How annoying are the announcements?

[Wilhammer]

The only forum I visit here, now, is the GF.

Only one product line interests me - the CM line, and I have already bought those, and a couple of Player's guides.

I tried some other products after I bought them - ToW and Strategic Command. Did not like either of them.

For me, BF is good for 4 things; the General Forum and CMBO, CMAK, and CMBB. The rest; not for me.

But, hey, if you take down the GF, that is OK with me. Dosomefink is a fine place to be, and since I boardgame most of the time now, CSW and SCSW fill a niche.

[GordJ]

Yes, pretty much so. Where it's not clear is the interpretation of what it means. I have two somewhat opposing views to offer:

- many people who come to the GF do so after they check out the other game-related forums first, or the main website, or the RSS feeds, newsletter etc. Hence, the view count from the GF is comparatively low because people have already found out about the news from the prime sources

- many people in the GF are not interested in our products at all and are exclusively visiting this forum. This would be a strong argument to close down the GF, actually. These forums do serve a purpose; there is a German phrase - "Selbstzweck" (self-purpose) - and these forums are not it. They are for fans of our games to be able to talk about off-topic stuff. You can see the announcements on top as a reminder of that, if you like. The number of announcements will vary (I usually try not to duplicate them too much), but they're going to stay. Compared to other forums which are bombarded with ads, pop-ups and pop-unders our forum is still far ahead and, if you do not purchase our games, for free. Considering that this is not a forum from some magazine site but the forum of a game company that's a darn good deal.

The point about having too many of them and in turn making them less special is valid. I have taken down duplicate announcements because of that already in the past, and some "small news" are generally not cross-posted here anyway. Hopefully a future version of vB would allow to rotate announcements or something like that. We will upgrade to 3.7 sooner or later, I'm not sure how announcements are handled there.

one other consideration that may also be valid is that some products have been announced four years ago with almost no form of update since there is nothing to report on in the way of progress at this time. as a consequence- there is nothing to talk about in the game forums. those of us waiting for napoleon or naval battles, etc. literally have nothing else to discuss - so if you delete the general forum, we will then have literally no reason to keep coming back to battlefront at all.

your call, but you run the risk of us forgetting about you altogether while we are waiting patiently for the games to be finished (never saw the point of posting idiotic 'is it done yet is it done yet' crap in the game forums - i'm betting you'll let your customers know when you've reached that point)

your call.

[MeatEtr]

Well he didn't say they were closing down the GF. Although it does sound like it's been talked about in the past.

But Moon I think your first view is much more accurate than the second.

many people who come to the GF do so after they check out the other game-related forums first, or the main website, or the RSS feeds, newsletter etc. Hence, the view count from the GF is comparatively low because people have already found out about the news from the prime sources

Hands down the main draw to the BF site is wargaming(CM mostly). I think we all know it. Heck if we did a vote on everybody that visited the GF I'd bet at least 90% owned at least one CMx1 title. I mean really, where else in the world can military/wargaming types flap their gums about SPAM.

[RMC]

- many people in the GF are not interested in our products at all and are exclusively visiting this forum. This would be a strong argument to close down the GF, actually. These forums do serve a purpose; there is a German phrase - "Selbstzweck" (self-purpose) - and these forums are not it. They are for fans of our games to be able to talk about off-topic stuff. You can see the announcements on top as a reminder of that, if you like. The number of announcements will vary (I usually try not to duplicate them too much), but they're going to stay. Compared to other forums which are bombarded with ads, pop-ups and pop-unders our forum is still far ahead and, if you do not purchase our games, for free. Considering that this is not a forum from some magazine site but the forum of a game company that's a darn good deal.

Are there actually people here that have never bought a BTS/BFC product? I would never have suspected that. That some of them may have not purchased a product in several years as they await some future product is something else entirely.

This is the first time that I've seen BFC hint at some connection between using the forums and buying games. I always assumed everyone here was or had been a customer in some way. Maybe they bought CMBO in 2000 and nothing else. Are you advocating some system of membership where you have to have bought something in, say, the last 2 years in order to use the forums?

[Wilhammer]

It's....like....we....are...getting....Mooned...

[Moon]

Are you advocating some system of membership where you have to have bought something in, say, the last 2 years in order to use the forums?

No. Keep in mind the chain of events here. REVS has complained about the announcements and I went to remind him that this forum is here because we make games, not forums. Not the other way around. I also never said that we are considering closing it. I just said that if one of the two interpretations was true, one could see it as argument to do it.

We did discuss closing the GF in the past. This topic almost always comes up internally when it begins to be more work than we have time for, i.e.: always when discussions get out of hand. It's one of the reasons for the "No politics" rule. Luckily, discussions here have been largely civilized for some time now (including some "light politics" which we therefore tolerate).

GordJ, you're touching upon the point why the GF is still here. All things considered, we of course want potential customers to rather come here than "forget about us completely". Incidentally, this is why the announcements are here. Some of them might catch your interest sooner or later. If they don't, then that's ok, too (after all, we don't force you into memberships to use the forum) but it's our right to offer you what we have.