I accidentally deleted the TMS voting thread. So this is my version of restoring the thread. Vote and stuff. I am an ass.

Over the last month, we've shown that we can hold down the #3 spot without doing anything beyond reminding the playerbase that the voting button exists and can be pressed. We've also been keeping a relatively active forum presence over on TMS, and I'm planning to do some more advertising as soon as I get some free time.

I think we're netting good results from this. If you've had a character of level 1-10 recently (*), you've probably noticed the increase in chatter on the newbie channel. I've also noticed that a lot of the questions are coming from people who seem like brand-new CFers with previous MUD experience.... exactly the type of people I'd expect to see coming over from a web site devoted to discussing MUDs.

So.... keep up the voting! It's paying dividends, and giving you new people to kill interact with in a variety of ways!

(*): Or you're a heroimm. I'd also like to take this change to acknowledge the newer staff members (and older players) for doing a good job keeping up with all the questions. And also to Arvam for carefully chronicling all of the mischannels made by the aforementioned newer staff members.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Maybe you could find out which advertising/sites are paying off by including the question (so ingeniusly included in the subject of this post) during the char-rolling period after the "Are you teh noob?" question if you answer "Yes."

Would help you find out how just how you're raking in the fodder...err...noobs.

As you know, TMS tries to measure current interest in a MUD, so they reset the counts every two weeks. The rankings are pretty volatile for a bit, so click over and help keep us visible to new players!

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

The most recent review on TMS (or is it C?) doesn't exactly do us any favours.

Interesting how someone that is new to the mud can comment on the experience of players when many have been around for over a decade.

I'll bet that that's either a disgruntled old-timer, someone from another mud that is worried about cf, or someone that tried it for less than a week and never got out of the newbie ranks.

I suspect our recent rise in the standings may generate a few reviews like that. If someone moves up, someone else necessarily moves down.

I've been making some noise about how certain other MUDs advertise as "free" over there, when they're basically "free for 30 days" or "free, but you need to be buying credits with RL money to be on equal footing". One of our strengths is that CF really is free, and it irritates me that other games try to dilute the term.

Given that the name of the reviewer appears nowhere in our logs, and that he had nothing specific to say, it wouldn't surprise me if it was someone taking a cheap shot.



Returning to the issue of CF being free, here's one of my favorite examples from a MUD that has "free" access, talking about part of what you get when you start paying them money:

Separate, Speedier Queues for Assistance, Referrals and Feedback!
We pride ourselves on our customer service! ********* offers the deepest customer support in the entire online gaming industry, with hundreds of Mentors, Hosts, GameMasters and Feedback staff on duty throughout the week to handle your questions and problems.

As a Premium member, you will gain access to faster assistance lines to reach a GameHost and faster referral lines to speak to a GameMaster. And letters sent to our Feedback department by Premium members are also routed to a special mailbox and answered first!


They also run "Premium-only" events and quests, your character can carry more gear, you can enter "Premium-only" areas in the game, etc. All for only $300/year!

Or, you could play CF, pay $0/year, participate in quests, go to all our areas, and get treated like you should be anyway.



valguarnera@carrionfields.com

On the top mud sites it says:

Negative reviews will be removed unless they fully explain their reasons and leave a valid email address, as will reviews that have little or no substance to them.

Can you petition to get it removed? Their reasons were not fully explained at all and it provided little or no substance.

1) We're comfortably holding down the #3 spot now that people are remembering to vote! I'm especially happy that we've been able to get that level of success without resorting to pestering people inside the game, upsetting game balance with vote-bribes, or other things that would take away from the CF experience. Keep up the voting!

2) Qaledus pointed out to me yesterday that our number of total characters is up more than 10% in July, even after the 7-day autodelete cycle had time to rotate after our most recent ad/forum/review group. (In other words, if people were just clicking over from the ads and leaving, they'd be gone by now.) So, not only does good marketing bring people over to look, but at least some of them are staying. 89 people were on last night when I looked, which is roughly how many weekday visitors I remember from when I started playing in 1998 or so.

3) Thanks go out to the players who have posted reviews. Larcat (Woo!), Xaannix (Woo!), Blobqirt (Woo!), and a newly immed Jinroh (Woo!) all provided the public with detailed viewpoints about our pros and cons this month. If we were a cheesy MUD, we'd set you all up with Sweet, Sweet Loot ^tm, but we're all about the level playing field, so you guys will have to settle for "Woo!". More reviews are useful! Keep in mind that a lot of people browse the "Recent reviews" box in the upper left, and that we could benefit from reviews on other sites like MudConnector too. (See my other posts on this board for instructions, or just poke around).

4) The new stores are doing well. Everyone but me apparently had their order go out on time. If you get more cool ideas for products, let Qaledus and Amaranthe know. If you're on the fence about whether or not to buy, remember how many free hours (all!) we provided your last character! (And the one before that... and the one before that...)

5) We've worked out a lot of the kinks of upgrading servers, and we should be able to start providing banners, flyers, and more for easy download soon. Word of mouth is a great way to bring people over to try CF, Also, if you know of websites where you can post banners and such, you'll be all set up to do it!

6) We're working on providing FAQs for the brand-newbie. Right now, our first target will be "People who really have no idea what a MUD is about", and we'll be progressing towards "People who have played MUDs, but never CF", and "People who have only played CF for a little, and need the help". Once we're a little better organized, I'll start soliciting these for contribution by email, if people want to help.

7) Check out that History forum!

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I too have noticed more players ever since we took the 3 spot on TSM. I think a great way to keep new players here, is some Imm Lovin. I remember one of the things that really drew my attention when I first started was the Gechoes and Mud wide quests even though I didn't take part. CF wide happenings or quests I think would really hook the people who are just starting to take a look. It doesn't even have to be anything big, maybe a kobold invasion of Galadon, or the Sultan offering a bounty on the heads of conjurers. I know it's not uncommon for things like this to happen, just think right now would be a good time to stir it up while we have some fresh meat..Err players on.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

But only out of greed. I want another statue style quest.

This has been brought up several times, but has yet to happen. I've noticed an increase in small quest, which I guess is a start. It appears there either isn't time or a lack of interest in the staff in doing such a thing.

>This has been brought up several times, but has yet to
>happen. I've noticed an increase in small quest, which I
>guess is a start. It appears there either isn't time or a
>lack of interest in the staff in doing such a thing.

It's not a lack of interest.

Man that would be sweet.

Qaledus, was the printer able to handle it?

Add a Are you really, really sure? button to the thread deleter. It think we've eaten 4 threads in the last two weeks. (No knock on Seb... one of the 4 was me.)

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Graatch-

AFAIK the problem with the link is on our side and someone's looking at it, though I can't imagine it's a high priority.

Apparently it had something to do with the server where the forums are hosted. You just have to know how to complain loud enough. :-P

And while the votes are nice it is definitely paying off in interested people. I had to read the rules for the mud connector thing to find out that the OUT column is how many people connected to our site from the ranking site.

So some of those "out" column clicks are probably from other people who were also going into the site by voting for Carrion Fields. Those great reviews that have been posted recently are helping highlight our game, too.

These aren't the most votes we have ever had. I remember several years ago when we would frequently be in the number 2 spot. I think that was while one of the current top two sites was banned from TMS for shady voting practices. It all depends on how motivated the players are to promote the mud.

I really have no clue how the other 2 are able to have soooo many more votes then everybody else. Do they really have 500 people voting all the time?

Really substandard in my comparisons to CF but they did have like 4x our playerbase that I could see without and kind of detects.

There's a lot of games in our genre that are more popular, even beyond the two on TMS. I honestly think it's a difference in product, but that we could capture a larger niche with more work in the right direction. My opinion of the situation:

1) We offer a more challenging game, with a very experienced playerbase. You have to be able to deal with 'losing', whether it means being PKed, playing a 'supporting actor' role around veteran RPers, getting lost in a very big world, not getting the leader-type position you wanted, etc. This isn't something I think we need to change. Conversely, I think our gameplay depth is our greatest strength.

2) We offer a level playing field, with all the associated advantages and disadvantages. You can't buy your way to success like you can on the commercial games, where RL cash gets you gear, practice sessions, higher skills, etc. It's difficult to get away with cheating, and punishment is swift and clear. Your RL friends can't prop you up much. If you want to be good at the game, the only way is to play, think, and take your lumps. This is something that I think we absolutely cannot change.

3) We're not good with advertising and marketing. We're a well-kept secret in many ways- we keep the same players for years, and only slowly add or subtract regular high-hours players. We only market ourselves on a few free sites, and if you weren't already into MUDs, you'd never see us. This is something we've improved on recently (both the staff and the players), but we have a long way to go.

4) We have a steep learning curve. There's a lot of commands, the interface is all-text in a very graphical world, and a lot of potential players have been brought up on video games that you can "win" in ten or twenty hours. We've made some strides in this direction in the last couple years (neo-Academy, newbie channel, partial target matching to save typing, more newbie quests, expanded help system, more newbie areas, etc.), but it's still challenging. This is something we're actively working on. The playerbase should support this effort as well- take time out to RP or group with newbies, answer questions politely on the newbie channel, not bitching out newbies because you don't like their name or think they're clueless, etc.

One misconception I perceive in some recent posts is that people think goals #1 and #4 diametrically oppose each other. I think if we work on the right aspects of the game, we can maintain the game's challenge (which retains veterans, and makes skill matter more than luck) while providing more tools to help newbies teach themselves to tackle that challenge. I don't think the long-term answer is "make things easy", for the simple reason that when a game gets too easy, it becomes boring.

Analogy: Think of your favorite console-type game. I'm a fan of Madden football. When I play, I could turn the difficulty down to "Rookie", and ring up a couple thousand yards against a hapless defense, but that gets boring in about 5 minutes. I have a lot more fun losing at the high difficulty levels than I would winning 200-0 on the easiest one. Conversely, if the game came with no instructions or tutorials, and the only available setting was "All-Madden", I would have given up playing it a long time ago. The solution EA Sports puts in isn't "remove the high difficulty levels and spot the player 20 points", but rather "bring them in slowly with mini-camps and rookie-level play until they can compete at the 'real' game".

Ideally, CF's first 10 levels serve the "rookie" purpose- you can't die of hunger or thirst, other players can't harm you, etc. We recognize there's room for improvement, but I think the method is sound, and we just need to hash out the details.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

The 'xp-based PK' claim. It makes cf sound like some cheesy godwars clone, and might discourage players who have tried godwars muds(since nobody likes them).

Why not change it to terrific/great/badass pk (atmosphere) or something like that.