Touching Up Twitter, Website, and Forums

leftyy

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I mentioned this on a post I made earlier, but I wanted to make a separate post to talk about how PWO might look to any newcomer or veteran thinking about playing the game. I'll start off by saying that I am a veteran of the game, who probably quit around ~2013 and just checks up on this game annually. So I haven't been following with the updates daily, but I check up on the game every once in a while to see if there's something new. 

The Twitter, website, and forums, makes PWO in a way look underwhelming. Whenever I browse the forums, I see members saying "This game has changed a lot you just haven't played the game to realize it" but I dont have all the time in the world to check up on updates and play the game for hours to figure out whether or not it has content. I just want to go any of the forums, website, or twitter to see if there was an update. 
I feel that, in a way, all three slightly unwelcoming to new and old players. 

I'll start with the forums first. I'm not talking about the entire forums, but just the announcement and changelog sections. The announcements needs to be cleaned. The most recent stickied post is from 2 years ago, with the stickied posts going as far back as 2013. Doesn't even matter the context, just seeing dates like those on the front page of announcements is just underwhelming to anyone looking at the game, new or old. Obviously they're important, but I think they should be removed in place of an updated FAQ or Rules post. I think the "client download links" post is redundant, as you can just go on the main website to download the game, but can be placed into a FAQ. The post about signatures can just be set under a rules post, or better yet, just have the rules there when someone wants to change their signature. No need to clutter up the announcements. System bans can go under a FAQ, or you guys can just unpin it. I don't know, I don't play the game anymore so I don't know how relevant that post is as of today. The "Server Downtime" post should be removed entirely, in my opinion, and I'll detail about that in a bit. 

Regarding the changelog posts, I'm not sure if the section needs to be visible at all. At first glance it seems like you guys just have it there to keep track of what you're doing at the moment or what you've done, which is good. Correct me if I'm wrong but it's also there to show the community the kind of work each individual staff makes. I'll be honest, it's hard to understand when any of the posts are updated unless the actual OP posts there. If you guys  want to update the community on what you do, I think it would be a good idea to just make biweekly or monthly posts providing updates to your community on what you guys have been working on. This way it provides the announcements with content and allows the community to interact with their staff to talk about the game. Albeit, I guess it might be a little redundant, considering some staff members already post often on the forums. On the other hand, the most recent post in the changelogs is of Rigaudon, a member no longer apart of the staff. I think having update posts in announcements show that you guys are working on the game. I don't know if I'm the only one, but I feel like new or old players would most likely visit the announcement part of the forums first before exploring the other sections, and being able to see announcement posts dating back to almost 2 years ago on the first page, as well as pinned posts from 2013  might be a depressing to some. It might give people this feeling that nothing is going on for the posts to leave the front page.

Now, back to the "server downtime" post, this ties with the website and twitter. I remember back when the game was very rich in players, where the second the server went down you would see >10 posts all asking the same question, is the server down? Now that post can easily be merged into a FAQ, being the first question since it's the most popular. You guys also have a server status on your website, and you guys always announce when the server is down on your twitter, so I don't think it deserves a single pinned post to itself. Now my question is, why is the server status on your website not implemented on the main page of PWO? Or on every page, preferably in the upper right corner. It gives any member a quick way to check if the server is on or not, and then they can click on the server status tab if they want more details on what's going on with the server for when it is down. By having the server status on the main page of PWO, any new player coming into PWO immediately learns the essential information of where to check if they want to know if the server is down: your website. 

Now your twitter, I'm not sure if it's a good idea to use your main twitter to post all the maintenance updates. With how spread out your updates are, it's just flooded with more server updates tweets where the actual game updates cannot compete with. Any new player looking at all of your content for PWO will stumble upon a lifeless twitter account where it's only purpose is to provide information on the server, which is dull. The main twitter has no personality. It feels like it's just a bot with notifications of server downtime, not of someone trying to be welcoming to anyone interested in PWO. It's a better idea to just have an new twitter account dedicated to server updates, and using your main twitter for game updates or announcement posts, etc. 

I think I got most of the main points I wanted to say. I know what I said might seem miniscule but I think consistent communication with your community is key to making sure people know PWO is still here and being worked on. The website, twitter, and announcement section of forums are probably the most important places that leave an impression on players. It's the first thing people will see and it will inevitably leave a poor impression on some. 

While these are small changes I would like to know what you guys think or if you have criticisms for on what I said, what you guys think about how PWO is portrayed to new and old players and whether I'm just misinformed and am taking this way over proportions lol

On another note I had a question pertaining to the gameplay of PWO itself. I see under announcements that you guys have had plenty of events, but all of them have ended. Again, I haven't played the game in a while, were these events treated as quests? Is there a reason why you guys left them as temporary events rather than keep them as additional content for new players(excluding holiday events like halloween)? Or am I just reading it incorrectly and it's still possible to complete them?
 

Jinji

PWO's Resident Gengar
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At one time or another, the Server Status checker WAS on every page of the site. This meant the server got pinged every time the page was loaded. This was found to contribute to significant load on the server, causing lag and other issues. Having it on a dedicated page keeps requests down while still providing a useful indicator to people who want that information.

Your complaint about the age of some of the announcements is something that never occurred to me before, but is definitely a very good point - especially as necroposting is frowned upon.
 

HitmonFonty

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leftyy said:
On another note I had a question pertaining to the gameplay of PWO itself. I see under announcements that you guys have had plenty of events, but all of them have ended. Again, I haven't played the game in a while, were these events treated as quests? Is there a reason why you guys left them as temporary events rather than keep them as additional content for new players(excluding holiday events like halloween)? Or am I just reading it incorrectly and it's still possible to complete them?

Events are designed to pack a lot of gameplay into a short time and the rewards that are on offer during those events are timed for each specific event. To leave such rewards available beyond that time would in almost all cases damage the overall game balance we've spent so much time creating and maintaining.
 
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