A glorious suggestion from Teh Bacon on how to attract people.

HSharp · Post by **HSharp** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 9:56 pm

I think one thing that really drew me in when I first played Allegiance was the Academy, it looked cool and gave me enough info to play Allegiance well enough to be useful. Wiki has more info but doesn't look as nice as the Academy did

Broodwich · Post by **Broodwich** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 10:02 pm

i thought this was a thread for dating tips
oh how disappointed i am

Bacon_00 · Post by **Bacon_00** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 10:51 pm

I'm not sure what my mockup showed, but it was just a simple re-write of the current main page. No color changes or anything... same graphics and everything. Looks fine to me but I dunno, maybe the host messed with it. The intro video link was just a rickroll... placeholder =P

In any case, I'm gonna make a full mock-up of a new front page. I have a good idea of what I think would make for a more welcoming, exciting intro to the game other than the current "e-sport" feel of the page that's up there now. Not to bash the current one so much, as it's a well constructed little flyer for the game. I just think that we could do better while still conveying the same info.

As for the video, I'm not sure if I have time to capture video and make a new intro. I could do it, but that's quite a little project. I'm only wanting to do this front page stuff because I'm off until Jan 4th, so I have some free time. But a video could take a long time... I could write a script, though, w/ ideas of what to capture w/ FRAPS and what not. But for now I'm gonna work on making a nice front page =D

cashto · Post by **cashto** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 11:24 pm

The Allegiance backstory is super hokey, lacks depth, and has no real bearing on gameplay. No offense to Datanet fans, but if you're really into that stuff, world of warcraft is what you should be playing. I would not agree with making that part of our front-page pitch.

The intro video is uber cool though.

IMO the greatest impediment to retention is that this is our Learn to Play link. Chock full of warnings about how Allegiance is Serious Business and in order to learn to play our awesome game you need to take a class but if you're really impatient then okay fine here's a TL;DR three-week intro to our game and did we mention "you're on your own"?

This needs to be scrapped yesterday and replaced with a day-one, one-page tutorial that covers:

The lobby, how to join a game in progress (and why it takes so frickin' long sometimes to get a game going).A high-level overview of the game (mine, get tech, build bases, blow up all enemy bases while getting yelled at by someone called "the commander" who has bold text).The minimap and how to recognize bases, bombers, miners, and cons.The scout: how to fly, how to ripcord and transfer bases with F8.How and where to probe.How to equip and switch nans.How to pick up tech and cashboxes.

And that's it. Nothing about sig management, prox, missles, sidethrusting, techpaths, etc. There's links / teasers to all that stuff of course, but don't unload the dump truck on newbies, when all they need is a short intro that gives them the bare minimum necessary to be useful on day one.

badpazzword · Post by **badpazzword** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 11:28 pm

http://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0Af...3amdj&hl=en

This is a test of mine (one juckto steamrolled over...) of an introduction that would be displayed as the game downloads.

It's a bit boring, however. Wall of text in twenty small doses.

Adept · Post by **Adept** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 12:05 am

badp wrote:QUOTE (badp @ Dec 13 2009, 01:28 AM) http://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0Af...3amdj&hl=en

This is a test of mine (one juckto steamrolled over...) of an introduction that would be displayed as the game downloads.

It's a bit boring, however. Wall of text in twenty small doses.

Wall of text, like a bad powerpoint presentation.

The picture was good, but the rest made even me not read it. Sorry.

badpazzword · Post by **badpazzword** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 7:27 am

I know it's hopeless, you didn't even read my three liner.

badp wrote:QUOTE (badp @ Dec 13 2009, 12:28 AM) It's a bit boring, however. Wall of text in twenty small doses.

refill · Post by **refill** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 7:51 am

Ok Bacon. But I must add, I just cannot see any reason to change the frontpage, perhaps there need to be less text on it, but that is about it. Can't the original video be placed onto the wiki now that there is a HD version that is available on Youtube.

Cashto, bless his cotton socks is spot on about that page. I know that many of you have put in a great deal of effort into the wiki & everything else! But it does look as though it is catered more for the current user base than newbies.

Remember the old sales adage "You sell the benefits and not the product". As Cashto points out, telling a newbie, this game is hard as nails, you are new and suck and if you don't take this medicine you will continue to suck is possibly not the best method. We have a narrow window of opportunity with newbies, we need them to have fun as soon as they get the game installed. Reading walls of text is almost certainly not the best method to start out the relationship.

We need a quick and efficient method of dispatching newbies into the killing zone with the maximum amount of fun. Which is why we are back to pointing them to the training lessons and any decent videos we have.

RealPandemonium · Post by **RealPandemonium** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 8:22 am

HSharp wrote:QUOTE (HSharp @ Dec 12 2009, 04:56 PM) I think one thing that really drew me in when I first played Allegiance was the Academy, it looked cool and gave me enough info to play Allegiance well enough to be useful. Wiki has more info but doesn't look as nice as the Academy did

I agree, the academy was aesthetically pleasing, if outdated and messy in some places.

GhostMachine · Post by **GhostMachine** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 9:34 am

That's a great way to introduce newbies to the Alleg culture: by RICKROLLING them at the gate! NICE

There's also Larsec's training videos to push, and the training exercises that we were talking about last summer to pursue further. And making the DataNet stuff more public, and fleshed out a lot more. Good for fanfic fodder too. I would not mind trying MY hand at some alleg-based fiction just as an exercise in creativity. Maybe even having an RP session here and there in-game to make it interesting. Choose your own adventure by the actions of the teams in the action, dunno, just brainstorming here.