I've just noticed in the recent activity page it's mostly just Zarkonnen, Respawn and myself.
I think it may be a good idea for Zarkonnen (as the game's developer) to put a sticky note/post/whatever on the steam discussions talking about this forum, since most of the discussion about Airships is noticed/talked about here.
Yeah, that might be a good idea. Most people eventually wander off from this forum, and the Steam one is within easier reach. But I like this one better!
I really like this forum, and specially enjoy talking to everyone on it... I've already asked several people if they could join the forum, but I'm not sure they'll really care...
I know! lets force players to join the forum! YES! Lock the game down until they make a forum account and make at least 30 posts! This will surely make them participate!!!
On a more serious note, I don't think much can be done other than raise awareness for it. Maybe in addition to the steam forum post we could also have the forum be in the main menu (but not intrusively).
So for my next game project I'm seriously considering pulling some mild emotional manipulation BS and doing an "exclusive early access forum". Come for the social status! Stay for the discussions!
Needless to say, you three will get access to it no matter what.
To be fair, it's not just this forum that's underpopulated. The Steam forum typically only has a handful of people plus whichever newcomer is requesting water-bourne craft for the given week.
Forcing everyone to come here would net you all of 2 or 3 more people and tick off potentially hundreds more.
I still remember back to March of this year when even my occasional posts to the Steam forum felt like a shout in a ghost town.
Honestly, it seems like even those people aren't even aware of the forums existence at all. Look at the recent activity page.
A small "Go to the FtD page, you will be more likely to be noticed by the developer" (which is true, it's his forum) sticky discussion would go miles ahead. We may catch a few more people who go for the bug reports too.
Takes time. Every update/promotion traffics both forums. The evolution of content is interesting to consider over the last several months; a great deal of variation, making both worth a visit.
I prefer the small pleasant community too, but if you, Psyringe, and me leave that's probably half/more than half of the active users on this forum. That's just three people(?)!
But then again it's kinda nice to have a small group of people where each person is actually valuable.
The opinion of 1 guy out of 10 is worth 10x more than the other guy out of 100 people. Let alone the thousands+ on the Steam forums.
Speaking of lack of people where did Zarkonnen go? It seems uncharacteristic of him to disappear for 10 days suddenly. Maybe it's Halloween related.
Edit: OfficialStuffPlus (a Youtuber with a 40,000 subscriber count) did a review of the latest version of Airships. Even if 10% of those take to Airships that should be a good amount of traffic.
Er... I'm still here you know... But what do you want me to say? I've used literally every single idea I could come up with to possibly improve the game... I simply can't help anymore.... Sorry...
EDIT: A bunch of stuff got deleted above due to it being unproductive to the discussion at hand. None of it was particularly interesting. Sorry for the confusion.
On a side note, lets just delete all those argument posts since half of them are already gone. All the remaining ones at the moment are just confusing people and making them desperately want to know what the super marvelous magnificent secret was.
I thought you were just complaining that Zarkonnen wasn't posting here. Of course he's still alive. You just have to look in the right places.
He posts / retweets on Twitter pretty much daily. Much of it has nothing to do with Airships (like the voxel art stuff or social / political commentary or his cats), but occasionally he does give advanced news about Airships stuff there that you won't find other places.
You can check his post history or just the general discussion on Steam. Although the news feed on Steam is largely identical to the one here, it tends to have a more active comment section to which he regularly replies. He also usually replies to negative reviews on Steam to clarify details. Note, the latter two items won't show up in his post history.
Then there's also his youtube channel, but he'll typically point out on Twitter or here or Steam if he's posted something there, so checking there regularly is probably redundant. Oh, and Twitch, but that may overlap with the youtube stuff.
He's pretty much always to be found posting somewhere on any given day if you know where to look. Any rumors of his demise were greatly exaggerated.
I had an idea to increase the likelihood of people on the Steam Forum to move to this one.
Here's how it is:
We don't have the convenience of being right on Steam, so we're going to advertise impact because that's what we do have.
(Great now I sound like a brand consultant.)
You know how we discuss major suggestions/changes/whatever here and as a result people on Steam won't notice unless they are actually added? and that we have a smaller population?
What if every once and a while we pin a bit of a major discussion to the steam forum, along with a notice saying that these major discussions often happen here and that it's also the best way to have Zarkonnen notice your posts. (because it's his personal game forum I'm sure he will will be more likely to notice the posts)
That way people on the other forum will be better notified and more inclined to join us here.. hopefully.
The few of us at Clan Maelstrom (Formerly Syndicate of the Black Sun) that are going to start doing weekly battles, and maybe some other things will try and link back to this forum from Steam for any listing or posts that we put up. I'll also be after our guys to try and post here on a regular basis and contribute to discussions.
There are a few unweidly bits to this forum that might be causing people to avoid using it. While I like the theme, and the colours a lot things like the lack of clearly defined post boxes causing text to kind of run in to each other in long posts is a minor annoyance. There is also no timestamps on posts, so I can't tell if something was commented on recently or not.
On another note, it's always boggled my mind why steam doesn't have an API for connecting a community forums off site with their steam discussion section. Like intergrating the Steam Forums in to this site on some level so the boards and posts were the same across both platforms. There are some other games that have incredibly active community forums, but a handful of slow-to-catch-on people on the Steam forums being left in the dark. And vice-versa.
Air Lord, Engineering Corps
I've just noticed in the recent activity page it's mostly just Zarkonnen, Respawn and myself.
I think it may be a good idea for Zarkonnen (as the game's developer) to put a sticky note/post/whatever on the steam discussions talking about this forum, since most of the discussion about Airships is noticed/talked about here.
Aerial Emperor
Yeah, that might be a good idea. Most people eventually wander off from this forum, and the Steam one is within easier reach. But I like this one better!
Air Lord, Engineering Corps
I agree. Speaking of which, did you code up this forum yourself or how was that done?
Air Admiral
I really like this forum, and specially enjoy talking to everyone on it... I've already asked several people if they could join the forum, but I'm not sure they'll really care...
Air Lord, Engineering Corps
I know! lets force players to join the forum! YES! Lock the game down until they make a forum account and make at least 30 posts! This will surely make them participate!!!
On a more serious note, I don't think much can be done other than raise awareness for it. Maybe in addition to the steam forum post we could also have the forum be in the main menu (but not intrusively).
Air Admiral
lol
Aerial Emperor
So for my next game project I'm seriously considering pulling some mild emotional manipulation BS and doing an "exclusive early access forum". Come for the social status! Stay for the discussions!
Needless to say, you three will get access to it no matter what.
Air Lord, Engineering Corps
You have a plan for your next project?
Commander
To be fair, it's not just this forum that's underpopulated. The Steam forum typically only has a handful of people plus whichever newcomer is requesting water-bourne craft for the given week.
Forcing everyone to come here would net you all of 2 or 3 more people and tick off potentially hundreds more.
I still remember back to March of this year when even my occasional posts to the Steam forum felt like a shout in a ghost town.
Air Lord, Engineering Corps
Honestly, it seems like even those people aren't even aware of the forums existence at all. Look at the recent activity page.
A small "Go to the FtD page, you will be more likely to be noticed by the developer" (which is true, it's his forum) sticky discussion would go miles ahead. We may catch a few more people who go for the bug reports too.
Commodore
Takes time. Every update/promotion traffics both forums. The evolution of content is interesting to consider over the last several months; a great deal of variation, making both worth a visit.
Air Admiral
It's not so bad, i mean between a tidal wave of possibly hostile people and this small pleasant community i would ultimately take this.
Air Lord, Engineering Corps
I prefer the small pleasant community too, but if you, Psyringe, and me leave that's probably half/more than half of the active users on this forum. That's just three people(?)!
But then again it's kinda nice to have a small group of people where each person is actually valuable.
The opinion of 1 guy out of 10 is worth 10x more than the other guy out of 100 people. Let alone the thousands+ on the Steam forums.
Air Admiral
Yeah, i of course would not mind a "few" more people.
Air Admiral
Don't worry about it. I'll ask some people.
Air Lord, Engineering Corps
Speaking of lack of people where did Zarkonnen go? It seems uncharacteristic of him to disappear for 10 days suddenly. Maybe it's Halloween related.
Edit: OfficialStuffPlus (a Youtuber with a 40,000 subscriber count) did a review of the latest version of Airships. Even if 10% of those take to Airships that should be a good amount of traffic.
Commander
OSP has been doing Airships stuff for years.
Don't expect the latest to be a big windfall. It's a saturated audience by this point.
Air Admiral
Er... I'm still here you know... But what do you want me to say? I've used literally every single idea I could come up with to possibly improve the game... I simply can't help anymore.... Sorry...
Commander
I didn't want you to say anything.
EDIT: A bunch of stuff got deleted above due to it being unproductive to the discussion at hand. None of it was particularly interesting. Sorry for the confusion.
Carry on posting (or don't) at your own leisure.
Air Lord, Engineering Corps
Oh wait Zarkonnen's still alive, he makes really nice voxel art, too.
I would post the image here, but Zarkonnen has multiple images in one page so here's a link
I wonder if MagicaVoxel works for making games..
On a side note, lets just delete all those argument posts since half of them are already gone. All the remaining ones at the moment are just confusing people and making them desperately want to know what the super marvelous magnificent secret was.
Commander
I thought you were just complaining that Zarkonnen wasn't posting here. Of course he's still alive. You just have to look in the right places.
He posts / retweets on Twitter pretty much daily. Much of it has nothing to do with Airships (like the voxel art stuff or social / political commentary or his cats), but occasionally he does give advanced news about Airships stuff there that you won't find other places.
You can check his post history or just the general discussion on Steam. Although the news feed on Steam is largely identical to the one here, it tends to have a more active comment section to which he regularly replies. He also usually replies to negative reviews on Steam to clarify details. Note, the latter two items won't show up in his post history.
Then there's also his youtube channel, but he'll typically point out on Twitter or here or Steam if he's posted something there, so checking there regularly is probably redundant. Oh, and Twitch, but that may overlap with the youtube stuff.
He's pretty much always to be found posting somewhere on any given day if you know where to look. Any rumors of his demise were greatly exaggerated.
Aerial Emperor
Hi! I'm still alive. I got some non-Airships work that needed doing, and then I got ill, hence my lack of activity over the last week.
A new beta for dev 9 should appear next week, and it'll likely be the last one before the actual release of dev 9, finally.
Air Lord, Engineering Corps
I had an idea to increase the likelihood of people on the Steam Forum to move to this one.
Here's how it is:
We don't have the convenience of being right on Steam, so we're going to advertise impact because that's what we do have.
(Great now I sound like a brand consultant.)
You know how we discuss major suggestions/changes/whatever here and as a result people on Steam won't notice unless they are actually added? and that we have a smaller population?
What if every once and a while we pin a bit of a major discussion to the steam forum, along with a notice saying that these major discussions often happen here and that it's also the best way to have Zarkonnen notice your posts. (because it's his personal game forum I'm sure he will will be more likely to notice the posts)
That way people on the other forum will be better notified and more inclined to join us here.. hopefully.
Midshipman
The few of us at Clan Maelstrom (Formerly Syndicate of the Black Sun) that are going to start doing weekly battles, and maybe some other things will try and link back to this forum from Steam for any listing or posts that we put up. I'll also be after our guys to try and post here on a regular basis and contribute to discussions.
There are a few unweidly bits to this forum that might be causing people to avoid using it. While I like the theme, and the colours a lot things like the lack of clearly defined post boxes causing text to kind of run in to each other in long posts is a minor annoyance. There is also no timestamps on posts, so I can't tell if something was commented on recently or not.
On another note, it's always boggled my mind why steam doesn't have an API for connecting a community forums off site with their steam discussion section. Like intergrating the Steam Forums in to this site on some level so the boards and posts were the same across both platforms. There are some other games that have incredibly active community forums, but a handful of slow-to-catch-on people on the Steam forums being left in the dark. And vice-versa.
Air Admiral
A, you can see where comments begin and end due to the golden line on the left.
B, there is a timestamp right bellow your banner?