I'm copying this over from what I had posted on the UK forum, to see if this can apply to people overseas too.

"Over the past couple of weeks, I and a good few others hae been coming up with ideas to try to make the UK UFS forums a more lively place, to spread word of mouth further and make people more aware of UFS' existence and grandeur. I have believed for a while that word of mouth is a great way of creating new players and playerbases, and is also a great way of restoring lost faith, in showing that the community is well worth sticking around for. Our community has fallen far too silent of late, and I think it's about time we changed that. The internet is a great way of spreading the word, as such, and therefore our forums are a great place to direct people who show the slightest bit of interest, or, at least, they should be. Having spoken to a few people about this, we've collectively come up with a few fantastic ideas to put forward, and hopefully more of these will come to fruition than not:

* A regular top 10 list for people to post their own lists onto, such as favourite foundations, characters, attacks or most hated of the above.
* A playtesting blog to see the interactions between 2 characters for people to comment on.
* A learn-to-play video that teaches new players how to play and to have somewhere to direct those people to start the ball rolling.
* A video that displays the sort of games or tournaments that occur to show people in plain sight how they go.
* Character discussions that mirror those of the General Discussion boards, but specific to those who play in the UK with the occasional US input rather than the other way round.
* More frequent tournaments, and therefore more frequent tournament reports
* Registering tournaments under forum name rather than real name, to improve number of people registered on the forums.

These ideas are to name a few, and any other suggestions are more than welcome, anything that makes people want to post on here more often. Besides, it's less a way to talk about UFS as it is a way to talk to eachother in general. "

I was told to post on the forums and write more often, and so I shall if it'll help. Sad as it might sound, I actually find myself owing quite a lot to UFS, so I would like to give back a little bit. I wouldn't have a lot of the friends I have if it weren't for UFS. I wouldn't have met anyone from across the UK, let alone the US (which I still claim was one of the best weekends of my entire life). I wouldn't even be with my other half of well over a year if it weren't for UFS. So forgive me if I come across as kissing UFS' behind at times, but honestly, I think it's well deserved, even if other people don't. I love this game, and I'm not afraid to say it at any given point.

While I'm not sure about the regestering under forum names for tournaments (at least not if thats the only name you put down) but I won't be one to rain on your parade. I like all the ideas. I've been getting more into podcasts and youtube videos for hobbies I like and personally I'd like to see UFS players get more into that realm. I have friends doing a podcast for Warmachine and it makes me want to see UFS get something similar. When you have as close and truly friendly as a community we have here, there's no excuse not to! Now if only I had a webcam....

Thanks for listing solutions to the problems and viable options if you need help let me know.

I probably will be needing help with some of these things from both the UK and the US, so any help would be appreciated. If you've got any other ideas, they'd be really helpful. Also, dark, having read your character articles, I think they're great and that you should carry on doing them. You've got a good insight into the details and know how to start up a discussion (you'll note that your Sophitia one's really picked up recently )

Anyone who wants to can hit me up on MSN using [email protected] or on AIM using ViewtifulJoee if you want to chat about anything. I do use MSN more often out of the two though, just to let you know

Viewtiful_Joe said:

I numbered them because I want to address some in detail.

1) Agreed, if we can have a debate topic alongside those so we can keep the debate OUT of the topic and only have top 10s and their justification. That'd definitely allow for more people to contribute because if they don't want to defend their choices (other than the initial salvo), they can avoid the debate topic entirely. Sometimes, you just don't feel like having to beat over the head that card X is actually useful you person who has frequent sexual relations with women who have successfully given birth.

3) Strangely, Target X and I were discussing this possibility. All we need is a camera and our resident UFS teacher to have some time and accept to be part of what will likely be a mind screw of good proportions while teaching the basics of UFS. If we succeed in finding a camera, expect further news on this in January.

4) This we need. Film exhibition matches, film tournament matches, we do not care. If we have a camera, I think I'll bring it to every single tournament and film some stuff. Hell, we can even add some commentary in post-production from both the participants.

6) We need incentives to travel, or for medium size tournaments to be more frequent. We're already a step in the right direction here. Also, I tend not to do tournament reports because most of the time I've bothered to do some, they were awesomely ignored.

7) For some of us (moi), that's already the case. The sheer amount of tournaments I entered as Hatman is staggering.

Bump for an actually useful thread.

I think we need to start organising online matches. Not only does that allow people unable to travel much a chance to play new people, but it'll help the community as a whole. That and it'll mix the European and American metas together a bit, which will be interesting in itself.

Online matches requires alot of trust hard to enforce and can lead to more issues then you think.

Now a free form discussion on meta is alot more easier because then you have have regional and international meta to disect and construct/deconstruct.

Micah said:

Not really i mean why cheat/lie about whats going on when its just a fun casual match between players over the internet. Id assume that you were there to have a fun game and wouldnt want to do anything where you wouldnt be able to come back for games.

I think that this is a really good idea though but sadly i dont have a webcam or anything to actually play games online but if i ever do come into such things count me in

Da_ghetto_gamer said:

I agree, online games are all friendlies, there are no prizes or tournaments to win, so why cheat?

Anyway, hopefully I'll be testing this in the near future, to see how it works and work around any problems.

I like the ideas, and think that there also needs to be a way to make sure people thinking about getting into UFS know what cards are leagal in standard play. Our store has had like 4 people who were thinking of playing by several rotated packs or starters, because they were cheaper and then we had to tell them that those cards are almost worthless.

I think some improvement could be had in the deckbuilding forum. Often a player will post a deck for others to see, and it will be immediately bashed, torn-apart, or derided by other players even if the player posting was not soliciting criticism.

I figure there are two types of decks people post:

1) "Please suggest ways to improve this deck" - These should never be bashed, because it doesn't encourage players to solicit feedback. Rather, suggestions should be provided in the politest way possible, with detailed descriptions of the strengths of the suggestions and the cards involved. Links to the cards involved, or copies of their text, should be provided. You can't assume that every player who posts their deck knows every card or every acronym.

2) "Here's a deck I made that I like (either because it's successful or because it's fun)" - These should never be bashed, because it doesn't encourage players to share their creations, but rather only builds animosity. If you don't like the deck, that's okay. Please don't bother mentioning it. If there are things about the deck you find clever, or cool, note them. If there are parts you don't understand, ask, but try not to do so in a sarcastic (hurtful) way.

There is some ambiguity about which kind of thread is which, so I suggest we clarify. I think every Deckbuilding thread should either say "Suggestions please" or "I like this" somewhere in the thread title.

Thread posters who really like their deck but ALSO want suggestions should say "Limited suggestions please" in the title, and should specify at the beginning of the post the very specific pieces of the deck that they are willing to change. That way unwanted criticism could be partially avoided.

The deckbuilding forum will only ever be useful if it becomes an open, welcoming, derision-free setting.

Bump

If you think I'm letting this go, you've another thing coming