Thanks for the not-so-subtly cloaked advertisement... cant get too many advertisements in our daily lives, now can we?

But on a more serious note, this brings up a good point: when the goal is a large playerbase, one ought to use empirical methods to try and measure the effects that a change has on the playerbase. Use the scientific method. Do one change at a time, and observe how that influences the playerbase. Do a bunch all at once, and valuable info will be hopelessly obfuscated by the interacting effects of each change.

As an example, you will agree that there are a certain number of players who log on, make a new char, and immediately quit. You desire to reduce this phenomena. You experiment, in a very scientific and controlled way, with cosmetic changes to the creation process, changes to the MOTDs, changes to the area they start in... all the while carefully measuring what happens to the above phenomena.

Then maybe with the edge you gain thus *legitimately*, you can stop posting disguised advertisements for your foul-reeking landfill of a MUD (heck, maybe your mud will even become a mud worth visiting!)