Shattered Kingdoms

Last I heard at least half of that entity was banned. Not to mention, if you're running around with 25th level equipment, how much grief can you really be handed? So you get killed and looted? It takes like 10 minutes to get 25th level equipment back. I think it is still fairly easy to not get involved in PK. Some newbies don't actually know this, though. Some friendly advice in newbie schools might help prevent them from unwittingly getting themselves on everyone's radars. Paladins and hellions could be moved to be "advanced classes" like necromancers, and maybe even the entire diabolic alignment could be made advanced. Just those changes would create a major reduction in people becoming unintended PK targets. Besides which, hellions and paladins are more challenging classes than things like mercenaries, barbarians, or shamans. They have entire RP strictures they must follow, a lot of which gets them into trouble with other players.

I really wish I had logs of my first interactions with the game from the late 90's. It would really drive the points home. My first character was a fighter from Exile. I trained out of the school, the went out to the street and attacked a citizen and was killed by a peacekeeper NPC. Shortly thereafter I found out priests could pray for resurrection. The priest that helped me was a priest of Dulrik. He rez'd me then spoke with me about my error. I was sitting there hungry. I had not figured out about the lunch bag yet. I told him and he prayed for a moment. Food appeared from nowhere. I thought seriously that an IMM had came and pretty much created it for him. That is the type of thing I remember from early on.

To be completely honest, I wish that there were ways to become slightly differentiated from the rest of the herd (RP and otherwise). Paragon really does not feel like it is so much an acknowledgement of stellar RP these days. Heroes and the amulets are not so significant a game changer either. I enjoy the stories from the game like the story of Yopparai. He went from Mortal to imm. Slayne became the Emperor and royal badass, even though he sucked. :p I really wish there was more of that. I really wish there were characters being elevated beyond others for good RP. It really made for a great time, even though I have always been in opposition of the steamrollers made.

I feel like one of the real strengths here in SK has been strong story lines. I want more. Some that are Imm inspired and some that are just turned over to the players. Good stories give rise to both PK and RP. That is what we need.

I agree with what you're saying, but to suggest in any small way that I helped Erevan learn the game because we were OOC friends is incorrect.

We're still not OOC friends, but I'd help him all over again to learn the game, because that's what I like to do.

This may sound wildly inappropriate: but maybe a $10 donation could let you get a character set such that it never gains area familiarity and can retain the highest XP multiplier throughout its leveling career. That does cross a line that maybe Dulrik doesn't want to cross, though. That said, Dulrik has made it clear that he wants some grind. There is certainly room for improvement in this area, to make the mandatory grind more satisfying and fun.


There is some truth to this. Some quests are very hard to get started on. Some could do a much better job of directing players. I'm thinking of the Skybolt quest, for instance, where you have to go get stuff from all over the map. The guy should give you clues about where to find the stuff he sends you to get, and maybe tie in knowledge of where to find those things to other useful knowledge (for instance, there's a useful level trainer right next to one of the items, but he doesn't tell you that). As it is now, newbies will have no shot at finding the items, which just starts the cycle of turning to vets or OOC sources to solve your quests for you instead of having a chance to use them to learn the game. Low level quests should be tools for instruction and learning the game more than they are tests of existent knowledge. High level quests can remain real tests of mettle.

In my opinion, the first thing you would need to do in order to increase your playerbase would be to identify your target group.

You cannot market a game for "everybody". SK's target audience is not "Everybody that wants a MUD with RP". Each game aims at a specific target audience and therefore carries with it specific features. Features that brand it as an RPG, a Strategy game, etc. SK is no different than that and as such, no serious gain will every be had by any suggestion unless the target audience that this game aims for is identified.

Once your target audience is identified, specifically, then one should go about and add features that makes the game more enjoyable and fun for this target audience. Sure, a couple of "mini-games" or "quests" or anything could exist for people that do not belong in this target group but like the game overall, but the majority of your resources (in our case, Coding time, Building time and Scripting time) should be spent in areas that directly affect your target audience.

The next step, is advertising your game and emphasizing that it caters to X/Y/Z target audience because of A/B/C feature. Make sure people are friendly with new players. Make sure you have an Imm (if possible) available 24/7 to answer questions, help with stuck people or generally -be there-. Make sure you have a group of player volunteers that are willing to spend time and show newbies the ropes, potentially from 0. These people should be very visible so that every new player can find them. These people should also be very willing to drop anything they are doing if a newbie wants help. And finally, these people should take it upon themselves to welcome each and every one new player, letting them know that if they need something they should contact them.

Increasing a game's player base is no different than increasing a product's customer base. Every tactic or secret in the Marketing world on how to make your product more inviting works in this setup as well. You just need to find the right ones that will bring the maximum impact in the shortest time.

... And then you need to plan ahead to handle the backlog of requests this will create.

No Colonel Sanders, you're wrong.

I am quite certain that one of SK's weakest points is its marketing. The product itself is pretty good (or at least those of us here now think so). I'm not sure I entirely agree with the part about finding your target audience. Take the iPhone. It seems like the iPhone's target audience is every human being on earth, because that seems to be who has them at this point. They didn't really have to narrow it down. They have been successful by having a good enough product, having the best distribution channels, and by out-marketing their competitors in every imaginable way. I am no expert on marketing anything, let alone a text based online game, but surely there are some avenues SK is not taking that it could to attract new players. SK is in no way out-marketing anyone as far as I can tell. A lot of tools available today do not require you to first whittle down a target, but the targets self-select by finding the information you're putting out. Do you have any specific ideas on this front, either based around targeted advertising or non-targeted advertising?

Some things that come to mind for me are an aesthetic update to the website and an upgrade to superior forum software. phpBB is alright and all, but there are better options that would give this aspect of the game a more updated feel. I had an idea a while ago that would tap into the writing talent of SK staffers and players, that being one or more free ebooks of stories set in Pyrathia that could be published through Kindle, Nook, and iTunes. I got the idea for that by reading The Dying Earth by Jack Vance, which is one of the places where Gary Gygax found the inspiration for the original fantasy RPGs decades ago. I thought when I was reading it that something similar could be done for SK. I believe we have some creative types here who might want to contribute. I would even be willing to help edit.

SK is not an iphone. It does not offer features that appeal to literally every potential gamer in the world. It does not, for example, provide the kind of protection to gear that games like WoW or DCUO offer, where you either respawn with your gear on you (though in need of repairs), or are instantly regranted your full kit once you return to your corpse location. It also does not offer the most cutting-edge, hardcore MUD tactical set up (though it certainly has benefits over some other more pvp oriented games as well). SK is and always will be more of a niche market style game that looks to appeal to the crowd that not only appreciates a well-portrayed character but also the kind of pve and pvp encounters that contain a big dollop of actual risk to those participating.

This is not a bad thing, but trying to compare a game like SK, to a device like an iphone is a faulty analogy. Yes, it is possible to "shotgun" the marketing strategy by throwing up a ton of searchable keywords and such that allow potential users of the game to self-select, but that's an inefficient method of marketing at best. I mean, we've been doing it for years on the MUD Connector and the like, and while it has shown some success, it's fallen well short of the admittedly nebulous targets that are desired. Targetted, direct marketing will always generate more customers, especially if you have someone actively interacting with the people you're targetting to answer questions, to sell the product with a spin that best suits what they're looking for in a game, and to give the game a human face to buy into.

Your idea of fiction publication to get people interested in the world and culture of IC Pyrathia is a good one. However, I believe there are IPR issues and more than a touch of skittishness on the parts of certain owners of said property due to past incidents. That would, though, be more indirect, and would not generate the user totals that are being talked about here. Perhaps over the span of a few years it would bring in a dozen new players that actually stick with the game, and balanced against the number of old that leave for whatever reason, we're not talking a huge net gain.

I think part of the issue, as well, is that Dulrik by his own admission is not a marketing guy, and the people and personalities that function best in that kind of role are (for the most part) people he doesn't want too much to do with, or to give much of a hand in, the future of this game.

Not according to maddox And, the iPhone's target audience was already there through the Mac computers and iPods. In fact, the Apple crowd has become a sub-culture of its own thanks to Apple's marketing. Steve Jobs really knew his stuff, even if personally I dislike Apple computers and Apple devices in general.



Okay... Very long post incoming. Brace yourself.

Customer Experience.

And in our case, player experience as the "customer" in our case study is the player.

Working in an ISP has taught me a most fundamental truth. Customer Experience is everything. Especially ever since I started training people for our Call Center, I have seen what it means to have a satisfied and happy customer (whose problem wasn't solved) as opposed to having an unsatisfied angry customer (whose problem, by the way, was solved).

Every person that isn't happy with a product defames that product to approximately 7 other people. On the other hand, people that are happy with their product might talk to 2-3 more about it. This means that however good you are in your chosen trade, you won't be nearly as good as those that want to discredit you. So, it is vitally essential not to have people that want to discredit you.

How do you do this in an environment such as SK? By actively policing the game, making sure everybody is working towards creating an enjoyable atmosphere for the players and that the players themselves, in turn, act in accordance to the terms of service and a variety of quality standards you as the "Admin Team" expect them to uphold.

Unfortunately, this theory goes against to today's prevalent theme and thinking of many players that are considered veterans. There are people in this game that actually have fun when they grief others and actually brag about how they make people whine on the forums about their behavior. On the opposite spectrum, there are people that want to stay as far away as possible from that kind of grief and conflict and see SK as a venue to "imagine" themselves through their characters, playing (as so many others have put it) "Home" and making virtual families because it makes them feel nice.

From an absolutely neutral perspective both of the above examples are players. And as players, they both have equal rights in enjoying the services provided by the Admin staff. As such, there is no right or wrong approach unless "you the Admin team" decides they to not want a specific kind of customer in their product.

Hence, target audience. And then, once you've determined what the ideal player is (ergo, your ideal customer) you go out and provide features for him/her in order to improve their customer experience while at the same time you make sure to let people know this is the kind of game that caters to that specific player type's needs. This both keeps the unwanted player types away as well as draw the kind of people you want in your game.

How do you provide those features? By listening to them. Once you are fairly certain that you're working with a group of people that you want to offer your service to, then you can begin a long series of polls, suggestion threads, one-to-one questions to ask what more would they like from the service they're receiving. You then take these suggestions, balance them versus a "cost" (in our case, time needed from our personal lives) and see if there is actual benefit from implementing said request. If so, ANNOUNCE you are about to work on said request before it's implemented, offer a draft overview on how you picture it, let players comment and suggest tweaks or changes. Inform them of any tweaks or changes that were inspired by their suggestions (because nothing boots morale and customer loyalty like Recognition), code the feature and roll it out to production.



While I do not consider changing the website's implementation a vital feature, the rest of the ideas you mention about short stories are really nice. There are already a number of very well written books in the game that could find their way in ebook format. Of course, before that, they would need to be edited by someone since not all of SK's players are known for their "grammer"

Yes. I know it's grammar.

We don't have a marketing team or the tools to analyze the efficiency of our marketing choices. We are flying blind in this area. We are all aware that SK appeals to a niche market, but I do not know of any way to specifically locate and target said market (other than word of mouth) that would be superior to a "shotgun strategy." This is why the iPhone analogy is actually relevant. They employ a marketing strategy that we can actually imitate without needing to resort to professional level marketing analytics, which we do not have at our disposal.


I do believe you pulled that number out of thin air, and I don't know why you settled on "perhaps a dozen." I can't speak to the IPR or historical hurdles to this idea, just that I think this idea represents an entirely unused marketing avenue and has potential. By the way, even if your mysteriously derived figure of 12 new players were accurate, that would increase our player count by a non-negligible amount. How far do you have to go back to find the last 12 completely new players who joined SK and are still active today? Probably years.