=)
MSXL: The Last Honest Chapter
Posted by: Poocho
Posted by: mrsmiley
MSXL pretty much has went through it's "ice age". It seems that I am addicted to starting successful online projects, and with every new one I start, MSXL gets thrown on the back burner. The problem is, with MSXL, I took care of all the content, all the time. Granted, there were a few vids that people helped out with, but almost everything was done by me. I ran the contests ( anyone remember the quiz contest?!), the content, the news, etc etc.
Eventually I hired on some dedicated staff members, and it was at this point that we were at our peak. The staff was doing their job with gathering news and moderating the forum, and I was doing mine with pumping out cool/funny stuff. But eventually, when the staff got less excited, and started slacking, then I got kinda overwhelmed.=)
Remember the Quiz Contest? You mean the Quiz Contest I WON?!?!?!? Sure, I remember. I even remember winning that coffee mug, cap, LANFest T-Shirt, and stickers. I'm still proud. [Can't you tell?]
But, to be honest, I think the deathblow to the 7C was H2 on XBL. After all, if I remember correctly, one of the main reasons for even starting the Column was to help people all over the world organize LAN events. Sure, other things were organized (like the Quiz Contest), but in general most events were LAN parties. For whatever reason, interest in those events waned (possibly from XBConnect?). That caused a huge dip in chapter activity.
Sure, then H2 came around, and everyone was excited to TALK about it. But people mainly wanted to PLAY it. Events pretty much lost value--both because the feature was disabled and because they became less necessary with the addition of Halo [at least the one everyone wanted to play the most] now being playable from anywhere on Earth with anyone else on Earth.
Thus, the death of Events became the deathblow to the Column. The 7C (does anyone still use that abbreviation) is now pretty much crawling along, barely clinging to life as it waits to be defibulated (sp?).
What do I think the 7C needs? Well, I haven't been around for a while so I'm not sure how much stock you can put in my idea. But I think the 7C needs to be organized to DO something. People run out of things to TALK about.
What sort of things can we DO? I don't know. Think. Maybe we need to come up with exciting new H2 challenges. Maybe do them in the pattern set by Bungie's Humpdays. If you want H2 players to get excited about the chapters, then make sure they have something related to PLAYING H2 to get excited about.
Maybe a chapter/clan could spend a week talking about their next chapter/clan that they plan to challenge--sort of a Pep Rally--and then they can sum up what happened during the challenge.
That's my 2:00 a.m. advice. Take it or leave it.
Just my thoughts,
Poocho :)
Very good points, Poohcho! You're right, the 7th C was designed with events in mind... now, there really is no defined way to plan them with the current Group settings! I used to use the events module all the time to plan different online events, and other events in my area. I wish that would return.
You also make a good point concerning XBL. Since Live came out, I barely do LAN parties anymore! They're much more fun, but with better servers and less lag, you get a pretty close experience online, without having to drag around a bunch of tvs and xboxes.
I don't really have a resolution though... more just confirming what you said, haha.