Let's start an 'IGS Community' group on Desura

Hey everyone,

I saw in some other threads that many people would like a Desura group to trade keys in (among other things(. Currently, the Steam group is used to trade keys like this, but this forces some people to make steam accounts which they may not use for anything else.

Some people have said that Desura doesn't lend itself well to communities, but I don't see any harm in at least giving it a shot.

I've just created a group (with some placeholder graphics). It's currently awaiting approval, but if/when it gets accepted, feel free to join up. Also, if IGS decides to let us use their logo and graphics, that would be even better. This is an 'unofficial' group right now, but if anyone from IGS wants to jump onboard we can make it the official group!

I don't want to be the sole group administrator, so if you're interested, send me a message.

= = = = = = = = = = = = =

Desura Group: IndieGameStand Community

My Desura Profile: Gn0meSlice

Boarding this ship

[PlayerReview]

Thanks for the idea Toyotame and to GnomeSlice for building the group - I don't know my Desura login credentials and can't find the group from within the client - anyway, I will join as soon as I can figure it out.

I think maybe my trouble navigating Desura is just due to my ignorance... *hates self for not being as elite as other Indie gamers*

BTW: my Desura name is "Player_Review" - feel free to send me invites of any kind.

Edit: I am in the group now - thanks for the invite GnomeSlice.

Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that the Desura group has been authorized. We're live!

Edit:
I saw some requests for it, so I've created a forum category in the group specifically for trading Desura keys.

[Zorder]

I just posted a Desura key for Aeon Command on the key giveaway section on the Desura group forum. For all you lazies click here.

Zorder wrote:

I just posted a Desura key for Aeon Command on the key giveaway section on the Desura group forum. For all you lazies click here.

Thank you, Zorder for game! I got it!

[Zorder]

Madmate wrote:

Thank you, Zorder for game! I got it!

No problem, just make sure you enjoy playing it!

Does anyone here have experience with the Desura news system? So far all of our articles have been 'archived' which means they're visible in the Desura group, but not publicly on the Desura homepage. It's based on quality standards or something.

If someone has experience with the system and wants to help us improve them so that they're published, that could generate a ton of views.

It also might just be because they're time-limited things, in which case there's not much we can do.

[mgnade]

I think they may be doing that on purpose since Desura is behind the 'competing' indie royale bundle.

[canj]

No love.

I've sent in a message to Desura about the posts, which reads as follows:

Hello, I recently created a Desura group for members of the community at indiegamestand.com.
http://www.desura.com/groups/indie-game-stand-community

IndieGameStand posts a new indie game deal every four days, and supports charity in the process. We've been posting news articles in the group for each deal launch with information about the game, the featured charity, contributor bonuses, etc.

However, all of these posts so far have been 'archived' which I'm given to understand means they won't show up on the main Desura news feed.

I've reviewed the guidelines linked in the email notifications (although I found the link confusing in that it was for ModDB) and revised the articles by adding images, and improving the formatting greatly. However, after requesting re-consideration, the articles remained archived.

Is there any particular reason for this? Front-page exposure of the game sales (which is something I feel is of interest to the majority of the Desura community) would also help generate views and interest in IGS and their charity donations. This group and its news postings are also endorsed by the operators of indiegamestand.com if that was a concern.

After reviewing as much documentation as I could find, it seems to me that the guidelines for news posting aren't really clearly outlined anywhere on the site, so I'm writing this message to see if someone can clear it up a little for us.

Thanks in advance,
~Gnome

I took the liberty of interpreting the lack of administrator shouting in this thread as 'endorsement'. I hope that wasn't in error. If it was, I sincerely apologize.

[canj]

We are only a few small clown dogs, we want to see the community reach out on our behalf.

Thanks,

[mgnade]

Yeah really appreciate you taking the initiative

Hey guys, just joined both the Desura and Steam groups! Intending to be more active in things such as this..

Woo!

The sews article I wrote for the Desura group about Pixelry's sale has been authorized! That means it's featured not only on Pixelry's game page, but on the Desura news homepage as well! Awesome!

At the time of writing this, the Pixelry article has 342 views. By comparison, the post about 3079 which wasn't displayed publicly only has 48. Success!

I suspect it's because I tied it to the Pixelry game page. Still unsure exactly how this works, because muntdefems said that when he tried to do that with the previous game, he didn't have 'permission'. It might have to be me making the posts (or any of 'leader' rank) for it to work, but it's not clear if the permission is handled by this group, or by the game/group we're trying to link the article to.

We'll have to experiment a little.

GnomeSlice wrote:

I suspect it's because I tied it to the Pixelry game page. Still unsure exactly how this works, because muntdefems said that when he tried to do that with the previous game, he didn't have 'permission'. It might have to be me making the posts (or any of 'leader' rank) for it to work, but it's not clear if the permission is handled by this group, or by the game/group we're trying to link the article to.

We'll have to experiment a little.

I've sent you a PM through Desura but I'm also posting it here so everybody knows.

I've tried to publish a new article announcing the current feature but I was unable to tie it to the game page. That is, I couldn't tie it to the Bridge It page but I could tie it to other games, e.g. Bridge Construction Set (which is made by the same people! ). So I don't think it's a matter of who creates the article but rather the permissions set to each game page. I'll wait for GnomeSlice, out beloved Group Leader , to try it but I suspect we might end up having to ask Chronic Logic to allow us (or any third party) to link our content to their game.

muntdefems wrote:

I'll wait for GnomeSlice, our beloved Group Leader, to try it but I suspect we might end up having to ask Chronic Logic to allow us (or any third party) to link our content to their game.

Ah. Yep. Rats. I've sent them a message. This stuff definitely appears to be controlled by the developers' permissions. That will make it really difficult to be consistent in the future. Would be nice if there was some kind of automated message to IGS developers who get a featured game to (at least temporarily) adjust their Desura page settings, but that's kind of unrealistic.

Also I just closed the tab that had everything I'd written in it.

59pyhie5thdrhtoidrjthh;on;otindrt.nhspiojts'inrhse

Joined the group. Excellent idea. It would be sad to see Desura trying to snuff IGS announcements by purposefully archiving them. Especially since this is the first time I have ever had an interest in their community structure over steam.

TigerClawTV wrote:

Joined the group. Excellent idea. It would be sad to see Desura trying to snuff IGS announcements by purposefully archiving them. Especially since this is the first time I have ever had an interest in their community structure over steam.

I've been getting big into Desura lately too. I don't think that's why they've been archiving them; it's because we haven't been 'linking' the articles to the relevant games. What this does is make the article display directly on the game's page as well as in our group. It will also list the game under the 'related games' section when viewing the article. We didn't realize we could do this until recently, and some developers haven't set their game pages to allow the community to add content, which means we can't tie the articles into those pages.

I linked Pixelry correctly in its post, and it went through and displayed on Desura's home news feed! It has way more views than the other articles so far! So it's not just Desura being a dick. But there isn't a lot of documentation about the matter, which makes it difficult to figure out where you're going wrong.

I know the Desura group isn't officially affiliated with IndieGameStand, but is there any way we can automatically suggest to featured developers that they check their Desura game page permissions? Unless they allow the Desura community to add articles to and about their games, it's hard to get a featured article posted.

I've been messaging the developers as we go, but it means a lot of the articles are a day or two late in getting posted. So far, all of them have been receptive and engaged in allowing us to post on their behalf, but it would be helpful if the permissions were correct at least by the time the feature kicks off.

I'd even be happy to record a short video clip at some point which we could direct them to, because many of the developers I've contacted haven't had a clue about how to adjust their permissions. It would just show where to go, what to check off, and explain the abilities/risks involved.

Anyone with God-powers want to chime in?