Council of Elrond

I have split up joes letter in order to get a better overview and make it easier to respond directly to specific topics. There is a lot substantial content in this document, so lets take this opporntunity, exchange our ideas and work for a better future of MECCG.
The original post can be found here: http://www.councilofelrond.org/forum/vi ... .php?t=907
This thread deals with

Frodo wrote: A- RECRUITMENT PROBLEM: LACK OF OPPONENTS/COMMUNITY
Most players don’t leave the game right away. They fall away with from it gradually, by attrition of time and attention, or by an accumulation of frustration with the way things are going. They may have a lack of face-to-face opponents, and do not enjoy the electronic game play as much as the social experience of playing in-person games. Even if the old players we knew are still around, we all end up moving to different places in our lives. With the loss of old playgroups, we are forced to find players in our new cities. As long as we can make enough new friends, there is little chance of losing the ability to find someone to share our more common interests with: such as watching action movies, or playing poker, or a popular game like Dungeons and Dragons. But since MECCG isn’t popular, we must constantly recruit new playgroups/friends for it. This is the “Recruitment” problem, which revolves around the related problem of teaching the game’s rules and sharing the game’s cards (and brings us to Problem Area 2, which I will address after finishing the rest of Problem 1’s issues).

the global playerlist att he COE could help a lot here. but not as it is right now (lots of players that have no chance to get into contact with each othre).
my suggestion: players have to log in in order to be able to see the emailaddress of all other players registered in the list.

also i would like to reactivate the old council-system. each MECCG nation has its own council with at least 1 representative. this one is listed as the contactperson for his nation.

Hi, all! I am a newbie to this amazing game. I am posting in a spirit of humility and thankfulness to all your time and work in preserving the community. So I hope nobody will be offended by my frankness, but I have been emboldened by my, so far, very pleasant encounters with some of you, to jump in and offer a "fresh perspective" and a suggestion or two.

The suggestion simply has to do with web presence. The two "official" sites, councilofelrond.org and meccg.net, should be merged. Or rather, both URLs should point to the same site. And that site should be the current CoE site.

The CoE site looks modern and pleasant, and it has the benefit of sounding really official. The content, however, can be expanded. Right now it seems like a page for the Council and about the Council.

MeCCG.net has the better URL, but when you open it, its design screams, "1990s!" Continuing the impression that "this site and this game are dead" are the many prominent links to old and/or obsolete sites it hosts. For heaven's sake, don't ever list "Worlds 2006" unless it's next to a link for "Worlds 2008" and "Worlds 2009", even if those links just take you to bare bones info! Don't get me wrong: it's good to host archival material. But put a simple "Archive" link at the bottom of the index, which takes you to a sub-index of that material.

The best content on MeCCG.net is on the Dutch Council site. In terms of content, this is actually the single best MECCG home on the net. But the newbie is confused about that he must go to the Dutch site to read the official rules (which seems to be different from the CoE Rules page) or to download the Beginner's Rules, the Map, and card list spreadsheet. Much better if this content were fully integrated into the main site.

Chris's Trade Center -- advertised as "Simply the place to go for trading, buying and selling of MeCCG cards" -- is another indispensable site which should be fully integrated and given a facelift. I want to emphasize, though, that names, faces, personalities, like "Chris," should never be removed. Personality is good. I'd actually like to see more of that. Mark's X. Joe's Y. Wolfgang's Z. But under the aegis of the official Council.

There are quite a few "newbie intros" around, but I found Treebeard's What is MECCG and All about the sets to be particularly timely and coherent. What would be even more helpful/accessible with pictures (something like this plus a little bit of this).

I daresay the average person is more intrigued and impressed by the existence of Lure of MeCCG than just about anything (including Worlds).

The two forums should be merged together. Probably all three, counting the Lure forums. I know, I know. Tricky, touchy.

I think you get the gist of what I'm saying. I'm just throwing some ideas out there, not angrily demanding immediate change! In short, it would be great to see something like a mix between a "commercial" site (like imagine you are ICE and you are still selling it!) and a "one ultimate fan site to rule them all" (which I think MeCCG.net set out to do but never really got going). Thanks for reading.

I agree with Falconer here. The more united we are, the better. I don't know, however, if merging the www.meccg.net site and the CoE site is really doable...

Thank you for your comment Falconer, it sounds all very clear.

I am not experienced with building websites myself, but is there a way to copy a lot of the content of the dutch site to the council of elrond site? I am fairly certain that the dutch site has not been changed in years, partly because this information would become available on the council of elrond site. Still, if I want to look up the texts of a few cards fast and I do not have gccg at hand, I use the html version at the dutch site and not the pdf from the council of elrond. Can this be copied, so perhaps the council site has both pdf and html spoilers? Also, some older version of the CRF (like at the dutch site) on the council site would be useful until a complete rules file is made.

This post is not meant to stir up old fights, but I would love to push the council to some action for changes on the website. I have always accepted things as they are, because I cannot change them myself, and am glad that Falconer voices these problems.

Falconer wrote: There are quite a few "newbie intros" around, but I found Treebeard's What is MECCG and All about the sets to be particularly timely and coherent. What would be even more helpful/accessible with pictures (something like this plus a little bit of this).

this boardgamegeek intro is very nice. lots of pictures. i didnt know it before ...

generally: thanks for many good suggestions, falconer. website is a HUGE problem we always had. most of us are not able to do anything about it (lacking knowledge). and the few that do are the most busy guys
but you are right: it would be good to have one central place (the COE site). i agree a special forum for Lure does not help (this was made before the COE forum became more active). i see no problem to merge here.

and we really should find a solution with chris cables trading centre. he used to be sucha constant for the world of MECCG, but since half a year there was nothing at all. and this is very disappointing to many of us.

i hope to be able to discuss a few of these matters at Lure next weekend ...

Falconer wrote: ...and we really should find a solution with chris cables trading centre. he used to be sucha constant for the world of MECCG, but since half a year there was nothing at all. and this is very disappointing to many of us.

http://meccg.hyperboards.com/



I created that board about 6 months ago?


Ted

"More boards" is actually the opposite of what I was saying we need.

I'm not sure what exactly you're proposing then?

www.meccg.net nor this board seemed very interested in having trade and for sale sections so I created a board to fill in the vacuum back in December.

Given the state of the community though, I doubt it's really needed. Trade activity seems pretty dead these days.

Ted

tbadiuk wrote: Given the state of the community though, I doubt it's really needed. Trade activity seems pretty dead these days.
Ted

i dont think thats the case. now and then people are asking if there is a good place for trading. its really a pity that chris cables site seems to be down.
maybe its dead (at least looks like), BECAUSE the main site is down for quite some time?

i wouldnt say there is no interest in the COE to have a trade section here. but first we tried to get in contact with chris to find out what really happened. maybe this non-activity is just for a short time? however, as far as i know we didnt hear anything from him.
so for my part i would very much welcome a trading/for sale section here in the COE forum.

and maybe ted wants to volunteer to moderate that part

Fantastic post, Falconer, thanks. That's exactly the feedback we need--from a new player!

Even if we can't combine websites, it would be good to have all useful info moved onto the COE site. Also, we really need a "letter to new players" framed that takes into account everything Falconer wrote. I could do an edit/revision of it, if someone wants to take first crack.

Frodo

I'd be willing to moderate a trade forum. I usually lurk on here quite a bit now-a-days anyway.

Ted

As a fellow "oldie-newbie", who has just spent the last week combing through pages & forums, I can totally agree with Falconer here. I can't even put in words how much I agree with him.

I collected the game back in '95 and started again in late '07 (even though I didn't really start until about a week ago) and already back then it was pure chaos. Thorondor, who introduced my to the scene back then, sent me a nice email... containing a good *dozen* of links.
That might be all nice and dandy with a game that is currently sold, but NOT with a "dead" game! The community *really* needs to dig out *ALL* the information there is and go over it to present it on a totally new, perfectly accessible page. ONE page.
And yes, the pages really really need a makeover.

Trade is another thing, because there are also too many small pages and the "big trade center" page, looks dead. Not only because the date stamps are from last year, but also because it looks like it was made in '95. Which it probably was.

So, to sum it up:
- One Forum. I looked over meccg.net (where I posted most, so far) and CoE and it seems to me that most members are present on both boards. I host a german pipe-forum and we have the same problem there. There's 10 boards, most of them minor and 90% of the population is present on ALL of them. No wonder there's little activity on all but two of them.

- ONE big page, with a section for all the rules & info, one for smaller tournaments, one for the "Worlds" Tournament (with an archive for older
ones) and if it is *really* needed: an archive for old pages (even though I don't know why. Put the info from those pages on the info page and ... done.).

- one Trade page, with an active staff, preferably self-editable (I'm sure there's php-based free stuff for that).

If you need assistance, this is something I could see me actually being of any help.



Another thing that I noted, this being written in direct response to Frodo's first part, rather than Falconer's post, is that right now, I am literally covered under a heap of rules.

In my opinion, one of the biggest problems is rules. Let's take GCCG as an example: GCCG is totally useless for new players. Why? Because it's impossible to focus on METW. You have to know all the rules, from all the expansions and base games. You can't just go in, set the program to METW-mode and play with the rules you know.
I use myself as an example here. I know the METW rules. So last night I built a deck in GCCG - that is I took one the decks I play "in real life" and created it in GCCG. Result? Illegal deck. Why? Because there's a 12 creature minimum. ARGH. Easy to correct, but it forces people to learn all the rules at once and it's just one example. I am not a big fan of dumping people into a big pool of rules. With some people this actually works. They learn best if you shove them right off the cliff and then teach them "from the middle". But with most people it doesn't - that's why METW had the start-rules (which were complex enough ).

If it is possible to integrate the 2 forums I would cheer for this. Also one site with all vital information and downloads is needed. Active communities with sites with their own language can keep these, but all the action in English could be combined.

Trade site
Lure
Worlds
Council of Elrond
information from the Dutch Council site
perhaps other councils
perhaps later a wiki with cards
gccg site

I cannot do anything about this myself, because I am not that good with computers etc.

If something like this is worked out/decided upon, I'd gladly help organize or even do it. I don't know much coding besides html & css, but I know my way around php databases and stuff that uses them, so I can set up stuff, having administered several forums in my life.

Also, if English-German translations are needed (or vice versa), I'm game.