ManiaPlanet needs a bigger community/playerbase

[haenry]

Yes, Kremsy. I know about those websites, but I play for many many years already. Newcomers might take over a year to find those websites, if they even stay that long.
However, even I sometimes forget to check those sites when playing online but instead click through every title and thus take a long time to decide for a server instead of playing instantly
My wish is to add them INTO the game

EDIT: Even in the Maniaviewer you have to open the search tab and search for an empty string. Not the most obvious thing to get a full serverlist

[haenry]

Would be a lot better, yes

[Cerovan]

Well there are maybe tools, but mainly nobody knows about and secondly it does not help enough, it would way way better if you would listen it for example under FREE-TO-PLAY in steam with a hint that you can Play 50% of the Game or whatever, and display it on main pages on steam

Just about that, it's not possible to do that because Maniaplanet games aren't F2P games. They are paid games which offer a demo version which is completely different (and MP games are listed in the demo section).
Listing Maniaplanet games under F2P section would be a misleading advertising so Steam and us could be in a lot of troubles for that.

[novationx]

I know that the players are split a lot. Just have to see this server list screenshot to acknowledge. And it's even more split than that since you have half the players that are in the map editor, scripting, solo, replay or websites trying to organize tournaments or else. All the cool things made by players does not pop from nowhere. So, I think that Maniaplanet is lucky to have one of the most alive community. Just meet at the GA to see.

NADEO wont like me saying this, but this is just blughrh!§é"!§"é!ghhhh... Listen, on a good day @peak-times the game can have a decent amount of players... I admit that, but its very rare! Most of the time it's not enough.

--> No Hylis, we do not have the most alive community.
Proof: How active ShootMania really is

Lets not talk about the negativity in this thread and just look at the numbers. We, the gamers, can not play custom titles & some of the official titles. How can you say " we are the most alive community" ? Please acknowledge the problem so we can find a solution.

"yes but novationx a lot of players are also mapping etc etc"
---> If nobody plays then the maps will be made for nothing...
Clearly we do not have enough of gaming people in ManiaPlanet.



@Cerovan: Im sure if you try you could have a free-weekend. Plenty of games had free-weekends. Just make entire maniaplanet free with a prizedrop. Did you guys ever try this? What is the reason for not doing it? ( a serious question, because I dont know the answer & im curious )

Some advertisement is a must. I'm not a marketeer; I'm a designer & a gamer but clearly something needs to happen. This thread containts plenty of ideas to help you out, but im sure you already had all those ideas.

If you dont plan on doing anything & you like the playerbase then just say so & lock the thread

PS: Im doing all I can ( everywhere ) to help ShootMania ( check your FB & steam-forums )

[Cerovan]

Okay, I can understand this point, but there would be still ways to just make single titles F2P for example Elite or Combo, and than just make it possible to download "ManiaPlanet Elite" F2P

Elite and Combo aren't F2P games, they are Shootmania gamemodes (and to have an unrestricted access, you need to buy Shootmania). You don't see free gamemode of others games avalaible in the F2P section, that's the same thing for us on Steam.
You have to understand that the F2P section in Steam are strictly used to list real F2P titles (core of the game is free, no time limit, etc...). Not extended demos or semi-F2P titles.

If I go to the steam shop, I can't find ManiaPlanet anywhere without searching, I don't even see a demo section there (of course you find it when you search for Shootmania) but who is searching for Shootmania when they don't even know that it exists. Even if I click on Action where it should be listed, I can't find Shootmania there without any additional search, it needs to be on a mainpage of the action section or something at least...

You'll not find "Maniaplanet" because Maniaplanet isn't a game but a platform. It's like searching "Uplay" you'll not see the list of Ubisoft games in the result (actually there is only a DLC which is listed).

And Shootmania is in the Action section (look the tags associated in the Shootmania store page) too but when you enter in this category, it'll list the Top 100 action games (by revenue), the last 100 action games released and the ones with a promotion. There is more than 3500 games on Steam and a big part are action games, so it's not surprising to not Shootmania in the Top 100 (because you'll find first all the AAA action titles and there is a ton of games in this section)

For the grand public, they are more likely to know more Shootmania (or Trackmania) than Maniaplanet for the simple fact that Maniaplanet is a platform and most of medias talked a lot more about Shootmania/Trackmania than Maniaplanet (which is normal).

Advertisment on steam, and the game discounted to 5€ for about 2 month would be enough to let the community grow I think, you will get way more money in than selling the game for 20€ (even if the game is more worth than 5€ due all the nice features it offers).

Advertisement isn't free on Steam and there is several conditions to fullfiled to be able to do one (like the release of a major patch for example). It's not possible to do advertisement anywhen we (or others editors/developers) want.
And about promotion, they are effective only for short period of time for several reasons (too long too explain) but a promotion on a large timeframe is ineffective.

It's very nice to try to find solutions, things can be done on our side (and we are working of course on attracting more people on Maniaplanet) and on your (the community i mean) side too. A thing that you can do during the meantime is for example to helping us to improve the reputation of the Maniaplanet games. It can be far more effective and efficient than any marketing effort (i don't say that's useless or we shouldn't do this, just that's better to have both). For example saying (on related discussion on Internet) that the game may be skilled (depending of the gamemode) but easy to handle and can be played as long as they want on several gamemodes as well as that many creation tools are included with them, may convince several players to at least test the game

In any case, it's way more effective that saying you (im not targeting you) don't quite like how the walljump behave or you find there isn't enough basics weapons. Seeing more positive opinions about the game will attract more a lambda player that negatives ones. I'm not saying that Maniaplanet is perfect and we shouldn't talk about its flaws, but the way to say it can change a lot the perception of lot of people outside the community

NADEO wont like me saying this, but this is just blughrh!§é"!§"é!ghhhh... Listen, on a good day @peak-times the game can have a decent amount of players... I admit that, but its very rare! Most of the time it's not enough.

You've misunderstood Hylis, when he's saying active, he's talking in the sense of people creating stuff, interacting with others people of the community (or outside), administrating competitions and more.
We could have a community essentially passive but it's not the case and that's why we love so much our community

Edit @novationx:

@Cerovan: Im sure if you try you could have a free-weekend. Plenty of games had free-weekends. Just make entire maniaplanet free with a prizedrop. Did you guys ever try this? What is the reason for not doing it? ( a serious question, because I dont know the answer & im curious )

Why you want a free weekend when a lot of content is already virtually "free" for the moment ? Anyone can play 1h30 for free each day and for an unlimited time when a title is less under 100 concurrent players (which means all the title packs created by the community and Elite during off-hours).
And no plenty of games had free weekend, i even believe it's less under 20 titles if we remove the Valve games (because Valve doesn't care so much especially when they do this 2+ years after the release) and usually on well amortized games.

[novationx]

Okay,
Thank you for your feedback. I agree with all you said & yes, I missunderstood Hylis. ( sorry Hylis ^^ )

Final 2 questions then:

1. Maybe asking the community to be positive isn't enough advertisement? It has been almost 2years & the game still has low numbers.... Your optimism is awesome & I wanna believe too... but "only optimism & positivity" wont suddenly make the game 5x more active.
Sorry, but I dont believe this. What do you think?

2. After reading your posts, can I conclude NADEO is doing nothing to advertise this game?