After reading 
Krosan's Coverage Ad Nauseam column about improving Crossfire I wrote a pretty long comment describing my thoughts on the matter. It wasn't very well written but at least I made my point. This website is very much set in its ways and some major changes are hard to push through. Still I would like to show you what I wrote after reading 
Nellie's comment; "Read the 'creating a narrative' thread in the admin forum - some good suggestions in there."
I think its rather small minded that things like that are mostly written in the "admin forum" where users are not able to give their opinion. Therefore I have to say this is not so much a column as it is a brainstorm. I know some of my idea's are impossible to achieve, but maybe a simpler form of them can be applied.
] GTV
Integrate GTV and crossfire more and more. Now its just 2 sets of community's, each run by other people (as far as I know at least). Perhaps make a banner with upcoming matches showing up next to the Crossfire banner at the top of the website. Getting an active GTV admin who is willing to do interviews with players from clans that are playing that night, not only about the match but about anything that surrounds ET. Give unkown players a chance to get their "15 minutes of fame". There are alot of players I would like to read about, like players from smaller country's who captain their teams in the NationsCup (Czech republic, Spain, Italy, etc) and their view on this game.
] Leagues
Crossfire has the ability to create clans, but they are pretty much useless. Therefore it might be an idea to integrate the ESL+CB calendar on the crossfire profile, so that matches can easily be scheduled and maybe the crossfire challenge ladder (not sure if its still on here) can be used to arrange fun matches etc. This way the site will get more involved in the everyday game-play of at least the clanleaders.
Ps, Also CB/ESL should appoint more admins for every respective league, and ask them to atleast 1 post per stage of the competition (1 for groupstage, 1 for playoffs, 1 for finals?)
] ET-Merc
Make something like facebook has, events. Something where u can sing up as being available. Two forms are possible, making a small gather button, or by showing a pool of people who pressed the available button within the last hour. This way you dont have to spam irc, but you have an overvieuw of the people who are willing to play. You dont get a "glance for the last few minutes" but you can see who is still available after an hour after they signed up. No need to keep on spamming "merc avi" on irc.
] Chat
Make a chat system which obsoletes the private messaging on this website. Plus this means there wont be any more uselss chains on this webiste. All this enhances the community feeling.
] Forums
Stop stickying everything that is posted by an admin. Looking around on this webiste I, at this moment, see 2 sticky's that have been here for quite a while. "ET Movie Database, CF/YCN vent". Just remove these idiotic things or put them in a section where they belong. Put the Movie Database at the top of the "Movies Section" and remove the vent info. If someone needs that info just use the "Search"function on this website.
] News
Instead of posting every single remotly intresting thing about "high skilled" teams keep the main news for main news only. Not about one playing being changed in the lineup of some top 10 EC team. Main news should only show announcedments of new league's and things that affect everyone who plays this game. The other news should be filled with clans announcing their new lineups (not only high teams, give everyone a chance, even if this means it will get spammed by 2 week teams.. everyone starts out with a new lineup, so everyone deserves a chance).
Make a new section (like the "cups") called "Upcoming Matches" where matches shown in the afore mentioned banner are explained by either one of the teamcaptains or one of the hosting admins. All the CB/ESL newsposts can be done there.
] Configs
Make a new place where everyone can dump their config, and so creating one big config selection from new to old players. Just make sure everyone can only upload 1 config to limit the amount of spam. Crossfire admins should be able to manually add requested configs from players that quit this site, or that quit the game entirly.
] Rewards
Seeing as this website has sponsers i reckon that they generate money. Put some of that money back into the website by rewarding people who generate content. If someone does 5 interviews that are generally well received offer them a bouncer and a solid position as a semi crossfire admin. Give them +v at #crossfire and ask them to continue writing, give them positive feedback.
] Crossfire Central
Seeing as crossfire has become THE place to be, wouldnt it be nice if there were some dedicated people who are willing to break down the barrier that ETpro has at this moment? ETultimate installer was a really good tool new players to get into the etpro scene. Now with SLAC being taken in by CB there should be a tool somewhere on crossfire that will get u all the programs u need to play. Besides all the ET files this includes SLAC + mIRC(nn?) + a small guide for IRC/CB/ESL signups and how ET works in general.
Feel free to post your idea's, could be intresting to see if someone has some nice add-ons.
ps1: I think we should credit people who do their best to generate content to this website like krosan, kamz, lion and even adi. Keep up the good work.
ps2: I know this will get alot of flame, people dont like its writting here, people dont like whats written, go ahead mock this collumn, atleast ive been able to write my thoughs about this website once and for all.
Krosan's Coverage Ad Nauseam column about improving Crossfire I wrote a pretty long comment describing my thoughts on the matter. It wasn't very well written but at least I made my point. This website is very much set in its ways and some major changes are hard to push through. Still I would like to show you what I wrote after reading Nellie's comment; "Read the 'creating a narrative' thread in the admin forum - some good suggestions in there."I think its rather small minded that things like that are mostly written in the "admin forum" where users are not able to give their opinion. Therefore I have to say this is not so much a column as it is a brainstorm. I know some of my idea's are impossible to achieve, but maybe a simpler form of them can be applied.
] GTV
Integrate GTV and crossfire more and more. Now its just 2 sets of community's, each run by other people (as far as I know at least). Perhaps make a banner with upcoming matches showing up next to the Crossfire banner at the top of the website. Getting an active GTV admin who is willing to do interviews with players from clans that are playing that night, not only about the match but about anything that surrounds ET. Give unkown players a chance to get their "15 minutes of fame". There are alot of players I would like to read about, like players from smaller country's who captain their teams in the NationsCup (Czech republic, Spain, Italy, etc) and their view on this game.
] Leagues
Crossfire has the ability to create clans, but they are pretty much useless. Therefore it might be an idea to integrate the ESL+CB calendar on the crossfire profile, so that matches can easily be scheduled and maybe the crossfire challenge ladder (not sure if its still on here) can be used to arrange fun matches etc. This way the site will get more involved in the everyday game-play of at least the clanleaders.
Ps, Also CB/ESL should appoint more admins for every respective league, and ask them to atleast 1 post per stage of the competition (1 for groupstage, 1 for playoffs, 1 for finals?)
] ET-Merc
Make something like facebook has, events. Something where u can sing up as being available. Two forms are possible, making a small gather button, or by showing a pool of people who pressed the available button within the last hour. This way you dont have to spam irc, but you have an overvieuw of the people who are willing to play. You dont get a "glance for the last few minutes" but you can see who is still available after an hour after they signed up. No need to keep on spamming "merc avi" on irc.
] Chat
Make a chat system which obsoletes the private messaging on this website. Plus this means there wont be any more uselss chains on this webiste. All this enhances the community feeling.
] Forums
Stop stickying everything that is posted by an admin. Looking around on this webiste I, at this moment, see 2 sticky's that have been here for quite a while. "ET Movie Database, CF/YCN vent". Just remove these idiotic things or put them in a section where they belong. Put the Movie Database at the top of the "Movies Section" and remove the vent info. If someone needs that info just use the "Search"function on this website.
] News
Instead of posting every single remotly intresting thing about "high skilled" teams keep the main news for main news only. Not about one playing being changed in the lineup of some top 10 EC team. Main news should only show announcedments of new league's and things that affect everyone who plays this game. The other news should be filled with clans announcing their new lineups (not only high teams, give everyone a chance, even if this means it will get spammed by 2 week teams.. everyone starts out with a new lineup, so everyone deserves a chance).
Make a new section (like the "cups") called "Upcoming Matches" where matches shown in the afore mentioned banner are explained by either one of the teamcaptains or one of the hosting admins. All the CB/ESL newsposts can be done there.
] Configs
Make a new place where everyone can dump their config, and so creating one big config selection from new to old players. Just make sure everyone can only upload 1 config to limit the amount of spam. Crossfire admins should be able to manually add requested configs from players that quit this site, or that quit the game entirly.
] Rewards
Seeing as this website has sponsers i reckon that they generate money. Put some of that money back into the website by rewarding people who generate content. If someone does 5 interviews that are generally well received offer them a bouncer and a solid position as a semi crossfire admin. Give them +v at #crossfire and ask them to continue writing, give them positive feedback.
] Crossfire Central
Seeing as crossfire has become THE place to be, wouldnt it be nice if there were some dedicated people who are willing to break down the barrier that ETpro has at this moment? ETultimate installer was a really good tool new players to get into the etpro scene. Now with SLAC being taken in by CB there should be a tool somewhere on crossfire that will get u all the programs u need to play. Besides all the ET files this includes SLAC + mIRC(nn?) + a small guide for IRC/CB/ESL signups and how ET works in general.
Feel free to post your idea's, could be intresting to see if someone has some nice add-ons.
ps1: I think we should credit people who do their best to generate content to this website like krosan, kamz, lion and even adi. Keep up the good work.
ps2: I know this will get alot of flame, people dont like its writting here, people dont like whats written, go ahead mock this collumn, atleast ive been able to write my thoughs about this website once and for all.
The ET Movie Database news post is stickied for a reason. For people to refer to it. As for the Ventrilo thread in the forums, that's the same. With the current design of the site, these are the only ways to put useful information at the top of the list. I have no idea why you'd think it's a bad idea(?).
Top teams deserve main news. Have you ever been part of any other gaming communities similar to CF? Teams always make it to main news, I can't see why that should be stopped.
As for your rewards section, that's similar to how it works now. Those who are trusted in providing good content are given a contributor status and +v in #crossfire. And if somebody offered me a BNC as a reward, I'd simply say no, it's petty. Also, the sponsors on this site are for Heaven Media, not Crossfire. Heaven Media then have to distribute they money to how they see it best. Admins get nothing in terms of materialistic rewards, we're volunteers.
As far as integrating chat goes, we have an IRC channel that people can use if they want to chat.
Integrating GTV is already semi-done (see left column "GamesTV.org Feed) but yes, it needs a bit more elaboration. Did you see skooli's screenshot in Krosan's original column? That shows what he intends to do with GTV, whether or not it will be done, who knows at this stage.
The ability to create clans isn't useless here. It was used for Crossfight originally. Then it was used for signing your team up to Crossfire LANs.
If you want a config, why not just find the person whose config you want and see if it's on their profile. If it's not on their profile, then it's unlikely they'd upload it to CF if there was a "config section" anyway.
ET movie database might be stickied but there is no use of it. Why have a search function if everything will get stickied. At some point there were 5 newsposts stickied in the forum thread. Just integrate it somewhere in the site.
Top teams deserve part of the main news, fair enough but i think that bF or whatever their name is nowadays, replacing 1 player with jere shouldnt be considered main news, while OC premier clans that preform well get shunned for being put in "other news".
I have to give in to your point about rewards, i have clue how this is done now. All i can say is, make people who submit things feel special.
IRC chat is something different then people being on the site. If im at school i am able to browse crossfire, but I wont be on IRC, and once again, its just an idea, no need to shoot it down.
About GTV it is semi-done perhaps, but instead of clicking those links i have to check the gamestv website to actually see who they are. And no , havent seen skooli's post.
About the clans, when was Crossfight originally ? 5/6 years ago now? Might be time to implement some new features. Theres nothing wrong with change in my opinion. Not sure about the right translation in english, so ill keep it to dutch "Stilstand is achteruitgang". It basicly implies that when u dont move forward with something you'll fall behind.
anyway thanks for your comment, but i still think you are stuck in your ways when it comes to improving this website. Maybe because you know the technical side of the story and im just daydreaming.. who knows//
Adding a useful links section is the only place I would see the ET Movie Database being put, but we don't have a useful links section (yet) so it's stickied instead of that. Saying stickying it is entirely useless is nonsense if you ask me.
Very much needed to achieve better coverage and more league/match exposure.
Difficulty: Getting the coding done.
Will have to wait for CF 4.0 to be put in effect.
Leagues - Therefore it might be an idea to integrate the ESL+CB calendar on crossfire
Pretty much the same as the GTV integration. CB & ESL coverage is now already being done.
ET-Merc - Make something like facebook has, events. Something where u can sing up as being available.
Good idea, would increase activity.
Difficulty: Analysing & implementing the entire idea is very tricky and needs serious debate on the functional requirements.
Chat - Make a chat system which obsoletes the private messaging on this website.
PMs will never become obsolete because they are like mails. PMs need to be improved though. A page with an IRC plugin to #crossfire might be handy.
Forums - Stop stickying everything that is posted by an admin.
The stickies are there for a reason. People are lazy and don't want to use the search. They'd rather pm an admin on IRC or whatnot. The solution is a complete overhaul of the forum section (the current way is not the best possible way to organise & present forums).
This will be something for CF 4.0.
News - Instead of posting every single remotly intresting thing about "high skilled" teams keep the main news for main news only.
That's only going to happen if we've got a steady flow of multiple main news items a day - which is not the case right now. The main news is still the stuff that everyone looks at the most, so having only one new item there every two or three days will lower the activity on the site.
Configs - Make a new place where everyone can dump their config.
That's what the profiles are for.
Rewards - Seeing as this website has sponsers i reckon that they generate money.
This website doesn't generate money, and if it does with the ads, it surely doesn't flow back to us, the crossfire admins.
Nice job on the ideas, keep it up.
(I might be wrong if they are going to sponsor future lans, but until now it doesn't add anything except annoying adds.)
I understand him though, a lot people in this community make it harder for everybody by being ignorant and not contributing. I don't contribute myself, though of writing a column a time back but when I started it I noticed how bad my english actually was and I had problems with saying the things I wanted to say on a nice and clean way without insulting people.
disagree with this, if a new player comes that knows jackshit about how cf works but he knows it's an ET community it's way easier if there's a separate config section which he can see from main page and click on
if that could be linked in to crossfire (even if its in a crappy iframe) then that could work
Also dont quite get what all these new moderators are based on? I dont really see them do anything but remove posts that dont follow the "language rule" which is utter bullshit, since that has NO effect whatsoever on CF, it doesn't really add up to anything.
To be fair? I dont care if nothing changes on CF, but if you're not planning on changing anything, dont go around acting like you care by asking everyone and then not do shit with it.
Perhaps look at the version number of the site ;)
I havent noticed shit besides the already noted "language rule".
Ok, there's more columns, but thats not thanks to HM or CF, but thanks to the users.
CF 3.2: http://www.crossfire.nu/?x=news&mode=item&id=6290
The tagging cheaters only resulted in fucking idiots running around acting like its a cool thing to be tagged, so didnt improve shit.
Is there anyone using the report function, besides to piss off their e-buddies? snitchin aint cool btw :-)
Soft-deleting/Admin logging/userlevels - cool beans, but somehow some admin decisions annoy me more than before these changes. Some randoms apparently sucked dick to get some moderator status and now delete posts in other languages than English...my question remains, how does this improve ANYTHING?? If I see polaks or frenchies talk their own language amongst eachother I just skip over it...dont see why its necessary to remove that.
The inbox shit isnt an improvement since it worked before, but someone fucked it up.
Also, those people spam like hell. They are tagged but they don't see it as any kind of punishment, actually they're proud of it... We should punish them, don't let them write in news, 1 journal per 2 weeks, 5-10 comments a day, dunno. Something just should be done with them.
GTV
They got their own thingie going on and they already have their own section here + coverage in newsposts.
Leagues
This is about clan-activity, ladders are already up, people just don't use them. And there is a cup running basicly all the time already (CB & ESL)
ET-Merc & Chat
What does this even mean? There is this thing called "irc", it works, use it.
Forums
Why even start to whine about stickies? They are there for a reason and there should be used more actively (like few days ago when SLAC was down, one topic only, not a huge shit-storm and attention whoring).
News
This is again about user activity, if you want coverage and news about lower teams, just make them, it is possible.
Configs
Hurr durr, profile ^^
Rewards
This is just ridiculous on a site that isn't about making money.
Crossfire Central
Ok, there could be one tutorial (I guess there already is, just needs an update) for "what to do when I want to start to play?" But do you seriously think that people will register here first and then start to wonder what ET is?
And my opinion wasn't supposed to be against contributing or improving things, more against stating the obvious and useless points that lead nowhere.
E: Now thinking of it, maybe its just a good thing people dont want to change ET, at least I hope there wont be new krosans making ET much more "open" to the glorious eSports-scene (havent turned out fine so far, maybe next year Kroissant?
This fucking site needs a button to download ET directly from and it has been requested since forever but nooo, its more important to unban all spammers and (ex-) cheaters so theres more u mad -journals and other good content to make the site have more traffic. I bet all my gtv-money that there wont be such a button when this site is updated to 4.0
e: and we can only give ideas what admins can do with the site - changes need time, though
and see my edit, its more related to the column
get a life wtf
And you should think when saying leagues should ""appoint more admins", because it seems the lack of volunteers makes this impossible.
But then again, I do not have the experience to back this up and you do, so I'll go along with your opnion about not being able to gather enough people willing to write about CB/ESL.
- integrated IRC client(should not be too difficult with java)
- reworked forum with bumping ability
- one section where all the important info and data would be integrated, for example things such as the ones that are now getting stickied(vent info, movie database, list of ET leagues etc)
- "DOWNLOAD ET HERE" and you have all the necessary stuff to play immediately
DOWNLOAD ET HERE would be awesome especially if it was at the top of the crossfire page in bold writing
however crossfire is supposed to be a gaming community not just ET...
ive often thought about doing this myself some time but may take a fair bit of effort but it could work... *thinks*
and I never said that there shouldn't be more top teams in my mind, so I don't know why u come up with that :)
All I whined about is those nuubs making news post if some top team changes their roster slightly :)
1.
2.
Not saying anything about your thoughts, just trying to show another explanation for what he said.
Agreed with the we need more mature cf admins.
make baggiez head-admin and give sol a salary so he gets active.
this could be achieved by acquiring admins who you know, take action.
wait.
It's awesome. +1
SO YOU DONT NEED ANY SHIT XFIRE MSN ICQ SHIT!!
Result: 403 Errors, 588 warning(s)
I don't think any webdesigner in their right mind would voluntarily want to work on this pile of shit. (no offense to the original designer though.)
You'r voiced 10 minutes after typing !merc
Other are regulars.
Agree with all the statements you made, very good :)