Throne Room Improvements

[TinCow]

As I have slowly backed off of my duties in LotR, I've had a lot more time to pay attention to the Throne Room as a whole. In general, I'm pleased with the current state of things. There's been a lot of regular activity in here for several months now, more than at any other time I can remember. However, there's always room for improvement.

I'm curious whether anyone sees areas in which moderation/organization of the Throne Room (and its subforums) can be improved in any manner. You guys are the lifeblood of this place and are (these days) far more involved in the details than I am. If you have any suggestions that you think would help the Throne Room continue to expand and prosper, please post them.

[/Bean\]

I dunno if you think it's worth splitting or sub foruming between PBMs and hotseats, or between the .exe being used or something? Maybe, maybe not.

But I think what I'd like to see if a shortcut from the other forums to the Throne Room. We need more advertising. People are scared to leave the forums they are familiar with, so if we gave them incentives or an easy shortcut we may attract many more Throne Room users.

[TinCow]

Advertising is definitely something that could use improvement, but it's a tricky situation. I agree that people who would otherwise like to play games in here are not really participating due to lack of awareness. However, we can't exactly spam other forums with ads; that's a touchy subject for some moderators and advertisement threads shouldn't be made without the consent of the mods in charge of the other forums.

I think the best thing we can do is to advertise in signatures (which many people already do) and otherwise talk about how great the games are whenever we see an opportunity in other forums without going too far off-topic. We've already seen the huge impact that spreading the word to another forum can produce. Once the EB people starting coming in here, the place really came alive.

I actually worked out a deal with the TWC management to allow cross advertising between our two sites. The result is this thread on TWC. However, I've been extremely negligent in updating it. If someone wanted to help keep that thing fresh and updated, I would happily edit that post and bump it regularly.

[/Bean\]

Tons of people wanted to join Johnhughtmon's interactive Romani AAR, but we have so few players in BtSH we're barely on a skeleton crew. I have already mentioned BtSH in his thread and don't wish to post in there again, thus clogging up his game. But I don't understand why...

[TinCow]

Tons of people wanted to join Johnhughtmon's interactive Romani AAR, but we have so few players in BtSH we're barely on a skeleton crew. I have already mentioned BtSH in his thread and don't wish to post in there again, thus clogging up his game. But I don't understand why...

Where is that hosted?

[/Bean\]

EB AAR forum

[GeneralHankerchief]

I think the main thing we need to improve is player commitment. Recruitment is always nice of course, but without a solid base of support, the game just isn't the same. I watched as BtSH went from extremely active (easily the most active subforum in the TR) to pretty much a minor entity in the span of a month. Its active membership is a fraction of what it once was, which can definitely account for most of the dropoff in activity.

Of course, a solution on how to fix this is another thing. All I'm saying is that games are more memorable if the players involved stay so until the bitter end.

[Ramses II CP]

I think the place is fine as it is, but if you're looking to boost activity/interest maybe consider running some kind of contest? Offering something as simple as a forum tag or some addition to a person's signature can be surprisingly motivating for forumites.

[johnhughthom]

How about some sort of group sig? It could say something like "Do you like Total War games? Do you like history? Do you like role-playing? If so get over to The Throne Room for much goodness" (or something less daft). If most Throne Room goers had it it may be effective. It would need a nice shiny picture of course.

[navarro951]

I think the main thing we need to improve is player commitment. Recruitment is always nice of course, but without a solid base of support, the game just isn't the same. I watched as BtSH went from extremely active (easily the most active subforum in the TR) to pretty much a minor entity in the span of a month. Its active membership is a fraction of what it once was, which can definitely account for most of the dropoff in activity.

Of course, a solution on how to fix this is another thing. All I'm saying is that games are more memorable if the players involved stay so until the bitter end.

ya amen to that. I am not sure where things went wrong. I lost one guy to breaking forum rules, two guys simply disappeared, and then i have 2 players who came all excited posted a few times and in a flash...gone. Donno why people do that. If you cant stay active then why join in the first place it just pisses me off, makes me do a lot of unnecessary work in my library and what not.

[/Bean\]

Well, nearly all our newbies simply disappear, and we end up with no one to fill up the ranks, and the man power dwindles even further. Now we seem to have lost SwissBarbar, one of our strongest and most active players... TCM also had to leave, through no fault of his own. That was a very hard blow. Potocello's missing, presumed killed in a low flying aircraft accident...

[Cultured Drizzt fan]

and then i have 2 players who came all excited posted a few times and in a flash...gone. Donno why people do that. If you cant stay active then why join in the first place it just pisses me off, makes me do a lot of unnecessary work in my library and what not.

I am not one of these am I? cause I am still there. I just dont have anything to talk about at the moment! and no reason to take the save.

[/Bean\]

No you stayed...we like you

[johnhughthom]

I think the obvious question for EB PBMs is, are there too many? Personally I believe there are, wouldn't one game with everybody from all three currently ongoing suffice? There are a few people playing more than one of them and I get the impression that it gets quite tiresome trying to remember whats going on where.Of course we would never agree which faction we should use...

[/Bean\]

Too many if we only include the Throne Room regulars. There're tons of people that play EB.

[Cultured Drizzt fan]

I for one think we have just the right amount of PBM's. Each is unique and deals with a very separate theater so I would hate if we lost them. The problem isn’t the PBM's its the lack of new players (I do 2 PBM's and would hate it if they were lost) we have basically used up all the new throne room members, and no one else is coming..... We need to get some of the people to scared to do PBMs to get out of their shells.

[Barry]

I'm just not a fan of EB, and thats all I can do!

[TinCow]

A lot of the new forum members these days are ETW players, for obvious reasons. I would expect that an ETW PBM, properly adveritsed in the Parliament, would bring a new wave of people back here. That likely wouldn't help the existing games much, but it would be good for the forum as a whole.

[Il_Duce]

Good point, but at the same time many people have openly expressed their dislike for E:TW. It has a large amount of bugs, it's a resource hog, etc. I think there will still be a huge base for MII:TW. There's a new R:TW PBM... it'd be nice for another successor to LotR as well.

[johnhughthom]

I for one would be very interested in an ETW PBM. A wave of new people into the Throne Room may not necessarily help ongoing games but it's certainly not going to hinder them.
I know I lurked the EB forum for probably 18 months before joining and didn't venture out of the EB forum for another year or so, letting people know the Throne Room actually exists is probably the biggest thing to do.

Good point, but at the same time many people have openly expressed their dislike for E:TW. It has a large amount of bugs, it's a resource hog, etc. I think there will still be a huge base for MII:TW. There's a new R:TW PBM... it'd be nice for another successor to LotR as well.

True, but it's also true a lot of people like it. Personally I still loath M2TW (I didn't complain about it, just stopped playing it) but think ETW has the potential to be by far the best game in the series. A lot of people have that opinion of the game, I guess the complainers are just louder.

[mini]

there is a thread going on where a lot of good ideas for an ETW are being put.

So if you have anything to add, plz do so we can make work for one :)

[Barry]

Biting the bullet and downloading EB :D

[johnhughthom]

Biting the bullet and downloading EB :D

What took you so long?

[Barry]

Haha sorry boss