robbalvey Posted July 25, 2011 Author Share Posted July 25, 2011 (edited) If you want some ideas off the top of my head to improve the current track of the week contest, here goes... 1. Start/end the contest on Friday, instead of the middle of the week on Tuesday. Even I forget when the contest ends sometimes. Having something that is "weekly" ending in the middle of the week just confuses people. 2. Announce the winner and the new contest on Friday, and send a mass email about the new contest on Monday. Monday is the highest traffic day on the website. Use this to our advantage. And this gives us two chances to talk about track of the week. Once on Friday for the winner and once on Monday for the new contest. 3. Announce not only the current new track, but also the NEXT track coming up as well. This will give people some ideas two weeks out, especially if they want to start working on something early. Example: This week's track "No Limits Woodie" - Coming up next "RCT 3 Intamin Hyper" 4. Up the ante for the prizes if you need to. Award a full 500 points, a bonus Bag-O-Crap, an actual TPR DVD, and even from time to time a Club TPR Membership. 5. What about multiple winners each week? For example - 1st place - 500 points, 2nd place = 250 points, 100 = 100 points. 6. What about creating a "Track of the Week Winner" signature banner? I'm sure one of you guys can come up with a template and we can add their username and track name in there as well. This helps promote the game. 7. And this might be the most important: MAKE THE TRACK SOMETHING COMMON, SOMETHING THAT EVERYONE LIKES! Stick to basic woodies, B&M hypers, B&M inverts, Intamin launched coasters, Arrow loopers, etc. Stuff that is more "common" and people love. As soon as you start getting obscure, you limit the number of people who are interested. The goal of this contest was not to make things difficult, but to promote more tracks being added to the exchange. So give the people what they want the most! I don't think people will care if you do "This is B&M Month!" and you do a week of No Limits B&M hyper, followed by a week of RCT 3 B&M invert, followed by a week of RCT 2 B&M Floorless, etc, etc.... The most important thing is going to be promoting the game. Use our social networking, the email list, etc, and use them to our advantage! Ok, I'm done for right now. --Robb Edited July 25, 2011 by robbalvey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robbalvey Posted July 25, 2011 Author Share Posted July 25, 2011 OK, I've done this... http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1066781#p1066781 Again, I can't stress enough to at least TRY some of the things I've mentioned above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QueerRudie Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 Agreed- I think rotating the contest away from Tuesday might be a good step- I know how busy I am that day (It's one of my two 'office' days) and I tend to put it aside in my mind. Rotating the prizes might also help- perhaps even keeping it a surprise (This week's winner will get... Find out on Friday! and then drop them a shirt or something.) Also; the idea of having a two week lead-time works for me; perhaps we can rotate more NL stuff into the mix- and stop the incessent bitching that a week isn't enough for them. BTW: CPM liked the attention that the 50 point blowout did- If I counted correctly, we had a surge over the entire week in additional traffic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A.J. Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 Okay, so, I think this leaves us with two options - either we end the contest today or extend it to Friday. I think we should extend it to Friday. Thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robbalvey Posted July 26, 2011 Author Share Posted July 26, 2011 ^ Nah, no need. There were like 3 or 4 entries, they'll all get a free download. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QueerRudie Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 Friday: We need to do a RCT III track; the next TPR challenge (Following the one 'in play' now) is NL (Still trying to build a decent RCT III scenario; working on it)- so NL is a good follow into. Two weeks from now: I think an RCT II track would be a great idea; the TPR challenge (Peabody's leafy lake) will be done with, and we'll be rolling into NL from there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robbalvey Posted July 26, 2011 Author Share Posted July 26, 2011 So let's close this contest today like normal, and announce that the new track will be announced on Friday. We could also announce a few new changes to the Track of the Week contest... - Track of the week contest will now start and end every Friday! - We will be announcing the next TWO weeks games and track types so you can get a head start! - Each week will include a BONUS PRIZE in addition to points being added. (And the bonus prize can be bonus points, a bag-o-crap, an actual DVD, a Club TPR Membership) I'd really think about doing something very common for the next two weeks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A.J. Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 We have a discrepancy. User kellzcoasterz (69.181.159.44) has given three 0.5 ratings, one 1.5 rating and one 2 rating to each of our Track of the Week Entries for this week. Quite frankly, I don't think the entries the ratings were given to deserve anything lower than a 3. Because of this discrepancy, I'm going to go ahead and hand-pick a winner myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robbalvey Posted July 26, 2011 Author Share Posted July 26, 2011 ^ No, this week I made everyone a winner. Just give all of them 500 points. Honestly, it really doesn't matter! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A.J. Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 (edited) Okay, fair enough. Good thing I looked before doing anything. FYI, my criteria for winning was going to be, "most likely to kill someone riding in an unbalanced car". EDIT: All taken care of. Lots of users with 5xx and 6xx points now. Edited July 26, 2011 by A.J. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcjaco Posted July 27, 2011 Share Posted July 27, 2011 Sorry guys. I should be up and running again at home tomorrow (Comcast is sending a new modem), and after this week the madness at work is over, and we hit the slow period for a month or two. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QueerRudie Posted July 27, 2011 Share Posted July 27, 2011 Madness is all in the mind.... I think our coupon system is officially 'failing' in a way as in: We're still running into the generated coupon problem with one of the users; as I update the points for the TPR challenge starting today, I'm hoping to figure out if it's a fluke or if there is a problem with the user's coupon; I'm not sure of which- GRRR. If there IS a problem, and we need to have the developer fix it, there's a number of things I'd like added to the system at the same time- primarily a way to track lifetime and a 'variable' system so as the FASTrack points are used up, we can deduct them out- thus keeping track of both how many they've accrued lifetime, as well as how many they have as a balance. I'm just about finished with the V 1.21 of FASTrack, but due to other priorities, I can't begin to test it till mid August (The WN merger is taking up all of my resources right now!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A.J. Posted July 29, 2011 Share Posted July 29, 2011 If someone could post up the new Track of the Week, it would be fantastic. I'm on the road most of the afternoon today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hhappy Posted July 31, 2011 Share Posted July 31, 2011 what happened to giving people a heads up about the contest for the next 2 weeks to get a head start?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QueerRudie Posted July 31, 2011 Share Posted July 31, 2011 That's coming up in Monday's e-mail blast- along with the voting for the TPR Challenge- It slipped my mind, but shall be resolved! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hhappy Posted July 31, 2011 Share Posted July 31, 2011 ^ok, just checking Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A.J. Posted August 9, 2011 Share Posted August 9, 2011 Something we need to always keep tabs about is that we always have to edit the first post of the thread in two places - the post itself by adding a link to the current contest, and the description of the thread itself. R.D., I'm not finding fault, it's just when I read the description of the thread just now I thought we had extended the Schwarzkopf contest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QueerRudie Posted August 9, 2011 Share Posted August 9, 2011 No, that was my fault- Too much stuff going in my head. Good catch! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QueerRudie Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 Head meet wall, wall meet head. Why is it that there is SO much doubt over something as simple, straightforward and as easy as a JUNIOR WOODIE??? It's not like it's that complicated to do...It's not like it's something HARD... Oy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robbalvey Posted August 15, 2011 Author Share Posted August 15, 2011 I haven't really been able to pay much attention due to all the tours this summer, but has track of the week participation increased at all? If not, perhaps it's time to hang it up? Or at least let people know if another week or two goes by with little to no participation, we'll end it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QueerRudie Posted August 15, 2011 Share Posted August 15, 2011 Welcome Back, Robb- The answer is yes and no. From what I've seen, the RCT II contests are attracting between six and eight people per week- and the RCT IIIs are between two and three; The advance notice for the Junior Woodie competition is already showing some buzz. Moving it to a Friday basis is moving things a long a bit more than before, but more promotion is also helping as well. I'd like to keep it going for now- for one reason: I think as summer ends and people get bored at home we'll see more traffic. As far as NL being used for it, I think that aspect for it is dead- for now. Doing the two week rolling announcements is still getting started, though, so I'm curious to see if that does build traffic up over the short/long term. R.D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robbalvey Posted August 15, 2011 Author Share Posted August 15, 2011 ok, thanks for the feedback. At this point I'm more or less just "checking in." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A.J. Posted August 15, 2011 Share Posted August 15, 2011 Since most of the players in this forum are teenagers who are most likely in high school, they'll probably dedicate less time to playing the games when school starts again. I'm predicting participation will be down all over starting near the end of the month. Are we able to easily get participation numbers through the management system? Like, how many total tracks were submitted for the "track of the week" category? That could make decision-making a bit easier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QueerRudie Posted August 15, 2011 Share Posted August 15, 2011 Actually- This morning alone: two ToTW contest entries- and I've not even done the mass broadcast, either. I'm thinking that (even though we'll get some flack for it) we need to stick to RCT II for a while, as it seems to be more in-line with what people like about the ToTW contest; I've even thought about making a micro-park for people to work with during the contests- more on that later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcjaco Posted August 15, 2011 Share Posted August 15, 2011 My two cents, as I actually have two minutes.... I'd stick with RCT 1/2 or NL as much as possible. I think RCT3 has it's follwoing mre at ShyGuy, or Atari. There's no sense in trying to compete with them, at least not until those sites die off or falter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts