Community shrinkage
Community shrinkage
A lot of people say that the community is shrinking. I created this thread to ask people what we can do about it. What can we do to keep people from leaveing? What about bringing dormant playes back and recruit new people?
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iron
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Advertising has been tried & while it brings in a trickle of newbies plus the occasional veteran (its amazing how many vets assumed myth died when b.net closed) ... its nowhere near enough to sustain the community.
It'd be great if it could be made abandonware/freeware. I don't ever see T2 declaring it freeware like Bungie did with 'thon, but if they ever stopped selling the game then I wouldn't personally have any problem with it being available for download, as per the example set by http://www.the-underdogs.info/faq.php#a4. I know there's a lot of copyright zealots who'd disagree, but I believe games are meant to be played and enjoyed, not lost in some dusty corporate archive.
That said, a real problem is the the community discourages new players from getting into the game. We went to a lot of effort upgrading the demo to 1.6 and making it so that demo players can join in Gimble games with full version players. However, playmyth refuses to allow a "guest" login of any sort - so demo folk have to jump through the hoops to get an account if they want to play there, which of course has been impossible for the last few months anyway.
Someone who is trying the game out for the first time will _not_ go to the effort of signing up an account. Its just crazy putting that obstacle in their way. So ... demo folk are left with one option - mariusnet, where the bulk of the myth community refuses to play. Seeing no-one online, they assume the game is dead and give up.
Really, there's no point talking about advertising or anything else unless this problem is fixed.
It'd be great if it could be made abandonware/freeware. I don't ever see T2 declaring it freeware like Bungie did with 'thon, but if they ever stopped selling the game then I wouldn't personally have any problem with it being available for download, as per the example set by http://www.the-underdogs.info/faq.php#a4. I know there's a lot of copyright zealots who'd disagree, but I believe games are meant to be played and enjoyed, not lost in some dusty corporate archive.
That said, a real problem is the the community discourages new players from getting into the game. We went to a lot of effort upgrading the demo to 1.6 and making it so that demo players can join in Gimble games with full version players. However, playmyth refuses to allow a "guest" login of any sort - so demo folk have to jump through the hoops to get an account if they want to play there, which of course has been impossible for the last few months anyway.
Someone who is trying the game out for the first time will _not_ go to the effort of signing up an account. Its just crazy putting that obstacle in their way. So ... demo folk are left with one option - mariusnet, where the bulk of the myth community refuses to play. Seeing no-one online, they assume the game is dead and give up.
Really, there's no point talking about advertising or anything else unless this problem is fixed.
The real thing holding M2 back from any major resurgence is that bungie no longer holds the rights. They could easily re-release this as a downloadable game for the xbox and have it be a hit all over again. Or they could do something major like updating the graphics (I think the original ones are still great) and adding a new campaign. It would bring back a lot of old players and new players.
Until recently I assumed M2 was dead after b.net closed down. But I think that even if we did get the word out to all the old players it still wouldn't be enough...
Until recently I assumed M2 was dead after b.net closed down. But I think that even if we did get the word out to all the old players it still wouldn't be enough...
I agree that the community discourages new people from joining (it took me five hours to get an account on playmyth
There are things that can be done about that. First of all, people could try to get playmyth.net to allow a guest login. Secondy we could take steps to get more people to play on mariusnet (there is a thread on the mariusnet forums about this. It is under myth2 general discussion)
There are things that can be done about that. First of all, people could try to get playmyth.net to allow a guest login. Secondy we could take steps to get more people to play on mariusnet (there is a thread on the mariusnet forums about this. It is under myth2 general discussion)
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iron
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Playmyth have historically been very stubborn about such changes to their server. I've spoken to their developers (Alan in the past, now CIK) about the need to do something to allow demo/guest users to join - even if its just access to a single unranked room. I'm willing to be pleasantly surprised, but after years of nothing happening I'm not going to hold my breath.
Also, the vast majority of the myth community do not want to move to mnet. There's bad history from years ago which lingers in people's minds, no matter that its totally irrelevant to the mnet of today. There's also a point of view that says any migration would probably end up in a lot of people not making the transition & thus disappearing from Myth. Realistically the only way a move to mnet will happen is if the playmyth server is closed.
So ... the best bet is to keep pressuring playmyth to open up a room for guest logins. It'd be a start.
Also, the vast majority of the myth community do not want to move to mnet. There's bad history from years ago which lingers in people's minds, no matter that its totally irrelevant to the mnet of today. There's also a point of view that says any migration would probably end up in a lot of people not making the transition & thus disappearing from Myth. Realistically the only way a move to mnet will happen is if the playmyth server is closed.
So ... the best bet is to keep pressuring playmyth to open up a room for guest logins. It'd be a start.
mnet...pmnet
Mnet has been rather vacant lately and pmnet is in serious decline from what i see.... I dont go there sept to ask why the fudge are you people here and not on mnet....
maybe marius net needs to be reborn a
as mythnet or something and have a kick off
obviously pmnet the last few month s has hurt
the myth community greatly all the momentum from
the 1.6 release the tain and the online version coming out
was killed off and new plugs and new players
fizzled enthusiasm once again the mind set of
eggo over thought for the good of the game wins out...
I appreciate all pmnet has done in the passt well not all
but most... just this latest stuborn and untimely tact is
dooming what little hope this game had for a resurgence
the simple answer is admit its tooo much to handle and ask people to switch to mnet and leave pmnet up as a simple backup ..... and m3 domain
maybe marius net needs to be reborn a
as mythnet or something and have a kick off
obviously pmnet the last few month s has hurt
the myth community greatly all the momentum from
the 1.6 release the tain and the online version coming out
was killed off and new plugs and new players
fizzled enthusiasm once again the mind set of
eggo over thought for the good of the game wins out...
I appreciate all pmnet has done in the passt well not all
but most... just this latest stuborn and untimely tact is
dooming what little hope this game had for a resurgence
the simple answer is admit its tooo much to handle and ask people to switch to mnet and leave pmnet up as a simple backup ..... and m3 domain
if one does not learn from the failings of the past they are likely to suffer its return.
Well I'm sitting here able to play but not really able to login and just leave Myth open waiting for other people to play. I know I can look at Mnet and see who else is on. They can't see me though, and I'm sure there are others like me who are just sitting here looking at how empty Mnet is so they're not logging in also making it stay empty.
If there was some way I could be on without having the Myth client open. Some way I could chat with the other people who are in Mnet and setup games I think this would bring out a lot of dormant players who are just frustrated with not being able to find games.
If there was some way I could be on without having the Myth client open. Some way I could chat with the other people who are in Mnet and setup games I think this would bring out a lot of dormant players who are just frustrated with not being able to find games.