We need a plan for 2010!

[Firejack]

As we start to see the early enthusiasm fizzle away in Global Agenda. A couple of us had a chat in game about whats next. Well I still think 2010 has much promise for the Community thanks to what seems an endless choice of new games being released this year.

Before that happens we need to decide on a few things. In no particular order....

Teamspeak server. Amiga's kindly donated server only has a few months left to run and we have no plan for a replacement. I cannot stress the importance of having our own server. Sure there are free options. These are never as reliable and often mean splitting up between smaller servers fracturing the Community. Then there is the prestige having your own server brings. You may think its stupid but I personally don't think we'd all be in this Community if it wasn't for the free Teamspeak server I used to run. Not only did it give every member of the Community a place meet up. It was a brilliant recruitment tool and way to get recognised. Just look at Pirate of the Burning Sea and the hundreds of people we had logging into the server. We need this sort of advert for the Community.

Website. Again our current hosting package only has around 9 months to run and there are no plans for a replacement or funds in place. Equally as important to the Teamspeak server. Absolutely critical to the continuation of the Community. We must keep the website. And we need to make better use of the website too. No idea if we have anyone as talented as Allicorn around to redevelop the portal who has the commitment to support it for 2/3 years. If we don't then we need to decide what we're going to do. My first idea is to make the Wiki the front page. That way its easy to update as anyone in the Community can add content without the need for any specialist knowledge/software/access (FTP etc).

A new game server. There are so many multiplayer games out. Its worth setting up a server of our own. Sure it might cost us a few €2 each a month. This will surely be worth it if we get new members, a place to play together and likely a free Teamspeak server on the side. A few € into the Community coffers shouldn't be too much for any of us since we all happily drop €10 a month on MMO subscription without a second thought.

Recruitment. This painful topic again! I see a recurring theme with recruitment now. Everyone promises to recruit new people when a new game is released but instead they forget about it having gotten distracted exploring the new game. Ok this is fair enough. But we must realise this always leads to the predictable conclusion of not having enough people to compete in all the games content at higher levels. If everyone that joined the Community made the effort to recruit one other person there would never be a need for me to badger people to recruit or for one unlucky soul to attempt recruiting by themselves. A task that is more of a grind then any Korean MMO
If in the future we aren't going to recruit individually then I think we need maybe think about recruiting from within. Join a new guild/clan in our latest game of choice then once we find someone with the motivation and mostly importantly, time to recruit. We invite that guild/clan to join the Community. Sort of like I did with Clan Diamond Wolf that kick started this community.

Thoughts/Comments/Suggestions?

[AmigaFan2003]

Teamspeak server - don't worry about it - I've got it covered. BUT if the community needs something bigger than a 25 slot server then it needs to fund that increase itself.

Website - I'm definitely not as talented as Allicorn BUT I have done a fair bit of web stuff. I'd be happy to take it on.

If in the future we aren't going to recruit individually then I think we need maybe think about recruiting from within. Join a new guild/clan in our latest game of choice then once we find someone with the motivation and mostly importantly, time to recruit. We invite that guild/clan to join the Community. Sort of like I did with Clan Diamond Wolf that kick started this community.

Bingo

[Theodora]

firstly i fully agree about the need for a TS server, i'm also more than willing to chip in towards the cost, it's to useful not to have

i take your meaning about recruitment and that we should be more active, may i suggest a brief outline (a couple of paras, not an essay) on how you go about recruiting? i suspect more thana few people don;t do it, not because they're not prepared but because they're not sure how best to go about it.

oh and yes, our last round of funding has now been pretty much spent, we'll probably need a fresh whip round to keep the forums up and running

[Crasp]

TS - Cheers for handling the TS server Amiga, happy to contribute if needed, HOWEVER, funding for the TS server should come predoninantly from the people who need the largest capacity. It would be nice to see Nemetos members contributing towards something they use regularly (this is not to infer they do not already - I don't have the figures, but it seems very few "community donor" tags have been added of late).

Website - I remember seeing Lex offer website dev services somewhere.

General funding - Theo, can we get a breakdown of exactly what is needed for the next 12 months so we can work towards it? If we have tangible targets, it will make fundraising easier.

[Dismus]

As far as the website goes, what exactly do we want from it?

Personally I'd like to see some Google Wave style collaborative thing where we can all write articles, post links, etc, but does that kind of content management platform exist at a price we can afford?

[Firejack]

For the website all I wanted was something that ties in everything else. So instructions on setting up Teamspeak, joining our Steam group etc. A gallery to post pictures like Nemetos first kill thread. A way to share links to various gaming related websites. A news article system were members can post reviews. All of which I think can be achieved through the wiki, with a little time and imagination. In my experience and sort of Content Management System is a nightmare to maintain. They are always too bloated with extras you'll never use and are often poorly maintained and hard to update. That is unless you are willing to pay for one of the professional ones available.

[Crank]

I like the enthusiasm but I've always felt we put the cart before the horse. We've got no plans for what we'll be playing, and consequently any website won't be used to a worthwhile degree, same goes for TS in a way.

My suggestions:

Starcraft 2 - will be popular with the kids, even if it doesn't support many players simultaneously.
Left 4 Dead 2 - best multiplayer game I've played for a long time. It's a real shame we never got organised or got people interested in this. I don't think it's too late though - and there's still a demo afaik and it would be worth organising an event for it.