INCREASE POPULATION NOW******

[Kadull]

You ever see the movie idiocracy? Well, there's a scene in it where the lead character is trying to convince a panel of dim-wits that if they want their crops to grow again, they have to feed the plants water instead of gatorade. His comments are ignored, or confusing to the panel, again, because they're kind of slow. So instead of just trying to explain to them that gatorade is bad for plants, he takes them out into a field and convinces them that he can talk to plants, and that the plants physically explained to him that they wanted water instead of gatorade.

Right about now, I wish I had a crop to convince you people I could talk to.

[Kadull]

BEHOLD, FOR I AM FROM THE FUTURE! HEED MY WORDS, TRAVELERS, FOR I HAVE SEEN BOTH OUTCOMES!

You have 2 options!

Your first option is to sit on the forums and bicker back and forth about PKs and new players. If you do this, your shard dies, and you are all forced to play WORLD OF WARCRAFT!! oOoOooOooOOoOOoooOOoo

However, if you start running fundraisers, and utilizing things like your forum list of 10,783 members (and your forums mass Email tools), targeted marketing tools like facebook, twitter, and google, as well as incentive programs for your players to spread the news by word of mouth, your shard will thrive again, and you may all be so happy as to never have to worry about a newbie being PKed again!!!


I HAVE SEEN IT WITH MY OWN EYES! OooOooOooOOoOOoOOOOOOooo

<screams as he fades away into nothing> "dooooonnnnn't fuuuuuccckkkkk thhhiiiissssss uuuuuppppp!!!!"

[Budner]

Wait. Should we, like .......... tell others about this shard?

Stop sugar-coating it and dumbing it down. What do you think will WORK?

[Kadull]

Wait. Should we, like .......... tell others about this shard?

Stop sugar-coating it and dumbing it down. What do you think will WORK?

Step 1: Nerf PKs

Step 2: ??????????

Step 3: POPULATION!

[Pirul]

Wait. Should we, like .......... tell others about this shard?

Stop sugar-coating it and dumbing it down. What do you think will WORK?

Step 1: Nerf PKs

Step 2: ??????????

Step 3: POPULATION!

Nerf PKs = Nerf 90% of the active population! Great idea!!

Let's face it, it's a catch 22, you can't please all the people all the time. If you change something you're gonna alienate a portion of the active player base. Do we want to do that to take the risk of attracting and keeping new players? Are we sure it will succeed? Because if it doesn't, it effectively kills the shard.

Now, keep in mind, you cannot change things while ignoring Era Accuracy, so that is likely not to happen.

What I do agree with is some sort of mass campaign in social media. How? I have not the slightest clue.

[Kadull]

How? I have not the slightest clue.

Step 1 : Start a fundraiser. It should be made abundantly clear that all proceeds will go directly towards marketing the shard in order to bring in some fresh blood. I highly recommend creating incentives for this, otherwise, you simply wont get enough money, and your shard will inevitably die. And no "The new players alone!!" will not be enough of an incentive to get people to cough up real life cash... This step needs to be pushed hard, and long. From beginning, to end, and then needs to continue from here on out.

Step 2: Design a month long incentive campaign to get players logged in. This can range from things like increased gold drops for a month, increased skill gain, increased rare drops, etc.

Step 3: Design multiple events to be held on a single day. This can be done by both players and staff, and should include lots of in-game prizes, and incentives for being logged in (example: 1 player will be randomly chosen to win a brand new Iphone 5!!!).

Step 4: Design a slogan for this campaign, and collect some images to make flyers and banners out of, as well as some sales pitches. You're selling your product with these, so make them good.

Step 5: Set a date to launch your campaign, and start sending out weekly mass emails about this month long campaign and event day to your 10,000+ forum member email list a couple weeks in advance.

Step 6: On the first day of the month long campaign, start plastering those flyers and advertisements all over the internet using the money you have been collecting since step 1.

Step 7: Continue pushing regular fundraisers for marketing campaigns from here on out. As I've said a dozen times, players will always quit. New shards will pop up, people will get bored and want change, etc. You do not have the sacrifice your own vision to counteract that, and it would never work anyways. You will never... ever... ever... be able to retain the same people indefinitely. You must create a revolving door. As player inevitably quit, you should be drawing people in by marketing to the billions of people on the internet.


Please note that at no point in this post do I recommend continuing any discussion about PKs, or treatment of newbies, or evolution, or what ever weird arguments you people have arbitrarily attributed to the decline in your population. Again, these arguments are genuinely stupid. I don't mean that to be insulting, I'm simply using the word based on it's truest definition. They are arbitrary, without logic, without data, without reasoning, without anything that anyone could agree on indefinitely. They're just god damn silly. Seriously, stop fucking talking about them in the context of population. Yes, again, they are valid debates, but not in the context of increasing population.

Again, market. Market, market, market. Advertise. Advertise. I am from the future. If you don't advertise, your shard will die. You're reaching the point of no return..... Start putting all of this together yesterday.

[Kaivan]

While these ideas are laudable in the context of a business, UOSA has never been a business. However, if the players themselves are interested in increasing the population, they can partake in whatever advertisement they see fit, be it social media, word of mouth, or posting on popular gaming websites.

[Kadull]

uh, that's..... what are you talking about? I don't even know where to start.

As I said, if you don't market, and you don't create a more steady *inflow* of players, your shard is obviously going to die very soon...

Do you own this shard? Are you even authorized to make a statement like that? Because you basically just admitted that this shard is on it's deathbed.... Maybe you should let the owner handle this one...

[Kaivan]

You're free to ask Derrick what his position is. You'll get the same answer that I did, because we've had this same position for as long as I've been here, at the very least. Or, actually, here's a statement from Derrick, from page 4 of this thread on the issue:

There's a lot of assumption in the first post that I don't agree with. The biggest assumption is that an artificial lower barrier to entry results in better retention. I reject this entirely, you may have more people starting, but it by no means encourages them to stay longer, and may actually do the opposite.

We are one of the longest running and most stable UO shards there's ever been.
The promotion of Second Age has always been the domain of players.

If you want to see more people, go out on the interwebz and tell people about us!

Beyond that, the dichotomy of advertise or die is entirely unsubstantiated at this point.

[Malaikat]

I can't say that I agree with the removal of trash talk from main IRC as a means to retain population. The reason is admirable, but the reasoning is flawed. I agree that people should have access to help and to information. However, you can't shelter people from game culture and expect them to hang around long-term. Just trust that the majority are nurturing and good natured and take your wins with your losses.

Main IRC currently mirrors the game environment. Some people are garbage and others aren't. If a new player can't tell the difference, or they're unwilling to accept the presence of garbage, then you're not doing them any favors.

[Kadull]

no, definitely not substantiated at all... I'm sure you'll survive without marketing. Good luck.

To the player base.... i highly recommend not wasting your time :/

[Malaikat]

no, definitely not substantiated at all... I'm sure you'll survive without marketing. Good luck.

To the play base.... i highly recommend not wasting your time :/

The shard is six years old. You've been a member since 2009...

Why are we having this conversation?

[archaicsubrosa77]

How about we go to News media and have the reporters ask why a 20th century computer game is still active even today

[Lord Mammoth]

I can't say that I agree with the removal of trash talk from main IRC as a means to retain population. The reason is admirable, but the reasoning is flawed. I agree that people should have access to help and to information. However, you can't shelter people from game culture and expect them to hang around long-term. Just trust that the majority are nurturing and good natured and take your wins with your losses.

Main IRC currently mirrors the game environment. Some people are garbage and others aren't. If a new player can't tell the difference, or they're unwilling to accept the presence of garbage, then you're not doing them any favors.

Malaikat, this isn't about retaining population. If you read the IRC rules trash talk has never been a part of #secondage. Feel free to join #secondagetears and talk trash to your hearts content. Here is a link to the IRC rules. The post needs an updating but you get the gist. We are trying to clean things up that have gotten out of hand.

Thanks,

Mammoth

[Malaikat]

Righto then. Carry on. I still think the policy should be reviewed. In game content isn't policed, so it isn't really the shard's policy to offer a family friendly environment.