Taking a push from Mansa.
If you had theoretically had 5-10k at your disposal, how would you promote the mud?
Post your ideas here.
google ads
a reference cd promo for certain games
a reference cd promo inside some books
a reference cd promo inside some magazines
yahoo ads
specific armageddon client
rewrite of the website
hire some coders to update the user interface
print out flyers and put them up in the comic book / gaming shops / universities / colleges around town.
make a 'promoting' section of the website that has a zip file with all kinds of goodies like pictures, flyers, logs
make a 'view the game' section that is a very very small video of a telnet client, and people tying in commands and going places and doing stuff. Like a movable log of someone sparring or something exciting. like a large animated gif
Begin my own university level course.
Gaming 112: Mudding and how Arm is the best one.
Secondly though, I've actually come very close to doing just that with flyers, just lost my job before I copied a bunch. I really should though, it's not that expensive at all really.
I'd LOVE to see a T.V commercial about arm. Man.. would that be cool. We'd put Malifaxis as a mul, and Mansa as the elf getting beaten up.
I would blow half of it on hookers and blow, then spend the rest to buy banner space on a large gaming/forums site, like Jolt. That place gets insane traffic everyday from random Web travelers, gamers, and forum-monkeys.
-WP
Bumper stickers for sale at conventions, and plane tickets to get a resident Armag hottie to go distribute them.
Spam mailing system: "WANT BIGGER SAND? MORE TREACHER?Y! DISCOUNT GREEN TABLETS ONLIN3! Waterhorse powerflex skelebane bimbal."
And I'd turn five K immediately around and ask the Sci-Fi channel to make a Stargate SG1 episode about a crazy desert world called Zalanthas where the O'Neil turns into a sorcerer king, Teal'c becomes a gladiator trainer, Carter saves the day, and Daniel gets laid. Because -that- would get us some popularity.
Donate to and ask the meteorological foundation to name next years first hurricane as Hurricane Armageddon.org (with the .org in it).
I don't know what you're talking about FDMW
Meh, getting a massive amount of viewing for a geeky game like this is easy. Just get us slashdotted. Warn the ISP first, though. :wink:
Advertising on websites across the net, a simple television advertizment with a templar walking in the desert and then being stepped on by a mekillot with a bunch of elves chasing it with the exit words of, "Don't feed the hobbits, don't trust the elves. Armageddon."
I already personaly use a Armageddon banner on my Myspace profile and in other places, I also spread a lot by word.
slashdotted or farked.
hmm.
or even digged
Shalooonsh wrote:QuoteDonate to and ask the meteorological foundation to name next years first hurricane as Hurricane Armageddon.com (with the .com in it).
But aren't we armageddon.org?
You see, I think we need to fix Armageddon and make it more user friendly -before- we start to market it. I mean, when you start a game, you don't even have a prompt! What's with that!
Some of us should write what we thing Armageddon should do to make it more user friendly.
Quote from: "FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit"Shalooonsh wrote:
QuoteDonate to and ask the meteorological foundation to name next years first hurricane as Hurricane Armageddon.com (with the .com in it).
But aren't we armageddon.org?
Yeh. Don't send them to
Armageddon.com .... the pop ups make me cry.
spend it on making the server bigger, and get alot of ads out there
I put the voting stuff in my signature! I think it's probably the only useful thing I've done in two years. I'd have to check with the staff on that figure.
I love mansa's idea of having a section of the website that contains some snazzy looking promo posters/flyers in pdf that we could print off and stick in our local indie gaming stores/geek hangouts.
If i had any clue about design, i'd give it ashot but i don't so i won't.
Quote from: "Yang"I put the voting stuff in my signature! I think it's probably the only useful thing I've done in two years. I'd have to check with the staff on that figure.
Put RPI mud in there too! I can never find a link to that place.
For what it's worth, mansa's right. Most promotional pushes will, by necessity, drive people to the website. If the website isn't navigable, appealing, or comprehensible, people aren't going to stick around, regardless of the push.
Same for the UI.
And this does exist: http://www.armageddon.org/intro/adpage.html
I've put in a request to have the existing materials added in a link to that site, including flyers, business cards, and a poster.
In addendum: if you want to promote arm in your community and need ideas about how to do so, or access to materials for printing, you can e-mail me and I'll do what I can to set you up.
Please cc mud on all correspondence.
Yeh, the website seems like it really needs an overhaul and a lot more thought put into the navigation. I often find pages that I can never find again. Or see plenty of pages linked to on the forum...that you can't actually get to from the site.
From the design side...it's nice and simple, but I suppose it could be more attractive (no offence meant to whoever designed it).
I work in a team that does webdevelopment (I'm the designer, other two are coders). We work for very reasonable prices, I'm sure we'd be happy to help. :wink:
I think it's also fair to remind folks, here...
This fictional $5k-10K isn't at our disposal.
If you want to put up that amount of cash, I believe the staff has always welcomed donations. But assuming that Armageddon has funds available to spend on stuff like this might be a bit unfair, here.
This is a volunteer-run effort.
Quote from: "Beux"
I work in a team that does webdevelopment (I'm the designer, other two are coders). We work for very reasonable prices, I'm sure we'd be happy to help. :wink:
You could always donate your hours......
Quote from: "Djarjak"I think it's also fair to remind folks, here...
This fictional $5k-10K isn't at our disposal.
If you want to put up that amount of cash, I believe the staff has always welcomed donations. But assuming that Armageddon has funds available to spend on stuff like this might be a bit unfair, here.
This is a volunteer-run effort.
Yes. The 5-10k is a "If you had" not a "hey we have".
I was trying to see what creative ideas for marketing a game like arm people would come up with. IE if you had open access to funds what sort of people would you try to reach.
My biggest, baddest idea was to possibly try and tie up with a popular writer.
I think if I had unlimited access to resources I would:
1) Buy a chunk of licenses to Zmud, or pull a good open source client that I could redestribute.
2) Customize the client so that it was "arm-a-riffic" and n00b friendly. Lots of abstraction and a good gui for people who don't get what a command like is right away.
3) Hook up with a popular fantasy writer and get him to package the CD with the client up with his book.
4) Wait.
Quote from: "jmordetsky"Taking a push from Mansa.
If you had theoretically had 5-10k at your disposal, how would you promote the mud?
Post your ideas here.
CHANGE YOUR NAME TO ARMAGEDDON DOT ORG
Quote from: "Moofassa"Quote from: "Beux"
I work in a team that does webdevelopment (I'm the designer, other two are coders). We work for very reasonable prices, I'm sure we'd be happy to help. :wink:
You could always donate your hours......
Yeh. I'm actually in the habit of donating my hours quite regularly. My last 'pro-bono' project was for another mud in fact, a mud I immed on. Except my team aren't so generous and I get in trouble...and I can't do it without them. They're the php brainz.
Advertising and a completely new website. Think old Slashdot/new Slashdot. They had a similar challenge, i.e. tons of information that needed new, very user friendly templates to live in. It woud be a formidable project. Need a few people with a lot of free time for that one.
And as Mansa said, a default prompt lol. :lol:
Edit: Oh, and that landing page (http://www.armageddon.org/intro/adpage.html) people hit from the MUD sites is (no offense) terrible. That page is what either captures or loses potential new players from those venues. That should be designed, have art, simple powerful callouts about the game's features. Visual jugular grabbing.
While I don't think the website is horrible, I do think it could stand some upgrades. Especially, as noted, in the information structure. And snazzy graphics and interface would be nice too.
I myself have RL corporate marketing and web design experience and would be willing to donate time as part of a skilled team if a revamp was desired. I'm sure that there are other professionals who'd be willing to do the same.
Quote from: "Gimfalisette"While I don't think the website is horrible, I do think it could stand some upgrades. Especially, as noted, in the information structure. And snazzy graphics and interface would be nice too.
I myself have RL corporate marketing and web design experience and would be willing to donate time as part of a skilled team if a revamp was desired. I'm sure that there are other professionals who'd be willing to do the same.
I'll also donate some time. If only there was a "promotional" subthread that we could join or something....
I'll help out as well. I've given the idea of an introduction to armageddon site thought many times.
Hey, I'm currently going to school for Interactive Media Design...web design but with an artistic bent. I'd be glad to help, but think, for the type of upgrades that I'd want/suggest, that I'll need more education first. :oops:
I wonder if we could do a 'DEMO SESSION' of the roleplay in Armageddon using flash. I think I may look into that tonight.
Like, if you had a movie camera videotaping your screen as you played, with the delay and the text scrolling up the screen and other such stuff.
that just sounds so sad.
"BEHOLD! a video of white text scrolling on a black background! YAY."
Now, if you're talking about an interactive demo for training purposes, that's a damn good idea. But as a promotional tool, I don't think it will really grab someone's attention.
Quote from: "jmordetsky"
3) Hook up with a popular fantasy writer and get him to package the CD with the client up with his book.
Sanvean's working on it! =D
Djarjak:
How can we join this armageddon promo subthread?
Quote from: "mansa"Djarjak:
How can we join this armageddon promo subthread?
Also wondering.
Various things we've tried:
Advertisting on various mud sites
Writing articles about games or gaming
Advertising on MetaFilter
Advertising in print mud listings
The Armageddon blog
Staff blogs
Business cards
Various things we're trying:
Armageddon MUD Myspace
Armageddon book (right now this is waiting for the graphics deisgn person to have a chunk of free time)
Advertisting in the next issue of Talebones, since I have a story in there.
There is a website revamp in the works, and you have seen pieces of it going in with such things as the Weekly Archive link on the front page, the Request Tool, automatic updating when staff members change clans, etc.
Post cards
Various things I think would be fun to try:
Arm promo videos up on YouTube - surely there's some animators out there. A Baobab the Kank video would rock.
An Armageddon specific client
A CD of Armageddon theme music written by our players/staff
More books
Temporary tattoos of the Armageddon logo
will it be myspace.com/ArmageddonMUD or Armageddon_MUD
I perfer the first one.
A myspace account is a very good idea.
Have you considered a deviant art account? Perhaps to display some of the fine art works contributed to Arm (with the artists permission of course). There are -a lot- of Rp'ers on Dev. Art.
Also, for what it's worth, according to my meagre calculations, people who reply to the "where did you hear about us" seem to include the following sources, not necessarily in order of popularity, but probably close:
Personal Reference
The Mud Connector
Top Mud Sites
RPIMud
Mud Connect
mud-dev FAQ
zmud
The Mud Journal
google
yahoo
aol search
other search
other list
other board
livejournal
magazine
mud resource
telnet BBSes
mud ranger
other muds
Dragon Con
Quote from: "mansa"Djarjak:
How can we join this armageddon promo subthread?
mail me, cc mud. Don't forget your GDB account name.
What I want to know, is where have all the advertising posters gone?
It's been way too long since I've been in artistic design scene for me to make something of my own, but I'd love to get some printed up and posted in some local gaming stores, and a few colleges and such around town.