No News is Bad News

I don't know whoever is in charge of this, but a quick search of google shows that two of the top half-life 2 mod sites, halflife2.filefront.com/ and www.halflife2.net/ have almost NOTHING about Empires 1.05 Beta. One doesn’t have anything about 1.04! Well, that's just freaking bullshit, and you know it. I’m enthusiastic about getting more players in the game, so I can get more servers. The only way to get more of both is to get the word out there. I'd email them with the news myself, but I didn't want to be presumptuous. Whoever is in charge of PR should look into that… or should I do it myself? I totally will if it’s cool.

Or someone else do it; either way, it should be done.

 

I don't think anyone on the dev. team is in charge of PR... :-) That's in fact a huge problem.

This mod would have a lot more players with 1) better looking site and stable forums, 2) trailers and hype before releases, 3) good management of releases (the first hours of the 1.04 release - there was no mirrors! Last day, during the 1.05 release, the only link to the server file was not working, which resulted in (almost) no updated server until Sunday evening GMT).

However, the mod isn't very polished in its current state, and therefor it might be a good thing that very few plays it. For example, the largest mistake so far with this mod, considering its popularity, was the 1.0 release. It was hyped and got a lot of attention, but also gave most people the impression that the mod was FUBAR because of the insane lag issues. Sure, it was quickly patched, but most didn't care anylonger and still don't.

So, it could be a good thing to polish the mod with few players in this early beta stage, and then (maybe for a huge beta 2.0 release) hype it and attract the masses.

Hmm, although ... changing the name of the mod might be sufficient after the 1.0 fiasco. ;-)

 

Krenzo wrote once they'll put a lot of effort in publicity, ONCE everything is as it's supposed to be. I agree with that, right now the mod needs work, not publicity. The more people we get now, the more people will leave now and spread bad news.

 

I agree. I think the initial release did Empires the most harm, but I think that even now the mod's come a long way, and could be ready for a bigger influx of players.

Tell your friends! >;D

 

I agree that we (as in the current players) need to playtest the mod a little more.
We know it is fun, but more casual players want more polish. Ah, well.


On the other hand - we who are training now will be all over the CS noobs coming along with publicity.

 

There havn't been any new outward additions that warrant a stunt yet, most of the updates have been under the hood maintenance.

As for news sites not featuring empiresmod updates, that's their own fault. If they're too lazy to find content for their own site they'll just lose visitors. HL2.net's been dropping the ball lately with only 1 or 2 active news posters and then it's usually copied steam updates (which I already read when I open steam). I've hardly even heard of hl2.files. Moddb hasn't even authed the newspost (oh noes weekend) yet and ampeddx is turned into shit (where are you 75thdeadman)? At least planethalflife mod-hq and hlfallout have the update featured.

Once the visuals have gotten an overhaul and new exciting shiny things are added, we'll launch some "look at me!" flares and you guys can pwn nubies to your harts' content.

 

So what would be different?

 

Quantity!

 

It would help to have someone notify the bigger websites about updates and stuff

 

I always send a message to halflife2.net and planethalflife.com to post the news. They're the biggest Half-Life 2 sites. I kept checking on them all Sunday, and they never updated. I think they don't have any active posters. You notice how most of their news posts are a lot of news put into one post because they were too busy/lazy to post the news as it came in. Is the 1.05 news up on either of those sites yet?

 

What I said.

 

Id send something to fileplanet.com, as there big on the half-life 2 modding community. That's how i found you guys.

 

I found out about this mod through facepunch studios, and they always post the patch news. Also, less players is a good thing right now. Just think of yourself as a tester AND a player.

 

They're up now but yea, they aren't exactly great with their news posting.

http://www.mod-hq.com/ is prolly the best for most up to date news. Ironically It's all done by one person [/shameless plug]

 

The Halflife2.net news admins have exams :p
Sulkdodds put up a news post tho, I emailed him.

 

Stop quoting yourself or you'll go blind.

 

this mod needs aircraft and then a patch after that to help with the issues created by their introduction before it is proclaimed to the world as the saviour of gaming.

 

Sulkdodds must write quick and think of things to say pretty damn fast looking at all the news he posted as they only a couple mins between each other..

Anyway im sure ppl dont read because anyone whos new always seems to ask for aircrafts so i would expect alot more ppl to play when they are in...

 

it seams like every time i play dustorm someone asks how ppl got those aircrafts.

i heard about this mod from steam updeate news when 1.00 came out. i was just starting to look for a new mod when dystpia got old and this is the first one that caught my eye.

 

I dont recall exactly where I heard of Empires, all I knew once I saw the few basic screenshots was 'FINALLY' since I've been a hardcore C&C fan.

Word of mouth only gets you so far, what we need is a shitload of kickass movies and tons of HQ screenshots of the best it can get in Empires and spread those around. ( Too bad the guys over at google dont like Empires alot )