Do you love AI War? I know I do. And if you're like me, you don't think that this game gets the attention it deserves.
Arcen has their hands completely tied up with the new expansion coming out soon (releasing a MASSIVE amount of new content per day), and I think that we, as a community, could really help them by advertising the game.
It's almost December, people are ready to buy things. Around Christmas, it is a well-known fact that people let go of their checkbooks and start buying things left and right. This is a really good time to promote
AI War if it is a game that is important to you, and that you think others can enjoy.
Below I am going to list several links. If you want to help, all you really need to do is click the link and show your support for the game. In most cases it won't take any more than 5 minutes, but if you really want to show your appreciation there are some more personally involved ways to help as well. I'm really counting on you guys to rally support for this game. We all know it deserves attention, so let's get it out there.
*2010 Indie Game of the Year Awardshttp://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,7649.0.htmlAs of now, this is the most important thing you can do. Go here and vote. Get all your friends to vote. Get your grandma and grandpa to vote. People pay attention to these things, if a game wins or even gets in the top 5, people want to know why it has such a strong fan base. So we need to be a strong fan base.
*Facebookhttp://www.facebook.com/pages/AI-War-Fleet-Command/143457342376Facebook is the most hilariously overpopular social website in the entire world. If you don't have a Facebook, get one. We need as many able bodies as possible to go the link above, and click the "like" button. Our goal by the end of December is to have over 2000 "likes" on the official AI War "fan page". Right now it's at 390. If you have a Facebook profile, all you need to do is make posts on your walls asking your friends to "like" the game. I know some of you probably have 8 bajillion friends. GOOD! Have them all like it. It doesn't matter if they've played it or not, it takes 10 seconds out of their day to do a favor for a friend.
*Update the Official Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_War:_Fleet_CommandI've already done this a little bit, but it could use a WHOLE lot more work. In a wiki, there is a fine line between objective writing and advertisement, and I've already crossed that line myself. In all seriousness, the wiki in its current form is EXTREMELY inadequate for how deep and wonderful of a game this is. We don't want new people randomly popping into the wiki page and being like, "This is pathetic". When people enter the official wiki, there needs to be an excessive amount of "Ooooohs" and "Aaaaahs" as people read about what makes AI War such an enjoyable and unique strategy game experience. Seriously, if we all got together and worked on this, we could have the Wikipedia page looking pretty damn good inside of a week.
*Official Community Youtube Channelhttp://www.youtube.com/user/AIWarFansBasically, we need to get ALL the AI War videos in one place, and them categorize them for ease of use. That means all the trailers, all the tutorials, all the "strategy guides",
EVERYTHING needs to be in that channel. We want to give people a place to go where they can find everything
AI War. We want them to subscribe to the channel so that it can become more popular as we release more and more videos.
This channel (AIWarFans) is an open community channel, and anybody who is interested in contributing will have access to it to upload videos to their heart's content. If you want access to the channel, simply send me a private message on these forums, and I'll give you the username and password to the account. Also, If I'm going to use your videos for the Community Channel, I'll need your permission first (this is includes Arcen).
*Community-Made Light of the Spire TrailerDo you like making videos? Light of the Spire comes out in less than a month and I think it would be awesome if the community could start making some trailers for it. It doesn't really matter how you do it, just get those creative juices flowing! If Light of the Spire isn't your thing, you could even make another v4.0 trailer, the more the merrier! Any trailers that people make will be added to the Community Youtube Channel, so don't be afraid to try. Really, if we could make an awesome Light of the Spire trailer, I think it would do a lot to boost sales of the game, and Arcen may even use it for the official trailer! I know some of you really like making videos, I implore you to try.
*Constant Reddit/Twitter Updateshttp://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/e7t3t/ai_war_light_of_the_spire_beta_4035_released/This has been discussed a little before, but we need to get AI War on Reddit and Twitter as much as possible. The link above is an example of the kind of message you can create. Make a Reddit account, it takes all of 2 minutes (seriously), and then post away about all things AI War. Just played a 50 hour game? Post it! Just found something cool about AI War? Post it! Every time a new beta update comes out, we also need to post it. In short, there is absolutely no harm in using Reddit to its full degree in order to promote this game. If you love AI War, tell people about it!
*Unofficial Community/Fan WebsiteThis project is actually going to be the biggest undertaking of all, but I think that it is really important for developing AI War's future. Every good game needs a popular community website to show the fan support of the game. At some point in the near future, we need to get our best minds together and create a website like this. The website could be an amazing tool for promoting AI War. We could connect everything I just mentioned to the page, and do it in an easy and practical way that would help people access our projects more conveniently. This is obviously something that needs to be talked about in more depth (it probably deserves its own thread), but I really think we could make this idea a reality in the near future.
*Spam Off-Topic ForumsI'm not sure why I didn't think of this, but this is a wonderful idea for spreading the word. Play any other games? (Of course you do) Go post on their off-topic forums! Tell them how amazing AI War is, and why they should want to try it. I myself can think of at least 3 games that I can post on, and probably get at least several dozen players interested in the game.
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So there you have it, 8 ways to help AI War. If you care about this game, please devote some of your time to spreading the word. Sometimes it's not about the advertisement, it's about introducing this game to people that haven't had a chance to try it. Hasn't AI War been a wonderful experience for you? We need to share that experience with everybody, this game is just too good to be kept a secret.
Thank you for your support!
edit: I'm adding a "community schedule" to give people a better idea of what we can do each week to help.
November 22 - November 28: Go Write on the off-topic forums of your favorite game. Tell people how much you love AI War, and why you think they could enjoy it as well. Offer to play it with them, and tell them they are missing out!
November 29 - December 5th: We need to work on the Wikipedia page. If we all pitch in this week, we can make a pretty amazing page. Start coming up with ideas now for how to improve it!
December 6th - December 12th: Light of the Spire will be coming out this week, we should work on our community LotS or v4.0 trailer. Anybody with some video making skills or good footage can help.
Ongoing Tasks: *Getting "likes" on Facebook
*Voting for the Indie 2010 Game of the Year Awards
*Constant Reddit/Twitter Updates
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Guys, even spending one day a week working on one of the "community tasks" could make a huge difference if we all pitch in. Once you do lend a hand, let us all know what you've done! This is a very exciting project, we should all be proud of our work
