The Game's Pace: An Aging Playerbase vs You

[hyzhenhok]

While there are a ton of valid points here, I think it's important to also make this point: People don't know what MUDs are.

How does that get solved? Well, you should be investigating new ways to advertise, to enable access to the game, and to get new eyes on the game. We older cats have been playing forever, and even when we started, most of us discovered the game by accident, or via a friend. For instance, I was introduced by my younger brother. He learned of it in an AOL chat room.

There has been a massive change in how popular roleplaying as a verbal medium (D&D, etc) rather than a graphical one has become, and how mainstream it has become, and I am annoyed beyond words that we don't have a marketing team capable or having the desire to be taking advantage of this.

We need a serious talk about how comfortable we feel about presenting ourselves to the world, and then we need to formulate a plan to take advantage of how easy it is to get eyes on something these days. Perhaps we need to establish a GoFundMe for ad costs or something. We could be more active on social media.

Something like this is probably the correct "solution" and obliquely identifies what is probably the "problem":  that these days there far are more options and more competitors.

Back in the day, if you wanted to play a free online roleplaying game, there weren't many options besides MUDs. If you wanted to do real-time roleplaying but didn't have friends to play tabletop with, there weren't many options besides MUDs. So you would have a steady stream of people (especially bored teenagers) finding their way to MUDs and finding their way to Armageddon. If you wanted to play a hardcore game with limited progression, PvP and permadeath, there weren't many options besides a subset of MUDs.

These days, it's easier than ever to find a roleplaying group, even if you don't have any friends. Free to play roleplaying games are everywhere, including ones that have people roleplaying. I even see survival-PvP games like Day-Z and Rust as competing somewhat in Arm's space. There's just a lot more competition for the attention of our prospective audience (particularly teenagers and college kids).

That said, Armageddon (and other RPIs), still offers a unique experience unlike anything else. We have a niche. But people are less likely to find the niche now than before. But we've been having this conversation about how to get more new players for 10 years and there's not an easy solution.

[Veselka]

Also, to be honest, I wasn't stating this as a problem to be solved, but as a Pillar of Truth.

Our Playerbase is ostensibly getting older than it was when it first started playing the game. Yes, there are younger people still picking up the hobby, but I'm talking about M-m-m-my generation. Those who started when they were 14-17 and are now 30-35.

Truths:
-We have more things to do
-We have more responsibilities
-Lots of us have wives and husbands and kids and fur-kids
-Lots of us have demanding careers
-Lots of us enjoy playing other video games
-Lots of us enjoy playing PnP games with RL friends, either online or in person
-Lots of us still love ArmageddonMUD and play it when we have the time.

It's not that the Game has changed, but that we as a player base have changed. And that's fine. There's no problem to be solved here, it's just true, a lot of players have less time to play the game than they used to.

But, there are still plenty of players who have plenty of time to play the game. Some of them work remotely, or are able to play while they are at work. Others don't have the same demands (but still different demands I'm sure) that pull them away from the game. Others have plenty of time, but can't devote it consistently.

The entire point of making this thread was mainly a PSA to not expect the game to be moving at breakneck speeds. It never has. It certainly won't now. That's a good thing. When shit happens, it HAPPENS, and it's fun. I see a lot of vague booking on the Discord about 'where is everyone' and 'why is player count 15 on July 4th' and it's like...C'mon people. Let's just have fun with the game, chop each other up with bone swords, and chill on the leaning so heavily on everyone to play the game 24/7, either IC or OOC.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Your well-made point is taken, Veselka, and agreed with. But your PSA prompted some good discussion, too. So you were great, twice!

... we've been having this conversation about how to get more new players for 10 years and there's not an easy solution.

I think there is, but it requires dedicated people to enact it. Using social media to bring attention to yourself is pretty damned simple, in theory. It's the practice that's a bear for some of us. But in simple theory, you could populate your Instagram or Twitter account by simply collecting friends that are all related to RP, and dropping comments on things they post. Having somebody clever with words make those comments just enhances the number of people who come over to see what you're about.

Conceptualizing ads that can be inserted into relevant search results is simple too, but requires funds, which Armageddon has never collected for fucking anything. A community driven crowd-fund could supply the funds we need to get our ads to the places they need to be. A lot of us are doing alright in life and wouldn't mind donating a few bucks a month, and others of us have the skills needed to do graphic design, or offer legal advice, or ... whatever. We couldn't do or afford some of these things when we were younger, but this older playerbase could.

[Barsook]

PSA: We do have a Publicity group that anyone can join. Just use the request tool to join!

It's under: General Discussion Board > Suggestion or Idea

[Barsook]

Conceptualizing ads that can be inserted into relevant search results is simple too, but requires funds, which Armageddon has never collected for fucking anything. A community driven crowd-fund could supply the funds we need to get our ads to the places they need to be. A lot of us are doing alright in life and wouldn't mind donating a few bucks a month, and others of us have the skills needed to do graphic design, or offer legal advice, or ... whatever. We couldn't do or afford some of these things when we were younger, but this older playerbase could.

Agreed 100%.