Random acts of publicity

[Bahliker]

In my experience there's a sweet spot for Armageddon's PC population. Too few and the game feels stagnant, repetitive, too many and it feels hectic and unfocused. Too few or too many also plays against the staff's efforts. I like somewhere between 80-120 peak players, assuming the eventual reopening of groups or areas to help spread the numbers out a little more evenly. What number each of us prefers is a matter we could debate for days, but I think most of us can agree that our current average peak times don't do the game justice. I bet you deep off-peakers would be happy with triple the boots to loot.

I'd like ideas for places and ways to introduce the game. Let's hear about things that appeal to prospective players.

I'd like to encourage everybody to go out of their way, bend their story just a tad, to draw in an obvious newbie. Even if it's to rob them, as long as we showcase what makes this game great.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MUD/ runs a monthly promotion called Let's MUD where they feature a game randomly selected from a group of nominations. Comment if you like. Check out the subreddit if you haven't yet. Upvoting and commenting does nothing for our chances but if there are people there that don't even know what a MUD is like but are curious, they definitely need us talking about it for them. Like nonstop. Let's annoy naysayers with how much more fun we're having.

[Feco]

Upvoted and replied earlier.  Always good to push the game where we can!

Need more boots!

[Feco]

Since I only started playing again... relatively recently... I thought it was appropriate to post in the /r/games weekly discussion post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/61nyta/weekly_rgames_discussion_what_have_you_been/dfisntn/?context=3

If people want to add stuff there, that would be badass.

[Delirium]

One of the most important things we can do is retain new players who might be otherwise overwhelmed or fall through the cracks. New players are literally the lifeblood of this game, so gaining them is important - and keeping them is doubly so. This game has a steep learning curve so all we can do to mitigate that, we should.

As a helper I'm pretty well positioned to do that but everyone can pitch in by bringing the world to life in a way that is both realistic and educational to a new player experiencing Zalanthas through wide new eyes. Remember what the game felt like when you started, and try to help new players with that in mind.

[Delirium]

p.s. I've been seeing lots of visitors from reddit!

[solera]

I don't think we can have too many. We can open a disappearing spot up north to divert the surplus.

[Hauwke]

The main problem Arm has is that mudding just isnt awesome sauce anymore. Change -that- and we would have a massive surplus of players.

[Melkor]

I once suggested that the staff sponsor a video-game vlogger with a moderate following (20k-100k subscriber base) To play and do a video on Armageddon. A few hundred bucks would achieve this. The response I received was something along the lines of "If we want to, we will."

Publicity has to be an active effort, like recruiting players 1v1, or sponsoring vloggers, not passive, like relying on TMS.

[Dar]

I think the last weblogger like that, who did play our Mud and blogged about it, got banned .

I might be wrong about it. Maybe he just lost interest and moved on? The guy was awesome! This retired Finnish dude who read every room's description in finnish accent. Totally awesome. He also began in the Rinth, so that ... didnt work out too well for him.

[Feco]

I think the last weblogger like that, who did play our Mud and blogged about it, got banned .

I might be wrong about it. Maybe he just lost interest and moved on? The guy was awesome! This retired Finnish dude who read every room's description in finnish accent. Totally awesome. He also began in the Rinth, so that ... didnt work out too well for him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=405ZNzG4TpI&index=1&list=PLQ0oxRsemaYBtLPDUCW9hy3DHj8wFEObJ


It's.... Incredible.  Posted it on Reddit a while back, and it didn't get any traction.

The dude has HOURS of him reading the documentation.

Also, I play a lot of Dwarf Fortress and CataclysmDDA.  Put some threads up on those associated forums.  Hopefully some folk trickle in

[Melkor]

Also, I play a lot of Dwarf Fortress and CataclysmDDA.  Put some threads up on those associated forums.  Hopefully some folk trickle in

Hell yeah.  Thanks for your active efforts, Feco.

I pitch the game to people I know IRL. I have two maybe three people reading the docs rn. We'll see if they start playing.

[Feco]

Also, I play a lot of Dwarf Fortress and CataclysmDDA.  Put some threads up on those associated forums.  Hopefully some folk trickle in

Hell yeah.  Thanks for your active efforts, Feco.

I pitch the game to people I know IRL. I have two maybe three people reading the docs rn. We'll see if they start playing.

I've been working on someone in my D&D group for months.  Not working.  I think I've run out of potential real life recruits

[Bahliker]

I've taken to telling a coworker that I've played d&d with about my adventures whenever I run into him. Already failed on all my other friends years ago and everyone else I know is either a classic good ol boy or... some of you people. God I need more friends.

[Shoka Windrunner]

Put it here too, I've been plugging it on my Twitch streams, towards the end of them.  I'm not huge or anything, but five or so at least have mentioned they have made a character or are planning to.  So yeah, just put it out there and point them at the website. 

[Harmless]

The open love this community has for that finnish player should be a reminder about the potential benefits of relaxing the ooc communication rules the game currently has. Maybe new players should be given more leeway while it is obvious they are noobs. After all, noobs are pretty harmless to the important plots going on anyway. I would be fine if a contingent of redditors joined us and made a makeshift hunting crew to explore the world in, or joined the byn or kurac or something. As they learn our culture and expectations of RP and communication we can gradually enforce the rules more for them.

I call an approach like this Reasonable Administration (c).

edited for accuracy.

[Nergal]

Just wanted to state that that player wasn't banned. He didn't play for very long but he is always welcome back.

[Dar]

Yeah. I just recall there was some tension about him posting narration of what was basically ongoing. I hope nothing came out of it though.

I wonder why did he stop though. Probably got horribly murdered for his boots. Playing a very slow to act (due to all the voice reading) person in the rinth is not conducive to survival.

[Nergal]

I posted my clarification because I don't want it to be said that publicity efforts will get players banned, as the implication seemed to be. That is completely false. New players are given significant leeway with OOC communication rules - any regular reader of the GDB should recall instances where new players mention their character name or recent events that happened to their PC.  They don't get banned or moderated, but players take a bit of time to explain the rules to them. That's how we prefer things handled.

Spfnym didn't even leave over any OOC communication and he wasn't reprimanded at all by staff, although IIRC his last video describes his character being murdered by another PC:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSsEk8ke1TA

If he caught heat it was perhaps from players on the GDB, though I don't specifically recall what tension you're referring to. The comments from players are encouraging.

In fact we're actively trying to promote an effort to get a new player video series going, as you can see here:
http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,52346.msg983778.html#msg983778

So I'm really not sure where this idea that staff being harsh to new players is coming from. We welcome new players, and we love enthusiastic players who want to spread Armageddon to other people. We get numerous new players from reddit and TMC because there are lots of players who are supportive of the game there. We encourage players to publicize the game. We'd like to publicize major changes to the game when they're upcoming.

[Dar]

It's awesome how much sadness shows in his voice when he says his character died and his very last words were gold and a perfect ending to the weblog. I lost count to how many times I felt exactly the same when a character of mine who was involved in a myriad of plots died.

[Melkor]

So, A lot of ideas get passed around and mulled over, which is good, but I'd like to see action.

I pledge a $20 donation to Armageddon sponsoring a video-game vlogger. Anyone else down?

[lairos]

There was one last year that had 3 different videos.

Listening to him walk through the various steps and hearing his excitement over the features he continued to find was great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_3263636845&feature=iv&src_vid=O61tZF5mHwU&v=-iYEmWIITvY

[Melkor]

Cool video, but 100% not an active publicity effort... He has 15 subscribers.

[lairos]

Cool video, but 100% not an active publicity effort... He has 15 subscribers.

Right, it was merely a point at an example.

[Melkor]

Gotcha. I have to admit, seeing/hearing this guy marvel at the smallest discoveries is pretty awesome.

"Can I look at pants?" <look pants> "Wow. This is what I was looking for in a game. Detail."

Him discovering the game reminds me of when I was discovering the game 12 years back.

So, anyone else willing to pledge a 20 to finance some advertisement via sponsoring a youtuber?

[Sadus]

So, anyone else willing to pledge a 20 to finance some advertisement via sponsoring a youtuber?

Sure, I got $20 to throw some place.

As long as this is cool with Staff.

[Melkor]

Lol they did not solicit this, but it is my hope that if they see  some money raised, and the desire for active advertisement behind that money, it will convince them.

40 and counting. Anyone else down?

[Rhyden]

There was one last year that had 3 different videos.

Listening to him walk through the various steps and hearing his excitement over the features he continued to find was great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_3263636845&feature=iv&src_vid=O61tZF5mHwU&v=-iYEmWIITvY

Cool video, but 100% not an active publicity effort... He has 15 subscribers.

And 3.5k views. Not too shabby. I also appreciate how he figured out the in game map so easily.

[Melkor]

So, I asked an absentee question in the Staff/Player discussion:

Melkor asked:
1) What active publicity efforts are being/will be made in the near future?

The answer provided was:

Nathvaan - Today at 7:34 PM
One effort is this discord channel to assist with it being a more active community.  Another is work being done on a series of video tutorials to help with traversing the learning curve because we reconize it is a pretty significant barrier to entry.  There are also discussions on how we could use twitter and facebook to highlight events that are happening in the IC world while still balancing it against making sure we don't spoil any player's active plots either.
To that end, I'd like to share the intro for the first video.  Hot off the presses!
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B76biRcpBhe5WURfZWd1ZjVpSWs
Google Drive
TestIntroEP1.mp4

I think the aforementioned efforts directed toward newbie retention are great, but not exactly publicity. None of the efforts listed above will effect people who have never heard of Armageddon and get them to investigate/play the game.

I suppose a better question I could have asked would be: "What active efforts are being made to attract more new players?"

[Delirium]

I'm of the opinion that working on new player retention is a good strategy.

From my admittedly limited viewpoint we get a LOT of new player traffic - but not many stick in the long (or even short) term. Ideally, we can work on both in concert, but if I had to weigh one over the other, I would want to focus on retention.

[Melkor]

I absolutely agree that new player retention is crucial. But the question was regarding publicity, which I do not think is exactly analogous; which is why there is a publicity thread and a new-player-video thread. Separate topics for separate issues.

[FantasyWriter]

Running across that three video series last week or the week before is what brought me back to the game after more than a year of not logging in.  I miss having that sense of wonder about Zalanthas.  I would give my left reproductive organ to be able to to erase everything I know about this game from my memory and start over.

[Melkor]

Great to have you back, FW. When I came back after a decade-long hiatus, I was shocked with how much changed, and how much I had to learn again. I hope you get some of that experience, too.