Capitalize on Game Server Traffic

[Decoy 119 / 2,421]

I thought a separate thread for this idea was necessary.

 

GFL's game servers receive a lot of traffic, I think we should be trying to convert players into members directly on game servers.

 

A simple route for this could be including the signup form in MOTDs. We could possibly include the sign up form directly in the header where it says:

Existing user? Sign in > [Sign Up]

We could change it to:

Existing user? Sign in > | Sign up: [ EMAIL ] [ USERNAME ] [ PASSWORD ]

 

Possible areas to place the sign up form:

• People already playing on GFL servers will be the easiest to convert to members. And rather than forcing them out of game to sign up, we could have an in game advertisement that reads "Type MOTD to sign up and become a member of GFL!"

• We'll need to test all games with different screen resolutions to see exactly what is visible in the MOTD to decide the best placement of the signup form.

• Since a CAPTCHA is needed to prevent bots from signing up. But putting it in the header would make it look cluttered, maybe have it appear only once the form is active - IE: after a visitor clicks into any of the form boxes (email/username/password). Or have it appear once the visitor fills all the boxes and clicks signup - IE: 'complete CAPTCHA to confirm registration'.

 

@i have had it up to duck has brought to my attention that the idea of targeting users in game was already done. However he's explained that the current implementation is unresponsive and requires maintenance. I believe going the MOTD route will solve the responsiveness issue as well as avoid continued maintenance.

 

Please let me know your thoughts on this idea, I love hearing criticism early on so we can move forward in the best possible way.

 

*Credit to @Snoopy for inspiring this idea and suggesting a second area we could place this.

Edited March 3, 2018 by Decoy

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

This is another great idea! We have started this by revamping the in-game server advertisements. So far, it is done for servers with SourceMod enabled. We will be going through our Garry's Mod and CoD 4 server advertisements soon and ensuring they are attractive.

 

Thanks!

[Shuruia 3,145 / 28,033]

I'm going to be working on giving MOTDs a more uniform framework. I'll definitely consider this idea along the way.

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

Moved to public to get feedback from the public.

 

Thanks.

[JGuary55 707 / 14,712]

I like this jb has a similar thing we do !member and can sign up like that but never went in deep to what it looks like 

[rapperdan 2,323 / 0]

I thought of this two days ago while out maybe yesterday but since you guys want more traffic on the forums and the such have you guys ever thought of a daily login reward, it is being done in many games and tbh you could even implement it to servers and like @Joshy said this 

On 3/3/2018 at 1:43 AM, Joshy said:

Resources?  I almost left that out.  Offer something to visitors!  I almost never shop at Autozone, but then they have free battery recharging.  I'll stop by and get my battery charged, and it "suddenly" occurs to me that I need to change the oil or buy a handy tool.  Fry's has cheap ink refills and "suddenly" I need some pens, notebooks, maybe a movie or two I've been anxious to see.  Some store ie. Target has an awesome sale and "suddenly" I need whatever else they have too.  The forums at its current state doesn't offer visitors much more than membership and a place to post some of their thoughts; if the forums doesn't look very active, then it doesn't even look like a means to make new friends.

which made me think of it while out I'm pretty sure we can do this and add a daily login bonus every 24 hours for each server and maybe even add multipliers say for example with purge you get so much credits or money what ever for each day you login start it off really small you could say with servers like purge but have a multiplier depending on the server and the game type game play recently etc etc update it and have it subject to change, this can be done with csgo in perhaps an extra title kind of like new user going to a member but have a few for each one I've seen the use of proud gfl member more then once as the member tag so make more then one member and user tag maybe like [New User] > [User] > [Proud User] then member would be as the such [New Member] > > [Proud Member] and you can add more to it but I'm sure you understand.

 

also don't forget though to have a way for anonymous users such as myself and many others to turn it on and off or what ever as tbh I have my VIP tag set to [New User] with team colors grey tag and white text as my ToGs chat tags and have had it as that for awhile now :L never liked titles or being above others ever as it just never felt right to make myself above others but I'm sure there is others like myself which should also be taken into consideration so the possible fix would be to have some form of enable disable kind of deal.

Edited March 4, 2018 by i have had it up to duck

[Joshy 4,364 / 44,945]

It sounded to me you already had this in mind when you wrote the other thread (Revamp GFL Homepage), and so I'll repeat the same tradeoffs to think about:

 

On 3/2/2018 at 10:43 PM, Joshy said:

I definitely thought of what Snoopy had mentioned regarding the MOTD.

 

You're going to have to consider some tradeoffs when it comes to drawing attention on the MOTD.  If you draw more attention to membership, then you'll likely take away from the rules and perks.  There's no free lunch.

 

It's a small price to pay, and so I give it a thumbs up just as I did in the other thread; however: It is something to think about.  If we're already struggling to get people to follow the rules on our bread and butter servers like GMOD TTT, then imagine that it'll become a little bit more difficult when we're pulling attention elsewhere.  Rule breakers drive candidates and members away, and stricter enforcement of the rules also drives them away.  I've seen this happen in past communities.

 

I personally haven't thought of the membership application process as much of a problem neither approaching a problematic state.  I think the bigger problem we have is gaining committed members of the community.  It means nothing to have > 10000 member applicants when they provide nothing further than a passing visitor (they apply and leave).  I would much rather gain a few really committed members.  You'll see in higher leadership complaints about the quality of Server Managers and even Division Leaders, and the reason this is happening is because our cycle of leadership has been super poor, and I believe this is partially inherent of the decaying commitment and investment we have from current members.  It's really a vicious cycle because you'll see places talk about not having enough money to pay their employees well, and so the employees usually wont do well and the store cannot make any money to pay them (they just keep going and going); if someone could just disrupt the cycle a bit on one side or the other (either a magical superstar employee or the store takes a pulsed hit), then you can get a new outcome and hopefully a more promising one.  Your suggestion is just a numbers game, and I like numbers...  I see how at least having more people apply for member, then you have more to manage when it comes to statistics--  and again, as I said earlier, you should move forward with it and be effective at it. 

 

These guys will run into things blindly and you'll see that someone is going to have to really take that steering wheel.  We saw this happen with eSports.  It showed little to no promise at first; people were very skeptical and hesitant to accept it.  I was skeptical and hesitant, and if you could see from behind the scenes I was the biggest shit talker of the team (all in Trusted) and I'd sent them a message saying we were on the verge of cutting it or that it was a failure.

 

 

It's a different story in the public eye: I championed the team (reference), and it suddenly gained interest.  What happens when you lose the drive?  The following quote is about leadership, but you could think of it from a membership perspective too because the key take away is that it's not always about having numbers:

 

"I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep." - Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

[Decoy 119 / 2,421]

@Joshy:  I either agree or don't have anything constructive to contest to most of your post, but let me quote one part:

 

1 hour ago, Joshy said:

I think the bigger problem we have is gaining committed members of the community.  It means nothing to have > 10000 member applicants when they provide nothing further than a passing visitor (they apply and leave).  I would much rather gain a few really committed members.

Yes and no. I agree that gaining committed members is our goal. However, working on increasing sign ups will increase our audience; it will give us the opportunity to engage them and get them involved in the community later on.

 

Most ecommerce websites will notify you if you add a product to your cart but never check-out. Many will continue to remind you or begin sending you a weekly newsletter. This is because if you actually visited their website and added their product to cart, it means you are very likely part of their target audience. It's the same for us, if someone is already joining a GFL server and actually takes a moment to sign up to GFL, they're obviously part of our key demographic.

 

After a significant amount of time, we can prune inactive members from the forum and emails from our email list.

Edited March 4, 2018 by Decoy

[Joshy 4,364 / 44,945]

17 minutes ago, Decoy said:

@Joshy:  I either agree or don't have anything constructive to contest to most of your post, but let me quote one part:

 

Yes and no. I agree that gaining committed members is our goal. However, working on increasing sign ups will increase our audience; it will give us the opportunity to engage them and get them involved in the community later on.

 

Most ecommerce websites will notify you if you add a product to your cart but never check-out. Many will continue to remind you or begin sending you a weekly newsletter. This is because if you actually visited their website and added their product to cart, it means you are very likely part of their target audience. It's the same for us, if someone is already joining a GFL server and actually takes a moment to sign up to GFL, they're obviously part of our key demographic.

 

After a significant amount of time, we can prune inactive members from the forum and emails from our email list.

 

I already had that covered no problem, and so I don't completely disagree with you.

 

1 hour ago, Joshy said:

Your suggestion is just a numbers game, and I like numbers...  I see how at least having more people apply for member, then you have more to manage when it comes to statistics--  and again, as I said earlier, you should move forward with it and be effective at it. 

 

These guys will run into things blindly and you'll see that someone is going to have to really take that steering wheel.

 

Maybe you can be that person to take over the steering wheel and drive it.  Another phrase you may like:

 

"No good idea succeeds simply because it is a good idea. Good ideas must have champions- people willing to believe in them, push for them, fight for them, gain adherents and other champions, and press until they succeed. Bad ideas don't die simply because they are intrinsically bad. You need people who will stand up and fight them, put themselves at risk, point out the weaknesses, and drive stakes through their hearts." - Colin Powell

Edited March 4, 2018 by Joshy

[rapperdan 2,323 / 0]

I mean @Joshy is not wrong about what he said and I do not believe in pruning and the such and infact I am very against it but how do we keep all these members that you see here https://gflclan.com/forums/forum/126-accepted/ active?

 

I suggested a daily login reward which when they login they would see things on the forums and then might comment, which was the idea behind it people play on our servers all the time infact more people play on our servers then ever sign up for membership when you think about it but what is driving people away and or not keeping them here?

to this day I always believe for the most part less moderation is more, we have a habit of leaving a sour taste in many peoples mouths and sadly it hurts when I see people say fuck gfl why are you still even there and a lot more, we have to ask what are we doing wrong sometimes just sometimes we have to look inwards to solve the problems that persist outwards.

 

through some pretty basic math we are looking at these numbers now sure there might be some alts here and there but based off pure accounts this is what we are working with 

how many of these accounts ever even return? this is a question we have to look at here.

Edited March 4, 2018 by i have had it up to duck

[Joshy 4,364 / 44,945]

3 minutes ago, i have had it up to duck said:

I suggested a daily login reward which when they login

 

I personally really like this idea.  RuneScape/Jagex does it and I think it works.  What could we offer as a reward for daily logins?  Maybe special emoticons, badges, or a category/lounge for these members much like supporters (please don't make another tech support forum  );  maybe even week or days long perks on their server as forum incentive, and to give them a taste of what having perks is like...  could drive up those donations and win across the board.

Edited March 4, 2018 by Joshy

[rapperdan 2,323 / 0]

2 minutes ago, Joshy said:

 

I personally really like this idea.  RuneScape/Jagex does it and I think it works.  What could we offer as a reward for daily logins?  Maybe special emoticons, badges, or a category/lounge for these members much like supporters (please don't make another tech support forum  );  maybe even week or days long perks on their server as forum incentive, and to give them a taste of what having perks is like...  could drive up those donations and win across the board.

I can not agree more also I added the numbers we are looking at some quick maths guys 

 

[Joshy 4,364 / 44,945]

Is GFL aiming to grow?  It sounded like it when I last spoke to Roy, but I'm not seeing the action to back that up. 

 

The company I'm with right now is aiming to grow and take on some big contracts.  Do we wait to win the contracts and then hire people as we need them?  I can almost guarantee you, that you wont win the contract.  The company has grown about 1000% since I began eyeballing them.  You proactively fulfill the needs before they exist; not react to the needs as they arise.  Our staff team is not looking too hot right now in my opinion and we're still doing that whole "This and that person is getting promoted and they are absorbing their old responsibilities or roles," and I cannot quickly recall where that has worked out for us.  I have a pretty good idea why Roy might not be thrilled about the Council team (inferred by this announcement)...  they're really going to have to consider package deals, trade-offs, and have some tolerance with culture and failure; it's going to happen if you're going to succeed.  You can't make an omelette without cracking a few eggs.