State of the NAFtion

[Shteve0]

The biggest thing, aside from offering tourney rankings and downloadable resources, is the new blood thing. We've talked about demo gaming at conventions and tournaments, but there are simpler steps even than that.

1) Make the NAF page more of a resource for non members, including full use of the forum. Only paid members can vote in polls. That'll give NAF a broader appeal and a bigger marketing base.

2) Explain what blood bowl is on the front page, and why it's awesome (in 30 words or less). Make some demo videos for setting up for kick offs, caging, throwing a team mate... post one up weekly or monthly, make a feature of it, open a youtube channel. Have contributors write articles on how to play each race. Sponsor a podcast. Reach out!

3) Remember those "make poverty history" bands? Let's have one of those to promote blood bowl (via the NAF) for members wear as a signature in non-blood bowl forums.

4) Make a newsletter about coming events, circulate it to members and non-members; reach out to BBtactics, FUMBBL, TFF, wherever you can and circulate to their mailing lists too.

Non of this is revolutionary, but the NAF right now is a closed shop, focussed on member retention instead of new member engagement. If the deal is attractive to new membership, you're likely to retain old membership; go too far towards naval-gazing and the membership will dwindle.

[Darkson]

4) Make a newsletter about coming events, circulate it to members and non-members; reach out to BBtactics, FUMBBL, TFF, wherever you can and circulate to their mailing lists too.

I believe there's a legal issue with this - it took long enough for the NAF to get the right wording for members to be able to opt-in or -out of the mailing list, not sure where they'd stand on using outside lists!

[Shteve0]

Cool, fair enough. My list is in priority order; I appreciate that the ideas get increasingly ropey as it progresses!

[Olaf the Stout]

The biggest thing, aside from offering tourney rankings and downloadable resources, is the new blood thing. We've talked about demo gaming at conventions and tournaments, but there are simpler steps even than that.

1) Make the NAF page more of a resource for non members, including full use of the forum. Only paid members can vote in polls. That'll give NAF a broader appeal and a bigger marketing base.

2) Explain what blood bowl is on the front page, and why it's awesome (in 30 words or less). Make some demo videos for setting up for kick offs, caging, throwing a team mate... post one up weekly or monthly, make a feature of it, open a youtube channel. Have contributors write articles on how to play each race. Sponsor a podcast. Reach out!

3) Remember those "make poverty history" bands? Let's have one of those to promote blood bowl (via the NAF) for members wear as a signature in non-blood bowl forums.

4) Make a newsletter about coming events, circulate it to members and non-members; reach out to BBtactics, FUMBBL, TFF, wherever you can and circulate to their mailing lists too.

Non of this is revolutionary, but the NAF right now is a closed shop, focussed on member retention instead of new member engagement. If the deal is attractive to new membership, you're likely to retain old membership; go too far towards naval-gazing and the membership will dwindle.

I like these ideas.

I agree that the NAF should put some effort towards increasing the number of people playing BB, which should also help to increase the number of NAF members.

Olaf the Stout

[sann0638]

Good points Shtev0:
#1 goes to the heart of what "member" and "non-member" means, and that's got to be a committee driven decision otherwise we are all just navel-gazing.
#2 is great, and should be one of the easier ones to sort out.
#3 is a bit silly
#4 is a bit tricky, the NAF newsletter is actually free to access to all at the moment, and after a month or so is put out there on Twitter, FB, etc. Should NAF just produce this stuff without worrying about member/non-member access? I don't know. See #1 above.

Excellent constructive stuff though!

[nonumber]

I think the idea that "the NAF and GW are no longer connected" is a little naive. Blood Bowl is Granny's legal property, I'm sure there are many circumstances in which we must still tread lightly and so this new era is perhaps not the boundless field of possibility some are seeing it as. Although that's just my gut feeling, I could be wrong.

The ultimate goal of the NAF should be to connect as many Blood Bowl players across the globe as humanly possible. It should be website #1 for Blood Bowl. Merge the forums, track the leagues, make membership itself free and just sell a limited edition dice set every year or something.

[Darkson]

I think the idea that "the NAF and GW are no longer connected" is a little naive. Blood Bowl is Granny's legal property, I'm sure there are many circumstances in which we must still tread lightly and so this new era is perhaps not the boundless field of possibility some are seeing it as. Although that's just my gut feeling, I could be wrong.

And you may be right, but that's part of the problem, there's no transparency, despite it being a major part of the last election.
For example, a replacement for the Block dice. Perhaps the is some legal reason why the NAF cannot do it's own Block dice or it's own figure, but because no-one "in the know" says anything we can only speculate, and that increases the frustration. Not asking for full legal disclosure (I'm not Pako!), but even something as simple as "no, we aren't allowed to do that" or "we can, but we can't afford that" or "we could".

It's the whole ongoing system of silence that I don't understand (which has gone for years unfortunately).

[phil78]

Just curious regarding the point about TFF having more discussions than the NAF Forum, does any one know if the non-English forums are having similar discussions.
I only ask as most of the people posting regularly seem to be UK, AUS NZ or US based.

[lunchmoney]

It should be website #1 for Blood Bowl.

Yes it should.
Google search for "Blood Bowl" done today: fumbbl on page one; TFF at bottom of page two; NAF middle of page three.
To be the #1 website for Blood Bowl they need to get Google showing it on page one at least.

[Loki]

Should have searched for Bloodbowl

1. Computer game
2. Wiki page
3. NAF
4. GW
5. FUMBBL
6. Plasmoid Playbooks

Weird, I just searched for 'Blood Bowl' and...

1. Computer game
2. Wiki page
3. GW
4. NAF
5. FUMBBL
6. BoardGameGeek

This was also on Google

[sann0638]

Good question Phil. Discussion is starting at the NAF (mostly involving Grum), so do pop over!

Interestingly, I logged out of thenaf.net and checked what I could do, which people might not be aware of.

Non-members can:
- Browse the rankings, including searching
- Read the newsletters
- Use the Library (such as it is)
- Browse the forums
- Look at the tournament listings, and view past matches
- Browse the league listings

Member can:
- get a ranking
- post in forums
- use the coach locator
- look at the list of members

Not something I'd looked at before, as I've been automatically logged in for ages. Draw your own conclusions!

[sann0638]

@lunch and loki - that will change depending on who you are, Google's clever like that it seems!

[Elyoukey]

Weird, I just searched for 'Blood Bowl' and...
[...]

This was also on Google

just my 2 webmaster cents , you should know that the google search become more and more user dependent. Last algorythms include your web behaviors, the sites you tend to visit, in order to display the resulst page when you are searching something.
For exemple if i often click on the alsacreation.com links when i search something, when i search something else, google will prioritize the alsacreation.com pages in my searches. If you are connected with your google account (gmail and alike), you will probably not get the same result page as someone else.

[Long_Bomb]

In terms of the benefit of a free gift, I think it is really quite important that new members have something to show for their money and the old block dice for many justified the cost alone. Whats more they highlighted to new players that the NAF was the official organisation for supporting Blood Bowl tournaments.

I like the idea of a new model to collect each year for the following reasons.

1. You would have something tangible to show for your money.

2. I would imagine a figure manufacturer may be willing to do a very good deal if they were recognised as the producer of the official NAF figure each year.

3. The NAF could produce rules for the figure as a tournament legal Star Player.

The last point does help to reinforce the fact that the NAF is the recognised body for Blood Bowl tournaments. It could also be quite a fun community project to help design the look and rules for the models over the year leading up to its release.

[sann0638]

A camel is a horse designed by committee