I know both Kasty and Thror have had a shot at this over the years. It's my turn.

Disclaimer: Let's keep this thing related to the points I've posted as best we can and not turn it into a "I've been saying for years we need to do X or Y*."

As it currently stands there are a few areas which we are deficient in. MUDs, as many of you have seen are an increasingly niche market. Many of CF's direct competitors are now defunct. Many more are in a state of severe decline. This is not, in my opinion, a CF-exclusive phenomenon, but an trend which is industry wide**

Having said I will give my thoughts here:

1. An advertising plan.

Our market, of course, is capped to "English speaking internet users who (might) enjoy free/text-based games." We need to look at websites and applications where we could advertise. Free advertising is fine and I have done a little on TopMudSites, TheMudConnector etc. Umiron has also advertised us on Reddit some.

Umiron and Scarab have also has purchased an annual advertising subscription on a common MUD resource.

Feedback: Free advertising is time-consuming, and labor intensive. Paying for advertising subscriptions are preferable. It drives traffic to us automatically and frees up community resources to do other things.

- Existing MUD players are ideal. They take to the game faster, but are prone to leave over time. Players from defunct CF codebase variants or CF progenitors are best.

- New MUD players are fine but have a steeper learning curve. They do, however, show a high degree of loyalty to their MUD of choice after learning the ropes.

If you guys want to get involved on this front, you can trawl the internet for places, or resources where we could advertise. Post them here or bounce an email to my listed email here. I will collate some statistics on what comes back if a lot of people chip in (a sample of the broader MUD player base.) I can also pursue subscriptions to place advertisements on behalf of the staff. The one caveat is that we want to be associated with legitimate advertising, so no posts for our MUD under D&D torrents, or illegal copies of ZMud or something (as I once found).

The end goal here should be to put together a concrete plan of action for marketing, or advertising. Targeted ads are best for ROI. Broad ads also might work if they bring in a lot of traffic.

2.Learning Resources.

We need to consolidate new player learning resources (pre-30) in one place. I have started adding links to the Wiki recently. We will need some contributors on this front. If you would like to contribute, let me know.

Stuff that needs work:
- Low level maps including roads, cities, lowbie areas.
- A revamped New Player Guide (which I am adding to piece by piece.)
- An FAQ for common new player questions which can be used to strip lots of meandering clutter from the Guide itself.

3.Community Presence for new players.

This has been a tough one, and I have largely shouldered this stuff alone on the Imm side. It is hard to put many resources in game due to abuse, but also due to resource limitations (stuff like "safe zones", "exploration only classes" and lowbie only cabals.)

We've had a spate of newer players lately, and I've been tracking them as best I can and making the game fun for them. Some players have also been helping them out.

I'd entertain suggestions on this front. We've been largely relying on graft and philanthropic acts from the community.

That's it. I invite someone to repost, or link on Dios.

*It's not that we don't believe those opinions are not valid, or it doesn't make sense. It's a matter of resources (and note: "open sourcing CF code" is also included in the above.) You guys have a dedicated and experienced team here and some of the IMPs have tens of thousands of hours digging through the million or so lines of C code. Open sourcing would not be beneficial given the state of the current market.

**I won't bother crunching numbers or typing out evidence but see links below for anecdotal evidence:
www.mudstats.com
http://time.com/3086189/world-warcraft-subscribers/


(If someone wants to dig deeper, feel free but I have better places to focus my energy.)