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Originally Posted by Synthlight
Would you guys disagree? I don't mean to sound so harsh but what kind of effort has gone into making new visitors or players comfortable? Are there specific examples? If I come to this site new to the game, new to the community. Why would I stay? If everyone that volunteers spent their time welcoming new visitors or drawing them to the site, it would be way more beneficial than everything else going on.
Everything else needs to be put on the backburner. Through this we can significantly drop all the overhead. The more I learn about what is going on, the clearer it is that this is self sabotage in many ways.
Both of my kids (one of them in highschool now) look at this site in confusion and want nothing to do with it. That's an important queue and we should be doing everything we can to change that.
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I was brought on as UX developer because I have a lot of insights as to why people have trouble starting the game and integrating themselves into the community.
The site's layout is shit. The game's interface is shit. I watch new player streams- they know it, and they're turned off from the game. Everyone here knows it.
You can't even search in game by artist. That's something very important to new players, too. It's embarrassing.
I proposed a tutorial. I proposed a new homepage layout that would more easily lead people to the game and the forums.
I have wireframes that detail a much improved layout that would help these problems.
Sadly,
the main person who was developing the engine quit.
So the answer is, fuck all has gone into improving the in-game new player experience BECAUSE WE HAVE NO CODERS.
You know how you get coders? Yeah you can wait for the occasional passionate guy who works for free.
But the sure-fire way? You pay them.
This brings me to the following unfortunate truth:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Synthlight
Feel free to correct me if you think I am wrong here but you guys seem WAY tooo focused on the smallest possible demographic here and because of that you are over complicating everything. You are taking the 80/20 business rule and have squeezed that into a 99/1 rule. 99% of your planning and effort appeals to 1% of the general visitors of the site. Continuing to obsess over song ratings, steps and selections has absolutely nothing to do with the health of the site. It's like being rich and thinking that if we only had more yacht races, more people would come to a polluted beach. In the process you are making a shitload of work for yourselves with a constantly diminishing return. Based upon what I am seeing, this is elitism and feels like a private club.
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Look at the people who have posted in this thread. The majority of posts are from D5, D6, and D7 players.
If you are wondering why most people are caring about the 1%, it's because the 1% is all this site has left.
I'm not excusing this, only explaining it.
It's obvious that it's not healthy for the site. It is, however, probably preferable to no activity at all.
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Originally Posted by Synthlight
I think you are ignoring the fact that this site was up against far superior code with Stepmania not to mention hordes of commercial console releases but somehow flourished without paid employees for many many years before going commercial and many afterwards. Success is possible down either of these paths.
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I realize FFR flourished for years with volunteers. I also realize it's not flourishing now.
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Originally Posted by Synthlight
Also, if artists that we sought permission from properly would like to get content removed, so be it. They would submit a DMCA to get the ball rolling or just flat out ask. It would be utterly foolish on their part but it's not going to break the game or the site. Think about why Thirdstyle (the site) isn't doing well. You are still missing the larger picture if you think think the number of songs holds the site back.
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When I'm talking about legal issues, I mean:
What would you do, hypothetically, if Velocity said to take down all the code he worked on from the site?
I sure as hell never signed a contract when I was brought on as a developer.
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Originally Posted by Synthlight
If you are serious about helping, then talk to me about helping. I would love to be part of that discussion.
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I'd be glad to discuss this further with you. I've been meaning to for years.
Contact me on Skype (beegfeesh19) or PM me and suggest something else. Whatever works best for you, just not public forums please.