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

[Sp00n]

Kage after spending a fair few minutes reading a pointless thread in another TW Forum where they couln't comprehend why we could possibly need a separate MP forum for Shogun prior to release this is a breath of fresh air.

Andres posted a fair few good points which I've copied over some are already covered.

Things that pop in to mind:

- to already work on the organisation of the MP community, i.e. gathering clan leaders to work on projects like tournaments or general chitchat on how to do things (MP community events?);
- discussing MP related issues - making suggestions: balancing, chat foyer, unit stats, interesting maps,stuff to prevent cheating;
- better in a seperate forum so the discussion can go deeper;
- to build on the "community feeling", playing MP is a "social event", so to speak, so it can only benefit the community if people can already get to know each other better;

Recruitment may be another one although it probably is a little bit early atm.

:P

[Andres]

Something that is already possible now, is creating social groups.

I don't know a lot of the MP community, but I figure something like a social group for clan leaders only could be very useful.

[Kagemusha]

Sp00n thank you for your ideas.More we know about your needs, better we can develop the forum.

[Monk]

Recruitment may be another one although it probably is a little bit early atm.

Mentioned this elsewhere and privately, but I am gonna say it here so it's as out as possible. I don't have any problems running clan recruitment articles for the front page. If you'd like to advertise with us, send me a PM and I can make it happen.

If clans take advantage of this, what is likely to happen is I'll group all ads together to be posted on the same day (maybe once a week or as needed).

[Andres]

I already told Tomisama in private, but might as well throw this out in the open. We can also publish articles about tournaments, competitions and other MP events on our frontpage; so by all means, if you have TW MP news that needs to be spread, just say the word. Not just for S2 TW MP, but all TW MP news.

[Sp00n]

TBH guys looking at the NTW Multiplayer section its got most of what I'd expect we need for Shogun 2, I'm sure Clan Leaders and other Multi Players have stuff to add though.

From my point of view I always used theorg as the place to get my MP news, patches and latest maps in Shogun and MTW MP days. The frontpage had all the latest news SP and MP wise and tournys were advertised. Pretty much what Andres is talking about above.

Not sure if we'll have all these options due to how NTWs run atm on steam with no user map creation etc.

[drone]

The Org has a wiki, this might be useful somehow.

[AggonyDuck]

The biggest issue is that the MP community isn't at the .org. It is pointless to try serve someone who isn't here. The MP community these days is largely centred around tournament forums, meaning that if you want to bring the MP community here, you need to start hosting tournaments here and promote them aggressively. That again is fairly hard due to the whole Junior Membership thing.

[Tera]

Thanks for starting this thread.

I think what Duck and Sp00n mentioned above, fused together, holds the key to make The Org the central hub for the multiplayer community. This is no pie in the sky - this website was extremely strong with the community for years. However, The Org needs to be aggressively pro-active in its approach:

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

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

People go where the buzz is.

Just some ideas.

[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

[Sp00n]

The biggest issue is that the MP community isn't at the .org. It is pointless to try serve someone who isn't here. The MP community these days is largely centred around tournament forums, meaning that if you want to bring the MP community here, you need to start hosting tournaments here and promote them aggressively. That again is fairly hard due to the whole Junior Membership thing.

While I understand TW has changed as Tera said the Orgs got a long history with CA, CA are shouting loudly about how MP is going to be huge in Shogun 2, its already been mentioned about getting a link to theorg at the totalwar site and they are posting us updates on the game which is great to have.

I know its a long way off but what are the chances of engaging them about the possibility of theorg hosting a close to release launch MP tournament for Shogun 2 which they could sponsor (sure they did something similar with Shogun with a Sword prize?).

One thing theorg will have is the old Shogun/MTW veterans and Shogun 2s media coverage hasnt yet hit anywhere near the heights it will nearer launch meaning I'd expect a lot more to start returning.

IMO there is not a site out there that has the history or is as good as theorg for MP Totalwar, if you think the main problem is getting coverage then what better way to get the current community over here mixing with the old one than the first S2 MP tourny, that together with the clan and tourny tools/information that we have been talking about could help to keep them here once you get them.

TotalWar's 10th Anniversary Tourny at TheOrg has a ring to it.

Don't know how possible this is but just a thought.

[tibilicus]

Much depends on how the game does. In all honesty, it's kind of hard to put forward ideas before the games is released. If the product is garbage, then there wont be a strong community to suffice.

Assuming the game turns out ok though, the basic idea has been suggested above. Scratch the MP community's back, and it should scratch ours. CA say they have "big things" planned for MP this time round and, if this is true, the .Org should do everything possible to pounce on such an opportunity. Far too much traffic has gone towards twcentre in recent years but I believe that if we offer the community something right of the bat, tournaments ect, the .org will be able to establish itself as the MP forum for S2TW.

I hope though no matter what comes up, the staff will be more than enthusiastic to get involved. I remembered being frustrated during my brief time as assistant mod in the way that no one really seemed to care about MP any more (this was around the time of M2TW). I tried to get some things done, like promote external tournaments but no one really seemed interested. Anyway, in my opinion, speed is key. We need to react to the game and organise ourselves before it hits. Worse comes to worse and it flops, at least we can say we tried to bring MP back to the .Org.