Where did the promotion campaign go?

[Arcon]

Now we are at the end of 2010 and I am sad to say that unless there is a promotion campaign soon, and I mean very soon, Genesis will die.
The tutorial is great, but it came 5 years too late, don't do the same mistake with the promotion. People are leaving the game every day and my guess is that it is because there is no one for them to team with. We are loosing players because of our lack of players. And I honestly think that if we don't start getting new players in two years there will be 5 players that meet in Sparkle to compare stats every 20 min while they wait for their grinding area to reboot.

Then we have the guild updates. I am sure it is very complicated to update the whole magic system, but why do all those other things? The new magic items thing you are working on? Is it more important than keeping the players? Sure it will make things interesting, but do you think it will keep the Rangers active? Or the Kenders? Will it help to balance and update SU and Monks? Was the global block more important? Do you think that the global block has made people play more or old players come back?
I honestly think that the guild update will never finish. Genesis will be dead before it is done, if we keep on doing what we do now.

And please don't make the guilds so powerful, start with them a bit underbalanced, and then improve them, not the other way around, because if you make them too powerful at the start and then you have to nerf them people will feel attacked and leave and we will just loose players with it.

This is a wake up call. Get more players, and get them NOW, we need to do something. Lets get the promotion campaign going. If not, if we stay as we are, I know I won't be around in a year, and I am sure a lot of other people won't either.

[Cherek]

Well said. I too want to see a serious promotion campaign during 2011.

I can safely say I play less when I see just a few players awake (and most of them LD/idle) and I have been thinking of leaving for good as well several times.

The times we do have a few players awake at the same time, I too get a boost of it.

It feels to me like the recode of Sparkle and the new homepage is what is holding the campaign back?

Did we need all the other stuff? Well we need more players way more, but we cant control what wizards feel they wanna work on and what motivates them. Gorboth really cant order people around like a real boss due to the volunteer thing...

But as I mentioned when starting the topic, we cant wait for everything to be "done" before starting a campaign, it wont be done. Ever. Its good enough now I think. I think its part of the charm, that we are NOT a commercial game, and that things are always slightly unfinshed, and always changing.

I too think we should go with what we have, and promote it, before its too late. It will be soon.

[petros]

It's great to see that people are still impassioned about promoting the game. That means that all is not lost yet! I myself am greatly looking forward to 2011 with all the things that have been in the pipeline for so long - especially the promotion campaign.

The people who are focusing on the promotion are different than the people dealing with guilds and balance (thankfully). I think 2011 is shaping up to have some exciting things in store. Tapakah and Gorboth have been working hard on updating the web experience and also the web art. They should be able to announce something soon related to the promotion campaign.

In a related note, I just added the ability to Facebook "Like" topics. If you use Facebook, go crazy with it Every "like" ends up on your facebook wall and perhaps that's a way to get your friends aware about Genesis.

[Hektor]

Long version:
It is very understandable that we feel this frustration with lack of players to interact with. I share the sentiment in particular about logging off again, when seeing a low number active players with a few of them also being idle/LD. Many of the problems we have experienced with lack of guild activity, lack of council members to manage guilds, lack of wizards, etc. leads back to the general lack of players. With a greater playerbase, there will be more inspiration, more interest and more people wanting to step up to the various plates. Also I find that if I have people interested in something I work with, I would be more inclined to work on it, be it as a council member, recruitment thingy bob, wizard etc etc.

Therefore, yes we really do need an influx of new blood now! New individuals who can feel inspired and intrigued by the game and all it can offer, rather than the usual sandbox of us grumpy addicts and jaded misfits who sit in each corner throwing sand at each other

That being said, with the current status of Genesis, namely the webpage and lack of information and help files, I do not believe in a promotion campaign at all. Genesis is so very dependent on information you cannot clearly gauge (damage, experience, etc) an immensely steep learning curve (text commands as an interface is outrageous to people who are used to

"point-click-kill"

Nellnight), outdated or lacking helpfiles, frustration with illogical and poorly coded quests, while at the same time enduring the aforementioned addicts and misfits grumpy approach (just look at this note! ) then... no.. just no I would not even recommend Genesis in it's current state. Some of these things need to have a look-see before it has any meaning to invite others here.

Yes it is unique in that is old, and has massive amount of content, spread out on a vast array of themes, alot of which are based on well respected and endeared litterature, RP opportunities, unique guild/class system and a community. I have always advocated that those are the key selling points for Genesis for the Roleplayer and/or Adventurefan along with unlimited growth, intricate guild systems and combos, items galore etc for the powerplayer. Can we compete with the commercial games, the graphic games and so on with those sellings points? Maybe. Maybe not. Genesis is a unique MUD among MUDS, and it is a unique game among games. I just doubt that these selling points can outweigh some of the clear flaws.

We do need at the very least to shape up the homepage, make information more accessible (and if we had the ressources, make quests better and improve Sparkle) and then we can talk about a promotion campaign. Otherwise we are just wasting optimism and ressources (player and wizard alike) of which there is already shortage, on something that is bound to fail. Not to mention it is very hard to get a disgruntled customer to buy your product again, meaning, if we have (spent above mentioned ressources) and in turn "oversold" a poor version of Genesis (without the webpage and information accessability in place) to people who are subsequently disappointed and leave - it will be extremely hard to make them try again, no matter how brilliantly we may have improved on said product. It is all about perception!

Short version:
So in short I agree, we need players desperately! - however, trying for a promo campaign now will backfire. We will see people come and then go, not staying. Finish the webpage and information availability and then lets see where we are.

[gorboth]

Hektor shares my view of the situation. Yes ... bringing in new players is our most important concern - and the way to do that is to promote the game.

However, we must first have a game that will function properly for new players when they arrive. To promote prematurely (as has been said on many occasions by myself and others) is to waste resources and destroy potentials.

What we continue to need is someone who can help us develop a slick and polished web-based PLAY NOW client that will be triggered from the web page. The one we use now is functional, and can get players at least started - but it is very very poor for what we really do need. If anyone knows someone who is skilled with this sort of development, and would be available either for free (preferably) or for cheap ... please let me know. This is our biggest missing piece right now.

This being said, here are some positives to keep us seeing the future with hope:

• The tutorial is pretty good (good enough, at least)
• The webpage development is quite far along. Our artist, Denis Loubet, has nearly completed the main page.
• The newbie-grinder dungeon and opening quests for Sparkle region are completed and will open soon.
• The newbie-line has developed into a truly helpful community, and really does bring out the best in our players. Nice work!
• The opening of the academics guild provides the magic-user opportunity for newbies the game has always lacked.

We are definitely on track to a brighter future. For those of you who would like to see examples of the work Denis Loubet (our web artist) is famous for, here is a link to his gameography. He did the box cover art for many of these games. Some he did manual art for. Some (like the Wing Commander series) he was lead artist for the actual game artwork.

http://www.mobygames.com/developer/shee ... perId,111/

G.

[Cherek]

Gorboth: Whats so terrible about the current web client?

I only see one real flaw, a big one, but still. It is that if you alt-tab from the window and back, you have to re-select the input window. Very annoying and it makes it very hard to use. Solve that, and its fine imho. It even has aliases, triggers and macros and all that.

But I wonder why we even need a web client so very badly? Sure it could be nice, I agree. But providing a preset client with some basic triggers / colors / aliases for Genesis to download and install wouldnt be terrible? People are used to having to download a client. Alot of games use downloadable clients to connect.

Pack some version of zmud/cmud complete with Genesis settings into a self-extracting archive, add a link to download. Voila. Done.

The play now button with the current webclient could be used for people to try, but in order to get the full experience they need to download and install a client. Nothing strange with that at all.

And they get the best and most videly used client complete with settings for Genesis. Its unlikely even if we get someone to code web client, that it should become better than a client that has been around for 15+ years anyway. Sounds to me like atleast a year more of waiting for a new client... another year of declining playerbase. Why not use the clients there is? Zmud/Zmud has worked for so many years, it still works very well. I think we should use it.

Oh btw, I assume this Denis is only doing artwork for our new webpage or is he the web designer too? And who is doing the actual coding and design work? The reason I am asking is while his artwork looked fine, his own webpage simply looked terrible...

When you say the "main page is almost done" it sounds to me like its still a very far way to go? Or is all the content in place and written?

[Arcon]

I agree with Cherek and I would like to add, how long time will you wait for a new web client? How long time have you been waiting for one? How long time did it take to get the current one? Do you have any reason to think that we would have a new client soon? If so, please share, we need good news. Right now we are down to 15-20 active players. We can not even wait 6 month for a new client.
I know nothing at all of programing, so I don't know how long time it could take someone to make a new client. But right now we don't have the time to wait. We have do act now.

This is a bit like you are taking away rust from a sinking boat. Fix the boat, then make it pretty.

[Cherek]

I completely agree Arcon. I know a little of coding and starting from scratch to make a web client that is as good as or better than cmud / zmud is going to take time. And that is if we had someone working on it. We dont even have that. This web client has been in the works for so long and according to Gorboth it still isnt anywhere close to good enough. So I say, forget that. Find a simpler solution. Please.

Same with this new webpage, it has been "almost done" so many times now I have simply given up. Its been almost done for several YEARS. It should not take years to create a decent webpage that would be good enough to attract new players. It should take a couple of weeks at most for any semi-professional or hobby web designer. Something is not right. Either you dont have the right people working on it, or the right people responsible for finding the right people. Or you're simply doing it in a too hard way. Or perhaps looking for "too perfect"?

As in almost any type of creative work, you always aim for the best, but you always have to compromise and do the best you can on a LIMITED time. We no longer have unlimited time. Set a deadline, do the best you can in the time. Its not gonna be perfect no matter how much time you use. It might not be better at all just because more time is used. Accept what you create in the time you have. Move on.

I see your point, Gorboth and Hektor, but you must see ours too. We just cant wait for everything to be perfect. You say you think a campaign will fail because the game isnt good enough. The game is over 20 years old, and its still not good enough for new players? Logic says in 20 years, the game wont be good enough either.

The absolutely most important thing for a new player in any multiplayer game is to find OTHER players to interact with.

An active community and playerbase outweighs any flashy web client, cool web design or step by step tutorials. Start your promotion campaign while there still are a few players around to introduce the new ones. No tutorial, webpage or client is more important than actual humans around to play with.

The gaming history is littered with great looking, well-designed games that fail utterly, and other games (take Counterstrike for an example) survives for years past its due date even though alot of "better" games come and go. Why? Well because of an active community, because there is always people to play with.

If we lose many more players, promoting the game will be even harder, because then you have to solve how to fill an empty game from scratch, a game designed for 100+ players. And that will be extremely tough no matter how cool client, webpage and newbie tutorials you have. Just one experienced player can learn a new player much more than anything else can.

Dont look for problems to solve, like what we have instead and use what we have!

[gorboth]

Arcon and Cherek, I can sense your frustration, and I fully understand how hard it is to wait. You seem to be operating on the assumption that the playerbase is in a steep and disastrous decline. This isn't true. The playerbase remains fairly stable, though at an undesirably low level. By waiting for things to be done properly, I do not agree that we are at risk of the game completely dying off.

I see Genesis the same way I see model trains. The hobby will not die until those who enjoy it do. I think our "die hards" will stay with Genesis (waxing and waning in their interest, but maintaining a basic core of players overall) for decades to come. We can (and will) be able to wait out the period of time needed for proper development.

The "do something ... ANYTHING!" response is understandable, but misguided. What we need instead is "DoThingsRight" as my old friend Gnadnar used to say. And that is the course the current Admin has elected to take. You may disagree with that course, and you may wish we had a different Admin. Well, we don't.

The current Admin is limited by its own manpower and the time we as individuals have in our daily lives to devote to the game. For myself, my time is heavily divided between family, work, and numerous other considerations. That being said, I am still perhaps the most active of the Admin overall (Petros blows me out of the water, when he isn't swamped with his own RL!) My interest in the game has not waned, and I am fully devoted to getting things where they need to be. You can rest assured that I will finish what I have started, but I do insist on doing things in a way that I believe to be correct.

So - to answer a few of the questions ... I agree that Denis Loubet's personal webpage looks pretty awful. It was created many years ago and is not to modern standards. His gifts are primarily those of artwork and illustration. He is not our site designer - rather, he is providing illustrations to meet the designs Tapakah sets for him. The final product of these efforts is proving to be truly distinctive (not looking like other things on the web) and speaks to what we are - a type of high-quality gaming that harkens to a bygone era of the Golden Age of roleplay.

Cherek, I agree with what you've said about the client. We are not trying to design something to compete with ZMud at all. Rather, we just want a way to guarantee that our visitor's "first steps" into the game are a high-quality experience, rather than a bare-bones telnet drab-fest. I like very much the idea that we could create a customized ZMud or ZMud client with pre-set Genesis stuff that we ask people to download. If there is talent around to accomplish that, I'd be interested to know about it.

G.

[Celephias]

I was rather happy to see what looked to be a newer player in the game (I have no way of knowing if its a reincarnation of someone). Funny enough, the new player was an elf, and my first instincts in RP'ing with an elf are of course, unpleasant for the elf. Rather than potentially turn off the newbie, I toned down the Mordor rhetoric a bit (ok, a lot). The player seemed to take it in good stride. Hopefully the interaction was reasonable for them - they're still around so it at least didn't drive them off.

I'm not only hoping for more players, but hopefully we can get some of them to favor the dark side

It would be nice to somehow know when some fresh blood arrives so that many of us can attempt to interact with them. That a new player gets to see the breadth of players in Gen early might help them to find the game more interesting.