare, unupped of course.  The only worry would be some newb making a deck for this event that takes up all their money, and then they blame us. 

[Dragoon]

Here's one of those small-scale PvP ideas.

I think there's a lot of people who would like to play in tourneys but either the times aren't really great for them or they don't have a whole block of time they can commit to a tournament. I know both of those situations are true for me.

So what if we ran the exact same weekly tourney rules but in a play-when-you-can format? Have this version start maybe 2 days after the rules are published. People sign-up, brackets are made, and then you have 24 hours to play your opponent for each round. If the match doesn't happen, either both are eliminated or the person who was the most active/available can advance.

As far as logistics go, we just would need a person or two who could post a sign-up thread, create a bracket, and update it once a day. It doesn't seem too complicated and may even be less of a time commitment than actually running a live tourney is.

Of course rewards would be nice, but honestly, I don't even care if I don't get an in-game reward or forum icon. I'd do it just for the fun. And the main point is that more people would get involved since time is less of a factor. We could even tie it to the whole duel section of the forum to give that area a boost. Setup a duel account, sign-up for the tourney, and every match would count as a duel.

Anways, some thoughts on how to boost activity without adding too much more organizing and administration.

[mrpaper]

Dragoon, I leke partly you're idea because I would no more miss every tourny that happens when I'm at bed or away and the same goes for everyone else, so it will surely increase the number of players in the tourney.  What I wonder is, will this make newcomers come in the tourneys, and will the veterans stick around more because of that?  Also, I know TO's have already speaked against that beacause of the potential headaches to reach a TO whenever things go wrong.  Then again, I'd prefer you're solution over pretending all is well.

[Dragoon]

Is there any reason this has to be run by TOs? Couldn't we just let any Full (or maybe Senior) Member or up run it on a volunteer basis, especially if there's no rewards?

As for newcomers and veterans, I have no idea. But there's one way to find out . . .

[whatifidogetcaught?]

As a big noob, imo, I would love to see small, quick tournaments, or the 24 hour basis. The tournaments could vary, but still give rewards. I believe in giving electrum as an incentive for participating and doing well in the tournament, as well as being a participant in what is a very much depleted forum. I do not want to see this game die away. We could have two tournaments, one with the specific restrictions, and one with no restrictions, but some sort of cap on level or forum level so it is for noobs only, and they can get rewarded and develop what little they have to begin with.

[ZephyrPhantom]

Is there any reason this has to be run by TOs? Couldn't we just let any Full (or maybe Senior) Member or up run it on a volunteer basis, especially if there's no rewards?

As for newcomers and veterans, I have no idea. But there's one way to find out . . .

Again : You do not have to be a TO to start an unofficial tournament.

Get people interested, start the tourney, make a topic + timer. If it becomes the next SHUT, all the better for everyone.

[bripod]

Unofficial Tourneys are nice and all that, but... I seriously doubt you'll have many participants unless you offer some kind of prize... and Forum Icons are prolly not going to get it... In game prizes are most likely the reason you have the few each week for the regular tourneys...

[furballdn]

Unofficial Tourneys are nice and all that, but... I seriously doubt you'll have many participants unless you offer some kind of prize... and Forum Icons are prolly not going to get it... In game prizes are most likely the reason you have the few each week for the regular tourneys...

Prizes=codes people won from other places. Calin's diversify pvp tourney was the only pvp tourney I've participated in.

[bripod]

Prizes=codes people won from other places.

My statement was in response to Dragoon's mention of non TO's running tourneys with NO REWARDS.... just sayin'...

[bjessee]

"The state of the forum is strong."  I could not resist.

This might come off as rude, but that is not my intent nor do I know how to say it any nicer.

So many suggestions sound like "Someone could"s and "Someone should"s.  This is a fully volunteer group working to build this community.  The only person I know that is getting paid anything for their efforts is UTAlan for hosting the forums, and I am sure he would be glad to explain how "getting paid" is a gross misrepresentation.

Please do not hope for others to take responsibility for executing your ideas; take charge and take action.  As cliche as it may be to quote an ad campaign, if you want something done, "Just do it."  Do not ask "Can you do X?", say "I want to do X.  What can you do to help me make it happen?"  And do not use this many quotation marks.

Your ideas might not come to fruition or provide the results you desired, but at least you made an effort, and it is unlikely anything you do with the intent of building the community would harm it (getting us banned from Google Ads being a notable exception).

[Acsabi44]

Regarding mini PVP events:
- Winner would get a new forum award icon, "minievent winner" (or something). Same icon for every event, just like tournaments now. Make it a star or something.
- I think the correct lentgh for this is 2-3(-4) days. IMHO it is more interesting than a few hrs-tourney. IT has the "feel" of something greater than a simple tournament. The partcipiants will also have more time to build decks, which contributes majorly to the fun of the event (the more time you take to polish a deck, the more attached you get to it, and thus, the more positive feedback if you win with it). Overall, I feel that those minievents require less time than a month long PVP event or war, but more mental and emotional commitment than a simple wekeend tournament.
- On the other hand, it is not terribly long, so dropouts or other interested players will only have to wait a few days before entering the next minievent.
- I think a staff of 8-10 can run 2 events every week(with backup TOs for every role), with a staff of 4-5 prolly can run one in a week. I don't think finding some interested vets would ve a problem.
- Since the relatively short timespan for duels, if something goes wrong, it should be handled strictly in a "PM to organizer"- way. The two disagreeing players send their opinions and all their evidence to the organizers, who decide when they log in next time.
- The thing the organizers would need to do is solving disputes, updating brackets/groups/standings and maybe posting next round's rules in every ~10 hrs. I think 2 or 3 active organizers could do it neatly.
- While the participiants would have ~24 hrs to read the current round rules, think of some decks, test them a bit and play their matches (a player should have no more than 2, ideally 1 duel per round). This would take a few hours at most for them.

[summerz88]

Id like to echo the comments of Acsabi and Paper, I had been playing elements for a month and a half before i found out the forum even existed (and i still havent looked into this whole kong business), and in the past 2 weeks I've played more elements than in the previous 2 months and sat in chat for about 40hours.

I only found out about the forum through the OLD wiki, which i found from google.

Step 1: flashing neon sign for both chat and the forum, (id seen the chat button but never bothered to click it), maybe even make it a quest just to open chat and the forum!
Step 2: Fully move everything from the OLD wiki to the new wiki
Step 3: make the new wiki what shows up when you search "elements wiki" on google, so that the old wiki can be taken down

I think this would greatly increase the number of people finding out about the forum

Edit, i also think it might be a good idea to code in some sort of daily reward for visiting chat or the forum, even if it were just like 50 electrum, it would get new players exposed to the forum