Where Survey - April

[Nergal]

New blood keeps the game alive and fresh more than anything else. That's why we decided to dedicate a bit of time to analyzing the Where Survey again. Basically, we ask every new player where they heard about us, and the system tracks their playtime so that we can see if they stuck around. We can report some findings based on this data.

Some Facts
- April saw the unique login count shoot back up over 200 after a few months of hovering in the high 180-low 190 range. In the last week of April we suddenly went from 189 to 227 unique logins, with 110 new accounts created that one week and 310 new accounts created in the entirety of the month of April.

- Playtime of new accounts: Not every new account plays. Sometimes they don't submit a character. Sometimes they submit a character that gets rejected (usually a blank or silly app). Of the 310 new accounts, a total of 81 players played for any length of time. 11 players played for over 24 hours and the remaining 70 played for under 24 hours.

- Of the 310 new accounts created, here's a rough breakdown on where they came from:
50 from Mudconnector
49 from friends/word of mouth
37 from Reddit
27 from Google searches
9 from TopMudSites
8 from Youtube

180 others

- Of the 81 players who played for any length of time:
19 from friends
15 from Mudconnector
11 from Reddit
6 from Google
3 from Youtube
2 from TopMudSites

25 others

- Known Youtube channels mentioning Armageddon:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe310ncP6RqMKG2lxiOSNZQ - ShadeOfDead
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWETnhEinkCMILP008ASZ4g - Baybars Reviews

What we learned and what we can do:

MudConnector remains the top source of prospective new players, although word of mouth seems to keep people around. So tell your friends about Armageddon and don't forget to vote with the buttons at the top of the GDB or in my signature below!

I don't think it's a coincidence that our increased exposure on TMC and Reddit combined with a number of new game and community features (like gladiators, the guild revamp initial announcement, the player-staff meeting, the official Discord chat) has resulted in an upswing in newbie interest in how we run things as well as veterans returning to the game. Our goal is to keep this up, and we appreciate players who promote Armageddon on sites like Reddit and other video game communities (where appropriate).

For Redditors, I encourage you to keep an eye on r/MUD in late May for the June Let's MUD nominations and give Armageddon a mention there. For everyone, tell a roleplay-minded friend about Armageddon and let them know to throw your account name into the Where Survey for extra kudos!

Anything you want to know? Anything you want to discuss about the numbers and trends? Feel free to reply.

[Melkor]

Fantastic information, Nergal. Thank you.

[dravage]

Super news, and well done to everyone trying hard to make this happen.

I wonder if we could do something to improve our presence on Reddit in the MUD community? An ARM subreddit might be taking it too far, as we'll be effectively creating another hub, but somewhere basic announcements are re-posted/linked etc could be effective.

I daresay that helping friends get in involved is something we can capitalize on. How do we hook them easier? How do we ease them in better?

Keep up the hard work!

[Feco]

Thanks for the info!