State of the Forum

[plastiqe]

I probably don't say thank you to the Admins enough for saving the forums for us, so thank you.

I really like the guilds idea.

I personally played in last weeks tournament because it was at a good time for me (Sat afternoon).  I skipped the one the week before because it was at a bad time for me (5am).  I know I'm being racist against people that don't live in my timezone, but if you want the most players... host tourneys at times that are most accessable to the western, english speaking, developed world.

Mini-events I dunno.  Agree that it seems like it would take a lot of time and effort to organize.  Also, I think the ongoing mid-week pvp should be done in leagues, otherwise you've got mini-pvp vs leagues and neither wins.  Leagues should be more accessable.  Maybe BL should really be for beginners and not pros that like to play unupped.  Maybe get rid of 30 games minimum.  Maybe have weekly rules like a decks must have mark of time week.  Maybe have mini-prizes in leagues for winning that week.

[Kamietsu]

I really enjoy the idea of Guilds. And like someone said(too lazy to go through and find who) it coudl tie in to the mentor program. That kind of organization coudl really benefit the forum and generate some new buzz.

[bripod]

I'm currently looking into reworking the Mentor Program. As I see it, there are two main topics that need to be addressed by the Mentor Program,

Forum/Chat and Game.

I'm currently sorting things out and will be asking for Help/Volunteers shortly. Specifically I think that Forum Experts and also those who are very adept in Game Mechanics, Deck Building, Card Synergies and Game Strategies would be most helpful to this project.

I'd like to see one-on-one help as well as an online resource for those who wish to learn at their own pace. Comments, suggestions etc would be most welcomed. Please PM me with any ideas. Maybe I'll create a post for suggestions too.

and Thanks to Higs for all she's done so far to help me.

[Acsabi44]

I'm currently looking into reworking the Mentor Program. As I see it, there are two main topics that need to be addressed by the Mentor Program,

Forum/Chat and Game.

I'm currently sorting things out and will be asking for Help/Volunteers shortly. Specifically I think that Forum Experts and also those who are very adept in Game Mechanics, Deck Building, Card Synergies and Game Strategies would be most helpful to this project.

I'd like to see one-on-one help as well as an online resource for those who wish to learn at their own pace. Comments, suggestions etc would be most welcomed. Please PM me with any ideas. Maybe I'll create a post for suggestions too.

and Thanks to Higs for all she's done so far to help me.

I'm not convinced this will work. After all, all mentors can do is *show* and *tell*  things. In the long run, this can be boring.
For a new player, it will never be as fun as actually *doing* things. *exploring* the game and forums.
I feel the way is to give stuff to *do* to new players. Of course, all within a learning curve.
(now I don't say that a mentoring system is not important, but INHO it is not the way to make newbies stick.)
***yay I love asterisks! ***

[bripod]

I'm not convinced this will work. After all, all mentors can do is *show* and *tell*  things. In the long run, this can be boring.
For a new player, it will never be as fun as actually *doing* things. *exploring* the game and forums.
I feel the way is to give stuff to *do* to new players. Of course, all within a learning curve.

Good point Acsabi. Maybe incorporating some fun activities would be more meaningful and energizing to the system.
Thanks for the input! (although I'm not sure it was intended that way)

Anyone else wanting to contribute can do so at the following post.
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,43543.0.html

[ARTHANASIOS]

 I also like the idea of guilds, but I really think than only 12 guilds (one for each element) wouldn't be interesting/satisfying enough. I suggest each guild to be a combo of 2 (or even 3) different elements (much like the guilds in MTG's Ravinca: City of Guilds). For example, an guild could be focused on winged horrors that love diving from a starless night sky towards their unaware victims, or a guild which lurks deep within ancient pyramids and cursed catacombs.
 Furthermore, I also think we need a backround story of the world of Elements, or even a small unofficial pen & paper RPG. On even mini computer games based on the Elements world (Grey Crusader style?).
 However, I really don't think ETG has a small community. I find it quite large actually. We are not MTG or Yu-Gi-Oh, we are ETG and we have an amazing community for our 'budget', if you know what I mean.

[mrpaper]

Just to add I also love the mini events minicons summary idea, as for guild idk because I feel it could pant you in a corner a bit for war but it could be good. 
Finally, lil message for Higu, all you said seems right and I knew most of  it anyway,but I felt I had to say how it could have been for a french speaking person trying to enter this game ( I think I'm not doing that bad in the end!)

[BluePriest]

For anyone who isnt aware, we are talking about specifics of guilds here
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,43538.0.html


As to pvp events, I almost think having more vanilla, frequent ones instead of having so many with special prerequisites would be better.

[Acsabi44]

Thanks for the input! (although I'm not sure it was intended that way)

sure it was

[kev]

This was a great thread.  Some really good ideas came out of this and some were actually implemented and will benefit the community.  I'd encourage the community to start and keep threads like this going.

I wanna revise some of what I said in the opening post, though.  In that post I put the burner under the community to get and retain new members and now I realize that's really not fair because membership is largely out of the community's hands.  The big surge in membership came from etg getting set up on Kong.  Players have stayed with the community for truly amazing lengths of time, largely due to the efforts and insight of SG.  She got players to stay but she didn’t bring them here.  If someone ever manages to catch zanz's attention, the first agenda item should be advertising.  The unfortunate truth is that without active advertising by zanz, forum membership will never see a real bounce.

[Acsabi44]

The unfortunate truth is that without active advertising by zanz, forum membership will never see a real bounce.

This. Whatever we do, I think the percent of players who stay is always a given X. This percentage doesnt really fluctuate wildly and doesnt really have much to do with the awesomeness of the forum; the reasons for this lie in the nature of social media, internet games, forums in general et cetera.
So to have a huge boost of members, we have to raise the amount of people who come to visit the forums; the X percent of a huge number will be bigger than the same X percent of a small number.
And to raise the amount of players the game will need some advertising.
...How would you advertise a 4 year old flash game?

I want to see quick, 2-3 days long PVP events

That's a really intriguing idea I don't remember ever hearing before.

Tried it, I think you remember... The idea ran for one show then it died due to general uninterest.
I also tried to get buzz among the newbies for a noob-friendly tournament with money prizes, but besides 1-2 players, the only ones who showed interest was actually the vets.

[treebeard xiii]

What a mjor problem is how do you keep advertising a game that is rarely developed it's easy to advertise an old game the difficulty is keeping people interested in the game there are times whe the game stagnates i know i have been arund during quite a bit of the stagnation. I have stopped playing for weeks at a time purely because i lost interest as little or nothing changed. As for the newbie tournies i'm sure a percentage of the players play purely in their spare time maybe between lessons or such so are not interested in the competitive side that tournies bring i liked the idea but as you said its us veterans that are more interested in the competitive side of the game to keep interest. Newbies would be more interested in tuition and learning more about the game and the less obvious synergies when i was a newb thats what i would have preferred but not i prefer the competition, the ability to prove myself. Plugging the game is all well and good but keeping people interested and raising awareness of the forums is the best way to increase the number of people starting and reducing the number of people leaving, is if zanz was willing to give some select few active members the ability the modify the game within reason ofc maybe not the ability to add cards to the game but the ability to add a few perks to the game and better advertisement of the community within the game, I say the players need a bit more control of the development of the game as they know what the game is lacking, but the impression I get is the chances of this are slim at best. So all we can do is try our best to get more people involved and enjoy what we have already been given.