Welcome! Please grab a cup of coffee, and one of those delicious donuts most kindly donated by R2.
As you can guess from the title, this is yet another attempt at solving the AG activity problem. This problem has been ever present since late 2010. Many reasons as to the cause have been presented, ranging from a much delayed release of AG3, to lacking of a community manager, or the end of the flash gaming era.
I do have a couple of ideas concerning activity and how to increase it. Whether these are the keys to solving the issues at hand or not is unbeknownst to me, but I most certainly feel it is definitely worth the effort.
I'm not going into details - yet. Firstly, I'm going to need a few volunteers. More the better, but not more then 20 (20, yeah right...) Don't volunteer then become inactive that would not be beneficial to anything.
From looking back at certain interactions and whatnot...it does seem that there were a few users that had quite a lot of interactions outside of AG..whether it be knowing each other personally or in another site.
They call it Facebook today.
I think that we need to do a 1+1 -
people are still playing the games right? {moew then 10k playing every new game}. What we need is to attract them to the forums in some way. But we also want the smarter ones to come by {i dont want to offend, but above the age of 14+-}.
I dont think that this "friend bring friend" is gonna work. i by myself brought to Armor games 30-+ Peopels back in 2008 {befor i opend a user [and not to the forums]} but lets face it - the armor games atmospheir is uniqe. not everyone join in. there is something that stick us togheter.
We dont have a Web comic, we dont have a Web show, Not blogs and no 'rivate' religion. We dont have the same hobbie or a craft. we dont work at the same job and are not even at the same age. some of us are right wingers and some left wingers, and some dont have an opinion at all. from USA to Singapor, from Saudi-arabia to Israel. Religius {some say zealots} to completly atheist. a ByPasser will ask himself what we have in common. but apearently we have something. The love for flash games? i dont know. But we need to find it and then im sure that then we will be able to point on what can we "show off" to make this Byzantine empire rise again.
Okay, now what has changed since 2009-10? Was the community advertised during this time?
I have no idea, I was not a member of the site then. I'm assuming it didn't but I can't be too sure. I do know that advertising did go around in 2012 so if it was done then it must have been done in the past.
Can someone look into Twitter please? I don't have an account.
Daleks, pang, and I can look into it. We are active on Twitter so any help we can offer we will.
The AG of old is, as we all agree, certainly not the same as the AG of now. The people were a lot more engaged with the community back then, a lot more so than people now are of our AG...but we can't just simply sit by and hope that something of the sort will happen again and leave it at that.
We aren't the same AG...and to simply do nothing and hope for the best would be completely asinine of ourselves. We are a new AG...a different AG...and AG that isn't blessed with a natural draw like the one of old. And so, in response, we are adapting and brainstorming ideas to make this AG of now an AG that is bustling.
I don't know why, but when I read that it felt like someone said it while standing on an alter and in the end there will be applause. lol
It's good but needs a little bit of work. I recommend we put several idea's to consider forth, such as Sals big forum button on the forums. Maybe right next to my games you can put "Gaming Community" or "Online Sanctuary". It seems appropriate and it will catch attention.
Ferret already told me that the admins are working to incorporate features from AG3 into AG2, one of which being Quests (I think).
Okay, now what has changed since 2009-10?
Not much I'm assuming. It's hard to tell without having to do some serious digging so we can only assume (unless you really want to work that hard).
Other than people, AG has fallen a bit behind. It's been the same old AG while its competitors are speeding along and are paving the way of Flash gaming. AG has a nice homely feel, but AG might go belly up if it only appeals to those who dislike change. The gaming industry is ever-changing, and AG needs to be that way too.
As hard as it is for me to say, Sals right, AG is a bit old fashioned when it comes to the "New Age of online gaming". The homey feel is nice but they will need to evolve into a new more clean cut system of games, which I can imagine is hard to do seeing as AG3 took several years to make and couldn't be put out there very easily.
It's also nice to mix things up a little and give the next generation a chance at leading the pack.
The thing is that AG currently does not have users who are "Mod Material". I mean, Matrix would make a good mod, Ernie would make a good mod (if he would stop this freaky "I'm leaving and not coming back" thing). And those are the people I can think of off the top of my head. Finding new mods will make the site a bit better but it wont be easy passing the mantle down.
What answers should we send back to Ferret?
I think that with all of our brainstorming we should come up with at least 3 solid ideas, present it to him, and see which approach to making AG better he approves of and with the admins help put it into place. I don't think discussing the issues AG has currently would help, after all, it is quiet obvious. The admins seem more interested in what it would take to put AG back on the map without changing too much.
my activity has been getting smaller and smaller since AP was taken away and replaced with those achievement things, if it was still ap i would be more active
I'd like to thank Xeano321 for an excellent job of rounding together voices from around the community. I poke my nose around the forums and site quite a lot, but you've pieced together some great ideas from users I truly know value the Armor Games family. That being said, I'll be responding to each point below.
To the question "is the community in decline?â the answer is itâs not. In 2013 we've actually grown in forum activity. The big drop seemed to have occurred in May 2012, and this was before my time as a Community Manager. I've tried to puzzle out what happened. A website update of some sort? Front page redesign? Forum fallout from a heated argument about ninjaâs vs. pirates? None of these seem to be the answer.
So thatâs a mystery to solve, if you guys have ideas Iâd be happy to hear them.
Community vs. Forum Link So the first suggestion is making the Community link on our front page header âForumsâ, Iâve passed this around internally and everybody here is in agreement. So this change will be made, at the latest by the end of the month, but I hope sooner.
Administrator Interaction Iâm all for Administrators interacting with our community, I try to be involved in the forums. So a good first question here is âWhere Ferret is not involved that you feel would have a positive impact on the community?â Is there a part of the forum that is ignored, that shouldn't be? And after we've discussed that, there is the idea of gathering a weekly summary of cool forum posts that I could try passing around internally to get folks chatting on the forums again. That may be something you guys could help with.
Forum Quests Community Quests are still very much on our radar. I canât speak to when or how they will be implemented yet, and we certainly donât want Quests to be a reason users start spamming much like our past AP problem. But I do think having forum Quests would be fun! If you have ideas about Forum Quests, feel free to share them below.
Social Promotion I've posted about our community a few times, but this is a great point. We could easily bring Twitter/Facebook promotion to various Forum events. This could also be linked with âWhatâs happening on the forum this week?â that could get other Admins excited. Speaking of which, how do we get our forum community on our Twitter/Facebook channels so they are cheering on the promotions we may do in the future?
In conclusion I think we have some great starting ideas here!
o the question "is the community in decline?â the answer is itâs not. In 2013 we've actually grown in forum activity. The big drop seemed to have occurred in May 2012, and this was before my time as a Community Manager.
May of 2012 did suck. Not much was happening and most of the forum posts I recall were not very good.
Administrator Interaction Iâm all for Administrators interacting with our community, I try to be involved in the forums. So a good first question here is âWhere Ferret is not involved that you feel would have a positive impact on the community?â Is there a part of the forum that is ignored, that shouldn't be? And after we've discussed that, there is the idea of gathering a weekly summary of cool forum posts that I could try passing around internally to get folks chatting on the forums again. That may be something you guys could help with.
The Tavern seems to be the best place to kick up rather interesting and non subjective themes and conversations regarding almost everything, so the Tavern seems like a good fit. The Popular Media Forums were a close second but media these days seems to be going downhill, making the Popular Media Forum very sluggish in activity. It will need lots of help if you could offer it.
Forum Quests Community Quests are still very much on our radar. I canât speak to when or how they will be implemented yet, and we certainly donât want Quests to be a reason users start spamming much like our past AP problem. But I do think having forum Quests would be fun! If you have ideas about Forum Quests, feel free to share them below.
Personally, I haven't done any of the Quests yet and I don't know peoples thoughts about them but it seems to be an activity booster to the site and it made things much cooler, so yes I for one approve of that idea.
Social Promotion I've posted about our community a few times, but this is a great point. We could easily bring Twitter/Facebook promotion to various Forum events. This could also be linked with âWhatâs happening on the forum this week?â that could get other Admins excited. Speaking of which, how do we get our forum community on our Twitter/Facebook channels so they are cheering on the promotions we may do in the future?
Pang, Daleks, Nichodemus, and I are going to dabble into promoting Armor Games activity through social media, we tend to talk about ways to help the site on Twitter so if we come up with any ideas pang, nich, or me will post it on the AGCAI forum asap.
I've been looking at what Armor Games posts are about on Twitter and I found out something that might interest users. The feed from Armor Games Twitter account and activity on Armor Games itself has no bridge, subjecting the feed and promotions to a specific site. For example, I saw Armor Games post one time on Twitter "First person to text a picture of Kingdom Rush (I think it was Kingdom Rush I'm not sure) gets a sushi cat plushy". If you create a media thread in the Popular Media section of the site not only will activity boost in that forum but it will also make users more excited about getting involved in Armor Games. If you incorporate certain elements social media has into Armor Games you will have a significant boost in activity, both in accounts and forums.
To the question "is the community in decline?â the answer is itâs not. In 2013 we've actually grown in forum activity. The big drop seemed to have occurred in May 2012, and this was before my time as a Community Manager. I've tried to puzzle out what happened. A website update of some sort? Front page redesign? Forum fallout from a heated argument about ninjaâs vs. pirates? None of these seem to be the answer.
I see what you mean about the community declining as of right now, and it definitely isn't; however, the community is still relatively slow as compared to 2009 and 2010. 2011 wasn't significantly slow, but I think many will agree with me when I say that 2011 was slower. Perhaps 2011 was sort of a warning, and May 2012 was when a big drop occurred.
I'm not sure why this happened. Some blame cormyn, others blame people, some blame admins, others blame mods, some blame threads, others blame spam. In all honesty, I think there are too many variables to come up with a clear-cut reason as to why the drop and the slowing happened.
So this change will be made, at the latest by the end of the month, but I hope sooner.
If I could kiss you right now, I would.
Is there a part of the forum that is ignored, that shouldn't be?
The News forum is pretty neglected. I understand you guys like your secrecy and your "we'll update stuff when it's done" methodology, but that doesn't help us much. The people that comprise this community's population are, for the most part, nosy and analytic. I'm sure you'd agree. We need confirmation that stuff is being done. Again, not doubting you, but it's reassuring. We need that reassurance. There have been quite a few people who've left due to the lack of assurance.
If you have ideas about Forum Quests, feel free to share them below.
Obviously creating a merit or alternative reward system for forum posts is necessary. People review games in the forums relatively as much as they do in game comments, so why not reward them for their hard work? But also expanding the reward system would be awesome. There have been quite a few threads that have been interesting and great enough to the point of defining what it means to be a forum member. There needs to be some sort of recognition for that, no?
Speaking of which, how do we get our forum community on our Twitter/Facebook channels so they are cheering on the promotions we may do in the future?
Reward the community members, of course. A great attention-getter would be creating a promotional contest that's exclusive to users in the forums. So as not to discriminate against the gamers, you guys could make a thread in the forums or everyone to participate in. Much like that "Draw a Ferret" thread - it was so successful!
This could also be linked with âWhatâs happening on the forum this week?â that could get other Admins excited.
If you have ideas about Forum Quests, feel free to share them below.
Maybe "Win a poetry contest", "Make a seasonal armatar (must be accepted)", "Get a merit from a game comment", "Community Contributor" (only awarded by mods/admins for persistent productive posting)
Speaking of which, how do we get our forum community on our Twitter/Facebook channels so they are cheering on the promotions we may do in the future?
Most of the tweets on AG's accounts are about the games, naturally so. If someone writes an excellent guide on the Forums, or makes a great walkthrough guide and posts the link on the Forums it might be a nifty idea to post that link in the same tweet as well, so people know the Forums exist.
Maybe post promotions of games on non-computer platforms on the Forums, and then link the Forum page on your tweet.
It seems a lot of effort just to pacify a small group of people haha. Guilt.
I remember the seasonal armatar contest being promoted on facebook before, so it probably wouldn't be that big of a change to advertise things on facebook about the forums more often too.
And after we've discussed that, there is the idea of gathering a weekly summary of cool forum posts that I could try passing around internally to get folks chatting on the forums again.
That would be pretty cool, except it would seem time consuming to search for good posts. I guess it would be easy if all the users chipped in. Maybe you could add a button next to the flag a user could press that would alert an admin or someone of a good post!
So thatâs a mystery to solve, if you guys have ideas Iâd be happy to hear them.
If we had ideas or answers, this thread wouldn't exist.
Where Ferret is not involved that you feel would have a positive impact on the community?â
Actually, I wasn't referring to you Ferret. You're always around when needed. (Heck, you're almost as cool as me.) I was referring more to Dan, Joey, ETC...
So the first suggestion is making the Community link on our front page header âForumsâ, Iâve passed this around internally and everybody here is in agreement. So this change will be made, at the latest by the end of the month, but I hope sooner.
Whoo! You're so awesome Ferret!
It's all cool Ferret. This is fantastic... That post you made is the greatest thing I've read in my many adventures across the web.
