Bazakastine
Joined: Mar 21, 2014
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  Posted:
Jul 13, 2015 - 13:24 |
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I would like to take the talk about expanding the player base from the 1 in 5 topic into it's own thread.
To tell you about myself I am someone who discovered Blood Bowl because of the Cyanide game. As someone who grew up playing sports games and turn based strategy it was an awesome game to find. I was originally terrible since I had no idea what I was doing. In fact the first skill I ever took was an armor boost on a Gutter Runner which is well not exactly the right choice. After years of playing on Cyanide I moved over here and have never looked back. The community here is a major asset. The tourneys bring another aspect to the game. I almost always enjoy the people I play as the conversation is much more prevalent in game here compared to Cyanide.
My thought is the coming release of Blood Bowl 2 is going to bring new blood to the game. We will likely not have the mass exodus that their first game caused because the people here have chosen this community over the first game. Yet we may be able to attract people their to try FUMBBL since we will have a ton of teams that they won't have access to anymore.
I think we should create a group of FUMBBLers to buy Blood Bowl 2 (yes we would have to support the enemy but it is a necessary evil) and try to recruit players over here in an organized manner. |
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harvestmouse
Joined: May 13, 2007
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  Posted:
Jul 13, 2015 - 13:57 |
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I don't know, it's a bit insidious. Pumping the site of course is cool, but becoming internet gaming version of the Mormans doesn't sound right to me. There were some that did run over to there, and never had a kind word to say, but I'm not sure how many.
I feel there wasn't a mass exodus of our player base go to Cyanide. It may look that way statwise (and I maybe wrong and it was), however there was a lot more to it. The figures started to drop a bit before then. Internet gaming on consoles took off and also Christer moved, which meant FUMBBL went down for a long while.
I think people should be free to play which format they want to, and using both is ideal. If somebody wants to jump ship and not have a good word to say about this place, that's their deal. However if they then came running back, that's low. |
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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  Posted:
Jul 13, 2015 - 14:02 |
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The_Great_Gobbo
Joined: Aug 04, 2014
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  Posted:
Jul 13, 2015 - 14:10 |
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My main deterrent was the layout of the site as it seemed to require a higher level of tech than I could handle.
I know that obviously that isn't the case, but my first impression was that using this site required a basic knowledge of code or sum-such wizardry.
Just my 2 gold pieces |
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bghandras
Joined: Feb 06, 2011
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  Posted:
Jul 13, 2015 - 14:46 |
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I have some friends, who are old gamers of many kind, and they done want to use fumbbl graphics. So the visual aspect is very important for many people. I understand that fumbbl will be behind competition on graphics for eternity, just saying that there might be a problem.
Note, that I do not have any problem with putrid graphics as long as it is easy to recognize the players, and there is some challenge playing the game. But that is just me. |
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MattDakka
Joined: Oct 09, 2007
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  Posted:
Jul 13, 2015 - 14:55 |
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bghandras wrote: | I have some friends, who are old gamers of many kind, and they done want to use fumbbl graphics. So the visual aspect is very important for many people. I understand that fumbbl will be behind competition on graphics for eternity, just saying that there might be a problem.
Note, that I do not have any problem with putrid graphics as long as it is easy to recognize the players, and there is some challenge playing the game. But that is just me. |
+1. The main reason of some friends' reluctance to play on FUMBBL is graphics, I found that it's easier to persuade people using Cyanide game to show BB.
The second reason is people generally don't like turn-based games lasting 1 hour on average. |
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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  Posted:
Jul 13, 2015 - 14:58 |
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bghandras
Joined: Feb 06, 2011
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  Posted:
Jul 13, 2015 - 15:02 |
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I said I don't mind even if it is putrid, not stated it is putrid. I do not care for graphics for such a game. Please read as intended.
With that said my opinion is probably not important, as from my point of view it could be much worse, I would not care. But there are people who do care. |
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BobBifford
Joined: Jul 17, 2014
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  Posted:
Jul 13, 2015 - 15:07 |
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Add secret league, Cyanide cant cope with that. When people know that a site as that many different teams Cyanide will eat dust with their "buy-and-expension-every-4- -months-to-get-5-teams" package deal. |
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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  Posted:
Jul 13, 2015 - 15:30 |
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bghandras wrote: | I said I don't mind even if it is putrid, not stated it is putrid. I do not care for graphics for such a game. Please read as intended. |
We were talking specifically about Fumbbl.
BobBifford wrote: | Add secret league, Cyanide cant cope with that. When people know that a site as that many different teams Cyanide will eat dust with their "buy-and-expension-every-4- -months-to-get-5-teams" package deal. |
I think that the issue is mainly with the competitive divisions. If anything, Secret League could leach even more people away from those divisions. |
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Bazakastine
Joined: Mar 21, 2014
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  Posted:
Jul 13, 2015 - 15:35 |
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HarvestMouse you bring up a good point that I did not think of. The last thing I would want is for FUMBBL to get a bad reputation because people (me) are trying to shove it down people's throats.
My main thoughts with this are the 2 biggest obstacles to people joining this site are potential players not knowing about it and the fact that it's not intuitive what everything is when you join. I know that if I had heard of the site earlier and had someone to guide me through the joining process I would of been here years earlier. |
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sonrises
Joined: May 02, 2013
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  Posted:
Jul 13, 2015 - 15:45 |
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FUMBBL will be always behind competition in graphics and Marketing. FUMBBL is a free site funded on donations, so in any way it should waste resources and time on expensive things like these two ones.
My feeling is that FUMBBL is an after choice once a gamer has discovered Blood bowl. I mean, many of us, got to know Blood Bowl through CYANIDE or Tabletop. Of course, a few may have come to FUMBBL as first choice, but the majority, i guess, got to know the game through those other 2 channels.
I have no data to back this up, but if my assumption is true, then we should accept that our TARGET to expand FUMBBL player base is gamers who have already been introduced to Blood Bowl somewhere else's and want to go deeper into it by browsing the internet looking for more Blood Bowl options.
And most importantly, offer them something that they can not find anywhere else's. In other words, FUMBBL should DIFFERENTIATE from their "competitors" or cooparate with them.
There are many aspects that can help FUMBBL differenciate from the others like the community...but let me focus on 3 pilars ,that as things stand now, come across to me as worth to check:
1. COOPERATION WITH THE NAF. Bridges have been built between FUMBBL and NAF and it looks like the experience has been a success. FUMBBL has become quite the "official" NAF site for ONLINE resurrection tournaments. I am pretty sure that both NAF and FUMBBL are benefiting from this partnership, so, thumbs up and keep it going and make this relationship stronger.
Now, for pilars 2 and 3 the benchmark is CYANIDE. Cooperation is ruled out obviously and FUMBBL has not the resources to compete with them in aspects as Graphics, Marketing and so on. So, FUMBBL needs to offer something different to those coaches who started browsing the internet for new Blood Bowl experiences.
2. TOURNAMENTS. Tournaments are in my view a very important asset of FUMBBL. Blood Bowl is at the end of the day a SPORTS game. Sports is competition and tournaments are the logical way to compete. Tournaments should be a very visible part of FUMBBL. One of the first things a newcomer should be aware of once it logs into FUMBBL. Tournaments are catchy and make sense for a sports game. CYANIDE don't have anything similar to our tournament scene.
3. CUSTOMISATION IN LEAGUE DIVISION. This is an ace. Some degree of customisation is already in place but more would be unmatchable by cyanide.
We have hundreads of threads going on about modifying the ruleset. One coach, one opinion and all respectable. Invest in high degree of customisation and anyone passionate about Blood Bowl will go nuts with happiness. They can make their dreams come true.
The official ruleset is frozen and it looks it will remain like that for...ever?
CYANIDE is introducing changes to rosters and rules but i can guess they have no interest in opening up customisation to users because it is not business sound.
So, as a conclusion. In my opinion, FUMBBL should target gamers who have been already introduced to Blood Bowl somewhere else's and are searching for new experiences.
Where possible cooperate with the original channel (NAF).
Where cooperation is not possible (CYANIDE) differenciate yourself on what you are stronger. Right now, it seems that FUMBBL is stronger in TOURNAMENTS and CUSTOMISATION.
Customisation would be my winning horse as it'd be difficult for CYANIDE to catch up, and not just for technical reasons but business reasons.
my long 2 cents
o/ |
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bghandras
Joined: Feb 06, 2011
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  Posted:
Jul 13, 2015 - 16:05 |
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I agree with sonrises. Tournaments are easy to copy, so is a weak differentiation. Customization is hard to copy, so it is a strong differentiation. |
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Igvy
Joined: Apr 29, 2007
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  Posted:
Jul 13, 2015 - 16:08 |
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Got to say; I've been thing about this for a while.
Times have changed, things have become vastly more simple.
While most of us live in the complex world, 95% of people don't.
I'm still trying to think of a more simplistic version. Not just small fixes, but how to make the game shorter and strait forward; yet still have 80% of the awesome.
I don't have the answer yet, but that is where the future is. (Think - play it on your phone simple) |
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dode74
Joined: Aug 14, 2009
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  Posted:
Jul 13, 2015 - 16:20 |
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sonrises has it spot on imo. Customisation and NAF cooperation are something FUMBBL has which Cyanide doesn't (and doesn't seem to want), and those things are important to TT players in particular, which is where the long-term playerbase is centred imo.
Oh, and create a version with a vertical pitch*
* that's partly in jest, but I am far from the only person who finds pitch orientation to be an issue. |
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