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Old 08-19-2007, 03:17 AM   #36
the_logos
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Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Mill Valley, California
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Re: Reaching out beyond text MUDs

With all due respect, that's like claiming that the cinematic trailers that video games put out pre-release don't help because they make players feel like they've been tricked since the in-game graphics aren't as good. You ever seen the original WoW trailer, for instance? It bears almost no relationship to how the characters look in-game and yet I'll bet you almost anything you want that it was very effective at peaking people's interest. There's a reason that Blizzard has, literally, an 85 person strong cinematics team.

It's about keeping people's attention, however you can within reason. The longer you can keep their attention, the greater the chance that you're able to communicate your true value proposition to them.

I also can tell you from personal experience that it works. When we implemented our fairly pretty Nexus client and took out our older, ugly-but-also-java-based client, there was a statistically indisputable increase in retention both in completing character creation and completing the first hour of gameplay.

--matt
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