[Aeran]

I think the issue might be that there is too much reasoning what the admins/devs want from TMS. The question is also what players would like to see. At the moment the website is mainly a place to find a game to play. Once you have found it you use that games forum/mail system. You don't use the TMS forums.

To a player there is very little reason to use the forum, and a way to lure them here would be needed. It is similar with the review system. It is there to attract players to a game, but that doesn't mean it would build a player community on TMS. The goal is after all to build a community on some specific MUD.

TMS could provide:It is very complicated though. Some MUDs use ingame message boards a lot so players might not want to use a web forum. In other cases the MUD might already have a web forum and have no interest in supporting TMS forums, e.g Achaea. It is a bit like when designing a MUD client. You need to offer something that isn't included in the MUD that people need(but don't necessarily know they need).

I know of another MUD list that recently opened free forums for every MUD on the list. It sounded like a very good idea yet there are barely any posts in those forums . Maybe adding some more modern terms such as mmrpg/mmorpg as meta tags could help to get some newbies find the website?