What games should we look at?

[Darkragnar]

Paradox Games which may seem like a safer bet for us, with our total war background but is it actually that popular a franchise ??? Total War is hugely popular compared with any paradox games released till now and i just dont see a big enough market out their to justify the "big" step were planing to take.

As for the Fanbase present here on Twc , How many people actually post in the the EU subforums their have been a total of 42 Threads in 5 months! not a lot at all, so shouldnt count on the members from TWC to make the new site a success , its not going to happen with so few people Genuinely interested.

That is why i dont think going the Paradox way is the best idea after consideration (and some sleep), if you want i can make a portfolio and a little presentation for potential games that we can choose.

[Professor420]

The popularity of a thread at TWC is in no way an indication of the size of the membership. I doubt many sites have TW threads or subforums... yet here we are.

While the size of the community is a concern, I think that is as much a help as a hinderance; the target and marketing and advertising is more focused. Furthermore, numbers alone confer no advantage. Take the popularity of a Halo, or Oblivion... TWC is still more popular than almost any fansite for a game franchise I could find off hand... consider also that the ORG is just as popular as TWC. TW has one of the strongest communities around, alot of this is the nature of the TW games; they attract a very large niche, and niche gamers are notoriously fansite-friendly. The same is true of Paradox. If you were to guess the size of the TW community compared to the size of the Oblivion community based on hype and units, you'd be way off the mark.

The target is to create a new community, not import TWC colonials.

[Mímirswell]

The popularity of a thread at TWC is in no way an indication of the size of the membership. I doubt many sites have TW threads or subforums... yet here we are.

You are taking my correlation as causation which it was not intended as. The point remains that interest in both of those games is high, worthy of just as much consideration as Paradox games, perhaps more.

While the size of the community is a concern, I think that is as much a help as a hinderance; the target and marketing and advertising is more focused. Furthermore, numbers alone confer no advantage. Take the popularity of a Halo, or Oblivion... TWC is still more popular than almost any fansite for a game franchise I could find off hand... consider also that the ORG is just as popular as TWC.

This is just World of Warcraft:
http://www.fohguild.org (dedicated originally to EQ but now Wow, has far more longterm members than ours though similar top end.)
http://elitistjerks.com/forums.php (another wow site that's relatively new but growing vastly faster than TWC)
http://wow.allakhazam.com/ (site was offered several millions of dollars but was turned down because it was more profitable, brings in hundred of thousands of hits a day)
http://www.thottbot.com/ (sold recently for several million dollars, also brings in hundred of thousands of hits a day)

Blizzard has a rabid and dedicated fan base. There are still active Starcraft forums (smaller than TWC but impressive for longevity) nearly ten years after the game came out. Blizzard has a dedicated TV channel in South Korea for spectators watching Starcraft, WC3, DOTA*, and soon WoW Arena.

DOTA is a highly successful modification of WC3 that has hundreds of thousands of players and it's own cash tournament and ladder system. One of the biggest draws of WC3 was it's highly malleable map/game editors that allowed you to do most anything with; Starcraft 2 is expected to follow suit on that regard.

TW has one of the strongest communities around, alot of this is the nature of the TW games; they attract a very large niche, and niche gamers are notoriously fansite-friendly. The same is true of Paradox. If you were to guess the size of the TW community compared to the size of the Oblivion community based on hype and units, you'd be way off the mark.

The target is to create a new community, not import TWC colonials.

I was using TWC as a microcosm to the video gaming industry. I do agree with you that niche games are very fan site friendly and lack of a large audience should not preclude consideration but it is a factor worthy of analysis.

Oblivion has a very robust modding community it should be noted though I believe they are too well entrenched to try and implement at TWC. In fact, I would say that most games already out (including the Paradox games) would be very hard to "colonize" here. It would be far better to have a plan ready to launch for the release of a new game.

Note: While it may seem like I am pushing for another game other than a Paradox one, I am in fact not. I am not sure Starcraft 2, for example, is even remotely related enough with TWC for inclusion though it meets a lot of the criteria I have specified. Rather, it seems to me, most people have taken it for granted that EU was a done deal without any real analysis.

[John I Tzimisces]

Paradox Games are, without a doubt, the best candidate. Not only is it a strategy game with a similar timeframe to M2TW, but it is highly moddable.

One may note that modding is the greatest draw to TWC at date. People might stay for other reasons, but let's get real: The Mods (and game discussion) bring people here.
If we can advertise ourselves as being extremely modder friendly through our users who use both sites (signatures, word of mouth, etc), then we likely can get ourselves a large draw.

Starcraft should not be open for consideration at this time. It may be the most anticipated game of all time but I don't think there's even a release date yet. In the future, certainly this is an avenue for a sister site (almost definitely our best hope for one). Discussion pending a Starcraft site is probably worthy of it's own thread: The Potential is enormous.


Thus in conclusion I support Paradox games as an addition to our current site here, perhaps to experiment, but Starcraft for later potential. ("totalswarm.net" anyone?)

[Mímirswell]

Paradox Games are, without a doubt, the best candidate.

How many boxes did EU3 sell? I did a cursory check on google that returned nothing nor could I find the financial releases that larger companies (Vivendi, Sony, etc.) put out on Paradox's site. It would be highly useful to know the potential market.

[Halie Satanus]

Perhaps also for consideration, Assassins creed, it ticks all the boxes though not to sure on mod-ability, an interesting aside is that this is a PS3, Xbox and PC game, and is the first in a franchise, the existing (official) forum is...rubbish. I wonder whether the existing forum will do much for the PC gamers, might be a good place to put a foot in the door. This game looks like it's going to be huge.

Release is set for this year, though obviously from experience....

[Lusted]

How many boxes did EU3 sell? I did a cursory check on google that returned nothing nor could I find the financial releases that larger companies (Vivendi, Sony, etc.) put out on Paradox's site. It would be highly useful to know the potential market.

It's pretty hard finding game sales figures, i tried to find some for M2TW but turned up no good results.

[Elrond]

I think the obvious answer (which I said yesterday) is to make Paradox the flagship for the new site but to include a section for other games - e.g.

Comunity news articles etc:

A forum for frontpage news
a forum for articles

Paradox:

EUIII (moved in its entirety from the CM at this site - same server and software and data base mean is very possible)
HoI II
CK
General paradox forum

Non Paradox games:

Circus Maximus (moved in its entirety form the CC - this would give a new site a immediate set of active members which would greatly improve the sites chances of success).
Star craft
Oblivion down
Blizzard
another game

CC

Just forums which are redirects to the TWC forums

Administrative:

Questions and suggestions
Staff forum

I think that something like this is the way forward - We would be able to grab huge numbers of paradox fans as well as members who like other games. By moving the EU and CM forums we would provide the new site with threads and active members immediately, which would also serve the purpose of ending Non TW gaming discussion at TWC - which means that the sister site wouldn't be in competition with TWC.

[Leonidas The Lion]

I also agree Blizzard has a huge fan base and we need to get a piece of the action.

I think the obvious answer (which I said yesterday) is to make Paradox the flagship for the new site but to include a section for other games - e.g.

Comunity news articles etc:

A forum for frontpage news
a forum for articles

Paradox:

EUIII (moved in its entirety from the CM at this site - same server and software and data base mean is very possible)
HoI II
CK
General paradox forum

Non Paradox games:

Circus Maximus (moved in its entirety form the CC - this would give a new site a immediate set of active members which would greatly improve the sites chances of success).
Star craft
Oblivion down
Blizzard
another game

CC

Just forums which are redirects to the TWC forums

Administrative:

Questions and suggestions
Staff forum

Excellent idea.

[Darkragnar]

The popularity of a thread at TWC is in no way an indication of the size of the membership. I doubt many sites have TW threads or subforums... yet here we are.

While the size of the community is a concern, I think that is as much a help as a hinderance; the target and marketing and advertising is more focused. Furthermore, numbers alone confer no advantage. Take the popularity of a Halo, or Oblivion... TWC is still more popular than almost any fansite for a game franchise I could find off hand... consider also that the ORG is just as popular as TWC. TW has one of the strongest communities around, alot of this is the nature of the TW games; they attract a very large niche, and niche gamers are notoriously fansite-friendly. The same is true of Paradox. If you were to guess the size of the TW community compared to the size of the Oblivion community based on hype and units, you'd be way off the mark.

The target is to create a new community, not import TWC colonials.

The popularity of Pardox games is what i was questioning, we cant have more than 60 +/- people who might be fans of Paradox games, and im sure out of these not more than 10-20 might be Hardcore enough to actually follow the developments about the games.

This is just on TWC if we go outside twc the vast majority of people don't play paradox games, infact a large majority haven't even heard about them , the only reason we here at twc know so much about them and have an medicorum of interest is because people who play these kind of games also happen to play TW games.
A lot of people think of these games as boring evil little buggers

if we dont have a market audience who are we going to "sell" the new site to ?

Sure i get your point about niche players for these games ,but my question to you is do we want to make a Niche site ??? which has utmost 300, 500 ,700 ,1000 , 2000 ,5000 people in it ??? or do you want establish an successful site with a user database of more than 20,000 people in it ???

because TW is not a niche game , it is more mainstream so we have an active database of people that keep constantly coming in.. but with a niche game like Paradox games you will always have a small yet dedicated group of people.. and if its one thing that we should learn from TWC is that without new people coming in no forum can survive for a very long time.


And TWC isnt more popular than other hardcore gaming fan sites there are plenty of Gaming fans sites with a much bigger active participating audience.
like Mimirswell mentions , there are a lot of other sites and infact i don't think TWC or the ORG even come close to the level of determination based on their respective games, there are fans sites that have literally built new games just because the developers wernt going to release any sequels

as i said in my previously ignored post that , if were going to just expand the forums to include paradox games then fine , i would have had no problems , but since were taking a "big" step;it is a problem.

[Elrond]

The popularity of Pardox games is what i was questioning, we cant have more than 60 +/- people who might be fans of Paradox games, and im sure out of these not more than 10-20 might be Hardcore enough to actually follow the developments about the games.

This is just on TWC if we go outside twc the vast majority of people don't play paradox games, infact a large majority haven't even heard about them , the only reason we here at twc know so much about them and have an medicorum of interest is because people who play these kind of games also happen to play TW games.
A lot of people think of these games as boring evil little buggers

if we dont have a market audience who are we going to "sell" the new site to ?

Sure i get your point about niche players for these games ,but my question to you is do we want to make a Niche site ??? which has utmost 300, 500 ,700 ,1000 , 2000 ,5000 people in it ??? or do you want establish an successful site with a user database of more than 20,000 people in it ???

because TW is not a niche game , it is more mainstream so we have an active database of people that keep constantly coming in.. but with a niche game like Paradox games you will always have a small yet dedicated group of people.. and if its one thing that we should learn from TWC is that without new people coming in no forum can survive for a very long time.


And TWC isnt more popular than other hardcore gaming fan sites there are plenty of Gaming fans sites with a much bigger active participating audience.
like Mimirswell mentions , there are a lot of other sites and infact i don't think TWC or the ORG even come close to the level of determination based on their respective games, there are fans sites that have literally built new games just because the developers wernt going to release any sequels

as i said in my previously ignored post that , if were going to just expand the forums to include paradox games then fine , i would have had no problems , but since were taking a "big" step;it is a problem.

A paradox site with several forums for other games is a safe(ish) bet - its a solid base and is simalar to TWC - we must stick near to what we no - offering what we offer to TWC fans here to Paradox fans at another site is a good option and it will have far more support outside the commitee than most other suggestions.

[Darkragnar]

A paradox site with several forums for other games is a safe(ish) bet - its a solid base and is simalar to TWC - we must stick near to what we no - offering what we offer to TWC fans here to Paradox fans at another site is a good option and it will have far more support outside the commitee than most other suggestions.

well thats the thing there arnt many paradox fans out their ,& there arnt many paradox fans in here, so what we offer and dont on paradox games wont matter because to the vast majority of gamers it wouldnt be enough, just by the fact that our main focus would be paradox games. they dont enjoy paradox games.

If we start make Sub Forums dedicated to other more successful games then we might as well make them Here on TWC because we would have a larger active community than any new site.

[Elrond]

well thats the thing there arnt many paradox fans out their ,& there arnt many paradox fans in here, so what we offer and dont on paradox games wont matter because to the vast majority of gamers it wouldnt be enough, just by the fact that our main focus would be paradox games. they dont enjoy paradox games.

If we start make Sub Forums dedicated to other more successful games then we might as well make them Here on TWC because we would have a larger active community than any new site.

The official paradox site is doing quite well so there is a large comunity.

Adding forums for other games to this site risks losing are TW gold affilate status - so forums for other games at a new site would be prefrable.

[Darkragnar]

Well that's true the official forums seem popular, but they are the official forums and people from their arnt going to shift over to a newer site readily.

[Elrond]

Well that's true the official forums seem popular, but they are the official forums and people from their arnt going to shift over to a newer site readily.

On that basis neither TWC or the org would exist - The fact that there is one place means there are people interested - the turn over (of members) for most forums is quite large - people usally only stay interested in a game for a month or two. Therefore we only need to attract a small number of hardcore members - once there are mods new people will join but a very small proportion will become active members or modders - as long as we attract enough casual members the site would create its own folowing like TWC.

[Kanaric]

Well that's true the official forums seem popular, but they are the official forums and people from their arnt going to shift over to a newer site readily.

I left the official forums through word of mouth there about TWC. They didn't have things like mods available and, especially, at the time I was interested in modding RTW.

I think if we can get a couple of mods to take their home here and people who are active on their site, like me, could put in their sig that there is a paradox fansite with hosted mods and upload space for files people would start coming.

People do that often about sites for their own mod group.

It sholdn't be that hard as well being that the paradox forum is gradually gaining in activity as it is.

Paradox games are actually gaining popularity as well. They are getting more to the forefront with each title in sales as well as coverage on sites.

The thing is that most games where you have a highly active and popular following are not really that popular compared to any game. Even those flavor of the week shooters and RTS products. Also paradox games ARE popular enough to warrent a forum. There is a game series called Space Empires that is FAR less popular that has 3 highly active fansites that offer what we should offer for Paradox's products. So i'm sure a Paradox site should work.

Also having a paradox site doesn't exclude having a site for another game. I, for one, would like to see a Blizzard or a mmorpg fansite as well.

Also look at paradox's own forum:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/
Its even more active than TWC. They have a similar type of user who posts there as well, we could leech so many great members to contribute to this site.

[Leonidas The Lion]

hey have a similar type of user who posts there as well, we could leech so many great members to contribute to this site.

Assuming of course they come along.

[Elrond]

Assuming of course they come along.

I would be surprised if they didnt - it only takes one or two mod teams to move and over time some of the casual members checking out the mods will become modders etc - its a slow process but it will work.

There should only be one new site - certainly for a few months untill the new has developed enough - forums for other games would be a key part of a paradox site anyway.

[Kanaric]

Assuming of course they come along.

You could think the same thing of people from the total wars company site. That is where a lot of people here originally came from.

All we need to do is get mods to be based here and I know of one that seems to be interested called Imago Dei. Its a popular mod.

[Darkragnar]

I left the official forums through word of mouth there about TWC. They didn't have things like mods available and, especially, at the time I was interested in modding RTW.

I think if we can get a couple of mods to take their home here and people who are active on their site, like me, could put in their sig that there is a paradox fansite with hosted mods and upload space for files people would start coming.

People do that often about sites for their own mod group.

It sholdn't be that hard as well being that the paradox forum is gradually gaining in activity as it is.

Paradox games are actually gaining popularity as well. They are getting more to the forefront with each title in sales as well as coverage on sites.

The thing is that most games where you have a highly active and popular following are not really that popular compared to any game. Even those flavor of the week shooters and RTS products. Also paradox games ARE popular enough to warrent a forum. There is a game series called Space Empires that is FAR less popular that has 3 highly active fansites that offer what we should offer for Paradox's products. So i'm sure a Paradox site should work.

Also having a paradox site doesn't exclude having a site for another game. I, for one, would like to see a Blizzard or a mmorpg fansite as well.

Also look at paradox's own forum:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/
Its even more active than TWC. They have a similar type of user who posts there as well, we could leech so many great members to contribute to this site.

I haven't been involved in the Paradox community so i have no experience in them.

If people who have been part of that community make a judgment call and are willing to back up their claim of choosing Paradox games ,i will digress from my criticism to their Better judgment,so if you think we can pull off a successful site and are willing to provide evidence on that accord i will "fall in line" so to say behind the decision of choosing Paradox games.

also it would be interesting to hear other peoples opinion about Paradox games , not everyone on the committee has declared their opinions.