Typing this from my blackberry and babysitting two girls who are watching the Princess and the Frog so please bear with my infamously bad spelling made worse.

I've given this topic some serious thought but don't think I'll go into great depth while using this thing so I'll give a summary.

Having worked in food service in the past as a general manager, one of the most common and effective tools was launching short term, unique product offers. Some examples in food service are Pizza hut's Pizzones, McDonalds McRib.

The purpose of these is obviously to attract new customers but what makes them effective is that they make marketing more effective. McD's won't spend $1,000,000 in advertisment costs to market a simple hamburger, but it will spend that to send tv viewers images of starving people satisfying their hunger with a product that is as much of a treat as it is a value. (I'm not saying McRib is just that effective marketing gives it that appearance.)

These specials typically have an experation and they aren't offered until sales start to drop again and the memory of the products unique and favorable attributes exists in customer memory.
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CF's got a lot of unique and intresting things that kick much ass to the existing player base, but most of this is obscure or hidden from browsing customers.

It's safe to assume that virtually everyone visiting a mud knows the basics of fantasy, Giants, Dwarves, Elves, warriors, wizards, magic etc. But Kotegashi (Sp?) Fast, Kung fu grip, what ever are more like the bbq sauce of the McRib. Important, but not the headline. (I.E. Come try our new bbq sauce that comes with bread onions and meat! Not good marketing)

So what get's them here and what keeps them here?
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First of all we owe our origins to AD&D and I can't recall seeing the words Dungeon or Dragon anywhere on the official page. I could be wrong but if I'm not, they should be up there somewhere for search engine purposes only.

It's still a game on the market and we might intercept some hit's along that line.

Maybe just a small omage to TSR Gary Gygax and Dungeons and Dragons to get us some visibilty.

Next, we need new products. New races and new classes are two I want to address.

There is a resistance (And an odd one to my way of thinking) to providing the player base with races that have attributes similar to those already in existence. If this is an RP mud (And I think we barely qualify for this moniker) then it shoudn't matter. Especially given that the current cabal/religeouse system makes Race nothing more than a different statistical option.

I offer this suggestion then. A list of Remort races/classes be made available. From Dragons and Troglodytes to Halflings to Illithids. I seem to recall a Rune Mage Class that never went in, perhaps Psionisists or Body snatchers.

In order to get one of these a player with a hero character who has aquired enough imm exp, explore exp and observation exp is given an option to activate an in game toggle that alerts Immland. The Imms do their voodoo and if intrested tell the guy to submit his desired race, class and role for review. You guys vote on it and hand it out or deny it (Maybe with some constructive critisism) and make your results known ONLY if this player con dies or age dies. Notify them at a provided email AFTER death.
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I'm out of time or I would tie this up better. It's out there though, hope it generates some discussion.

Pro

Played DnD and I don't think I ever will... *yuck* its not as bad as that live action version of dnd though

And until recently I had many of the books I had as a teen. 2nd editiopn of course.

Great game.

Well this is an amazing idea seriously we could have this like the special forms for shifters for good RP. This could be good for Rp and well I would have sooooo much fun with a troll.

>First of all we owe our origins to AD&D and I can't recall
>seeing the words Dungeon or Dragon anywhere on the official
>page. I could be wrong but if I'm not, they should be up there
>somewhere for search engine purposes only.

I may just be a grump, but personally I instantly am turned off by a game that advertises some relationship to D&D. What it usually says to me is that the game mechanics are uninspired and unbalanced out of slavish devotion to a ruleset that comes out of tabletop (and was never a *good* tabletop system anyway, imho).

Fantasy gaming owes a lot to D&D, no doubt, and I respect its place in history, but CF doesn't have a D&D flavor and our rules are only reminiscent of D&D in spots (stats, specs, AC) and not actually sourced from them.

I'm not sure we'd get any visibility just by saying saying something nice about Gary Gygax or D&D on the main page... there's a million sites out there that are much more about D&D and Gary Gygax than we could ever be. Googling Gary Gygax or D&D is never going to bring up CF unless we really go crazy on it.

>I offer this suggestion then.

Can you clarify this a little?

Are these races and classes just cosmetic RP over existing races/classes? Are they supposed to fit into the CF lore or are they just D&D crud? My problem with this is that it makes the existing races seem lame if there's a SuperFancyMegaElf but it's really just an Elf.

What's the point? Newbies won't get much out of this, and most muds seem to have remorts so it's not exactly a novel feature for us to advertise.

I think the staff is certainly open to new class/race ideas, it's just that nobody has given any recently that have the right combination of being thematically appropriate, distinctive (enough to be worth implementing), balanced. Personally I don't think anything is gained by letting people play a gnome that's called an illithid. If you're worried about the quality of RP in cf, I would think you'd want to create less dilution of the atmospheric elements, of which fewer, more well-defined races is a part.

We are in many many ways. Still, that's not my point. I was talking internet placement.

If someone is lazing about and serving the web and they are looking for a fantasy game they are more likely to use the words dungeons or dragon than they are carrin of fields.

So having a small paragraph or a back page that mentions some core AD&D things might stear them here.

Google "Bail Bonds Springfield" and see what comes up. It's a work in progress undergoing doing some maintainence. I'm trying to make it appealing to the eye and not such a terrible read.


And their have been many suggestions for new races, most all of which were of races found in Thera and thus thematically appropriate.

I don't know what rqces would be available. I'm not a fry cook. . But I could see kobolds and goblins who actually had really ####ty stats but maybe some cool inherents or very rapid learning or what ever. It's a marketing too wrapped around a fun stick.

sdvbrvs

>Google "Bail Bonds Springfield" and see what comes up.

Bail bonds springfield is a very specific thing that not many people are really interested in searching for, or dedicated to. "dungeons and dragons" is a popular phrase swamped with related pages. There's no way we'd get on the first page of search results without some extreme shenanigans.

And there are 20 companies in my town and 50 or more Bondsmen.

Given I didn't specify what state I'm pretty satisfied with my placement.

But not to belabor the point, we can boost our stating in search engines.

Hhreh

I too am for reward characters and similiar stat races. I think reward characters would give a huge reason to want to role play, and having halflings, goblins, trolls, what have you running around every now and then would be cool. Also, I wouldn't mind seeing a Dwarven Bard or something like that. It would be fun to play custom characters, and challenging a lot of the time, people would probably gun for you.

Worst concept in game.

nt

Fighting a dude who can rock bag pipes and fence so well it scares you to death.... Naw, I'll pass.

I'll second the motion that bards really just... don't make any sense at all. But they're so awesomely fun to play, I'd be sad to see them go.

Splntrd

irst, hell yes for dwarf bards. Make it so they can only use epic repertoire, and only sing if they're drunk.

But as to bards being visually unappealling, yes, hard to imagine a guy playing a fiddle and holding a sword at the same time. But it does work with a capella, since I can see a bard with a sword and shield who can sort of be in a trance like state where his fighting is more of just a reactive process while his mind is more on the lyrics as he moves/fights in rythm to his own song.

That is how I see them, and usually how I play them, and then it does work. Singing without an instrument also nerfs their songs enough that nobody will be bitching about bards being over powered.

Instruments you could use, but they would all be two handed so you'd be screwed if you got caught holding the instrument, but they'd be there to use for prepping (which really is what they do) which would be good since instrument songs last longer and are more effective anyway, maybe even bump up the effect a little bit since they'd be defenseless while doing it. Then the bard busts out sword and shield and charges in like a crappy warrior, with mediocre mage spells. Or they keep the instrument and try to land lullaby with it, sing them up, and fiend the hell out of them, knowing if you fail you're going to get an ass kicking since they'd have no defense really except dodge. Or they land lullaby without and then use the instrument.

At least, that's my thought about how to make bards more in line with making sense. Then it would just be a matter of people accepting songs impact people.

I've suggested similar in the past.

I would like the songs to have a timer like Herbs as well, but the affect comes AFTER the song and if it's interupted there's no effect.

Save my neck in the club the other night.

I think bards could use a re-examination as well.

nt