29 réponses à ce sujet

[ehye_khandee]

Fellow NeverwinterNights Enthusiasts, PLAYERs, DMs, Builders and Admins
of NWN1 and NWN2, it is with great pleasure that I announce the
re-opening of neverwinterconnections.com



This is PHASE ONE - ready for a full public test. This PHASE ONE release
includes MEMBER LOGIN, MEMBER PROFILE TOOLS, SERVER CREATE/EDIT, EVENT
SCHEDULING AND SIGN-UP. We ask all you NWC Members to please visit neverwinterconnections.com
and login. Use the available services there to participate in scheduled
events and/or schedule some of your own. While we tested the new NWC as
much as we could (with limited availability of hardware locally to us,
we enlisted a fine group of BETA TESTERS - and have thus far found the
new NWC design robust and useful. Still, we have not been able to test
with all hardware, operating system and browser combinations - so
please, if you should spy something that looks amiss, take a screenie
(screen capture) and send it to us along with any narrative, specify
your operating system and browser too in your message. You can contact
me via this forum and I'll share my email address in response to your
inquiry so you can send me the screenies and such. WE NEED YOUR HELP to
find any errors that may remain in the PHASE ONE features. Please take
some time to login and have a look at the NEW DESIGN -
neverwinterConnections.com awaits, and the re-build team welcomes your
feedback.



While we allow NWC Members to access the features of PHASE ONE online,
Eriniel and I will be working to complete material for the PHASE TWO
release. PHASE TWO will include FORUMS, NEWS, HALL OF FAME, and more.



The re-build team.[smilie]../../../images/forum/emoticons/wizard.png[/smilie]

[ehye_khandee]

WE NEED YOUR HELP!!!

If you are a regular on a NWN 2 server, WE NEED YOUR HELP. We are in need of a few screen captures from NWN 2 to be featured on NeverwinterConnections.com - what we need:

Group PC images that include
A dwarf
An elf
A gnome
A human
A half-orc

The screenie should be staged to have all PCs facing generally toward the "4th wall" (e.g. looking out at the viewer)... no helmets so we can see the face and thereby KNOW the race better.

The need is rather urgent so the sooner you can make and send us the screen captures the better. MANY THANKS IN ADVANCE!!! I would do this myself, but my poor rig won't run NWN2 (maybe my next rig will, we shall see).

PM me to let me know you have images for me and I'll PM you my email addy to send them.

Be well. Game on!
GM_ODA

[ehye_khandee]

Bump - we are still testing and could ESPECIALLY use some more feedback from the NWN2 community. Step up and be heard NWC is under new management and is seeking to expand our coverage.

Be well. Game ON!
GM_ODA

[ehye_khandee]

bump

[ehye_khandee]

BUMP!

[Dann-J]

... [Queue the sound of a lone cricket chirping] ...

[Axe_Edge]

Chirp, chirp.

I check the website almost everyday. I'm currently playing a module with a bunch of great players I found on the site last year. I'm sure once the forums go live things will pick up.

[ehye_khandee]

As summer closes out we are hoping to get a final round of input from testers - fall season will see activity resume and your feedback will be of great value to us then.

Please take time to visit the site and take part in the refresh of one of the most useful sites for NWN1 and NWN2 multiplayer gaming.

http://neverwinterconnections.com

Be well. Game on.
GM_ODA

[Urk]

Axe Edge is right. As much as I miss doing the news updates the forums should be the next priority.

BTW, I noticed you made some changes to the Meta tags. The old ones were carefully chosen to be relevant to our most frequently searched keywords. It took me a year to get Gilaun to change them and we immediately jumped in Google for "Neverwinter Nights Multiplayer" from number 7 to number 3. Since you changed the site we've dropped back to number 6. The only tag that really matters any more is the Page Title, but the description sometimes appears in the search results.

[ehye_khandee]

Urk,
Many thanks for your input and the benefit of your expertise.

As an FYI, the news is just another forum 'board' with restrictions on who can update it and special display locations. When the forum is back online, you'll have your news page back too.

Where SEO is concerned, I appreciate your concern and your experience. I should tell you that I've been a search engine optimization professional since 1995 and have maintained uncounted sites in the top of search engines since even a bit before those ancient days. I am at present force-ably retired due to my disabilities, so I don't do this professionally anymore.

Rather than rely on metatags and page title alone (which, while important are not the only criteria used by search engines for ranking sites) - our new build optimizes on many levels. You'll note the site is doing well (as in first page or at worst second page) of the results for many targeted keywords and phrases. These are working well on yahoo, google, bing, and many many more. Try any of the following searches:

neverwinter nights multiplayer
nwn multiplayer
neverwinter nights server
nwn server
neverwinter nights multiplayer server
nwn multiplayer server
neverwinter nights matchmaking

I will review the old sites meta tags to see what might be re-used from them. Thanks for the heads up on that.

Be well. Game on!
GM_ODA

[ehye_khandee]

My apologies to the BOARD - prior post was 'uncaffeinated' me typing ... but I neglected to offer also (and especially appropriate to this forum) that that the site is ranking well for the following keywords as of this morning - I reviewed yahoo.com, google.com and bing.com for reference.

neverwinter nights 2 multiplayer
nwn2 multiplayer
neverwinter nights 2 server
nwn2 server
neverwinter nights 2 multiplayer server
nwn2 multiplayer server
neverwinter nights 2 matchmaking
nwn2 matchmaking

I know I can nudge it a little more in some of those searches, and in fact, phase two, when completed, will include some further adjustments (as a fellow SEO guru, I'm sure you know this is always an ongoing process).

Some searches improve with proper use of quotation marks as in

"Neverwinter Nights 2" keyword keyword

just as a FYI.

Be well. Game ON!
GM_ODA

[Urk]

Yeah... but I think we both know that real searchers don't actually use quotes.

Also FYI I am also a working professional SEO and marketing blogger. In fact I did all the link building that got NWC onto the first page in the first place.

According to my keyword research only a handful of those keywords have any kind of significant search frequency. Here's the full report I submitted to Gilaun...

Here's my recommended keyword list. Keywords are listed in order of importance (I've included the average number of monthly searches for each keyword). Go ahead and add them but be aware search engines don't pay much mind to keyword tags any more. We include them as more of a formality these days and many well ranked sites don't include a keyword tag at all:

Keywords:
neverwinter nights multiplayer, nwn multiplayer, neverwinter nights online, neverwinter nights 2 online, nwn2 multiplayer, neverwinter nights 2 multiplayer, nwn2 online, neverwinter nights, nwn, neverwinter night, never winter nights, free multiplayer online games, multiplayer online game, online multiplayer games

PRIMARY KEYWORDS= Optimum Relevance
neverwinter nights multiplayer    4,400
nwn multiplayer            3,600
neverwinter nights online    2,900
neverwinter nights 2 online    2,900
nwn2 multiplayer        2,400
neverwinter nights 2 multiplayer2,400
nwn2 online              390

SECONDARY KEYWORDS= High Relevance
neverwinter nights        550,000
nwn                201,000
neverwinter night         673,000
never winter nights        550,000

Tertiary Keywords= Low Relevance
free multiplayer online games    135,000
multiplayer online game        450,000
online multiplayer games    450,000

The title is still EXTREMELY important. It's the single most important tag on the site. The idea is to make it keyword rich. You can use any 7-8 word combination you wish but I'd recommend:

Title Tag:
Neverwinter Nights 2 Multiplayer: NWN, NWN2 Online Games Free Headquarters

You'll also need to add a page description. This is an important tag too. It doesn't affect your search ranking, but it does appear on the search engine results in such a way that searchers will see it and use it to decide whether to click on your link. It should be one or two sentences and precisely describe the purpose of the page.

I'd recommend something like this:

Description
Neverwinter Connections is your online headquarters for finding Neverwinter Nights and NWN 2 online multiplayer games and campaigns. Join us right now and make new friends in the oldest and most trusted NWN MP community on the web.

Just FYI...
I don't expect you to actually implement any or all of this but here's some information you should know.

Google hates dead links. The AME, Unforgotten Realms, and Nights of Neverwinter links are all dead and need to be removed (the AME link should be remapped to http://www.ame-gda.net/Home/)

Search engines prefer separate meta tags for each page. Most modern sites use different custom meta tags for the site's main pages (home, news, contact etc) and dynamically generate page titles for other pages (individual news items, game pages, player profiles, etc).

A huge deciding factor for the "authority" of a site is it's size. The more pages a site has the higher it tends to rang for 2 reasons:

1. A large number of unique pages indicates a large amount of information on the site.

and

2. Each page links back to your index page (aka your "home page") and these boost the home pages page rank (not as much as external backlinks, but enough that it's worth doing).

You currently have a header that links back to the home page from every page, and that's awesome, but it lacks "anchor text". If possible you should add an "alt tag" to this header image that says something like this:

Header Alternative Text:
Your Neverwinter Nights, NWN2 free online multiplayer headquarters...

Another easy way to accomplish this would be to have the site archive old game pages rather than delete them.

Of course "easy" is a gross overstatement. These pages would need to be linked into the main site and this would require you to develop new dynamic content. A page called "game archives" with links too all the sites archived game pages would be good enough, although having each player page link to the games they participated in would improve page discovery and also make for a better user experience.

Also in terms of user experience I'd like to try to resurrect the DM101 certification program. Let me know if you'd be willing to let me administer it.

In terms of monetizing the site I strongly recommend approaching steam and gog.com about cutting an affiliate deal for game sales over the site. I'd also consider setting up a retail sales page for NWN/D&D related merchandise through an amazon.com affiliation. Finally... put your donation button somewhere that stands out a little more and put it on every page.

Neverwinter Online is about a year away from release. It's up to you, but if you are serious about monetizing the site you're going to need to optimize the game scheduler for this new traffic.

Add a "Neverwinter Online" option to the "product" field on the game scheduler so guilds etc can use the site to plan hunts and other events. You can also change the "IP address of server" field to read "IP or Server" (or "IP or World" or "IP or Shard" or whatever the developers choose to call them). Add description checkboxes for "Guild Event" and "Hunt" (maybe "drop party" depending on how the game allows item transfers). It would also help if you could re-implement the guild function.

While I personally have no intention of playing it, if you are prepared to cater to these players Neverwinter Online will result in an explosion of new traffic, donations, and sales when the new game opens. Even if the game is a flop it will increase your traffic many times virtually overnight. It will also help increase the number of pages, and thereby the amount of domain authority, on the site. If the game is a success... well... you could be on the ground floor of something really good.

If you start making money don't forget your friends.

Obviously some of this information is obsolete post-panguin, but I trust you know what's what. If you're not familiar with the Panda and Penguin updates here are a few short blog articles I wrote about them...

http://www.cpasiteso...012/06/panguin/
http://www.cpasiteso...history-search/
http://www.cpasiteso...ecting-ranking/

Cheers
Kenny

Modifié par Urk, 12 août 2012 - 08:28 .

[ehye_khandee]

URK,
Friend, I well recall you are doing SEO professionally (my apologies if the message did not convey that well). I've been away from SEO for a while, but was pleasantly surprised to find my rusty skill set applied to current efforts on this and a couple other hobby sites have placed them uniformly in the first page for the targeted keywords. I was doubly amused that none of the search engine changes since my last professional works in that field had done anything to reduce the effectiveness of the strategies I employ in best-case scenarios. I've always been a 'white hat' kind of fellow.

Thanks for that info - I'll review the data. Presuming you have a tool that does not cost money to operate, any chance you'd run the keyword list again to get current numbers? Are there any keyword sets that were not as important then which have gained in usage?

Be well. Game ON!
GM_ODA

P.S. part of the operating strategy is to ensure each page has custom metatags - that's something I've done for decades (anything else is just shoddy). ATM we use a single tag across _most_ pages, but when phase two is done, the final phase three will address server managed meta tags for each page.

[Urk]

Glad to oblige! BRB

[Urk]

Here are the current global monthly search frequencies for our primary keywords

neverwinter nights multiplayer 3,600
nwn multiplayer 2,900
neverwinter nights online 4,400
neverwinter nights 2 online 1,300
nwn2 multiplayer no longer relevant
neverwinter nights 2 multiplayer2,400
nwn2 online no longer relevant

These did not appear in a contextual search the last time I did this, but they popped up this time and they look like they are worth chasing...
neverwinter nights server 3,600
nwn server 3,600
neverwinter nights 2 server 1,900
nwn2 server 1,900

The rest of your list did not return any meaningful results, meaning their search frequency is so low they don't bother to offer them on contextual searches ('neverwinter nights 2 multiplayer server' averages 36 global searches per month), or they are so low they don't bother keep track of them at all ('neverwinter nights matchmaking' for example).

I didn't bother to run the secondary and tertiary keywords. They aren't really all that dependant on search frequency.

BTW, Neverwinter Online is already averaging 6,600 searches per month...

Modifié par Urk, 13 août 2012 - 03:11 .

[ehye_khandee]

Many thanks once again friend URK! I'll drop that data into the mix and tinker with the code later this week, likely a small update this coming weekend time permitting.

Be well. Game on!
GM_ODA

P.S. hugs to the lil one!

Modifié par ehye_khandee, 13 août 2012 - 11:30 .

[ehye_khandee]

The summer's hiatus on the re-building of neverwinterconnections.com is done and we are returning to work on the project. Summer's heat, and the lack of reliable electricity for such computing essentials as 'air conditioning' on the isle of Cyprus necessitated the break from coding (Erins system was overheating quite regularly and threatening to damage the hardware). In spite of the heat, some progress was made in organizing materials from the old site and planning out the steps yet to come in more detail.

Our plans had included a new system for creating new member accounts - for this we need some artwork. If you are a NWN fan and have some art talent, please send me a PM to volunteer to provide a few images for our new system (the sort of system that prevents bots from invading a forum). We require ORIGINAL work, with specific content from an artist (actually several artists would be best as we need a few differing images to make this work).

PHASE TWO of the neverwinterconnections.com site is underway and we look forward to getting back to work on our favorite NWN fan site. We hope to hear from you soon too! Feel free to give input and if you are up for testing out work as we roll it out, ask about our bug report forum.

Thanks to all for the kind assistance.

Be well. Game on!
GM_ODA

http://playnwn.com

Modifié par ehye_khandee, 24 septembre 2012 - 04:22 .

[ehye_khandee]

BUMP! We need original art, can you help? We offer full credit on the art and good placement in search engines so your art will be seen by many.

Contact us and lend a talented artistic hand?!?!

Be well. Game on.
GM_ODA

[ehye_khandee]

BUMP! Original artwork needed. Get your art in front of thousands in the community and get a full credit listing for your help. We need your help.

Be well. Game on!
GM_ODA

[ehye_khandee]

BUMP - Original artwork STILL needed.

Please help us with this critical step in restoring full function to neverwinterconnections.com

[kamal_]

Will altered screenshots be acceptable? For instance I turned screenshots into "oil paintings" for loadscreens.
http://kamalpoe.blog...en-samples.html

Also, you need to specify the dimensions of the artwork, and number at each size, needed.

[ehye_khandee]

Thank you for asking. The art of the game is protected by the eula. Derrivative works are covered in detail and plucking art from the game would not be acceptable. Part of the reason why we seek original art from the community is to ensure that we have clear rights to use the work.

ARTISTS AND 3D COMPUTER MODELLERS WE NEED YOUR HELP.

Modifié par ehye_khandee, 17 novembre 2012 - 01:19 .

[ehye_khandee]

Bump! We need artists, contact us if you are an artist please.

Be well. Game on.
GM_ODA

[ChurchOrganist]

How do I contact the development team??

The contact form is broken and there are no email addresses listed anywhere.

I am the current senior active DM for 12 Dark Secrets, and wish to edit the server details, of which, most importantly the IP address is wrong.

There seems to be currently no way to do this.

Regards
Michael
DM Shelley - 12 Dark Secrets

[ehye_khandee]

You can send me a PM to contact me atm.

IIRC to edit an entry you must login with the same account that created it - are you able to login ?


PM me al the details, if you have screenies to show me tell me in the PM and I'll give you a email addy to send to.

Be well. Game on.
GM_ODA


P.S. we still need artists.