The Bridge

11:00 PM

@GnomeSlicE pretty sweet, really dig the vocals

@MarkTrapp From our existing users? I'd agree. Which is part of the reason that a plug during beta makes sense. It gives us the opportunity to generate the content before launch since our more enthusiastic users won't be doing so.

@pixel It's all about scope.

the word 'guide' can cause confusion or be misleading.

pixel

how is "How do I kill boss X in instance Y" different based on the game its from?

LessPop_MoreFizz

because people often confuse it with more encyclopedic type things.

pixel

well I can't be bothered fighting against 'confusion'

LessPop_MoreFizz

@pixel it isn't different in any way, and is just about always appropriate.,

pixel

11:02 PM

make up the rules and I'll stick to them

James

What the

Our Lazers are broken!?!?

LessPop_MoreFizz

@pixel I'm sorry that a lot of people are stupid.

GnomeSlicE

@Krazer Yeah, he always works with fantastic vocalists.

James

maddly mouses over and sees no reactions Noooo

user2334

@LessPop_MoreFizz What I'm saying is that with Skyrim/Diablo III/That indie puzzle game I can't remember, we hit the Google index within hours of the game's launch: so people googling for answers came to us first. Casual people coming to the site off of an advertisement aren't going to hit that sweet spot; they're going to come a few hours/days after launch once they hear the advertisement (or, a few hours/days before launch and get their questions closed for being pre-release speculation)

pixel

11:03 PM

@MarkTrapp SE's SEO is immense, it wouldn't need an advertisement if you had enough questions up

GnomeSlicE

@QAzer soundcloud.com/djvanish/my-real-face-vanish-remix

LessPop_MoreFizz

> get their questions closed for being pre-release speculation

this is the problem, not anything else.

user2334

@pixel Right, exactly: which is how our whale games worked. We were in Google for common search terms way before any other gaming site. Advertising isn't going to produce that: only enthusiastic users are.

pixel

well here is another thing that annoys me about this place -> you're saying its not speculation, others are saying it is

LessPop_MoreFizz

The beta is at this point pretty widely availiable. Especially given that everyone with an Annual Pass has a beta key.

pixel

11:04 PM

if we start putting questions up now, people playing beta will end up here by trying to find the answers

LessPop_MoreFizz

Roughly 10% of the wow playing population has an annual pass, so more than 10% of all WoW players have Beta access. That's substantial.

Krazer

@GnomeSlicE it was so good I forgot what I was doing

pixel

that leads to those people using arqade to ask their questions

GnomeSlicE

Heh.

pixel

which leads to more people coming here because we have the answers

LessPop_MoreFizz

11:05 PM

We allowed D3 beta questions, and D3 was a much smaller beta with many fewer participants.

We've also had Torchlight 2 beta questions.

pixel

but I'm not getting into an argument or wasting the energy on something that is going to be widely misunderstood as speculation or rep farming

GnomeSlicE

@QAzer Are you familiar with Joman?

user2334

I feel like I'm not making my point clear: the reason Diablo III, Skyrim, et al did well was because we were answering 0-day questions as the surge of launch-day people were Googling for answers. Pre-seeding the site with no answers or out of date answers spoils that: every gaming site is doing that. On the other end, trying to play catch up doesn't work either. I'm not sure why we'd want to deviate from a formula that's worked several times in the past for us

Krazer

@GnomeSlicE Nope, but he sounds awesome.

GnomeSlicE

Joman did the sickest Monkey Island Remix.

FAE

11:09 PM

@LessPop_MoreFizz Never felt entirely comfortable with those, m'self.

user2334

"How do you think the Shah of Fear is going to work?" a week before launch is less useful than "How do I complete X quest?" 3 hours after launch when a couple million people are doing that same quest

GnomeSlicE

@QAzer He's mostly an Electro and Dance producer, but he still has a lot of variety.

pixel

@MarkTrapp please just say "don't waste your time", simple and blunt works well for me at this time of day

LessPop_MoreFizz

@MarkTrapp Except that when you have a beta that more than 10% of the playerbase is already playing, those questions about 'how to complete x quest' are being asked right now.

GnomeSlicE

And a bunch of great free downloads.

LessPop_MoreFizz

11:10 PM

And we aren't getting them.

Krazer

@GnomeSlicE drools

GnomeSlicE

@Krazer What, the Inception one?

Krazer

@GnomeSlicE eargasm.

GnomeSlicE

Oh, and he did a remix of one of the Daft Punk tracks from the recent TRON movie.

soundcloud.com/djjoman/daft-punk-the-grid-joman-remix

user2334

@LessPop_MoreFizz There's no sense of urgency in the beta: progression is wiped at the end. Even looking at Torchlight II and Diablo III, we don't get a lot of beta questions. The rubber meets the road when the game is actually released and everyone starts to play for real. Advertising is not going to magically increase enthusiasm for the game during beta

user2334

11:14 PM

Diablo III is, I think, a perfect example of what I'm talking about: widely available beta that still wasn't reflective of the full game, we didn't get a lot of beta questions, but because we had people seeding literally minutes after the game launched, it exploded. Without advertising.

Krazer

@GnomeSlicE now i must listen to everything

LessPop_MoreFizz

@MarkTrapp Key difference: D3 beta gave access to ~10-20% of content. MoP beta gives access to 100% of content.

GnomeSlicE

@Krazer I highly recommend it, start at the beginning of his soundcloud and just listen to all of his stuff.

pixel

@LessPop_MoreFizz 5% or less

LessPop_MoreFizz

Anyway, I'm not arguing that the right time to do a large scale push isn't at launch.

user2334

11:15 PM

Right: I'm under the impression this is simply about whether to advertise during beta

Krazer

@GnomeSlicE getting lost in it now

GnomeSlicE

WTF my message reply is to 'Krazer', but your username shows as 'QAzer'...

LessPop_MoreFizz

I'm just arguing that our current blackout is totally nonsensical considering the level of public access and the level of completion, relative to our policies with past betas, and that furthermore, we put ourselves into a better position to promote ourselves at launch if we take smaller and less huge steps to encourage the generation of content before release as well.

i.e. We will do better on launch day if we start encouraging people to create content now. Some of the highest traffic D3 questions we have were asked during the beta, even if the answers were updated after launch.

GnomeSlicE

Rah, the Monkey Island remix is actually fucking amazing.

I'm totally gonna go buy a bunch more of his stuff.

user2334

@LessPop_MoreFizz I don't have a problem with asking pre-release questions: we ostensibly allow them for MoP (although we currently only have one question). I have a problem with advertising the site as the place to get pre-release answers to the game, when pre-release questions are something we at best tolerate. Best foot forward and all that. I think it sets us up for another LoL Contest 1.

Lazers

11:19 PM

0

Q: Which dragon for which race?

So the update has added in a race track where you can pay 50,000 (so far) to enter your dragon and then race it. Unlike most things in Dragonvale this is an interactive race and dragon selection has a large impact upon the outcome as the dragons naturally move faster in the environments they are ...

dragonvale

user2334

And I think it's wholly unnecessary: none of our biggest games had pre-release advertising.

James

@RonanForman Would you be interested in maybe helping me put together an intro video for my TFCraft videos.. or for my youtube channel period? :)

LessPop_MoreFizz

@MarkTrapp All of our biggest games also benefitted both from a game-grant and from a large number of the sites top users being very enthusiastic about the new releases in question. While the former could yet happen, I get the impression that the latter just isn't the case to the degree it was with the other three.

GnomeSlicE

Wah, I just discovered bit funk!!

James

@LessPop_MoreFizz Talking about the WoW Expansion?

BrQAnt

11:26 PM

WoW expansion betas have usually been in a final-enough state (exception: raids), and are playable by a large enough pool of players, that the reasons we usually frown on asking about beta content don't really apply.

LessPop_MoreFizz

@James yes.

@BrQAnt This this this this this this this

@BrQAnt Once they unlock level cap, things are pretty close to final in terms of content. Class mechanics keep changing very much up until the last minute, but the content locks in relatively early.

user2334

@BrQAnt Sure, again, I don't mean to say pre-release questions are verboten, because they aren't. But the pre-release content has no effect on real-world playing. So let's say we open the floodgates a week before launch. What types of questions are we going to get? We're not going to get questions about things that are problems right then and there: it's going to get wiped in a week anyway. We're going to get questions like the one we've already got: "What's X going to be like after launch?"

user2334

Which is exactly the types of questions we got in the run up to Cataclysm (I even asked one or two myself)

RedRiderX

This is great, I was considering the new Humble Music bundle to help fix my current dearth of fresh music, but now I have so much to listen to, I won't be finished for some time.

user2334

Those questions, while not terrible or categorically off-topic, are pretty mediocre and aren't going to help us seed the site for 0day Googlers. So why are we trying to encourage them?

BrQAnt

11:31 PM

Hmm.

James

The only good MoP question is 'After the let down of D3 why are they forcing this upon us?'

But since the answer is Money Money Money... There is no point in asking :)

user2334

Side note: I fully expect a billion rep off of this question

James

@MarkTrapp Isnt that basically a 'How long does it take people to complete' question?

BrQAnt

@MarkTrapp I don't entirely agree that pre-release content has no effect on real-world playing. Most of the content is in a very-near-final state by beta, and there are a lot of potential questions to answer.

LessPop_MoreFizz

In other news, British people are hashtagging tweets about Romney as #AmericanBorat. This is amazing.

pixel

11:35 PM

@MarkTrapp looks like a speculation question to me

BrQAnt

And the current wow-mists-of-pandaria question shouldn't have that tag, and is probably a dupe of another "what's the fastest way to level" question anyway

pixel

WoW shouldn't have expansion tags anyway

user2334

@pixel Go ahead and vote to close it. Make my day.

pixel

the whole game changes with each expansion

BrQAnt

right

pixel

11:36 PM

@MarkTrapp I feel like you're setting me up for a trap...

pun wasn't intended

James

@pixel It is in his ... name :)

pixel

On a more serious note, surely boss tactic guides for WoW would always be speculation

James

You should have said 'Tarp' would have had multiple levels of LOLing associated with it :)

pixel

every guild does it differently

James

@pixel If they accomplish it with their tactics though then its not speculation, just multiple ways to get it done

pixel

11:38 PM

So, single question, multiple answers, all potentially correct - system doesn't really cater for that

user2334

@BrQAnt I'll concede the point that you made, which is that non-raiding content is mostly finalized. My contention is about the timing of the advertisement, which @LessPop_MoreFizz was suggesting would be a week before launch. Nobody's doing anything important, much less asking about problems they're actually facing, during that period. If we're talking about seeding the site normally during beta now, I'm cool with that, but we're not doing too well with that.

pixel

forget about advertising, the only way you'll get WoW players to come here instead of WoWHead/etc is if the questions are here and already answered

user2334

@BrQAnt I don't think a MoP contest starting now, a month before launch, to coincide with an early advertising campaign is the most effective way to capitalize on MoP, though.

pixel

most WoW players won't even hit google before they've been to wowhead

James

@pixel Isn't that what the voting is for? The question the answer that worked out the best regardless of the one that was selected as the answer gets voted up and is easier to find while not removing data that could in fact be useful?

pixel

11:40 PM

@James multiple potentially correct answers

I've killed every boss in DS 10 different ways

which one of those deserves the tick?

James

@pixel Which ever one YOU decide was the most successful/rewarding/capable/possible/worthwhile one.

pixel

They were all successful - they all resulted in a kill

LessPop_MoreFizz

@pixel There is absolutely nothing wrong with a question that has multiple correct answers.

James

@pixel Hence all those other things I listed Pixel

BrQAnt

A question that has multiple potentially-correct answers is fine, as long as that number isn't "infinity". However, the lower that number is, the better.

user2334

11:41 PM

Unless all those answers are variations on the lyrics to Justin Bieber's "Baby, Baby"

pixel

sucessful - covered, rewards - loot, capable - speculation, possible - speculation, worthwhile - all resulted in a kill

James

I think you are missing the point of a community driven QA site @pixel.

pixel

yeah, I'm not sure which part of Q&A resulted in speculative guides

James

Why have a voting system at all if things are black and white?

user2334

Placebo effect.

James

11:43 PM

I do not think that word means what you think that word means

Speculative means you do not give it a try and are guessing at the outcome. You are speculating.

pixel

@James yep, exactly what I meant

James

If you have 10 solutions well then guess what, you have 10 valid answers, pick the one that you think works the best

pixel

tactics for a top 100 guild are not relevant to anybody outside of the top 100

James

Definitive results do not mean Single set of results.

GnomeSlicE

Six Great Source Filmmaker Parodies

James

11:45 PM

@MarkTrapp I was wondering this morning if that worked in reverse :D Can a placebo show a 50% reduction in effectiveness.

pixel

@GnomeSlicE I saw the pulp fiction one, was very well done

James

@pixel Yeah cause no one would want to know them to try and improve their game and maybe get into the top100, they are happy at being 101

^^ Sarcasm Alert :)

pixel

I can't even type my response without coming across as a complete bitch, so I won't

@GnomeSlicE LOL, the heavy playing dr evil

GnomeSlicE

@Pixel I can't watch any of them on my shitty internet. =[

pixel

pulp fiction + austin powers ones are worth watching for sure

Lazers

11:49 PM

0

Q: Do ED-E's weapons work in casinos?

I'm about to go meet Benny in his suite at the Tops and, frankly, I don't trust him to come alone and unarmed to our little meeting. I won't be arriving empty-handed myself - I've got a quiet .22 and a whole armload of grenades, but rule 1 of a gunfight is bring all your friends who have guns. ...

fallout-new-vegas

GnomeSlicE

Is... is @JeffAtwood defending my point of view!? apple.stackexchange.com/questions/57349/…

Ah, nope.

@gent undocumented or under documented. I just want there to be some rational, objective criteria for answers here other than "I like to type this on the web page." — Jeff Atwood 4 hours ago

trololololololol

pixel

Didn't think so...

James

@pixel Austin was the best

pixel

yeah definitely

just because of how funny is is having the heavy as dr evil

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