We have quite nicely working community here already, technically - same login for forums and games, press releases and alliances where forums and game areas are "linked" and so on.
But could it be done still better? What ideas you can think of that would boost the "community" aspect of AWS? In other words, how would we engage people more at the forums and the site to interact more, other than just playing the standard game.
Live chat, either built into the site or a Skype channel?
I was going to say IRC channel/live chat, but that would just take away from the discussion on the forums. I think the forums are better because they are documented and we don't have to have the same discussions multiple times. Newbies can research what's been discussed and we can all see the rationale for feature requests/updates/penalties/etc.
Maybe have a token system where everyone gets tokens based on the number of credits they've spent? So if I join a game and spend 5 credits and am in that game for 5 weeks that is 10 credits total. If I'm a newbie and someone helps me on the forums or mentors me or whatever, then you can tip them tokens? Then if you get 10 or 20 tokens (from someone else--not yours) then you can redeem them for a free credit? I'm just spitballing here, but having some sort of rewards system for helping others and fostering community is the idea.
I don't know how server intensive it would be, but maybe have a box at the bottom of all pages that does a forum search and shows relevant threads? For example, under "My Aircraft" you'd have the most relevant threads that match "My Aircraft" so if people find a bug or want a feature, they can see what is already being discussed on the same page.
I think many forums need sub forums.... Game Forum and Feature requests could easily be broken down further
free adult entertainment?
Bump for more
Here are some of my idea:
1. allowing alliances to be set up from day 1. (maybe don't start to get score until 6months)
This will help the alliance communities with forming tactics and sharing ideas..
A lot of alliances already have their own skype channels but it would be good to have this from day 1
2. Given the new namings of gameworlds, I'd like to see a statistics page/database from gw #1 onwards..
For every game statistic (or a list of predefined ones) a player could get some points based on their position at the end of the gameworld (this would encourage players to stay until the end)
if there are 100 players at the end of the game, in any given stat, player ranked 1, would get 100 points, 2nd 99 points, etc.. Similar to how alliance points are scored.
You then add up all the scores by player and accumulate them for each gameworld.. This could then form some sort of individual leaderboard. (from GW #1 onwards)
This would also reward/give satisfaction to loyal players for taking part in nearly every gameworld as they would score more points.
Or just allow alliances to form fully and be active immediately, why the 6 months(orwhatwasit?) wait ... ? With no a/c / size / age limits etc
Alliances should be, at least optional, not based on a single gameworld.
There should be an extra part for alliance management, including a member base administration with different flags (for example: standard member can join every game, maybe member has to apply, blocked member due to bad experiences) and an extra presentation page that is accessable from everywhere, so people without an alliance and/or gameworld yet as well as visitors could get themselves a picture of the alliances. Those alliances could have a subdomain, too, like http://XYZ.alliances.airwaysim.com or whatever and either be in a plugin (like the current alliance thing) or free in some kind of HTML or whatever coding.
Additionally in the member administration there could be a public part where members can apply for an airport (or give three to five wishes) to plan for new gameworlds.
To boost general forum usage all systems I can think of allow, basically, cheating. For example achievements could be tied to the forum and/or some kind of like/dislike system for single posts.
Also a "forums newsletter" could be sent via the ingame PM system, presenting interesting discussions, things people can decide (like this thread here) or just a reminder there are forums.
I made some good experiences with such newsletter on an alliance level here in AirwaySim, pointing out important threads in the alliance forums etc.
At the end I just want, without any judgement, say what I found to be the most interesting forums to participate:
Forums where the developer(s) are active. Not only short worded, but informative, maybe even small talking now and then about background information. I always felt I have to attend the forum to gather this information and I liked when I knew my ideas would not only be read, but also noticed and maybe even implemented.
I'm aware of the fact there is a bug report and a feature request forum, but sometimes information there is rare as well as no general information. To give you an example: I just asked around why the new gameworld doesn't run until 2030 (what would make sense because you would have to introduce A350 and 787) but not even the people active for the last year could give me an answer, they are sure it wasn't even ever mentioned.
And that's how humans work: At the places where you can get something (and let it be "just" information) they gather and participate. That's why a market or a church are more crowded than that street with normal houses.
QuoteOr just allow alliances to form fully and be active immediately, why the 6 months(orwhatwasit?) wait ... ? With no a/c / size / age limits etc
Sounds good, you can start the scoring immediately.
I'm not sure why there was a cap & delay set up in the first place..
Since the alliance score only kicks in when someone operates 10 aircrafts, it would mean that not many points would be scored early on anyways as it would take time to get to 10ac.
Quote from: sami on February 01, 2014, 02:36:47 PM
Or just allow alliances to form fully and be active immediately, why the 6 months(orwhatwasit?) wait ... ? With no a/c / size / age limits etc
No wait and no limits. Free market system.
https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,4.0.html
Given the workload associated with sorting through feature requests (even just to read them initially), why not have a group of volunteers, similar to the mentors, who would be able to flag duplicates and cross reference them in each thread with a cut and paste of the other request. There are several that seem to be regular followers given the amount of comments they make.
Often times, some of these dupes have discussion not captured in the original that ought to be taken into account. Likewise, a person may hit the dupe in their search while the original may be buried...hence the need for a cross ref link in each direction from the other.
This ought to save Sami a fair bit of work allowing him to concentrate more on the enhancements we would like, done.
Just so that y'all know, I've been working with updates to the site core and forums.
This isn't by any means a mandatory update yet, but will soon become one since the support for forum software's 1.1 version line ends in some time (~6-12 months?) .. so better to be prepared (the SMF 1.1 line has been in use since the beginning of AWS project .. = many years now). From user's point of view it's simply an update to the 2.0 series of the same forum software. It will be visually a bit different and have more functions, but nothing major.
The site core (fully custom system) uses the forum's login / user management functions as part of the core and that's why any such update isn't easy or fast. Previously many of the game core's functions have been tied to the forum's systems too but with this update I have made it nearly independent (making it a bit easier to update or switch the forum software in the future).
Implementation most likely next week. It will then involve about 30-60 minute maintenance break, notified in advance ..
(the default theme of the forum, pictured, doesn't fully match the AWS layout but have to see if I have time to customize it more than this ..in any case it will take quite a bit of time to get used to the layout as the forums have remained visually the same around 5+ years.)
Quote from: JetWestInc on December 20, 2013, 02:42:37 PM
Live chat, either built into the site or a Skype channel?
Skype channel.... Hmmm no because that would be technically stealing and copyright issues unless sami gets permission from the people who own the copyrights of Skype. But a built in chat thing is a great idea.
There is/was an AWS IRC chat but it wasn't very crowded back in 2010. One of the reasons may be hard access (= no direct access via page) and no prominent advertising on the page/ingame for it.
So, the biggest and most important community feature at the moment seems to be guarding alliances from name stealing - if that is on purpose or coincidentally.
There is no way some people create an alliance with the name of an old and well known alliance like it is in GameWorld EC Challenge right now and administration answers this by something like "ok, your fault, you should have spent credits to reserve the alliance name". Let's say there are 10 possible alliance names, this would mean 120 credits per year just to make sure a community can't be trolled or attacked.
I understand the game costs money, however, fighting for an alliance name should not be a thing of money. We don't need to discuss further going community features if the basic feature, the Alliance name, the thing everybody identifies an alliance with, can be used by everyone.
Edit: This whole thing of course would not have happened if there would been permanent alliances. I wrote a very nice posting about that some posts above here in this thread...
Quote from: CUR$E on March 16, 2014, 08:41:13 PM
So, the biggest and most important community feature at the moment seems to be guarding alliances from name stealing - if that is on purpose or coincidentally.
There is no way some people create an alliance with the name of an old and well known alliance like it is in GameWorld EC Challenge right now and administration answers this by something like "ok, your fault, you should have spent credits to reserve the alliance name". Let's say there are 10 possible alliance names, this would mean 120 credits per year just to make sure a community can't be trolled or attacked.
I understand the game costs money, however, fighting for an alliance name should not be a thing of money. We don't need to discuss further going community features if the basic feature, the Alliance name, the thing everybody identifies an alliance with, can be used by everyone.
Completely agree. Out of spirit of the game alliances do not open up under each others names. Unless this is going to be the rule going forward you an bet I will start doing it.
Very poor in my mind and actually the most disappointing thing in AWS i have ever heard about.
Sami- This should not be allowed and I hope you support all of us players in this.
Alliance names can be reserved using the normal airline name reservation service (I suppose this is unknown to most). Though in that case the person who reserved it must be the alliance founder, which may not work out in all situations.
So far I see that there has been a general understanding of the alliance names (ie. who takes what), but it's not written anywhere that it would be automatically reserved to you if you used that name in the past. (= same rules apply as in airline names)
(but this actual matter you are referring to is still pending and waiting the reply from the other side, and yet again I read it's my fault already? Come on. And also, please don't post made up quotes of what I've "said" to someone in private messages...)
You're the boss.... not me. If I would be things would have been very different already
Quote from: sami on March 16, 2014, 08:48:24 PM
Alliance names can be reserved using the normal airline name reservation service (I suppose this is unknown to most). Though in that case the person who reserved it must be the alliance founder, which may not work out in all situations.
So far I see that there has been a general understanding of the alliance names (ie. who takes what), but it's not written anywhere that it would be automatically reserved to you if you used that name in the past. (= same rules apply as in airline names)
(but this actual matter you are referring to is still pending and waiting the reply from the other side, and yet again I read it's my fault already? Come on.)
Your correct I had no idea I could spend more money on holding an alliance name down. I'll give you credit. From a business stand point that's a great move for you.
However for the people that play this game for years now I would hope you can see the concern.
Oh and yes since you are the sole responder I the forums and the sole communicator of changes, anything that is not "right" with AWS is going to be your fault. I hope you understand that.
Regards,
@ sami
I'm relatively sure the addition for alliance names wasn't there the last time I used that feature two years or so ago.
Yes, things are often not written anywhere but still they are forbidden or common sense tells they are. There was for example no rule written that autorefrshers etc. were forbidden (and therefor nobody was punished before the rule was introduced) - but you assumed it is common sense not to use them. It didn't work because some people, I included, were not aware of the consequences.
Now the situation is vice versa. I assumed the well established alliance names - SkyConnect, Elite, WorldLink, Global Express etc. etc. - are not explicitely guarded but if a problem arises there is only one logical solution - you give the name to the people who are the usual founders and explain it friendly to the others. That's no accusation, but until some hours ago I was sure this is the way how it would work. I never even thought about an alternative to this.
My referring to the permanent alliance feature was also no accusation it's your fault. Of course it's not, because you didn't found the "fake" alliance. :) However, there was no reaction to my post from your side so I thought I can, should and must refer to the posting because the permanent alliance feature would solve this problem forever and add other positive things to the community.
Another reason why permanent alliances should be set up!
This way there wouldn't need to be reservation of alliance names.
Also hugely disappointed by the lack of action and protection here! it makes a whole mockery of the "community feature" when the community is obviously not of interest in reality.
The guys in question who have opened the "new" alliance are fairly new to AWS to be fair and have been contacted, so we will see there response.
Let's hope it can be resolved amicably. If not, the community of the real SC alliance will take matters in their own hands and show what a real community does.
Actually. The username of the creator of that alliance rings a bell, and he's done the same stunt before. So that settles it, and won't wait for their response. ...humourish chap. :P
But still. Make the reservation if you feel the name should be protected, and it's that simple. (Permanent alliances are then another matter / something for the future .. which by the way WILL be done, at some point. Just the matter of how etc.)
Thanks for solving the situation, sami! Would it be enough to reserve SkyConnect or must we also reserve Sky Connect, Sky Connect, Sky_Connect, SkyConect, etc.? ;)
Quote from: sami on March 16, 2014, 09:03:30 PM
Actually. The username of the creator of that alliance rings a bell, and he's done the same stunt before. So that settles it, and won't wait for their response. ...humourish chap. :P
But still. Make the reservation if you feel the name should be protected, and it's that simple. (Permanent alliances are then another matter / something for the future.)
Thank you Sami!!!!