Suggestions and opinions welcome

[Thegirlyouloved2hate]

I think it would be fair to state that you can generally tell the health of a Shards population but the activity and interaction on its Forums.

Over the years I have noticed that when a server is doing well you will have a lot of participation on forums. When people stop by to check out a server( To join it) private or OSI they normally look at the action and involvement on forums..

I think it is highly important to let people see there is participation so they do not see a lifeless and UN-FUN server.. It is kinda like dating you have to see something appealing to draw you in..other wise it is a glance and move on. I know this sounds shallow and it may not be the best analogy however its the best I can come up with at this moment.

Other opinions are welcome.

 

[Thegirlyouloved2hate]

Babydoll you are smart you have to make it fun and interesting, The way peoples minds are geared these days they want a instant Adrenalin rush and something to make them want to look further...

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Agreed. The problem is, there are a lot of players that don't spend time in the forums when they are in-game. I happen to work a 9-5 that allows me to be a forum junkie, I know others that can't.

If some of the larger guilds became more active it would certainly help. I usually run solo, so it's not like I can group message a bunch of people to jump into a forum discussion.

When I am in-game, the beauty of being a thief is that there are frequently times when I need to research items to determine if they are worth stealing or to wait out a 2 minute timer before I can bank some new loot. Other players like I mentioned earlier, don't come to the forums when they are playing because it interrupts their play time...la

 

[Thegirlyouloved2hate]

Agreed. The problem is, there are a lot of players that don't spend time in the forums when they are in-game. I happen to work a 9-5 that allows me to be a forum junkie, I know others that can't.

If some of the larger guilds became more active it would certainly help. I usually run solo, so it's not like I can group message a bunch of people to jump into a forum discussion.

When I am in-game, the beauty of being a thief is that there are frequently times when I need to research items to determine if they are worth stealing or to wait out a 2 minute timer before I can bank some new loot. Other players like I mentioned earlier, don't come to the forums when they are playing because it interrupts their play time...la

I think most likely you are right...for people that work for themselves it is easy or if you have a super cushy job. and some may not even know what forums are. I know when I first started I had no idea what it was, and even staffing, I had directed many people to forums and they were like I was ,had no idea what forums were .maybe they should advertise it and the addy as you enter game. such aslease go to for information and help http://community.stratics.com/threads/suggestions-and-opinions-welcome.328074/#post-2476453
thus they could get up to speed and learn.

Shy

 

[SpyderBite]

If we're talking about new players then its my opinion that the the current gamer knows to check the website and the forums of a game that they're courting. Back when UO was newish, not all games had forums so it really wasn't something that went hand in hand with its accompanying game.

In other words. I think the modern gamer is pretty much shcooled on how to gauge the active population of a game and its various servers. It certainly doesn't hurt to create the appearance of an active server, but the bluff is going to be blown when they login and don't see a soul. I had the opposite experience yesterday when I logged in to GW2 to see what rewards I'd received and if my guild had been actively generating influence points. I actually jumped in my seat when I logged in to see at 150 players running about in the area where I had last logged out. It wasn't that it was unusual that so many people were always around. It was that I had grown so used to logging in to UO and not seeing a single fellow player during my whole session.

Unless we are seeking only to recruit people who have never played another MMO and are likely to accept an empty server as the norm; well there really isn't any other reason to put too much effort in to beefing up the activity on the forums.

People keep cycling through these same recruiting ideas year after year with the same results. There are thousands of people who who would love to log in to UO today. But, the subscription tripping them up. Nobody these days is going to pay a monthly subscription for a vintage online game except those who are already still playing it and haven't moved on for nostalgic reasons. Lose the subscription, and the servers will swell.

 

[Tyrath]

The never ending debate and rehash of how to get people into UO. There is infact a vast untapped market for a vintage game like UO. Everyone always overlooks the older crowd. The number of 60+ year olds is growing at a very fast rate in the usa. Many of which have ample time and money. If UO were marketed to that demographic I believe we would see a influx of older gamers, the majority of which are not familiar with MMOs. I spend a good amount of time with my primary customer base showing them how to send me a FB PM to place a order for Saturday delivery because they are not the most computer savvy age group around but are becoming more so because they have more free time than they did when they were scratching out a living, raising families and screwing people over in the corporate world. A more active forum would appeal tho many of those folks as much or more than the game itself. First their curiosity must be peaked and tweaked. Maybe a free 30 day GTC in a product popular with the older crowd. Hell I taped a packet of coupons up in the depends section of walmart and pulled 20 new repeat customers before wally world told me I could not put my stores coupons in their store $2.00 book of coupons and some renegade guerrilla marketing generated $21,000 in sales over the course of 2 weeks. Word of mouth from those 20 lead to another 60 regular customers........ Scale that to UO/EA and a real marketing camp geared specific to that demographic...... Of course billing and account management would need a real workover and simplified from its current state. I often wonder how many people get to that point and just say screw it..... It ain't worth it. Everyone looks for existing gamers to recruit and forgets the 16-30 year olds are not the end all be all in marketing. That makes about as much sense as me targeting the existing hippy foodies. Its a saturated market and no one considers the low income or even the middle income as viable customers, I cater to those demographics and see more sales growth than I can keep up with, in the mean time all the other elitist farms/vendors are fighting over a very narrow slice of the pie. Same principles at play in UO and MMOs in general, a few well established big ballers and the majority fighting for the scraps they drop, instead of carving out and creating new markets and opportunities.

 

[GarthGrey]

I may have missed the point of your thread, but I'm fairly certain the activity of the Siege forum has been just fine. Let me re-read it again and see what exactly I missed.

"When people stop by to check out a server( To join it) private or OSI they normally look at the action and involvement on forums.." sorry can't relate there. I've never read or seen any Freeshard forums, never had a reason to.

 

[Thegirlyouloved2hate]

The never ending debate and rehash of how to get people into UO. There is infact a vast untapped market for a vintage game like UO. Everyone always overlooks the older crowd. The number of 60+ year olds is growing at a very fast rate in the usa. Many of which have ample time and money. If UO were marketed to that demographic I believe we would see a influx of older gamers, the majority of which are not familiar with MMOs. I spend a good amount of time with my primary customer base showing them how to send me a FB PM to place a order for Saturday delivery because they are not the most computer savvy age group around but are becoming more so because they have more free time than they did when they were scratching out a living, raising families and screwing people over in the corporate world. A more active forum would appeal tho many of those folks as much or more than the game itself. First their curiosity must be peaked and tweaked. Maybe a free 30 day GTC in a product popular with the older crowd. Hell I taped a packet of coupons up in the depends section of walmart and pulled 20 new repeat customers before wally world told me I could not put my stores coupons in their store $2.00 book of coupons and some renegade guerrilla marketing generated $21,000 in sales over the course of 2 weeks. Word of mouth from those 20 lead to another 60 regular customers........ Scale that to UO/EA and a real marketing camp geared specific to that demographic...... Of course billing and account management would need a real workover and simplified from its current state. I often wonder how many people get to that point and just say screw it..... It ain't worth it. Everyone looks for existing gamers to recruit and forgets the 16-30 year olds are not the end all be all in marketing. That makes about as much sense as me targeting the existing hippy foodies. Its a saturated market and no one considers the low income or even the middle income as viable customers, I cater to those demographics and see more sales growth than I can keep up with, in the mean time all the other elitist farms/vendors are fighting over a very narrow slice of the pie. Same principles at play in UO and MMOs in general, a few well established big ballers and the majority fighting for the scraps they drop, instead of carving out and creating new markets and opportunities.

Well stated. I could not have expressed it better.

 

[Thegirlyouloved2hate]

I may have missed the point of your thread, but I'm fairly certain the activity of the Siege forum has been just fine. Let me re-read it again and see what exactly I missed.

"When people stop by to check out a server( To join it) private or OSI they normally look at the action and involvement on forums.." sorry can't relate there. I've never read or seen any Freeshard forums, never had a reason to.

If you had you would see they are extremely busy and have very interesting topics and more than 20 people participate in a conversation...threads do not go ignored or die down on the second page..it is what it is. It nice when you generally have a few hundred souls interacting on forums as well, like I said it shows the health of the server. I am not going to argue this point it is a fact as my Forever friends well know.

 

[Thegirlyouloved2hate]

If we're talking about new players then its my opinion that the the current gamer knows to check the website and the forums of a game that they're courting. Back when UO was newish, not all games had forums so it really wasn't something that went hand in hand with its accompanying game.

In other words. I think the modern gamer is pretty much shcooled on how to gauge the active population of a game and its various servers. It certainly doesn't hurt to create the appearance of an active server, but the bluff is going to be blown when they login and don't see a soul. I had the opposite experience yesterday when I logged in to GW2 to see what rewards I'd received and if my guild had been actively generating influence points. I actually jumped in my seat when I logged in to see at 150 players running about in the area where I had last logged out. It wasn't that it was unusual that so many people were always around. It was that I had grown so used to logging in to UO and not seeing a single fellow player during my whole session.

Unless we are seeking only to recruit people who have never played another MMO and are likely to accept an empty server as the norm; well there really isn't any other reason to put too much effort in to beefing up the activity on the forums.

People keep cycling through these same recruiting ideas year after year with the same results. There are thousands of people who who would love to log in to UO today. But, the subscription tripping them up. Nobody these days is going to pay a monthly subscription for a vintage online game except those who are already still playing it and haven't moved on for nostalgic reasons. Lose the subscription, and the servers will swell.

I think many feel, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free is a true statement and well said.However I have met many people that have not played UO till even this year and did not know what the forums were, they say the link in Reddit show them were to go ,followed it to the downloads It happens even in this day and age.



Shy

 

[ApollyonSP]

I don't suggest...I command that we as a shard start recruiting players directly from other shards, and encourage other low pop shards to consolidate and relocate to SP.

Shy, you're my #1 girl, get on this task immediately! I know you won't let me down

 

[Thegirlyouloved2hate]

I don't suggest...I command that we as a shard start recruiting players directly from other shards, and encourage other low pop shards to consolidate and relocate to SP.

Shy, you're my #1 girl, get on this task immediately! I know you won't let me down

How I do enjoy a facetious man, always tongue in cheek.. its nice to be able to make merry isn't it ?specifically at this time of year.

***laughing***
regards Shy

 

[Bo Bo]

ya want the Bo's opinion --- Why dont you shut up and play!

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

ya want the Bo's opinion --- Why dont you shut up and play!

That's a fine way for a current governor to speak with another player...la

 

[Bo Bo]

That's a fine way for a current governor to speak with another player...la

actually it is, Bo is tryin to get more people in game? What are you doing? Trying to con people on the boards to steal from them in game?

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Bo is tryin to get more people in game?

To kill them?...la