[MUD-Dev] attracting players

[Marc Bowden]

--On Wed, Apr 26, 2000 11:05 AM -0500 Mud Imp
<pkme at hub.cyberwizards.com> wrote:

> 
> 
>> On Tue, 25 Apr 2000, David Bennett wrote:
>> 
>> Critical mass is definately the key...  Once Discworld got over a
>> certain threshold of people it grew significantly faster.  As to
>> what gets the critical mass in the first place...  Lots of things.
>> Some muds with a trully horrible inteface and really interefering
>> admins manage it, others with a nice looking descriptions and nice
>> admins don't.  You need something to make yourself stand out and a
>> way to keep players hooked once they are there (initially).  In
>> the case of Discworld this was obviously the books...  There are
>> other methods though, advertising is one. Although I found this to
>> have limited effectiveness.
> 
> I forgot to mention that the mud has been up online for 5 years.
> And what I see frequently happen when I get any newbies at all is
> they log in, do a who and drop link or they log in, gossip
> something igorning the starting room's message that there are no
> mud wide channels other than ooc and that they are in a quiet room,
> then drop link. They never even look at the mud to see what it has.
> Its on cyberwizards.com 9000 if anyone wants to take a look.
> 

  We experience the same phenomenon at Dreamshadow. We frequently
have people sign on, then drop link and never return (without typing
'who'). Also frequently we get someone who will log in, push past the
poor concierge or militiaman who says
hi-welcome-if-you-have-any-questions-let-me-know, walk one space
south into town, attack a city guard, die, and THEN drop link and
never come back. (This is the "magic circle" and usually takes an
average of 15 seconds.)

  I also have geniuses log in an shout "Wherz midgard?" (sic) One
that ammused me the most was a kid who insisted he could improve the
world with his large collection of snippets.

  We're an LpMUD.

  Just as there's a threshold above which the playerbase is
self-sustaining, there's a threshold below which you can't maintain a
population of any sort. At that point, a vicious circle begins to
emerge; the cast members notice the low number of players and come on
less and less, the players see the cast not hanging around and leave
for better-populated areas. This can feed into itself indefinitely
(just as David's opposit example does).

  Other factors we don't really want to admit to also influence
population and retention of same. Without a familiar set of
locations, elements, or a complete theme from a book that the user
can recognize (wheel of time, anyone?) the game is "too hard to
learn." Room descriptions can easily exceed the attention span of a
player. Rules against unrestricted player-killing, certain types of
language, and admins who take an active interest in squelching
harassment, script kids, or various other abuses are also turn-offs
to a large portion of the current pool of potential players. 

  Missing features they've come to expect (should they hang around
for more than 15 seconds) may also send them packing somewhere more
safe and familiar. Lockers and 'last tell' come immediately to mind
(we have neither, predating their invention by a fair shot, and
without qualified personnel to engineer them). Ditto commands that
are unfamiliar or in an unfamiliar form ('color' vs. 'ansi', not
supporting @tell, etc.)

  I've also found for us, specifically, that our cast members often
scare people off just by virtue of who they are. We have a
disproportionate number of women total and especially in Very High
Places and that tends to send especially the 13-17 year olds packing
when they notice.

  I'm not going to worry unless we blow projection (again) for
another two months. Then I'll start openly sobbing. =P

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Marc Bowden - Soulsinger         Dreamshadow:The Legacy of the Three
  ryumo at merit.edu                                 206.246.120.2 3333
--------------------------------------------------------------------




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