[Alaire]

I've seen articles on how to get women to play your mud.

I've got the opposite problem going on.
I'm overrun by women!

It's wonderful in alot of ways. We have a very rp intentsive game on our hands and the players we have are exceptional. But there are things missing because of the lack of male players. I'm not sure what the cause is of this, but I have a few ideas.

We have a very matriarchal society. Headed by a woman who is thought of as the great mother. The head of the militia is a woman. Many of the positions of power are filled by strong, vibrant women. That attracts women, I think. Also, the fact that the elves of the mud are all beautiful (well for the most part), the lands are gorgeous, and women like to lose themselves in things that are pretty. And when something is ugly, it's supposed to be.. they're called goblins. Also I think that alot of the plots we run attract female players because they tend to have a romantic air about them. Not necessarily a relationship between a man and woman, but an emotionally compelling story. Women like that.

This all works out great for us getting women...
But not alot of dudes.

I'm not sure how to go about attracting male pc's. I've got men on my staff but they don't have as much time as I do, so I thought I would come here and get some ideas.

Thanks much!
Alaire

[Thoric]

Well, posting the address to your game might help...

...I have a feeling that advertising a MUD full of women would certain gain the interest of mainly men, and they'd come flocking in pretty quickly.

[Alaire]

*laugh* I didn't think of that, but I also don't want to advertise in a non-advertising forum.
People can click on my profile to see, I think.
Lisa

[Molly]

You know, this is pretty funny.

In our mud we have a pretty even balance between the sexes.
However:
Most of our male players are around 17.
Most of our female players are around 30.

I have no idea why, but I checked with some other muds, and it seems to be a pretty general phenomenon.

So, bored houswives and horny teenagers... What a combination.

[Wik]

Why do I hear the song "Mrs. Robinson" in the background?

Seriously, though, I've noticed the same thing. I think it's because of the fantasy genre, as well, which happens to be popularized by...surprise, surprise, guys in their teens for the more action-based, often violence-based stuff, and 'older' (than the guys, anyways) women who go for more of the fantasy with a romance and mystery backbone. But I know there are plenty of exceptions to this rule, so stereotypes wouldn't be terribly useful.

[Gad]

Bored housewives find themselves spending time on-line with horny teenaged boys who are either looking for MU*sex by flirting with the aforementioned bored housewives, or posing as women and MU*sexing with other horny teenaged boys, leaving the husbands and boyfriends of said housewives to start dating all the teenaged girls the boys are now neglecting. I’m not sure who I’d declare the winner in this situation…  

To the original question, it seems like some targeted advertising is in order. Throw some ads out there that appeal to the stereotypical MU*ing man (violence, action, adventure, etc. … shouldn’t hurt to mention high bored-housewife population ). This is of course making the assumption that the percentage of men and women who try the game and end up sticking with it is roughly the same, or at least that the number of men who try the game and stay is comparable to similar MUDs.

If a lot of men are trying the game and not staying you might just have to enjoy the benefits of a low-testosterone game. The other option is to make changes to appeal more towards men, which might alienate some of your current playerbase.

[Eadulf NightHunter]

I tried getting into your mud Alaire, but every time I try to make a new character, the games either totally freezes, or it just exits me out of the game, the window disappearing completely. It might just be my computer, i'll try again later.

[Alaire]

Please do!! It's been up and running all day!

I'll try some targeted advertising and if that doesn't work, I'll work on begging people to play that I see here on TMS. heh.

Well.. not begging.
I'm just not that cheap.

[Eadulf NightHunter]

Well, now that the game isn't freezing i'm getting through the character making process...Except when I got to the question where they ask for your characters age...It says I cannot use a age under 6 years old or higher than 72 years old. I tried every single number from 7-72. None of them work. I'm confused.


EDIT:
Tried again, it accepted 22 years old.

EDIT:
It asks for my e-mail address, to send me something to make my account activated, but it won't let me type periods. I try typing eadulf@hotmail.com but it comes out as eadulf@hotmail>com. I tried fixing it a few times, but it keeps on making it a >...I give up.

[Alaire]

That's very, VERY wierd. I just made a character with no troubles at all.
Never heard of that happening! Do you have some sort of special triggers set up on zmud or something?

Oh and Eadulf, cute as you are, 'I don't have time to write a description' isn't a description and won't get you accepted.

Lisa

[Eadulf NightHunter]

Sorry, I was on my way out the door, . So because I wrote no long description I wasn't accepted? I'll write a long description then.

[Wenlin]

Why wasn't my character accepted? I used a name almost just like the sample one and used the exact sample descriptions except for gender changes (her->his)

It should have fit the criterias for description and name requirements perfectly, whats going on?

[Alaire]

Well, yes, I remember rejecting that application.

If everyone copied the sample description nearly word for word, then we would have thirty of the same character running around. And in an rp mud, that just won't work out.

And now for something completely different:
I am noticing that lots of people don't get the whole rp enforced thing... It's amazing to me mostly because that's all I've ever played (save for brief excursions into hack and slash). Most of the people that have come recently haven't been able to really stay in character.
Create a unique and interesting character that you will enjoy giving some depth and dimension. It's not about killing stuff or about gaining levels. It's about living this character in an ongoing novel.
I swear!! It can be very, very exciting!

I'm going to work on the creation process a bit, I think, to make things more clear too. I will put in somewhere that copying the sample description word for word won't get you accepted.

Thanks!
Lisa

[melopene]

We have about... I'd say 30-40 male players, and no more than 12 female players. It's pretty out of whack, and I've gone so far as to give rewards for recruiting new females in specific..

Not to sound sexist, and I have done my homework on this, but in my observations females tend to be more responsible in regards to rules, and also tend to be more social than hacky-slashy-kill-kill-kill... which can sort of be good for you, since it would potentially lighten your codework..

(I think that made sense, It's 7:30 AM and I just got up and am off to uni for the morning.. meh.)

Melly

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by We have about... I'd say 30-40 male players, and no more than 12 female players.

Out of interest, how do you know that they are male/female?

Originally Posted by It's pretty out of whack, and I've gone so far as to give rewards for recruiting new females in specific..

*wince* that strikes me as being rather sexist. Of course it's your mud, and you can run it as you wish, but I bet if you'd done it the other way around (given rewards for recruiting male players) you'd have been flamed heavily for it, just as you would have done if (for example) you gave rewards for recruiting white players, or hetrosexual players. The best way to attract a certain type of player is to design your mud with that type of player in mind.

Originally Posted by Not to sound sexist, and I have done my homework on this, but in my observations females tend to be more responsible in regards to rules,

I think that's a bit of an over-generalisation. The vast majority of younger mudders seem to be male, and those are the ones who often have a problem following rules - but among the adults, I'd say it's about 50/50.

Originally Posted by and also tend to be more social than hacky-slashy-kill-kill-kill... which can sort of be good for you, since it would potentially lighten your codework..

Yes, that claim is certainly backed up by the results of Erwin's Bartle test:
[code]
male female
Explorer 30% 32%
Killer 22% 14%
Achiever 24% 23%
Social 25% 30%
[/quote]
Note that the above are taken from 23141 male and 4475 female participants. The percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number (which is why they don't add up to exactly 100%).

[lavitz_lions]

I do think youth has more to do with not following rules than sex does... and since there are more male players than female on that mud, there are naturally more bad ones, but there are also more good ones. But I myself feel I follow rules/RP/am not a twink...

But I don't think ANY male player is going to complain about more females coming to a MUD Hehe.

[melopene]

Originally Posted by Out of interest, how do you know that they are male/female?

It could be a bit too much of a good or a bad thing, but the players are OVERLY open with me, and I tend to know the goings-on of their entire lives. True, there can be some elaborate schemes to make oneself out to seem female when you are male, and vice-versa (I've done it in the past, and I've known people to do it as well), but the relative chance of this happening to such great length is uncommon enough that I would still consider the estimates safe (Not to mention that I did take that into consideration when making the estimate).

Originally Posted by *wince* that strikes me as being rather sexist. Of course it's your mud, and you can run it as you wish, but I bet if you'd done it the other way around (given rewards for recruiting male players) you'd have been flamed heavily for it, just as you would have done if (for example) you gave rewards for recruiting white players, or hetrosexual players. The best way to attract a certain type of player is to design your mud with that type of player in mind.

Actually.. it was just an attempt to get a little balance back in the gender field, and a conscious effort to keep female characters from being bombarded by attention from men as soon as they made a character. It got to the point of driving females away, and thus I chose to do that.

[Kyrie]

Being one of the many females playing on Southlands, ill have to agree with Alaire, we need to balance out the ratio with a few fine manly Rpers. *giggles* Hope to see you there