Author Topic: FH2 is not lacking in quality, but promotion  (Read 2936 times)

Offline General_Henry

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FH2 is not lacking in quality, but promotion
« on: 30-01-2013, 23:01:18 »
warning: I am someone who writes poorly so the post might appear very disorganized or simply crappy.

Hello everyone, toke a long break from FH2. Actually I am still taking the break, but these days I had been trying to show my new friends this amazing game. Their reaction leads me to think that what this mod lacks is not contents but packaging.

Typical responses:
- Wow the graphics is really good, can my machine run it?
- Map is very large!!
- I don't know how to win in this game...
- I can't read English probably cannot play
- What game is this?
- You can respawn?
...

I can't help but to think how many players were turned away due to the difficulty of approaching this game. The game looked nice to hardcore players only because FH was already in our heart for a long period of time. However, for a newcomer, there were many barriers to break through...


Video promotion
When promoting the game to my friends, I try hard to find materials scattered all across the internet to show them about the gameplay. The lack of trial version means videos were the best way to explain the game. However, solid videos were very few and they were not successful in letting my friends know how this game is different from games like Medal of Honor. The videos I find:

- FH2 training videos: shows how to fight, not particularly inspiring

- FH2 trailers: well made videos that inspire the old playerbase, but to a newcomer there is no special meaning, it is "just another WWII shooting game"

- FH2 gameplay videos:
1. boring bot stomping videos (only to make the mod look bad)   
2. less skilled players making the game feel like just walking around and die (confuses new comers).   
3. Actually skillful players recording, but the videos failed to bring out the awesomeness of the mod in the attention span of homo sapiens.

As many of you might have noticed, people in the new age no longer compile information like people in the early information age. It can be said that people become dumber but the fact is that, people don't like to read giant blocks of text accompanied by some .jpg because their attention span is low, therefore, to adapt to the new age and bring in new players we need actually thrilling, concise, and informative videos.

The first release of FH2 was preceded by a series of awesome videos. Although the success of 2.0 release was not solely due to the videos, it can be argued that the videos play an important part in attracting players from all over the place.


Language barrier

I come from Asia, English is not my first language, I only know English well because my home city happened to be a former British colony. It might be shocking but there are many many people on the world that are:

- very poor in English
- knows basic English but does not enjoy using them

So, in the end, only people who actually is very interested in WWII and/or knows English well will get into this game. We can only help to imagine how many players were turned away when they saw a block of English text in the official webpage. Also players that does not feel comfortable reading English would not be able to enjoy this game as good.

Potential of acquiring playerbase from other countries? FHSW was the perfect example, FH was not only introduced with Japanese playerbase, the mod was also expanded twice or even larger, with numerous bug fixes and improvements on game mechanics.

For FH2 to effectively acquire new players, solid work needs to be done on presenting the game in more languages.

The next update would be the East Front, which would inevitably bring influx of Russian players during the release party. The more home the game is to the Russians, the more of them will come, and more of them will stay.

This also brings out that the webpage would need to be written such that people from all over the world can easily see what FH2 is about before their fingers were tired of clicking and scrolling.

To sum up:
Hopes cannot be put on that new versions will be more awesome
New versions are usually more awesome yet player count decrease
so the problem does not lie in contents, it is somewhere else.
.



I am already quite tired at typing all these and I am looking forward to your responses.
« Last Edit: 31-01-2013, 00:01:32 by General_Henry »

Offline Turkish007

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Re: FH2 is not lacking in quality, but promotion
« Reply #1 on: 31-01-2013, 09:01:57 »
Next time you show your friends a video of FH2 gameplay, show'em this:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=NVWXFbDjahU

 ;)

Offline NTH

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Re: FH2 is not lacking in quality, but promotion
« Reply #2 on: 31-01-2013, 10:01:41 »
The website is an in-depth section of the FH2 information store. Before you even get to the website you must have heard it from somewhere.

Taking myself as an example. The game aquiring cycle goes like this.

- Hey video of a game review on my fav website -- Hey nice graphics, sounds, interesting story and it is an RPG/FPS/Adventure game.
- Reads text review of game
- Goes to website of game
- (Pre) Orders game

FH2 is lacking the first two phases of the cycle. And the competition is stiff.


Milton Gault roared, "Roffey, I know bloody well that Jerry knows we are here but you don't need to advertise the fact!"
(From: First in the Field, Gault of the Patricias by Jeffery Williams, page 72.)

Offline sheikyerbouti

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Re: FH2 is not lacking in quality, but promotion
« Reply #3 on: 31-01-2013, 16:01:55 »
 It would help alot if there was more transparency in the development process, as well as a finer attention to developing the mapping community.

 It constantly amazes me how many maps for FH2 exist that  have been poo-poo'ed by the FH2 devs for not being up to their insanely high standards.


eg:
 ""boats don't work, bla bla""  - disproven by WaW tournament.
 ""no italy, yakitty-yak""- F/H Italy maps anyone?

 I could go on and on but honestly, it falls upon deaf ears, as the FH2 devs have their own agenda and they will stick to it, regardless of how many good or better ideas that the crowdsourced approach would offer.
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Offline Ts4EVER

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Re: FH2 is not lacking in quality, but promotion
« Reply #4 on: 31-01-2013, 17:01:42 »
Player numbers has little to do with promotion and "transparency" and everything with gameplay. Let's look at 762 stats for a sec. They have this neat feature where you can see the profiles of new players, meaning players who have first appeared in the system today. For 31.01.2013:

usersas7829 k/d: 0.29
BunnyLoops k/d: 0 (4 deaths)
noo.noo.1942 k/d: 0 (1 death)
speedybus6 k/d: 0 (16 deaths)
MC.KARJALAINEN98 k/d: 0.12
Matti009 k/d: 0.15
mcIx k/d: 1.67 (wow! still played only one round though)
Jaeger-Jan k/d: 0 (3 deaths)
666MATUSALEM666 k/d: 0.17

Well maybe mcIx had fun.

Offline LuckyOne

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Re: FH2 is not lacking in quality, but promotion
« Reply #5 on: 31-01-2013, 18:01:02 »
^ Implying K/D has anything to do with "fun"... Heck I can have fun with a really shitty K/D if I decide to be a spotter for the whole round...
This sentence is intentionally left unfinished...

Offline THeTA0123

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Re: FH2 is not lacking in quality, but promotion
« Reply #6 on: 31-01-2013, 18:01:20 »
^ Implying K/D has anything to do with "fun"... Heck I can have fun with a really shitty K/D if I decide to be a spotter for the whole round...
The grand majority of gamers care heavily about there K/D
-i am fairly sure that if they took porn off the internet, there would only be one website left and it would be called bring back the porn "Perry cox, Scrubs.

Offline Ts4EVER

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Re: FH2 is not lacking in quality, but promotion
« Reply #7 on: 31-01-2013, 18:01:11 »
^ Implying K/D has anything to do with "fun"... Heck I can have fun with a really shitty K/D if I decide to be a spotter for the whole round...

Yeah I'm sure all these new players joied for the joy of artillery spotting.

Offline sheikyerbouti

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Re: FH2 is not lacking in quality, but promotion
« Reply #8 on: 31-01-2013, 18:01:08 »
 After over 5 years of being hardcore to FH2, i am definitely an individual who could care less about my score.

 Witness tonight on WaW/Wolf Thursday when i will spend more time harassing Andrew to get a microphone again.
or better yet, last week when VonMudra and Arisaka spent most of the night roleplaying as medevac personnel.

 For me, it is a combination of camaraderie, teamwork as well as humorous gameplay and conversations. For example only recently, i learned that Muddy shaves himself smooth and was born in the wrong generation and that Chuff12 has a problem with his microphone which makes him sound like a Cylon.
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Offline Ts4EVER

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Re: FH2 is not lacking in quality, but promotion
« Reply #9 on: 31-01-2013, 18:01:24 »
After over 5 years of being hardcore to FH2, i am definitely an individual who could care less about my score.

 Witness tonight on WaW/Wolf Thursday when i will spend more time harassing Andrew to get a microphone again.
or better yet, last week when VonMudra and Arisaka spent most of the night roleplaying as medevac personnel.

 For me, it is a combination of camaraderie, teamwork as well as humorous gameplay and conversations. For example only recently, i learned that Muddy shaves himself smooth and was born in the wrong generation and that Chuff12 has a problem with his microphone which makes him sound like a Cylon.

Well now this is a publicity blurb that will draw in players  ::)

Offline sheikyerbouti

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Re: FH2 is not lacking in quality, but promotion
« Reply #10 on: 31-01-2013, 18:01:53 »
 It's all about fun and games until Ts4ever has a petit-mal seizure from information overload. :p
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Offline Eightball1182

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Re: FH2 is not lacking in quality, but promotion
« Reply #11 on: 02-02-2013, 18:02:48 »
After over 5 years of being hardcore to FH2, i am definitely an individual who could care less about my score.

 Witness tonight on WaW/Wolf Thursday when i will spend more time harassing Andrew to get a microphone again.
or better yet, last week when VonMudra and Arisaka spent most of the night roleplaying as medevac personnel.

 For me, it is a combination of camaraderie, teamwork as well as humorous gameplay and conversations. For example only recently, i learned that Muddy shaves himself smooth and was born in the wrong generation and that Chuff12 has a problem with his microphone which makes him sound like a Cylon.


Ok good. I thought I was the only one who heard chuff that way. Shame too cuz he's a good guy to squad with. Andrew used to be fun when he had a mic. Now he's just a grumpy old bastard.

Offline kingtiger1891

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Re: FH2 is not lacking in quality, but promotion
« Reply #12 on: 02-02-2013, 23:02:28 »
Player numbers has little to do with promotion and "transparency" and everything with gameplay. Let's look at 762 stats for a sec. They have this neat feature where you can see the profiles of new players, meaning players who have first appeared in the system today. For 31.01.2013:

usersas7829 k/d: 0.29
BunnyLoops k/d: 0 (4 deaths)
noo.noo.1942 k/d: 0 (1 death)
speedybus6 k/d: 0 (16 deaths)
MC.KARJALAINEN98 k/d: 0.12
Matti009 k/d: 0.15
mcIx k/d: 1.67 (wow! still played only one round though)
Jaeger-Jan k/d: 0 (3 deaths)
666MATUSALEM666 k/d: 0.17

Well maybe mcIx had fun.
New players in brainless game like counter-strike or COD would have more fun.

Offline [F|H]Deek_101

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Re: FH2 is not lacking in quality, but promotion
« Reply #13 on: 03-02-2013, 20:02:50 »
Forgotten hope 2 doesn't lack quality, it lacks gameplay.

Offline THeTA0123

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Re: FH2 is not lacking in quality, but promotion
« Reply #14 on: 03-02-2013, 20:02:10 »
Forgotten hope 2 doesn't lack quality, it lacks gameplay.
please define 'gameplay'
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