Initiative to bring back former players

[Makfly]

I suggested this about a year ago now and it never got off the ground, so I thought I'll pull out the suggestion again, and see if maybe this time it'll fare better.

I was originally thinking that since the official advertisement campaign have yet to start, we could just start another kind of advertisement campaign to bring more players to the game, namely old players returning to a game that they once (hopefully) loved.
All of us know players that we played with in Genesis, but that are no longer around, and many of us probably also know some former players in real life, or have contact with some over the internet still.
So how about we post a small list of (character)names that we'd like to play Genesis with again, and see if anyone in the current playerbase might know these people, and would be able to contact them, and tell them that they are missed.

I was thinking that the Admin could create a formal "We miss you" mail, that could be sent to these people that we miss in-game.
The mail could include the character names of the ones missing them, as well as information on what have changed in the last few years, how the game have improved, and a link to the forum, official website and a direct link to the new client.

So, for instance I know the previous player who used to play a character called Ruben. Say anyone on the forum posts that they really miss Ruben (the character) and would like to play with him again, then I could say, "Hey I have the email-address of that guy", let's send him the official "We miss you" Genesis mail.

Ofcourse some could perceive this as spam, but I think that if players are genuinely missing someone and it's from the Genesis game, I doubt anyone would object to receiving such an email. They don't have to reply to it, or revisit the game or anything.

Hopefully the Admin would be willing to participate to be the official sender of the mail, and have only the Admin would know the email-adrdesses, so we wouldn't have to post them on the open forum.

What do you say?
A good, bad, useless, idea?

Hope it made sense.

[Creed]

I think it sounds like a great idea.

I know there are people on my "who" list, I would like to see around the donut again.

[gorboth]

I definitely like the idea. A while back, the Admin were very interested in having all players register an official email address that they could consent to allow the game to mail on occasion. If this were to happen, we could use models similar to those on established applications such as Facebook, which are programmed to mail you with various notifications.

Spam is never a good thing when you don't want it, so we could give users methods to control the amount of notifications they receive with an extension of the in-game options. Some ideas have been email notifications when:

- The game is 10 hours from Armaggedon
- You receive an in-game mail
- A new month begins, and a player has been gone more than 2 weeks (a we miss you mail)
- An in-game event is soon to commence

This, however, is a somewhat different issue from "getting players back." The above relies on having current emails registered for each player - something we do not come anywhere close to having. It is unknown what could motivate players to actually register their email, but here, too, we can see what has been successful elsewhere via in-game incentives.

For example - if you are willing to register an official email, and enter the confirmation code that the game sends you, you receive a special token that will restore you from your next death, or give you some autosaving super-weapon that will last for 5 days, or, etc etc etc.

Again, this isn't necessarily the same thing that Makfly has mentioned. I think what Makfly is talking about is more about ways to contact our long lost former players. This, unfortunately, is not something that can be easily accomplished outside of a concerted grass-roots effort mounted on the part of players themselves. We Admin will definitely support any such effort, were it to be organized. Let us know what you think might work, and we'll see what we can do!

G.

[Bromen]

My old flame Iliana
Garnet
Shania
Monika
Ares
Tesla
Tad
Cuitlahac
Kit
a Not so serious Nellnight

Gorb: If don't log on again for awhile can I get a token for a super weapon?

-B

[Amberlee]

Yes to all of the above!

[Amberlee]

and you forgot.

Meercat
Wayfarer
Xashian
Nitramin
Ecila
Odie
Naiad
Arkahan
Lysander
Amberlea

[Rhynox]

Well, I would start by not deleting characters due inactivity. Newbies, I can understand, but after veteran, no character should be purged.

[gorboth]

Well, I would start by not deleting characters due inactivity. Newbies, I can understand, but after veteran, no character should be purged.

Mercade changed the purge quite a while back. It no longer deletes characters who have achieved a certain age. I think that age might be 10 game days, but I cannot remember.

G.