[MUD-Dev] Addressing newbies

[Johan J Ingles-le Nobel]

On Tuesday, May 09, 2000 7:41 PM, Adam wrote:


> In fact, I think that was what caused me to redesign my own pages (which
> were basically nonexistent before).  Even though they are still very
basic,
> I experienced a HUGE surge in new players as a direct result.

I redesigned the wotmud.org/ website last October. Whilst it was "fair"
beforehand, I put some serious effort into it this time, and they're both
pretty
and functional now. It gained the mud some serious publicity in circles that
have never heard of muds in their life, and the sheer volume of use
(90,000 page impressions last month) which continues to rise for the site
means growth for the mud. It has. Other than a little fiddling with some
skills here and there, the mud has not changed one iota between then and
now, and our regular evening peak attendance has risen from 65 to 110 in
the period. Before anyone says "well it's a Wheel of Time-themed mud so
it's easy", let me assure you that with dozens of muds on following the
theme, it's not =).

Go have a look at the pages - there's a lot of work to do yet, but they
work for us... They suck on Unix and Macs I'm told, but for the other 97%
of WWW users who have 800x600 resolution they're quite nice...

> > - Character creation
> >   - Race options
> >   - Class options
> >   - Advancement procedures
> >
> > - Style
> >   - Are you a PK / non-PK / optional-PK mud
> >   - Is roleplaying encouraged / discouraged / required

Yes, but an important point to remember is to explain it in terms the layman
can understand. See my articles in Imaginary Realities, at:
http://imaginaryrealities.imaginary.com/volume3/issue3/advertising.html  and
http://imaginaryrealities.imaginary.com/volume3/issue4/promo.html

> Agreed with all of this.  I also have a FAQ, which has cut down on the
> number of repeated questions to the admin, an (incomplete) list of
locations,
> an overview of the mechanics for the skill system, combat, craftsmanship,
> and just about anything else that will both intruige and educate potential
> players.

Damm, I wish I had the time =)

> Yep.  A color scheme and a few images for sparkle can go a long way to put
> them in the proper mood.

Agreed, definitely.

> > On a related note, has anyone ever tried to correlate web page hits
> > to people logging in?  I.e., how many IP addresses hit your web pages
> > and never log in, how many log in without seeing the pages, etc.

The main corrolation I find is not page impressions but the number of
different
people that access the pages on a daily basis..

Nass
http://wotmud.org/





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