Discussion New Horizons Promotion

[Pieter Boelen]

Now that Build 14 Beta 4.0 has been publicly released, it is time to think about getting people to be aware of this.
For the past few months I have done virtually no promotion of any kind and neither did anyone else.
I think it is time to change that!

Normally I post a release article like the ones at Articles - Pirates of the Caribbean: New Horizons mod for Pirates of the Caribbean as soon as I make another public release.
You may have noticed that I didn't do that so far this time.
The main reason is that Beta 4 is basically the biggest update in a long, long time and there is a LOT to be said about it.
In other words: I could quite easily write a complete novel about it, which is probably not very wise....

Making a short but clear text however is far more difficult (as counterintuitive as that might sound), so I'll aim to get that done over the next few days.
After that, maybe I can write separate articles providing more details on the various features.
That way we'll have a more prolonged posting period and hopefully be able to build more interest than with a single article.

Anyway, the reason I am posting about this on the forum is to discuss together what else can be done too.
We have, for example, a Facebook Page that basically goes mostly ignored by ourselves. Same goes for the YouTube account.
This is quite a shame, because when we DO post stuff on there, it definitely has an effect.

Now for the questions to everyone here:
- Who has a Facebook account and would be interested in being involved with promotion?
- Is there anyone who wants to write any of the "separate articles" that I proposed above?
- Is there anyone who has any thoughts on keeping our YouTube channel more active than it currently is? Or anyone we can convince to make a Beta 4 "Let's Play" series?
- @Thagarr, would you be willing to support us in this? Especially for the Twitter side, but also any other areas where you think you could help?
- Would it be possible and worth it to have some words said about our recent progress on this on @Phil Johnson's podcast show?
- @Flannery, I think you are quite experienced on the whole "promotion thing", so are there any words of wisdom you might impart?
- @Hylie Pistof: Any chance that you could post some screenshots/videos once in a while again?
- @Grey Roger: Do you think you could arrange for some nice screenshots of your work on the Hornblower storyline, your various ships and also the Ardent one?
- @Jack Rackham: Any promotional stuff that you would be able to share? I think I still have your Gold-Bug stuff that I can make use of....
- @Talisman: Of course your work on the Wiki is invaluable in this. Do you reckon you can make use of the various articles to be posted to update the Wiki documentation as well?
- To everyone else: If you are planning on playing the Jack Sparrow, Assassin or @Bartolomeu o Portugues storylines, do you reckon you could make some nice screenshots of the most interesting quest events/ships/characters?

While my main focus here is on Pirates of the Caribbean, of course any promotion done serves to make PiratesAhoy! itself more visible.
In other words: It helps for Hearts of Oak visibility as well. And I most certainly intend to make mention of Hearts of Oak in all the appropriate spots.
@Armada might like that....

So these are some random thoughts of mine. I'd very much appreciated other people here posting thoughts as well.
I know that together we can create the excitement our work deserves and to have a lot of fun doing it.
Who's game to join?

 

[Flannery]

Thanks for the confidence @Pieter Boelen

My suggestion is to make a article where you break each new feature (or reworked feature) into its own separate undertitle. Then you write a very short summary on the basics of it. Not how it is done or any tedious details a 12 year old would not be interested in, just how it adds to, enhances or enriches gameplay. I would use screenshots on each section even if it does not exactly depict something about that particular part of the new stuff.

Then also write the LONG detailed part on that on specific and make that a separate thread on the forums or so, and link it to the end of the summary.

If you do this on every part - the skimming readers or the ones who don't have time to read it all right there and then - get the basics, and the more interested ones will also click on the link to read further on that specific elaborated info.

Then I would do a Google and YouTube search and post a link to that article on each of the discussions or videos you find on other sites who refer to the build mod or New Horizons. I would even go as far as doing it for COAS and SDTEHO sites as well - but you might feel that is too much...

I will gladly spread the article on my personal FB page of course

 

[imado552]

Is there anyone who has any thoughts on keeping our YouTube channel more active than it currently is? Or anyone we can convince to make a Beta 4 "Let's Play" series?

i can try asking my fav youtubers (reformist.....ect)to check the mod and maybe do some gameplays i can always try and i can record a lot of vid if u want to showcase the ships sea battles land battles ...ect i'm always happy to help here tell me if u would like too

 

[Pieter Boelen]

My suggestion is to make a article where you break each new feature (or reworked feature) into its own separate undertitle. Then you write a very short summary on the basics of it. Not how it is done or any tedious details a 12 year old would not be interested in, just how it adds to, enhances or enriches gameplay. I would use screenshots on each section even if it does not exactly depict something about that particular part of the new stuff.

That is what I normally do. Though in this case, I fear that even that will be quite long.
Anyway, I'll just have to start typing and see where it leads. It'll be a challenge, that's for sure!
But then... I'm not normally one to shy away from a challenge.

Then also write the LONG detailed part on that on specific and make that a separate thread on the forums or so, and link it to the end of the summary.

If you do this on every part - the skimming readers or the ones who don't have time to read it all right there and then - get the basics, and the more interested ones will also click on the link to read further on that specific elaborated info.

I was thinking of indeed writing the "more expansive sub-articles" first, but then I won't have the main release article to post for quite a while.
So that is why my last thought was to do it the other way around: Write a very short announcement article and have the other ones follow later.

If you do this on every part - the skimming readers or the ones who don't have time to read it all right there and then - get the basics, and the more interested ones will also click on the link to read further on that specific elaborated info.

Definitely agreed with that one! I am thinking of having those "additional details" on the Wiki; that is probably the best spot for it.

I will gladly spread the article on my personal FB page of course

Would you have any interest in being added to the PiratesAhoy! Facebook page as a member?
That way, you could post promotional stuff AS PiratesAhoy! whenever you feel you have something to post.

I used to do that before, but have virtually not touched FB myself for the past 1.5 year or so.
And with nobody else really taking responsibility for posting news on FB, our page there ended up being quite neglected....

i can try asking my fav youtubers (reformist.....ect)to check the mod and maybe do some gameplays

That would definitely be appreciated!

i can record a lot of vid if u want to showcase the ships sea battles land battles ...ect i'm always happy to help here tell me if u would like too

Videos showing all sorts of stuff should definitely be useful sooner or later.
I'm not sure how to best put them to use as I can think of three options:
1. Posting them directly as "raw gameplay footage"
2. Waiting until we've got a whole bunch and then editing them together into another trailer of sorts
3. Having them "Let's Play" style, with vocal commentary to go with the video

#1 is the easiest, but may not be very effective. #2 is a very cool option, but it does require somebody to edit the various videos together.
That can even be done with Windows Movie Maker, which I did for the Hearts of Oak 2014 trailer.
Basically that takes time and some sort of vision to make the various videos fit together.
And of course #3 hangs on the ability to add that commentary.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I should also mention that I am not at all disappointed with the response from posting the new Beta 4 trailer on YouTube and Facebook.
A complete landslide of interest would be too much to expect, of course, but what we got is pretty good going anyway.
Plus the nice thing of such videos is that especially the YouTube ones KEEP bringing in interest for a long time after they've been posted.
In other words: I strongly recommend @Armada, @Thagarr and @Flannery to consider making a Hearts of Oak 2015 video of sorts!

 

[Flannery]

@Pieter Boelen
Feel free to add me, and I will give it a shot now and then when I can. But I cannot promise a whole lot as I am very occupied with HoO, getting more models ready for ToW and other mischief we are cooking together at Wolf Pack Games

But one article from time to time is better than none, right?

And a HoO trailer is definitely needed, but we still need more to go on when it comes to footage. I have high hopes that JohnSilver's promise of a big update with all content tested so far put tigether into our first real playable demo in a month or two, will be the Golden egg to start making a new trailer

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Feel free to add me, and I will give it a shot now and then when I can.

Thanks a lot! Can you send me a link to your Facebook account in private? Then I'll know which one to add.

But I cannot promise a whole lot as I am very occupied with HoO, getting more models ready for ToW and other mischief we are cooking together at Wolf Pack Games

That is fair enough, of course. Anything is better than nothing at all. It doesn't need to be much.
You could just repost random piratey stuff you run into on the internet, for example.
Or post the Hearts of Oak progress articles there! Those haven't been posted to Facebook in a while.

And a HoO trailer is definitely needed, but we still need more to go on when it comes to footage. I have high hopes that JohnSilver's promise of a big update with all content tested so far put tigether into our first real playable demo in a month or two, will be the Golden egg to start making a new trailer

True, that. Indeed even IF I had wanted to do the same that I did in 2014, it would be quite impossible because there just wasn't enough video material to work from last year.

Though with all the various releases there have been these past many months, I'm sure there IS plenty of stuff that people could record.
Just requires someone or several people to go through those various releases, record the good stuff and that to then be edited together.
Could be done if there were people willing to make that happen.

 

[Flannery]

@Pieter Boelen
Just look up my name:
Christian Tornholm-Lehn

There should only be one with that name in the world

Any member of PA are free to add me if they wish as I mostly use my Facebook profile to promote what I am working on anyway

 

[Pieter Boelen]

@Pieter Boelen
Just look up my name:
Christian Tornholm-Lehn

There should only be one with that name in the world

Any member of PA are free to add me if they wish as I mostly use my Facebook profile to promote what I am working on anyway

There you go! You're now an "Editor" on the PiratesAhoy! Community page.
If you want/need to have Admin rights as well, just let me know; that can easily be arranged too.
I just didn't want to overwhelm you with extra buttons everywhere.

I also took the opportunity to do some cleaning up of the people shown under "Page Roles".
Now there are only @Hylie Pistof and myself as "Admins" and @Flannery + @Red Back Dude as Editors.
The other people listed turned inactive a long, long time ago.

 

[imado552]

Videos showing all sorts of stuff should definitely be useful sooner or later.
I'm not sure how to best put them to use as I can think of three options:
1. Posting them directly as "raw gameplay footage"
2. Waiting until we've got a whole bunch and then editing them together into another trailer of sorts
3. Having them "Let's Play" style, with vocal commentary to go with the video

#1 is the easiest, but may not be very effective. #2 is a very cool option, but it does require somebody to edit the various videos together.
That can even be done with Windows Movie Maker, which I did for the Hearts of Oak 2014 trailer.
Basically that takes time and some sort of vision to make the various videos fit together.
And of course #3 hangs on the ability to add that commentary.

ok then since i have some spare time this week I'll try working using 1-2 options though the music I'll stuck in what to choose so i might work on the vid first until when I'm satisfied with it then create multi vids with dif music to see the one with the best so I'll start working on it from today after i finish creating my Japanese temple in blender I'll go straight to POTC new horizon

 

[Pieter Boelen]

ok then since i have some spare time this week I'll try working using 1-2 options though the music I'll stuck in what to choose so i might work on the vid first until when I'm satisfied with it then create multi vids with dif music to see the one with the best so I'll start working on it from today after i finish creating my Japanese temple in blender I'll go straight to POTC new horizon

Definitely very cool, mate!

 

[ANSEL]

I can make some video, if you want me to do that.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Due to long standing technical issues that mysteriously appeared and then just as mysteriously disappeared I got out of the habit of taking screenies and especially videos. I do have a few screenies and possibly one video of the CastelF in a storm, but that's it.

I haven't been on Facebook this year either. I was arguing politics there and spending entirely too much time there so just stopped.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I can make some video, if you want me to do that.

Cool! Maybe you and @imado552 could work together to create a selection of nice videos!

I haven't been on Facebook this year either. I was arguing politics there and spending entirely too much time there so just stopped.

Ouch, that sounds like a can 'o worms....

 

[imado552]

Cool! Maybe you and @imado552 could work together to create a selection of nice videos!

like that if anyone can give me screenies and vids that would help cuz i just though to make a vid mixed between pics and vids so yeah anything for this two would help me create it much faster and easier!!!

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Look in the screenshots thread for my stuff. I could post that storm video in MOV format if you want, or i could just post it to MODDB, but I really don't want to cover the latest trailer.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Indeed we are covered for videos for the next week or two by the Beta 4 trailer, but after that it is always nice to have something to post again.

 

[Armada]

In other words: It helps for Hearts of Oak visibility as well. And I most certainly intend to make mention of Hearts of Oak in all the appropriate spots.
@Armada might like that....

I don't recall making a specific request to promote HoO on the side, but I won't stop you. Beta 4 should be the centre of attention this time, though, without a doubt.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I don't recall making a specific request to promote HoO on the side, but I won't stop you.

As far as I'm concerned, they both go together.
A lot of the work I do on PotC is meant to help you on HoO as well.

 

[Flannery]

I agree with you both in some sent.

But I think already there are people who have looked on the beta 14.4 and mistook it for a HoO demo, and vice versa

If you read some of the comments on the latest posts you can see that many people are commenting as if it all is the one and the same thing

So it should probably be made even more clear and visible when one or the other is promoted.

But I sincerely think you should let 14.4 shine on its own, and let all of you hard working people who have contributed on it stand in the light of awe and recognition.

You have definitely deserved it