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True that compared to the newer games, AA2.5 is not that, however it is still have much qualities and much fun for players.  You both say that advertising is not going to work. My answer is when has advertising been fully tried? The only advertising I have seen is posts on BT forums.  There are many more ways and locations to advertise than the BT forums.

name recognition for a person or a product is done the same as everything: advertising and promotion.
We have a marketable product. AA2.5 is marketable just fine.  Website is an integral part of any marketing/advertising/promotion. You could have a great product, but a site that is not appropriately tailored will do nothing.  While you can have a great site, poor product and tons of downloads.
Yes, the point is to get people in game, however you cant separate site and game. Both site and game are tight together.
And how much of a result you get from new site features depend on the feature and how the marketing is done.

You seem to have a good background of the business (both marketing and gaming). Since you don't like any of my suggestions, how about you open a thread and post your suggestions/ideas on how to grow the Assist community?
I never said my ideas/suggestions are perfect, however at least I have constructive suggestions and ideas.

Like I said in my previous post, I am getting sick of people who write "this sucks", " I don't agree", but then no one is posting any ideas/suggestions on how to bring in more people (new players and old players).

I like Spanky's idea

There is much for me to respond and before I go further, I will just say before hand that if what I write offends anyone, well, my apologies. But I am straight shooter and I need to vent. So here it goes:

To Jared

I disagree with you. Looking at what competition does gives a new perspective. As a dev you get too involved in your own little world and you may miss things. The new perspective allows to come to the project with new ideas, new things to try.
So again, I disagree with you.

The point of CMS is to showcase the game. There are many games who use this method to showcase the game to visitors. Just one example is http://www.runescape.com/
What RS has done is not necessarily good, not necessarily bad, however it is an example.

Not sure if you took the time to read my previous posts. If not, let me clarify that I am very much familiar with how all the forums and CMS softwares out there work. I have created many websites (including the ones as part of my consulting business), moderated many different websites. So I know very well how those softwares I mentioned work.

I do marketing for a living. Two of the most important aspects of marketing:

-name recognition. In the case of a game, that means having players aware of the game. Both new and old players. In the case of Assist, having players aware of the existence of Assist.
-direct marketing. Direct marketing means that you have to actually reach to players, to players communities and introduce them to Assist and so forth.

To Spanky

reward should be the growth of the community. Many of us have done and continue to do stuff for games free of charge. It is part of the deal when you volunteer, when one wants to contribute.

Concerning the mAAp maps, as far our servers are concerned, just looking at our Dallas 1 server, 34 % of the time the server is on Ice.
But I do understand your frustration as well.

To all

Yes, Assist may have been on Sourceforge since 2009, but that doesn't mean anything. Sourceforge is about development. No player would go there without a good reason.
And talking about the time since January 2012, from personal experience, from looking at forums at Battletracker and other sites, the only reason people find about Assist is either because they stumble upon one of the threads or recently because some of us go on forums and advertise and answer questions about Assist.
Bottom line is that doesn't work well. To have a constantly growing community, there is need for constant advertising, And advertising doesnt need to cost any money.

Bottom line is that at end of the day, it needs to be decided whether the community and the dev want for Assist to grow or not. And if it is a yes, then all legal means should be used to grow the community.

Finally finish this long post by saying this. Personally, I would like to see the Assist/2.5 community grow and I do what I can to help with that. This includes submitting ideas/suggestions/proposals.
One may not like my ideas and that is just fine, but don't just say "your suggestions suck". Say "your suggestions suck" and then go ahead and post your own ideas and suggestions on how to grow Assist/2.5.

By the way, I am still waiting to see some constructive posts on how to further grow Assist/2.5

Done venting!!

Jared, those websites i linked are just examples of what other game companies are doing. There is nothing wrong with seeing what the competition is doing.
Take the best ideas of each company, make them your own and use them as needed.
Part of the process of developing something is to keep an open mind and not be offended by suggestions, whether they are nicely said or not.

Concerning the CMS, no one needs to register since all login/register would be removed from the CMS.

No disrespect but part of discussing the game and assist is about how to get more new/old players in and grow the community.

yes, open source is about helping improve and sharing and that is what we are doing. Many of us cant code, however we can post ideas, suggest softwares which could help things and such

Guys, I am not bitching or complaining. If I offended anyone, my apologies.
I am just putting down ideas to hopefully help grow Assist and the community.
To grow the community, we need to be open minded and willing to look outside the box.

Let me also say this. This is not about power grabbing or power struggle.The whole community is thankful and appreciates what was done by Jonny, Spanky, Jared, Blue and others.  We are all thankful and appreciative.

What the issue is about is growing the community. Get new blood in. And as far as I am concerned all means are good.

This is laughable really. I was open to a mod or two at first, or some organization ideas but this... this whole "oh fuck your code and the time you put into it, I can do something better from scratch by jamming pre-made code together" it's laughable.

I'm done with AA, I'm done with this community. I've given way too much to this game and it seems like everything I've put a lot of effort into, everybody shits on it. If you guys want a new site, you better get some web hosting. Whoever wants the AAO25.com domain, I'll be happy to setup some kind of a transfer.

Spanky, take a deep breath.
I am suggesting ideas. It is up to you guys to decide what to use or not.

The site is definitely very good, but anything to attract more players is good in my book. In any case, whatever you guys decide.

To Blue

That is not a surprise. Sourceforge is not meant for that type of hosting. Try Joomla and see what you get.

Yes that was exactly the info I was looking for. I'll probably get started integrating concrete5 and smf at the sourceforge site without destroying what is already on there.

yea, but why at the sourceforge site? Isnt the sourceforge site for development?
I thought you were referring to this site