CENTURION24 - cool pages king?

He's a friend of mine and I swear this guy is unstoppable... he's had 10 levels in the last two weeks get cemented to cool pages, and every level is feeding plays into the other one's (including the one's that aren't on page 1 anymore)...

He's got 4 levels on page 1 right now, all grouped together, and has 3 of them spelling out L B P with their icons.

I've never seen anybody dominate the system like this before with everything they put out, except if you count the iterations of Fallout 3.

I'm not trying to recommend levels, so please don't move this... I'm just trying to discuss like... his strategy or something, and see what people think about it.

What exactly are his levels?

what exactly is his strategy?

Aside from republishing, he had one really successful level (Got Skills?) after an ok one (So You Think You Can Swing)... he made a harder version of Got Skills immediately when it got stuck on the pages, and both ended up with a ton of plays, then he followed them both up with a survival game.

He pretty much said that he used that one success and capitalized on it while it was there, and put out 2 or 3 new levels in the same 7 day cycle. He only really spends about a day or two making his levels... they're usually pretty simplistic looking, but colorful, mechanically sound, and full of basic run and jump fun and challenge. The odd thing is that he does have a knack for making things look nice, but doesn't put that into what he's got out right now.

His Run For It level, being an addictive "restart 5000 times to get the high score" and creative obstacle course took off like crazy, the sequel, released a couple days later, is now on page 1 with people still playing the original after it's 7 day cycle.

Inbetween making those, he made his two Rube Goldberg machine levels, both released with two days of each other. They're actually extremely well done, long, and always work thanks to his single-player only gate.

All together, the quickly-released successive sequels are getting an immediate and guaranteed play, and it's all linking together in a chain reaction to where every play on one level leads the player to play his other levels... now that 4 of them are grouped in one spot together, it's snowballing the playcounts even faster.

He has updated versions of Got Skills and So You Think You Can Swing, published in new slots, both have made their way onto cool pages to replace the old one's that went off with the 7 day cycle. People who hearted the originals, go back to the old one's, except he's got them rebuilt as a new level that says "sorry, this level is closed. Go play the updated version", effectively giving him a play for his old level, and a guaranteed play for his new level in one motion.

I was just like "wow" when I saw LBP spelled out on on the front page this morning. He went from 300 author hearts to several thousand in 2 weeks.

This strategy must work because people notice the levels that are on the top page. Now they see that this other level just there is also yours so there's a new layer of curiosity happening. So yeah, each levels are feeding onto the next, just like ALL levels on the top page.

With Crazy Train! I did something similar. When I noticed that "Crazy Train! (hard)" was growing into my most successful level ever, I thought of making an "normal difficulty" version along to it. Just when the hard version did hit it's prime time I did publish the normal version. That later one had even more success.

So I can totally see the Centurio24 strategy working very good. The more levels you have at the same time, the more they will feed each other on the cool pages.

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I noticed that too, it seems like he's on Cool Levels everytime I look! I really like his Run For It levels and I played his Got Skiils a long time ago and liked it. I'm surprised he's on Cool Levels, his levels are sometimes difficult and we all know how the average LBP player feels about difficult levels. I'm glad for him.

A little off topic but I noticed yesterday some girl posting her level literally every 2 minutes!!!! I've started republishing mine twice daily and am not even at 50 plays yet with my new level. She had a few thousand plays. If this is what we have to do then my LBP days are numbered. :(

I totally notice this and was like... 0_o!
It was crazy, but congrats to him. He truely is the kind of cool levels

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Originally Posted by mindphaser74

A little off topic but I noticed yesterday some girl posting her level literally every 2 minutes!!!! I've started republishing mine twice daily and am not even at 50 plays yet with my new level. She had a few thousand plays. If this is what we have to do then my LBP days are numbered. :(

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When Verigo was on cool pages I was surrounded by bomb survival levels and the authors were posting every few minutes to push ahead, plus a number of other levels. I just kind of tired out and left it to fend for itself.

Getting to the top of cool pages has several strategies, but if you aren't a well-known author it's definately more of spam republishing trick than a "have a great level" skill.

The level title also makes a HUGE difference. When I did "Tiger Woods Mini Golf" I practically didn't have to republish at all to make it to page 1 for several days. If I had ALSO republished constantly it probably would have had tons more plays.

If people really like your level, however, the hearts and rating push it up cool pages MUCH faster.

That's pretty interesting. I wonder if releasing a bunch of levels at the same time has an impact on the likelihood of them hanging onto Cool Levels? Maybe when publishing a new level, one ought to republish every one of their good levels at the same time to get a better shot?

I'll have to experiment on that. Since none of my levels ever really hit the "big time" I don't mind republishing them again to try it out.

I can say from my experience with the Cool pages, whenever you get on to Page1, you have a constant stream of people playing your level. Last time I checked I was getting between 20 and 30 people playing at the same time continuously. Now, depending on how many people actually enjoy your level or not, you get a certain amount that after playing the level on page 1 feel like checking out your other levels. Right now if you check out my levels you will probably see about 3-5 continuously people playing every level I have published. This is purely down to having a level on page 1 at the moment. This is a great way to get older levels played. For example, when my "Wizard of Odd" level was done with cool pages it had about 25,0000 plays on it. Right now it has roughly double than that. Thats from people checking it out after other levels made it on.

On a side note, I published a little survival challenge the other day ( I set myself a project to see could I produce a level in a day) Anyway, after publishing I republished only a few times with some minor bug fixes. Basically, this level has been brought up the cool pages from traffic directly related to my level on page 1.

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Originally Posted by wexfordian

I can say from my experience with the Cool pages, whenever you get on to Page1, you have a constant stream of people playing your level. Last time I checked I was getting between 20 and 30 people playing at the same time continuously. Now, depending on how many people actually enjoy your level or not, you get a certain amount that after playing the level on page 1 feel like checking out your other levels. Right now if you check out my levels you will probably see about 3-5 continuously people playing every level I have published. This is purely down to having a level on page 1 at the moment. This is a great way to get older levels played. For example, when my "Wizard of Odd" level was done with cool pages it had about 25,0000 plays on it. Right now it has roughly double than that. Thats from people checking it out after other levels made it on.

On a side note, I published a little survival challenge the other day ( I set myself a project to see could I produce a level in a day) Anyway, after publishing I republished only a few times with some minor bug fixes. Basically, this level has been brought up the cool pages from traffic directly related to my level on page 1.

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It's funny you say this, because when I see you or anyone I know on page 1, I always drill down and take a look at how much traffic you're getting on your other levels AND also check out other creators that have not-so-good levels on page 1 (like bomb levels).

If your level is quality, it peeks peoples interest and they want to know what else you have done - so you get tons of plays on your other levels.

If your level isn't so good, it doesn't really attract people to your other levels.

When I published Tiger Woods Mini Golf, I ended up getting over 2000 plays combined between my other levels - and I didn't get nearly the kind of plays you generally get.

Another thing I noticed is that if you do levels with replay value you get continuous plays from that point on. I've noticed in the last few weeks a steady stream of people playing a number of my levels even though I have none on cool pages at all. It's actually rare that SOMEONE isn't playing Tiger Woods. This whole last weeking it at least had 1 or 2 plays going on continuously.

I LOVE the new attribute that shows how many people are currently playing your levels.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mindphaser74

A little off topic but I noticed yesterday some girl posting her level literally every 2 minutes!!!! I've started republishing mine twice daily and am not even at 50 plays yet with my new level. She had a few thousand plays. If this is what we have to do then my LBP days are numbered. :(

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Republishing can be tedious but to me it's just a matter of seeing things differently. You can see it negatively and not have fun, you can make PART of the fun.

Publishing each 2 mins is obviously ridiculous but I enjoy publishing my new levels like each 15-20 mins. When I just finished a level, it's fun to make it climb the pages. You advertise it on the net and republish it often when you're home. I'm also publishing late in the week and republish alot after 9pm so I spare myself some kids messing my rating.

I understand where you're coming from as I am myself 30 yrs old and living with my girlfriend that isn't really a gamer (yet). I don't have time to constantly republish. But since after 9pm i'll probably be playing LBP anyways, I take that 7 days of gaming and "incorporate" publishing into my gaming time. Most of time i'm playing a user level, then I go republish mine if there's less than 10 peep playing. After that, I go play another user level, come back, see if there's still 10 people playing. If not, I republish.

I kind of create myself an amusing rythm with it. I make it fun somehow.

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lol he's got 5 levels on there now, and used them to spell out "I [Heart] LBP"

He's halfway done with a new "Level That Plays Itself" too, so expect another one to keep the ball rolling.

Only problem with keeping up this momentum, is he's down to his last publish space, and will have to delete something to free up more room - not only does that mean he'll lose a level, but that he'll lose the playcounts and hearts to go with it, unless he overwrites an old save spot, which won't put the level on cool pages.

lol, seems i'm not the only one to notice then. :p

Well, he is quite a good creator, and apparently mastered the art of publishing as well.

Well, i guess it is better to publish various levels at around the same time

Yeah I don't even have levels, but I've noticed this phenomenon, when I whacked up my last little demo, the plays on my demitters demo took a jump and I also got a few plays on my lockbox, oh I do hope they found the booby trap *sniggers*

I'm not sure personally I like what he's doing... there's only so many slots that will fit into cool pages, and trying to tie up a bunch of slots for yourself is kind of selfish... kind of like taking half the cherry pie for yourself when there's a whole dinner table of people that would like some.

I was trying to "honestly" have Vertigo climb cool pages, when I was surrounded by bomb levels and the 10th post of the Little Big High School levels, all of which were low quality levels with people posting every 2 minutes around me. I just kind of gave up after a bit because my wife and child wanted to do things with me.

Keep in mind, for every level you start trying to push up you are pushing other levels - which may be great levels by authors that can't sit there all day spam publishing - DOWN the cool pages (yes, that's right - levels can also move down if other levels are pushed up)

At some point it's good to keep in mind that there are other people with quality levels that people may want to play besides yours.

I'm honestly not impressed someone can eat half the pie themselves, and also feel that if EVERYONE starts taking this mentality cool pages will heavily suffer even more than it does now.

I have to agree with CCubbage. Having multiple levels from the same author on one page of Cool Levels is ultimately detrimental to the other creators. Maybe we could badger MM to put a one-level-per-creator limit on each Cool Levels page?

Another flaw in the system I guess...

I noticed it yesterday. It's effective to be sure. I think I'm falling onto Cubbage's side of the opinion meter on this one. Its effective but is it at the expense of other creators chances?

Man, I've played his levels but, quite honestly...I hope I don't get flamed for this...I think this guy's levels are a bit overrated. I mean, it's impressive to see someone have the skill to make a level that plays by itself but...5 stars? I thought it was a bit short and under-decorated to be honest but still, his levels are enjoyable. I guess he's just amazingly popular.

...Too popular...