A discussion about themes and change

[Firetooth]

Just as an idea, you could create a "RWL classic" server like turbo with the old code if that might attract some older promi players, though I appreciate that isn't what Death is saying.

[Death]

I think that would end up just being a few RWL players and not attracting anyone from outside since if they want to play basic themeless Prom they have Empires, QMT, NWO, etc.

[windhound]

Eh. 
FAF has an awesome code base.  Its solid, reasonably secure, and works well (cronless!). 
They changed from their Redwall theme and just kinda floundered before giving up.  A lot of thought was put in and much effort in choosing a theme and redoing the site, it just didn't work out.

I don't see the magic source of players you do Death.
You mentioned a site that launched and somehow herded in 100 players, link please?
When promi was first launched it was something special to play a game online with people around the world.
That's nolonger true.  All the game consoles have online multiplayer with shiny graphics (well, the wii is debatable..  but graphics all the same).  Heck, even phones have them now.
There's a ton of competition, and for the vast majority an ancient text based game just isn't worth playing.

As far as creepy, I've never really thought of RWL that way.
I only found RWL because I google'd "Redwall Game."  I think that's how most of our players found us. 
Most of the actual players are teens.

I know we've never appealed to the rest of the promi crowd, but then again longevity wise we've beaten most of the other sites.  Low activity levels, sure.  But eh, when you make a post like this and get immediate replies its def. not dead.  The game still has enough players to keep the rounds going.  Numbers have typically crashed over the summer while people go on vacation and get distracted doing whatever they do.
And I'm alright with not appealing to the promi crowd, if I wanted xbox-live caliber conversation I'd go play on xbox live.  Various expletives sound so much better with a squeaky voice.

If we were to re-theme it would be another site with a new domain, keeping both running (domains cost $10/year, and just using the existing host;  heck, I've got an under-used hosting plan myself atm).
If someone wants to make a go at this I'm happy to help with the setup, but I don't have the time or motivation to do it myself. 

(btw Death, I appreciate the "This site has two nice games and a very competent administration" bit.  We don't get that much ^_^)

[Death]

I personally think the reason FaF didn't work out is that it wasn't marketed very well. A lot of people who were big into playing many Prom sites had no idea what FaF even was when I would mention it to them, hahah.

It's not a magic source of players though, it's like, just marketing towards a larger audience. Really basic stuff. We shut the site down because we were poor though so I can't provide a link to it now. It's basically exactly what RWL has done, attracting fans of a certain series, but just doing it with a series that is more popular (we used Fire Emblem). I think Shadow and Sevah both played there once, the one we launched was Age of Diplomacy. Before that there was a game called Fire Emblem Empires that also launched with over 100 players that I think at least someone here must have played. No recruiting from Prom sites was required, there are just a lot of people willing to play Promisance if it's made properly and has a theme they like.

About Prom being something special when it was launched though, that was never true. Promisance itself is based on another empire management game and there were several games like it around at the time. Nothing was ever special about it. Though it's understandable that most people don't know that, not many had the benefit of knowing a lot of people who played Promisance from the day the first game launched. History lessons are fun.

Appealing to the general Prom crowd would pretty much be a waste at this point anyways. I mean I'm sure the overall amount of people who would play a non-Redwall Prom is greater than the amount that would play a Redwall one, -but- actually luring them to the site is basically unachievable. Themes are great tools.

[Shadow]

I think I remember that. The other admins got really pissed at you for telling me about it because they were trying to avoid other prom players for some reason. There was a gentlemen's agreement not to attack anyone ever and just net peacefully, and I got killed for doing the first land grab of the set.

I was pretty awful at it.

[windhound]

Meant text-based games in general, promi as a subset.
They were kinda special in that they were approachable by anyone, for free.
I mean, the first MUD was in the 70's, and people were playing those over the internet as soon as there was an internet.

Can you name a popular text-based game nowadays? 
I mean, there was one my roommate played five odd years ago, but I forget...  it had a good thousand players or so, but it was a general 'space' theme.  There's probably a couple, but they're few and far between.

Granted the number of people on the internet is higher than its ever been, but I'm not sure the draw for people to sit down and learn a text-based game is there.  Not when you can pickup Angry Birds or hop online to kill noobs in Call of Duty.

FAF's issue probably was marketing.
The best way to market on a budget has been discussed here many a time.  The most successful was also the most expensive, Facebook ads.
/shrug

Also, that sounds awful Shadow.

[Death]

Yeah Shadow, we wanted to give the fresh players a chance to get accustomed to the game for a few months before we let a whole lot of experienced players in because we thought the experienced players would take it too seriously and spoil the game for the people who had no idea what they were doing. Was pretty interesting to get all the feedback, nice to know what people who don't play Prom like to see in a Prom. Lots of superfluous options and balance.

And there's still like, Black Nova Traders, Green Dragon, Earth, Kingdom of Loathing I think, that one thing where you like... use turns to walk... and there are random encounters. Basically I mean people still really get into text based games even though there are a lot of options. Hell, people still modify GBA games and release them to much success.

In my experience the best way to advertise was always getting a high Google rank for searches related to your theme.

[Shadow]

I never really got into it. I can vouch for the fact that there were well over 100 player active when I was there. Probably about 5 years ago now, though, wasn't it?

[Death]

Nah it was like 2 or 3 I think. I feel like I should state that around the same time there was a more popular Prom that was just plain Prom themed, though.

[Holby]

Aside from when RWL started, we never had hundreds of active players. We've always been consistently active, and that's rare.

But if promisance as a game isn't that active (which strangely you seem to agree with now), where are we going to exponentially grow our population from? If we drastically changed RWL, maybe we could draw those prom players, at least for a time. But with the stark differences in our code to what they know, why would they bother? Those that have played in the past haven't stayed, haven't liked many aspects of our game. Why would they want to play it now?

I don't think there's any future, or much hope, of drawing the prom crowd. If there was, I think we would have tried much harder to do it.

We'd have to market it as something entirely different, attracting other demographics. Make it a casual game or something, I don't know. I just don't see there being a relatively simple way to make the changes you suggest.

This really depends on what one would call active, I don't think the current playerbase is what I would call active. Seems pretty low to me.

You obviously are not paying attention to what I'm saying. I have stated and restated that I am not saying this site needs to be a regular Prom to attract some huge amount of players that are playing themeless games, I am talking about any possibility, especially the possibility of ANOTHER theme. That is why I have mentioned that themed games do so well without depending on Promisance. Like I said, think bigger.

Here's the gist of our conversation so far:

You: You guys have no players, you can get heaps more, look at what I did, all you need is a new theme from your lovely prom.

Me: But prom has like no players at all these days, that's probably not gonna help us.

You: Yeah it does! Wait... you're right, actually. Well, what I really meant is you need a heap of players who don't play prom, they'll love a fun new theme, and they'll magically come from the depths of the Internet!

But our low playerbase isn't even the point of why you're posting.  You're deadset on telling us we need to ditch the kid friendly "creepy" thing you don't like. That's why you're here.

I see this thread as being solely critical, because honestly, you can't even explain what it is you think is we should do.

[Death]

You really need to pay closer attention, but okay, I will simplify this for you.

RWL is Redwall themed. It gets members who are looking for a Redwall game and who have an interest in Redwall. It does not draw on other Proms for players, it uses the theme.

RWL has few players so the theme is not currently benefiting it so well.

I made this to discuss doing away with the Redwall theme and ideally getting another one.

Another theme.

Another theme with which to get members who are interested in a subject as opposed to just drawing on Promisance.

It is not some magic plan to get players from nowhere, it works exactly the same as the way things are currently except with a theme that could attract more people. You are the only one who seems to be having trouble here. I am just suggesting something be discussed.

Sorry if I'm coming off as annoyed but I'm honestly at a loss here.

[Holby]

You really need to pay closer attention, but okay, I will simplify this for you.

RWL is Redwall themed. It gets members who are looking for a Redwall game and who have an interest in Redwall. It does not draw on other Proms for players, it uses the theme.

RWL has few players so the theme is not currently benefiting it so well.

I made this to discuss doing away with the Redwall theme and ideally getting another one.

Another theme.

Another theme with which to get members who are interested in a subject as opposed to just drawing on Promisance.

It is not some magic plan to get players from nowhere, it works exactly the same as the way things are currently except with a theme that could attract more people. You are the only one who seems to be having trouble here. I am just suggesting something be discussed.

Sorry if I'm coming off as annoyed but I'm honestly at a loss here.

But the thing is, you came in here saying promisance is still successful, but RWL isn't. You point to active servers, and your story of creating a 100 player userbase.

If the future is not in attracting the prom crowd, which you now say it isn't, you're suggesting we change themes in the hope we can attract a much larger playerbase of people from somewhere. But given the current success of prom (which I'm saying is limited), and the long term success of any themed prom (seemingly more limited), how is this going to help over the course of more than a few months?

Redwall is a dead end series now, there's no arguing that, and I'm sure a lot of other themes WOULD attract more players. But I don't believe it would be significant enough, or much more effective in the long term, to justify making a big switch. It would mean ditching RWL completely to actually make it so.

Windy outlined the limitations of running a text based game already. I'm listening to what you have to say, I just don't think it makes enough sense.

Having said that, there are probably things we could do within the limitations of the Redwall universe that aren't so kid focused, but I'm not even sure that would help.

[Death]

I am saying that even just plain Prom is more active as a part of the whole "this theme isn't working" bit. I said that other sites have been more successful without a theme or with better themes, not that Prom is successful. By my definition the only successful Prom games in the last 5 years have been QMT, WGZ, and NWO.

I;ll take another shot at this though. A themed Prom... attracts people into the theme. Not into Promisance AND the theme. The theme catches them and they try Prom, some like it and stay, some don't, it has been demonstrated to work much better than default Prom.

[Gen. Volkov]

Death, I appreciate what you are trying to do, but this is basically what I've been thinking reading this thread:

I know we've never appealed to the rest of the promi crowd, but then again longevity wise we've beaten most of the other sites.  Low activity levels, sure.  But eh, when you make a post like this and get immediate replies its def. not dead.  The game still has enough players to keep the rounds going.  Numbers have typically crashed over the summer while people go on vacation and get distracted doing whatever they do.

RWL's playerbase will probably go back up once winter rolls around again.

That said, a re-themed RWL on a separate site, as a test, would be interesting. Keep the code, just different theme, and see what happens. See which one does better, over a multi-year period, and then maybe think about shutting down the RWL themed side if the re-theme proves vastly more popular.

[Rakefur]

That said, a re-themed RWL on a separate site, as a test, would be interesting. Keep the code, just different theme, and see what happens. See which one does better, over a multi-year period, and then maybe think about shutting down the RWL themed side if the re-theme proves vastly more popular.

So.....a claned server with Team Jacob vs. Team Edward?

In all seriousness though, fantasy has been done, futuristic has been done, I'd like to see something historic. Somewhat like what Empires did with Nazis vs Commies.