Disclaimer: Much of this does have a rather snide tone to it. It comes across snidely, you could say. I just want to make sure that nobody gets any
whiplash from reading it. You know, that Snidely kind of Whiplash...
Okay, okay. Bear with me while I attempt to explain myself.
1.I don't use Twitter, or Facebook, or anything like that, so “social media” is pretty much out.
2.I don't feel like I would be helpful as an Advisor. Frankly, I didn't know how to become one until you posted it —
the documentation needs to be improved.
If it was described in-game, then that's one more reason I shouldn't be an Advisor.
(P.P.S. I since began adding myself via
/advisor on regardless. I've learned a few things about NPC locations and crafting, and would be able to provide some help in a way which doesn't violate IC awareness.)
3.I do the third thing anyway, and have done so in other places outside PlaneShift and even outside MMOGs. I've learned not to be overbearing, though. However, unless it is very obvious someone needs help and doesn't know how to ask, I mostly wait for them to ask.
Maybe they'd rather figure it on their own — maybe they genuinely aren't interested. I'm not pushing PlaneShift on someone who isn't seriously interested.
I am, and have been, contributing a little here and there. Most of it has not been received well or has been overlooked. Maybe nobody wants my help here.
(P.S. I'm not talking about that whole Kran Pronouns thing. I can understand why people wouldn't want to get mired in something like that, and I don't hold that against anyone.)
So far as contributing goes:
Soon, I plan to be offering my services as an editor of the in-game English text — quest, NPC chatter, MOTDs and such. Most of that stuff is not written very well; although it probably doesn't matter to those who don't speak English well enough to notice, it does really contribute to making the whole of PlaneShift seem rather amateur.
If I was to advertise PlaneShift, what exactly would I be advertising?
Answer: The Kran. I know other people — well, at least one other person, someone in the echelons on the PlaneShift team of public relations — who thinks the Kran are their favorite thing about PlaneShift.
I regret digressing your topic, but I thought that my suggestion — advertising PlaneShift in the form of gimmicky, but sincere, apparel — was aligned with the whole geist of it.
Let's face it: we don't want people to begin playing the Crystal Space version of PlaneShift. We want to appeal to the Settings, to the whole premise of the thing. We want them interested in something other than gameplay
as it is now so that they will maintain their interest until the UE4 server is running and accepting client log-ins.
Even then, PlaneShift will have a staggered, incremental release. Quests, NPCs, features, and zones will not all be released with tidy edges. They will often have very rough edges. We want people who will be interested in the thing despite all that.
Most of the complaints during the time PlaneShift has been around were from people who were expecting completion.
If I was walking around a ComiCon, or a Gamer Convention, with a teeshirt showing off one component of the PlaneShift world — and most likely Luca's personal favorite, I might add — which was especially attractive and especially well–developed …
It's called precision marketing. Well, more accurately, it is a whole strategem which is chiefly applied through the aforementioned marketing technique.
You aren't attempting to convert someone or leverage their disinterest by convincing them otherwise. It's about attracting the attention of those people who genuinely want your product.
I was about to launch into a discussion of all that stuff, but I won't do it in this topic.
And, so, if that isn't a contribution, then I guess there is nothing more I can do here: so long, hope you get something worthwhile out of it all, maybe I'll see some of you in a few years, et cetera.
In closing,
I will say that I'm going to make up those teeshirts some time this year and wear them myself. I'll post pictures. If Atomic Blue likes them, then I'll either transfer the account at the printing service to them or work out whatever other arrangement they want.
