Promoting Reloaded & AB

[Frodo]

Nick has used his talents to make this promotional video, that shows off Reloaded, as well as Abandonia.

Thanks Nick. It's very kind of you to go to al that effort for both sites. :3:


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[Tracker]

The merciless critic I am, I should let you know that if I were in charge around, I wouldn't approve it. Why? Weeell... Let us watch it together once again. First of all, too long texts flash and move too quickly, either I'm dislexic or something, or there's just really no time to read them. Well, watching it fullscreen helps a bit, but not that much really. The music and the design is fine, no problems with that, but the points made to convince people that AB or AR is missing from their life are very shallow.

1. Reloaded.org -The ultimate review and download site for freeware games and software. With an active social and roleplaying community. - Not sure about this, I haven't been there for ages, but when I left, barely 5, and when I write five, I really mean four plus one people came to the forums on a daily basis, including Frodo, Nick, Qbix and me. That wasn't what I'd call an actival social community, though roleplaying was all right, we were writing all day and night. I guess since that these new improvements lured some peons - I mean, users - in.

2. Abandonia - One of the web's oldest and most popular abandonware communities. The site that started it all. Download, review, all for free. - Well, thank god reviewing is still free, I don't know how I'd feed myself if I had to pay for reviewing. If I'm not blind yet, you just told everyone they can work their arses off, for free. How nice.

3. Abandonia Forums - An active community of retro gaming fans. Ask questions, write reviews, and become part of the community. - Well, these are quite true. No problems here.

4. Reloaded Forums - A dedicated forum for fans and developers of freeware games and freeware software. IPB 3 the latest forum software. - I'd love to say "Show me only one person on the earth who decides whether register or not to a forum based on which software they are running on their servers", but I'm sure you'd find people like my math teacher who... well, you don't want know him, that's all. All I'm trying to say is, that's the last thing a user should know about the forum. Really.

5. Downloads - Download games and software from both sites FOR FREE - True.

6. Reviews - Read reviews on the site. Don't agree with the editor's rating? Submit your own rating - Since most of the western world lives in anything but communism, the freedom to tell whether you liked the game or not isn't that big thing. "Woohoo, I can like or dislike it, look mommy I liked something!" -> A reaction you'll never see from actual (sober) users.

7. Roleplaying - Reloaded is also home of entertaining roleplays, like the popular City of Secrets - Why would you advertise one specific thread in the forum? I mean since when has CoS became the main profile of AR?

8. The end - it's boring, the music just stops, and all those things you write with gigantic letters could have been told in like 3 secs instead of 13.

All in all, I wouldn't like people to know the site from this one minute ride in blasphemy. No offense to Nick or anything (yeaaah... suuure...), but this is just not right. Plus, I think it was too biased, like reloaded was Batman and AB his sidekick, Robin. Wasn't it the other way around...? Just my two cents, now let the flames arise. ^.^

[Frodo]

So Nick goes out of his way to make something to promote both sites... and all you can do is critisize and find fault?

I have to wonder... if you didn't know who made it, would you have been as critical?

[Tracker]

I have to wonder... if you didn't know who made it, would you have been as critical?

We'll never know that. But you're welcome to disprove me. But if the "Inner Circle" approves the video and shares it via one of AB's official news sources, then I'll salute to Nick's genius.

[Eagle of Fire]

Congratulation to Nick on his efforts. This is great.

[RRS]

Yeah, the text zooms past too fast, I only managed to read the headlines.

2 questions to Nick:
- what software did you use?
- were you using some template/generator or did you do all the animation youself (ie: setting keyframes, motion curves etc.)?

[TheChosen]

Im with Tracker on this one. Its he can do stuff like this but this video is so....amateurish.

Another thing is that you cant really say that Abandonware is free. While its true, its like saying stealing is free. It just doesnt sound right.

Also, gameplay footage here and there would have been great.

[DarthHelmet86]

Guys you are some of the rudest people I have ever seen. Someone takes some of their free time to make a video for us, trying to help us get more views to our sites and all you can do is bash it. Genius.

The video might not be perfect but who the hell cares, if it helps get us some more views then it has done it's job a thousand fold. We are meant to be a place that welcomes people and their ideas and help. Let's actually start acting like that and treat people giving us stuff with some damn respect.

And Chosen the free part is pointing out that unlike a few other Abandonware sites we don't force you to pay to get to our goodies, or sign up to mailing lists or do just a couple of "quick" surveys. Abandonware is not theft, or stealing, it is piracy but in our case it is a form of piracy that people in the industry are ignoring or actually agreeing with.

[bloodpigggy]

Wanted to come on and say that the people that are crying at all the constructive criticism are hilarious gigantic babies that must have their entire souls crushed whenever their work or efforts are critiqued in any way. The video sucks, make it better and it will do its job better, why the fuck do you let someone make something and then not tell them it's mediocre. No one should suck your dick for making garbage.

This is so sad. No wonder Reloaded is a desert if such immature cry-babies are running the site.

[DarthHelmet86]

When someone volunteers to do something or gives you something being overly critical is considered rude. No one paid Nick, no one asked him to do it, no one told him what to do and no one let him do it. A simple "Thank you for this Nick but the words move a bit to fast for me" or some such would and is a whole lot bloody nicer. Being overly critical to people who are volunteering to help either site is counter productive to getting more people to do so.

But hey this is the internet where treating other people like people and how you would like to be treated is not allowed. Maybe it isn't people saying "How about being a bit nicer" who need to grow up.

[Eagle of Fire]

This is unfortunately what AB has become over the years. The good members left, the whiners stayed.

Or no. Maybe that's too harsh. I think the real problem come from moderation. In the old days people like Niles or Titan were active and would have smote someone doing something like this on sight. It simply doesn't happen anymore, moderators and admins either get on their horses for trivialities or downright don't do their job.

If we weren't on a "free" server I'm sure we would have hit the way of the Dodo (and Underdogs) since a little while now.

If you guys still don't manage to understand what I mean... DarthHelmet is right on all accounts.

[Tracker]

Oh, okay, I see, I see the problem here now. Well, I'd like to apologize to Nick02 (or Nick as they know him at reloaded.org), since as darth and EoF pointed it out the tone of my post might have been just way too harsh for you. I understand, people have feelings, etc. Perhaps I shouldn't have judged the video by eastern values, here, if you do something bad they scold you for making a mistake, and if you do something right, they scold you for not being even more better. Maybe that's not nice, but that's a way of making large improvements quickly.
I could have written a rainbow overdosed post about the video, but then people wouldn't take it seriously, and the flaws would just pass through along with the qualities.
All in all, I'd like to state that I wouldn't like to make this discussion personal, this is strictly 'business'. That means while I would not like to object Nick's intentions of contributing to the site by means of advertising, I still point out that there are opinions that he might want to consider checking up. We all, me too, want a good, a really, really good ad for the site, I mean, I believe we can't have anything representing us - okay, you can't satisfy everyone, but an ad must try to.
And while I must admit that bloodypiggy is actually right, I apologize to Nick for 'being rude' since I believe we can have a 'conversation' like civilized people (which does not necessarily include vomiting rainbows on each other). We just have different views, that's all.

[DarthHelmet86]

There is a difference between constructive criticism of something and being overly picky and looking to find all the faults. This isn't an advert for AB, it isn't something Nick had to do. Nor does he have to fix it, he has sat down taken his time to make something for us. There are ways of pointing out flaws that don't make you sound like you are an elitist snob looking down on the work.

I can just as easily point out the faults in your post.

1. So there are only a few members on Reloaded at the moment, if they are active users then it is an active forum. Not to mention you don't sell yourself by saying how many people aren't on your forum.

2. It is an odd way of stating the sentence but it is also true, you can download games, read the reviews make reviews and it is all free to do. At no time do you have to pay to do so. Also saying reviewing is free does not mean you don't get paid it means you don't pay to do it, two different things. But we are a volunteer site, no point in lying to people and telling they will get paid anyway.

4. There are a few users here who complain non stop that this forum is using old outdated software that has been hacked together to work. People who habit forums do like to know that the forum they are using is of a high standard and works well. Not to mention Nick put a crapton of work into getting that forum redone, I think he should be rather proud of it and advertise his hard work.

6. People like to get themselves heard, we know this. It is the reason there are like and dislike buttons on youtube and why we let people make comments on the threads about games. It is a selling point that people out there like, just because you don't doesn't mean anything.

7. Since a large part of the activity on Reloaded is in their lovely roleplaying games it is a great thing to advertise. There are plenty of people out there who love sitting on forums roleplaying...once again a great selling point.

8. It's a stinger, it hangs around to give people more time to notice the info being presented. Opinion rises it's head again since some people will like it and others wont. People complained about the text going to fast and now about it going too slow.

The point boils down to, when someone does something for you, for free, as a gift, volunteer like, without being asked don't be a dick about what it is. Pointing out the flaws is well and good if it is done in a polite manner. In this thread no one has said thanks and only one person has been nice about the animation. I am not counting myself in that since I haven't said anything directed at Nick or Frodo about this at all (On that note, thank you Nick for this wonderful animation while it isn't perfect it is a darn sight better then anything else we have. If there is anyway to slow down the spinning words I think the animation would be better for it. And thank you Frodo for bringing this to our attention).

Also I would like to know who you think the inner circle is? The only reason this isn't up on the social media sites is because Lulu isn't here at the moment and I don't have the passwords and haven't bothered to PM the people who do have them about it.

[Tracker]

Inner Circle? Well, I have this strange, bit idealistic vision of the site's social system that things are going in democratic ways meaning that anyone can't do anything, others would need to check if the persons action would be right or not. Like you can't have anyone post anything on the front page, etc. And by Inner Circle, actually, we all know there's like a half dozen of people who make the vital choices regarding the site, the people who actually have word here. People among mods, admins, whatever they fancy calling them around.
But it's just me and my imagination, of course.

And about my flaws:

1. I never wrote he had better said there are few people on the AR boards. Rather don't mention it at all, but true: it's active even if there are few people.

2. I was pretty much aware of that, I just fail to see why would anyone pay TO work. And why would not getting paid for work would attract anyone. Not that we could give folks money, it's just not something I'd say about AB.

4. Might be true, yet I believe not even the crappiest forum software can distract someone from a forum if the community is fun to hang out with.

6. That's a standard nowadays, like the four wheels under your car. Pointless to point out.

7. I rather refuse to discuss this matter.

8. Some parts are too slow, some parts are too fast, it's that simple.

P.S.: Maybe only one person was nice specifically about the animation, but I actually said "The music and the design is fine (...)"...

[DarthHelmet86]

*Sigh* I am not going to bother. Nick you have done a wonderful job on this. Thank you very much, I have already tweeted it to my followers and think other people should do so as well on any social media sites they are active on. The more people who get the word that we are still here, that we are around that they are welcome to come and make a home here the better.

[verek_22]

Someone takes some of their free time to make a video for us, trying to help us get more views to our sites and all you can do is bash it. Genius.

Exactly. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, as they say.

[Lulu_Jane]

The good members left, the whiners stayed.

Irony.

Anyway, I will post the video now.

[Tracker]

We'll never know that. But you're welcome to disprove me. But if the "Inner Circle" approves the video and shares it via one of AB's official news sources, then I'll salute to Nick's genius.

I take LJ's post as an official position on this subject, and as I said above, I shall admit that Nick indeed did a good job with the video. :mhh:

[Eagle of Fire]

The good members left, the whiners stayed.
Irony.

Why do you find this ironic? Is it another case of completely missing the point?

Just to save a few post, I'd like to point out I'm not a part of the "team" anymore.

[Lulu_Jane]

Is it another case of completely missing the point?


Yes, that must be it. Anyway, video posted around the network, thank you Nick! Now, let's move on folks :)

[Dave]

Let me underline few things before this topic ends its life, closed by an evil admin that had nothing better to do today.

1 - Nick, yor video is nice and I really think you have talent, thanks to Frodo for letting us know. However the text was too fast for my tired eyes and I couldn't read many things.
I'm not an expert but I think that it needs some fixes here an there and it's perfect, keep up the good work :OK:

2 - Dear Abandonians, constructive criticism and the respect of the people you are talking with/about are great things, think about it, what if Nick wakes up tomorrow and decides to follow some of your interesting comments? It would be a great form of community feedback and exchange of opinions.

3 - Dear Blood-Pigggy, I respect your opinion but please use your personal account and moderate your language next time, yeah I guess it's a Xmas miracle but it looks like you are not banned from forums. You are welcome as always. If you have login problems please let us know.

4 - Dear Eagle of Fire: please don't alter every topic you post in a personal blog where you whine about the world (yes you are whining, stop hiding behind words) and where you miss the good old days where everything was so delicious and tasty.
You are welcome here but we already warned you about your unbearable attitude towards other people, not just Lulu and Staff of course.
I just hope to see even a little change in the near future.

That's all folks.