Hey everyone,

So I've been here a week or so talking to the people and learning some of the things in the forum. Thus far, and like I said before, this is a great add-on and much of the settlers community isn't fully aware it exists, even the die-hard settlers 2 fans are completely oblivious to what this is all about.

So in order to make things more friendlier I'm gonna post a few suggestions (and they are only suggestions, please don't take this the wrong way!!) in how to make this more approachable to new people and old settlers 2 friends.

Here it goes (once again please take this as positive constructive criticism and not the other way around I really don't want to be misinterpreted here as I want to help you flourish instead of being in the dark):

1. Now I know that most of you, or even all of you, are German. This isn't a big deal since you have a way to put an option to put either German or English. The thing is, things don't get translated to English, these things being:
- News that don't have the English translation below
- Logo
- Additional settings on your profile page (in terms of yes or no), the forum,
- Help
- Download section when entering on the left bar.
- F.A.Q
- The Quicklinks (taking out the Bugtracker lead to German websites)

The main reason that you should have this changed to English is basically that people as a general rule are lazy, the more they have to work to put things correctly or to understand what is going on the less they actually join the community, by putting this completely in English it's one step closer for a friendlier image to the foreigners who actually like the game.

2. The forums (or boards) are one of the most vital things you have to contact the community, by writing here stuff and actually make contact with the public you are creating a bond of trust between you and your community which is some sort of an agreement between the two parties. Now if you start to make things difficult, like writing everything in German and not in English, you are scaring people away. You can even put stuff in English like the titles and whatnot, but since its not enforced and almost 90% of the topics are in German, people won't get bothered to join the community effectively. So there are two options you can work around this:

- The first is to start writing in English.
- The second is to link the boards with an automatic translation widget (or code) that can translate your talks and make people less frustrated on trying to know what is going on. You can even put a warning sign saying its translated by X or Y program/widget/code so users are fully aware of whats going on.

By doing this, not only people can get less annoyed by not knowing the language and not knowing what is going on and more proactive, and interested. It is also a great way to welcome future help in your project.

3. If you want this project to work in a long term, I suggest you recruit someone who can establish a link between the community and yourselves. This is extremely helpful so that you can focus entirely on the project without any distractions. The PR should help in a variety of things, such as contacts between the community from the developers by the use of podcast, vidcasts or even special news events. They should also advertise the add-on for people to actually know that this project exists and is fully under development and that it's not going to stop at just adding a few things here and there (I hope :p).

The main objective of the PR is the link between the community and the development team and advertise, its a key aspect of any project that needs a community to survive.

4. Sign yourselves to Moddb (www.moddb.com), this is helpful in a hundred ways here is why:
- You get your mod public
- Free advertising
- Their forum can get you, developers, new players, free advertising, constructive criticism and so on.

Just take a look at the website and their forums, you will see what I'm taking about, and it's very important that you do this. Only a developer can actually sign up its modification in the website.


This is what I came up with, and these are just a few pointers to help you guys, I hope it does since I love what you have done with the game. In the end I just want to make sure you guys are really acknowledged.

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Writer for http://addict3dtogames.blogspot.com Got a tip? e-mail us! Also a major Settlers 2 Fan!

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thumbs up!

I love your Ideas, hopefully someone will make them real!

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To write in english is a good idea. I am one hundred percent with this cause not only is it friendlier for foreigns, it is also a good excersise for all of us :-). English is THE language to communicate with others an we all know what crap comes out of the automatic translation :-D.

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Personally, I wouldn't mind posting in English all the time, since I spend 99% of my time on the web in English communities anyway (nevermind having an English-speaking significant other). The main problem is communicating the special terms - aside from the lazyness of the other users, that is ;)

Maybe the technical board staff could write a little snippet to RegEXP-replace stuff like building or settler names with images of those, along with a title that contain both the German and English name of the building/settler.
For example, when I write 'Hafengebäude' or 'Hafen', the word would be replaced with an image of that building. highlighting it with the mouse would print "Harbour / Hafengebäude". The very same output would be created typing 'Harbour' - basically, a fork translation.
Of course, maybe just using <acronym> for the very same thing without images would probably work just as well and not break the layout by pushing lines apart ^^ Since translators should keep the acronym syntax intact, that would also work pretty well. Plus coding that is a piece of cake. ^^

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Bluescope can you say that again in a not so confusing way, I didn't
understood it :/ sorry

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Writer for http://addict3dtogames.blogspot.com Got a tip? e-mail us! Also a major Settlers 2 Fan!

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Well, basically... this:



That should eliminate communication problems over foreseeable terms that are hard to understand (such as 'Mint', which is definately not any likely to be recognized as 'Münzprägerei' unless you looked it up or played the English version really, as it's not a too commonly used word).


(apparently, cross-language communication isn't easy even for every-day English speakers either ^^" )

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Ohhh now I get it, but even with the terms corrected how would you work out with the rest of the sentence? I mean, I can't understand the sentence correctly in the example unless its "I find the Harbour very practical?" :P

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Writer for http://addict3dtogames.blogspot.com Got a tip? e-mail us! Also a major Settlers 2 Fan!

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Well, the idea is to be able to use translation engines such as Google Translator better - while not creating wonderful text, they're still making stuff understandable. The acronym tags (as in the image I posted - html's got a tag to do just that) are merely a helper to make sure there's no mix-ups.

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Ohhh I get it now, it's an awesome idea :)

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Writer for http://addict3dtogames.blogspot.com Got a tip? e-mail us! Also a major Settlers 2 Fan!

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More ideas coming from the steamer this time regarding the forum/boards

A forum should be very organized and simple in ways that people who arrive here can at first glance know what to look and where to look at. So some changes, in my opinion, need to made.

1. Change the first section name from "Common" to "News, F.A.Q and Information" - This is were all the news you guys make, the notes and information so you can lock this section and only the people in charge can add and remove stuff. In this section you should encounter the sub-forums "News" (which is already there) and Notes / Information.

2. Change the 2nd section "Common" to "General". All things that you generally speak about RttR should be added here. The names can be changed a bit to better allocate things, So "Improvements / Suggestions" can be only "Suggestions". The team must also think of adding a "Troubleshoot" area so not to pester the launchpad so much.

3. Add another section just after the "Return to the Roots - Addons" named "Special Events", that should contain three sub-forums named "Tournaments & Special Day", "Clans" and "Suggestions & Ideas".

This should make a foundation for people to start playing on a regular basis and start putting some well deserved input on the mod with changes for the eventual "official" tournament you guys can host.

The Clan section is a direct support of the ladder you guys are working on, you will obviously see in the long run people wanting to make clans for 2vs2 battles or more. This could be a place to organize thoughts, schedule (maybe with a post with a special calendar? ;)).

The Suggestions & Ideas section is obvious that will be all related to Tournaments and Clan. The ideas will make a direct impact on the playability after it being carefully analyzed and agreed upon by the community. This goes from for example, adding support for a 2vs2 4vs4 ladder. The number of points a person gains or loses in a ranked match, even achievements and awards to be placed in game as some sort of trophy by winning a certain amount of clan-wars, you name it the possibilities are endless.

4. After the Special Events Section, you really need to add one of the most important things a board needs. A language only forums, this is vital, you might ignore everything else but this is very very important. The language only channel not only makes this the hub for every gamer who as difficulties in speaking english and german. There should be at least 3 Languages and if we have a large number of active players who are asking for a Only section you can later add it. So these forums will be under the "Language Based Forums" and the forums should be "Spielerforum" (German); "Игрок форума" (Russian) and "Forum de joueurs" (French). The team should also add a post with a poll with the option for only 1 vote per login user with multiple languages so you can track how much people want a language only forum.

In these forums everything reserved to the game, resolution of problems and so on can be asked, and in their mother language so they can communicate without any problems of getting scolded for not speaking in a known language.

5. In the "Other" section you should replace the "Settlers General", for "Settler Franchise" and "Other Games", the "Archive" should have a special section on its own.

The forum layout would be like this:

News, F.A.Q and Information
       - News
       - Notes & Information
Return to the Roots - General
       - Suggestions
       - Common Conversations
       - Troubleshooting
Return to the Roots - Add-ons
       - The Charcoal Add-on
       - The New People
       - The Map Editor
Special Events
       - Tournaments
       - Clans
       - Suggestions & Ideas
International Players Forums
       - Spielerforum
       - Игрок форума
       - Forum de joueurs
Other Business
       - Other Games
       - Tavern (Old Comedy and Stuff)
       - Off-Topic
Archives
       - 2010
       - 2009
       - 2002-2008
One last note about the forum, update it with a more usable posting system, add more smilies (if you can Settlers based), better tool bar so you can access codes and other things more easily and more compatibility for videos and imaging.

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Writer for http://addict3dtogames.blogspot.com Got a tip? e-mail us! Also a major Settlers 2 Fan!

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where is the like button? :D

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I would love to hear some critical/constructive response of  any developers who might still work around this game about these ideas?

I wouldn't mind that someone from the team would say "NO, we won't do anything" or "Yes, we have that planned or something like it" than expecting a response forever and this being forgotten. I know that everyone has a busy schedule, me included, but saying something can be better for either parts than expecting a long wait into nothing, thats an Electronic Arts or Activision method of communication and even they have an automated response from time to time.

As I've seen from the times I've posted the first thread in here, this "add-on" still continues to use its radical and secluded methods which restricts any easy access to the community. I would love to know what is the opinion that stands with the developers on the future of this project, nothing against anyone here and specially who built this sweet game from scratch, but the problem is that every time you don't say anything in a large amount of time it either gives players hope that you are working on a gigantic patch (which I hardly believe its in the works, as no information whatsoever is being divulged) or that you are eluding people and are giving up on the project

We had/have a person with some knowledge of coding that are presented itself available to help although I haven't seen anyone in the team talking to him on the forum. Did you talked to him via message? If so, great but if not your just barring the way for new people to work around and help you.

Another thing is that even though Settlers II is a German company name, and RttR is to appeal to the gamers, which were specially Germans players, its obvious that you would continue to speak German. What I don't get is that even though this method isn't working at all you don't change it. You don't have enough players, so expand to reach out for other players, you have X number of languages in game yet the main language in the forums continues to be a very, once again, restrict and unpopular. Is this what you want to achieve?

Its not that I don't want this game to fail and you to give up, its that I want this game to be successful as you already worked hard on it. I don't understand why the extreme lack of communication between the developer team and the "small" community. You don't owe anything to anyone, this was your "baby" to begin with, but if you have followers and a actual public distribution method of the application you have the right to say what is going on so they don't, yet once again, keep their hopes up expecting something will change.

I hope you understand what I am saying, its nothing against the team as you guys made a kids dream come true, but I feel unmotivated to keep advertising or anything of the sorts to a game that feels abandoned to such an extent that not even new members want to stick around. Ideas get forgotten and hard work (from your end) is wasted.

I hope you guys get things straight out and give the community some type of communication,if not just to say "We aren't dead, we are busy working but we will continue when we have time"

My €0,02
Thorpheus

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Writer for http://addict3dtogames.blogspot.com Got a tip? e-mail us! Also a major Settlers 2 Fan!

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