Suggestions to Fill The Server Again.... - POST HERE PLEASE

[Gone_Away]

Guys..

About 3 weeks ago we peaked at about 2000 on in the GameTracker Rankings... Since then we've seen a steady decline.

This is a great game. It's a shame that it caused some issues for some folks and that it was a bit too modern for some folks liking. I gotta believe we can turn this thing back around.

It's not for trying that's for sure.. I see ArithonUK and TwoBad among other seeding the server on a regular basis.. The problem is that we're just not getting the traffic of publics.

Let's throw up some thoughts and ideas and see where it takes us shall we?? I'll append your thoughts / ideas below.

To Consider:

1. Vanilla - Do we go back to vanilla settings including health re-gen?
2. Clan Matches - Do we get involved in league play (even if we get our asses handed to us) or even the odd scrim to generate some traffic?
3. Publicity - How can we get people to play on our server again? Do they know we're here?
4. Hardcore or Vanilla?
5. Man of the Month.
6. Video Creation

[Vargen]

You mention the health regen. I don't think we should re-enable it, but I think that it may be making us a bit too hardcore for the avarage carebear looking to be invincible in a tank, and just not hardcore enough for the hardcore players. I guess we could take a poll amongst members to go carebear mode or full on hardcore. I know most of my friends outside the community play only on hc servers. The only thing I miss on HC is the spot ability really.

The problem atm with BF3 is something you see on many servers. People join servers that are full or close to full, and don't want to wait for games to start. The game also isn't very enjoyable with few players on a server. Something you see when server numbers start to drop late at night, a server usually dies out completely pretty fast. In example bf.no have 17 servers, but only 3 to 4 of them usually have ppl on them, as nobody wants to start seeding an empty server.

I see some of the servers that usually have lots of players has increased ticket number in the server name. That could be one way of pulling more players. Also one of the servers I play on regularly has "bigmaps" "double tickets" "ff" in the server name. That pulls a lot, but also servers with "HC" and "inf only". I also see that bf.no enforce no vehicles before 8v8, which would be nice I guess, but then they have 64 player conquest servers. 3v3 might be more suitable if we adopt that rule.

[ArithonUK]

I think Vargen has some very valid points.

Mabye we try a two-prong approach. One month we go "hardcore" "big tickets" and see how numbers fare, then go one month "noobs welcome" and re-instate health regen. Then see how number fare. There's no magic bullet here, I think we just need to put a toe in the water and see.

Perhaps (and I don't know what dMw's past history is on competitions) but how does a "player of the month" sound. The player (public or otherwise) who puts in the most (playtime / score) ratio in a month wins a prize? Announce at and plug it in as many places as possible and see how that goes.

A £5 BluRay from Play (there's a lot of good ones on sale now) or a PC game or voucher (iTunes, Amazon etc.) is possible.

[TheDvEight]

Create a clan alliance - to have friendly scrims with promote each other's websites on respective servers.



Stop changing the server name


When the server numbers get back up we need to keep a close eye on team balanec (no one likes getting there but handed to em)


Player of the month sounds good - i have pc parts collecting dust i dont mind parting with (*player of the month should be a non dMw member, a server regular and forum registerd)

keep conquest small and rush small with adaptive tickets till numbers get back up then we seriously need to look at the map rotation.....the big maps pull in the big numbers for example Operation metro 500 tickets, B2k maps on conquest large (obviosly numbers permitting)


We also need to attract new members to the dMw/forums so they can help seed the server.


Be welcoming to server regulars (pubbies) - at the end of the day this is simple see a regular on the server ? say hi how are you (this is just friendly and helps them remember the server and keeps them coming back)

[Blunt]

I think Vargen has some very valid points.

Mabye we try a two-prong approach. One month we go "hardcore" "big tickets" and see how numbers fare, then go one month "noobs welcome" and re-instate health regen. Then see how number fare. There's no magic bullet here, I think we just need to put a toe in the water and see.

Perhaps (and I don't know what dMw's past history is on competitions) but how does a "player of the month" sound. The player (public or otherwise) who puts in the most (playtime / score) ratio in a month wins a prize? Announce at and plug it in as many places as possible and see how that goes.

A £5 BluRay from Play (there's a lot of good ones on sale now) or a PC game or voucher (iTunes, Amazon etc.) is possible.

Good ideas
But why a month? we have enough control over the server to do a "hardcore night" or a "regen week" or vica verca
not sure that prizes are needed, kudos counts

Create a clan alliance - to have friendly scrims with promote each other's websites on respective servers.



Stop changing the server name


When the server numbers get back up we need to keep a close eye on team balanec (no one likes getting there but handed to em)


Player of the month sounds good - i have pc parts collecting dust i dont mind parting with (*player of the month should be a non dMw member, a server regular and forum registerd)

keep conquest small and rush small with adaptive tickets till numbers get back up then we seriously need to look at the map rotation.....the big maps pull in the big numbers for example Operation metro 500 tickets, B2k maps on conquest large (obviosly numbers permitting)


We also need to attract new members to the dMw/forums so they can help seed the server.


Be welcoming to server regulars (pubbies) - at the end of the day this is simple see a regular on the server ? say hi how are you (this is just friendly and helps them remember the server and keeps them coming back)

Agreed, but how do we get new members?
how about asking the latest batch of newcomers what it was that attracted them to our server...
there's loads of regulars, do you friend them in origin via after match reports etc.?
I'm sure we'll get the numbers up after new year.
If it's any consolation, this convo is being had on most of our games and on most clan servers everywhere atm

[TheDvEight]

With regards to the numbers blunt i dont think we can do much more...not that i can think off just encouge the publics that do come on the server to keep coming back.

[TwoBad]

We need to advertise, right?  So let's make a trailer and get it on YouTube (as i suggested with BC2 back in June).  Both Arithon and i have put stuff together before and i'm sure we can do it again.  We can "create" some action scenes to a story line and if we all use Fraps we get multiple views of the same action.  Set it to the BF3 music and get it on the YouTube dMw channel.

One thing i remember from a few weeks ago was one of our newest members saying about how he'd enjoyed playing with us (hence he joined) and how in one game when he was pinned down from enemy fire he called for support over TS and a few seconds later the Apache came to his aid.  That's the sort of teamwork we need to show the world they get here and why THEY should be in dMw.

[Gone_Away]

I agree with dickdastardly. It is something he does really well tbh and that is "flirting" with the publics. It is something that we all must do. When a public joins give them a minute to play and then say hello. If they respond then get a dialogue going. That's how people come back.

I think a video is a good idea but it will still be like everything else.. How do we get traffic to our video on YouTube?

Perhaps we can get something sorted for the match tomorrow and get some shots together? what you think of that?

NF

[TheDvEight]

Shots sounds good for a video promo tomorrow i still think a clan alliance would be good to promote traffic

[TeaLeaf]

Very happy to support any initiatives to increase dMw's profile and the server population and I welcome the fact it is being discussed.  Obviously if we're going to issue a dMw video or any other promotionals then it might be sensible to include Penfold or me in the discussion as we're the ones who need to sign off on any content.

[Gone_Away]

Not a problem TL. Until we have content for review I won't waste your time.

NF

[Gone_Away]

It is for this very reason that we need to create YouTube vids..

http://www.deadmen.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?32584-How-did-you-find-dmw&p=340944&viewfull=1#post340944

[TwoBad]

Something else we could try are web page adverts.  I don't know about anyone else but i have my own website and could easily put a page up.

 I remember when i was looking for a UK based BC2 "clan" 18 months ago and dMw didn't feature in the Google results at all.  I know we are a Gaming Community and not a clan but until i found you guys i didn't know that was what i wanted to be a part of!

 The more pages out there that advertise and point to dMw there better, don't you think?

[TheDvEight]

http://www.google.co.uk/#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&source=hp&q=deadmen&oq=deadmen&aq=f&aqi=g4&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=3562l4797l2l5031l7l5l1l0l0l0l234l764l0.2.2l5l0&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=acc135da6d1347b&biw=1920&bih=876




The youtube account could be a cool thing to do.

[TwoBad]

Excellent DD, but if you have never heard of deadmen..............

If you have heard of 'em then you probably wouldn't be Googling...

I've just Googled "bc2 uk clan" which is what i did 18 months ago and we are now in the results :clap:, at about 350 :sad:, which isn't very good if you ask me!  (and it's for a thread stated less than two months ago).

If you search for "bf3 uk clan" we are about 150th in the results with a post that Ninja did BF3 Official Clan Tag *** BC2 BADGEHOLDERS TAKE NOTE!! *** and that's it out of the first 1000 results!!

I found dMw by chance while playing BC2 on a school night that just happened to have Ninja playing on as well.  I had spent a fair bit of time looking on Google and found several other clans which i did make contact with but never did i see dMw!!

What i am saying is we should be aiming for dMw to be among the first few results for what people ACTUALLY search for, deadmen WILL NOT be one of the things people type into Google.