Dead Men Walking

Guys,

I was sitting on the beach today knocking some rule changes to BC2 around in my head and on paper (yes it hurts). I started thinking about promoting the BC2 game and server but then came up with a few ideas that transcend BC2 and are more at the Community Level.

I'm not sure if these have been considered in the past but I thought it might be worth a shot:

1. Promotion at Universities

We've got a few recent grads (T-Bag, GhostMjr) and one fellow Game Leader that actually works for a Uni (BrotherTobious). I wonder if it would be possible to pull together our collective talents and create a poster or such that could be displayed in a Student Union area to promote dMw?

2. Social Networking Sites

I've done a quick search on Facebook but do we or shouldn't we have landing pages on FB or even Twitter? Could we use this to drive a little more traffic to our website?

NF

Also..

What about You Tube or Google? Any mileage in SEO work that hasn't already taken place?

NF

I spoke to the BIG uni guys and asked them the question. Their feeling was that most unis have their own computer societies that will, more often than not, include a gaming section. So they do most of their gaming in-house using either the uni's network or their own if off campus.

OK. Was worth a try.. What about Facebook or Twitter?

Facebook is an interesting idea - and it wouldn't take any time/money to set up.

We already have a Facebook page we can use, not sure about Twitter.  We can set one up if it is worth it.

There's a few Deadmen FB pages. Can you give me a link to ours? Is it current?

Also, I've seen a lot of links on websites to FB pages. Can we set one up?

Quote from: Ninja_Freak;312013There's a few Deadmen FB pages. Can you give me a link to ours? Is it current?

Also, I've seen a lot of links on websites to FB pages. Can we set one up?

see your fb page
:D

Edit: Lol. just been looking at this thread (http://www.deadmen.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?21533-Facebook-Counterstrike&highlight=facebook)
some of the comments from former non FBers

Nice one.. bit out of date me guesses.

Guys.. When was dMw established?? I can't seem to find it anymore..

History page is on the old website and needs to be moved over to a new static page.  It's on the WIP list.

Any chance of just giving me the date? I'm just about finished my draft of the post I want to make on EA's BC2 forums for your review.
 
Dan

'98 or '99 IIRC.

Go with 98 and we can always amend it!

Quote from: TeaLeaf;312022History page is on the old website and needs to be moved over to a new static page.  It's on the WIP list.

Done...

Thanks Whitey!

I don't have access to it atm, but I believe the date coincided with the launch of Quake Action Online which was June 22, 1996.  dMw was formed that same year.

Guys, see below.

There was so much great work in our home page all I did is cut a bit out about the LAN's. It's pretty long as it is and I don't want readers to switch off on not read it and join. Can you please provide me with your thoughts and critisims (especially on the length)?

I'm away until Monday at Download but I'd like to get this up when I get back. I've thought through a strategy where we can slowly Bump the thread and keep it alive.

Thanks in Advance for your Feedback.

   Who Are We?
  Dead Men Walking (dMw) is a well-established (since 1996), Highly social, international online gaming community with over 400 active members spanning most of the globe. We are known for fun, mature and professional gaming and our large and social community, with the highlight being the bi-annual LAN events held in the United Kingdom.

dMw provides a home to gamers who enjoy both gaming as well as being part of a wider social online community. The key is in our highly active forum, which presently holds more than a quarter of a million posts. In addition to coordinating weekly gaming days, Christmas battles, bi-annual LAN-parties and summer BBQs, it helps members share information, provide help and support, discuss technology, cyber security and current affairs ââ,¬â€œ or just about any other topic you can imagine.

Can I join?
You can be a hard-core gamer or completely new to gaming. It does not matter. What does, is a mature attitude at all times, that you put your team before yourself and that you play fair. Our members have a diverse range of abilities; some are highly experienced gaming veterans, others are relatively new to gaming ââ,¬â€œ but we all work together, as a team, to complete the game objectives and to help each other enjoy the game to the fullest extent.

What games do you play?
There is no set list as to the games which we enjoy together. Any game which evolves around team work, has strategic and tactical elements, or has a serious simulation aspect, is within our scope. With a community of this size we play several games, with these being the most actively played:

Tactical gaming: BC2, ARMA2, Left4Dead, CoD 4.
Simulation: Live for Speed, rFactor (with HistoriX mod), iRacing and NetKarPro.
MMORPG: World of Warcraft (under the name of Dead Men Raiding)

Where possible, the Community provides game servers for members to enjoy their game of choice. This includes Ventrilo and Teamspeak servers so that Members can strategise and socialise at the same time and we highly encourage members to join.

As a member you are free to play all the listed games in the community.

When do you play?
We have weekly gaming days to coordinate gaming. You are free to play on the servers at anytime, but the best action is on specific days. At present, for example, Mondays are for COD4, Wednesday are for the L4D Zombie Chomp Hoedown and Thursdays hold the weekly 1 hour Live for Speed race challenge, and Fridays are often a free for all, currently on BFBC2, known for its social banter yet very intense gaming.

Is it free or what?
Being part of dMw is completely free. By registering you have full access to the servers, the forum and the various events. The community including the servers and the forum, is maintained through donations, supporting members (voluntary subscription with some benefits), LAN-fees and through an affiliate program with several, large online retailers.

Whereââ,¬â,,¢s your BC2 Server?
  Search on: deadmen.co.uk
  IP  85.236.102.67   Port: 22067
  Register at www.deadmen.co.uk (http://www.deadmen.co.uk/) to get access to our TeamSpeak 3 server.

What Can I Expect?  
  Ã,·         Tactical Play
  Ã,·         Active Admins
  Ã,·         Variety of BC2 Game Modes

What Have You Got To Lose...

You could stick that Tuesday is ARMA2 day as you have the rest of the week in :)

Hi Dan,

There are a few literals but overall it's pretty good.
 
I'd use long-established rather than well-established

with a community of this size we play several games, with these being the most actively played:

I'd amend to

with a community of this size we play several different games and formats. For example, the games currently most being played include:  

either way good job :)

Silly one:

"Where's your BC2 server?" I'd change to Where's the dMw BC2 Server" or "Where's our BC2 Server"

One final one.  Having posed the final question "What Have You Got To Lose..." tell them what they need to do: "Click here now (http://www.deadmen.co.uk/forum/register.php) to join the Dead Men Walking gaming community!"

And if you make that change probably amend "Register at //www.deadmen.co.uk to get access to our TeamSpeak 3 server. " to "Join us on our TS3 server while you play BC2 (details for registered members at www.deadmen.co.uk)"

:2cents:

Thanks for all the feedback.

I've included all suggestions in the final copy below.

Pen, thanks for your input. The opening didn't sit right with me either. I've made an additional change to it to make it flow a bit better.

Hope you guys like it!

Who Are We?
  Dead Men Walking (dMw) (est. 1996) is a highly social, international online gaming community with over 400 active members spanning most of the globe. We are known for fun, mature and professionalgaming and our large and social community, with the highlight being the bi-annual LAN events held in the United Kingdom.

dMw provides a home to gamers who enjoy both gaming as well as being part of a wider social online community. The key is in our highly active forum, which presently holds more than a quarter of a million posts. In addition to coordinating weekly gaming days, Christmas battles, bi-annual LAN-parties and summer BBQs, it helps members share information, provide help and support, discuss technology, cyber security and current affairs ââ,¬â€œ or just about any other topic you can imagine.

Can I join?
You can be a hard-core gamer or completely new to gaming. It does not matter. What does, is a mature attitude at all times, that you put your team before yourself and that you play fair. Our members have a diverse range of abilities; some are highly experienced gaming veterans, others are relatively new to gaming ââ,¬â€œ but we all work together, as a team, to complete the game objectives and to help each other enjoy the game to the fullest extent.

What games do you play?
There is no set list as to the games which we enjoy together. Any game which evolves around team work, has strategic and tactical elements, or has a serious simulation aspect, is within our scope. With a community of this size we play several different games and formats. For example the games currently being the most actively played:

Tactical gaming: BC2, ARMA2, Left4Dead, CoD 4.
Simulation: Live for Speed, rFactor (with HistoriX mod), iRacing and NetKarPro.
MMORPG: World of Warcraft (under the name of Dead Men Raiding)

Where possible, the Community provides game servers for members to enjoy their game of choice. This includes Ventrilo and Teamspeak servers so that Members can strategise and socialise at the same time and we highly encourage members to join.

As a member you are free to play all the listed games in the community.

When do you play?
We have weekly gaming days to coordinate gaming. You are free to play on the servers at anytime, but the best action is on specific days. At present, for example, Mondays are for COD4, Tuesday is ARMA2, Wednesdayââ,¬â,,¢s  are for the L4D Zombie Chomp Hoedown and Thursdays hold the weekly 1 hour Live for Speed race challenge, and Fridays are often a free for all, currently on BFBC2, known for its social banter yet very intense gaming.

Is it free or what?
Being part of dMw is completely free. By registering you have full access to the servers, the forum and the various events. The community including the servers and the forum, is maintained through donations, supporting members (voluntary subscription with some benefits), LAN-fees and through an affiliate program with several, large online retailers.

Whereââ,¬â,,¢s the dMw BC2 Server?

  Search on: deadmen.co.uk

  IP  85.236.102.67   Port: 22067

  Join us on our TS3 server while you play BC2 (details for registered members at www.deadmen.co.uk (http://www.deadmen.co.uk/))

What Can I Expect?
     Ã,·         Tactical Play
  Ã,·         Active Admins
  Ã,·         Variety of BC2 Game Modes

What Have You Got To Lose...

Click here now (http://www.deadmen.co.uk/forum/register.php) to join the Dead Men Walking gaming community!

Taking this to the next level...

If we don't want this thread to be lost in the mix we need to Bump it every so often.

I was thinking that the best way to do that would be to get our members over to that thread every once and a while and post how BRILLIANT they think it is here. If we post a link in the supporting members area that brings folks to the exact thread to comment on it will be a doddle for them too.

Let me know what you think on that one..

Also, for the rest of the GL's, please feel free to take the "final copy" and morph it into your own. It's good for the community and good for your game.

NF

Folks,
 
I know you're all busy in RL and so am I.. Any more comments or changes? I'd like to post this up later tonight..
 
NF

Looks good to me!

Pickey, pickey, pickey, but 'professionalgaming', should that be two words?
Otherwise it's looking good.

Thanks for the feedback Snooks. I'll review the post I made on EA's site and see if I can ammend.

** Edit ** Now corrected. Thanks again!
 
NF

Guys,

What is the general opinion of this: http://www.clanspam.com/about-us.php

Should we or shouldn't we?

NF

Looks alright Ninj, I get the feeling with BC2 more than just about any other game we've played tho is that it purely takes bodies on the server to get the thing going & I'm not too sure how much anything else will help - still doesn't hurt to get out there & be seen.

I say do it. The Arma 2 area on there is under represented too :)

OK.. Will give it a shot in the next couple of days.

NF

With Lan XX coming up and the biggest turn out that we possible could ever have I reckon it's time to bump this topic.

I have read it through and heres what I learnt from uni.

Gaming societies start off with good intentions but soon close down due to lack of interest/ time that the organisers can give so honestly this is a no go.

Pen and TL spoke to me about business cards a while back maybe when I was beginning to become or was TGL for BC2.

Is this possible to get these made for Lan XX?

Even if we gave 5 to each Lan goer thats 5 more potential community members.

Not sure what exactly what we want on them but I guess it could be a shot?

Also I am still semi friendly with some staff at Pc Gamer so they could pimp us in the mag if you like?

Thats about it for now as always I will think of other stuff to add here as and when it comes to my mind.

Sorry Ghosty being a bit thick here, how would business cards work for a mainly virtual world we are in?   Apart from a the LAN but then anyone there is already a member?

Business cards can be digital as well as bits of cardboard. While I'd never suggest we all have the same signature files, we could have a dMw Pimpy week now and then, where we ask (purely voluntary) for our members to use an official dMw signature graphic (the business card) on any other forums, web sites, Facebook etc. they use. Maybe community leaders, game leaders could use the official card more frequently in sig files. We could add it to our blog sites, Flickr pages etc. basically anywhere we go online we can take the dMw 'brand'. Again I seriously don't believe we should be making anyone do anything with their on-line identity but it would not hurt to ask politely.

Physical cards would probably be less useful although we could start dropping them about at Uni', work, locations where we socialise or play sport etc. WHo knows.

Business cards are quite cheap from places like Vista Print. I think I pay £20ish for five hundred glossy colour cards.

Quote from: GhostMjr;324373Pen and TL spoke to me about business cards a while back

Huh?  That's something I'm afraid I do not remember at all.  And tbh I'm not keen on it as I think it is mis-directed effort.  Publicity we certainly talked about, I think you mentioned it as something to use at gaming conventions, but I agree with the above comments - it's an electronic world and actual business cards are almost redundant imo.

Personally I think Smilo's idea has some legs.
 
Of course we couldn't use it in other gaming community forums necessarily. We could use it on say Multiplay or similar sites.
 
Can we draft or create a template for folks to use?
 
NF

Well maybe not a business card but some line of official dMw branding might be an idea? Digital it otherwise.

--

Sent from my Mobile.

Digital signatures and the like are fine imo, I was negative on the card aspect.

I think I need to clarify my post so bear with me.

My idea is to make up business cards for the community as a whole not individuals.

I have been in many situations over the years where I have had to scramble for a pen or verbally describe the community without a card to present and handover.

I don't mean a card for everyone of us more of a single community card saying who and what we are.

If we do this as a one off for around the price that Smilo has said we might get a fair few referrals.

We do this by giving say 5 or 10 to attendees at the LAN and say "hand these to people you think would like to join our community".

If it flies it flies if it doesn't we've done a one off marketing venture that hasn't cost that must money.

If it does we can do it every LAN as a rolling marketing campaign.

I think that most people I know that might be into something like dMw would be capable of just looking up the site online, if they need a business card to point them in the right direction then there probably not into the sort of thing that they'd find here.

Well i work in quite a large IT department which means i don't know all of the staff, if i were to pop a few flyers or business cards on the tables, in our kitchen for example, i can more or less guarantee there would be some interest. Its not just telling the people you know about dmw, its getting the word around to a group of people that 'could' be interested. At the end of the day there isn't anything to lose.  Putting a business card in an 'advertising board' in a small local pc repair shop or film rental shop, for example, would catch the eyes of people that are into our sort of thing.  You may only get maybe 4 or 5 players sign up over a certain amount of time but like i said you haven't lost anything.....

The problem with digital signatures is you have to be very very careful where you post it.  You cant go posting on another communities forum with our web address.

I kinda like the idea of the classic business card/flyer idea if it grabs someone's attention, as long as there not just given out willy nilly  :blink:

anyway, i'll shut up now :D

Having discussed it with Ghost, it's a small amount of dosh to give it a punt. Initially I thought he was after the admins or GL's having Business Cards which is wack.

As we discussed, as a one-off I don't see the harm.

NF

Quote from: TeaLeaf;324403Huh?  That's something I'm afraid I do not remember at all.

Ditto.

I don't mind allocating some cash for it if people want some cards, think they'd be useful and Council agree :)

Quote from: Penfold;324453Ditto.

I don't mind allocating some cash for it if people want some cards, think they'd be useful and Council agree :)

Ok if the council is in agreement to spend the cash can we please get some ideas flying around for the designs?

I was thinking a bog standard white card with black writing on it or we could go with white on black?

How about this as a starter?

Do we really need to say 'Mature'? That suggests that we only allow older gamers to join, which I'm pretty sure isn't the case.

Mature always referred to mature in approach rather than age, but the phrase could easily be misinterpreted. Maybe we should qualify the meaning although I'm struggling to think of a concise alternative. Also IMHO I think we need to be putting the web address right at the heart of the card. And we should be directing people there not just to get access to the TS3 server but for all the dMw offerings

QuoteDead Men Walking (dMw) is an online gaming community aimed at mature gamers who prefer and emphasis teamwork and tactical gameplay. We play a variety of games including BC2, COD, LFS, Arma2 and WoW. Apart from hosting our own game servers we run a Team Speak server, a large friendly forum with over 300,000 posts and counting, twice yearly LAN weekends and many online gaming tournaments.

Join us by registering at //www.deadmen.co.uk

I think the first option but without the TS3 information is best. People can get that from the forum once they join.

Maybe a QR-code graphic as well, they tend to catch the eye of the type of people likely to be into gaming.

(http://qrcode.kaywa.com/img.php?s=5&d=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.deadmen.co.uk)

And people will snap it just to see what it is.

I like the idea of the QR Code. Says tech savvy.

Good idea Lib. We should have that as an option costed out so we don't spend too much on this initial run.
 
NF

I like the code idea, good shout.

Can someone please volunteer to take the lead on this one and get some prices and designs made up?

I can't currently do it due to personal commitments.

I'd like to have something ready for us to hand out at the LAN preferably?

Thanks

With the lan 5 weeks away I guess its time we tried to get this rolling.

Has anyone come up with any designs for the business cards yet?

How do we get a qr code?

It's already on my own pre-LAN agenda as promised, but it will be waiting until I am back from holiday.  Interestingly QR code is used way more in Canada than in the UK, it's a normal part of advertising here.