Warrior General Games

Originally posted by tezed
These three for sure

The Salty Runback vs. I've Never Had Sex - 14:00 http://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/replay/156635

Harrisonburg Bulldogs vs. Alaskan Assassins - 17:00 http://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/replay/156636

Air Raid vs. MMA - 18:00 http://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/replay/156633

Other than those 3, there are a couple of other good games but have bad sim times imo. Such as:

Rusty's vs. Starks at 21:00 - Late late, but probably better than the rest. Plus USC gets to defend himself

TYDNYDTC vs. Fort Collins at 7:00 - Two 7-0 teams, one Pro, one Vet. Early sim though.

Kiwis vs Beers at 6:00 - #1 and #3 in Journeymen square off. Again, early sim though.

Originally posted by tezed
Other than those 3, there are a couple of other good games but have bad sim times imo. Such as:

Rusty's vs. Starks at 21:00 - Late late, but probably better than the rest. Plus USC gets to defend himself

TYDNYDTC vs. Fort Collins at 7:00 - Two 7-0 teams, one Pro, one Vet. Early sim though.

Kiwis vs Beers at 6:00 - #1 and #3 in Journeymen square off. Again, early sim though.

The 1st 3 you linked should be no problem, the early ones I don't think I can make happen. I need to find a way to automate it.

looks super fun - can't wait until tomorrow.

Originally posted by Corndog
Interesting, how would you accomplish that?

Since you asked; generally speaking change focus from addressing adopters complaints first and focus on experience for new players. Keep in mind without seeing user rates and the average early drop out day (IE of players who choose not to stay are they signing up once and not playing, or do they stay for 5-10 days and go nowhere or is it a longer process?) I mean basic SAS or similar analytical software would point to user drop out date or time. But generally:

* Too many plays don't work. That's really an attack on new owners but new owners are typically the ones who sign new players. The marginal utility of plays is too great, after playing a while you don't notice it because you mentally skip them. I can't remember the last time a top team called Shotgun draw or weakside handoff; similarly many passing plays are more likely to lead to huge plays than others single back cross up or GL HB outside pitch plays still lead to a good chunk of the "big plays" in rookie ball and beyond. Early adopters all got to learn together now the best of the league gets to slaughter lambs and nothing makes people quit like getting housed by half a hundred on a routine basis. If you question that: Check the football attendance rates at Kansas versus Alabama or UCLA.

* Stop letting people assign a free player to an average or low demand position. New guys need more time to learn to build properly, plenty more of a calling for average LB's and WR's than for subpar QB's or HB's. Right now those guys get created sign to a CPU team; and for that experience play 20-25 plays two out of three days. One of them if they are a QB is against a human run team who slams them into a sack fest or a HB running into a wall of defense they can't get around. One possibility of a good game every 3 days assuming the CPU team doesn't stick them in a slot with limited effectiveness (IE HB returner).

* General FAQ is still a vile pain in the butt for new users to find. We'll depending on the mentality of the new user. However, just from a structural question, is it their job to learn how to find it or the business owner's job to direct them to it? You load Amazon..you find all kinds of things to buy and help features; here you have to hunt. For the technologically challenged thats probably difficult; for a regular gamer he can use that but and its a business question: Are you marketing to football fans, gamers, or both?

* For the love of God "do something" to help new players find human teams. Made a bunch of suggestions over the last year and a half on this(as have others)... but while its the vision of the game founder its apparently not the vision to execute that vision. Auto take them to the marketplace ad (after fixing the market place) the players looking for teams forum, enable CPU team forums, anything anything but doing the same thing and hoping somehow they find how to get on a human team.

* Change the mentality to watch for whacky posts that really; when you get guys trying to figure out how to resign with their CPU team (especially those who've been around multiple seasons) and newer users apparently are still struggling to understand...stop assuming thats their problem; consider it yours. Somehow , someway the education piece is not getting there, you see these it should be a papal bull that something in the delivery of information needs to change.

* Consider further referral incentives; I don't know but imagine someone you know getting you to play the game increases the chance the person will stay. Obviously would need consideration to avoid manipulation but residual flex referral bonuses on multi-player accounts (guys who bought flex) might be worthy of consideration as might creating an extra superstar slot strictly on referrals.

* Look at your changelog; ask yourself how many of those changes benefit users who are long term and how many were made to make the game the game better for newcomers? Just my opinion but looks pretty lopsided, not early but as the game progressed it seems out of balance. Not saying hose the guys who've stayed but but making changes to the established user base will only get you so far; and more to the point what helps one established user is more likely to piss off another. Enabling new users is more likely to benefit them all.

* General Marketing question again: How are your customers? Gamers, Football fans, both? (I don't know so a decision you have to make) Look at web driven content on the sites. Take a look at foreign users. Plenty of "American Football" fans overseas who also happen to be gamers. Elance rates on translation are fairly low. GLB1 used to have a large contingent of French players (it may still have) why not advertise to a global base?

* Consider shifting skill point earned dates. People are creatures of habit. The key is getting users to log into the site daily; right now 2 out of every 3 days users have a reason to log in. Why not daily? Shifting the days skill points are earned to the off-day (say you earned 1500 by playing in two games) and call it a "training day" though allow users to assign points as before. Create user habits to log into GLB2 daily.

Anyway thats just a few. Creating a realistic football simulation thats entertaining is a pain in the butt. GLB2 has while not generally to my liking, by and large achieved that. Great you've got the accomplishment - but can you leverage that accomplishment into sustainability and better still growth?

I don't know how you really cater to new users through the changelog while actually getting anywhere useful in progression with a game like this. The good users hammer on the things that are best used to win. We all want things to work. That is the goal. New users should want that too. The game is pretty simple as it is. Though many agree the DAI could use some work and off tackle runs being usable in either set would be nice. Regardless you are never going to get the perfect new person feeling without completely resetting the game every season and throwing random sims at us.

As far as the plays go. Not all plays are ever going to be equal. That isn't to say they never have their place or never will have their place as the sim progresses. The idea is that the options are there. I would rather see more plays than sit around trying to make every single play amazingly useful. 40 seasons of GLB1 changes I have made good use of every single play in the book at one point or another. Just all depends on what you are dealt with.

Originally posted by bhall43
I don't know how you really cater to new users through the changelog while actually getting anywhere useful in progression with a game like this. The good users hammer on the things that are best used to win. We all want things to work. That is the goal. New users should want that too. The game is pretty simple as it is. Though many agree the DAI could use some work and off tackle runs being usable in either set would be nice. Regardless you are never going to get the perfect new person feeling without completely resetting the game every season and throwing random sims at us.

As far as the plays go. Not all plays are ever going to be equal. That isn't to say they never have their place or never will have their place as the sim progresses. The idea is that the options are there. I would rather see more plays than sit around trying to make every single play amazingly useful. 40 seasons of GLB1 changes I have made good use of every single play in the book at one point or another. Just all depends on what you are dealt with.

Great how's that working out so far?

Look at the seasoned leagues, how many of the owners picked the game up after season 5? 4 or 5? maybe a 10% user adoption rate for new owners and a lower rate for players is good enough. As I said I don't see the revenue projections or user metrics.

It asks the general question are you doing enough to attract and retain new players... if you are no issue you'll prosper without changes; if your not doing the same thing over and over again and expecting new results is well.....

Originally posted by william78
Great how's that working out so far?

Look at the seasoned leagues, how many of the owners picked the game up after season 5? 4 or 5? maybe a 10% user adoption rate for new owners and a lower rate for players is good enough. As I said I don't see the revenue projections or user metrics.

It asks the general question are you doing enough to attract and retain new players... if you are no issue you'll prosper without changes; if your not doing the same thing over and over again and expecting new results is well.....

I don't know because the changes aren't really coming at any sort of rate that would allow this game to cater to much more than a small niche of people who like the game for what it is.

Originally posted by bhall43
I don't know because the changes aren't really coming at any sort of rate that would allow this game to cater to much more than a small niche of people who like the game for what it is.

That's a very valid point. Why I asked a couple times who is the customer? If its designed to be a game with a small but highly devoted niche following of maybe 100 users thats fine. If the intent was to grow the customer base to several thousand users thats another matter.

Originally posted by william78
* Too many plays don't work.

All of the plays work as far as I know. If your idea of "working" is all plays being equal in all situations, then you're never going to be satisfied because that's literally impossible.

Originally posted by william78
* Stop letting people assign a free player to an average or low demand position.

Firstly, we don't allow free low demand players as far as I know. Secondly, I'm not sure forcing people to make an offensive lineman is going to get them super hooked. Pretty much a wash either way.

Originally posted by william78
* Consider further referral incentives

Referrals don't really work nowadays. This isn't 2008. People are sick of being told to go play a browser game. You can thank Facebook and Zynga for that.

Most of the rest are just nebulous "make the game more appealing to new users" without much substance. What changes will actually be beneficial to new players? Completely reworking how SPs are doled out? That's going to infuriate most of the current userbase (because everything does), and honestly, is that really going to change the tide of nobody seeing the game?

I'm not even sure what "advertise globally" is supposed to mean. The site isn't region locked.

FAQ could probably be a little bit better...but even if that helps retention slightly, it's not going to be that much. The vast majority of actual new accounts sign up and quit when they realize that you don't actually play the game.

The fact is is that the actual market for a browser based simulation game is pretty small. I'm pretty sure most of the market for browser MMOs is located in Asia, and they generally don't care much for American Football.

That, and banner ads are garbage nowadays. Way overpriced and hugely ineffective. I think we spent like a years salary on banner ads and...well, you see where that got us.

If you have an idea, I'm open to them. "Advertising" and referrals aren't the answer. Yahoo has helped bring in quite a few new users, but yeah, it is what it is.

Thanks for the answers Corndog. It's nice to get your thoughts on all these things.

Originally posted by william78
That's a very valid point. Why I asked a couple times who is the customer? If its designed to be a game with a small but highly devoted niche following of maybe 100 users thats fine. If the intent was to grow the customer base to several thousand users thats another matter.

I think the window on several thousand users playing a game like this has definitely passed. Later this year OOTP productions is forming an American Football sim which will probably corner the market on football simming pretty quickly imo.