Shattered Kingdoms

I get the feeling that you are made out of focus groups.

I believe injections of new players via friends and word of mouth have always been the most consistent method of solid playerbase growth.

Advertising is good for getting our name out there and will attract some, but a quick newbie character created to see what the place is like isn't the same. Having someone in the game to welcome a newbie and help them learn the ropes is invaluable. The mentor program hopefully also helps bridge the gap for newbies who don't know any current players.

Print off the flyer if you're feeling particularly vocal and share it around your school (hell, plaster it on telegraph poles if you want).

If you want to help without leaving your seat, invite a few friends via your instant messenger of choice and tell them to give it a try. Most people's PCs would be able to connect instantly if you simply paste this link to them - telnet://mud.shatteredkingdoms.org:1996

Even if they only hang out in SK to chat to you at first, it's a good start to even have them online and shows they're at least mildly interested.

Unfortunately none of my friends are remotely interested in a text based game. I've even tried to get family members to play to almost violent negative reactions.

"I JUST GOT BASHED BY A GIANT AND KILLED -AGAIN!!!!- RAAAAGEEEEE"

It's thanks to word of mouth that I was introduced to MUDs in the first place. I tried to get my friends who introduced me to MUDs to play, but my favorite part of SK, the mandatory roleplaying, set them off of it. (in no way am I suggesting we change the roleplaying rules at all!)

The last four people I brought to the game quit, when people pked them out noob school. All in Nerina.

Did you RP before you killed them?

Seriously though, that really sucks and while I'm sure the event is long past, it's the kind of thing that I'd prefer to investigate and crack heads over.

It's exactly the kind of anti-newbie behaviour by the few that can give SK a bad name in the wider MUD community.

Wait, Alshain likes investigating crackheads?

Yeah, the important thing would be if there was RP during and after those newbie kills (I'm assuming there wasn't). I was killed a few times very early in my SK career and the RP during and after that were actually key components in getting me hooked on SK.

I introduced one of my friends to SK, and he promptly rolled a griffon and started PKilling newbie characters repeatedly, camping the healer where they got resurrected. They would get rezzed right in the newbie zone and he'd just kill them again. I don't think he actually realized they were PCs until he got helled.