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Post by MT on Feb 18, 2012 1:59:49 GMT -4
I'm pretty sure someone else must have noticed that fan support for online seems to have pretty much dried up to nothing. At least it has as far as the chat room, gatherings, and things of that nature. Recently I typed one message in the chat room, waited about two weeks, typed another one, and they're back-to-back. No one has bothered to use the chat room in weeks! No one is gathering there, no one is organizing anything, it's collecting virtual dust since the beginning of the year.
What happened? I know a few of those official tournaments were, in my opinion, something of an unorganized mess; and Swank didn't make the last "officially scheduled" gathering in December, but that couldn't have been what drove people away. Did I miss something; or was there just a mass unspoken loss of interest all of the sudden?
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Post by jasonjaconetti on Feb 18, 2012 3:02:15 GMT -4
I can say that I have been so busy that i have not had time to be online, but that when we had scheduled times to be online, we as ambassadors could hype things. I am hoping that when the revamped online rolls out in a few weeks that it allows Android users to play the PBP from our devices. That may encourage more ppl to be online at least.
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Post by tax on Feb 18, 2012 10:25:59 GMT -4
It seemed that pretty much all the events were attended by the same people. Most people who were coming in were solo stuff. Maybe with things being revamped, it will be different, but I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't either.
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Post by MT on Feb 18, 2012 14:11:43 GMT -4
There was a core group of people getting together for those things, but they WERE getting together. The chat room was being used. There was multiplayer stuff going on. I'm not certain to what you refer when you write of things being "revamped": I believe the PBP sim is still being reworked, but that doesn't have anything to do with any of the multiplayer use or gatherings in the chat room. That's just for people to simulate matches on their own.
I'm just stating the obvious: the multiplayer features of online were being used regularly and one day people just stopped. End of story. I was kind of wondering if there wasn't another one of those "online dramas" or controversies I missed.
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Post by tax on Feb 18, 2012 14:19:24 GMT -4
Not that I'm aware of. I stopped going because no one was ever there and no one was scheduling anything.
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Post by Dustin on Feb 18, 2012 14:42:41 GMT -4
I mainly use online for solo play.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 18, 2012 14:57:15 GMT -4
I think Dustin has answered one reason why the Multiplayer feature is not being used in droves. I honestly think the majority of people still prefer to play Solo. I think Hobby time being limited because of Real Life is another factor as is different Time Zones for each player can have an effect. I'm not sure if the long awaited Multiplayer option just fizzled after such a long time, but you never know it might pick back up real soon...
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Post by maddog1981 on Feb 18, 2012 19:16:09 GMT -4
I got really sick around Christmas and that knocked me out of action for like a month. Then I was out of the habit of doing the events and I've been super busy on a weekly basis.
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Post by wildfire on Feb 22, 2012 10:51:52 GMT -4
I'm frankly a bit surprised... there was some momentum, but it has totally dried up.
Maybe the majority of people just aren't willing to buy sets again to play online with others? It's not like it's cheap to by online sets.
I agree with Mark, the pbp sim revamp isn't going to change much, that's not a multi-player thing.
I popped on there the other day, and I noticed the chat roon had been dead for quite a while, and no one else was on. I wonder if someone at FG is monitoring that sort of thing?
I had always thought that once Online was actually a working product more people would be into it, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
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Post by jasonjaconetti on Feb 22, 2012 15:20:55 GMT -4
Everyone is so busy that finding time to go online to play a game that most of us play solo is really hard.
I mean, if you play Magic The Gathering, then you have heard of Friday Night Magic. Well Friday Night Magic is huge in some places, but a lot of places have seen that the numbers drop off only a few weeks after a new set is released. It is hard to have time to do these things when ppl have to work multiple jobs to get the bills paid.
Plus, WF is right about the online sets not being cheap. If they offered a discounted rate for those sets if you already bought the printed set, then it maybe different. I mean, I know I spend a ton of money on Filsinger game products, but not everyone wants to do that.
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BDS
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Post by BDS on Feb 22, 2012 17:40:08 GMT -4
This is actually my fault; with everything that's going on, I just dropped the ball on keeping the Ambassador program and the official tournaments going. I believe at some point, the official tournaments will resume.
As to the chat room being active, I don't know that I ever expected all that much from the chat room itself. I think the sentiment that most people play the game as a single-player activity is an accurate one. That's something we'd like to change (which was the purpose of the Ambassadors, hence my ball-dropping here being rather atrocious), but until that culture's shifted a little bit, the chat room probably won't be super active.
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Post by Avarice on Feb 22, 2012 20:17:20 GMT -4
I used to be on there all the time. Then first of December my wife at the age of 33 had a stroke. Ever since then, I've been pretty limited. I still roll my fed, but not much. I liked it when you could pop on, roll a card or just random matches. I think we were all hit by the holiday bug for the most part. I agree with the set prices too. $13 was fine, but making it the same price as a card stock set isn't fair. It's digital for a reason and saves on printing and overhead. I will still get both, but again, it's not up to me on this. It will come back, I just think people get busy and such with other things that not everyone gets to be online like we were for a while.
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Post by jasonjaconetti on Feb 23, 2012 8:37:55 GMT -4
I used to be on there all the time. Then first of December my wife at the age of 33 had a stroke. Ever since then, I've been pretty limited. I still roll my fed, but not much. I liked it when you could pop on, roll a card or just random matches. Avarice - I think that those of us who knew what was going on knew why you were not online. Life, good or bad, does take presidence.
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Post by g6 on Feb 23, 2012 9:44:15 GMT -4
Until FG decides online is worth investing in, and shells out the money it costs to hire a professional programmer who does this sort of thing for a career, Online will never be even close to being what it could be. It's about a 4 /10, designed to keep a handful of loyal followers happy in short spurts, but in no way shape or form a finished product armed with the fire power to dazzle new audiences. BDS has done a fantastic job at this point, but was burned out once and is probably burned out now and will be again in the future. Anyone would be.
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Post by wildfire on Feb 23, 2012 11:37:07 GMT -4
Other than integrating the stat tracker better with the game table, I'd say BDS' last update of the Game Table is about as good as it can be, to be honest, unless you're looking for graphics of the match, which I can't see ever happening. I think before the last fix it was a 4/10.. I think it's at least a 6 or 7 now... you can pretty seemlessly play with someone else, or by yourself, and even have people watch. I have some hope that BDS' pbp sim update will help with the integration, but we'll see. I guess the desire to do so just isn't as high as I (and probably others) thought it would be... 'm not sure if they ever thought so, but I don't think Online was ever going to be a vechile to get new players... bring old players back, perhaps, or encourage people on the fringes to get into it, sure, but new people? It's just not exciting if you don't already know the product... it at about the same level as the typical free card-like game you find on Armor Games or Kongregate... not something people are going to pay for, especially not at the price...you're not going to get the strength of the product (the storytelling and set up) by looking at it and trying the demo. never mind that the variety of sets could make people's heads hurt.
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