Where Players Found Us: October 2014

[Talia]

Raw data for October

Total new accounts created:  233 (compared to 205 for September)
Duplicates (created multiple accounts out of confusion/staff accounts/etc):  4
New accounts minus the above: 229 (compared to 197 for September = +32 = +16%)



Where people came from
(noteworthy results mentioned, some might be concurrent)

Topmudsites:  16 (compared to 9 for Sept)
Themudconnector: 111 (compared to 75 for Sept)
Google: 14 (note that these can probably be attributed to either TMS or TMC or may be otherwise concurrent with the above)
Search/web: 34 (these also can probably be attributed to either TMS or TMC)
Friends/other players/family/co-workers/homies:  20
Reddit:  7
TV Tropes:  5

A smattering of some miscellaneous answers:
"I was looking for a role-playing mud with an interesting crafting system on http://www.mudconnect.com"
"Searching in google like a crazy guy for RP enforced MUDs."
"dune's entry in wikipedia"
"A friend said it was like the game Legend of Zork, in which I immediately knew that i wanted to try this game"
"People I like to play with came to this game."

(Sorry, there was no "dicktowel" this month.)



Login data

Made account but did not create a character: 107 (47%) (Sept was 54%)
Created a character: 122 (53%) (Sept was 46%)
Created a character that was approved but didn't play: 19 (8%) (Sept was 12%)

Actual logins (created a character that was approved and they logged in):  75 (33%) (Sept was 43 = 22%)
-- 1 hour or less in playtime: 30 (Sept was 11)
-- 1-2 hours of playtime:  9 (Sept was 11)
-- 2-6 hours of playtime:  16 (Sept was 9)
-- 6-20 hours of playtime:  10 (Sept was 10)
-- 20+ hours of playtime:  10 (Sept was 2)

Of all these, appear to still be playing: 34 (10%) (Sept was 4 / 2%) (these came from a mixture of sources)

Professional opinion: October was a substantial improvement over September in all respects for new accounts and new players. This is somewhat unusual, because October tends to be a low month, due to students going back to school and etc. Whatever we did last month, let's keep doing it in November. That means vote, people! And it means playing and being enthusiastic and helping newbies.

Are you a new player with comments about how you found us and how the game has been for you so far?  Feel free to chime in here!  Getting your perspective on things will hopefully help out future players.

[Desertman]

Ugggh, make Daddeh happeh. 

[wizturbo]

Kick ass.  Great results!

[MeTekillot]

A lot of these people probably don't even go to the GDB. I know I don't frequent the extended website of about 85% of the MUDS I play.

[deskoft]

"Searching in google like a crazy guy for RP enforced MUDs.

Oh, hey, my answer is there! *waves to the camera*

Well, in my case, I've always been searching for a -good-, -realistic- RP enforced game/server/MUD. I played in another popular RPE MUD, but I basically didn't find what I was searching. I think the key here is that there's a good amount of players that help newbies upon their entrance to the gameworld, and a good amount of players that don't help them (I'm saying this is good). In my case, I find this harmony of good vs mean players excellent. I believe that if everyone treated me extremely nicely, it would've been boring. I enjoy having plots, issues, confrontations, people trying to sink you and even people ignoring you for your extremely stinky and icky clothes. In both of my PCs I found these kind of situations.

I think what definitely would be great, though, is to encourage new players to write background stories that are correlated to their OOC knowledge of the culture. My first character was a citizen of Allanak, and not knowing a single term really was awkward and can even make other people flee from your role-plays. My second character atleast has some correlation to my OOC knowledge. As people say: your first character is to be used in the discovery of the lore of the game. In the process, you will probably join a clan, or not, and learn a lot of new things, and stuff. So it is a great experience to create a character that has a background that fits in with the lack of knowledge on the lore, but has the possibilities of advancing in the gameworld and joining a clan.

Anyways, that's my experience!

[TheWanderer]

A lot of these people probably don't even go to the GDB. I know I don't frequent the extended website of about 85% of the MUDS I play.

I don't always frequent extended websites, but when I do, I frequent them.

[Barsook]

Shouldn't be September the low month not October?  If so, why is not September but October.  Kids go back to school in September.  Just a random thought/question.