The Civ5 files announcements: Thinking about stoping them

[The_J]

Hi @ all here .

I guess you know, that we here are doing regular post on the CFC main site to promote mods and downloads for the different Civ parts. In case of civ5, you have to add them here to get your stuff on the main site. But we have noticed, that the participation is not that high.
So, we are thinking about stopping the main site updates for Civ5 for now. We'd take a look if we should re-establish them in a half year or a year, if there's then enough going on.

But since these updates are also a service for the modders, we want to first the people who would actually advertising their stuff, if something does speak against it. If there are any arguments, then we'd like to hear them.

So, does anyone have an opinion about it?

 

[magzhi]

maybe we can make updates every 2 month? that is going to fair (I am going to finish my mod by that time lol)

 

[The_J]

The last one was in february...:/....so...2 months would be too short.

 

[Sephi]

I am curious why there is so little demand for this service.

Are no mods produced? Do modders prefere the ingame browser? Is this service unknown to most modders?

It might not be that bad to do a break though. CIV5 still gets Patches which often break mods. And if half the mods your announcement links to don't work anymore with the current patch it's probably not helpful (and thanks to steamworks you can't go back to an older patch).

 

[Blue Monkey]

I am curious why there is so little demand for this service.

One reason is probably because of the on-line alternatives. Another reason is probably because mods are in development but it will be a while before they are ready to post. and another, as I understand it, is that modding is difficult at present because of changes in what is moddable as patches are updated - making it difficult to get anything done.

to re-emphasize what The_J posted - regular announcements can be resumed later if there is sufficient interest by members. And announcements for major modding projects will be still be posted as needed / requested. Such as was done for Fall From Heaven and others for C4.

 

[Zyxpsilon]

Yes, as proven by mines being taken off for a few reasons;

-- In-game browser versions must be maintained in parallel. (Risk of conflict with "Official" and most recent copies)
-- Persistent patching of the game itself until considered somehow "Final" by Firaxis. (As i explained in Afforess' thread, SDK features aren't easily accessible to *ALL* potential modders - yet!)
-- Ranting (by plenty of members, new & old) prevails on CFC, which **might** indicate how any previous Civ iterations are still more popular than Civ5.

So, why bother.

 

[Blue Monkey]

We'll probably base the short term decision on how the poll looks in about a week.

 

[Valkrionn]

I'd say take it down for the short-term, personally, and see if demand increases in the future.

I DO think it should be continued at some point, however.

 

[ambrox62]

Civ5 files announcements is the showcase of the game; discontinuing it could be a lethal hit for Civ5. Because of the low number of current upload, it could be updated every three/four months, for now.
On the other side, the main gamespy DB showcase doesn't allow the update of large mods, then Civ5 files announcements would be the way to do advertising for modders.

 

[The_J]

I'd say take it down for the short-term, personally, and see if demand increases in the future.

I DO think it should be continued at some point, however.

Sure, sure . When the whole machinery will be running, then we'll sure get enough stuff for the main site announcements.

Civ5 files announcements is the showcase of the game; discontinuing it could be a lethal hit for Civ5.

Uh, do you really think so?
I don't think the impact is big enough at the moment.
Modding has not reached its peak yet, so i rather don't fear anything in that area.

On the other side, the main gamespy DB showcase doesn't allow the update of large mods, then Civ5 files announcements would be the way to do advertising for modders.

mmhh...
thinkining about...what....the scheme for the announcements could be changed. So that every mod gets...let's say something like 5-6 lines for a short presentation. If there are no new mods announced, then currently active mods would be needed.
the problem is: Who should figure that out? What to take and what to write?

 

[robk]

If you decide to suspend the announcements, should we still post updates to that thread?* If we don't, how will you know things are getting popular again?

What about making the announcements event based instead of time based? Like, when you get 7-10 new mod releases or posts to that thread you throw up a notice on the front page regardless of whether it's been a month or not. There would be a long time between announcements when things are slow (like now) or a short time in between if things ever speed up.


* I have to admit I haven't done it b/c I always seemed to miss the deadline and I didn't want to muck things up.

 

[bernie14]

why not do announcements depending on how many files are uploaded?....say, we will make an announcement after "x" # of uploads?

 

[ambrox62]

the scheme for the announcements could be changed. So that every mod gets...let's say something like 5-6 lines for a short presentation.

No, let things how they are now.
Having a place where modders can give visibility to their work is good, and current Civ5 announcements is the right way to go. It doesn't need any change: it already contains the link to the download, and the download thread often contains the link to mod thread on the forum, which is the showcase of the mod itself.

I simply suggest to update Civ5 announcements on regular basis. If "regular basis" will be every X months or every Y mods isn't important: the important is to continue the updating, otherwise Civ5 really dies.

 

[The_J]

If you decide to suspend the announcements, should we still post updates to that thread?* If we don't, how will you know things are getting popular again?

Good question. I haven't thought about that yet (no idea if the others did).

What about making the announcements event based instead of time based?

why not do announcements depending on how many files are uploaded?....say, we will make an announcement after "x" # of uploads?

I simply suggest to update Civ5 announcements on regular basis. If "regular basis" will be every X months or every Y mods isn't important: the important is to continue the updating, otherwise Civ5 really dies.

That would be more or less the current situation.
Our (=moderators) problem with the situation is, that it does not really look good when you put either an announcement on the main page, which has only a few files, or if you put an announcement there, which points to threads which are a half year old (imho too much for the fast times these days).
You can now argue, that it also looks bad if we suspend the announcements, but i'm not sure what option is worse :/.


-----
And bernie, ambrox -> poll.

 

[Zyxpsilon]

A simple Sticky style thread might represent some temporary solution for tracking new & old Mods (in the local library) such as what CFC does with Ideas&Suggestions or BugReports section.

But, Ambrox62 is right about the GameSpyDB "Limits"... you might have to maintain an exclusive set of "Totals" once their sizes reach beyond the usual InGame Browser current capacity.

 

[The_J]

There does not seem to be a high discussion demand about this topic :/.

A simple Sticky style thread might represent some temporary solution for tracking new & old Mods (in the local library) such as what CFC does with Ideas&Suggestions or BugReports section.

This is sure a good idea, but with all the possible patches i think it's rather not maintainable, and even without, the capacities for indexing all the current threads... no...don't have the time.

 

[Blue Monkey]

As the poll stands it looks like the consensus is to continue. So I will continue to make & post them, but based on having enough to announce (about a dozen items) rather than at any set interval.

 

[Spatzimaus]

There does not seem to be a high discussion demand about this topic.

I can't speak for the rest of the folks here, but to me it's sort of a resigned silence, a "you're going to do what you're going to do" thing, combined with the fact that most responses would be simply emotional ones (asking you to not stop the updates despite having no logic to support this view).

Obviously, if there are no updates to report then it's hard to justify continuing to give updates. We're all to blame for this; I've got a large mod that's been here on CivFanatics for about nine months now, but I've never had it announced for several reasons.

But conversely, if you stop the updates, there'll likely never be any new content to report down the road. If it looks like the game's community has abandoned it, then the real danger is that people will just give up on the game altogether. You can already see it in this forum, when the most active single thread is the one where people who aren't still playing (or who never bought it in the first place) complain about it. That sort of negativity tends to be infectious, with allegations that modding is dead becoming the truth once enough people start believing it.

 

[The_J]

I can't speak for the rest of the folks here, but to me it's sort of a resigned silence, a "you're going to do what you're going to do" thing, combined with the fact that most responses would be simply emotional ones (asking you to not stop the updates despite having no logic to support this view).

Not true, not true .
Like you can see in Blue Monkeys last post, we'll continue with the updates, despite our both votes being against it.

But conversely, if you stop the updates, there'll likely never be any new content to report down the road. If it looks like the game's community has abandoned it, then the real danger is that people will just give up on the game altogether. You can already see it in this forum, when the most active single thread is the one where people who aren't still playing (or who never bought it in the first place) complain about it. That sort of negativity tends to be infectious, with allegations that modding is dead becoming the truth once enough people start believing it.

Can't say that i believe that. There are active ontopic threads in every forum, so activity is not really a problem.
That in this subforum the "modding is dead" thread is the most active one doesn't have anything to do with that it might be right, it's more that it's the only "discussion thread" in this subforum, whereas the other threads are mostly all technical help threads, in which no real discussion is needed. That's not really bad, just shows some difference in the topics.
And i don't think that main site presence is a form of strong indikator for the activity.
e.g. we have currently a discussion about the forum games section, which is very active but does not have any space at the main site. Sure, we're talking here about the sites flagship, the main topic, which should be more present, but i think the core meaning also applies here.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Like you can see in Blue Monkeys last post, we'll continue with the updates, despite our both votes being against it.

My personal preference doesn't come into the picture at all. And is not stated. I base moderator decisions on what best serves the community. In the past that has sometimes meant that despite my strong support for something I've bowed to the wishes of others to put a stop to it. In this case I'm very happy to continue with one of the few wholly positive activities allowed a moderator. Thanks to everyone for affirming that it is of use to you, the creators.