New Management Structure

[Penfold]

To all those that PM'd me, thanks for your support. The response was along the lines that I expected but I still felt compelled to say it anyway.

Well if we want an honest and open debate then will those people stand up an be counted? Post here in the open then for everyone to see. Good or Bad lets get the entire story

This is an interesting thread and I think some of the points raised are worthwhile. The problem is wading through the personal attacks and general mud-slinging to get to them.

Please, can everyone not make this personal. We're all adult enough and sensible enough to have a discussion without it degradating into personal slights and counter-slights.

At the end of the day we all want the same thing and have the same objective. To make sure dMw survives and thrives and continues to be the first port of call for like-minded gamers.

How we get there and how we grow the membership - without losing what makes dMw such a special place - is not an easy question and one I don't know the answer to. Frankly I wouldn't know where to start. I only play on dMw servers and would rather not play then play on some random public server.

As regards to the Community funds, I thought the current system was pretty transparant. There is currently 3 revenue streams: 1. LAN 2. Supporting members and 3. Donations.

The Donations Thread has worked well in the past and lists all money coming in from paypal and supporting members and the LAN and what money goes out. Since I took over the LAN and the accounts I've always been scruplous about keeping the accounts and posting them up accounting for every penny. Ninja has done the previous LAN's accounts (and I hope he'll agree to continue to do them) as they were far prettier than mine. But if that's not transparent enough then I'm sure it can changed.

I know Ninja's gone camping now (gl with the weather ) and I'm sure thre's plenty more to be said.

Once more, let's keep it generic. Given the current mindset I'm sure I'll be abused for this post but don't expect me to get into a slanging match. We all know each other pretty well and all seem to get on remarkably well given the diversity here. I quite like the fact that I have friends ageing from 15 to 60+* and from all over Europe.

PEN

PS. If there is to be a PR officer (and it's not a bad idea) please don't make me do it!


* = edited to be more inclusive

[Doorman]

I quite like the fact that I have friends aging from 15 to 60 and from all over Europe.

That lets me out!

[OldBloke]

Thanks for the words of support, Sparko. I think it's great here too

why is there so much negativity? ...

It's born out of frustration, IMHO. The Section Admins are fighting to keep their section popular and active but the members want new games which, when provided, are then perceived as stealing the players from the struggling section which just amplifies that section's problems. All is fixed if we can get lots of people playing lots of games.

When the team isn't doing so well, we attack the manager. That's OK because TeaLeaf and I are paid[1] to take the flak and it helps deflect the problem away from the guys running the sections.

[1] I lied about being paid :flirty:

[delanvital]

All is fixed if we can get lots of people playing lots of games.

OB, regarding the discussion with NF above - about getting more members and keeping the dMw standard up: I am just curious about a thing. I feel like you two are talking uhm, past each other, dunno how to say that.

You are right, that having non-dMw-standard servers attracts tons of players which we are not interested in - per se. But! I cannot help but see this as a potential market for members. I don't see it as lowering standards. It is adding an "outer layer" to the core of what we do. I see it as attracting a market of players, which, kept outside the normal scheme of things, can bring our awesomeness (copyright, Kung Fu Panda) to their attention. I, for one, had no idea how BF2 was played when I joined but I learned. I did all the wrong things in CS, but learned. And if I can, so can others for sure

I am sure there are many people with a latent need for tactical gaming, we just need to show them. Having a server with people on it is a great way to attract people. If they want the dMw tags, play matches and what not, they would still have to understand and enjoy the dMw ethos. I see this as a great opportunity to increase the potential dMw-standard players we seek. Some are hopeless, some just need to read the MOTD - and some out there might even be searching for places like ours.

I might have gotten NF wrong, but I feel he is trying to explain this point. That it is not lowering the dMw standard. It is using our capacity to make a non-dMw gaming area, where we make it clear it is non-dMw and we advertise our playing style. Like boomer of a sort. Because you frag about you might just be ignorant. Let me know what you think?

Put differently: I would rather have the trouble of sorting the weed from the chaff, than having no cornfield at all. Wooho for an analogy

[OldBloke]

OB, regarding the discussion with NF above - about getting more members and keeping the dMw standard up: I am just curious about a thing. I feel like you two are talking uhm, past each other, dunno how to say that.

You are right, that having non-dMw-standard servers attracts tons of players which we are not interested in - per se. But! I cannot help but see this as a potential market for members. I don't see it as lowering standards. It is adding an "outer layer" to the core of what we do. I see it as attracting a market of players, which, kept outside the normal scheme of things, can bring our awesomeness (copyright, Kung Fu Panda) to their attention. I, for one, had no idea how BF2 was played when I joined but I learned. I did all the wrong things in CS, but learned. And if I can, so can others for sure

I am sure there are many people with a latent need for tactical gaming, we just need to show them. Having a server with people on it is a great way to attract people. If they want the dMw tags, play matches and what not, they would still have to understand and enjoy the dMw ethos. I see this as a great opportunity to increase the potential dMw-standard players we seek. Some are hopeless, some just need to read the MOTD - and some out there might even be searching for places like ours.

I might have gotten NF wrong, but I feel he is trying to explain this point. That it is not lowering the dMw standard. It is using our capacity to make a non-dMw gaming area, where we make it clear it is non-dMw and we advertise our playing style. Like boomer of a sort. Because you frag about you might just be ignorant. Let me know what you think?

Put differently: I would rather have the trouble of sorting the weed from the chaff, than having no cornfield at all. Wooho for an analogy

If you're talking about public servers that we control and where we ask our members to play the dMw way as a demonstration of teamwork in action (our awesomeness - I'm comfortable with that. We already have servers for CSS and CoD4 that kind of do this but, in addition, they are administered to positively discourage fraghunting. Are you suggesting that the admin function could be relaxed so that our playing style is the only difference between a dMw public server and a non-dMw public server?

If, as both you and NF seem to be advocating, we have public servers where there are no restrictions and our members do not play the dMw way - how does the fact that we advertise our community's teamwork ethos within that server stack up with the fact that the tag-wearing players are failing to demonstrate anything of the kind? How long would it be before one of the members got so fed up with being TW'd that he/she started retaliating and how would that enhance our chances of attracting clean gamers?

I'm interested in hearing other people's views on this but I'm at a loss to see how a public server that bears our name and advertises our ethos can be regarded as a 'shop window' for our community when it has no redeeming features.

[Penfold]

Whitey, when the CS servers were dying and you got a load of fresh blood in how/what did you do? I can't remember :g:.

CoD public has managed to recruit some great people - Tom Cornwall for example springs to mind. That was done by playing the way that we do and people finding us and realising that it's the way it should be played :wink:. However the people we get are few and far between with that method.

Is it better to get people like that - who see the way we play and then decide they like it or do we open the doors, let everyone in and then boot those that don't follow the rules? Personally, I'd rather we have fewer quality people than a load of ne'er-do-wells but I can see the arguments for both.

Whichever way we go, we still need to entice people on to the server and I'm not sure how that's best achieved?? Perhaps this is where we turn to those people who dare to step outside dMw and play with the gaming community elsewhere.

I notice the NeoTokyo server is getting maxed out with 22 pubbies every night... perhaps that's a good place to start?

[Benny]

I notice the NeoTokyo server is getting maxed out with 22 pubbies every night... perhaps that's a good place to start?

That's a server full of chancers who joined a low ping game. I can't be 'arrised to jump in there and not enjoy it with a load of screaming kids....spot the huge assumption.

Having a shop window is one thing. The other way to recruit other than advertise is for members to play elsewhere (N42, AoK?, miserable old gamers or whatever it was). That's how I got here...and a number of others.

It used to be posts in the newsgroups, nowadays it's forums. Scan the Steam forums for players looking for a decent place to play and there are people there, they just need reaching out to. I've been tempted on L4D, but at present we have the population to fill the servers and I have no real requirement to. Once the game eases off a little I'll go trawling for new blood.

[Penfold]

AoKCC? wow brings back memories. Now called AFK and almost dead. A few people left like Fenris, MightyRed etc (squ0nk will know them) but little else.

We talked about the CS newsgroup at the BBQ and reminisced about all those evenings on FreeAgent surfing the NGs.

Active recruiting is a good idea but it needs someone to go out and do it (Ninja's idea of a PR/Member officer). I like it so long as we don't go and advertise where we shouldn't. We would get hacked off with people coming here to advertise, I imagine that cuts both ways.

One thing we can offer is a home and servers and a dedicated team of people to run them. Surely there's some leverage in that somewhere?

[Dewey]

A few inane ramblings and thoughts...

I play on RIP (Rusty in places) servers when the dMw server is empty. Its  relevant because its always busy on that server and yet its also administered quite well and they have a similar ethos to ourselves.

As a previous clan founder of RIP, I know there are some similarities with dMw with regards to fairness, tactical play and teamwork.

While I think many of the people here are unique :narnar: (which is why I like it so much) we need to be realistic and acknowledge that there are other clans who have similar ethos to ourselves and who have large clan bases (though that isn't always necessarily a good thing either!).

So for example if someone accidentally TK's you in COD 4 on a RIP server they have to apologise. If they don't they get a warning then they are booted.

Its not perfect (no server is), you get occasional bunny hopping and fragness but on the whole the players (the vast majority of whom aren't RIP) police themselves and quickly jump on a player who doesn't apologise before bringing bad behaviour to the attention of an admin.

Last night someone was rude to a player, swearing etc and after a warning was quickly ejected from the server by an admin.

I think if we could set up a server like this (which I think maybe similar in thinking to delanvitals and NF) and which is robustly but fairly administered with clear rules on acceptable behaviour from the out set, it will attract the sort of players dMw are looking for - mature players who enjoy good teamwork and fun (which is what OB and all dMw players want).

I notice on RIP servers the same names each night - its no coincidence they return and then RIP cherry pick the players they want - inviting them to join RIP and the idiots don't get in.

This model isn't unique, but perhaps what has made some of these servers such good recruiting tools isn't how they are administered (as I think we do a good job of that) but perhaps how quickly we get a public server set up for new games. I'm also aware that this in itself can be difficult ie to second guess which games are worth buying and taking the trouble to provide a decent public server for it (not to mention the issue of dividing the community with new games). The reality is we are in a competitive market and servers quickly become established, perhaps what we need to do, is ensure its the dMw servers that are established once the powers that be have decided on which games to support.

Another possible issue is that you do need a fairly large number of dMw people on these servers who will kickstart them into life - ie get 4 people and to get the pubs interest so they join.

Sorry I don't seem to have offered any solutions, I understand peoples frustrations but reading between the lines I think we all want the same thing - dMw to improve, remain loyal to our core values (marketing spiel) and grow and thats a good thing

[sulky_uk]

talking about a game dying and trying to revitalise it is something that i am involved in with another game/clan at the moment.
 
so bear with this story
 
I play a game called battlegrounds 2, the game is excellant and involves teamplay because we play linebattles, ie just like waterloo etc, we line up and shoot each other till we run out of oposition. the game involves tactics of trying to get into a better positition than your enemy.
 
Well everything was going swimingly until about 18 months ago when the game designers upgraded the game into using the tf2 platform as its base program.. ie orange box. Anyhow with the changes came problems and then ppl started to leave.
 
over the last 6 months we have been organising public line battles, this is where anyone can turn up and have a go, it has been very unproductive, we have maybe recruited 4-5 players, 99% of the time we get 13-17 yr old immature little gits who arent interested in the disicpline of the game, and ultimatly most of them get kicked quite quickley. They then go and terroise another server.
 
so at the moment that clan is about to die, and im a liitle sad about it.
 
If we decided to open up servers to the pub's i can say that we would get more problems than it is worth.
 
 
How about doing something differant, every month PC gamer magazine used to post a little 2 or 3 line post about a couple of clans with the Url. I dont know if this costs anything but if a post in a mag like that costs about Ã,£50 wouldnt that be worth a go? from what i remeber one of their team comes onto the server has a little play and writes said 2 or 3 lines. I dont get said mag any more, but maybe something like that would be an idea.

[Penfold]

Another possible issue is that you do need a fairly large number of dMw people on these servers who will kickstart them into life - ie get 4 people and to get the pubs interest so they join.

I like it. This is not a bad idea to get some action but it would involve everyone doing their part.

[Gibbo]

hmm i dont no what to say if you want help im up and ready

[smilodon]

Started an idea thread here. Probably pants but it's me posted so what did you expect

http://www.deadmen.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?p=283110#post283110

[Whitey]

Whitey, when the CS servers were dying and you got a load of fresh blood in how/what did you do? I can't remember :g:.

We opened up a public server and stayed on it for about 4 hours most evenings, mainly playing with bots (and Blunt and Norm).  We had a lot of frag hunters but also picked out the more mature players and asked them to sign up on the forum.  The move of SoG to the forum was a huge help as there were quite a few members who decided to try CS and liked the way we played and were then very active as well (Oth, SJ, Kreg, Bastet... to name a few).  

I think we've started down the right path  (open up public servers early in the products life) but the catch is that we need to have dMw people on the servers to show how we play and point the people that turn up to the forum (we have in-game adverts with the URL but you can't beat the personal touch).


I have been surprised by how active the NEOTOKYO server has been and am happy to see dMw tag holders on there advertising the community as well.  If we can convert even 1% of the players who visit the server into a members of community, it would make a huge difference to our numbers.

As I pointed out in the post made when I took over the server admin job, I need your help in identifying new games/mods that will appeal to the dMw style of play, so please do let me know if you have any suggestions.

[Armitage]

The only way will increase server population is by having dMw members  playing on unlocked servers and keep them active as many days of the week as we can. between 4/6 dMw players is all you need to bring Joe public in. We ended up having a good game this Friday night around Midnight. and we pulled in 4 or so Joes'. one was a dick, but that's the price you will have to pay.

I say unlock the CS and L4D servers. we no longer play COD on a Monday with a locked server and tonight was a great example of passing trade.

I know it's tough if you are waiting to get on the cod server and 50% of people are untagged. but some of these will keep coming back. and that can only be good.