ID:138402
 
Today was my first serious usage of the pager, which made me discover just how important it will be as we have more people in-game at any particular time of the day.

It was critical for us staying in touch when switching games or dealing with the typical stuff that comes up when playing online. And it was great for getting to a game for which you couldn't have had the address ahead of time.

All of which pointed out that...it's too hidden. Could I suggest that this might be what to do with the currently dead space next to the banner?

Have an option allowing you to have the pager there. Then you can see who of your friends are online, where they are, etc.

And on the subject of banners...if my semi-evil plan to do some addictive email-based turn-based games takes off to any degree, then the server hits will mean that some form of income is probably needed to support the endeavor. It's like those people whose website suddenly gets really popular, and their ISP charges them for a million hits that month.

So, much as I wasn't originally thinking in this direction, I would encourage Dantom not to do anything that would remove some form of banner revenue as an option.

Though I really don't know for sure how it can be a revenue source -- banner ads are largely considered to be a total failure.

Has the Dantom Marketing Dept done a study on this?

I like the idea of somehow using the whole banner area for "global" communication. That means both one-to-one pager type stuff and one-to-many banner type stuff. Of course that's easy to say when I don't have to worry about counting pixels and figuring out how to actually squeeze all of that in there. TP (Tom's Problem).

So, much as I wasn't originally thinking in this direction, I would encourage Dantom not to do anything that would remove some form of banner revenue as an option.

Has the Dantom Marketing Dept done a study on this?

Our in-depth analysis indicates that people fall into two camps: anti-commercialists (like myself) and pro-commercialists (like Tom-no just kidding). Actually, I doubt there are too many pro-commercialists, but instead there are people who are willing to put up with commercialism for the lure of profit or at least as a way of paying for things that are fun but difficult to bill for.

I don't think it would be too hard to satisfy both camps. First of all, the designer of any world should have the power to turn off banners. By doing so, they also turn off any potential revenue that they (and Dantom) might derive from it-revenue which could offset (or very optimistically exceed) the cost of running the service.

Secondly, the choice of banner should be made more intelligently to better satisfy the ego of the designer! I think it should start off with a banner made by the designer and then randomly switch to other ones after that point. That way when you log into a game, the opening screen is more appealing.

Thirdly, I would like to keep the banner space from getting overwhelmed by outside commercial sources. It would be nice to retain a mix of amateur banners that inform BYOND users about new games and the like. In fact, I think that would make it even more successful as a tool for commercial users because there would actually be some useful information sprinkled in with their crap!

Well, the Dantom Marketing Dept will continue to study this question. It is rather important for us to know what annoys people and what people are willing to put up with for the practical reason of paying the bills.

--Dan
In response to Dan
On 9/4/00 6:52 am Dan wrote:
Has the Dantom Marketing Dept done a study on this?

Our in-depth analysis indicates that people fall into two camps: anti-commercialists (like myself) and pro-commercialists (like Tom-no just kidding). Actually, I doubt there are too many pro-commercialists, but instead there are people who are willing to put up with commercialism for the lure of profit or at least as a way of paying for things that are fun but difficult to bill for.


I'm also wondering about (as is the rest of the world I guess) how to actually have a working model here, in terms of something that actually could produce revenue.

We may have to think up something creative about banners or whatever to make them more successful than the typical web banners that have been a bust.

As for commercialism, I contain multitudes when it comes to where I fall on that.

At this precise point and space in time, I don't care about generating revenue. I'm doing it to create something, learn stuff, have fun, and be forced to observe how things in the world actually work more than I usually do. (Amazing how having to draw something causes you to become much more aware of the little details, or how balancing a game starts giving you a vague mathematical/economic sense). And if no more than a dozen or two people ever play my games, this is probably about where I'll stay.

If a dozen or two turned into a hundred or two, cost of maintaining things would probably begin to become an issue. Server cloggage might require more servers and more overhead, administrating things would take up a chunk of time, and I'd want to be covering the basic costs somehow.

If a hundred or two turned into a thousand or two, server issues become significant and administration time becomes very significant and I start wondering about how to turn this into a job. (I could envision this scenario if my dreamed of email games were successful -- and the Hasbro email games have been quite successful).

By the way, if anyone would like to see what the Hasbro email game model is, I'd be happy to start an XCom game with them. How Hasbro makes money is this: Game originators have to have paid for the game ($15), but anyone can play. You get an email with the turn in it, explaining how to download the client. Once you've played your turn, the other person is sent an email with the game turn enclosed (the game also communicates with a server so you can't cheat). Hasbro has done an excellent job on this, and I'm VERY intrigued by the fact that BYOND would be the perfect client.

So I guess I'm hoping to evolve an economic model that scales with these scenarios, from totally free to covering the costs, to letting me do this from a beach in Fiji all day.
In response to Deadron
By the way, if anyone would like to see what the Hasbro email game model is, I'd be happy to start an XCom game with them. How Hasbro makes money is this: Game originators have to have paid for the game ($15), but anyone can play. You get an email with the turn in it, explaining how to download the client. Once you've played your turn, the other person is sent an email with the game turn enclosed (the game also communicates with a server so you can't cheat). Hasbro has done an excellent job on this, and I'm VERY intrigued by the fact that BYOND would be the perfect client.

You mean you can play X-Com for free with someone who's paid?! Wow, can I play? Um, yeah, to see how the email model works, that's it.
In response to Spuzzum
On 9/4/00 1:25 pm Spuzzum wrote:
You mean you can play X-Com for free with someone who's paid?! Wow, can I play? Um, yeah, to see how the email model works, that's it.

Turn on the way!
On 9/3/00 11:06 pm Deadron wrote:

[regarding the pager...]
All of which pointed out that...it's too hidden. Could I suggest that this might be what to do with the currently dead space next to the banner?

Have an option allowing you to have the pager there. Then you can see who of your friends are online, where they are, etc.

I don't think that dead space will suffice for the pager because on many displays it is just too small/nonexistant. We could use the banner space itself for the pager, but even that is kind of small.

I have, however, been mulling about over a slight interface enhancement, which so happens to accommodate this request. It is somewhat difficult to implemement, but could be done if proved useful.

The idea would be to have four buttons reside where the "browse" currently does: "text", "browse", "info", and "pager". The text/browse buttons would mimic the same functionality as we currently have. The other two would be used to display the stat/verb panes or the pager in the current space occupied by the browser. In other words, you could toggle that space to show different interface elements (or you could go back to "text" for the full text view).

This occurred to me when playing Zilal's new large-view Sheep II. On my display (1024x768), I only had a sliver of a stat pane, so it was actually better to play the game in small-icon mode. But I had quite a bit of free space for the browser, which was unused in this game (as it is in many games). So being able to have the stats over there would have been handy.

What about the current stat-space? I was thinking that the "info" and "pager" buttons could also reside there. This would enable you to have two different stat panels open at the same time (eg- one in the space below the map and one in the browser space), or one stat and one verb pane, or a stat pane and a pager, etc.

To prevent confusion, I'm considering two basic modes (settable in the preferences): "simple gui" (default) and "advanced gui". In "simple" mode none of these new buttons would appear (except maybe the pager) until the interface became sufficiently cramped. In "advanced" mode they would always be present. You could also configure which panels got the initial defaults and so on.

This layout management is a mess. I've been striving towards flexibility so that new users could design their games without worrying about the particular details of each and every client display. This seems like a reasonable system, but if it sounds hacky than I don't want to go with it.

Opinions?
In response to Tom H.
Opinions?

Praise Dantom in all its glory!

Is that a good enough opinion?
In response to Tom H.
This seems like a reasonable system, but if it sounds hacky than I don't want to go with it.
Opinions?

It sounds like an excellent idea. However, if you're thinking of setting this up as two instances of a single multipurpose panel type, there's no need to leave the Browse option off one. No one would want to use the smaller space for browsing if it's only an inch high on the screen, but for high monitor resolutions or mapless games, it could make perfect sense.
In response to Tom H.
On 9/5/00 11:14 am Tom H. wrote:
This layout management is a mess. I've been striving towards flexibility so that new users could design their games without worrying about the particular details of each and every client display. This seems like a reasonable system, but if it sounds hacky than I don't want to go with it.


I'm intrigued -- would it be possible to do a mock up of some sort? That might shake out some UI issues early.
In response to Deadron
On 9/5/00 10:18 pm Deadron wrote:

I'm intrigued -- would it be possible to do a mock up of some sort? That might shake out some UI issues early.

What's a mock up?
In response to Tom H.
What's a mock up?

Heh, I think he means a little demo. =)
In response to Spuzzum
What's a mock up?

I mock up whenever I can. "Oh, look at me! I'm up! I'm the opposite of down! I'm a big shot! Woo woo!" It hates me.

Z
In response to Zilal
On 9/5/00 11:11 pm Zilal wrote:

I mock up whenever I can. "Oh, look at me! I'm up! I'm the opposite of down! I'm a big shot! Woo woo!" It hates me.

Someone needs to lay off the amphetimines :)
In response to Spuzzum
On 9/5/00 11:03 pm Spuzzum wrote:
What's a mock up?

Heh, I think he means a little demo. =)


Yes...and a quick dictionary check shows that my only inaccuracy was to leave a hyphen out of mock-up...