Speaking for myself, I think it's largely a case of preaching to the converted. Ie, I actually doubt if all this chest thumping actually achieves all that much. Sure, we do get people from here, but the quality isn't always that high. Ie, often they're generally experienced mudders who come with baggage ("my old mud did it in this way, I'm used to it so it's better") or with attitude ("hey I'm so valuable because I came to play at your place so you should kiss my a$$").

All that aside, if you look at the bigger picture, it's a bit shortsighted imo, it isn't bringing new people in. I wish we as a community spent more energy trying to bring non-mudders into mudding rather than bitching and chestthumping at each other trying to impress mudders. And frankly if I were a non-mudder coming here reading the threads I wouldn't exactly be left with a warm fuzzy feeling wanting to play.

We find participation in Topmudsites gets us quite a lot of players. The TMS community seems to be drawn to our games. Achaea, for instance, has gotten thousands of players, and over 600 paying customers from TMS.

I also agree that it'd be nice to see more people trying to bring people who aren't currently into text MUDing into the text MUD world. We spend a lot of time and money doing so, but I'm not sure how many others do.

--matt

*chuckle* You wouldn't be the first I'm sure!

--matt

That really has no effect, the questions is whether or not you'd be willing to buy virtual currency in a game which you joined simply because you heard it being flamed on a forum.

TMC offers a link to TMS on its front page, and this site comes up in google as the third hit for "muds". That's good enough for me.

Is this a common perception in the TMS community?

Text MUDs generally are not considered a less-than-respectable form of gaming by the wider community. They just aren't on most peoples' radar screens because so few text MUDs promote themselves outside of the small pond that is the existing group of text MUD players.

--matt

I imagine that most people who come from here and go to a MUD are more likely to go to the MUD if...


A) It's high on the top 20 list.

B) It has graphical ad banners.

C) They are experienced MUDers and already have an idea of what MUDs are out there.


Nass' post seemed like it could be largely accurate - many MUDers do tend to carry "baggage" or whatever their very strong internet personality is with them from game to game. They are typically not as loyal as other gamers, and more likely to stop playing. So there is always the issue of the quality of gamer (which for many, can make or break a MUD) - are they eager to learn and become part of an online world, or does their ego force them to seperate themselves? Some players do more harm than good, unless your purpose is to make money rather than an agreeable, tight-knitted online community. Though it is possible to do both, as some games have shown.


As far as the questions in the post; they just seem like they'd be impossible, even for Adam, to answer. I imagine that you get a few honestly new forum users sometimes - I know I finally cracked and started posting in forums back in January, simply because it's easier than logging onto everyone's MUDs and chatting/arguing with them there. :o Beyond that, I'm sure the traffic is mostly contrived for the purpose of getting in the top of the lists.

When I BETA tested one of my company's new MUDs a couple of months ago, we stayed at the bottom of the Top 20 list near the beginning of a voting term, and near the middle of the Top 30 after that; I did notice that because we were a new MUD, advertised strictly for its unique and dominating PvP Combat - our ratio of votes to traffic received from TMS was about 1 : 2.5

So, in summary - it would seem that most of it is for bragging rights, but that given the right circumstances, one could use the voting as a way to get new players. Graphical Ad-Banners are, simply, far more effective, though.

The ranking list is quite a good way of obtaining new players, at least when you're in the top 10. I can't really speak for lower than that.

--matt

[Off-topic flame edited out by moderator.]

Anyways, as most MUDs do not fall into the Top 10 on the most voting list, I would venture to say that your claim is far less than typical - though, I admitted, there are certain circumstances that could acquire new players through the voting list. My own BETA test for Utopia: Type Final brought a lot of new players in while the BETA was open. But, for most MUDs, this voting list does seem to be a less effective form of advertising than others.

This would lead me to conclude that most of the traffic here is, largely, the same people that are normally here.

The ratio of gamers I encounter who say, "cool" and take an interest in text-based games to those who look at me like I had a third arm sticking out of my forehead is probably 1:10 at best. By contrast, mention a graphical and that number changes dramatically.

Take care,

Jason

So you're saying that not all of the IRE games do well? They're rarely all in the top 10.

IRE's has four released games (Achaea, Aetolia, Imperian, Lusternia), and they all typically finish in the top 10 during a voting period, to clarify.

In every case, the voting list is well worth it for them.

--matt

Actually, four of the last eight times I've looked at the top 20 list, only three of them were in the top 10.  One other time two of them were.  Less than half the time (including presently, just checked...and Imperian's in #10) were all four there.  True, the remaining one or two were in the top 15, but not the top 10.

But enough of this digression.

Take care,

Jason

We don't really advertise anywhere, being still far from development we obviously aren't wasting money. We do have a vote link, and our forums have almost doubled in unique visitors each month for the past 3 months(up to about 400).

The only thing we have is word of mouth, tms ranking(which when I check we normally get 10-15 outs per period), and the link in both Ryan and my forums signatures.

So I'd wager it does have a decent impact, even for those on the third page like we are.

This tangent is a bit off-topic, and I've already made clear that our MUDs finish in the top 10 virtually every time, and as such, I can comment on the results from the top 10 pretty decently, and all I'm saying is that it's quite worth it.

For the record by the way, in the last 2 years, none of our MUDs has finished a voting period below place #10.

Now, back on topic please. This is a non-issue and the only reason I even mentioned that our MUDs are in the top 10 is because that's where my experience lies and the area of the rankings list I have concrete evidence over the span of years for. I'd rather claim expertise in the area I've shown results in than try to convince anyone that I have first-hand experience with whether TMS is valuable if you're ranked #50 or whatnot.

--matt

Guys, can we please not play this tit for tat game? I just removed -three- posts in a row for off-topic attacks against me, DonathinFyre, and Hadoryu (and one inoffensive post by Hadoryu which made no sense with the other three posts gone). I don't care if you don't like someone. Keep it to yourself unless it is absolutely pertinent to the thread at hand. I'd also ask that if you see someone flaming/attacking, you not attack them back. Let me moderate just that one post rather than forcing me to moderate multiple posts. Yes, I would have liked to have moderated the first one before anyone posted a response, but I have to sleep sometimes!

I'm closing this thread now as a result, sorry.

--matt