Community Building

Ok, changed my picture, it was scaring me too…lol

Good! I will try laying out some basic ideas, and a little history of what I have witnessed. I will try to explain what I believe happened with this mod to date, and what possibilities I think there might be.

First, we must be real about the condition of the Total War community at this particular time. Frankly, compared to almost any other time in the last eight years it is almost, but not completely dead. Is there hope? In the general sense yes, absolutely! In the specific sense (having to do with VI and VI mods), this will depend in the large part on us, and what we do here. In my opinion, this mod has the opportunity to revitalize the remnant community. But as far as I know, unfortunately it is the only thing that can.

A recent last gasp attempt to create a Clan Wars VI contest that many had requested, failed miserably. Two Clans signed, and one of those did not show up to begin the competition. Compared to the history of VI contests, this tells us a lot about where we are at right now.

I need to finish this opening commentary soon, so will just jump to the two very most important concepts that I think we should be focusing on right now. I don’t know if I will be able to elaborate on the whys and wherefores right now, I will just do it and see.

There are two very basic foundational components to consider, simplicity and timing. The two greatest errors made with introducing a new game or mod are, over complexity, and incomplete release. These are death knells, almost certainly tolling an early demise.

Over Complexity:
There is an old saying about dazzling with brilliance, or baffling with bull (renderings). And there is misguided concept that “more is better”. These together would allow you to think that if you don’t have (or consider that you don’t) a good enough product, that you can just add more of the same to it, to make it better. The TW series overall is guilty of this. More is not better, it is just more. Better is better, and true brilliance will shine through.

Opposing Over Complexity is Simplicity. “Keep it simple stupid” (or KISS), is an old adage to combat the above. The Simplicity concept applied to mods applies to all aspects, from your announcing presentation, ease of download and installation, the ease that the characters (units) can be intuitively learned, ease of map identification, so that everyone is ushered in to the fun as soon as possible. There is more, which I may connect to later.

Incomplete Release:
The completeness of the project is tantamount to it’s success. The idea that you will fix it later, comes with a heavy price tag. If you want a mod to fail, introduce it to the community to early, without enough testing. The temptation to do this is very strong, but you must stand up to it with a plan of action. Make a list of all that needs to be tested, and all the ways that this need to be done, and follow it to the letter.

Opposing Incomplete Release is Timing. As stated above, take the time to get it right and also, study the correct time to release the project. Not paying attention to what else is going on in the community at the time you are intending to present your mod can also doom the whole thing. For an excellent example of this, there was the first and only CWC Samurai competition to date. The contest was started (under duress) very near to release of RTW, and although some were not completely pleased with some of the rules, I sincerely believe that the new game sunk all hope of the competitions survival.

Here are some of the results of our first and only map driven competition to date.

i know you are not having a go at me, but think i need to explain where Samurai began and why.

the very first release of samurai was a proof of concept release,
every file was created by hand with no LLM, GNOME or MITHEL assistance,
(not being arrogant, the simple truth is they all were made after i proved the concept)
prior to that "mod" (which was only the southern island of japan and crashed before turn 10) people flatly refused to believe any new campaign maps could bee created.

"Samurai the concept" came first, ALL other campaign mods followed.
The reasoning behind continuing releases was quite simple, DEMAND and i was poor (still am) and did not have the hardware to test the mod at home - i needed people to test the mod, people i sent the beta's to were very unreliable showing up online.

also, as the guys here can tell you, modifications we make that are stable in a 1v1 may well desync when you get to 1v2 and above.

Samurai was not initially "released" as such, but has grown from a proof of concept.

OK, we are at the stage where we have tested a bug that was present in Beta 8. I never encountered a desync in any of the early online testing or battles. I left (for other reasons) when RTW was released but we had a fair few battles and had regular 4v4, with no desync. Now somewhere along the line the desync appeared and as I understand it, there was a drop off in those who reverted to Beta 5?
It may be that we won't see those players again, but we have been struggling to test this desync thanks mainly to lack of players, as you say. Why? Isn't a working Beta 8 what they wanted?
Let's not forget that introducing Mongols does not mean that a normal Sengoku Jidai game cannot be hosted, it's another option.
To this point, we have been trying to test but players have been reluctant to help and of course, there are the others who played Beta5 who seem to have left as well.

No B, not having a "go at you" at all, my comments are on mods in general for the most part.

I understand some of what you went through (and am grateful) in growing this thing. And at that time, that is what was necessary, and doable.

What I meant to convey was that the community at “this particular time” is too fragile to have a miss. One troublesome version, and even the stout hearted may not come back to try it again, and we can not afford to let that happen. If I have my memory on straight, the attempted transition from version 5 to 7 was the nightmare that destroyed the last build up that we enjoyed. That just can’t happen again, so we must be very careful, that’s all.

And with the release of the ETW in the fall (if that is still correct?), there is another conflict of attention to over come somehow. Either a month before or after (the real date), would be good. Either way the release makes things more difficult.

Using ETW to best advantage, we could recruit certain players beforehand to help test (gets the ball rolling), but do not announce the full release even if it is ready (with some kind of a contest and/or ranking system), until a month after.

Going head to head (I believe) would be a waste of energy.

*****

While I was writing, Hun posted:

I too believe that we quite possibly won’t get those guys back that left after the desync problem. And I think that Mizu in general has a freeze on this Mongol thing. But once it can be proven that this is truly a playable mod, and that it is better than it was before for both Samurai Warlords (very good point) and Mongol Warlords, we might get a break from them.

I think that some new blood is probably what is needed. As soon as everything is in place, we can add an Org thread specifically aimed to attract and encourage (with simple explanations) some folks who haven’t tried any VI mods (and we could try to attract some who are still in STW also). All we need is four more to complete the final testing mode. Then look for a full release date announcement (Org front page with links to startup info and times to play).

The obvious question emerges, why do we need to have all of these people? We enjoy playing together, and may get a few more along the way, why the extra effort?

The answer is “stagnation”. What does not grow dies! It may be a prolonged death, with a handful of players sustaining (not maintaining) a presence, but it is certain death over time all the same.

Too small of a community develops an elite core group of players that are almost unbeatable. All comers then are subject to a run of defeats, until they give up (as no one likes to loose all the time). There is no middle class to offer both meaningful competition to the advanced, and an opportunity for newer players to develop their skills with some encouraging successes along the way. There simply are not enough people to provide the multi class society necessary for long term community survival.

Some very valid points ^Kazemoto^ and I agree with both above posts.
The only thing I will quote is

Too small of a community develops an elite core group of players that are almost unbeatable. All comers then are subject to a run of defeats, until they give up (as no one likes to loose all the time).

With our early visits to RTW and RTW/BI we overcame the 'skilled player' verses 'newcomers' (not all were skilled or newcomers) by hosting and playing games where we 'mixed' teams. That is we didn't always play as team mates, we played by mixing the players that joined the game.
Others can vouch for the 'fun' games we had and the appreciated comments from other players we had never met before for our help and sportsmanship.

Unforunately the MP community is shrinking fast. It is unfortunate that some, who have enjoyed playing Samurai Warlords, are now taking this attitude towards the game. Some have drifted or been driven away for various reasons.
There were lots of things we didn't like about the patches and/or addons from CA/Sega with each Total War game that has been released but at least we did play them and tried to make the games enjoyable.

I'm not saying we cannot get people to play this mod but am prepared to spread the word to see if we can get more, or new, players to take an interest in it.