Achaea promotional video
 

I put together a promotional video recently that we're going to stick on our webpage to act as both a teaser for someone who hasn't played Achaea before, and as a way to help prepare someone new to MUDs for what they're about to encounter on firing up a MUD. (Apologies for the superlatives in it, but it is a promo video after all!)

Enjoy!

Re: Achaea promotional video
 

That was great. Extremely well done.

The way you eased them into the text part was very solid and the message was clear and compelling.

Re: Achaea promotional video
 

So, that's how you pronounce Achaea. :D

I actually want to play now. Even though I played Lusternia for about a year, I've always had trouble getting into all of the other IRE games. Great video. By the way, I love the web client.

Re: Achaea promotional video
 

It's always refreshing to see promo material that addresses people who haven't played a MUD before. And this one is very well-done to boot.

One thing I'd add is I'd show some closeups of really good text events to convey the dramatic power and richness of textual images. Think how movies sometimes overlay semi-transparent closeups of text when someone reads a letter, e. g.

Re: Achaea promotional video
 

Thanks! That's our beta client. We'll be pushing it live to replace the v1.0 html5 client soon.

Re: Achaea promotional video
 

I also liked the video and the client. That is the type of client that would help to retain players like me who come from graphical games

Re: Achaea promotional video
 

Good to hear. That's definitely the goal though it remains to be seen as to whether we'll be successful attracting and keeping players like you in any number.

Re: Achaea promotional video
 

One thing that I think will help is to remove the roleplay requirements. For those of us coming from graphical games (WoW, Eve Online and such) we don't exactly roleplay. And if not remove, at least have a way for players who don't want/like to roleplay, to enjoy the games

Re: Achaea promotional video
 

I get your point of view, but half of what distinguishes MUDs, I think, is roleplaying. Anything else except really free-form crafting can be found in standard graphical MMOs. Our games have, over time, become much more roleplaying-intensive than I had ever intended them to be, but I think it's a natural reaction - people who are going to play text MUDs are looking for something different, so trying to just be a textual equivalent of them is going to be a fail for all but the visually-challenged community.

I think we have to play up our relative strengths, and that one of those strengths is, by virtue of the smaller community and more hands-on admin, a much better, more serious roleplaying environment than they'll find on WoW's roleplaying servers, for instance (by far, as I'm sure is the case on many of your MUDs too, or at least the ones that are intended to be RP-oriented).

Re: Achaea promotional video
 

I think you're right that a wider audience coming from graphical games is much less likely to care for RP. That said, I don't think the OP is looking for feedback on changing the product itself. (They're probably not looking for feedback on the video itself either, which I nevertheless gave :).) They're here to promote the game as it exists today.

It's important for promo material to set proper expectations. It should in fact turn away those who would not enjoy the kind of experience being offered, while attracting those who would. In this case, those would be people looking for deeper RP than what they found in graphical games.

A game should not try to be everything for everybody. That's a slippery slope that can bring down even giants.

Re: Achaea promotional video
 

Very well done!
Certainly makes one interested in giving the whole thing a try.