How Org could better serve the needs of MP players,Clans and the MP community?

[Andres]

- Have an organized forum structure which caters well for the MP community.

That, we can do. An idea that was mentioned a while ago to me in private was to provide "infrastructure" for new clans. Most clans that are already up and running have their own site and forum, but new(er) clans could start here in a dedicated subforum, partially hidden for non clan members if need be. They could use the .Org as their home until they have their own site or forum. Or they can just stick around here. Existing clans could have a subforum too, I think. The modding section has a subforum for each mod; so I guess this could be done for MP as well.

- Organize large-scale multiplayer tournaments on a regular basis and try to get official, CA-backed prizes for them (like the wallpaper competition). CA knows about us, CA loves the Org. Remember that we are by far the oldest fansite around and this website has promoted Total War games for over ten years now.

With a bit of cooperation of the MP community, this should be doable.

If there's a big tournament coming up, the people in charge can contact staff here and we can then contact the people at CA. A bit of back-and-forth e-mailing and the organisation of the tournament should know within a day or two if CA sponsors or not.

For smaller tournaments, we can work with .Org prices, like badges and such.

A lot is possible.

- Be the place-to-be for multi player news. During my two years as website administrator here there were almost daily news posts about the latest news (and sometimes even gossip) coming from the community. New tournaments, new clans, game updates, patch info, new websites, tournament updates, a 'Featured Website' every week - the works. This was part of what made people log to the Org mainpage everyday: there was a clear connection between the MP community and the website. I'm happy to see that the mainpage is up and running again now; but there is ample room for growth.

Indeed, there is. And growth is what we're working at right now. We made a start, but now we need to continue the work. Staff and community together.

- Apart from its in-house tournaments, the Org can easily host or sponsor other peoples' ideas and websites. Instead of having the organizers creating their own forum for the tournament/event, they could host it right here. But the Org staff needs to go "out there" to get these people. They don't just "come". We need to hunt.

About the "hunting part"; that's true.The MP ers here can already help us with that.

- Last but not least, to do the above, some of the key staff needs to be heavily involved in the multiplayer world: playing the game everyday, knowing the people and the clans, the ins and outs of the game and generally up-to-date with the daily happenings. If The Org doesn't have them right now, you need to recruit. Hiring some the "big fish" in the community is one of the keys to attracting the right crowd of people. It's the way the world works. For example, in STW, having Magyar, AMP or any of the other "cream" of the MP community posting here regularly gave prestige to the forums and almost automatically attracted the rest of the MP crowd.

Good point, again.

Keep the ideas and suggestions coming