I was wondering...
We have quite a lot of games, so maybe we could line some of them up - sort of a game duel.
All members could vote for the game of the week. There would be 5 games to choose from (example - Beneeth the Steel Sky, Alien Incident, Inspector Gadget, Wishbringer and Deja Vu). The game with most votes by Saturday morning would become the game of the week. The game would then be presented in the news again as the Game of the week instead of the upload for Sunday.
This would give people the oportunity to catch up on some of the titles they might have missed.
What do you think?

Yeah, this might be a good idea. People might notice the forgotten, underated, but still good titles. :ok:

Hey, I like that idea... I like it very much, so here is my "yes" :D

So basically there'd be a news item saying "Hey, just in case you haven't noticed, this game exists, it's on this site and it's bloody brilliant"?:huh:

not a bad idea actually

Nice. It's sort of like the random game banner on Reloaded (The Dark Side ;) ). How would we (?) decide which 5 games would be in the poll? Or is this gonna be a Seb Special ???

It would be nice if we could combine it with adding some extras or something like that. But I doubt people would want to see "old" games featured in the news section.

@Reup - well I was thinking that we should go fromt he top...
So we'd start with teh action category and the updaters (could be somebody else - like an PM suggestion - everybody could send in their PMs during the week to me and I'd make a list) would suggest a few games - then we'd decide which 5 (can be more, can be less) would go up for the vote. This would also reduce the preasure of daily updates slightly.

@Raffles - I know people wouldn't want to see 'old' games on the site, that's why these would be the weekly recomendations, the games of the week, the missed gems...

And yes, this would function like a random game generator - except for the random part, so some games (uninteresting enough - like Stickybear Town Builder) would not randomly pop up, but we'd be presenting the games once more.

*raises Reup's warn level on AR* :whistle:

Actually I think a truly random pick would make more sense. I mean, what are the chances of Stickybear Townbuilder ever being selected as Game of the Week?

*raises Reup's warn level on AR* :whistle:

Actually I think a truly random pick would make more sense. I mean, what are the chances of Stickybear Townbuilder ever being selected as Game of the Week? [/b][/quote]
Yes, it would be overlooked by much better, and more popular games such as Little People Farm.

I think it's a most excellent idea to try out and would showcase some of the classics

Hmm, but don't you think it would only showcase those classics that don't really need showcasing in the first place?

So.... we already said that we couldn't make a Random Game option on the main page with the current layout, so now you want an advanced not-quite-such-a-random-game-thingie on the mainsite? :huh:

Basically it would just be shown as NEWS. Sunday's news would be that for the game of the week the abandonia members chose game X. That news would then link to the review of the game and that would be that (it would replace the Sunday's update). This would slightly decreese the preasure of daily updates, yet people would get a chance to see a game they might wave missed out on. with time this news would sink in the archive - just like any other news segment.

Would they, though? Isn't it far more likely that the games which would end up being chosen as Game of the Week are the ones that everybody favours anyway? Seriously: what chance would a game like, say, Wishbringer, stand against the popular favourites?
I also suspect people might feel cheated when they see a new entry in the news section only to discover that it's about a game that has been available on the site for quite a while. And strictly speaking it would be cheating, really.:unsure:

I like the idea and I think it would be a good refreshment to the news! :ok:

@Raffles: It wouldn't be cheating.
The main site of abandonia is posting news. This news isn't always a new game review anyway...
So the news would be, that a certain game was voted the game of the week (like a winer of a competition - so to speak).

And about wories for the Wishbringer... well that's where the suggestiong kick in. It would be pointles placing Wishbringer together with let's say Settlers II.

That's why there should be some care placed in the suggestions to vote from.
For instance - there could be a vote option for the most popular Sid Meier's game, placing Civilization, Colonization, Pirates, Railroad Tycoon, Civilization II, Railroad Tycoon Deluxe and Coveret Action side by side (just a suggestion).

Wishbringer would probably be place together with similar text based games (example: Wishbringer, A Mind forever Voyaging, Lurking Horror).

The votes should never have a clear favorite, that's what would make it interesting.

Well, it would be "cheating" in the sense that it would appear to be an update at first sight. How do you think people would react?

RandomVisitor: "Oh, nice, the Abandonia site has been updated. Let's see, what's new?... Wtf?? Settlers 2 is already on the site, isn't it? So why are they giving me all this silly stuff about it being voted Game of the Week on the forums, blah, blah, blah? Are they trying to conceal the fact that there isn't a proper update? Who cares about bleedin' Games of the Week, I want new games, dammit!! Gimme more downloads!!"
*goes off to the forums to flame the g0dd4mn n00b who posted the news about the Game of the Week - :sniper: :tai: :Titan: :ranting: :Tom: and all that*

It's a sad fact, but it's nevertheless a fact that most visitors do come to the site for the downloads. They would feel cheated and regard it as "fake" updates.

Raffles has a point.

Well there's also the other side of this very same medal.

Many people who come ot the site won't even bother going through the different games (they'll click on all games, see we got a lot of stuff and will simply move on, or maybe type in a game in search). The only games they'll see will be the last 10 updates - they'll click on the pictures and be done with that.
If that would feature the game of the week they'd get the titles they've missed out on completely, because they came at least 11 uploads later.
The fact that supports this is, that most games fall out of discusion and aren't getting many downloads/hits after they're not among the recent 10 updates.
Only the biggest game names get found frequently, but most games become quite anonymous after the news of their update sinks in the archive.

Oh and another thing:
A random game downloading newby wouldn't even care if the game was on the site for years or was added just a few seconds ago - as long as he/she could download.
da game r00x :Titan: :Titan: :Titan: downloading now :omg:

Ah, so it would be something like the Unpopular Game of the Week? (Might want to find a slightly more positive way of putting it, though.;) )

Well, not the unpopular, more like overseen, forgoten...
There's be no need of putting a game like X-com on there again - except if we'd wanna see which game out of top 10 most popular games would actually get more votes (X-com, Civ II, Settlers II, Alone in the Dark...).

Otherwise it would be great game gems, that we have, but are being overlooked (like Pirates, Stunts, Supremacy,... - these are just examples)

But wouldn't people ideally have to have played them in order to vote on them in a poll? And if people had played them, they wouldn't be overlooked, would they? So we might end up having polls in which very few people voted, so the Game of the Week would be based on 10-15 votes at most...:unsure:

Look at it this way. If we get many votes - the games in question weren't overlooked, but a clear opinion would be stated - is Caesar II beter then Centurion (OK, maybe bad examples, because both are ESA)... this would mean recycling a popular game reminding people of the fact we have it (some propaganda for the site).

If there are only a few votes, then the games were really overlooked, so it's a good thing to remind people of these underated gems.

Also if people vote without playing the game, they'd have to decide for a game either based on the review or the screenshots (or both), so a reviewers work was not in vain - not to mention, the game would be brought back under the spotlight for a while.

I started thinking about this after opening the thread for Hidden Agenda (the game was added a long time ago, but I don't know why, there was no game discusion opened). As soon as it was opened a few replies were made. So the game became slightly interesting again - even after so much time. But obviously it wasn't interesting enough before, because no-body posted that the link was missing.

I think this idea would be useful - if not we can always drop it. And the votes so far speak clearly for the idea.

I voted yes by a mistake b4 I saw that it would detract updates.

NO for me raffles has a huge point

i like the idea of sebastianos, to make the game of the week.
Some person may dasn´t like to see games already in here, with news, but if the news said, no the best of the week but the best of some category.

For me the best of the week , it is only with the games of the last week. :whistle:

Hmm, you have a point LF. It would have to be something different then "The Game of the Week", because that really implys that it's one of the games added in the last week and that would be senseless - all the game of the curent week are still visable in the news section anyway.

What about - We recomend you to try XXX game - or something like that?

And Punchy... this replacing the regular update for the Sunday shouldn't be a problem at all. There have been several situations when the daily updates were seriously endangered anyway and I think a Sunday's news for an overlooked game would be much better then simply skipping an update for a day leaving a blank :sneaky:

it sounds like a good idea, and both good and bad points have been presented.

I think something that could be done would be likee, have different catergories each week.

One week, favorite Adventure, the next favorite action, and people can nominate anyone they want from that catergory.

Only thing that could be confusing, would be how votes are cast. They could be sent VIA PM for the first like, two or three days (Monday-Wednesday), followed by a thread created in which board members vote on the top five or ten or whatever out of those that received the majority of the votes via PM. Only problem with this, is you might not have a large majority, in which case the number of games each week in the top whatever would vary slightly.

If it was done something like this, I think it could work. The news could be something like those ads at the movies that say "Remember when:" and then list like, four movies from 1988 or something.

Yeah...it could work if it was done correctly, otherwise I think too many people would be disappointed by it.

Well, at any rate we could have a trial run, I suppose.

I don't think the name should contain the word "favourite", though, because that would suggest it's one of the games that already are well-known and popular. What about something lame like "overlooked gem"?

We already have that. The small medals.

In the new layout, you will be able to search by those. Plus we have most popular games.

"Ovelooked gem".... very nice :ok:

Now I have another question (maybe someone has already asked/answer that, but I didn't understand it - yet). It is about "how to implement such thing":

- Who will choose the games to be voted? if that is going to be made "random", there is a chance of picking very distinct games - one very well known with another not so known. And who will vote for them? everybody? members only? ok, ok, that was more than one question! (sorry :whistle: )

I like your idea, Sebatianos. I think it would add a lot of interest. I also like Reamus' additional thoughts where we have a different category each week and can vote on any game from that category, e.g. adventure. The winner of each week's poll featured in Sunday's news would be a nice way to remind us of games that have been forgotten. Then, again, if we have open voting would the same game be voted for each time it's category comes around. Anyway, it's something different and worth a try, I think. :)

I like it! :ok:

Good idea. :ok:

I like it, too!

Well the selection of games should NOT be random. That would simply put up some games with nothing incommon and would spoil it all.
The votes would be casted by all the members who wish to vote.

Having a different category each week would be OK, but we'd run out of categories in three months (which would actually be a quite long period in which new games would also be added, but still...).
That's why I suggested puting games with something in common to be voted from - like all the Tycoon games (from Pizza to Dinopark and all in between - just an example) or the games from the same producer/publisher or maybe all the action games from a certain year... So the choice would be limited to no more then 10 games (otherwise we'd get over 100 games in two categories and that would be completely pointless).

Overlooked Gem sounds really good. So every Sunday we'd have "The overlooked gem of the week".

@Tom - those flags are great and all, but two things: 1) they aren't presented in the news section, you need to browse through all the games to find them (not enough self-promotion) and 2) there are other games that would also deserve a bit more attention and deffinetly don't have the flag (and probably wouldn't deserve it). Example - AMISH is a great and very adictive game, but I'm more then convinced that poeple have somewhat forgoten about it!

Another argument for this idea are the translated forums. Every time a game is updated (when translated) it recieves a bit more attention for a while. And those are games that came on the site some time ago, but the interest was rekindeled when the game showed up on the news (and it's not just because the review was translated).

Like it!

like i said i like the idea, but instead of the best of the week, why don´t make like the best of a kind.(not like they are putted in here), but for egg: the best game by year 1994 or like best game putted in herer in january of 2004. You have less games avaible to vote , and it is possible to make a poll here, and in the final of the week put the winner of the contest in the news of sunday. :ok:

why after three months?

After we've cycled through the catergories, just go through them again.

And certainly we could get specific like, "Best Sim Game" or something like that.

There would be no point in having two polls for the most popular action game if the same games (the entire action category) would be there to vote from. The same game would simply win over and over again.

I like Little Fish's suggestions as well - the best game of the January updates (for instance). Basically every week there would be something new to vote for - and the game with most votes would get a little notice on Sunday.

I suggest that we try with this idea in December.

Im with you and Littlefish. That would work best.
I cant wait to see it in action

like i said, one month add between 20-30 games since the site began, so the games are putted in one poll, and the winner add a review on sunday. If you want to go more deep in all months you can seperated by catergories, but in that case i don´t agree, because the number of games to poll in every week, it is very little and some games are unique in one month, so for me it was to putting all the games of the month to evry one wo want to poll. :D

Seb, when I meant cycle back through the catergories, I meant in a way so things wouldn't repeat. Meaning, that previous game would be void from the ballot.

I also think it would be a better idea to have each game open to votes, at least initially. By having admins choose 5 games or so for the members to vote on, that really limits the choices to what the ADMINS think are good. This is why I like my original idea, which would go something like this.

Monday: Updater's select the catergory for the week and announce it on the site. Forum members PM their votes to the updater in charge for the week on ANY game from the selected catergory.

Tuesday: Votes continue to be PM'ed

Wednesday: More votes...

Thursday: Open voting closed. Top 5-10 titles w/ most votes are selected and posted as a poll in the aforementioned topic. Board members vote on these 5-10 titles.

Friday-Saturday: More voting

Sunday: Voting closed, game of the week posted, new catergory is selected by next updater responsible for that week, process repeats itself.

Catergories can be something general, such as "Action", or it can be specific like "Sim Game," it's up to the updater to decide.