Imms, just an idea, make auto global echo about voiting with the link in it? Or add the link+some words to the global echo about bonus exp?

Not only would this be super annoying to players but I have to question the effectiveness of the vote list anyway based on there being almost no new players visible in game before we started advertising.

It doesn't mean that voting is a bad thing, of course, but it probably isn't the best way to attract traffic here.

PS: Those lists are pretty useless anyway, votes =! MUD activity. A few of those high vote MUDs had perma-characters which just idled AFK in significant numbers anyway.

>before we started advertising
Can you tell a bit more? Where, do you need or already gather any donations, what are the results?

There is a "Donate" link on the website that allows players to donate via PayPal, either in return for PBFs ($5/ea) or out of sheer generosity.

We've received enough money in donations over the years to cover our operational costs for quite some time. There's also some money for advertising, but we obviously want to pay to advertise only in ways we think will be effective.

This past year we paid for a text ad in TinTin++, for example. On my TODO list is to investigate some additional possibilities.

Things that don't make much sense for us, for those who might be curious, are AdWords (and similar services), Facebook, etc. Those just aren't cost effective.

Advertising is difficult for CF because we're advertising a kind of product that the vast majority of people don't understand and unfortunately we don't have the resources to effectively teach people our product quickly and easily. This was less of a problem in the olden days when MUDs as a medium were more popular and it was possible to market your game to people familiar with the concept.

All that said, I still maintain that the single best source of advertising for MUDs is players and word of mouth. I've spoken to very few people who weren't introduced to their first MUD by a real live person, and especially today when people aren't "MUD hopping" as much, that's important. So, if you can get past the awkward phase of "So yeah, I play this game where um.. there's no pictures and you LARP but in a chat room sorta thingy" then please consider taking the time to introduce someone to CF personally.

nt

NT