I think a good way to find where we should put our efforts in order to have new players with us would be to do a quick survey with the actual players and find how they got to CF and see if some tendencie show up...

From what I see, there's three steps we need to know better about:
1) how did they start playing Muds.
2) how did they start playing CF.
3) why did they stick to CF.

So personnaly,

1) I started to play Mud because I used to love playing Dongeons and Dragons but wanted to have the opportunity to play whenever I wanted via the Internet. So when I began my search, I googled 'playing Dungeons and Dragons online'. I don't know much about how publicity and responses show up on search engine but if something like ' CF is a RPG like D&D online' shows up when somebody do a search, we, IMHO, definitly have something. The main idea here is to get the old (i'm over 30 years old) D&D market pool (and believe me, we've been a lot to love this game when it came out!) who do not have the time, or the desire, to gather with friend and play the game like before. For many reasons, the Internet is the best alternative for us. This market pool is all designated for Mud: we like to read and are not used to game with images. I dont know about the generation below 30s but I think there's probably a lot of people who searched 'playing Dungeons and Dragons online' on the Net...

2) How did I start playing CF?
After I got disappointed with the mud I use to play (poor RP and no PK regulation system), a Mud-player friend told me about CF. This is the good old 'mouth-to-ear' system and there's not much I can say about where to put our efforts here. Maybe only one or two things:
a) Again, my first reaction when CF went down for more than 2 days was too google 'playing mud' to find another one. I went to 'Top Mud' website (so encouraging players to vote is defintly important) and I had a look at Wikipedia article on Mud.
b) I think the most important thing on a mud website is the link 'Play now'. I know some think the CF website needs improvements but personnaly I don't. When I land on a Mud website I usually look for the 'Play now' button. Second thing I look for is Classes and Races. I personnaly think CF website it quite OK for now even if it can be improved... but I don't think it's the main priority.


3) Why do I stick to CF?

Because it's a good game! Ok... but what else?

I can see two important things here:
- The learning curve of starting playing Muds and/or a new Mud
- The PK ferocity on CF.

A) The learning curve:

After trying a couple of muds, I really think the Academy of CF is quite good. It put people 'in action' fast enough and is comparable to the best rated Mud on Top Mud website. Actually, The Thing that made a huge difference for me was to start using the Dioxide maps. I think eventually giving access to these maps (let say trough a quest around lvl 8-9) is something to consider for two reasons.

One, everybody like to find something valuable and especially if it's helpfull for PK survival. This might not be a good enough reason on the IMMs opinion but let's consider the second reason...

Since the last CF breakdown, I tried a couple of new muds (most from Top Mud website) and I finally gave up and decided to wait for CF to come back up. Why?... because knowing how important it is to know your way around when pk'ing', i didn't want to invest again the necessary enormous amount of time to learn a new map. Knowing where you go add to the pleasure of the game. I shall also say that, in the last days, before trying new muds, I first went back to the ####ty one I used to play just because I knew my way around. That's why I think giving access trough quest to Dio's maps is probably a major strategy to keep players coming back to CF.

B) The ferocity of the PK on CF

Definitly what makes CF appart, I think it should be a major theme in publicity on mud-user websites. But we should never forget that beside CF being down (I know you guys do your best to put it up and I really thank you for all your efforts to do so. I just hope it will be back soon) it is definitly a big reason why people leaves CF.

I see two solutions here:
1) When a newcomer click on 'PLAY NOW!', he should get a message like 'If you're about to create your first character on CF you should read the following message'. The message being the final version of the post:
'START OF A NEWBIE GUIDE. FEEDBACK PLEASE - daurwyn(VIP) 01/08/2010'
on Dioxide Main Board. I'm playing CF since more or less 6 month and after trying a dozen of characters, I finally choose to play an Assassin because it gives me a break from being killed constantly. Since I do so, I really have more fun playing CF. Because newbies usually get Pkilled for a long time before they win their first fight, and believe me it can be really frustrating, I would also add a new message to the one we get when reaching lvl 11 saying something like 'You should really read the Newbie PK FAQ if you want to survive!!!'
The content of Bobby's NEWBIE PK FAQ on the FAQ of DIKU-Wiki is just perfect for this: it gives the basics of surviving and (thanks Bobby this one is just so important to realize) it tells that surviving a PK attempt is in itself a victory.

that's gonna be it for now... hope this will help.