Sundays are the days now, when we can hope to see 40 or more players online at the same time. Today was 30+ I noticed recently how people were releasing the same kind of DLC in the same week and some of those people appeared to do zero PR outside of the community also, not saying they should have. While I can't expect the community to obey each other like slaves and release when they are told to, each of us individually can choose to release at the right moment.

Also going back to Sundays. We don't want people connecting for the first time to DXMP on any other day than Sunday. I visited every single games shop in Bristol, didn't take me long haha, but it was shocking that in every shop, Deus Ex was at least one staff's favourite game. When asked why no MP, every single person said " server list was empty"...I know already that when we host, for a few hours we will manage to bring an absolute minimum of 130 people extra and possibly a minimum of double this, if there were servers. So I am planning this for a Sunday. = 170 people let's say...

Therefore if ppl stop hating ppl and work together, some co-ordination of effort could bring an absolute minimum of say 300-400 on one day. I can't calculate the retention figures, but I estimate this...

by August player numbers should be 50-60 not 20.
August/September, we work hard, there's 100-200 online at peak moments.
School starts, there's a massive drop.
Xmas Holidays - Community release nice DLC just before school/college ends. again masses of people...
Lets say rentention rate is horrible, 2 %, that still means by Xmas that it should be nudging 100, IF mods release at different times and they always release so people are going to download and connect to it during the /Saturday/Sunday.

Also, posting DLC, is this such a good idea when we could force people to connect to servers to download it. Maybe mods should host for a week or two before releasing the DLC always. We have a bit of a PR machine with DX-51, 2 Eidos guys plus help from EM Art Director, 1 TNM user dedicated to PR and plenty of other people ready to annoy journalists and games sites.

I would like to hear what people think, what do you predict for DXMP in the next 18 months. What ideas do you have to bring more players. How should the community do it? What is the best way to create PR? When is the best time to release etc?
My research isn't thorough. Steam figures, anyone know how many copies of Steam were sold since trailers? What platform/avenue are we forgetting to imprint the MP community and servers in people's minds.

Ah, I'm not alone in considering the notion that August may be a good month for DXMP, then?

I anticipate an influx of new faces for the obvious reason, and I think new players should be guided towards quality maps, player groups (i.e. FGS, [A] for tech stuff, etc), and shown only the useful mods, popular maps etc.

Some DLC should fuel extra interest in DXMP if done correctly. Perhaps the use of Nephthys' web support feature could be pushed as much as possible, with main servers being set up to deliver the most popular stuff in this manner. My servers have always been about having a laugh as they're home-hosted, but I have almost always used web download to avoid downloader lag as much as possible.

I'm thinking a "hub site" (NON forum-based!) for new players (and old, returning players alike) detailing all the main tech info, mods, patches, maps and resources etc would make it easier for everyone to be on the same wavelength regarding DXMP gaming.

With regards to platforms, steam is probably your biggest weapon. I personally hate it but must concede that it's useful. I khnow nothing of "DX-51" but it sounds promising. I also think a good old-fashioned bit of advertising can work. Facebook advertising, google adwords, hell, it may be a failure or overkill but I genuinely believe there are DX fans out there, as you say, who simply just don't see enough people online to bother dropping in.

Am i remotely on the right track, d'ya think??

PS: Am I missing a masterserver or something, I rarely see more than about 5-10 people online at any one time...

shinobi87 wrote:Ah, I'm not alone in considering the notion that August may be a good month for DXMP, then?

I anticipate an influx of new faces for the obvious reason, and I think new players should be guided towards quality maps, player groups (i.e. FGS, [A] for tech stuff, etc), and shown only the useful mods, popular maps etc.

This x1000, we as a community need to get together and work towards having a few new mods/updated mods/ etc in time for the release of DX3. It means making that little extra effort but if we all make it then it will pay off surely. I don't want us to screw up our last chance of getting decent numbers back into DXMP, already we have new servers and mods/gametypes going which is a fantastic start.

I still believe one single site not affiliated with forums or clans should be developed, detailing DXMP's main mods/maps/servers/general info & etiquette.
Alpha was working on such a site, I'm sure they still have the unfinished work there, perhaps they'd be happy to have more outsiders working on it?

Looking forward to Cozmopolis when it gets released, and obviously DXMP:HR (although I'm still hoping for an actual MP component of DX:HR though it looks unlikely). TREM sounds good, too, although I've not looked into it much.

We need to direct people to one place to gain some sorta "standardised" collection of info so the community is easier to get into. I can help work on a site, but as everyone knows I cannot map or mod to any appreciable standard.

PM me if any help is wanted, if I can do it I'll say so, if I can't I'll say so.

Kiss kiss bang bang.

DX-51? Well we had to think of a name of the editing community that works on HR mod, Cozmo's stuff, CTF, TREM, SG etc and other stuff...

Well Shinobi you will be pleased to hear that I harrassed and tortured to near death by Eidos for a list of exact assets and wishlist for support, including most of what you just mentioned.

We suggested that DeusExCentral has sub-forums for DLC, community, editing community, centralize all the alpha, fgs, thc, tnm, dx1, dx2 and forthcoming dx3 tech forums... and provided some solutions on how it would work within a factionalized community. This forums would also have UDK forums and Crystal engine talk forums maybe. Crystal follow our mod on twitter amongst others.

We stopped short of asking for source code, but have been getting pm's and requests from people to ask Eidos for source code.

One Eidos guy thinks this is good idea, for us to make a bid for the source code, but it's step by step with getting stuff from Eidos and I suspect it won't get full attention until game release obviously.

I'm brand new to the Steam forums but did open up a topic there.

no offense but..

dx-51 works on trem cozmo rpg sg dxmphr ctf...

wait wat

STOP SAYING DLC
WE'RE NOT ON XBOX

ITS MODS, MODSSS.

Yeah DLC is homosexual.

Ummm?, guys...

sub-forums for DLC ... editing community

That's fine.

While I agree to third party fans developing unofficial modifications and calling it such, DLC (Downloadable content) is a fine term to describe official add-ons. Deus Ex and Deus Ex Human Revolution have DLC e.g multi-player patch and day-1 DLC respectively. If you deny that the GOTY edition of Deus Ex counts; you should look at the GOTY editions of many games released for the extra official content which could be downloaded previously.

The DLC age in some ways is better than waiting a year for half effort official expansions that pale to a original game's content. DLC is normally developed as 'chapters' and the team's productivity can be seen in games where the DLC is better than the original campaign itself (e.g. Mass Effect 2's Overlord and Lair of the Shadow Broker) because the staff can learn how to improve upon the design of the levels or do better things in general. The best thing about most RPG DLC is that they tend to interweave in the original campaign creating a bigger and fuller experience.

The story about greedy publishers forcing their developers to remove content from the game and sell it as special edition or day one DLC is a story for another time. Now, THAT is bad.

edit: corrections to what i typed up on my mobile phone earlier and taken out all super secret insults and accusations

I was just about to start bitching about the "DLC" term.

Thank you.

Just wanted to make sure that it was over official DLC so it's fine to describe it as such for official additional content.

Fan's unofficial work being called DLC is definitely obnoxious.

@DJ, ok if you want to split hairs go ahead, I mean DX-51 members, not DX-51... is that ok with you or do you have again an issue with something I said?

In my opinion, Deus Ex Central (not DXC on Facebook) is the best place to develop a set of forums and editing communities for SDK and UDK. A lot of artwork and resources eventually will be there etc, also it's an official Eidos site, Planet Deus Ex is kinda dead, forget clan sites and recent attempts at Factory style forums are not embraced by the whole community or have limited resources to be comprehensive and collate info from all tech forums everywhere etc.

Well I'm basically talking about one site for EVERYTHING Deus Ex related. Obviously the focus will be on the first game as (for now) it's the only one with a modding community.

There are people working on this at the moment. I'm not involved with it but I will be helping out wherever possible and wherever help is needed.

Anyway back on topic.... I'm assuming DXMP:HR is going to be released simultaneously with DX:HR? I've read the internal discussion over at the freeforums site (which really isn't the easiest to navigate is it??) and it seems decent progress is being made.

I'm nowhere near as involved with DXMP as I wan before I moved out of my parents' house but I'm getting the internet soon so I will be getting back into learning mapping and modding etc, and experimenting with new bits and pieces. I also want to stay in =-the-know about what's happening regards to mods and the latest DX game etc.

Apologies to DJ and all FGS.

If people feel I didn't treat them with respect then I apologize.

We know icho is founder and retired leader generously supporting this place, but sometimes its not clear to people inside or outside FGS who is leader and admin, maybe two different things, can be same person of course, but sometimes, wasn't clear. If there was a change of caretaker leadership and chief admin since Majestic, Kuchcik and myself, then a person might wonder why wasn't that announced.

I think no point to argue, compete etc about servers... i can run a maptesting low grav server with tac and a few augs, perhaps not ballistic, regen, speed etc... not augs, not zero augs a middle perhaps. lots of space maps and altfirey adventure stuff.

Also guys, when I came back my impression of FGS was being teamkilled multiple times, watching clan firing nukes at ppl with shock rifle... being told what I could do and couldnt do, by members... kinda different from when I left you guys... but your modding skills make up for it gone from being the mapping clan to the modding and mapping clan!

funny though, Tidus firing nukes from rifle... no less than 512 unreal units from a ring transporter.

To look past the trivial issues like that and let yourself still cooperate with some mates you've been gaming with for many years now is an important step toward progress. Disagreement in server adminning, inter-clan politics, and all such insignificance is better disregarded. It's cool to get personal, but discretion through the internet is an obvious need, as well as an acknowledgment that the person behind the words potraying each person in a literary representation is practicing about as solid a means of interaction (thus requiring consideration of the reader(s) rapport )as much as speaking to a person face to face.

Meaning it's simpler to drop the beef.