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[quote] On 18-02-2005 18:56, Crowley wrote: Hi all. Here?s my summary of last night?s chat. Note: this is not my opinion, just a fair summary of all the points that were made. I?ll add my opinion later, as if I didn?t make it clear enough last night :wink: Meeting attendees: Serenety Tanis Vulnax Nemesis Dominus (Joey ? wizard) Gilgamesh Testytest (Umbrarg ? arch wizard - Kicked for having a bugged client) Firedemon Boddington (Gothik) Joe (Joejitzu) Laura Tsunami Treehugger Hawumph (arch-wizard) Crowley (me, duh) Latecomers: Sabretooth (wizard) Kitty Min (Poledra) Droo (wizard) Apologies: Wdi (work crisis) Zordell Gemz Several people promised to attend, but didn?t show. Notable absentees: Azrael, Turrican CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF POINTS MADE Crowley started the discussion, saying that he thought the main problem was a lack of new players. Serenety said she thought the pricing didn?t compare well against newer games, which is a deterrent for new players. Firedemon said he thought MUD should be made free. Serenety said that she had been told as it runs with the small amount of players we have, MUD is currently at least breaking even. Crowley said he thought the game needed to be advertised, and suggested online gaming comics. Serenety said that she thought it needed a PR push to gaming websites, but that it would need something newsworthy. She suggested a full game update Crowley said he thought that wouldn?t really be interesting to anyone outside the current community. Hawumph said that new players just want a Mud, not a revolutionised one, but one that is proven to be active. Serenety said that the current game presentation is not marketable, that the website needs to be far more accessible, and the clunky java client ditched for something more user friendly ? an ?officially? supported client. Hawumph said that the website was not newbie-friendly. But also suggested that the reason the game was not newbie friendly was not just the presentation, but the players. The community as it stands is divisive, and hostile. Crowley asked how many active wizards there actually are, since only Sabretooth and Hawumph had turned up at that point. Hawumph indicated that wizards do turn up reasonably frequently, but chat in the wizroom Serenety said that if wizards continually hide behind invisibility, then players stop caring about the game management ? what right do they have to comment on the game community if they refuse to interact with it. Sabretooth said that wizards often stay invisible because they don?t want to face the hostility they get from certain players. Tsunami interjected, pointing out that the game would be hugely more populated if just the people who had turned up to the chat actually played. Hawumph said that players wanted wizards to be visible, and wizards wanted to be able to vis. This section of conversation then ended with no conclusion Hawumph asked how we would get new players Dominus said that he thought new players would be more likely to stay if they saw people were actually in the land playing and interacting, rather than sitting in the tearoom bitching about how bad the wizards are. There was a short discussion about whether it was ok to play PPs. Vulnax said the game needed its profile raised ? talked about on popular forums and sites. Serenety again said that MUD should go free. Laura raised a concern that the game would be filled with a million immature abusive PKs with free accounts. Hawumph asked if player cliques were a problem Boddington said he thought that wizards outnumbered mortals, and that they were perceived as a clique because they were never visible. Hawumph asked if he was perceived as favouritist. Serenety said that she thought it was unfair that players who just sit in the tearoom appear to be rewarded when she didn?t think they were even playing the game Crowley said he thought people who sat in the tearoom were a vital part of the community as they were there and visible to anyone coming into the game. Serenety said that people who sat in the tearoom were pointless and weren?t helping the game in any way. Lots of people argued over this for about 2346 years. Crowley asked how can we advertise the game Vulnax suggested somehow getting on a magazine cover disk Droo said that MUD had been featured in Edge magazine recently, but we?d seen no new players from that. Another small argument about the fact that the current community was really divided came up, with blame shot at invisible wizards, and tearoom cliques. Droo suggested the idea of a total reset of the game, including wizards. It was suggested by several people that maybe the game could be changed, updated, with the reset. Crowley suggested talking to a major ISP, such as Blueyonder or Tiscali: that ran a gaming service, about hosting MUD2 on their servers and obtaining new players that way. Droo pointed out this would also require a reset of the wizlist and playerlist Hawumph said that he wasn?t sure going corporate would be a good idea. Hawumph asked if maybe randomly opening the pagoda and giants area might raise interest in the current player base. Laura suggested a hidden trigger, or a quest, that could open giants for single players. Droo suggested maybe dropping the subscription fee, and having a donation link instead for server costs. Poledra suggested a free account for anyone, which only allowed you PP characters. Firedemon suggested a free account that didn?t let you get higher than a certain level. Crowley asked where we would let people know about free accounts Droo suggested gaming magazines. Crowley suggested high-traffic internet sites, like fark.com and slashdot.org, or penny-arcade. Crowley suggested a possible plan of action: 1) Hawumph or whoever puts the free PP accounts into action, and Remakes the mudii.co.uk website so it's actually user friendly. Adding prominent links to maybe CLIO 2) when the site is actually READY for people to visit it, we go for the fark.com approach? or whichever sites we can. Droo suggested advertising on the http://www.rllmukforum.com (ex edge-online forum) Serenety said that the game must be shown to be active and supported by its management, otherwise new players wouldn?t stay. Conversation drew to a close. SUMMARY OF BEST POINTS (in my opinion) We need to do two things: A) Show that the game is active ?wizards actively interested in the community, and a community interested in actually playing the game To do this, we as players need to make a conscious effort to not be so negative towards each other, and the wiz community. And the wiz community needs to make a conscious effort to be less cliquey, and to be more visible. How likely this is, given that several of the more prominent wizards and players didn?t even bother coming to the chat, is another question. B) Get new players interested in the game. To do this, we need to get word out there, and have an incentive to play. Ways to do this: 1) Make the website newbie friendly, including a link to a supported user-friendly client (Umbrarg?s new client? Clio?) 2) Create free accounts that only allow you to play Protected Personae. 3) Once this is done, advertise the fact by contacting ?geek? sites on the Internet, such as fark.com (user-submitted links), slashdot.org (no idea how to submit to this). Also (sorry, I thought of this after the discussion ended), send a press release to gaming news sites ? they?ll generally print anything (I know this, as I used to write for one :wink: ), especially if it?s a slow news day. Examples are gamespot.com, eurogamer.net, Yahoo?s Gamesdomain.com, pc.ign.com etc. That?s all I?ve got! Hope you managed to read it all! :- ) *Crowley _________________ *Apeoguest the surrealist guest says "I dunno, there must be a line we've crossed when you combine necrophilia and bestiality". [url=http://www.halen.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/noct]My tired eyes droop[/url]
[ This Message was edited by: Halen on 18-02-2005 21:53 ]
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