Once the closed becomes open

[BlindOldMan]

At some point here in the not too distance future Ascension will start closed beta and I suspect that soon after that it will be released. With that in mind I want to start thinking of things we can all do to promote its success.
I believe that the numbers of peoples that download it and play it in the first week of release will determine its success.
What can we do to insure the most activity in that first week.

Fan based Marketing:
1) Everyone posts on all the old clan forums they know of. There are some people from old clans from T1 and T2 that still chat with each other and will want to know when we go live.

2) Posts in other forums from other FPS games that include links to Ascension promotion packs....yet to be created. These packs might include pictures and maybe an AVI uber demo with flag passing, vehicle action and other catchy stuff.

3) Phone calls to the people we used to play with.

4) Burn disks and give them away at lans or other venues if that is legal.

If you have other fbm ideas let me know please.

Ascension official marketing suggestions:

1) A week before the game gets released we need to get articles about it in all the gaming magazine's.

2) Get the game on gamespot and any other download site that will host it.

3) 45 days before the game gets released we might make the donation link more prominent so that we can pay for more marketing.
This is important for all of us that have been waiting so long for release. We don't want it to come out and not have enough peeps to keep it going as that would be sad.

4) Find out what it would cost, and if it would be worth it, to hire a professional gamer, that is well known, to review and play the game for a month and then post reviews with gamer magazines. Maybe?

5) Don't drain the excitement from current members. Keep us active but don't get the juices flowing until we are truly ready for use. Nothing is worse than getting the juices flowing and then they dry up unused. When my gal tells me she is ready but then I wait a month, the readiness tends to fade and I might move on. Little teasers are ok, but don't say very soon if it is not.


Every one please make suggestions that all of us can do or that Ascension staff can do. Think outside the box-----Z-axis out of the box. Ya baby.

[justice]

This will require the coordination of hundreds of computer nerds, like in the movie Hackers. And if thats true then i also get to wear cool roller skates, evade the federal government and promote cyber terrorism. I'm in!

In all seriousness, i like your ideas. Cant think of any others at the moment, too focused on skates and cyber terrorism.

[schmalx]

I was planning to post it on all the forums that I frequent but not until about a day or two before its release so that nobody gets over it before its released.

[Danderson]

Although some of those are good ideas (I especially like the cd burning, although people will probably be paranoid about malware), I think a bold approach is not a good one. Don't go into the Halo or Counter-Strike forums and post a thread that says "Free game! L@@K!!!!!!!LOL!!111!!" However, veterans of a forum will be listened to more than someone who just made his first post. I think a better idea might be to go to places which are made for this. I'd say some good places to get Ascension listed are ModDB, Wikipedia lists, any Tribes site, and GarageGames might be a good place (people there probably at least know of Tribes).

Unfortunately, getting this game in magazines will probably be hard without assloads of cash, because anything but ads will be near impossible without Ascension getting anywhere in the first place.

[Avisan]

Steam. Somehow managing to get it put into its Weekly News is a great way to get at least 10,000 people to look at it.

We could also try the fpsbanana.com news threads.

[Avisan]

Originally Posted by Danderson

Don't go into the Halo or Counter-Strike forums and post a thread that says "Free game! L@@K!!!!!!!LOL!!111!!"

Jerk


My threads were certainly much deeper than that. And if I hadn't been spitting mad/immature/generally bratty and stuck with the contest, I could have brought us in about a dozen new members by the end of the time frame

[schmalx]

also people that play CS would probably be too scared to play ascension

[Avisan]

Oh, actually, we could set up an entire "Upcoming Game" page on fpsbanana.com. They have a nice little section for those. Get us up some screenshots, links to any promotion videos that come...

There's a few free, relatively passive ways to bring in some people.

[Kabraxis]

Originally Posted by Avisan

Steam.

Key word right there.

[teratos]

Good work BlindOldMan, I knew this would be a quality thread when I first saw it posted.

I'll try to address everything I can without breaking my NDA.

Originally Posted by BlindOldMan

At some point here in the not too distance future Ascension will start closed beta and I suspect that soon after that it will be released. With that in mind I want to start thinking of things we can all do to promote its success.

First let me say that soon, to our over eager developers, means months when they say it.
Second, until you hear something from me personally, don't get too excited. I'll be contacting everyone in the closed beta to explain how things will work and get them through the setup process.

Our current plans (subject to change without notice) are to expand the closed beta via an invite system. Each cycle, each player will get "x" invites. This will continue until the game is ready for open beta. When everything is good to go, we will release.

Originally Posted by BlindOldMan

I believe that the numbers of peoples that download it and play it in the first week of release will determine its success.
What can we do to insure the most activity in that first week.

From what I understand of games like Ascension (free, no publisher) they tend to grow for sometime post-release. They are slower getting off the ground the a published game. The beginning is when many flounder.

I would love to claim that our marketing department could get 10 million players, but the truth is that our fans will bring in more players than we will be able to bring in. Assuming we deliver a quality product (and we are working hard to do just that), the success of Ascension lies with the fans.

Fan based Marketing:
1) This is a great suggestion and will be very important to developing our initial player base.
2) We are working on a press kit right now. We will make it publicly available so that you can do exactly what you suggested.
3) See #1, this is another great suggestion.
4) As far as we are concernced, you can burn as many disks as you like and pass them around. In fact, we would LOVE for you to do this

Originally Posted by BlindOldMan

Fan based Marketing:
...
If you have other fbm ideas let me know please.

Since Ascension is free...
Pass it around on any peer-to-peer networks.
Usenet, torrents, p2p, etc..
Mirror Ascension (this made be stressful on your servers, but at least link to us).

If you are in some sort of school computer club, suggest they do a fundraiser LAN event with Ascension. (I got this idea from the computer club here at my school).

If you read any game news sites or blogs, pass along the URL to us. You can PM me with them. We have a large database with sites and blogs, but I'm sure we have missed some good sites.

Originally Posted by BlindOldMan

Ascension official marketing suggestions:
1) A week before the game gets released we need to get articles about it in all the gaming magazine's.
2) Get the game on gamespot and any other download site that will host it.
3) 45 days before the game gets released we might make the donation link more prominent so that we can pay for more marketing.
This is important for all of us that have been waiting so long for release. We don't want it to come out and not have enough peeps to keep it going as that would be sad.
4) Find out what it would cost, and if it would be worth it, to hire a professional gamer, that is well known, to review and play the game for a month and then post reviews with gamer magazines. Maybe?
5) Don't drain the excitement from current members. Keep us active but don't get the juices flowing until we are truly ready for use. Nothing is worse than getting the juices flowing and then they dry up unused. When my gal tells me she is ready but then I wait a month, the readiness tends to fade and I might move on. Little teasers are ok, but don't say very soon if it is not.

We will definately keep all these ideas in mind.

If any of you have any good contacts that might help us get some press, be sure to let us know. You can send me a PM or IM or email - whichever you prefer.

We would certainly appreciate any donations, but I ask that if you are donating to help pay for advertising, you hold off for a little while. I don't want to take your money before we are ready to spend it.

I never thought about hiring a pro-gamer. That's an interesting idea.

#5 - I apologize for this happening. Until you hear from me personally, don't get too excited. I'll contact you a couple weeks ahead of time and make sure everything is good to go for when we begin.

[teratos]

Originally Posted by Avisan

Steam. Somehow managing to get it put into its Weekly News is a great way to get at least 10,000 people to look at it.

We could also try the fpsbanana.com news threads.

I will look into both of these options.

[thedarkbanshee]

This would be a great way to get publicity. http://dl.tv/

these guys used to be on television before they made this new show which is online only now because attack of the show took their time slot. Any way they do this kinda stuff all the time. Take a look and see if you can get Ascension on their show or even quite possibly be a guest on their show showing off your game.

[dienasty]

while I agree to some degree the number of people playing in the 'initial' release will have something to do with how the game fairs (because of it being a MP game.. if no one is playing, people won't come back). I also like the idea of 'growing' the game via invites, so that the initial release will have people playing.

side topic: (related to another thread about a video release). I think it's import to show the game in action. not just a pub with people running everywhere, but a semi serious 'match' (and possibly more then just CTF)

[thedarkbanshee]

I more then agree to this aspect. If a person can use the recording (DEMO) and then use FRAPS/GAME CAM/CAM STUDIO to move threw some really cool flag passes among all different game types with an explanation before each game type. and then a tutorial on how the controls to the game style goes that would be GREAT.

I think another video should be strictly dedicated to the game type I been stressing the most if this game ever gets it incorporated which is a BF2 style game type with control points. I think there should be a squadding thing to go with this and if you could make a video of squadding up that would totally attract people.

[schmalx]

yes I agree bf2 style gametype would be cool because each squad would be in charge of a single control point so you and your mates can defend/attack in your own team but as part of a larger team.