[OT] Just when you thought Ryan Dancey dropped off the face of the world...
matthew...@gmail.com
http://web.mac.com/rsdancey/iWeb/RSDanceyBlog/Blog/C44E7E19-26A7-4C05-89B8-15803410A740.html
Apparently, Dancey is capable of complaining about games and
companies other than the one he's working for at the time.
I avoided the temptation of posting a question about the future
of VTES on his blog comments. Too easy.
--heslin
ps: It's been a while - hope all'a'y'all are doing well.
Robert Goudie
matthew.hes...@gmail.com wrote:
> He's baaaa-aaaack...
>
> http://web.mac.com/rsdancey/iWeb/RSDanceyBlog/Blog/C44E7E19-26A7-4C05-89B8-15803410A740.html
>
> Apparently, Dancey is capable of complaining about games and
> companies other than the one he's working for at the time.
Oh brother. Did you see the section about his resume?
"I was fortunate enough to co-create Legend of the Five Rings, and Five
Rings Publishing Group, and while at Wizards of the Coast I worked on a
dozen trading card games and a half dozen roleplaying games."
He was "in-charge" of all of the classic CCGs. I hope that's not what
he's calling "worked on". Afterall, the only "work" he did on V:TES was
to say he'd never ever print it.
-Robert
atomweaver
news:1168617424.7...@s34g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
> He's baaaa-aaaack...
>
> http://web.mac.com/rsdancey/iWeb/RSDanceyBlog/Blog/C44E7E19-26A7-4C05-8
> 9B8-15803410A740.html
>
> Apparently, Dancey is capable of complaining about games and
> companies other than the one he's working for at the time.
>
Suprisingly, his best opinions were reserved for White Wolf...
> I avoided the temptation of posting a question about the future
> of VTES on his blog comments. Too easy.
>
Heh. I'm not beneath that...
> --heslin
>
> ps: It's been a while - hope all'a'y'all are doing well.
>
Trust in Mat to get his Southern-hick pural grammaticals correct.
Good to see ya posting, buddy!
DZ
AW
atomweaver
news:1168619888.5...@q2g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
> Oh brother. Did you see the section about his resume?
>
> "I was fortunate enough to co-create Legend of the Five Rings, and
> Five Rings Publishing Group, and while at Wizards of the Coast I
> worked on a dozen trading card games and a half dozen roleplaying
> games."
>
> He was "in-charge" of all of the classic CCGs. I hope that's not what
> he's calling "worked on". Afterall, the only "work" he did on V:TES
> was to say he'd never ever print it.
>
Yeh. "worked over" might have been a better turn of phrase... ;-)
DZ
AW
atomweaver
LOL! Didja read Mike Tinney's response in the comments section..?
(Comment #10)
DZ
AW
OrgPlay
atomweaver wrote:
> matthew...@gmail.com wrote in
> news:1168617424.7...@s34g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
>
> > He's baaaa-aaaack...
> >
> > http://web.mac.com/rsdancey/iWeb/RSDanceyBlog/Blog/C44E7E19-26A7-4C05-8
> > 9B8-15803410A740.html
> >
> > Apparently, Dancey is capable of complaining about games and
> > companies other than the one he's working for at the time.
> >
>
> Suprisingly, his best opinions were reserved for White Wolf...
well. we made some big moves this year. :)
>
> > I avoided the temptation of posting a question about the future
> > of VTES on his blog comments. Too easy.
> >
>
> Heh. I'm not beneath that...
I'm always curious what the old-school kids from WotC think about the
continued success of vtes after all these years.
>
> > --heslin
hey buddy :)
oscar
atomweaver
news:1168622566....@11g2000cwr.googlegroups.com:
>> > I avoided the temptation of posting a question about the future
>> > of VTES on his blog comments. Too easy.
>> >
>>
>> Heh. I'm not beneath that...
>
> I'm always curious what the old-school kids from WotC think about the
> continued success of vtes after all these years.
>
Well, for the most part, I'd guess they probably think "Gee, Richard
Garfield really _is_ that good", plus a good dose of "White Wolf knows what
they're doing..."
I can get on board with some people's feelings that VTES hasn't grown to
the scale of a VS. or MTG because of its more grassroots structure, but
that same organization is what is apparently allowing it to last in the
long-term...
One other thought. We might need to think about migrating the primary VTES
community off of Usenet. There's too few people out there who remember
what Usenet is, nevermind how to access it... Google Groups cruddy
interface doesn't help much, nor does our out-dated group name. Don't get
me wrong, I love Usenet dearly, but being here, as opposed to a web-based
forum hurts our visibility and accessibility for new players...
If something like that were to be done, it'd have to be a conscious
action, organized and planned by the whole community.
DaveZ
Atom Weaver
kut...@gmail.com
So when is/are White Wolf/EVE going to announce a World of Darkness
themed MMORPG?
Jeff
atomweaver
news:1168628879.0...@l53g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
> So when is/are White Wolf/EVE going to announce a World of Darkness
> themed MMORPG?
>
Uhh. They pretty much announced it in the same press release that
announced the merger... No further details have been released since then,
though...
DZ
AW
James Coupe
kut...@gmail.com writes:
>So when is/are White Wolf/EVE going to announce a World of Darkness
>themed MMORPG?
In about, oh, minus two months, give or take.
http://www.white-wolf.com/index.php?line=news&articleid=629
Conceptualization and early development has begun to bring White
Wolf's World of Darkness, one of the world's strongest gaming
properties, into the online world.
"White Wolf possesses the RPG industry's leading offline gaming
talent and some of the most recognizable roleplaying properties
in the world," said Hilmar Petursson, CCP's Chief Executive
Officer. " Virtual worlds are a new form of entertainment,
separate from traditional computer games. By combining forces,
we will create a company unsurpassed in quality, innovation, and
scope which will keep us at the forefront of this emerging
trend."
--
James Coupe
PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR.
EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING.
13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.
ira...@gmail.com
> "OrgPlay" <org...@white-wolf.com> wrote in
> news:1168622566....@11g2000cwr.googlegroups.com:
> >> > I avoided the temptation of posting a question about the future
> >> > of VTES on his blog comments. Too easy.
> >>
> >> Heh. I'm not beneath that...
> >
> > I'm always curious what the old-school kids from WotC think about the
> > continued success of vtes after all these years.
>
> Well, for the most part, I'd guess they probably think "Gee, Richard
> Garfield really _is_ that good", plus a good dose of "White Wolf knows what
> they're doing..."
Hopefully they think something good about LSJ, too; in my mind, he's
one of the big reasons VTES has stayed strong. The fact that VTES
continues to grow is a testament to the great game design, among other
things.
Ira
XZealot
HELLOOOO!
HOW ARE YOU DOING OVER THERRRRE?
I CAN'T SEEM TO FIND THE CAPS LOCK OR STOP TYPING LIKE I AM YELLING
ACROSS THE GRAND CANYONNNNNN.
Comments Welcome,
Norman S. Brown, Jr
XZealot
Archon of the Swamp
LSJ
> atomweaver <atomw...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
> > One other thought. We might need to think about migrating the
> > primary VTES community off of Usenet.
>
> message. Damn my newsreader for deleting read messages! No, wait. I like
> that it does that...)
>
> In any case, I don't think this is actually necessary. Yeah, having to
> go through google.groups if you can't manage or figure out a newsreader
> is kind of sub optimal (heck, I know all about usenet and newsreaders,
> and it took me, like, 2 years to get my newsreader back up and running
> after switching from dial up to high speed, as it is incredibly
> difficult to find information on news servers from Roadrunner).
Hmm.
sc.rr.com (the South Carolina one) makes it rather easy to find.
I just clicked on "Members Help" -> "Server Settings" and it told me.
Peter D Bakija
LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote:
> Hmm.
>
> sc.rr.com (the South Carolina one) makes it rather easy to find.
>
> I just clicked on "Members Help" -> "Server Settings" and it told me.
I was never able to find something like that. I just tried and still
can't. I ended up finding the news server address by accidentally
stumbling on it in wikipedia, and even then, the first server address
was wrong and I had to find the actual one, also likely by accident.
Maybe it is just me, though.
Peter D Bakija
pd...@lightlink.com
http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html
atomweaver
in news:m3ejpzs...@nothung.homelinux.net:
> atomweaver <atomw...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
>> One other thought. We might need to think about migrating the
>> primary VTES community off of Usenet.
>
>snip usenet feature list...
>
>> There's too few people out there who remember
>> what Usenet is, nevermind how to access it...
>
> Then we could educate them. If they have enough brains to play VTES,
> they should have more than enough brains for Usenet.
>
>
>> Google Groups cruddy interface doesn't help much,
>
> Like I said, we could educate them. Google is for searching, not for
> reading.
>
I get it, and thats why I said what I did. Follow along with me, if you
will. My issue isn't with Usenet. Its with VTES's reduced visibility
because Usenet is where most experienced players are posting. This
community, as great as it is, as great as Usenet is, is buried _deep_
relative to the competition. We all may like it that way (I note the
astounding signal to noise ratio of the group), but to the rest of the CCG
community (potential VTES players) it would seem like this game's player
base is non-existant. I think this issue plays in to the whole "VTES?
Wasn't that game disontinued?" schtick that plays out every 6-12 months...
We've actually got quite a few players in VTES now (guessing maybe 15 to
25K worldwide total players), but nobody would know it, given their low
profile online.
>
>> nor does our out-dated group name. Don't get
>> me wrong, I love Usenet dearly, but being here, as opposed to a
>> web-based forum hurts our visibility and accessibility for new
>> players...
>
> How did you plan to search for LSJ's rulings in a web based forum, as
> opposed to a Google-archived Usenet group?
>
How about WW step up, and archive LSJ posts on an independent web-based
rules search engine? ...and seperate the wheat from the chaff of outdated
rulings while they're at it.
Regardless of the answer to your counter-question, you haven't addressed
my primary concern, which is that the visibility of VTES is suffereing for
having its best and brightest posting here, instead of at, say a VTES sub-
forum at tcgplayer.com, for greater visibility wrt other games... tcgplayer
gets 14 million page views and about 725,000 unique visitors (potential
VTES players) each month. We're not growing as fast as we should(could) as
a community of players, because a large number of potential players don't
know where to find us.
I think it'd be a fantastic idea for VTES to advertise there in a banner
ad campaign for 3rd Edition, the Player's Kit, and the upcoming Sword of
Caine, use the clout of being an advertiser to negotiate for a sub-forum to
be created for VTES (usually, a new game has to show some level of activity
in an "other games" super-buried sub-sub forum, before getting their own
board), and then get us, the VTES players, to populate the hell out of that
board as an additional means of attracting new players from other games.
Its a classic marketing tactic. If you're Burger King, the best place to
be is right next to McDonalds. If you're Target, you want to be next to a
Wal-Mart, etc. Since the VTES community is not as a whole, being greatly
supported by brick and mortar game stores, and its presence is largely
online, that presence is our single largest asset in promoting VTES, and
we're sqandering it by keeping to our own little out-of-the-way corner of
the Internet circa 1994. Hope the analogy is understood, I cannot tell
from your headers if my US-based examples are appropriate.
Regards,
DaveZ
Atom Weaver
Peter D Bakija
atomweaver <atomw...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> I get it, and thats why I said what I did. Follow along with me, if you
> will. My issue isn't with Usenet. Its with VTES's reduced visibility
> because Usenet is where most experienced players are posting. This
> community, as great as it is, as great as Usenet is, is buried _deep_
> relative to the competition.
But it doesn't have to be. There is a link to the newsgroup on the main
WW VTES web page; there is a link in The Lasombra's site. And lots of
other ones. Google.groups, for all its flaws, isn't completely horrible,
and works fine most of the time. Yeah, it lacks sexy graphics and the
ability to have flashing, blinking smily faces (so as a total, off topic
aside, I was playing this web game called Astro Wars for a while, and
had to interact in the game discussion forum with the rest of my team
which was Polish and/or Colombian. And let me tell you. Those guys had
the most garish, tacky taste in avatars. Like giant flashing smily faces
that turned into skulls and said "Oh Yeah!!!!!!!!" on a regular
interval. That sort of stuff. That is why I don't like web based
discussion forums...). And I suppose that there are some folks who will
look at the plain, utilitarian interface of google.groups and say "Hey!
This sucks! I want to be able to have a glowing animated demonic koala
bear as my avatar! What is with all these, ya know, words!", but I
suspect that most folks, if given the appropriate pointer, would be
perfectly ok with the google.groups experience. And if they hang out
there a bit, it doesn't take much effort (well, unless you are inept
like me :-) to switch over to a newsreader (all you need to to to turn
the incredibly common Outlook that many folks already use for e-mail
into a newsreader is the right news server to input).
All we need to to is increase the visibility of the newsgroup. Which
isn't that difficult, considering how it is already advertised in the
rule book, WW VTES web site, and on pretty much all the VTES web sites.
Of course, this is all moot if google.groups keeps breaking :-)
> We all may like it that way (I note the
> astounding signal to noise ratio of the group), but to the rest of the CCG
> community (potential VTES players) it would seem like this game's player
> base is non-existant.
I dunno--the WW Forum is fairly active, and is very visisble (heck, it
is the main line, company web site). If that isn't going to make the
game visible, nothing is. And again, it is a pretty active web forum.
atomweaver
news:pdb6-452310.1...@news-server.stny.rr.com:
> In article <Xns98B969A0E1...@207.115.17.102>,
> atomweaver <atomw...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I get it, and thats why I said what I did. Follow along with me, if
>> you will. My issue isn't with Usenet. Its with VTES's reduced
>> visibility because Usenet is where most experienced players are
>> posting. This community, as great as it is, as great as Usenet is,
>> is buried _deep_ relative to the competition.
>
> But it doesn't have to be. There is a link to the newsgroup on the
> main WW VTES web page; there is a link in The Lasombra's site. And
> lots of other ones. Google.groups, for all its flaws, isn't completely
> horrible, and works fine most of the time.
Your words, not mine, Peter. ;-)
> Yeah, it lacks sexy
> graphics and the ability to have flashing, blinking smily faces (so as
> a total, off topic aside, I was playing this web game called Astro
> Wars for a while, and had to interact in the game discussion forum
> with the rest of my team which was Polish and/or Colombian. And let me
> tell you. Those guys had the most garish, tacky taste in avatars. Like
> giant flashing smily faces that turned into skulls and said "Oh
> Yeah!!!!!!!!" on a regular interval. That sort of stuff. That is why I
> don't like web based discussion forums...). And I suppose that there
> are some folks who will look at the plain, utilitarian interface of
> google.groups and say "Hey! This sucks! I want to be able to have a
> glowing animated demonic koala bear as my avatar! What is with all
> these, ya know, words!", but I suspect that most folks, if given the
> appropriate pointer, would be perfectly ok with the google.groups
> experience. And if they hang out there a bit, it doesn't take much
> effort (well, unless you are inept like me :-) to switch over to a
> newsreader (all you need to to to turn the incredibly common Outlook
> that many folks already use for e-mail into a newsreader is the right
> news server to input).
>
My issue is not at all with the relative merits of the interfaces. I
know of a few websites that strip down the glitz of webforums, and
prefer that myself.
> All we need to to is increase the visibility of the newsgroup. Which
> isn't that difficult, considering how it is already advertised in the
> rule book, WW VTES web site, and on pretty much all the VTES web
> sites.
>
...All of which get you interest from people who are already interested
in VTES. These aren't the people we need to be visible to.
> Of course, this is all moot if google.groups keeps breaking :-)
>
Again, your words, not mine, although I'd be confident in saying that
the total number of problems with connectivity won't change much, be it
here, or someplace else. GG is generally stable.
>> We all may like it that way (I note the
>> astounding signal to noise ratio of the group), but to the rest of
>> the CCG community (potential VTES players) it would seem like this
>> game's player base is non-existant.
>
> I dunno--the WW Forum is fairly active, and is very visisble (heck, it
> is the main line, company web site). If that isn't going to make the
> game visible, nothing is. And again, it is a pretty active web forum.
>
Yeah, the webforum is better in terms of visibility, but thinking again
about situating yourself beside the competition (ie Magic, YoGohI, VS,
etc), its still not all that great. Who freqents the WW forums?
RPGers, thats who. I'm sorry to say, V:tR and V:tMmers don't make the
transition to CCGs with nearly as much frequency as CCGers change games
or try out new ones. There are many, many more CCG players as a group,
as well, since CCGs are a higher volume, more mainstream hobby. Do you
think WW Forums gets anywhere near the traffic that tcgplayer.com does?
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=tcgplayer.com
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=white-wolf.com
Nope. Made worse by the fact that only 14% of visitors to WW's whole
site actually use the forums, whereas tcgplayer is nothing but one
gigantic forum...
I'm dwelling on tcgplayer, but its jsut to keep to a single example.
There are plenty of other, non-product specific forums like it. Its
just the most obvious example I could find...
DaveZ
Atom Weaver
Peter D Bakija
I guess I'm not really understanding what kind of forum you are talking
about. Is there some sort of generic, all games all the time web forum
that you are envisioning everyone moving to, that isn't the WW VTES
site, and isn't the VTES newsgroup? That people actually use?
librarian
> In article <Xns98B998988B...@207.115.17.102>,
> atomweaver <atomw...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm dwelling on tcgplayer, but its jsut to keep to a single example.
>> There are plenty of other, non-product specific forums like it. Its
>> just the most obvious example I could find...
>
> I guess I'm not really understanding what kind of forum you are talking
> about. Is there some sort of generic, all games all the time web forum
> that you are envisioning everyone moving to, that isn't the WW VTES
> site, and isn't the VTES newsgroup? That people actually use?
>
Go to TCGplayer.com
I think that is what Dave is thinking of. I just sent the webmaster an
e-mail to inquire as to how VTES could be on their site.
best -
chris
--
Super Fun Cards
http://myworld.ebay.com/superfuncards/
auct...@superfuncards.com
OrgPlay
librarian wrote:
> Peter D Bakija wrote:
> > In article <Xns98B998988B...@207.115.17.102>,
> > atomweaver <atomw...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >> I'm dwelling on tcgplayer, but its jsut to keep to a single example.
> >> There are plenty of other, non-product specific forums like it. Its
> >> just the most obvious example I could find...
> >
> > I guess I'm not really understanding what kind of forum you are talking
> > about. Is there some sort of generic, all games all the time web forum
> > that you are envisioning everyone moving to, that isn't the WW VTES
> > site, and isn't the VTES newsgroup? That people actually use?
> >
>
>
> Go to TCGplayer.com
>
> I think that is what Dave is thinking of. I just sent the webmaster an
> e-mail to inquire as to how VTES could be on their site.
He wants a bunch of money.
oscar
Peter D Bakija
librarian <auct...@superfuncards.com> wrote:
> Go to TCGplayer.com
>
> I think that is what Dave is thinking of. I just sent the webmaster an
> e-mail to inquire as to how VTES could be on their site.
Eww. I just went there. Poked around. That site is hideous. Everything
that bothers me about the WW VTES form, (yet I suck it up 'cause I like
supporting the WW site) is one hundred fold worse.
I'm unclear on what kind of advantage could be gained by having
discussion there. Like, the two options are likely:
A) Attempt to move *all* VTES discussion to a place like this, which is
unlikely to happen, as folks aren't going to stop posting on the WW
forum or usenet.
B) Just have a token presence there that is going to further dilute
discussion, as people discuss across usenet, the WW forum, the VTES
list-serve, and then wherever the the new forum is.
Given that it is unlikely that WW will fold their forum in the name of
moving traffic to a non WW forum, and it is unlikely that all the old
cranky guys will give up usenet, the end result is probably option B. Is
having a token presence on some abomnible site like TCGplayer.com really
worth the effort? I realize that it'll probably increase visibility
some, but more so, than, like, articles in Scrye and just general
advertising?
-Peter
XZealot
> Given that it is unlikely that WW will fold their forum in the name of
> moving traffic to a non WW forum, and it is unlikely that all the old
> cranky guys will give up usenet, the end result is probably option B. Is
> having a token presence on some abomnible site like TCGplayer.com really
> worth the effort? I realize that it'll probably increase visibility
> some, but more so, than, like, articles in Scrye and just general
> advertising?
Due to bizarrely skewed market for VTES that is highly internet
dependant, I think that it would generate much more
traffic/visibility/awareness than an article in Scryre.
My thoughts on this are
1) You can't buy VTES cards from Scrye, you can buy them on the
internet.
2) You can't have a discussion with Scrye about the game, but you can
on the internet.
In the advertising world, the traditional means of advertising are
shrinking currently (print, radio, and television) as internet usage
goes up. No one has figured out how to advertise because
advertisements are monodirectional (i.e. it gives you a message, but
doesn't respond to your reactions to that message). The internet is a
dialogue and as such no one has really figured out the best way to
advertise on it. Moving a active "intellectual" community to a high
traffic area, potentially, has the prospect of being the ideal form of
internet advertising that gets traffic/visibility/awareness.
Just my 2 cents.
atomweaver
> In article <RySqh.1350$wt5....@newsfe12.phx>,
> librarian <auct...@superfuncards.com> wrote:
>> Go to TCGplayer.com
>>
>> I think that is what Dave is thinking of. I just sent the webmaster
>> an e-mail to inquire as to how VTES could be on their site.
>
> Eww. I just went there. Poked around. That site is hideous. Everything
> that bothers me about the WW VTES form, (yet I suck it up 'cause I
> like supporting the WW site) is one hundred fold worse.
>
And again, it was only an example website... Theres ccgrealms,
boradgamegeek, and several others out there (dunno if their traffic is
as high as tcgplayer... carriage return, whatever)
> I'm unclear on what kind of advantage could be gained by having
> discussion there.
Dude. I keep typing it, but you don't seem to be reading it... 14
million page views, ****725,000**** unique users showing up each month.
Each of which apparently plays a not-VTES CCG already. Some of which
may not like some aspect of their current game, or is willing to try out
a new one... Each of which is a potential VTES player, but who probably
doesn't even know the game exists. Just seeing a quality dialogue and
discussion about VTES from its best players can go a very long ways
towards raising the game's image and visibility, and increase the
liklihood that someone might decide to try it out.
> Like, the two options are likely:
>
> A) Attempt to move *all* VTES discussion to a place like this, which
> is unlikely to happen, as folks aren't going to stop posting on the WW
> forum or usenet.
>
> B) Just have a token presence there that is going to further dilute
> discussion, as people discuss across usenet, the WW forum, the VTES
> list-serve, and then wherever the the new forum is.
>
> Given that it is unlikely that WW will fold their forum in the name of
> moving traffic to a non WW forum, and it is unlikely that all the old
> cranky guys will give up usenet, the end result is probably option B.
> Is having a token presence on some abomnible site like TCGplayer.com
> really worth the effort?
Right, a token effort will just die out after a while, make the game
look lame, and further perpetuate the mis-conceptions about the health
of the game... which is why I started this whole side thread with all
that talk about migration having to be a conscious and organized effort
by the players etc. And I'm only talking about the Usenet group
migrating somewhere more visible. Moving the WW forum would be
untenable, as the game's maker would wnat to continue to have its
presence on their website (show of support for the line, yadda yadda),
although they might do something like the place-holder link they have
for EVE, but even then, I don't think that's a good idea.
> I realize that it'll probably increase visibility
> some, but more so, than, like, articles in Scrye and just general
> advertising?
>
Ads and articles aren't a community, they give you no sense of whether
the game is played or not, and very little idea of how... Games are all
about opponents and competition, and people interacting, and a lot of
the appeal of VTES is in the community that has grown up around the
game.
DaveZ
Atom Weaver
Janne Hägglund
> h...@iki.fi.remove.these.invalid (=?utf-8?b?SmFubmUgSMOkZ2dsdW5k?=) wrote
> in news:m3ejpzs...@nothung.homelinux.net:
>
> > atomweaver <atomw...@hotmail.com> writes:
> >
> >> One other thought. We might need to think about migrating the
> >> primary VTES community off of Usenet.
> >
> >snip usenet feature list...
> >
> >> There's too few people out there who remember
> >> what Usenet is, nevermind how to access it...
> >
> > Then we could educate them. If they have enough brains to play VTES,
> > they should have more than enough brains for Usenet.
> >
> >
> >> Google Groups cruddy interface doesn't help much,
> >
> > Like I said, we could educate them. Google is for searching, not for
> > reading.
> >
>
> I get it, and thats why I said what I did. Follow along with me, if you
> will. My issue isn't with Usenet. Its with VTES's reduced visibility
> because Usenet is where most experienced players are posting. This
> community, as great as it is, as great as Usenet is, is buried _deep_
> relative to the competition.
Oh, so that's your problem.
I still don't see why we should move the entire community, when simple
advertising would suffice. "There's a great VTES-community on Usenet!
Usenet is thataway -->"
It would make much more sense and cause infinitely less grief.
> > How did you plan to search for LSJ's rulings in a web based forum, as
> > opposed to a Google-archived Usenet group?
> >
>
> How about WW step up, and archive LSJ posts on an independent web-based
> rules search engine? ...and seperate the wheat from the chaff of outdated
> rulings while they're at it.
"How about someone else could do lots and lots of unnecessary work?
I'm all for it!"
> Regardless of the answer to your counter-question, you haven't addressed
> my primary concern, which is that the visibility of VTES is suffereing for
> having its best and brightest posting here, instead of at, say a VTES sub-
> forum at tcgplayer.com, for greater visibility wrt other games... tcgplayer
> gets 14 million page views and about 725,000 unique visitors (potential
> VTES players) each month. We're not growing as fast as we should(could) as
> a community of players, because a large number of potential players don't
> know where to find us.
I don't care how fast the global VTES community is growing.
If you care, then do as I said, advertise. Don't perform major surgery
when a simple change of shirt will suffice.
--
hg@ "If you can't offend part of your audience,
iki.fi there is no point in being an artist at all." -Hakim Bey
atomweaver
in news:m3irf7q...@nothung.homelinux.net:
> atomweaver <atomw...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
>> h...@iki.fi.remove.these.invalid (=?utf-8?b?SmFubmUgSMOkZ2dsdW5k?=)
>> wrote in news:m3ejpzs...@nothung.homelinux.net:
>>
>> > atomweaver <atomw...@hotmail.com> writes:
>> >
>> I get it, and thats why I said what I did. Follow along with me, if
>> you will. My issue isn't with Usenet. Its with VTES's reduced
>> visibility because Usenet is where most experienced players are
>> posting. This community, as great as it is, as great as Usenet is,
>> is buried _deep_ relative to the competition.
>
>
> Oh, so that's your problem.
>
Its not a "problem" per se, but as a consequence, its tough to get
people interested in VTES...
> I still don't see why we should move the entire community, when simple
> advertising would suffice. "There's a great VTES-community on Usenet!
> Usenet is thataway -->"
>
Nope, it doesn't suffice at all. How many banner ads have you clicked
on lately? Haven't touched a one myself in over a year. They are
background noise and a waste of time. Scrye's circulation is way off
(about 47,000/month now), I can't find circulation numbers for Inquest
Gamer, but they're probably similar.
> It would make much more sense and cause infinitely less grief.
>
I never said it would be an easy thing to do (community-wide grassroots
efforts rarely are), I said it would be a good thing to do to raise
visibility for the game...
>
>
>> > How did you plan to search for LSJ's rulings in a web based forum,
>> > as opposed to a Google-archived Usenet group?
>> >
>>
>> How about WW step up, and archive LSJ posts on an independent
>> web-based
>> rules search engine? ...and seperate the wheat from the chaff of
>> outdated rulings while they're at it.
>
>
> "How about someone else could do lots and lots of unnecessary work?
> I'm all for it!"
>
Hey, you asked the question, don't get your panties in a bunch if you
don't like an off the cuff answer, as irrelevant as it was to what I
was discussing. I've rarely needed to go past the ERC page for any
answers to rules questions. The GG archive is nice, but would not be
necessary if you could simply link to individual ERCs on the summary
page. I've seen almost as many rules errors/misplays from people citing
out-of-date rulings from the archive, as I have from general
misconceptions. If the rules archive were more controlled than Google
Groups, such outdated rulings could be cleared out more easily...
(BTW, your valuation of "lots and lots of work" is pretty low. Are
you union, or what? ;)
>
> I don't care how fast the global VTES community is growing.
>
Then you don't really need to participate in a discussion about
raising VTES's overall visibility, do you?
> If you care, then do as I said, advertise. Don't perform major
> surgery when a simple change of shirt will suffice.
>
Show me an online or print method of advertising that promotes the
game as well as visible dialogue from the game's best players, and I'll
finance the ad myself. Such an advertising vehicle doesn't exist.
DZ
AW
Peter D Bakija
On Jan 16, 10:12 am, atomweaver <atomwea...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote innews:pdb6-2CF0C3.1...@news-server.stny.rr.com:
> And again, it was only an example website... Theres ccgrealms,
> boradgamegeek, and several others out there (dunno if their traffic is
> as high as tcgplayer... carriage return, whatever)
Heh. See, I had no idea that such forums existed. Well, I knew that
sort of thing existed, but I never have been to any, nor did I know the
names of any. Clearly, they need to move somewhere like usenet to
increase their visibility :-)
Reall, ok, comedy aside, yeah, I see where you are coming from now
(originally, I thought you were advocating just moving all traffic to
the WW VTES BBS). And I can see merit in your idea. But I suspect that
actually acomplishing it is probably very difficult. And don't know
that it would actually accomplish what one would hope it accomlishes.
But it certainly might.
> Dude. I keep typing it, but you don't seem to be reading it... 14
> million page views, ****725,000**** unique users showing up each month.
Heh. Yeah, I was missing important context (i.e. the general existance
of sites like TCGgamer.com or whatever), and needed to have it kicked
into my teeth to actually follow. But I got you now. And again, can
certainly see the merit to your idea.
-Peter
LSJ
>
> On Jan 16, 10:12 am, atomweaver <atomwea...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote innews:pdb6-2CF0C3.1...@news-server.stny.rr.com:
>> And again, it was only an example website... Theres ccgrealms,
>> boradgamegeek, and several others out there (dunno if their traffic is
>> as high as tcgplayer... carriage return, whatever)
>
> Heh. See, I had no idea that such forums existed. Well, I knew that
> sort of thing existed, but I never have been to any, nor did I know the
> names of any. Clearly, they need to move somewhere like usenet to
> increase their visibility :-)
I'm on boardgamegeek.com (as you know if you've downloaded the Phased Motion
variant rules), and am happy to answer questions over there as well -- always
happy for the increased visibility.
Janne Hägglund
> > I still don't see why we should move the entire community, when simple
> > advertising would suffice. "There's a great VTES-community on Usenet!
> > Usenet is thataway -->"
> >
>
> Nope, it doesn't suffice at all. How many banner ads have you clicked
> on lately? Haven't touched a one myself in over a year. They are
> background noise and a waste of time.
Hey, we agree on this one. I filter them all away, since too many of
them blink or move in a way that makes my eyes water.
"Advertising" was perhaps a little too confusing word to use. I meant
things like White-Wolf's VTES-page having a highly visible pointer
to this newsgroup in their "Player Resources"-section, stuff like
that.
> > I don't care how fast the global VTES community is growing.
> >
> Then you don't really need to participate in a discussion about
> raising VTES's overall visibility, do you?
Yes, I do, if "raising visibility" means abandoning an exellent newsgroup.
"We might need to think about migrating the primary VTES
community off of Usenet."
That is what you said. That is what I strongly oppose.
Janne Hägglund
> One other thought. We might need to think about migrating the primary VTES
> community off of Usenet.
No way in hell. My Usenet news reader remembers what posts I have already
read, and what I have not. Plus, it has powerful features to killfile
annoying posters, I can mark too long but interesting articles to be read at
a later time, the works.
> There's too few people out there who remember
> what Usenet is, nevermind how to access it...
Then we could educate them. If they have enough brains to play VTES, they
should have more than enough brains for Usenet.
> Google Groups cruddy interface doesn't help much,
Like I said, we could educate them. Google is for searching, not for
reading.
> nor does our out-dated group name. Don't get
> me wrong, I love Usenet dearly, but being here, as opposed to a web-based
> forum hurts our visibility and accessibility for new players...
How did you plan to search for LSJ's rulings in a web based forum, as opposed
to a Google-archived Usenet group?
> If something like that were to be done, it'd have to be a conscious
> action, organized and planned by the whole community.
I vote no. It ain't broke, don't fix it. (Well, perhaps a group name change
to rec.games.trading-cards.vtes would be nice.)
James Coupe
<h...@iki.fi.remove.these.invalid> writes:
>I vote no. It ain't broke, don't fix it. (Well, perhaps a group name change
>to rec.games.trading-cards.vtes would be nice.)
You need something like 140 people willing to vote for that in a ballot.
More if the regulars in the config group perceive the name change as
being unhelpful, because newsgroups shouldn't be created and destroyed
when a company changes its product name.
Also makes searching old posts a pain in the ass.
Peter D Bakija
> One other thought. We might need to think about migrating the
> primary VTES community off of Usenet.
(I missed Dave's actual message, so I am replying through Jaane's
message. Damn my newsreader for deleting read messages! No, wait. I like
that it does that...)
In any case, I don't think this is actually necessary. Yeah, having to
go through google.groups if you can't manage or figure out a newsreader
is kind of sub optimal (heck, I know all about usenet and newsreaders,
and it took me, like, 2 years to get my newsreader back up and running
after switching from dial up to high speed, as it is incredibly
difficult to find information on news servers from Roadrunner). But that
being said, I'm wildly unconvinced that google.groups is significantly
less optimal than web based forums.
Comparing the google.groups interface to the newsgroup to, say, the
White Wolf VTES forum, I *vastly* prefer google.groups as a forum for
discussion. Maybe I'm just a cranky old guy, but I find all the bells
and whistles (sexy graphics, avatars, whatever) to be both unnecessary
and kind of annoying. Heck--I'm using high speed internet, and loading
and posting to the WW Forum is *still* irritatingly slow. I find the
goofy little animated avatars to be just annoying. I find the graphic
smiley faces to be really annoying. I find the whole experience of the
sexy graphic high end design to be just unnecessary. Not that the WW
VTES forum is badly designed--it is actually quite nicely designed, in a
visual sense, and perfectly functional, but it is, for my money, klunky
and the sexiness actually hinders the functionality. But even then, it
is still there and gets a pretty reasonable amount of traffic.
If we assume that most non-cranky old guys are going to access the
newsgroup through google.groups (as it is easier to access than a
newsreader), other than lacking the sexy graphics, google.groups works
just fine as an interface. Yeah, it goes down once and a while, but so
does the web forum.
In the end here, my point is simply that as an interface, google.groups
isn't super optimal, but it is accessible enough and simple enough that
if people just know to go there to look for information on VTES, it is
just as viable, if not more so, than a web forum.
Yeah, the name is a slight stumbling block, but it isn't that difficult
to get folks pointed in the right direction--the WW site has a link, the
Lasombra's site has a lot of pointer information, the rulebooks have
pointer information, and occasionally, folks like me will post pointer
information in the web forum.
Pat
"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote in message
news:pdb6-8BB878.0...@news-server.stny.rr.com...
> atomweaver <atomw...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
> > One other thought. We might need to think about migrating the
> > primary VTES community off of Usenet.
>
> (I missed Dave's actual message, so I am replying through Jaane's
> message. Damn my newsreader for deleting read messages! No, wait. I like
> that it does that...)
>
<snip stuff I mostly agree with>
> Peter D Bakija
> pd...@lightlink.com
> http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html
I'm with Peter on this one, I think this is a fine spot for the primary VTES
community. Low bandwidth requirements, easily accessible, and with
searchable archives, through Google groups, no forum weirdness, no
dependency on any one individual or organization to maintain.
- Pat