Growing A community -The Future of Mobafire

[quote=hypershatter]Anyone who saw my Google Chrome Bookmark Bar would know that I am an avid LoL player -I have Mobafire, Leaguecraft, Runeterra, Solomid, LoL main site, and last but not least, my loL blog, all lined up in a neatly fashion for me to click the second I open my browser. Not only do I follow Mobafire, I keep up with many other communities to drop in on the latest news and gossip. While I was doing my daily strolling on Leaguecraft forums a couple of weeks ago, this interesting topic caught my eye: [b]"What is better Leaguecraft or Mobafire?" http://forum.leaguecraft.com/index.php?/topic/25846-what-is-better-leaguecraft-or-mobafire/[/b] Aside from the demonstration of grade-school grammar and heavy bias towards Leaguecraft (how surprising), this thread does provoke several mind-boggling problems. The consensus of the thread seems to be that while Mobafire is very useful for quick, entry-level guides for players that are looking for short-term insights, it lack several other things. Compared to Leaguecraft, Mobafire lacks an established community; limited variety of content (only champion builds); and generally lack of "polished, insightful guides" that Leaguecraft pride itself with. Although I do not agree 100% with what is stated above, they are correct to some extent: [b]1. Mobafire lacks an established community[/b] This is true. If you look at the forums, we see the same people on every thread. Most of the forum activities are claimed by "greenies" and other veterans (e.g. Xiaoli - a troll*). New players do come, but we lack the retention power to make them stay and be a part of the community. When we compare this to Runeterra and Solomid, lesser known communities, Mobafire still falls behind in-terms of poster diversity. [b]2. Mobafire lacks variety in contents[/b] This is true. Our flagship product is the highest quality Build Creator out there -but that's all we have. In this aspect, Leaguecraft trumps Mobafire by having content such as "general gaming guides" and their unique flagship section -custom skins. [b]3. Mobafire lacks polished guides[/b] I don't agree with this. Personally I saw many awesome guides on Mobafire that are way better than their counterparts on Leaguecraft (and of course my Anivia guide is untouchable at the moment - no joke bros). However, the problem lies in majority of the guides that used to be on Mobafire were indeed garbage quality. But this problem is quickly being solved by the new word count and quality floor. We just have to get this new Mobafire image out there. ----- My point in making this thread is not saying that Leaguecraft is better than Mobafire or vice versa -apples and oranges (doesn't matter)! However, we do have to recognize the importance in how to improve Mobafire in the future. One of the most important point being our community is not growing at a very fast pace. Matt or FlashJ, you can draw me hundreds of Excel Graphs showing the number of people registering in our community is growing at an exponential rate, but in the end, the way I see it, the forum activity was at around the same level as I first joined Mobafire. Why is this? Again, because players come to Mobafire for the quick build solution -they don't stick around for the community because in most cases they didn't find anything interesting other than the neatly arranged, colorful hot-bars of builds that tell them exactly how to play a new character. What is my suggestion? We should make the forum more interactive. Forum events, Mobafire in-game communities, increase in content variety, publicity generation, etc... The veterans have to step up. The first being problem identification, which is what I am doing in this thread. Next, brainstorm solutions and implement useful alternatives. It takes everyone to raise a community. Thanks for the TL:but I read anyways cause I care about Mobafire. Sincerely, Hypershatter (Steve) *I joke bro, you're not a troll :3[/quote]

[quote=Trojan995]Good stuff. I agree, and as I was reading this I was trying to brainstorm ways to make forum activity higher, but you pretty much hit the nail on the head. I want some forums activities! I hardly ever get games in with mobafire regulars (though I recently got in a few games with PokiMoki and Adonikam), and I remember having an ARAM almost be arranged, but it wasn't official and no one ever organized it. Also, the "mobafire premades" thread has degenerated to little more than "here's my game stats" and trolling of a few select people. Not that this is a bad thing, it's just the few initiatives to create a decent community event failed. I think something that would help significantly is the PM/chat system being implemented. I know the admins have been hard at work on this, but I think this would create a better system of interconnectivity among the people who frequent the forums, and another way for people to latch on easier.[/quote]

[quote=BryceTheTerrible]Well said man, I've only joined the forums a month ago and I've noticed that almost every thread I go to has most of the same people commenting in them. It would be nice to see more people join and stay. I think you made some valid points and I hope that the moderators take this into consideration![/quote]

[quote=B-Wong]I looked over at that thread and I have to say, I really dislike the bias. Anyways, onto the community aspect of Moba. While yes, most of the posters are the same people it's hard to popularize Moba when there's established communities (solely because they were created first). I can't come up with too many solutions to this, at the moment.[/quote]

[quote=Jebus McAzn]There's a bit of bias going on and what seems like snap judgments based off of seeing only one or two builds. Some posts mention "lacking" guides, but clearly they've never seen guides like Restrictnine's Udyr guide or TheUn4givenRage's Mordekaiser guide. Ah well, user MagnaKay makes a great point - "I always find silly "let's compare and determine what's best" for very similar and generally permutable stuff. Both exist, it's all for the best!"[/quote]

[quote=caucheka]so obviously mobafire is the better webside. no im kidding. but yeah most of the people that would be here all the time 4 months ago are now all greenies (with the exception of dewo because hes.. blue) i'm not saying its a bad thing but we don't have many people over here. people just show up for the guides and thats it. nearly once every 1-2 months we have a discussion about setting up some kinda tournament or something to get a bunch of mobafire people together and playing but its usually conflicted by the EU/US thing. that and the admins are very busy with the real world along with keeping this site up and running, so if anything were to happen it would probably be up to us greenies.[/quote]

[quote=BryceTheTerrible]Honestly, I think a tournament on here would be awesome, but I feel from what I've seen of some games with the Vets of this site, it's gonna be unfair for those that don't do pre-made 5's on LoL from the forums.[/quote]

[quote=Scrax][quote] Mobafires guides are crap imo. It's basically buy that>that>that>that without an actual explanation. Now you say, well if im in a queue already... Most LC guides have the overview part of a guide AND it has a explanatory part of guide where it goes in detail. [/quote] I'm offended. And who are these brats to rate anything? You either use LC or you use MOBAFire. Who cares what other people think about what you use/don't use? Kids nowadays.[/quote]

[quote=Diesel]Remember Scrax: I'm part of a bigger community, so I can talk down about smaller websites. Taking two pages of that thread makes me not want to tread ground on LC, thank God I found this site first.[/quote]

[quote=Scrax]Exactly what I thought Diesel. I'd rather have a smaller user database with nice guys, then 20,000 assholes flaming each other in threads, with a 1,000 users thats actually nice*. *This is not me hating on LC, just what I think in general.[/quote]