GSF School with Despon - NEW SESSIONS - check for details!

[philwil]

It went pretty well, I think we were able to disseminate some useful information.

 

I am not sure where will be next, probably Wednesday May 4th, though. I have been considering another Harbinger session. Might be a good time for that. Another one on JC imp seems likely, sooner or later.

 

- Despon

 

I did advertise for about two hours, on both imp and pub side, prior to your start. Wasnt able to stay for it. I am glad it went well.

[caederon]

*NEW SESSION*

 

Where: Harbinger pubside, /cjoin GSFschool

 

When: Thursday 5/5, 9pm-10pm EDT

 

Come by Harbinger pubside for an hour of informative chat. New / inexperienced pilots particularly, please come by. Let's discuss tactics and ship builds that will improve your game.

 

- Despon

[Maulkat]

Ah another one I won't make

I hope it goes well and I'll spread the word.

[caederon]

As a few of you have already noticed, I made a post advertising a new GSF School session in the general forum...

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=883236

 

If you have participated in one of my sessions and found it helpful, please post there and say so in order to bump the thread and hopefully encourage anyone who might be interested to join in.

 

If you just think that it's a good idea to reach out to the general populace to pull in some more interested pilots, post there and say your piece.

 

This forum is a dead zone only inhabited, for the most part, by the people who are already invested in the game and fly regularly. We have a few stragglers come by, and it's great to see new faces here... but it's my belief that to sustain the game and maybe grow it a little, we need to reach outside the borders. So if you care, help keep that thread visible.

 

Thanks,

Despon

[caederon]

This is happening tonight; it would be great to see a significant turnout:

 

GSF School

 

Where: Harbinger impside, /cjoin GSFschool

 

When: Wednesday 5/25, 9pm-10pm EDT

 

I'll be there, to answer questions and offer advice, and will likely have some other veteran pilots around to assist in bringing you up to speed. It'd be awesome if you've already played the GSF Tutorial (click the '?' button in the upper right of your hangar) and if you like, you can even check out some great guides the community has created to get you started... but please, if you have any interest in fast-paced arcade style space combat PvP, show up and let's get you ready for battle.

 

- Despon

[DakhathKilrathi]

Posted on Reddit for awareness but it will probably just get downvoted. Edited May 25, 2016 by DakhathKilrathi

[Maulkat]

Ah you always pick the one night of the week I'm not likely to make. If I'm home in time, I'll stop and say hi.

[caederon]

My final attempt at running a GSFSchool session was an experiment. Instead of advertising it mainly here, in this thread, I posted in the general forum where I reasoned I might catch the eye of people who previously played GSF and left, or who never gave it a shot.

 

Despite garnering 2465 views, a week of advance advertisement, and Sriia's Reddit post, this approach yielded zero participants. This is a large disappointment.

 

Reaching the people who need to be reached seems like a task beyond the tools of these forums.

 

I remain open to offering advice to anyone who catches me in-game, or to the possibility of some larger-scale educational event if anyone wants to set it up and guarantee some participants (something set up at the guild level, probably).

 

Thank you to those who participated in the GSFSchool sessions, both as learners and teachers. The effort on both ends is appreciated.

 

- Despon

[FlavivsAetivs]

Wow, that sucks Desponn.

 

Thanks for hosting these GSF school sessions. I think they really made a difference to some people.

 

~ Eudoxia

[JasraL]

Wow, that sucks Desponn.

 

Thanks for hosting these GSF school sessions. I think they really made a difference to some people.

 

~ Eudoxia

 

They made a difference to me. I found them very useful and wish I had been able to attend more of them, but living in the U.K. and working normal business hours means I can't always stay up that late. It was great to get advice and answers, and to know I wasn't the only one with the same questions. I still don't think I'm very good yet, and still trying out different ships and builds, but I am also still queing for matches and probably wouldn't be without the school sesions and the guides. Thank you Despon for giving up your time to help new players like myself.

[Lendul]

My final attempt at running a GSFSchool session was an experiment. Instead of advertising it mainly here, in this thread, I posted in the general forum where I reasoned I might catch the eye of people who previously played GSF and left, or who never gave it a shot.

 

Despite garnering 2465 views, a week of advance advertisement, and Sriia's Reddit post, this approach yielded zero participants. This is a large disappointment.

 

Reaching the people who need to be reached seems like a task beyond the tools of these forums.

 

I remain open to offering advice to anyone who catches me in-game, or to the possibility of some larger-scale educational event if anyone wants to set it up and guarantee some participants (something set up at the guild level, probably).

 

Thank you to those who participated in the GSFSchool sessions, both as learners and teachers. The effort on both ends is appreciated.

 

- Despon

I think what your are doing is a good thing. Try not to get discouraged, have you really sat back and thought about how difficult of a thing what you are doing is? Imagine going up to someone as a complete stranger and saying to them "Hey, I noticed you are not driving your car as well as you could. I am an expert at driving and am willing to give you free advice and lessons. So when shall we set up an appointment so I can teach you?"

 

People whether they admit it or not are a prideful lot. Maybe you could try surfing the various servers GSF channels and observe which one would be innately conductive to what you are trying to do and engage.

[caederon]

Try not to get discouraged, have you really sat back and thought about how difficult of a thing what you are doing is?

I appreciate the support. I have, in fact, thought about that at length.

 

Recently, an argument was posed to me that went something like this:

Imagine I cooked the best filet mignon ever, and starting selling it at a vegan bar.

 

Do you think anyone who frequents that place would eat it? Of course not--if they ate it, they wouldn't be vegans.

GSF is an arcade space shooter trapped inside an MMORPG. That MMORPG is populated by a whole lot of people that have no interest in arcade space shooters, no matter how good they are. They signed up to play an MMORPG.

 

There is a subset of people who happen to like arcade space shooters that also like MMO games.

 

Somewhere along the line, the game developers thought that subset was going to be large enough that they could turn a profit by serving up just what that niche group-within-a-group wanted. The evidence suggests that they were proven wrong. Those of us who recall all servers having two or more concurrent matches running at any given time might think "at its peak, there were lots of people playing!" I've thought that. What if the metric they were expecting to meet in order to be profitable was that there would be five concurrent matches running on all servers? Ten?

 

I guess I've come to accept that argument which was made to me... that GSF is a great game, but it was doomed from the start by being stuck inside a game of a wholly different genre. It is entirely disconnected from the ground game. The skillsets necessary to excel in GSF are not taught by playing any other part of the game... you don't even learn the skillset to have basic competence from any other part of the game.

 

'Saving' GSF would involve dislodging it from the guts of an organism that can't feed it.

 

Most players do not come to a story-driven MMORPG hoping to find a great space shooter within it. Some people are very pleased when they do, but that subset of players is not enough to satisfy whatever performance metrics the developers were held to.

 

Personally, I feel that Bioware could have maintained a strong (if niche) base of GSF enthusiasts and continued to develop the game at a modest profit if they had monetized it better and not abandoned it two years ago. And, you know, if they'd come to talk to us now and then instead of tossing vague and infuriating comments out in live-chats.

 

Until they shut off the lights, there will be a trickle of new people arriving to GSF who 1.play on a server active enough to get pops and 2.are self-motivated enough to seek out the resources that would allow them to get into the game.

 

We've all gone through many convolutions and convulsions trying to soak up and retain that trickle like they were drops of water in the desert. What I've been doing is trying to turn those drops of water into ice sculptures. In the desert.

 

Maybe you could try surfing the various servers GSF channels and observe which one would be innately conductive to what you are trying to do and engage.

I've observed the GSF channel on Harb enough, I think. I was recently told there that I was destroying the game. And that was one of the more civil exchanges I've had lately.

 

I held my school sessions in a separate channel specifically to avoid GSF chat.

 

I'm glad I was able to reach the people whom I did, and helped them enjoy a great game a bit more.

 

I'm always happy to address legit questions posed in the GSF channel when I can keep my head above the floods of toxic bile.

 

- Despon

Edited May 27, 2016 by caederon

[Danalon]

I think another essential problem with GSF is how BW/EA make money with SWtoR. From what I see in game, I'd guess they get the most money from the cartel market packs. Considering the absurd prices some of those items have in th GTN, it would be reasonable to assume there aren't only people who pay a lot of credits but also people who pay a lot of money to get certain items. People want to look different, they want to be looked at, and they pay for it.

That's where the problem in GSF starts. There is no fleet area in GSF where you can hang around and be looked at and feel "cool". A ship will never be inspected in GSF, except maybe someone checking which direction it's facing. The only thing a player can do to stand out in a positive way is to acutally play good, because most people will only notice the name of a person during the game and on the scoreboard.

The problem gets worse over time, because there are always new armors/mounts/pets for groundgame, which encourage the "whales" to spend money again. Without new things being released every few weeks, there isn't a way to spend a lot on GSF and without people spending a lot on GSF there isn't a reason to make new things every few weeks. Ein Teufelskreis...

Edited May 28, 2016 by Danalon

[lwiggles]

Despon .. if your out there now would be a great time for this even. Significant number of new/returning players in game now

[FlavivsAetivs]

Yeah, I've seen a lot of new imps on Jedi Cov, and some new pubs too, all of whom would benefit from a session.

 

~ Eudoxia