Promote the MUD: a job for all of us

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Promote the MUD: a job for all of us

Postby Teron » Thu Dec 01, 2016 5:05 am

Recently, Belrath raised a matter of acquiring new players, and since no one mentioned how to do it, here's a brief list of first things to do.

Some time ago, I asked Splork, why couldn't immorts promote the site, to which he replied along the lines that imms can do little, mortals can do much more.

In fact, both is true, and here's why:

(listed in the order of quick -> takes effort)

1. The easiest way to get new players is to remind players to vote - imms remind players, players vote.

The easiest way to do *that* is for immorts to add these lines to their godsanc message:
Please vote for Sloth to attract new players:
vote on TMC: http://bit.ly/votesloth
vote on TMS: http://bit.ly/votesloth2

Bonus: bit.ly links will tell us how many ppl vote, and when.

Also, the same message can be broadcast every 12 or 6 hours to remind players to do it. Preceding it with a restore or a godsanc would be a bonus - but no rewards can be given for the votes, it's a TMC rule.

2. Players should review the MUD on TMC:
http://www.mudconnect.com/cgi-bin/prev/ ... d=SlothMUD

3. Rewrite the listing for TMC/Topsites/homepage to include new stuff and make it more persuasive - Taron should do it.
Update the listing on TMC/Topsites - Splork
Put the new text on the homepage - Breeze

4. Put an active link from the forum header/logo to the website homepage - Breeze
It'd slightly help with search engine traffic.
Plus, it'd make the forum more usable, because the only way to go back to the homepage now is to edit URL or typeit anew.

5. Write articles, sharing how unique stuff, like eqset, talking mobs, chop, MUDL were done and the results they brought:
- imms can write about their projects and results
- Taron can edit it, if needed, and find forums/blogs/sites to share on. I bet Splork&JB know all the best forums to discuss this on.
- imms post from their accounts.

6. New players mean nothing, if they can't stick.
A university is a good start, but we need a newbie area for 1-5 levels, ideally, 1-10, maybe 15, where they can progress to be strong to do other areas.
Teron wrote:JB, before I create raid mobs, I need to finish writing how to do the group scheduler we discussed earlier, and to write an area for 1-5-10 levels, if I ever get to writing areas.

Any imm can do it, or wait till Taron finds time.
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Re: Promote the MUD: a job for all of us

Postby *Splork* » Thu Dec 01, 2016 1:16 pm

Some time ago, I asked Splork, why couldn't immorts promote the site, to which he replied along the lines that imms can do little, mortals can do much more.


Please post that reply or a link to it because that does not sound like something I would say or it was misunderstood. The Immortal staff has always been the #1 promoter of this mud from continually posting to mud and gaming forums, to garnering links inside mud clients, writing reviews, continually pushing for voting(which is the #1 way to gain players), etc etc.

However, there are hundreds of more players than Immortals and they can do way more to help in this area than they ever have or will. Thats just a fact. Since we have stopped pushing voting, we are no longer in the top 10 and I can guarantee that we have missed out on tons of people trying Sloth. I can count on two hands the number of positive reviews written by non immortals on mud related sites and thats over the course of 25 years. Thats pretty damn sad if you ask me...

Either way, I would never say that Immortals can do little to promote this game because we have done a ton. Mud promotion is everyone's job and we can accomplish much more by doing it together....

I just pushed out shortcuts to our website to all computers in my school's libraries and computer labs. Hopefully, this might garner some traffic.
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Re: Promote the MUD: a job for all of us

Postby *Breeze* » Thu Dec 01, 2016 6:58 pm

Teron wrote:Recently, Belrath raised a matter of acquiring new players, and since no one mentioned how to do it, here's a brief list of first things to do.

Some time ago, I asked Splork, why couldn't immorts promote the site, to which he replied along the lines that imms can do little, mortals can do much more.

In fact, both is true, and here's why:

(listed in the order of quick -> takes effort)

1. The easiest way to get new players is to remind players to vote - imms remind players, players vote.

The easiest way to do *that* is for immorts to add these lines to their godsanc message:
Please vote for Sloth to attract new players:
vote on TMC: http://bit.ly/votesloth
vote on TMS: http://bit.ly/votesloth2

Bonus: bit.ly links will tell us how many ppl vote, and when.

Also, the same message can be broadcast every 12 or 6 hours to remind players to do it. Preceding it with a restore or a godsanc would be a bonus - but no rewards can be given for the votes, it's a TMC rule.

2. Players should review the MUD on TMC:
http://www.mudconnect.com/cgi-bin/prev/ ... d=SlothMUD

3. Rewrite the listing for TMC/Topsites/homepage to include new stuff and make it more persuasive - Taron should do it.
Update the listing on TMC/Topsites - Splork
Put the new text on the homepage - Breeze

4. Put an active link from the forum header/logo to the website homepage - Breeze
It'd slightly help with search engine traffic.
Plus, it'd make the forum more usable, because the only way to go back to the homepage now is to edit URL or typeit anew.

5. Write articles, sharing how unique stuff, like eqset, talking mobs, chop, MUDL were done and the results they brought:
- imms can write about their projects and results
- Taron can edit it, if needed, and find forums/blogs/sites to share on. I bet Splork&JB know all the best forums to discuss this on.
- imms post from their accounts.

6. New players mean nothing, if they can't stick.
A university is a good start, but we need a newbie area for 1-5 levels, ideally, 1-10, maybe 15, where they can progress to be strong to do other areas.
Teron wrote:JB, before I create raid mobs, I need to finish writing how to do the group scheduler we discussed earlier, and to write an area for 1-5-10 levels, if I ever get to writing areas.

Any imm can do it, or wait till Taron finds time.




there is a link to the main site on the bottom right where it says www.slothmud.org

i cant make the header a link since its a background image. (at least not without a bit of trickery... which would cause more problems than it would solve...)
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Re: Promote the MUD: a job for all of us

Postby Teron » Fri Dec 02, 2016 2:38 am

Splork, I can't find the email or post, it was probably via tell - I'm sure I'm not imagining it.

I'm not sure what exactly it was, though: the things I do remember are that it isn't immortals' complete responsibility, players can help.

I apologize if it offended you - I know you do a lot to promote the MUD.

Splork wrote:Mud promotion is everyone's job and we can accomplish much more by doing it together....

I guess we agree here.

Can you tell me how else players can promote the MUD, other than voting and writing reviews?

Can you or anyone involved post links to what other immortals post on MUD/gaming forums? Thanks.

In my post I write that there are more ways, sometimes too easy ways, that don't involve spending money to get new players. I believe the first one has the highest ROI of all.

Breeze, that's unfortunate. Did you mean add the link around #page-header div.inner? Though in this case, it wouldn't help with the search engines, just usability.

Another thing you can do is to add the "write a review about the MUD" link with the text, "Write a review about the game to show SlothMUD is to the world and bring new players", to the homepage. And maybe post some of the reviews on the somepage, either under the main text or under the left column.
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Re: Promote the MUD: a job for all of us

Postby *juggleblood* » Sat Dec 03, 2016 8:18 pm

I just now went over to tmc and created some posts in a number of different forums and reached out to some folks who were asking questions there. My duty for the month is done.
Talk to the clown.
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Re: Promote the MUD: a job for all of us

Postby Teron » Tue Dec 06, 2016 5:41 am

1. Maybe it's too early to draw results from the vote links that appear on rent, but it's better than nothing:
1st is a link to TMC, 2nd is TMS.

About half of those clicks is me, but there are about 10 clicks from the US.

Tbh, I expected more from the message on rent, maybe people close the client or MUD window on rent - I'm not that intimately familiar with other clients. Or maybe most ppl don't have an account on TMC. Or maybe mudwide announcements would work better.

We do have 30-40 active players, who might as well vote.

2. We are #35 on TMS, #12 on TMC.

To get to #21 on TMS, which gives the same amount of visitors as #17 (19), we need 37 votes. We've got 13, up from 10 yesterday. It's a slow process, I guess, so we need more participants.
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Re: Promote the MUD: a job for all of us

Postby Teron » Wed Dec 21, 2016 7:28 am

More stats.

There appear to be more ppl active on TMC, and less active on TMS, even though TMS allows voting twice a day.

I guess we need to motivate people to create that account once, as hard as it can be.

TMC http://i.imgur.com/1c7IskN.png
TMS http://i.imgur.com/Kt3H6E8.png

Image uploader is broken (says file is empty), so I uploaded the screenshots to another site.
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Re: Promote the MUD: a job for all of us

Postby Filk » Wed Dec 21, 2016 11:06 am

I have no ideas what is tms. I just clicking on vote link from main page of the site. Once a day. And on rest message do it job for me as reminder, that i need to do it.
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Re: Promote the MUD: a job for all of us

Postby *Neptune* » Wed Dec 21, 2016 11:47 am

TMS = Top Mud Sites. There's a small link directly underneath the TMC banner/image
on the front page of the SlothMUD website. When you register and then vote, it
doesn't seem to give a confirmation that your vote has counted (or somehow I am
missing it), but in the last week or so we've moved up two places in TMS's rankings.
That says to me that our votes are likely being counted.

As a side note, if you haven't registered for TMS, the registration link can easily be found
by using the forum link on the left hand side of the page you get directed to when you 'vote
and continue' after clicking on the TMS link from the SlothMUD page.

Hope that helps.

-Neptune
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Re: Promote the MUD: a job for all of us

Postby Filk » Wed Dec 21, 2016 12:00 pm

Laugh. And they expect ppl to do such things? :lol:
1. No messages at voting that they even expect registration. Neither confirmation on votes.

2. Try and find registration link after that

3. They banned at least two services i using for emails.
The administrator has banned your email address. To contact the administrator click here


4. And after i entered another one, what do i see? Yes!
Thank you for registering at the Top Mud Sites Forum. Before we can activate your account we need you to email webmaster@topmudsites.com with a brief description of your interest in MUDs such as the MUD you play or other information and the username you signed up as. The purpose of this is only to verify that you are not a bulk spammer, it is not retained.


So go and do some manual actions and maaabye then admins will allow you to actually register. If there will not be another step after it. All i could say to such service - die painfully.
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Re: Promote the MUD: a job for all of us

Postby Teron » Fri Dec 23, 2016 1:24 pm

Yeah, for a service that's lagging behind TMC, it does demand a great time/effort investment for a registration.

Still, if you consider bringing new players by voting important, it can be done.
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