MxT is remaking NoeEE webpage, what do you think?

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Arntzen
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MxT is remaking NoeEE webpage, what do you think?

Post by Arntzen »

A Good Place to Start: viewtopic.php?f=75&t=3884
Click to download: eC Civilization

Black Star
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Re: MxT is remaking NoeEE webpage, what do you think?

Post by Black Star »

I like the effort, specially the webpage

EDIT: Might mention a whatsapp group, some NeoEE players founded. Atm mostly pre players in it, but everyone is welcome. Its nice too get information bout games, contact afk players etc. Anyone interested just text me or Fachuli ( admin)
Last edited by Black Star on Mon May 04, 2015 11:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
[22:23:06] [-Ts-] Tricky: i dont even know what my name is anymore

MacroMicroMonster
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Re: MxT is remaking NoeEE webpage, what do you think?

Post by MacroMicroMonster »

Looks nice, I like how the board is direct link to here haha.

Jodocus
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Re: MxT is remaking NoeEE webpage, what do you think?

Post by Jodocus »

First I must say that I am deeply impressed about the amount of effort MxT put into it. It's nice to see that there are still people interested in participating in the NeoEE/Save-EE project.

I will use this post for some general information and comment on MxT's suggestions.
Many old players still play EEC, a few still AOC. Every week, many new players register to play online. If this condition would fit into a working environment, then there wouldn’t be any problems but many problems prevent this case.
Every week, about 100-200 new players register to NeoEE. About the same amount either leaves pretty soon afterwards or plays rarely. The number of active players is hard to estimate, but a wild guess of mine would be that the community's size is near to constant with slightly growing tendency.
New players are not involved into the community. Even if somebody has played this game online many years ago, he will still meet people who only talk to and play with their friends. Many questions in the lobby aren’t answered. People never come back because they think they can’t host games for friends because they don’t know about the RIP-Fix. They are also called “Noobs” or get kicked for no reason because they`re unknown.
I am aware of the fact that people don't like to read books of FAQ, but many questions are actually answered already on neoee.net/faq.
It would be already nice to see if people just could post the link if someone poses a standard question, i.e. about hosting, about the game tag in game names etc.
The RIP-Fix is not universial and cannot be considered as such. Even though it gave a tremendous amount of players the possibility to open games, I think that still at least 10% or so are incapable of doing so. Unfortunately, right now, I have no promising strategy to change anything on this situation or, to be more precise, none that I could implement myself.

On the "Noob-Issue" I am pretty much of MxT's opinion. It would be really nice to see people using

a) the stars to indicate their skills.
b) Ask to Join/Invite mode/Password protection if selected players want to be on their own.

Optimum would be to just accept new players in our midst: try to balance the teams and play with them, give them a chance on do not stomp them immediately.

On the moderation issue: The lobby itself is almost unmoderated. Some players who used to possess a moderator account back then on Save-EE still kind of feel obligated to fulfill this role. I think many people appreciate that. On the other hand, I know of some players saying that they got annoyed by sort of "corrupt" moderation squad, some people already get angry when they see other players having a moderation badge sign next to their names etc. Therefore, RealForce and I decided to relinquish on moderators when the NeoEE servers went online the first time.
Problem:

How to make out smurfs?
It maybe surprises the most, but there is actually already a technology implemented to uniquely distingiush the players from each other: the CD-key. Right now, it's actually only me (or anybody with access to the database) who can determine which smurf accounts a player has. However, the CD-key system must get a major overhaul since it made problems for many players. But it's definitely on the agenda.
Smurfing was always part of EE Online, some liked it, others not. Since I made no decission yet on whether everyone should get the possibility to look up all smurf player names of others, I am open to hear any suggestion.
Problem:

Community is split up in Neo-EE and GameRanger.
First of all: GameRanger is a pretty nice program. It's quite handy and it helped alot in keeping a small player base of EE (and many other games, too) together. However, surprise surprise, I believe NeoEE is the better multiplayer system for Empire Earth than GameRanger (though for scenarios, it's quite cool since you can easily change your name). I must admit that the amount of players capable of hosting games there is indeed higher. However, I believe that even if > 90% success rate would be nice, it's not necessary.
We cannot force players to join on NeoEE and I don't want to. GameRanger has a strong community which is mostly located on South America, speaking Spanish mostly (with few to none English skills). It's hard to convince them to leave their platform since it works and there is no obvious reason to change (except for the better patch, the better lobby, nearly unlimited friend list etc.). However having both GR and NeoEE increases your chances to find a game quickly, a pretty good argument that speaks for having both GR and NeoEE.
It's actually in the hands of the RC clan/Tarms, who manage the RC patch distribution.

And finally, on the "publicity issue" of NeoEE.
NeoEE and Save-EE need to get more unified. That's true. The fact that it didn't happen yet is due to the lack of time and the lack of man power. As simple as that. As for the google ranking, when searching for "empire earth online" or "empire earth multiplayer", NeoEE is pretty much in the highest rankings possible. If people are actively searching for an opportunity to play EE online, they should find us pretty easily. This way, many old players found us as well.
It's quite funny to see that there is still some interest in EE, even if small: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwY-LBWIugc
However, I am not that optimistic to say that we can reach Millions or that Sierra could be "jellious", it would be already quite impressive if they would take note of us at all (which I don't expect or actually hope for). But what I think is that the EE online community can live on for a pretty long time, as long as Microsoft and Intel/AMD/NVIDIA don't mess up their drivers and keep the compatibility for DirectX 8 and there are people like MxT who try to keep it alive, and, of course, the faithful player base.

Edit: Besides CD-key, I am also investigating on playing Empire Earth in Windowed Mode (same with the lobby), which should make the window switching less of a pain (besides the terrible fixed resolution of the lobby).

jokbon
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Re: MxT is remaking NoeEE webpage, what do you think?

Post by jokbon »

I Can translate neo ee page to Lithuanian language. Contact skype jokbon1 and plz post link to your latest work. :thumbsupr: My latest web page desingn showcase *its on LT language* daileskuriniai.weebly.com

Jodocus
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Re: MxT is remaking NoeEE webpage, what do you think?

Post by Jodocus »

I appreciate your offer. However, do you really think it's worth the effort? How many Lithuanians are there on NeoEE?

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lightnessking.
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Re: MxT is remaking NoeEE webpage, what do you think?

Post by lightnessking. »

Design looks smooth, how about a register/login section with perhaps an automated email service for whenever server is down/up again. (most people will post on save-ee now to see if the server is offline but jodocus has to manually reply, perhaps automated would be nice?)
You cannot make another post so soon after your last.

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