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MUD Promotions (or how to get bigger AND better playerbase)
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Davairus
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Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 10344
Location: 0x0000

PostPosted: Sat Jul 23, 2005 4:54 pm    Post subject: MUD Promotions (or how to get bigger AND better playerbase)

If you want to see more people in the MUD the simple fact is you have to get up and do something about it. Barring the occasional person who behaves like a complete fuckwad and gets himself banned, the largest factor in growth (and decline) of playerbase, is, surprise, the playerbase.

Attracting players - Throwing the mud

Believe it or not people are searching for new muds ALL the time, and frankly this game's a lot better than 90% of crap out there. There is a simple adage here, throw enough mud and some is going to stick. Basically, just getting people logged in, and a percentage of them will be retained (more on that later).

1) Word of mouth

This is the fastest and easiest way to get new players. Recommend the game to some people IRL. Vast majority of players already here are here because of this very reason, so you don't have to worry about "OOC" or whatever. I would say that this is the most major factor. Brothers, cousins, best friends, even spouses in some cases, AR really is one big happy family like that.

That is not to say try to recruit everybody, because not everybody is right for muds, especially ours with its enforced roleplaying. Basically, if you're recommending our game, its to someone who you would think will actually appreciate its finer qualities, like the pking, or the interesting quests.. its a thinking man's game. Most the people I know who play here are smart and mature enough for university - maths majors, philosophy majors, etc - smart people aren't too "smart" to play this game, bring them in. Badger them to give it a serious try. Someone who is disgruntled with an MMORPG experience (which is bringing a lot of people into rpgs, and thus bringing in disgruntled ones) would appreciate a mud.

You might have to badger them to play several more times before they start logging in by themselves, because of the initially steep learning curve caused by the text interface, but you know once they're used to it, they'll probably be hooked and having fun just like you are.

2) Voting

Those three graphics on the top right corner of this forum are the voting links. Our rank is displayed for the ones which we have written scripts to fetch it from. After you've clicked, and refreshed this forum, the page will then display how long until you can vote again. A distributed effort is what works for voting, the effect of one person is kinda small, but with a lot of guys doing it, it gets easy to quickly ascend the ranks.

We have actually attained a couple players who found AR like this, so I would say its worthwhile, its also nice for morale to have a nice rank. Personally, I love being top 20's, just to be on that first page, knowing people frequently check muds on that page. I know because I check them myself outta boredom sometimes, looking for different things as an implementor of course. Its an easy way to contribute.

Topmudsites = 2 times per day
The Mud Connector = 1 time per day

NOTE: Vote "incentives"
- The incentive for voting is the publicity bringing in newbies... I'll definitely field suggestions for incentives to help the newbies, but not for the votes. Adding incentives for the actual voting is against the rules at the voting sites.

3) MUD reviews

Similar phenom to voting, personally I read reviews outta boredom mostly, but sometimes they're eye catching. If a review is posted its a little hook and someone's going to bite, especially if its a good review. Things that go into a "good review"

- interesting "features" not in other muds that people can see right away (this gives people a reason to log in and check them out) i.e. the "hook"
- basic description of the gameplay as you see it
- statements that'll influence the kind of people you're writing for, e.g. if you're trying to impress competitive pkers, you'd say, this game has a lot of skilled pkers in high levels on it. or if rp'ers, you'd talk about why those guys are
- some negative is good feedback for us as Imms, so we know what areas to fix, and so the review doesnt sound like pure butt-kissing to everyone else
- don't forget the telnet address and port!

If we get a bad review the advice they offered to people at TMS is to post a nice one to balance it out (if you feel we should have one), rather than go with the urge to post a rebuttal. They dont seem to like rebuttals there at all in my experience.

This can be just as effective as a lot of voting if you take the time to write a balanced review. Now reviews are nice but on the other hand spamming them like votes would have the opposite affect on right-minded people. I know every other time I go to topmudsites I see same muds as last time on the "new reviews", and I'm like, yeah whatever, its a bit of a turn-off. Once a month is nice, twice a month is more like it.

Retaining players - Making the mud stick

Again this is up to the playerbase for the most part. Imms ban players from time to time for cheating, and the occasional player quits over balance changes, but its small potatoes compared to the affect of playerbase. The players set the atmosphere, or the mood of the game, and if a new player likes it, he'll stay in it. Some people are looking for MUDs where they can have sex with their pets, AR is not. We're looking for people who like pk. But not senselessly, we want characters with well-defined reasons for their kills - that's our hype on TMC, that's a reason people sign up with us, and ultimately, a reason they go elsewhere if they're let down.

Retaining newbies is NOT a game code issue, I saw a player recently (Feyrat) who logged on this game as a total retard newbie that was new to all muds, explored and learnt stuff, got turned off after getting raped repeatedly by various people here, and is now quit, the last straw being when he got trashed by a stone berserker silently. All in the space of three months. It was the players that did it.

These are things I know I like personally:

* playerbase is skilled - without the competition there's no incentive to get better

* some evidence of RP going on - notes to all are an immediately obvious example I can see as soon as I log in - not that I want to participate but I like to know that its going on. First impressions DO matter. I actually think we may be suffering in this aspect due to having the arena & taverns in Timaran which would otherwise be obviously noisy areas. Try to make yourselves accessible.

* forum is not pure crap, with visible lack of intelligent discussion, or rarely posted on. Like if I open an ideas forum, I expect to find interesting ideas. When I am looking into muds, the intelligence of the playerbase is a big factor. There are other muds I read forum of just because their players bring up lively discussions, that'd be nice to see here. Being active and posting something useful in forums is a good reason for other people to check the forums, and forum regulars are also voters, so its good to build our forum.

I try to add new features and make things more attractive constantly, as well as build a helpful website, but at the end of the day its you who're going to put people off or make them stay or not.


Last edited by Davairus on Tue Feb 07, 2006 6:28 am; edited 8 times in total
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Jamus



Joined: 18 Jun 2005
Posts: 577
Location: Valour

PostPosted: Sun Jul 24, 2005 6:39 am    Post subject:

I don't have the MPOG voting link...

IE Mac Version 5.2

SubBlack forum skin

Tiger OS X 4.2

Java/cookies enabled, any other info...?
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Davairus
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Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 10344
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 24, 2005 7:57 am    Post subject:

Use subsilver til Torkalen updates it.
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Grayden



Joined: 21 Jun 2005
Posts: 632
Location: Spokane, WA

PostPosted: Sun Jul 24, 2005 10:58 am    Post subject:

I keep voting, but when will give me my vorpal sword?

Grayden Grim Twisted Evil
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Davairus
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Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 10344
Location: 0x0000

PostPosted: Sun Jul 24, 2005 1:46 pm    Post subject:

The incentive for voting is the publicity bringing in newbies... I'll definitely field suggestions for incentives to help the newbies, but not for the votes. If you make any suggestions, please keep in mind that this is a multiplayer game, if your suggestions can benefit groups in some way (for example, travelling with an known newbie causes exp boosts.. or maybe benefits to cabals that take good care of their newbs) .. then they'll be much more likely to be accepted than ones that help solo players.
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theobserver
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 9:11 pm    Post subject:

Davairus wrote:
Use subsilver til Torkalen updates it.

Sub-black is updated now.
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Jamus



Joined: 18 Jun 2005
Posts: 577
Location: Valour

PostPosted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 10:38 pm    Post subject:

Thanks for the updation.

By the way, the cookies are still working (you wondered in the other thread, but I thought i would post over in here).
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Jamus



Joined: 18 Jun 2005
Posts: 577
Location: Valour

PostPosted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 10:40 pm    Post subject:

Actually, I'm not real sure if they are - The top one says vote in 5 hrs, next three in 17 hrs. Shouldn't it be 12 and 24?

And, after I quit Safari, and come back, there isn't any message at all.

When you click on the telnet vote, and the terminal comes up, your vote is sumbmitted, right?

EDIT:: And how come my post isn't shown in the recent posts section above?

THANKS.
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theobserver
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 11:11 pm    Post subject:

Jamus wrote:
Actually, I'm not real sure if they are - The top one says vote in 5 hrs, next three in 17 hrs. Shouldn't it be 12 and 24?

It counts down until you can vote again.

Jamus wrote:
And, after I quit Safari, and come back, there isn't any message at all..

Are you still logged when you return? ie is the skin you use being displayed?

Jamus wrote:
When you click on the telnet vote, and the terminal comes up, your vote is sumbmitted, right?

Telnet vote?

Jamus wrote:
EDIT:: And how come my post isn't shown in the recent posts section above?
THANKS.

It doesnt show sticky threads. I need to rewrite this thing at some stage anyway because it slows down the forum too much.
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Jamus



Joined: 18 Jun 2005
Posts: 577
Location: Valour

PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 1:38 am    Post subject:

It shows now. I don't know what I did, but it works.

Yes, the Telnet Vote. I wrote that in my post (???).
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Amdorin



Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 829
Location: No matter how much a failure, no life is worthless. You can always serve as a bad example.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 13, 2005 10:12 pm    Post subject:

Vote peoples, the counter just reset.
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Jamus



Joined: 18 Jun 2005
Posts: 577
Location: Valour

PostPosted: Sun Sep 04, 2005 8:34 pm    Post subject:

I can't see anything but the voting links in the box up there. All I see is each icon - no "Vote in 21 hours" type thing.

I'm using the subSilver skin, now.
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Davairus
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 6:33 am    Post subject:

Bumped for edit to first post.
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Remmenon



Joined: 10 Oct 2005
Posts: 104
Location: Edmonton AB Canada

PostPosted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 11:52 am    Post subject:

Dav wrote:
Quote:
Retaining newbies is NOT a game code issue, I saw a player recently (Feyrat) who logged on this game as a total retard newbie that was new to all muds, explored and learnt stuff, got turned off after getting raped repeatedly by various people here, and is now quit, the last straw being when he got trashed by a stone berserker silently. All in the space of three months. It was the players that did it.


Who cares about Feyrat. I'm sure he's still playing. I will admit the silent killing shit has toned down though alot.. especially compared to the beginning of Ar like the summoning agro mobs into town or mobs that fireball and shit.. heh those were good times pawning lowbies like that... or the good ol summon in town into the inn there and pawning someone, or charming an actual person and ordering them to battle the priest and shit.. damn brings tears to my eyes... Or if the silent killing shit does kinda happen, it happens at a much higher rank then like 15's to 20s like it used to. I mean if that shit happens around 35 that's good. I think 35 is a good rank for newbies to hang around at for a bit because it's like they're entering into a new world of pking and hiding and shit.

Here's another quote from Dav:

Quote:
Again this is up to the playerbase for the most part. Imms ban players from time to time for cheating, and the occasional player quits over balance changes, but its small potatoes compared to the affect of playerbase.


That's where I definately disagree. all the fucking changes that happen all the time really turn people off because someone tries to learn something, then whammo cause of one whiney loser someone codes in a change (Eg extort) all because Dav or whoever is afraid of losing that one whiney panzy. I think you really underestimate the power shift that happens when you guys screw around with the code. When you change extort, confining, whatever. Caballed people in Legion get choked, and then just either delete their chars and do something else or let them hit the backburner. Or another thing that really turns people off is when An Imm, who knows everything about the code plays his char and is only an average/crappy player so he ends up using the game as his own personal amusement park and codes in changes to suit his needs. That definately leaves a nice bitter taste in your mouth... Not naming any names.. But Definately various changes like that really is a good way at eliminating skilled players because they're not interested in playing anymore and they either go find another mud, or usually just end up playing internet games via playstation/xbox or their comp like warcraft or something.

Just my million bucks (I never sell myself short. heh.)
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Noliperus_



Joined: 03 Feb 2006
Posts: 39

PostPosted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 1:21 pm    Post subject:

Quote:
one whiney loser someone codes in a change (Eg extort)


How dare you. I didn't want it changed, I just wanted to be aware that it could happen. I never would have left because of that anyway. :Þ
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Davairus
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Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 10344
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 1:21 pm    Post subject:

I've noticed Remmenon's posts are kinda like his favorite class - ninjas. Because they just appear out of the blue when you least expect them, and unleash one massive yet impotent assault. And then just like the real thing, he can't hide so he gets ripped to pieces by five people.

Seriously Remmenon, get a grip.
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Vanisse
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Joined: 06 Jan 2006
Posts: 2793
Location: inside a tree

PostPosted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 1:46 pm    Post subject:

please, sir...

Remmenon wrote:
heh those were good times pawning lowbies like that... or the good ol summon in town into the inn there and pawning someone


pawning is the selling of a possession to a used-goods store.

please stop selling the lowbies, it makes them cry. Crying or Very sad
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Remmenon



Joined: 10 Oct 2005
Posts: 104
Location: Edmonton AB Canada

PostPosted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 1:54 pm    Post subject:

Yah well, I find ninja's probably the most interesting class in the game. Thieves were, but with the adrenaline changes.. *cough* they're pretty useless. blackjack and trying to pry something.. yaaah.. not going to work, not like prying something was very effective anyhow.

Also I'm too much of a dick in game to actually play a class where i just stroll around in plain sight(like the all favored warriors.. bleh how boring)because of the fact that so many people wanna gank me all the time.

Plus I like my playing style.. the ninja style.. just outta nowhere I track down my prey, and strike when their pants are down. I don't have to fight when I don't want to, I always fight when I want to, on my terms. It's better that way.

But, none the less whatever you don't like about my style/tactics doesn't nearly compare to you Dav. You have access to all the code, know all the factors that go into every part of the game and yet you still amount to just an average player.

As for having a grip.. well I'd rather have half a brain then half a grip. I think half a brain is deadlier. Heh.
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Davairus
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 2:51 pm    Post subject:

I'll tell you what else Remmenon posts remind me of. Its like a comic strip of Spiderman, from the 70s. All the time he's making these cheesy esoteric jokes which only he gets, talking to himself in his own special world that nobody but comic strip fans can understand. And once in a while his spider sense goes off to alert him to danger, giving him just enough time to stay alive. The difference here is that the spider sense is permanent, so he's always in that panic state...

"You wanna know who I am! I'm Remmenon-man!"
"My spider sense is tingling! Oh shite, it looks like everyone's out to get me."
Note from Stan: Spidey..err..Remmy's been under a lot of stress lately, dear readers!

...
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Remmenon



Joined: 10 Oct 2005
Posts: 104
Location: Edmonton AB Canada

PostPosted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 3:00 pm    Post subject:

HAHAAHAAHAAH oh my god! Hahahaa.. oh man. Oh.. *wipes the tears away from laughing so hard*

I think that is probably the wittiest post I've seen you write Dav. I'm serious though. Most of your posts are usually defensive but this one was definately good.

I was trying to go for the low blow with the whole "you're only an average player even though you know all the code" and the whole "You code in changes cause you don't like how someone else plays the game" bit but you nicely tried to change the subject and draw attention from those facts with a bit of attacking humor.

All I can say is touche.
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