Forum Dwindling?

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TheSheWolf
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Re: Forum Dwindling?

Post by TheSheWolf »

TheHunter is a very niche game. I've never even seen it mentioned online outside of Steam, and that's only because my Steam account is linked to the game. My suspicion is a lack of proper advertising. I can't seem to post polls on the forums, so I can't ask this question--nor can I find a previous one, but it might be a VERY good idea to do the following. (MIND YOU, I've no idea what of these things theHunter team already does, so I apologize if any of this is already ongoing.)

- Make a "How Did You Find theHunter?" poll. Find out where players initially came from. Check to make sure the top answers are still being advertised.
- Look at what isn't being advertised. If this game does NOT take out ads in hunting magazines, on hunting websites (some of which have upwards of half a million viewers), etc--it SHOULD. Word-of-mouth and even just online social media is NOT enough. Many hunters that might play this game are not fantastically computer-literate, and probably hunt IRL; it's much better to reach out to these people with "paper" ads. Even a couple in magazines, just to test.
- Consider hiring a good marketing specialist, if you don't have one. You SHOULD, but I know it's a small company. You need someone familiar with marketing to look at your tactics and adjust them to bring in new players. Temporarily contract one in for a consultation and suggestions.
- Do you have affiliates? Is it possible to advertise certain brands in-game in return for IRL advertising on, say, their website? Nothing obtrusive; you already use IRL gun manufacturers--I assume you have to pay for licensing there. But it's worth asking about regardless. Maybe a small Affiliates section on the site that can advertise hunting magazines & sites in return for ads.

- To please current members: pull your horns in and bugfix for awhile. There are bugs that absolutely should not be in the game at this point, dogs in multiplayer chief among them.
- To please current members: host competitions that do NOT require enormous time investment. There's been a repeated, overwhelmingly negative response to these. Having to spend 20 hours in a week hunting is unrealistic to most and breeds resentment in a loyal part-time playerbase.
- To please current members, and improve retainment: offer periodic rewards for membership. You can sort out how to do this--either varying rewards for base membership renewal, or a rolling reward for consecutive renewals, etc.
- To please current members: when choosing what to add or change to the game, make polls on the topic and actually listen to them. LINK this poll on the main login page, update status, etc. I know you do this sometimes, but imo it's not nearly enough. It's one thing to say "this is the direction of this game" but if you're losing players, that isn't working. Needless to say, doing what your players want should bring in more players.
- Periodic $em and membership sales/offers. Examples: cheaper membership for a week. My favorite: pick a conservation organization once a year, and donate x% of membership and $em purchases to this organization for a week, or a month, and advertise this. Perhaps in return they can advertise the game.

I can absolutely guarantee you that doing this would bring in loads of new subscribers, and improve the attitude on the forum, player satisfaction, and more.
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XxStrong1xX
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Re: Forum Dwindling?

Post by XxStrong1xX »

TheSheWolf wrote:TheHunter is a very niche game. I've never even seen it mentioned online outside of Steam, and that's only because my Steam account is linked to the game. My suspicion is a lack of proper advertising. I can't seem to post polls on the forums, so I can't ask this question--nor can I find a previous one, but it might be a VERY good idea to do the following. (MIND YOU, I've no idea what of these things theHunter team already does, so I apologize if any of this is already ongoing.)

- Make a "How Did You Find theHunter?" poll. Find out where players initially came from. Check to make sure the top answers are still being advertised.
- Look at what isn't being advertised. If this game does NOT take out ads in hunting magazines, on hunting websites (some of which have upwards of half a million viewers), etc--it SHOULD. Word-of-mouth and even just online social media is NOT enough. Many hunters that might play this game are not fantastically computer-literate, and probably hunt IRL; it's much better to reach out to these people with "paper" ads. Even a couple in magazines, just to test.
- Consider hiring a good marketing specialist, if you don't have one. You SHOULD, but I know it's a small company. You need someone familiar with marketing to look at your tactics and adjust them to bring in new players. Temporarily contract one in for a consultation and suggestions.
- Do you have affiliates? Is it possible to advertise certain brands in-game in return for IRL advertising on, say, their website? Nothing obtrusive; you already use IRL gun manufacturers--I assume you have to pay for licensing there. But it's worth asking about regardless. Maybe a small Affiliates section on the site that can advertise hunting magazines & sites in return for ads.

- To please current members: pull your horns in and bugfix for awhile. There are bugs that absolutely should not be in the game at this point, dogs in multiplayer chief among them.
- To please current members: host competitions that do NOT require enormous time investment. There's been a repeated, overwhelmingly negative response to these. Having to spend 20 hours in a week hunting is unrealistic to most and breeds resentment in a loyal part-time playerbase.
- To please current members, and improve retainment: offer periodic rewards for membership. You can sort out how to do this--either varying rewards for base membership renewal, or a rolling reward for consecutive renewals, etc.
- To please current members: when choosing what to add or change to the game, make polls on the topic and actually listen to them. LINK this poll on the main login page, update status, etc. I know you do this sometimes, but imo it's not nearly enough. It's one thing to say "this is the direction of this game" but if you're losing players, that isn't working. Needless to say, doing what your players want should bring in more players.
- Periodic $em and membership sales/offers. Examples: cheaper membership for a week. My favorite: pick a conservation organization once a year, and donate x% of membership and $em purchases to this organization for a week, or a month, and advertise this. Perhaps in return they can advertise the game.

I can absolutely guarantee you that doing this would bring in loads of new subscribers, and improve the attitude on the forum, player satisfaction, and more.
Excellent post and all great ideas! I really hope the powers that be take note of this! :)

Playing off and on since 2010. My original forum profile https://forum.thehunter.com/memberlist. ... le&u=13071
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caledonianblues
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Re: Forum Dwindling?

Post by caledonianblues »

Throughout my time on the forum I've witnessed a few troughs in the level of activity, both from players and from staff members. On both counts, my view is that we've hit an all time low. I think there are a number of contributing factors.

Classic is no longer Expansive Worlds' flagship product. Or if it is, they certainly don't seem to be marketing it in such a way. There was obviously going to be some churn when Call of the Wild came out, but that's to be expected when you go into competition with yourself. I still don't, and probably won't ever understand the logic behind intentionally replacing recurring revenue with one-off revenue, but that's a whole separate debate. Either way the result is that it has to have put a dent in the monthly figures for Classic, and being an expensive game to develop, that can only be a bad thing.

For a while there seemed to be an influx of new forum members posting in the trophy shot competition threads, but as I suspected, their contributions rarely extended beyond those threads. The hope of perhaps winning a prize is a good way to lure people, but in my opinion, people that have to be lured generally don't hang around. Unfortunately I can't offer Expansive Worlds any free solutions to the problem. There are solutions but as with any effective form of marketing, it costs money to hit the right target audience and I'm just not convinced Expansive Worlds is prepared to make the investment.

Like other players, I too have recently taken a break from the game, only returning very recently. Although I still enjoy the game, my love for it has taken a severe blow due to the direction in which we seem to be headed. That's not to say there's anything wrong with the decisions being made, they're just not to my liking. I realise I'm only one of a large number of players, and I accept that I just have to like it or lump it. I just find these times quite sad. I feel like the previous developers worked hard to build something meaningful and balanced, and that lately all of that work is starting to unravel.

Going back to the forum, I have to say it's pretty sad that there are still broken images, scaling problems, text placeholders and most recently, a missing image in the official signature weeks after the lynx was released. It's not a huge problem, but to me it stands to reason that if the developers don't care enough to fix these things, then there's definitely a lack of love, a lack of attention to detail, and a lack of pride.

Mat, I know you do your best to engage with the community wherever possible and it's appreciated, but in general the communications that go out are just not good enough. The status updates scream "copy and paste", there are grammar and spelling mistakes in pretty much every one of them, and save for the recent video clips which have been interesting, they're just not of the standard they used to be. The hype surrounding releases also gets old pretty quickly. It's the same every time something big comes along and frankly, I think the build up is too much and more often than not, outweighs the climax at the end. We're all adults here. Just tell us what's coming and let us discuss the feature constructively, rather than invest countless hours in meaningless speculation. A little bit of guessing is fine but you guys really rip the arse out of it.

I will continue to support this game and develop UHC because I still get enjoyment from it, but as with everything in life, all good things come to an end. I just don't want Classic to come to an end, ever.
VonStratos wrote:A practical example, we have constant topics about "my ems hasn't been received after a comp". That usually comes from new players getting their first winnings and could be answered in a sticky in a "New players ask" section.
Or, given the frequency at which this issue is raised on the forum, the amount of confusion it generates and the no doubt endless stream of support tickets raised as a result, they could consider fixing the issue. There are countless bugs which, if fixed, would restore a significant amount of faith and maybe even help retain and bring back players. I know it's hard for a producer to sign off on development time with no immediate monetary return, but sometimes you have to spend money to make money.
TheSheWolf wrote:I can absolutely guarantee you that doing this would bring in loads of new subscribers, and improve the attitude on the forum, player satisfaction, and more.
Good post. I agree entirely.
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DYEUZ
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Re: Forum Dwindling?

Post by DYEUZ »

... I really like what David said .

Not knowing anything about online game's business, i know one thing that is essential in any business for success, making the client , customer, member HAPPY !
Treat them with fairness , respect and give them some tender loving care and you have success . ( if all the rest is well managed of course )
They will stay with you forever . they will pass the word around, about how great the company is , which could / will ,bring more people, more business .

That's pretty much all i'll say .

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ronMctube
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Re: Forum Dwindling?

Post by ronMctube »

as ive said a few times get a updated version of classic on the go. cater for all. many dont enjoy call of the wild there is plenty who love classic.if we honest its at the end of its life. some suggestions are great in meaning just not realistic at this time of life in classic to be deployed. you can keep some of the player base happy doing as we are realistically you wont boost numbers massively regardless of what happens. those that are going to try it probably have now over ten years.

so its just keep treading water until it stops. or ... redo a new version.

do i think things are being done as well as they could be ? no but then again that might not be peoples fault who get blamed. i personally think even if you fixed all the bugs spent month doing this (i still dont think you would solve most of them as many dont know how to too many devs been and gone to achieve this ) you wont alter numbers significantly. its just cause the game is old. we all who have put in time here love the game but if we honest we kinda know there isnt that much time left from it as it is.

i personally will always prefer classic over call of the wild.think if the effort was put into a new model to replicate classic it could be succesful.on a new engine.NOT APEX .
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J_Birdman
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Re: Forum Dwindling?

Post by J_Birdman »

SheWolf and David, I think your posts are excellent too.
caledonianblues wrote:..in general the communications that go out are just not good enough. The status updates scream "copy and paste", there are grammar and spelling mistakes in pretty much every one of them..
And stuff like this, which can be found right now on this week's Sales page. I'm amazed I've not seen any mention of this in the forum yet today. This alone speaks volumes. This means that we, as a community, have grown so accustomed to the endless string of ridiculous/easily avoided errors that we don't even notice them and/or don't bother reporting them anymore. Back in the day Ford Motor Company used to have a slogan that went "Quality Is Job One", and they used it for seventeen years. In my three years here, I recall this quite often, and sincerely wish EW had insisted on higher standards of quality rather than higher quantity. Doom is thick in the air, and not because of Halloween or politics.

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Re: Forum Dwindling?

Post by DanthemanBoone »

Been around a while but currently have no membership. I have to question whether the expenditure is warranted when the game has reached the stage that it is more frustrating than fun to play anymore.
So many things have gone wrong from my point of view with bugs, animal behaviors, species with unrealistic A.I., shots used in real life edited to discourage players using them (Neck shots, head shots,) and weapons performances downgraded or restricted permissions imposed, all which have degraded the game from the perspective of the older and experienced real life hunters.
But probably the most obvious thing for me is the lack of animals worth shooting in an average two hour hunt. There is no way I am going to support a game that requires me to walk for 30 min to an hour for diddly squat. There is no excitement or enjoyment in that.
If the game is not fun or interesting players are hardly going to be posting their happy experiences on the forum, and you can obviously understand why there is so much negativity from those who are posting.
Currently I am fortunate to have a game that is fun, exciting and challenging. I am also fortunate that that game runs almost perfectly for me without the plethora of bugs plaguing the majority of other players. I refer of course to theHunter Primal. That game could also be a great little earner if the devs would invest some time and clean it up. I doesn't require any extra content, just stabilizing. But the attitude the company has shown towards the game and its supporters makes me question if their commitment to theHunter Classic will not just deteriorate to the same level of disinterest as time goes on.
And while I dont Play Call of the wild other than initial investigation ( not my game type at all ) I do read their forum, and see the same complaints type of complaints being made about classic in almost 50% of the content posted there.

Promises made that are never consummated. How long does it take to prioritize the most annoying bugs in classic that we have identified for them. How many months since the initial question was asked.

Sorry guys, I just dont believe anymore.
Old hunters never die.They just sit around the campfires and tell the biggest lies.
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BCKidd
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Re: Forum Dwindling?

Post by BCKidd »

I agree what Cal said and Shewolf pointed out. In my opinion EW went way over their heads, they cut off more than they can chew, and in this process alienated what this game was all about.

The developers of this game have tossed out too much content and in a way this also alienates players who were content with what the game was. Big changes that are never tested to their full capacities were tossed into theHunter Classic, in hopes of retaining the player base- but in hindsight it only made a lot of them move on- due to bugs and sudden lack of immersion- due again to the bugs, silly unneeded content etc. I personally hope theClassic can turn itself around- but I feel as tho' it is too late. I will always be here though until it fades into history and I too will continue to support the game for as long as it has wheels turning. My only wish is that EW sees their mistakes, corrects them and brings theHunter Classic back to what it was. The end doesn't necessarily have to be the end- in fact it could be a new beginning if the developers really wanted it that way. ;) Peace.

BCKidd.


:arrow: J-Birdman: You do know that all of us who purchased the E-Caller before the Lynx were given that Add-on? SO, I reckon it is for those that didn't buy the E-Caller when it firstly came out. I see nothing wrong with that. What am I missing? :? ;) Peace.

BCKidd.

:arrow: Birdman- nvm. I see now that all the weapons and whatnot that I own, I could still purchase them if I wanted- but the E-Caller add-on says I "own one" like it does for everything else but reads "unbuyable". I'm clear now on what you are pointing out.
Last edited by BCKidd on October 5th, 2018, 5:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.


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VonStratos
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Re: Forum Dwindling?

Post by VonStratos »

J_Birdman wrote:SheWolf and David, I think your posts are excellent too.
caledonianblues wrote:..in general the communications that go out are just not good enough. The status updates scream "copy and paste", there are grammar and spelling mistakes in pretty much every one of them..
And stuff like this, which can be found right now on this week's Sales page. I'm amazed I've not seen any mention of this in the forum yet today. This alone speaks volumes. This means that we, as a community, have grown so accustomed to the endless string of ridiculous/easily avoided errors that we don't even notice them and/or don't bother reporting them anymore. Back in the day Ford Motor Company used to have a slogan that went "Quality Is Job One", and they used it for seventeen years. In my three years here, I recall this quite often, and sincerely wish EW had insisted on higher standards of quality rather than higher quantity. Doom is thick in the air, and not because of Halloween or politics.

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I think Bckidd was right, but i agree overall with your post, just a better example imo could be that they put in sales items even when are broken, like when we have the bait barrels broken and no word of warning was said in the store, but instead they were in a sale. Sure they were fixed after some weeks, but if a new player buy an item and then discover is broken... well the opinion probably gonna be negative in the future, and to recover that customer trust will be hard, that is why i think make some bug fixing would be a really good if not imperative way to regain some trust from new and old players, more than introducing a vehicle at this moment i think.

This is starting to look like a jenga game, where every new addition seems to have more destructive potential since the base getting less solid every time.

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Re: Forum Dwindling?

Post by JimboCrow »

If the number of forum users is dwindling, then obviously we would have to assume that the number of purchased memberships is also dwindling. Is this the case? Of course it is. :?

Eventually there won't be enough of us left and they will just shut it down. We've all known this for a very long time. With no new reserve this year, adding an ATV to spruce things up might just turn out to be a good thing, in that way at least; it will bring in a fair number of new players I would think. But damn, I'm really going to have to pry open my mind if I'm ever going to be able to believe it will 'improve' the game as I perceive and play it. C'est la vie. It is what it is. :(

In short, we are all just going to have to learn to live with an increasing number of bugs, and keep smiling... :D while purchasing any and all less-than-spectacular, high-priced :?: add-ons, just to able to be able to continue to play at all. Otherwise, (or rather, nevertheless) it's only a matter of time. :cry:

JimboCrow (Last of the big spenders... ;) )
Last edited by JimboCrow on October 5th, 2018, 6:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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