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Juason · 06-02-2013, 01:36 AM

Our players have been asking us to advertise, but the company hasn't devoted much effort to that in the last decade or so. MUDs are kind of niche and I don't think adverising has worked very well in the past (kind of like this...)

A popular thought is that if more people played, there'd be a good argument for lowering the monthly cost or going free to play (not sure if that would work). There is also a thought that a great many people have played DR and Gemstone in the past and may have forgotten about it. Perhaps advertising would bring them back?

I've calculated (not official numbers, just what I've seen over time) that over the past decade DR has had about 4% player attrition per year. While I'm sure most online games in their Prime would kill for such numbers, you want to address it before it becomes a problem.

Even without the slow decline of the player population, we've expanded the game from 3 provinces to 5, added half a dozen new cities, dozens of new hunting zones, a new Guild and more. Every race needs a homeland. Every Guild needs training halls. High level players want instances and special dungeons. In creating all this we risk spreading people too far out... so we've instead been focusing on quality over quantity.

This was a big reason why this year we overhauled almost every aspect of the game in a release we have called Dragonrealms 3.0. A new, more balanced combat system. A rewritten magic and ability system with new spells and feats for each Guild. Plenty of folks have left over the years after hitting the circle 100 level cap and finding the combat system breaks down! Now we support up to circle 200 and the imbalances are solved. The 3.0 release alone seems like a good reason to advertise.

You know, a thought just occured to me. Do any of the free MUDs prevent multi-logins? In DR it is less likely due to the cost (still occurs, though we also have people watching for abuse). But, it seems like in a free MUD you could just log in 10 accounts and, using scripts/macros, totally decimate the PvE or PvP scene?

06-02-2013, 01:36 AM	#41
Juason Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Austin, TX Home MUD: Dragonrealms Posts: 31	Re: Join Dragonrealms today! Our players have been asking us to advertise, but the company hasn't devoted much effort to that in the last decade or so. MUDs are kind of niche and I don't think adverising has worked very well in the past (kind of like this...) A popular thought is that if more people played, there'd be a good argument for lowering the monthly cost or going free to play (not sure if that would work). There is also a thought that a great many people have played DR and Gemstone in the past and may have forgotten about it. Perhaps advertising would bring them back? I've calculated (not official numbers, just what I've seen over time) that over the past decade DR has had about 4% player attrition per year. While I'm sure most online games in their Prime would kill for such numbers, you want to address it before it becomes a problem. Even without the slow decline of the player population, we've expanded the game from 3 provinces to 5, added half a dozen new cities, dozens of new hunting zones, a new Guild and more. Every race needs a homeland. Every Guild needs training halls. High level players want instances and special dungeons. In creating all this we risk spreading people too far out... so we've instead been focusing on quality over quantity. This was a big reason why this year we overhauled almost every aspect of the game in a release we have called Dragonrealms 3.0. A new, more balanced combat system. A rewritten magic and ability system with new spells and feats for each Guild. Plenty of folks have left over the years after hitting the circle 100 level cap and finding the combat system breaks down! Now we support up to circle 200 and the imbalances are solved. The 3.0 release alone seems like a good reason to advertise. You know, a thought just occured to me. Do any of the free MUDs prevent multi-logins? In DR it is less likely due to the cost (still occurs, though we also have people watching for abuse). But, it seems like in a free MUD you could just log in 10 accounts and, using scripts/macros, totally decimate the PvE or PvP scene?