So you stumbled into CWF and dont know how it works....

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Chroelle
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So you stumbled into CWF and dont know how it works....

Post by Chroelle »

Plans for this site:

1. Who are we.
2. How site functions/What is the concept
3. How we will get members
4. Cooperation with other sites
5. Crew functions and squad functions
6. How are we going to become the biggest and best (or closer to that) freeware site on the internet.
7. What do we offer that others do not (or it is at least not common).
8. How is this funded?
9: Schedule
10. Ideas for version 2


1: Who are we.
CWF is owned by Christian Toft – on this board known as Chroelle. It is run by an admin-group of 2. Chroelle and Maz. We each have our separate areas of responsibility, with Chroelle as the man with the owners-right of saying “No”. Maz have the developers-right of saying “Then screw you”.
CWF was formed as a forum with an interest for freeware games, and after getting the crew in stock we decided that it wouldn’t be enough with aspiration to become “A Freeware site” – if you want to do something, do it all the way. We decided that we wanted CWF to mix with the best of the best, and eventually make it the greatest online freeware-game site.
Read more about crew functions in the chapter regarding that.
The strength of this leadership group is our diversity in areas of expertise.
Maz and Chroelle have worked together before in administration of a website. Other members make out much of the administration in here too, through devotion to the site.
Maz and Zyx has the expertise of coding and coordinating with designers (when applicable). IF you find the features and functions on CWF to be to your liking, these are the men to praise. They work hard and long!
Chroelle is the owner/payer of CWF. His expertises are generally a willingness to learn, work hard, and get things done (and then let Maz correct his mistakes). He has a foot in everywhere, and has a lot to do with contact with developers (when member eMTe is not around). He is also responsible for games uploads and validation along with the game hunters, motly Pater Alf (PA).
If your post has had no replies, then it only a matter of time before Chroelle gets back online…
In addition to the actual administration, there is a volunteer enthusiastic crew, who is willing to help and guide new members of the site. They are divided into groups of moderators, game hunters, designers, coders and at some point also Validators. Read more about these crew-functions in a later chapter.

2: How site functions/What is the concept
In the following you can read how this site runs and will be run. What we have to offer and what our goals are.
The site is about quality freeware games, with a big line under quality. We try to have a large stock of games that are of such high entertainment-value that you won’t regret your download, and will probably be looking for a sequel to it after playing.
The site is meant to be for the members and not just for the crew. A joint effort all around. Members are able to work for the site, and suggest things/features/games/etc. to make their mark on how it will work and how it will look.
The site is a quality freeware games site. This means that we offer games of a validated good quality. The games are either proven freeware or we have special permission from developer to have it hosted on this site. You will not find freeware tools for download on this site, unless they are used for purposes of this site.
We are not a place of abandonware, and only have legal content on the site.
How to suggest games
However we do take pride in trying to make some of the old classics into freeware. If you remember playing a game 15 years ago and dont know where to get it anymore unless you want to break copyright laws and get it at an abandonware site, then this is the place for you. Tell us which game you are looking for, and we will see if we can get permission to host the game on this site. We call that specific project Abandonware to Freeware (Very original - we know).
Abandonware to freeware
The sites proudest project is to help developers make more and better quality games. We want to assist the "indie" (independent) developers in getting more attention to their games. This also means that we will have awards from time to time giving praise to the best indie developers. There will be prizes.
You can sign up as a helper in the subforum Developer Help Project.
Developer Help Project

3: How will we get members
This issue is currently being discussed in a thread on the forum, with the same name.
We will make sure that our site can be found via Google and preferably on the first page. This will be done through optimizing the site (as possible) to google-indexing.
We will advertise where it is possible to do so with no expenses. We will at the same time advertise through Project Wonderful (Read more later)
We will advertise via members sites. This is explained in "Cooperation with other sites".
As so many other sites we hope to get a good "mouth to ear" campaign going. We encourage our members to mention the site (and promote it) on other sites, to get more members in here.
Also the concept of working for an internet site has always attracted some members to staying at a site. CWF optimizes this as you are almost certain to get accepted to work for CWF even without much experience.
We will try to get mentioned in gaming magazines too, as this is something that has formerly been a success for the owner of this site.
You might think that the actual question we should be asking should be: How do we get members to stay.
Well if they do not think the above strategy is something that appeals to them, then there isn't much we can do. But every person that comes to CWF and downloads makes one more possible member, and the higher a member count the more likely people are to stay at a site. As long of course as this traffic does not affect the speed of the site.
Also we try to get contact info for many members by asking in a thread if they are willing to be contacted if they should stray. At the same time we plan to send out newsletters that will inform people of the new things and games that have been added to the site. This will be done to make sure people don't forget us.

4: Cooperation with other sites
The plan for CWF is to cooperate with other sites. This is going to work on three levels.
- Members sites get a link if they link to us. Of course only if we find the site to have some quality ... We are a quality site after all. :)
This will also mean that some links will not be pointing to other freeware sites, but to support sites = Sites that support CWF.
- Linking to other freeware sites in the future. It is mostly to get a cooperation going that might help us get more relevant publicity.
- Developers sites will be linked to in the game downloads pages of their respectable games. Sometimes a developer might even link to us if we offer a downloads place for their game.
The level of cooperation is sometimes very active, where we e.g. use Moshboys homepage Planet Freeplay to get to quality games, and sometimes very passive, where we e.g. link to DL's roleplayinggame site and he might link back to us.
We also work together with Project Wonderful advertising: We work together with Ryan North, the developer of Project Wonderful (www.projectwonderful.com) to get better and more CWF-friendly advertising going.

5: Crew functions and squad functions
CWF features different types of crew personnel. As such it is divided into layers with group managers and squads.
- We have a coding division with Maz in the lead.
- We have a design division with no one in the lead.
- We have a gamehunting squad with Pater Alf and eMTe in the lead, but Chroelle cant keep away. The game hunters are allowed into the Game Hunters forum.
- We have a moderation squad that moderates the forum. They are individually responsible for a forum. Mods are there to help members, and help make their individual forum more active and user-friendly.
- We will have a validation squad that will take care of review-submissions. The plan is to get many languages supported, as long as CWF is translated into the respective languages. There is no need for Phillipino reviews if the site is not translated into Phillipino. Scythe will be leading this particular squad.
The idea of CWF is that every single member that is interested in becoming crew, can become crew with no specific required skills, like mastering of PHP and design. They need only be able to write a review or play a game, and submit it to CWF. This will fight against the styles that have swept across other forums, where the gap between regular members and crew members are enormous. Usually resulting in members leaving because they think the crew is unreachable.

6: How are we going to become the biggest and best (or closer to that) freeware site on the internet.
We will offer things that other sites do not.
We will have a caring community.
We will have exclusive games.
We will have quality reviews of games.
We will have interviews with developers.
We will have a nice design, a user-friendly interface, and most importantly a great stock of games that are all worth a play. This means that members will not need to go search through several freeware sites to get quality freeware, and even search through individual freeware sites to figure out which games are good. Every game on CWF should be good.
Hopefully all members will contribute to CWF by submitting quality games for validation to CWF.

6: What do we offer that others do not (or it is at least not common).
- We offer quality games as our first priority. These games are sought out by members of the site, and added after being checked by Game hunters/Game Validators. The plan is that they will be on site until their memberscore gets below a certain score. Meaning that an average of scores it got was below the acceptance scores.
The game hunter score that is displayed on site is not to be taken without knowing that games will not get accepted unless they get a score of 4/6 in the validation. This is then calculated into a score between 0-6. Meaning that if a game scored a 4 it will show a 0 on the game download screen.
This is because we only got QUALITY freeware games on this site. And if we only had the scores between 4-6 to show then their would be hardly any reason for displaying them at all.
- We will offer games that are exclusive to our site (except for the developer’s site) as we intend to seek out games that are available for download from developer’s site only, and ask permission to host them. In some cases this will mean mirroring the download, and in other cases it will mean advertising for other projects by the developer. But it will be a great way to say that we have quality as a site!
- We offer well written reviews, which will get validated before acceptance.
The reviews will have to have a high level of quality to get accepted, as we only accept a couple of reviews a game, because no one benefits from a game having 20 reviews in English, while others have none.
We will try to have reviews-submission available in all languages that the site will support.
- We will offer member-produced interviews with developers, if they are willing. Most developers are. The questions will be suggested by members, while crew will make sure that the interview is done, and get in contact with the developer.
- We will offer a caring community, where mods are there to help and the forum is wide enough to accept a lot of different topics, not only game related. This will hopefully lead to more members spending more time in here.

8: How is this funded.
This site will be funded through ads, and to some extent out of the personal budget of the owner.
We have vented the idea of premium memberships, but this is so far not the plan to implement. The main reason being that we would like to offer all features to all members. And if ads can fund the page totally then this will not be implemented! However we do feel that the expenses of CWF should be covered, and also know that donations won't be used much by any members, and ads are hardly ever clicked by members either. This of course makes it harder for a forum to make money...

9: Schedule
We do under the current circumstances find it difficult to make a schedule that will be near accurate. We are still finding crew to fill in positions and lots of features still needs revising. This means that we would love to give you a promise of the version 2.0 of CWF being done in 2009, but since so many things can change hastily, it would be wrong of us to say so. But then again CWF will always be a work in development and as such it will be wrong to give a deadline…. (Also known as a bad excuse)
Follow the bugfixes here


10: Ideas for version 2
Ideas have been flowing regarding what should be in version 2 of CWF. Currently we are working on version 2.0.

Points that have been discussed: (Numbers missing is implemented features.)
1: New design with new interface (More focus on freeware on main site)
3: More games
4: Interviews with developers
5: Reviews of games
7: Perhaps a Premium Membership system (Still not sure on the matter)
8: Ads and banners
10: Uploads system, so members can contribute to the site more easily.
11: New validation system for Game hunters.
12: MORE GAMES.
15: bunch of bug fixes & improvements to features. (like Game adding tool bug (game developers), more genres, more search options, displaying all games by developer on game info, ...)

Have fun surfing the site. We hope you will stay.

Feel free to comment.
Last edited by Chroelle on Sun Dec 07, 2008 14:21, edited 5 times in total.
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Maz
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Post by Maz »

Ideas for version x, where x is smaller than 3 I hope :)
-Review validation/writing
-voting for games
-public game uploading & GH validating interfaces. (unsure)
-bunch of bug fixes & improvements to features. (like Game adding tool bug (game developers), more genres, more search options, displaying all games by developer on game info, ...)


.. Actually, I could paste the to do coding thread in here :D
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Chroelle
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Post by Chroelle »

Decided to make this a global announcement. That way it is easy for new members to see what they fell upon...
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Scythe
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Post by Scythe »

How about updating this announcement?

Yeah, I'm an evil bastard, I know. :twisted:
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Post by Chroelle »

I have a feeling that not all can see this? I think if I ask PA to tell me if he can read this I should be sure. :D
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Chroelle
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Post by Chroelle »

So I need to know if everyone can see this. Please confirm.

The guide is outdated and I wont update it just yet -at least not before I have time to do it in one go or so. Otherwise it gets too confusing to do.
Currently testing Life version 2.9 (With added second child)
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Pater Alf
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Post by Pater Alf »

I confirm I can see this thread... ;)
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Post by Chroelle »

Great. Anyone newer than PA? Jetstar?
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Post by Maz »

I do :D But this seems to be located in FAB forum... So perhaps it should be moved to some public forum, if you want it to be visible for all...

But you can lo out and check if this is visible for guests. That should tell it pretty well :)
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Post by Chroelle »

Good idea. I think I will move the content though. Also this should maybe actually be the one thread we have talked about other places. This could thus be very visible as a global announcement instead of some thread in the feedback forums... I need to get started on that thread...
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Post by Zyx »

I still don't know how this site works.


:eh:
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Post by Maz »

Who cares? It just works ;)
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Post by Chroelle »

Moved and edited once more. ;)
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