Will CC someday just be turned off?

[IcePack]

In Soviet Russia, CC turns you off.

I laughed at this probably harder than I should have

[Doc_Brown]

In Soviet Russia, CC turns you off.

I laughed at this probably harder than I should have

I wondered how many people would get this meme.

[iAmCaffeine]

Surely most people? Those memes are older than Duk.

[2dimes]

[tfh182]

What we need is to set up a go fund me page or find a donor. We have some smart people on this site. Somebody should start writing numerous grants. I am sure if people can not play here they will take matters into their own hands and just killing people in real life.

[iAmCaffeine]

Money isn't the issue. I agree there are some smart people on this site. Let them figure out the solution.

[KoolBak]

I like soup.

[2dimes]

It's even better with half a sandwich.

[Robespierre__]

I will never understand why people are so negative about CC. I have always thought the site was great and worthy pastime. I think the world of the diminishing importance of the desktop has hurt CC more than anything else. I frankly long for the days pre-social media where sites like this mattered more to people.

The only thing that frustrates me is the constant alienation of volunteer leadership. I am not sure what the dynamic is, but it is something like the kind of people that are willing to volunteer also need to feel like their voice matters a great deal. When it doesn't, they get frustrated and take off. That or they just burn out after a stretch.

Robes

[rockfist]

I will never understand why people are so negative about CC. I have always thought the site was great and worthy pastime. I think the world of the diminishing importance of the desktop has hurt CC more than anything else. I frankly long for the days pre-social media where sites like this mattered more to people.

The only thing that frustrates me is the constant alienation of volunteer leadership. I am not sure what the dynamic is, but it is something like the kind of people that are willing to volunteer also need to feel like their voice matters a great deal. When it doesn't, they get frustrated and take off. That or they just burn out after a stretch.

Robes

+1

[Shannon Apple]

To be honest, I don't see BW just turning off CC and not telling the players that it is coming to a close, or at least putting up a notice explaining a closure. Since he was a player himself and not just one of those idiots who buys a site they couldn't care less about just to make money, I think it's safe to assume that he cares just a little about the community here.

I'm kinda speaking from experience lol. I was unlucky enough to be volunteer administrator on a site I loved that got sold and wrecked by new owners. They surprisingly didn't give a flying monkeys about the userbase after paying a significant amount of money for it. It was 14 years old with a #1 Google ranking at the time for a popular search term. That's the only reason they bought it. They knew nothing about it's demographic and didn't care to try. It was aimed at 13-30 year olds with a PG13 TOS. One day, mysterious porn links appeared on the front page that I swiftly removed. They denied putting them there, but I know they did it, I just didn't argue because I wasn't in a position to. I had super admin privs and could fkn see the admin actions history. The site had KIDS on it ffs. It's a long story. Despite them being AWFUL, I tried to work with them to make the best of a bad situation, staying nice to them and so on, but it was futile to be honest. They literally chased all the members away and said "let them leave, more will come." Then one day, the site was gone. Basically, it's people that don't give a shit about the users who are the ones that just close a site without addressing the userbase, or letting them know what is happening.

There is no way the site doesn't run at a profit. Servers are not expensive and it's evident we're not running on high quality ones. It could even be a shared server which costs an irrelevant amount it's so small. If the servers for CC cost more than £50/month I'd be shocked. The only thing to consider is how much KA gets paid and how many hours bW puts into the site himself.

I don't know where you're getting your numbers. I looked into this about five years ago because I was curious and got an estimate of $700/month. I'm not going to waste that much time again, but just a very quick Google of "how much for a co-locational server" yields an answer of something between $200 and $700.
https://www.optimalnetworks.com/2015/01/24/cost-server-colocation/

That's just for the space and the monitoring, not counting the actual cost of the hardware.

Wowsa! Are you serious, Caff? Above site I mentioned was on 250GB+ per month usage with a 100k membership, with maybe 2-3k active. Built in 2002, so obviously, people came and went over time. It was just a forum, nothing else, and hosting costs were $1,200 a year USD. The morons who bought it tried what you suggested and put it on minimal hosting that meant it was down more than up. That's why most people left.

The forum here is about the same size. Now factor in the game and you're talking a LOT more than that to run it. Could be as much as x10 what our forum cost to run. Maybe not quite that much, but I imagine it is still very expensive.

______________

Beyond all of this, people can't really put so much blame on BW. Social media is a lot to blame for the slowing down of sites like these. Facebook is a cesspool of stupid people tbh that have a 10 second attention span and want everything in the same place aka Facebook.

Another point is that CC is like a pet, or something, that needs feeding at least once a day. If you're running games, you must log in every day or get a sitter. You can't just get fed up with it one day and go "I think I'll take a break for a few days." Nope, you're going to be missing your turns. I have friends who quit completely simply because they didn't want to log in every day anymore. That's burnout. I've experienced it a few times, but I came back each time.

I dunno. In order to compete today, the game probably needs an app available to download for mobile, and possibly via Steam or something for desktop to attract in new players. That's not cheap to create, so we just have to accept it the way it is.

[iAmCaffeine]

I'm confused as to why people are questioning my profession because they have experience of being a mod on a forum.

[riskllama]

I'm confused.

seems like, yeah.

[xroads]

Beyond all of this, people can't really put so much blame on BW. Social media is a lot to blame for the slowing down of sites like these. Facebook is a cesspool of stupid people tbh that have a 10 second attention span and want everything in the same place aka Facebook.

I very much blame BW

If you have read the forums at all lately, you will see a long list of failures.

Wasted time developing a horrible Conquer Forces game that no one plays instead of improving CC
Insists on starting newbies with the horrid user interface on instead of off
Failed to integrate CC into social media. You Tube? Facebook?
Openly allows racism/homophobia/hatred in forums. Has the opinion of Foe and a strong diverse community as an excuse.

So yea, I do blame BW, he is a horrible businessman.

[iAmCaffeine]

Beyond all of this, people can't really put so much blame on BW. Social media is a lot to blame for the slowing down of sites like these. Facebook is a cesspool of stupid people tbh that have a 10 second attention span and want everything in the same place aka Facebook.

I very much blame BW

If you have read the forums at all lately, you will see a long list of failures.

Wasted time developing a horrible Conquer Forces game that no one plays instead of improving CC
Insists on starting newbies with the horrid user interface on instead of off
Failed to integrate CC into social media. You Tube? Facebook?
Openly allows racism/homophobia/hatred in forums. Has the opinion of Foe and a strong diverse community as an excuse.

So yea, I do blame BW, he is a horrible businessman.

He was decent on Alexander's Empire though.

[Shannon Apple]

Beyond all of this, people can't really put so much blame on BW. Social media is a lot to blame for the slowing down of sites like these. Facebook is a cesspool of stupid people tbh that have a 10 second attention span and want everything in the same place aka Facebook.

I very much blame BW

If you have read the forums at all lately, you will see a long list of failures.

Wasted time developing a horrible Conquer Forces game that no one plays instead of improving CC
Insists on starting newbies with the horrid user interface on instead of off
Failed to integrate CC into social media. You Tube? Facebook?
Openly allows racism/homophobia/hatred in forums. Has the opinion of Foe and a strong diverse community as an excuse.

So yea, I do blame BW, he is a horrible businessman.

Perhaps there are things that he could have done better, but he'd have to sink a lot of money into it. There's a lot of risk involved with such an undertaking.

Oh, I agree on the panel thing. I hated the new interface at first, but mainly because it was bugging out on my mac. Now that it's not, I'm using it myself. It's a little complicated and unclear for the new user, that's the main gripe I have with it. All issues with it are UX related, and nothing to do with functionality. A friend of mine (a fellow graphic designer) who started playing a few years ago hated it because it just wasn't clear what to do. I had to coach her over Skype on how to make it work. Ultimately, she didn't keep playing and quit after about 10 games.

The panel interface was a failed attempt to provide something new to attract new people to stay, but it wasn't executed properly and to be honest it really needed a UX designer on board for a user-friendly experience. It's not the panels that are the issue, it's the design of them. Functionally, they work as intended, they are just not in any way user-friendly.

I will agree that I was never in agreement with how the forum is run. But, that's a lot down to Team CC as a whole. From the top down it's just not clear what's what and what moderators are actually supposed to do. As a mod you're nearly afraid to do something on the forum in case someone else undoes it and makes you look like an idiot. I don't blame BW for that. I've had countless discussions on this with people higher up than me on the "food chain" when I was in Team CC.

We have Facebook integration in that you can sign up via FB. What you mean is a Facebook app. That's something that would cost a lot of money to develop and it would have to look Ace to actually work. On his own, it would take BW years probably, so he'd have to hire software devs and UX designers to have any chance of being successful... and even then it would take time and their salaries have to be paid. $$$$$$$$ Facebook are a fickle crowd with a two second attention span. If something doesn't look shiny and modern, they're not interested. I kinda get the impression that this Conquer Forces thing was a failed attempt to actually create a new and modern version of CC. In the end he realised what a huge undertaking it was and it became it's own thing. Don't quote me on that. It just kinda looks that way from the outside.

There are factors that are not BW's fault that he's being blamed for in this thread. The numbers decline would probably happen regardless of what any of us do here without some sort of expensive user interface overhaul.

[xroads]

First

Everyone knows user interface is hard to learn, and a stupid idea for new users. Yet be is so stubborn he wont flip the switch to start new users with it off.

Second Facebook means an active page that actually posts content and engages people and brings people to the sute.

[Shannon Apple]

First

Everyone knows user interface is hard to learn, and a stupid idea for new users. Yet be is so stubborn he wont flip the switch to start new users with it off.

Second Facebook means an active page that actually posts content and engages people and brings people to the sute.

OH... Well the Facebook page is actually the responsibility of someone on Team CC. I am not sure who that is now, but it had been run by volunteers on the media/community team. I run a Facebook page and Twitter account for something I sorta co-own and to be honest, it was left to me to do because no one else could be bothered. If I'm busy, it's near impossible to keep it up to date. For CC, it really is something that possibly requires more volunteers from the site to keep things going. CC belongs to the community too, so it's kinda up to people who can spare a little time to volunteer to help. Afterall, those of us who served on Team CC did it because we have some love for the site? Right?

I know I'm raining on the "hate BW" parade some people have going, but honestly, a community of this size needs it's community volunteers on board too. That's the thing with volunteers though, you're at the mercy of their schedules since they aren't being paid. It's not all down to the owner, especially if it's not a massive money making venture that allows them to pay full-time staff.

[2dimes]

I defended BigWham earlier in the thread because initially there were some overdue changes brought on that we're specifically described as impossible by former owners.

However I can't defend his bad treatment of volunteers that has caused many of them to quit.

If you want to deny that go ahead but it will still be true.

[riskllama]

is tzor CC's facebook guy? seem to recall seeing him mention that somewheres...*shrugs*

[xroads]

You mean it is the responsibility of paying customers do be an employee and perform.marketing jobs?

[riskllama]

volunteers get free memberships, xroads...

[Shannon Apple]

You mean it is the responsibility of paying customers do be an employee and perform.marketing jobs?

No. Literally, someone with the time to do so, at the time, volunteered themselves for that role. We are not paying customers on the forum. We pay for a service, that is the ability to play premium, but the community, the forum, that is all us. WE, the members, are the community. You can use the forum without paying a cent. Besides, If you're relying on a Facebook page for "marketing" well you'd be barking up the wrong tree. Without paying FB the big bucks, nowadays FB pages have very little reach. Each post actually gets to around 4% of your followers. The algorithms are really, REALLY bad. The most those social media volunteers are doing is keeping some of the existing followers informed about the goings on over here, aka reminding them we are here and to check back in. If you have someone to put up one post a day, that's all you really need in CC's case.

When I started out freelancing, I was getting quite a few customers on Facebook. It was great. At some point, FB caught on and was like... "NOPE! Screw the small guy/girl from them there small towns." They fixed the algorithms in a way that only benefits people with lots of money to put into it. It was a very noticeable shift. They claimed it was to stop unnecessary things coming up in feeds, but people were free to mute or unfollow pages. It was a money thing. Can't really blame them though either, they are a business, but it does kinda suck if you are trying to grow a following.

What about all those multi-million dollar games that have volunteer staff running their forums? Yes, really. People who play the games actually enjoy keeping their communities clean etc. Compared to those, CC doesn't make much money at all. The difference with their social media stuff is that they have specific people paid to do nothing except Social media, so they're on there all day communicating with potential customers. In addition, they're probably paying hundreds of thousands to Twitter and such for featured ads. Conquerclub is a small fry.

This site is much more than just a business and owner, it's a community. People who care about the community do things to help because that's what you do. If no one was paying premium, the servers wouldn't run themselves. I don't know what this site makes in a year, but I guarantee that the owner isn't a millionaire from it.

[xroads]

Bottom line cc is a business, the owner should be involved In stead of a ghost behind a wall.