Subject: game is dead ? what would you change

I'am not a developer and actually i did not mean about developers. Its easy to defend a stupid greg's ideas by admins, mods or promoteurs, because actualy those stupid ideas do not apply to you... Why he do nothing for old users, nothing! I thing if greg (promoters) will make some competitions for users with plus prizes (yeah, those staff's plus), a lot of us will stay with this game. What greg doing for normal user like me? He give me fuckin 300 seconds wait even for National Team games, only matches what i watch :/

Check those numbers and answer me - where is your "promotion"?


2005:

23 november: 15169 (first update which we can see of this topic)

2006:

January: 20374
February: 22751
March: 23885
April: 24359
May: 27202
June: 28301
July: 31406
August: 37050
September: 39051
October: 40424
November: 40516
December: 40266

2007:

January: 42174
February: 42841
March: 47644
April: 46191
May: 47394
June: 48587
July: 50593
August: 50636
September: 53509
October: 54548
November: 58059
December: 55140

2008:

January: 54615
February: 56442
March: 56299
April: 55983
May: 56320
June: 57229
July: 60412
August: 61421
September: 59279
October: 57646
November: 58236
December: 59218

2009:

January: 61082
February: 66119
March: 68107
April: 67912
May: 68865
June: 68027
July: 68199
August: 71194
September: 71131
October: 67849
November: 69837
December: 70521

2010:

January: 68631
February: 71273
March: 71811
April: 73559
May: no updates
June: 73124
July: 68595
August: 69678
September: 70374
October: 65590
November: 64749
December: 64161

2011:

January: 61101
February: 60040
March: 62104
April: 65082
May: 65504
June: 64920
July: 57579
August: 62644
September: 62404
October: 57566
November: 55555
December: 52573

2012:

January: 54711
February: 53055
March: 54065
April: 53514
May: 43019
June: 49373
July: 50733
August: 48370
September: 49616
October: 45694
November: 47772
December: 48031

2013:

January: 41206
February: 43302
March: 38017
April: 39723
May: 39595
June: 38118

Now: 32790


"game is dead?" - yes, with that current management is inevitable...

I don't know if you have ever been a promoter, if you haven't let me tell you, we don't get "free" Plus, we have to spam forums and other websites to do it.

It's the devs goal to keep users in the game. Our promotion task would be failing if the number of players was equal every month, but when there are such amounts of managers leaving the game, that's nothing we promoters can do.

And then, your number doesn't include how many new members are there, just the total amount of users that left the game. If you could attract as a promoter 100 or 200 users a month you wouldn't be a Sokker promoter, you would actually be hired as a great seller for Apple or another huge company.

Second, nor promoters, either admins or mods can do competitions with Plus. Then again that's what devs do. The only way to do this would be if we actually payed plus from our pockets, which we aren't going to do, neither are you.

If you put 100€ on the table right nowfrom your pocket, I will gladly organize a competition or whatever you want to give Plus away to the winners. Until then, all your whinning is worth nothing.

Third, if you think you can do a better job than other staff members, please consider applying to those positions. I believe greg doesn't mind having another polish (or whatever nationality) promoter if that actually works to make the game better. You seem to have a good level in english, which may come in handy for promotion tasks.

And you can start right now spamming polish forums, everyone can promote and spam so why shouldn't you? And since you want us to do this for free, you should do it for free too. Feel free to PM me or post here the links to forums you have advertised in.

Remember that, in order to count, they need to have a Page Rank above 2. Use google to know how to check a website Page Rank. Also, since you are a polish user, you can only promote the game in polish websites (which URL ends in .pl).

I will wait for your free and charitable work eagerly. Thank you in advance for collaborating to make this game a better place with your time.

look at the bright sight. many big mmo games dont even make it 2 or 3 years not to mention 8 years like sokker did. well, it's been fun, fella.

Third, if you think you can do a better job than other staff members, please consider applying to those positions. I believe greg doesn't mind having another polish (or whatever nationality) promoter if that actually works to make the game better.

No problem... if greg promise to give me some plus (staff's plus if he don't want give some pool for promoting) to use for organize any competitions, contests, games, anything... only to do sometings interesting for people. Yeah, i think that will be works.

Who cares if you find 100 new users in week if other 300 left this game? Think... In my opinion, we should try keep those 300 users and searching for a new leave for a further plan...

And at the end. Don't worry about me. I buy a few plus for a other users, even as you can see - i dont have for myself. What i do for this game? I did a lot of statistics Archive of sokker or History of Polish Premier League, i conducting the player databases which interesting a lot of users from Poland and other countries. I can made some intersting contests, but why i should do this for my money? Listen to me - i dont want a plus from greg, and yes, even as a promoter i will give that "my" plus for other user. Why? Yes, because i like this game, thats why i am still here since 2004 with short breaks, and i am sorry when i see how this game dying...

Respect Gusztáv for you, because youre an active forum user, a friendly user at my represented country Hungary.But arguing with some stats against promoters does'nt work.Just imagine, in last 8 years the internet are involved, how many new and so attractive, entertaining sites appaired in these years, how many newer games like this(soccer managing) appaired.People are spreaded out, every game have a decreased user number, not just this, but some doesnt keep the true knowed.
In the other hand, better viewed websites takes control by any comment now, you dont could spamm there with links to sokker.org, like in the past, because of strong verifyers.Admins checks it out and delete in no time our ads.But we must make registrations for all big sites before, is'nt to simply, like some of users imagining it.I laughed at a registration:a website admin write to me a letter, cause he does'nt wanna approve my subscription because of my nickname(just like here).
So, im a famous spammer:D
Other point:we could make ads only on high Google pageranked websites(least 2GPR), only with clickable keywords to sokker.org and just from country who we representing.Is not allowed for big community sites, ended with:.com,.biz,.info,.eu,.net etc.
Is another thing:new big sites use facebook or google + for comments, there we could'nt place our ads atall, because FB not allowed clickable keywords, just simply webaddress as link.
And if we talks about user nr. vs promotion level here, what about no serious, double team managed users or users who manage bad their money, there are also a lot of users who make TPA.Also users who registered here, but leave it in no time.They decrease aswel that number.
That numbers does'nt presenting just promoters weak work.I agree, could be better the promotion, i makes some suggestions to greg even this year for possibility to make promotion on community sites aswell or in past to a global promotion for increasing users number on countrys where people likes real football, but here are'nt represented by to much users, maybe he dont know about existence of our gamesite.
With great respect for you, l-zsolt promoter of Hungary.
(edited)

Zsolti, i do not arguing with promotors, i know many of you. I just have my own opinion about the crisis in sokker.org. I think, you (promotors, admins, mods) should push on greg to change politics. We should change somethings, and one of those things is "promotion policy" and greg's respect for users. I think is only way to save this game and in 100% this way (respect) is not ideas in style "300 seconds"...

Sure, i was first who raported the users indignation at officials(cause in my own country Romania championship matches ended first), protesting myself beause to long waiting time.Could it be better leaving 1 min., but not 10.
But in the other hand greg you know, is very difficult to be convinced.And im just a promoter, maybe admins could make something for change his mind about this waiting time.

I think, you (promotors, admins, mods) should push on greg to change politics

I have lost the count of the officials who quit in sign of protest to this bad politics in the past years. It's useless. Greg is not a bad person, he just thinks he doesnt need to listen to his customers. And we're caught between and we cant do anything.

But we have now a promission on Facebook:

Do not be upset, everything will be fixed :)

Trust us :)

Who said that? Sorry, i dont have account on this 'facebook'. And maybe "fixed" thats mean not 600 seconds but "just" 300 :d
(edited)

Maybe:D

That post is here, on the left side fB tab, you dont gonna have FB account to see it.

Oh, i see. Who is that kid from 'facebook'?

. I think, you (promotors, admins, mods) should push on greg to change politics.

Believe me, many did try this and some are still trying, incl myself, but we can't force him to change :/

You can! What he would do if someday all of the staff will protested? If everyone of you say - "stop, we quite if you do not change your 'policy' ". What you think, after that he find a new staff??? No chance :>

What did Greg answer then?

No problem... if greg promise to give me some plus (staff's plus if he don't want give some pool for promoting) to use for organize any competitions, contests, games, anything... only to do sometings interesting for people. Yeah, i think that will be works.

I don't know if I got you right, but are you saying we (promoters) should do our job for free, with no Plus, and the first thing you request is having Plus?

If you mean giving Plus to other users, neither Admins no Mods can do that. As I said earlier, the only way to give Plus to another user would be buying it with money from our pockets.

As a promoter I can assure you that I can't give you any Plus I earn, I would have given away some months if I could, believe me, but I can only get Plus for myself and the only ones who can change this are the developers.

Even though I didn't know or use any of your contributions, I sincerely appreciate what you are doing, and so do the others. Your work, along with the work of other users (oSokker, Sokker Viewer, Sokker Organizer...) and the staff helps this game to become better.

. I think, you (promotors, admins, mods) should push on greg to change politics. We should change somethings, and one of those things is "promotion policy" and greg's respect for users,

Which part of this promotion policy do you want to change? it's a job harder than you may think of. You have to find websites that are regularly visited from your country (that's what the Page Rank is) and registering there and spamming as much as possible.

If I want to attract more users I can spam another games like Hattrick, and I do it, but Hattrick website is hattrick.org instead of hattrick.es so we don't get any Plus from it, even though it's the most effective way of promoting it. Some other newspaper and website news, even though they are spanish, they end in .com, such as marca.com and as.com which are the main spanish sport papers. Since they end in .com, we don't get Plus either so we do it for free.

And trying to convince greg to change some things, well, we tried to do it. We have a forum called Sokker Linguist which is the main way to communicate with greg. I can't post any stuff posted there, but I can show you just one of the ideas I tried to post, and there are many others given by staff members, I would say there are more ideas (and better) posted there and in the Sokker Bugs / Ideas.

From here I will forward you my post (long read):


But with the current stalled development and highly deficient client support, this is only a way to upset people.

The thing that annoys me the most is that it's not the fact that developers lack skills, just look at how far the game has gone, devs are fine. The root of the problem lies in organization:

- From the developers side, there's a little number of devs running the game. The game is too big for such a few guys, even though they were the most skilled programmers ever seen, they would struggle with it.

- The development agenda lacks a good organization. I don't think the game is completely abandoned and every developer does what it wants when he feels like, but I believe the priorities are set wrong. They implemented this waiting time and advertising, and I guess it took less time than fixing the NT buttons, which were probably a simple CSS error. A big bug was reported that admins can't access the sokker official email address, so every query sent there is just lost since no one reads it.

- The final user feels abandoned, even though things are being implemented, there's a feeling that the game is running on a straight line until it crashes against a wall somewhere.


The solution is rather simple, but it involves changing the core philosophy of how things are done:

- Increment the number of developers: I don't know if they are paid anything or they just volunteer. They could receive a little share of the income money after the maintenance money has been paid.

- Have developers prioritize their work based on "categories": This is simple, this game is made from several parts: user interface (the web, CSS styles, images...), web coding (properly parsing XML files, rendering plus graphics...), the game engine, the updates server, the visor... The idea is that a developer is assigned one of these categories, and even though we could solve more bugs in other categories, his highest priority is the bugs that belong to his main range of work.

- Implement a bug tracker: If you don't know what they are, this is a bug tracker (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox-3.5). Users can post a bug using a title, then they write a description of it and assign a category for it (i.e. web interface/engine/visor/suggestion...). Other users post if they can replicate the bug in their computers. Finally a tester (or a staff member) oficially confirms it, status is changed to CONFIRMED and the bug is assigned to a developer (or group of devs). Developers usually keep in touch with users and when the bug is fixed, the status is changed to FIX. Maybe you can't release the fix right away, so a status like "FIXED FOR NEXT RELEASE" will say that as soon as a new version of the site/engine is out, this will be solved. If a bug has been posted before, it is marked REPLICATED FROM and linked to the first report.

Of course, bugzilla (the bug tracker) is quite a big platform for a game like this. But it shouldn't take more than a month to develop a small one for Sokker. It could use the forum interface, with new options for Category (engine, visor...), Status and Priority.

This will help organize all the reports, since we won't have ambiguous post such as "Common Sense" (which most of them are opinions) or "Bugs with the new design", when many things are reported at once and requires extensive monitoring and organization.

Having things organized by categories and properly assigned will make the devs less stressed and the job much easier.

- Teach users how to properly report bugs: This could be done right now, although with the current bug tracking system (a simple forum) it will still be a mess. But when a bug is reported, specially a design or web bug, an image should be attached (specially when there's poor english involved, like "white thing behind player name. pls fix") and the web browser version and system specs reported. This could be done with a sticky.

Example 1: On my Acer Aspire One D250 netbook, the 3D visor performs very poorly. I could have reported that as a bug and drove everyone crazy. The truth behind the lack of performance comes from the low end specs of the computer, which isn't capable to keep up with the needs of the browser. Also, since it uses a Linux distro and most of them now use the open source drivers, Flash 3D rendering (since it's propietary) performs quite badly. So it's not a Sokker fault, although performance could be improved by using HTML5 (not sure if that's possible as of now).

Example 2: The page is not rendered correctly. It happened to me a while ago. Solution? Updated the browser. If I posted just an image without my browser specs, devs could think I was using the latest software and wasted their time looking further into the problem.


- Implement "feature freeze" state: We all love new stuff: a shiny new car, a new up to date electronic gadget, a new pair of boobs to smash while yucky on a Friday night... but let's be honest, sometimes we have to stop, value what we already have and fix it. A practical example is KDE. KDE is a Linux desktop environment. Everyone loved KDE 3.5, it was great and it just worked. KDE then launched KDE 4 and they unleashed hell: they had changed all the interface, it was an innovation, highly relying in widgets and modularity (which would pay up later), but it was unstable, it crashed quite often, it had a crappy performance and its network manager even refused to connect to Internet! Everyone hated it and people emigrated to other desktop environments. They decided to go into a feature-freeze period. No new things were implemented and bugs were fixed. By the time KDE 4.2 was released, it worked fast and stable. As of today, KDE is on its 4.10 version, it's the fastest growing desktop environment, the most portable one (you could even install it on your phone) and, by far, the most beautiful (regarding eye-candy). All they needed was a little break from features, and focusing on what they already had.


How can this apply to Sokker? I bet they are developing (or at least planning) an Android and iOS client. Why would you do that, when most people access the game from a website which is broken everywhere? Stop the engine changes and features, stop the development of other platforms and focus on fixingwhat you already have.

- More colllaboration among staff members: It was reported that Admins have little to no touch with the devs, so they could only pray for the best. Admins, Mods, Promoters and Linguist usually behave quite well and keep the user fan base. We love mods and admins in Spain for example. But then there's an infinite long gap between Admins and Devs, so people ask questions and Admins never have any idea about what's going on. I'm a promoter and I don't claim to have the right to know what's being developed and what isn't. But Admins should be aware, even just a little, so at least simple answers can be given.

And all this ideas are just management ideas. Most of them don't need much coding, yet they would make this game more efficiently developed and well liked by its user. It may take some effort to plan and implement them, but greg could start doing this from today. It's his game and he can do whatever he wants with it (and users will always hate new features no matter what you do, unless you are an advertising genious like Steve Jobs), but when it comes to development planning and social stuff, there are things that work and are efficient and others that will sink your project.
(edited)