[MUD-Dev] Attracting players

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Thu, 16 Sep 1999, Adam Wiggins wrote:

> MUDs as a whole have taken a pretty hard drop-off.  You know, of course,
> that it's partially YOUR fault, right Raph? :)  I'd say that Ultima Online
> (among others) is siphoning off a LOT of the people who, four years ago,
> would have become mudders.

I don't see this at all actually. My guess is that the mud population is
much larger than it was 4 years ago, due to a MUCH larger internet
population. The biggest muds (Gemstone, DragonRealms, etc) are still
thriving with thousands of players on simultaneously.  We've gone from
peaking at 40 last year to peaking at 100 this year, and we're 
growing. We're not even putting any real effort into advertising (not
spending any more now than we were a year ago, which is, frankly, not very
much).

> 
> I know that AnotherMUD has gone from hitting their player cap all the
> time to barely 40 people on at peak time.  Arctic once boasted 250+ players
> at peak and never fewer than 100, but nowadays seems to hang out in the
> high double digits and is lucky to hit 150 at peak.  I'm sure other
> muds have seen similar hits.

Well, I mean no disrespect to the admins of those games, as I've never
played them, but muds come and go. That some ones who were previously
middling-big have faded in popularity may well due to people expecting
more, or just expecting something different. 

 
> Hmmm, other than that....maybe putting up posters in your local university's
> computer lab?  Ads on TV during 'Xena: Warrior Princess'?  A marketing
> campaign involving dancing lab workers in multicolored radiation suits?
> Banner ads declaring 'FREE XXX PICS!!!1!!1'

Ooh, how about free condoms with your mud's name emblazoned on it! I bet
no mud has done that before! (wonders how much it would cost, as it would
be very funny)
--matt




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