Good morning Damned!
This server is shit hot. The community is awesome! The question we need to be asking is why can't we retain players and increase new joins to make us more popular? I believe I have an answer and it's a complex one. This thread depends on intelligent comment, feel free to be critical of my ideas or methods and we can achieve what we all want - longterm success for Damnation.
The main problem that caused most people to quit earlier was the awesome experience rate. This has been fixed and I think it will do alot for player retention - thanks Jay.
Here are my suggestions:
-Increase advertising
-Change starting zone
-Home page revamp
-Tradeable vote rewards (mystery boxes or experience lamps)
-Donation boost
-Community Building (forums incentives and staff openings)
Advertising
Some of you may be, or may know high-ranked people on rune-server, runelocus, or mopar. We need these contacts (even if they are admins in other popular servers) to tell us what advertisements have the most result for our dollar. Paid advertisements are excellent ways of generating players and we only have to buy them until our players are many enough to support us by voting alone.
It can be a bit discouraging to buy advertisement space but when you evaluate how top companies beat an economic crisis - advertise. Ever wonder why Coke advertises when every person on the planet knows what a coke is?
Because they are like us, their competitor offers almost an identical product and it's a tool they use to win.
Starting Zone Changes
Tutorial island is overused, not many people do the tutorial so the first 10 seconds of this server need to be remarkable. The effect should make people say "wow, if he can code this..then..what else can he do?" Also, it's important to make it something you don't have to participate in. I have a specific idea for a new zone but it will require a late night. I believe to get the most from our advertising we need to get this running first.
Home Page Revamp
Our home page is nice, the ToS is excellent. Our logo is crude and unfinished and higher quality pictures of the game exist to use as backgrounds. I could even suggest some. It doesn't need much work but it needs to be sexy. Articles make it unclear if a splash page ever actually helps..but a great splash page with a high resolution picture always makes me think well of a server before i enter the page.
Tradeable Vote Rewards
Vote rewards that are tradeable and useful for the highest players are the way to go. Many players log in, finish the tutorial and see "buying vote reward lamp 3mil" and instantly vote for an enhanced starter. Even if they leave at this point we have their vote for that day. Lamps are awesome and I'd do mystery boxes if you're afraid of lamps making the game's skills too buyable with gp.
Donation Boost
Every player should have 15% off on their first donation, since most people understand this % is better the more you spend, it often increases sales. Also, putting a random item in that is available in limited quantity for a limited time is a great way to keep existing donors checking the page, increasing sales as well. Doing ::donate is half the work.
Community Building
We need to, as a community, make more of an effort to post and we need to come together to make guides, events, and contests. I don't do this stuff myself but I plan on being much more active in this area, kickass guides coming soon.
Conclusion
In the end, I want to make sure you who made this server don't think I'm bashing your work.. I want success for this server because of it's great leadership, dedicated members, and excellent coding. I hope to contribute enough to join the crew as being someone who helped make Damnation great. I am willing to help with anything I suggested.
What would be great from everyone:
-Speak up if you're a photoshop junkie - im offering big ingame rewards for the right work
-Stop reading this now and make a guide, fund a competition or make a post about your goals!
-Vote! Then go visit a friend and vote at their house, and invite them to play.
-Welcome newbies (everyone is already excellent at this)
Yes, this is just a game, but, with the right steps I believe we can keep it around, fund better hosting, multiple themed worlds ..the sky is the limit. Let me know what you think below, if disagree with a point I made, please make sure your response includes a suggestion instead. I hate spelling and grammage. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.
