Elysian Shadows

http://twistedapex.com

I've been working on it for a few months now and it's not completely done but when it is I'm not sure how I will get people to use it. No matter how neat and perfect I make it without users it's nothing. I would even be interested in changing it around a bit and letting you use it for Elysian Shadows or something. I just want it to be successful but I have no idea what I can offer that would make people interested in it... Any ideas what I can do to get people to start using the forums and stuff?

Well, advertising, you're doing good by posting on this forum. I assume you've posted on similar forums. Just getting the word out is always good. make sure you have articles people will read, and give people incentive to sign up. Maybe have a donations thing, where people donate, and you buy a game or something then have a special something or other where you give it away. :D

eatcomics wrote:Well, advertising, you're doing good by posting on this forum. I assume you've posted on similar forums. Just getting the word out is always good. make sure you have articles people will read, and give people incentive to sign up. Maybe have a donations thing, where people donate, and you buy a game or something then have a special something or other where you give it away. :D

Yep, and post pictures of your bird's knockers... Unless, of course, she's a total dog.

Let me tell you what I think.

I think you should stop joining forums to write a "personal" message to someone and post it publicly,

[seen above]

ignoring perfectly reasonable responses to try and be handed a gimmick,

http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums ... 1&#3714269

and calling it your penis,

http://www.okcupid.com/forum?tid=544569874644671873

and actually decide for yourself what you want your site to be. You don't just decide you want to create a successful site, and then later try to pick what the site is going to be. You'll just end up trying to cater to a million different people who all want different things, and your site will have no vision, and thus be of no interest to anyone. You just made four tires without deciding what kind of car you want to put them on. You'll be damn lucky if they fit at all once you've chosen. Did you start your game engine without deciding whether your game was going to be 2D or 3D, too?

I'm not just hating on you. I hope you make a great site. The more great gaming sites out there, the better. I'm just telling you that you're going about it all wrong. You don't just put up a shell of a site, post a few random news articles, and then start asking people how to advertise and what they think your site should be. And for fuck sake, don't offer to change your site to cater to a project that already has a successful site. What possible use would the ES team have for taking traffic away from their site for people to read about their project? It's obvious that you're not putting much thought into the concept of the site, and just trying to latch on to popular things to make your own site popular. But for what purpose? So that you can wear some badge of honor saying that you copied and pasted this information to your site, and that's where people went to read about it?

Okay, I said I wasn't hating, and then continued to rant. I'm just more baffled than anything. But if you want to actually make a useful site, it's pretty simple. Just figure out what would make you want to go to that site. You're not catering to some unknown demographic; they're people with similar interests to yours. Just make a site that you'd like, and people like you will find it.

...if that's a good thing.

The site looks ok to me, pointless right now, but ok.

I'm finding myself agreeing with aamesxdavid - it seems your not sure what your site actually is. Is it a blog, is it a forum, is it a showcase, is it anything. One pet peeve of mine, is when 'developer' start up a website, then have nothing on their projects page, lots and lots of nothing. Developers should have a project, THEN need a website. Making a website to hold the projects you don't yet have is ludicrous.

People should think long about their website, plan it, what you hope to achieve - then decide if anyone would actually care, if anyone would pay attention. Then, if the answer is probably not - step away and don't make a website, admit defeat, and post your work somewhere else. There are hundreds of gaming sites that are happy to host your games.

Sorry if I sound harsh - the empty project page on every developer site annoys me.

Van-B wrote: People should think long about their website, plan it, what you hope to achieve - then decide if anyone would actually care, if anyone would pay attention. Then, if the answer is probably not - step away and don't make a website, admit defeat, and post your work somewhere else. There are hundreds of gaming sites that are happy to host your games.

With the exception of someone who wants to make a site because they're genuinely interested in learning to make and maintain a site, that's probably pretty good advice. What sites would you recommend for hosting game projects? This is something that I'm asking partially out of my own interest too. I'd like to start a page/site for my game, but I really have little interest in design the website itself or maintaining it beyond posting updates and making minor tweaks. I'm more interested in spending time on my other projects - but I'm starting to get to the point where I'd like to share a bit of what I'm working on.

aamesxdavid wrote:Let me tell you what I think.

I think you should stop joining forums to write a "personal" message to someone and post it publicly,

[seen above]

ignoring perfectly reasonable responses to try and be handed a gimmick,

http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums ... 1&#3714269

and calling it your penis,

http://www.okcupid.com/forum?tid=544569874644671873

and actually decide for yourself what you want your site to be. You don't just decide you want to create a successful site, and then later try to pick what the site is going to be. You'll just end up trying to cater to a million different people who all want different things, and your site will have no vision, and thus be of no interest to anyone. You just made four tires without deciding what kind of car you want to put them on. You'll be damn lucky if they fit at all once you've chosen. Did you start your game engine without deciding whether your game was going to be 2D or 3D, too?

I'm not just hating on you. I hope you make a great site. The more great gaming sites out there, the better. I'm just telling you that you're going about it all wrong. You don't just put up a shell of a site, post a few random news articles, and then start asking people how to advertise and what they think your site should be. And for fuck sake, don't offer to change your site to cater to a project that already has a successful site. What possible use would the ES team have for taking traffic away from their site for people to read about their project? It's obvious that you're not putting much thought into the concept of the site, and just trying to latch on to popular things to make your own site popular. But for what purpose? So that you can wear some badge of honor saying that you copied and pasted this information to your site, and that's where people went to read about it?

Okay, I said I wasn't hating, and then continued to rant. I'm just more baffled than anything. But if you want to actually make a useful site, it's pretty simple. Just figure out what would make you want to go to that site. You're not catering to some unknown demographic; they're people with similar interests to yours. Just make a site that you'd like, and people like you will find it.

...if that's a good thing.

^
Hmm, my advertising is obviously working far better than I expected! I think I mainly need some type of gimmick to get people to join but I'm unsure exactly what would make me personally interested... I was thinking of making some Youtube tutorials on creating a game engine since I have a good deal of experience and I've noticed this seems to be the main question new indie developers have.

Also I honestly think I can do a better job than the current elysianshadows website and it would be more beneficial to myself and elysianshadows if I were to focus my talent on something that already has an existing user base instead of stumbling around in the dark looking for a niche.

I don't think myself alone could create enough content to fill my site. I need users to start asking questions on the forums and other users to make replies. I have noticed that when something is phrased as a question people generally will reply to it more often then if it were just a statement. If you will notice this is what most youtubers and bloggers employ to gain comments on their posts.

SteveDeFacto wrote:http://twistedapex.com

I've been working on it for a few months now and it's not completely done but when it is I'm not sure how I will get people to use it. No matter how neat and perfect I make it without users it's nothing. I would even be interested in changing it around a bit and letting you use it for Elysian Shadows or something. I just want it to be successful but I have no idea what I can offer that would make people interested in it... Any ideas what I can do to get people to start using the forums and stuff?

Welcome to ES btw (I suppose you've probably been lurking since around the same time I started, judging by your join date, but this is your first post). Cool article on "Single Pass Procedural Planet Rendering". Procedural rendering is an area I'm very interested in. I actually ended up reading your post on the OpenGL forums (you got me interested enough to want to know more). They definitely had some good suggestions, but I think that writing articles is something that you just learn with practice (like anything else). Targeting your audience, as they were suggesting, is key - or at least providing some sort of forum/follow-up guide for each of your target audiences to make the most of what you write.

EccentricDuck wrote:

Van-B wrote: People should think long about their website, plan it, what you hope to achieve - then decide if anyone would actually care, if anyone would pay attention. Then, if the answer is probably not - step away and don't make a website, admit defeat, and post your work somewhere else. There are hundreds of gaming sites that are happy to host your games.

With the exception of someone who wants to make a site because they're genuinely interested in learning to make and maintain a site, that's probably pretty good advice. What sites would you recommend for hosting game projects? This is something that I'm asking partially out of my own interest too. I'd like to start a page/site for my game, but I really have little interest in design the website itself or maintaining it beyond posting updates and making minor tweaks. I'm more interested in spending time on my other projects - but I'm starting to get to the point where I'd like to share a bit of what I'm working on.

That is exactly what my site is for, just look at the login page! Although at the moment I would not recommend it since it has such a small user base and it is not complete... My idea was to offer a frame work for other developers to assist in managing their projects and at some point I also intend to offer some type of game development SDK but I'm spending far too much time trying to get an initial user base. I need something that would make my site directly useful...

EccentricDuck wrote:

SteveDeFacto wrote:http://twistedapex.com

I've been working on it for a few months now and it's not completely done but when it is I'm not sure how I will get people to use it. No matter how neat and perfect I make it without users it's nothing. I would even be interested in changing it around a bit and letting you use it for Elysian Shadows or something. I just want it to be successful but I have no idea what I can offer that would make people interested in it... Any ideas what I can do to get people to start using the forums and stuff?

Welcome to ES btw (I suppose you've probably been lurking since around the same time I started, judging by your join date, but this is your first post). Cool article on "Single Pass Procedural Planet Rendering". Procedural rendering is an area I'm very interested in. I actually ended up reading your post on the OpenGL forums (you got me interested enough to want to know more). They definitely had some good suggestions, but I think that writing articles is something that you just learn with practice (like anything else). Targeting your audience, as they were suggesting, is key - or at least providing some sort of forum/follow-up guide for each of your target audiences to make the most of what you write.

Errr... That's kinda odd because I never posted it to the OpenGL forums... Could you share a link?... Also this is actually my second account and I created my first on October, 2008 because I didn't like my old username...

SteveDeFacto wrote:Hmm, my advertising is obviously working far better than I expected! I think I mainly need some type of gimmick to get people to join but I'm unsure exactly what would make me personally interested...

Okay, Steve, no links this time so you're not too distracted by your advertising genius to pick up on a very well-established point. Or was I just too nice before? That would be a first.

Don't bother making a site if you don't know what it is.

SteveDeFacto wrote:Also I honestly think I can do a better job than the current elysianshadows website and it would be more beneficial to myself and elysianshadows if I were to focus my talent on something that already has an existing user base instead of stumbling around in the dark looking for a niche.

You want to help make a better site for ES? Why bother making a totally separate site for this? Offer your services to work on their current site - there's a whole section for applications. Or did you miss that because it's not a good place to advertise your own site?

No, what you really want was given away in the second part of that quote: you want to piggyback on something currently popular just to give your site traffic. You don't have a vision, so you want to take someone else's. But why? What's the point?

SteveDeFacto wrote:I don't think myself alone could create enough content to full my site. I need users to start asking questions on the forums and other users to make replies.

You mean like these forums? Well, these people already have forums that they like - why bother posting on your forums as well? What is the point? You get users by offering something that other sites don't offer.

Making a site about a game that already has a site will not accomplish that.
Making forums based on already successful forums will not accomplish that.

Are these things not obvious? Sites that are popular now didn't get that way by being just another game development site; they have something unique. Nothing to offer = no users. It's that simple.

And in case my main question was not clear: Why are you making this site?

Steve, the site looks cool and all from what I've seen...

We are well aware of the fact that our current site is a reasting piece of shit, though. Dandymcgee has been working dilligently on our new, super secret, upgraded site for about a month now, and it is going to be pretty epic once released.

But yeah, like aamesxdavid said, what is the specific focus of your site?

GyroVorbis wrote:Steve, the site looks cool and all from what I've seen...

We are well aware of the fact that our current site is a reasting piece of shit, though. Dandymcgee has been working dilligently on our new, super secret, upgraded site for about a month now, and it is going to be pretty epic once released.

But yeah, like aamesxdavid said, what is the specific focus of your site?

SteveDeFacto wrote:

EccentricDuck wrote:

Van-B wrote: People should think long about their website, plan it, what you hope to achieve - then decide if anyone would actually care, if anyone would pay attention. Then, if the answer is probably not - step away and don't make a website, admit defeat, and post your work somewhere else. There are hundreds of gaming sites that are happy to host your games.

With the exception of someone who wants to make a site because they're genuinely interested in learning to make and maintain a site, that's probably pretty good advice. What sites would you recommend for hosting game projects? This is something that I'm asking partially out of my own interest too. I'd like to start a page/site for my game, but I really have little interest in design the website itself or maintaining it beyond posting updates and making minor tweaks. I'm more interested in spending time on my other projects - but I'm starting to get to the point where I'd like to share a bit of what I'm working on.

That is exactly what my site is for, just look at the login page! Although at the moment I would not recommend it since it has such a small user base and it is not complete... My idea was to offer a frame work for other developers to assist in managing their projects and at some point I also intend to offer some type of game development SDK but I'm spending far too much time trying to get an initial user base. I need something that would make my site directly useful...

Also I'm glad you have a new site in the works!

Van-B wrote:One pet peeve of mine, is when 'developer' start up a website, then have nothing on their projects page, lots and lots of nothing. Developers should have a project, THEN need a website. Making a website to hold the projects you don't yet have is ludicrous.

Guilty as charged. Not that I have no projects, but I always get distracted and have never got around to actually populating any of my sites' project pages.

GyroVorbis wrote:Steve, the site looks cool and all from what I've seen...

We are well aware of the fact that our current site is a reasting piece of shit, though. Dandymcgee has been working dilligently on our new, super secret, upgraded site for about a month now, and it is going to be pretty epic once released.

Agreed. We appreciate your trying to get members on your site, but we have a strict interview process here, so if you are interested feel free to submit a resume over in the respective forum.

SteveDeFacto wrote: Errr... That's kinda odd because I never posted it to the OpenGL forums... Could you share a link?... Also this is actually my second account and I created my first on October, 2008 because I didn't like my old username...

My bad, it was the gamedev forums:
http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums ... _id=584029