Viewing Thread:
"What are we doing?"

Quite a lot of work has gone into integrating Cheats, Walkthroughs and Games Chat, and we will hopefully soon be adding Reviews into that mix. We feel it will be beneficial to the site to make people aware of chat or walkthroughs available for a specific game, if they are already here looking up a cheat for that game.

Recognising that we cannot be all things to all people, and that the overwhelming majority of people who visit the interactive part of our site are gamers, we have take a conscious decision to focus on games, and to cut out other areas. That's really the only way we can strive to improve the games section of the site.

However, we are not a games seller, we are an isp. Tens of thousands of our customers have their own website hosted with us. This recently led us to open a directory of UK Web Designers, to work in conjunction with our own Customer Sites Directory, and Web Design and Development section of the forums. Developing this area of our interactive sites is just as important to us as the Games section.

So, Gaming and Design is born and we are asking visitors to bear with us while we go through a shake out, or a phase of experimentation, over the next few weeks. Things might change quite a lot yet.

We value all of your feedback and opinions and Jubbachainsaw* will be gathering these up and reporting back to our programmers and design team on the changes which need to be made.

The Gaming and Design Awards will comprise three sections (I expect):
1. Our Gamer of the Week will be the best contributor to the Games sections and will win any game of their choice. As you can tell by the title, it is most likely that only one prize will be issued each week in this category, but there may be some Gaming and Design Challenges from Jubbachainsaw*.
2. The Customer Site of the Week will be promoted across our sites, but will not win a prize. This award is primarily selected from new sites submitted for inclusion in the Freeola Customer Sites section.
3. Our third award is technical or creative award, yet to be named. The rules, or even the type of prize are yet to be finalised. Expect an announcement once the experimental phase of these changes is nearing completion.

I am sorry if it seems a little disruptive to shake out the changes with the site live online. As ever, we have to work within our resources and this is the most efficient way to identify and debate the issues. The interactive sites had over 60,000 visitors last week, so there could be quite a lot of feedback.

*cut himself shaving the other day, nearly took his bloody head off!

No one in my family is as addicted to the internet as me though :D

Yea i think people should be encouraged to invite family members, friends, work people etc etc

well im done for the day (weekend wooo hoo!! ) speak to everyone soon

Emmie87 wrote:
> Yea i think maybe they could do a competiton where each existing
> member has to invite a few friends to the site (give a reference
> when joining) and each member who recruits 3 or more people gets
> entered into a draw, or whoever introduces the most wins
> something.
>
> Just an idea - i got a million lol

I'm glad you've said this, I was thinking something along the sam lines. I'm always trying to convince people to join the site. The more people the more fun it will become (and the more effort I need to put into my GAD efforts!).

Just got the new xmas temp at Game to check freeola out (ok, it was because I said that I have a walkthrough on here that won me a £30 Argos voucher).

If anything did happen, it should be done quarterly. That way, it keeps regulars returning and gives plenty of time to keep people interested in recruiting new users.

Yea i think maybe they could do a competiton where each existing member has to invite a few friends to the site (give a reference when joining) and each member who recruits 3 or more people gets entered into a draw, or whoever introduces the most wins something.

Just an idea - i got a million lol

That's a good one too. I remember them doing a competition to win a PS2 if you signed up for the forum. That was almost a decade ago though.

Before we move on we need to sort out the mods, GP and Alfonse are homeless now. Any chance they can be recruited to some of the other forums?

Also the top poster page is out of date.

i thought the one where the new user who posted the most would win a GAD was a good one - surely that is the biggest insentive for people to particiapte is if they have a serious chance to win.

(as long as they dont spam)

Silent Thunder wrote:
> I like that idea, we had something similar quite a while back
> when we had to write a welcome walkthrough/guide to the forums
> for an EGAD.

Yep, thats the one I remember. Although I didnt win it, it was fun to do and I think it encouraged new posters.

Machie wrote:
> That's it! The new EGAD, write a welcome thread for the new
> design. Jubba picks the best one.

I like that idea, we had something similar quite a while back when we had to write a welcome walkthrough/guide to the forums for an EGAD.

Like ST said - everyone would rather stand a chance of winning a voucher each day and not each week, but like Tony said there is a chance it may get increased and challenges, so it is not all bad, plus the new £45 GAME idea is great. Im looking forward to getting FABLE 2 thanks to that!!

I think once it all sinks in everyone will be happy again and we will be one big Happy Freeola family again lol.

That's it! The new EGAD, write a welcome thread for the new design. Jubba picks the best one.