Tactics For Gaining New Players.

Tera Destre · Post by **Tera Destre** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 4:58 pm

Here it is folks!

A place where we can make our "battle plans" ::grins::

I'm pretty sure there is no right or wrong way to go about this so how about we all just throw up some ideas here and we can sift and sort through them and come up with some plans as a community?

Harris · Post by **Harris** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 6:37 pm

It seems like this has come up every six months for the past several years. Everybody has an idea, the thread dies down, and then you never see anything occur.

To be perfectly honest new players are great and I'm all for them, but as I see things right now the forum has enough players to support all the sports here. As a general rule of thumb the first sport most new players are exposed to is DoS, which always gives me the feeling that we aren't out searching for new players to the forum, we're out searching for new players for DoS. The other sports are forced to wait for the trickle down factor to take effect.

DoS is bigger as far as staff goes, bigger as far as attendance goes, and always has been the most popular of the three. So why so little cooperation when it comes to participating in the other sports? With so many players claiming they're here for the atmosphere and the camaraderie and the roleplaying why don't I see them in the Outback or on the Isle? If we attract a new crop of players why would they want to even play in the Outback or on the Isle if there's nobody there to keep them interested and entertained?

Certainly I know people have aversions to certain matrices that keep them from competing competitively in different sports, but there's *nothing* stopping anyone from simply showing up to roleplay. That is what we're all here for, right? DoF and DoM don't overlap with DoS on their regular days and you'd still be lucky to have a combined room count equal to that of a DoS shift. Why is that? There used to be a mutual level of respect that abounded between all the sports. DoS was holding the WLT? The other sports would close down. DoM is holding the AMT? The other sports would close down. Etc. It seems as though that's gone and the only people attempting to keep DoF and DoM breathing are the regulars of those sports. So what I'm asking now is for people to lend a hand in the spirit of cooperation which has been a driving force of this community since I first started.

Like I said, new players are great, but knowing how things work and the tastes people have DoS would end up with a whole new crop of regulars and DoF and DoM would end up with the rejects. And to curb the potential argument of separate ad campaigns for the different sports I really don't think any of the sports should be in direct competition with each other for patrons. That's just bound to lead to and even seedier underbelly of the forum and more problems than you can shake a stick at.

Post by **Jake** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 7:12 pm

Generally speaking, exposure is the key.

Rakeesh brought his group over from another gaming/RP site after exposing them to the idea of matrix-based dueling.

And just recently, a DoS and a DoF event were hosted over in the RDI. I understand a DoM night is in the works.

Certainly we want to continue doing the "guest" nights over in the RDI. I think that will help bridge the gulf between us and the RDI folks.

What other venues might we advertise at?

Deluthan · Post by **Deluthan** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 8:44 pm

I think the first thing we should ask is, who is our target audience? Once we know that, we can begin talking about where to find it.

My guess is high school teenagers and young college students.

Post by **Jake** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 9:01 pm

Deluthan wrote:I think the first thing we should ask is, who is our target audience? Once we know that, we can begin talking about where to find it.

My guess is high school teenagers and young college students.

Good point, and I agree that this is our target audience. This is the crowd that is the most likely to also have friends that might be interested as well.

Vasvrae · Post by **Vasvrae** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 10:31 pm

Jake wrote:
Deluthan wrote:I think the first thing we should ask is, who is our target audience? Once we know that, we can begin talking about where to find it.

My guess is high school teenagers and young college students.
Good point, and I agree that this is our target audience. This is the crowd that is the most likely to also have friends that might be interested as well.

Really? Because I'm a young college student and my friends think I'm on crack whenever I try to explain RPing....

Post by **Jake** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 10:47 pm

Vasvrae wrote:
Jake wrote:
Deluth an wrote:I think the first thing we should ask is, who is our target audience? Once we know that, we can begin talking about where to find it.

My guess is high school teenagers and young college students.
Good point, and I agree that this is our target audience. This is the crowd that is the most likely to also have friends that might be interested as well.
Really? Because I'm a young college student and my friends think I'm on crack whenever I try to explain RPing....

Try explaining it when you are 40+

Vasvrae · Post by **Vasvrae** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 10:50 pm

::snicker:: Good point. You win that one.

Tera Destre · Post by **Tera Destre** » Sat Jul 08, 2006 6:05 pm

I guess you can't tell it at the moment but my personal first love has been and always will be The Outback. It is where I got my start in dueling, where I learned how to duel, where I spent most of my dueling time, and dueling role-playing way back when.

The time Des spent in The Outback is actually why she is as "rough and tumble" as she is.

That being said I don't want any of the three to have to suffer from trickle down as Harris called it. To me that just wouldn't be right.

Jake is correct. There is already a DoM event scheduled for the RDI. It is almost completely planned and is going to be held on August 23 there. We are indeed planning to continue holding these special events in the RDI showcasing the different dueling areas.

We are hoping for one a month as to do more than that may "burn out" the RDI regulars and we don't want to do that because then they may stop coming and so we wouldn't gain the exposure that we want to give the duels.

I have icons made for their inventories specifically for each individual event. We use the music player for them because that is something very rare and is looked forward to also.

Over there we now have set up a special calendar view (it will also show up on the main view) for the duels where if you guys want I can add your dueling events and they will show up on the side bar view of the forum page.

We have icons that have been made especially for the three dueling areas to put out beside the dueling events on the calendar to help with publicity for the dueling areas.

These are to let the players know at a glance what dueling area the event is being held in. I also have space where I can describe the event in a little blurb type thing. You guys are welcome to write the blurb yourselves or I can write one for it.

All you have to do to get your event on this calendar view is send an e-mail to my address of teradestre@aol.com I'm more than happy to help advertise in any way that I can!

Deluthan · Post by **Deluthan** » Sat Jul 08, 2006 8:05 pm

What if we created a MySpace page for RoH? Would that draw some younger people in? Is there risk of MySpace claiming ownership of anything?

Sylus Kurgen · Post by **Sylus Kurgen** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 1:38 am

Don't know if this has been considered but...

How many people in this forum are a part of other RP groups and do not even mention RoH/RDI to those members because they do not want a few of the people they don't like in that game to be part of this one?

I'd be willing to bet decent money that some of our members do not mention the duels in the other RP groups they interact with. Many of whom have probably NOT heard of Rhydin or the RDI. Is it so hard to just go to a few of them and say, "Hey...check this out."

Hell, in highschool when I had to create my own websites I put links to RoH on there when I did my presentations and showed off the forums and the posts I had up to promote myself and the site.

Rakeesh · Post by **Rakeesh** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 9:09 am

I'm on vacation, so I cannot be as articulate or verbose as I would be otherwise.

RoH needs to consider affiliations and traffic-exchange. RDI would gain players best by affiliation via webrings and other roleplaying forums, however it is the game element of RoH that we need to sell. This is why I continually point back to text-based MMORPGs, or MUDs, as a great target for this. There are MUDs far more inclined towards roleplaying than even Clandestine, and there are vast resource websites for MUDs. I've spoken here and there to Panther, Amaltea and Pslyder over the past six months or so about the possibilities there and continue to think it is the best route to go.

Recently, we've decided to take it slow - start with an official affiliation between Clandestine MUD and RoH via website banner exchange and linking + affiliate mention, and then move onto other venues. The MUDConnector, TopMudSites, RPI MUD Community, and Free MUD Listings are probably are best bets - I am currently working on a professional pay-to-play MUD with Wade Gustafson(who runs the RPI[Roleplay Intensive] MUD Community), and could very easily strike up banner exchange and mention there. TopMudSites would probably be the other easy-to-hit target for me.

The websites mentioned above are linked to below.

http://www.clandestinemud.com
http://www.rpimud.com
http://www.topmudsites.com
http://www.mudconnector.com
http://mud.adventmud.org

When I get back from vacation on the 17thish I will be able to do more than theorize about such things.

Rakeesh · Post by **Rakeesh** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 9:12 am

Myspace: I'm not sure of the quality of players we'd get from using Myspce to advertise, but we wouldn't have to worry about Myspace claiming ownership or anything. Plenty of large companies use Myspace to advertise their movies/music/products without loss of copyright.

It could be beneficial - I'm really not sure. The Myspace Whore Train is fairly a really annoying group of people, though, and they'd probably be the ones who would run into such a Myspace page.

Karen Wilder · Post by **Karen Wilder** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 8:29 pm

I think that advertising special events, like Tournies & Challenges, over at the RDI might help a little.

A "Come see the best of the best in a one night winner-take-all Tournament" type post advertising the DoF Mega-Brawl might attract some attention, for example.

Rhiannon D Harker · Post by **Rhiannon D Harker** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 7:16 am

I seem to keep bringing one friend at a time. However, if that friend likes the place, stays, and brings someone else, that's one way for the player base continue to grow.

Sylus brought up a valid point here:

How many people in this forum are a part of other RP groups and do not even mention RoH/RDI to those members because they do not want a few of the people they don't like in that game to be part of this one?

There are some people I play with in other venues that I have referred to or brought to RoH rooms to play, others that I'd like to bring in, and still others that I would not even mention the place to.

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