Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: DmonSlyr on July 19, 2015, 03:16:40 PM

Title: The front page
Post by: DmonSlyr on July 19, 2015, 03:16:40 PM
Hitech and others,

I'd really be interested in a group of mods who  would maintain the front page of the website. They could promote upcoming events and encourage site viewers to read about the events going on that month. Dedicated edited films from the last event could be posted so that people would be entertained into joining those events.

There just isn't enough notifications and the BBs can only go so far as far as reaching out to all the gamers. Posting on the front webpagae as well as hold a calendar arena message about the upcoming events, would really allow people to plan for the occasion and get interested in the next events.

 :salute
Violator
Title: Re: The front page
Post by: The Fugitive on July 19, 2015, 04:18:00 PM
All those things are available.....if you can find them.

The biggest thing right now is social media. Post the crap out of everything!!! Hashtag the crap out of everything. With a new graphics engine on the horizon there should be all kinds of noise on the sites. We have 3 on twitter, and 3 on Facebook in the last 5 weeks. Heck we got as many from waffle on his trip!

People don't use websites as much these days it's all about twitter and facebook. I know Skuzzy has reworked the site, but it still has issues displaying on an android device. They hired someone to push the social media and then we haven't heard hide no hair from her. Where did she go? Social media should have 10 post a day easily and these can be everything from whats going on in the game at that moment, to upcoming events, to who has top score in fighters today! The point is to POST. Generate some activity and create a sensation and make it THE place to get instant info!
Title: Re: The front page
Post by: DmonSlyr on July 19, 2015, 04:27:59 PM
All those things are available.....if you can find them.

The biggest thing right now is social media. Post the crap out of everything!!! Hashtag the crap out of everything. With a new graphics engine on the horizon there should be all kinds of noise on the sites. We have 3 on twitter, and 3 on Facebook in the last 5 weeks. Heck we got as many from waffle on his trip!

People don't use websites as much these days it's all about twitter and facebook. I know Skuzzy has reworked the site, but it still has issues displaying on an android device. They hired someone to push the social media and then we haven't heard hide no hair from her. Where did she go? Social media should have 10 post a day easily and these can be everything from whats going on in the game at that moment, to upcoming events, to who has top score in fighters today! The point is to POST. Generate some activity and create a sensation and make it THE place to get instant info!

My thing is to just post Events coming up and maybe a video someone made of the past scenario to gain attention . the social media does work, but even still the main front page should page be updated and entertaining! The arena message in the game should post a callender of the upcoming events and news about what is next for the different arenas. The special arena events are not getting enough notice and not too many game players check the board, and still they forget. The front page needs to be more informational with events!
Title: Re: The front page
Post by: The Fugitive on July 19, 2015, 08:55:54 PM
Event attendance is down because ALL attendance is down. There just isn't enough player playing. You could advertise on TV and it would still be down.

Like the message boards a small percentage of players attend events. We may only get 3-5 % of the players through the boards. The same goes for the events. It's not everyone cup of tea. The only way to increase the player population in events is to increase player population PERIOD.
Title: Re: The front page
Post by: Skuzzy on July 20, 2015, 06:22:13 AM
What issues are there with Android devices?  I am not aware of any more to be fixed.

The only one I am aware of is the "Kills" panel in the player stats, but that is not going to be a simple fix.

Google's mobile site tool is not finding any issues either.
Title: Re: The front page
Post by: DmonSlyr on July 20, 2015, 08:35:19 AM
Event attendance is down because ALL attendance is down. There just isn't enough player playing. You could advertise on TV and it would still be down.

Like the message boards a small percentage of players attend events. We may only get 3-5 % of the players through the boards. The same goes for the events. It's not everyone cup of tea. The only way to increase the player population in events is to increase player population PERIOD.

I agree that the low #s do effect the overall attendence rate, however, I also think the lack of attention in speading awareness about the events need to better advertised. I was in the KOTH on Friday. Didn't even know there was a KOTH until Bruv started telling everyone from all the arenas. A simple arena message of the month's special events would have reminded a lot of people about the event before the day it was happening. The BBs just do not gain enough attention or enough excitement for more players to join and be interested in.

This is just an observation I've gathered about making the game more engaging from the front page and even give new players a chance to read about and watch some events. Finding that type of information in the BBs is tough and doesn't seem as exciting as if it was marketed on the front page of upcoming scenarios! 
Title: Re: The front page
Post by: The Fugitive on July 20, 2015, 08:52:27 AM
I'd bet less players visit the main Web site than do the bbs. The Web site in most cases is the "first contact " a person has with the game. If you want info on coming events, from the main page click on "community ",then "events". Not all that tough to find.

If your taking the stand that players don't know about events, I agree. Heck most don't even know what the game has available or how to use it outside of HOing, porkin hq and run from fights.

A message of the day may help, but I'm sure most will just click through without reading it. Most players play the game on a very narrow style and rarely venture  away from it, either because they are comfortable with it, or its just too much trouble to change.
Title: Re: The front page
Post by: The Fugitive on July 20, 2015, 08:56:06 AM
What issues are there with Android devices?  I am not aware of any more to be fixed.

The only one I am aware of is the "Kills" panel in the player stats, but that is not going to be a simple fix.

Google's mobile site tool is not finding any issues either.

Most of it looks like sizing issues.  While the field may resize for a mobile device the text doesn't and creates over laps. I've had issues where it didn't recognize that I input data in a field.  If I use the desktop version it seems to work better on my devices.
Title: Re: The front page
Post by: ImADot on July 20, 2015, 08:57:49 AM
Finding that type of information in the BBs is tough and doesn't seem as exciting as if it was marketed on the front page of upcoming scenarios!

Not picking on you, just using your quote.

Special Events Announcements (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/board,62.0.html) is a top-level forum you can see at the top of the main forum page, in the "Announcements" section.
Special Events Calendar (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php?action=calendar) is a button at the top of the BBS and is always visible.

We've tried many things. There seems to be quite a small percentage of players that visit the BBS, and I'm not sure how many go to the HTC homepage on a regular basis. It's tough to guess where/what would bring more players to the special events. I think a large portion of the player base is just not interested. As was said earlier, player numbers in general are down, which will affect numbers in the special events.
Title: Re: The front page
Post by: DmonSlyr on July 20, 2015, 10:11:07 AM
Not picking on you, just using your quote.

Special Events Announcements (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/board,62.0.html) is a top-level forum you can see at the top of the main forum page, in the "Announcements" section.
Special Events Calendar (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php?action=calendar) is a button at the top of the BBS and is always visible.

We've tried many things. There seems to be quite a small percentage of players that visit the BBS, and I'm not sure how many go to the HTC homepage on a regular basis. It's tough to guess where/what would bring more players to the special events. I think a large portion of the player base is just not interested. As was said earlier, player numbers in general are down, which will affect numbers in the special events.

I understand that there are ways to find out about events. But there were 3 people in KOTH on Friday. I knew about the KOTH from looking at the special events forum, however, I had totally forgot KOTH was that Friday! The BBs didn't show anything exciting about KOTH that day. The website didn't say anything about KOTH that day. If I was a new player I wouldn't even know what KOTH was. The special events literally needs to slap the event in the face of people right on the front page of the website. Many people come to the site to view scores, not just read the boards. If they, as well as new players check out the website, they will see it updated with new events, fun movies to get them engaged, and also leads to more excitement.

If a new players sees that the last time the game was updated on the website last month, it may seem like the action of the game is not very interactive. I'm just thinking a few mods to encourage upcoming special arena events, would really gain the interest of a lot of first time viewers. It really isn't that hard to set something like this up.

An arena message that shows this weeks up and coming special events would really allow people to plan and commit to the events.

There just isn't enough promotion for these events.

You can click community and go to events, but that doesn't shout it out to everyone, not everyone is going to click on those links and they still have to navigate through it. I personally think the Events would gain a lot more attention if they were posted on the front page along with an arena message from the players who don't go online. For the players who don't go online, they will never know about the events until they see the headline from the mods who run it that day that it starts in 1 hour over message text. That is literally how I find out about events, and is one reason IMO that the turnout just isn't as high as it should be.
Title: Re: The front page
Post by: Skuzzy on July 20, 2015, 10:32:33 AM
Most of it looks like sizing issues.  While the field may resize for a mobile device the text doesn't and creates over laps. I've had issues where it didn't recognize that I input data in a field.  If I use the desktop version it seems to work better on my devices.

Please provide us with any links to things that do not resize correctly.  There are some things which we have no control over, but where we do, we are trying to get that mobile stuff working correctly.
Title: Re: The front page
Post by: hgtonyvi on July 20, 2015, 12:00:23 PM
Skuzzy for instance when I check squad scores half of the page is blocked out. I think it's some kind of slider fault. It's not being able to slide the information left to right or right to left.
Title: Re: The front page
Post by: Skuzzy on July 20, 2015, 12:18:35 PM
Skuzzy for instance when I check squad scores half of the page is blocked out. I think it's some kind of slider fault. It's not being able to slide the information left to right or right to left.

That has already been fixed, except for the 'kill' stats panel, which needs a major rewrite as it cannot scale down small enough with all the columns it has.

It is possible to scale the width down to the point where all the panels cannot fit due to the number of columns.  Right now I have no way to reorganize that data to cause it to wrap the columns down the screen without a complete rewrite of that code.

Right now I am looking at it and the top panel is a little squeezed, the 'kills' panel is halfway off the screen, but the others are fitting just fine.
Title: Re: The front page
Post by: hgtonyvi on July 20, 2015, 03:29:41 PM
I will check it out and see if I have any problems.
Title: Re: The front page
Post by: The Fugitive on July 20, 2015, 04:17:00 PM
That has already been fixed, except for the 'kill' stats panel, which needs a major rewrite as it cannot scale down small enough with all the columns it has.

It is possible to scale the width down to the point where all the panels cannot fit due to the number of columns.  Right now I have no way to reorganize that data to cause it to wrap the columns down the screen without a complete rewrite of that code.

Right now I am looking at it and the top panel is a little squeezed, the 'kills' panel is halfway off the screen, but the others are fitting just fine.

Here is what I get. Its the same on both my phone as well as the tablet. When in "mobile" mode I lose the nav buttons at the top, and the text in the lower left corner over laps. The tablet scales correctly when I turn it to portrait, but not my phone. Also this is with the android browser, when I try it with firefox on the phone I get the same issues, but it won't load the desktop version.

(http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii253/maddogjoe_photos/android_screen_zpsifduqvhu.jpg) (http://s266.photobucket.com/user/maddogjoe_photos/media/android_screen_zpsifduqvhu.jpg.html)
Title: Re: The front page
Post by: Skuzzy on July 20, 2015, 04:30:43 PM
You are supposed to lose the menu buttons across the top.  Tap the 3 parallel lines to get the menu.

I'll look at that text item and see what I can do with it.
Title: Re: The front page
Post by: hgtonyvi on July 20, 2015, 05:09:10 PM
When I switch to desktop mode I get the same picture as Fugitive but I still can't access the full score page. Skuzzy try setting the page where you can slide to see the columns blocked out. Same thing happens on my iPhone and android.
Title: Re: The front page
Post by: The Fugitive on July 20, 2015, 06:43:45 PM
You are supposed to lose the menu buttons across the top.  Tap the 3 parallel lines to get the menu.

I'll look at that text item and see what I can do with it.

Thats what I figured, but wanted to be sure.

When I switch to desktop mode I get the same picture as Fugitive but I still can't access the full score page. Skuzzy try setting the page where you can slide to see the columns blocked out. Same thing happens on my iPhone and android.

I think thats the issue he is talking about with a major rewrite for that page. When setting the page up for "mobile" viewing it uses percentages. He runs out of room when it gets down to phone size. To add a scroll setup is what I think he may be looking into. He may have to set it in a nul area so it doesn't mess with the percentage sizing.
Title: Re: The front page
Post by: Skuzzy on July 21, 2015, 06:48:18 AM
No matter what I do it is going to look bad.  Tabular data is difficult to format for a small screen.

I'll have to wrap the columns, which is going to make the page very long and difficult to read.

Or I can make it an image, which would not be readable when scaled to that small size.
Title: Re: The front page
Post by: DmonSlyr on July 21, 2015, 07:29:23 AM
So like, what about posting articles, screen shots, and films of upcoming events for web site viewers so they know what and when a fun special event is. I really do think it would help to advertise the other fun aspects to the game that people will overlook and forget about. Plus when new website visitors check out the game, they will see these scenarios, watch the video, get entertained and possibly sign up for the game. I just think more front page website action about upcoming events would go a long way to promote the fun and events for more players.
Title: Re: The front page
Post by: hitech on July 21, 2015, 12:59:41 PM
So like, what about posting articles, screen shots, and films of upcoming events for web site viewers so they know what and when a fun special event is. I really do think it would help to advertise the other fun aspects to the game that people will overlook and forget about. Plus when new website visitors check out the game, they will see these scenarios, watch the video, get entertained and possibly sign up for the game. I just think more front page website action about upcoming events would go a long way to promote the fun and events for more players.

The front page is absolutely not the place to advertise up coming events other then possibly large scale scenarios. The place to advertise events would be in game such as the opening screen. Or on the loading dialogs.

HiTech
Title: Re: The front page
Post by: guncrasher on July 21, 2015, 01:28:18 PM
skuzzy ever since was it java  or whatever is not supported anymore in android devices the bb and lots of other pages started to look weird.

guess you cant fix that.

semp
Title: Re: The front page
Post by: DmonSlyr on July 21, 2015, 01:50:07 PM
The front page is absolutely not the place to advertise up coming events other then possibly large scale scenarios. The place to advertise events would be in game such as the opening screen. Or on the loading dialogs.

HiTech

Thanks for your reply. I think that would be real nice having a message in game!
Title: Re: The front page
Post by: Easyscor on July 21, 2015, 02:47:49 PM
The website could use an embedded date tag of 2016.

When I Google 'flight simulator games', Aces High is one of two games in the ribbon that comes up without a year date.

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=flight+simulator+games

For its ranking on the pages with other flight sim games, that might be hits from their additional embedded tags. It's been too long since I looked at tags so I can't remember how to verify that statement.