Options to "revive" (save) Freelancer
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Yeah the difference is, link building is different from marketing. Getting players to link is ok at a local level, however, you have no control on what they post and how the message is delivered. This is the problem.
When you have kids trying to build links by offering the above, unfortunately, you allow them to market your server. Marketing your server with bad typos, poor grammer etc. is worse than having a link in the first place. Normal link building is fine.
As I have mentioned you need to have a set format, so the message is clear, concise, uniform and interesting.
Most of you have your own banners and buttons, this is because you want your server promoted with that graphic, its the same for the text.
My suggestion to you F!R, is to get some text set out and say to your people, heres the link, heres the text and heres the graphic, use these when building links for our server. Let them add a bit to the start and end, but keep the meat uniform.
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… that’s what we do. suggesting a text 2 post.
(Maybe clearer after color update
and the WTS mod info is left away here)Besides:
1. The kids grammer can’t be much worse than mine.
2. I like 2 get things done - even if it’s not perfect - better, than getting them discussed.@WTS World forum: http://the2ndweb.com/wtsworld/showpost.php?p=5616&postcount=1
result (example):
http://www.battleclinic.com/forum/index.php/topic,23280.new.html#new
http://stargate-project.de/stargate/forum/showthread.php?p=500316#post500316
http://www.sg.hu/listazas.php3?id=1042794664 -
How about writing a email to magazines like PC Games etc.
They could provide Freelancer as full game on one of their CD they provide with the magazine.
This could also be good for MS cause they would earn a little cash with it.Only a idea i just had in my mind
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One important side note. If your pushing to include Freelancer MOD’s and utilities on any Gaming Magazine CD or DVD, some attempt must be made to deal with the basic error of Microsoft not patching many of it’s older products for Vista. Any potential new players do not need the frustration of stumbling around in the dark unable to connect due to the odd ball qwerks of Vista. Most will not know to connect to a Freelancer forum and ask for help, they might connect to the Gaming Magazine Forum where odds are no one will have a clue, or they will simply toss it aside and move on unless there is some type of documentation on the disk explaining the problem and possible workarounds.
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TBH you guys, the first thing we need is the MS software for the global. The biggest problem FL has is new people NOT knowing how to connect to this game. It’s a big problem. We at the Starport, have hammered MS for the software, but to no avail.
I, myself personally have email Ubisoft numerous times, asking for a mutual link exchange to support FL. I spammed em from the top on down, they have numerous contacts all over the world, and half of the emails came back with invalid email address and no reply from the rest. I’m not giving up on that, next is a formal letter sent by snail mail, maybe it will bring light to the ‘right’ person at Ubisoft.
Unfortunately for gaming companies, FL is dead, atleast because it is no longer a huge money maker for them.
I am and always have supported this game, but we need to come up with something that will be attractive to new players. Before the global was taken down, FL had almost 1800 players, STILL playing the game. MS saw fit to take the global and we are lucky to see 500 people still playing this game.
So the focus should start with figuring out a way to lure new players to an old game. That’s the first step.
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it will be very hard to find new players even if you get a new GLS online
and i dont really have a solution for this since there are many other Space sims out there meanwhile (which seem to be more attractive to players than FL is)But you could try to contact old players
many have stopped playing because of the GLS loss or because of other reasons and then they forgot about FLi assume that the old LR db contains emails
if so its going to be very easy to put them into a newsletter script and send a newsletter out to remind those ppl that FL is not dead yet…. that there are ways to connect to servers… that there are incredible developments
the old LR had about 25000 members… if you get a reaction from just 1% of them you would noticeable raise the activity in FL
(just an idea - an idea which did work very good for SWAT in the past years) -
There is a fine line there OP, between disturbing someones privacy. By that I mean ‘spamming’ an entire forum listing.
You can bet that some people will be offended by an email, others won’t be, but some will.
I really don’t know what the answer is, only that we need to do something, but what that is I don’t know.
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Id say go for it, so much to be gained from doing it lol…… >.>
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@Torch
With respect, who cares if people are offended? I get some spam mail same as the next person, if i don’t want to read it, it goes straight in the bin
As for Op’s idea, it’s certainly a reasonable proposal and i’d say go for it. People who don’t want to be involved will not come back that’s for sure, but there will be a reasonable number that might.
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A short look at the stats of the most active player list:
TOTAL SERVERS SEEN 174
TOTAL PLAYERS AVERAGE 344.33Ok - let’s make it 500 or 600 or 1.000 players in the maximum.
But we have 174 servers - hey and the WTS test server isn’t on the list.So getting 2.000 or maybe 3.000 by reactivating “not so old players” can’t be the main target.
Especially so changes in RL make people loose interest
what i can tell from the mails, i send 2 old staff members,
when a new version is out. Some show, some not- most for an hour or 2 and some small talk.
We need the very old players who never played online
or new players.How do we get those?
Announcing –-> OUTSIDE <----- the FL community.And how can we get magazines + such to post / publish
our announcment?
Write a nice text as companies do, when they announce a product,
so the news guy/girl can just use that, what u d send
and earn some money without work.And get anyone you know, to post about Freelancer + Starport
(+ WTS ) in the WWW.;D
And today WTS got an announcment in a SPAM section- but better than nothing)
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its not the main target… its a beginning… a chance
and one mail to a freelancer player wont hurt them (its not that we are going to spam ppl which have nothing to do with FL)
Its just one reasonable mail… to remind ppl that FL still exists
we could even offer the option to get excluded from the mailing list (IF there should be more than one mails) -
Don’t misunderstand me:
I m definitiv NOT trying 2 tell,
that a action, which might get players,
should be skipped.
I want them all - yesterday. -
I have the entire list of email address’s that were registered to TLR. I do not have Usernames or passwords, just the emails.
I have this is in excel format ready to be imported to a auto email programme. But the issue is, this is not the Starport’s information… it is TLR 's data and use of it could lead to trouble. The reason no action has been taken as yet. I was given this information by people authorised to give it to me, so I have broken no laws. But mass emailing them could be another issue.
I have already asked for volunteers to help, only two came forward. Everyone has ideas, but no one seems to want to take it forward.
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1. Can you c, if the people accepted 2 recieve emails?
2. 2 me it seems most of the old TLR staff are now admins here
and the big part of the serious modders meet at the Starport.So a basic information about Starport and the GLS workaround
should be of interest to those people, who visited TLR when you + me did.I doubt, a short single mail,
with a little info about Freelancer, Starport and the GLS workaround
can get anyone in prison or a a million $ fine.Or we need volunteers,
who don’t care about spamming, hacking, ……;D
(biting on my tongue very very hard) -
A monthly news letter would be a possibility as well. Not all will sign up for that, but being able to read it here is a option.
We would need a “news” team, people who have the experience to write in clean english in a interesting way.I agree that we need to get up higher in the google search listings.
Mass emailing, once, i have no issues with that.
Lately a LOT of nice new mods with completely renewed textures came out, its like FL completely new, maybe some old hardcore players are interested in comming back to check those out.
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I offer my help also, I’m very good at writing.
Maybe we could ask the admins, kind and generous as they are, for a forum where we can bash out ideas:).
oops, forgot to add, I have a very well written letter to Ubisoft, which I did tell you guys I spammed them with. But I’m thinking, if I am a contact for Ubisoft, I’m not going to open half my emails. So, I think if we can get a few of us together from all over the world, we may be able to snail mail this letter, or others like it to the contacts in your country of origin. For me, I find snail mail in a business matter a better way to contact people. Email is so impersonal. We would also leave our correct address/names and email addys with the company we solicit. We want Starport to look well established.
We also have a very nice logo/letterhead made by FF, which I will be sending off shortly, and we can see what happens.
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If at all possible, I’d send a mail to the Ubisoft quarters here in Montreal. It’s the biggest site they have and maybe they’d listen more to a bilingual letter…
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However, I am going to e-mail 4players.de to add the GLS-Workaround to the Freelancer-download and ask them if they could write a news.
I would like declare the GLS Workaround as “Multiplayer Patch” because it is the easiest description.
Does anyone have something agianst this plan?
(I also need the permission fromthe GLS autor - W0dk4.)Freelancer at 4players:
http://www.4players.de/4players.php/spielinfo/PC-CDROM/1235/Freelancer.html(unfortunaly german)
I am also going to mail some other game communites which wrote an article about Freelancer to add the “Multiplayer Patch” in the description.
(I would like to ask for a general permission to spread the GLS - Workaround around everywhere I want to - I dont think autors would be against it, but I prefer clear permissions.)
