quote: Original post by Raduprv
....So far, you can''t do much in our game .....
... games (like www.furcadia.com ) that look MUCH worse than ours, but get like 1.5-2K people online at a time! Yes, they''ve been online for 6.5 years, but, still...

I think you have answered your own questions. RPGers want to play complete games. Most of them value their time and want to spend it playing a complete games, not blazing the trail as an alpha tester. Granted, players who are fans of a particular franchise would jump at an alpha or a beta test, but for a new game that may never see the light of day, good luck.

You also compared your game to Furcadia.com. I bet that they have not spent a lot of money on advertising, either. From checkign the activity at their forums, word of mouth advertising has been good to them. Once players come to game, if it has nice functionalitity they will spread the word. They will also tell their friends that you game is just a glorified chatroom if you don''t have playable features.

You need time or money to advertise. You could search for information on seach engine placement. You could also Google for sites that cover RPGs and send them a properly formated press releases. But if I were you, I would add more functionality before going on a media blitz. Word of mouth advertising works both ways, and if players come your game doesn''t have much to offer, the players won''t be back.

Another thing you could do is to have a live person online constantly so that the players who do join have interactivity. If you can''t spare a person, then program a bot to interact with users.

Personally I have tried quite a few independent MMORPGs. The ones that have play value I book mark and check on later. Those that don''t, I unistall, delete and forget.

quote: Original post by Raduprv
Yeah, well, there is a thing, called IRC, where you can do even less things than in my mmorpg, and still there are far mor poeple there.

I think there are three major things that attract people to IRC.

1. The people there -- There are a large number of people, often very helpful for whatever you need.

2. Files. You can share files p2p and usually get stuff faster than on kazaa, etc. Not to mention most movie releases, etc are on IRC long before kazaa if you''re into that.

3. You know IRC will be here tommorow. Many MMORPG''s are up today, and gone tommorow. Not something you want to devote time to. The only way to remedy this is to gain credibility, and the major way to gain that is through time. I don''t think I would spend time on a server that was only a couple of years old unless it had a major name. Everything is just too "dynamic".

I am online a lot (about 10 hours/day (of course, I am not active all the time in the game, but I do check from like 5 to 5 minutes, to see if there is any newbie, greet them, etc.). Also, usually, there is at least one person there.
As for Furcadia, they are in Alpha from the beginning (yes, 7 years in December), and they talk of a Beta maybe next year. That game is not much more functional than mine, they only have the ability to build your own maps and upload them on the server, so others can come there. They can afford to do that because they have free, infinite :D bandwidth, while I have only about 300 kbps upload.

Anyway, so far, most of the people told em that the game looks very promising, and they will check back for it later, when there will be some functionality...

Height Map Editor | Eternal Lands | Fast User Directory

It''s all about gameplay.

There are MMOGs out there right now that are great graphically yet people don''t play them(ie Earth and Beyond, Asheron''s Call 2). Then there are other MMOGs which maybe aren''t as great graphically, yet are able to compete because they have gameplay(Shadowbane-I personally like their graphics, some don''t though).

There are some more MMOGs coming out right now which don''t have anything as far as gameplay to make the game interesting. I look at EQ2 and don''t see anything fun and unique(so far). However, I look at a game like Planetside and think, ''woah''. I really haven''t looked too much at the screenshots of the game, yet I already preordered it because of it''s features. I mean, come on, you can have 100s of people fighting each other all at once and it''s a First Person Shooter!

Think of something truely innovative, think of alot of things truely innovative AND FUN and put them into the game. That''s really what all games are about.

How to bring users to MMORPGS, Appeal to the Groups.

Instead of getting the players to come one by one appeal to the preformed Guilds, the Major Power Guilds that is, from other previous MMORPGS try to get an entire guild to switch by making it easy for them to setup their guild quickly in this new MMORPG. Of course it needs better gameplay and all that then the one they''re currently in but getting the large guilds to "jump" to your new game is the best way to attract customers...as far as I know the new generation of MMORPGS has failed to see this.

Raduprv,

Hey I just downloaded your game and logged in. I met Rut who also just created his char a few min after me. From playing your game I can tell you why nobody is playing it/testing it.
Your license/loging onto you game server is counter productive. I bet average gamers once loading the game first time will just delete it once they can''t log in. They won''t even bother reading the license. Now considering you did all that marketing, which I''m sure probably had quite a few downloads, but I bet many of them had problems logging in.

The game is not bad. It reminds me allot of UO in 3d. One thing that annoyed me was the movement was very slow. Walking is at a snails pace.

I think the overall graphics is good for your game, but the character models needs some work. I suggest you add in some type of fighting in the game. That will bring in more players. Even having just 1 monster and the ability to gain exp and levels will drive in more players.

I''ll check out the map editor later on, but so far it''s enjoyable, and I think you can go far with this project.

John

When it comes to on-line games the social aspect is key. People play on-line games to have fun and meet new friends. I''m a member of an unnamable MUD created by an unnamable person. There are usually 6 or more people logged in at any given time and although there''s plenty to explore we always just shoot the shit in town hall.

If there aren''t cool people to meet then people are less likely to stick around.

Ben


IcarusIndie.com


KalvinB - (to Jessika) do you accept Jesus as your lord and savior

Jessika - Sure I can accept all forms of payment.

You talked about Furcadia having a tonne of players but nothing to really do. You''re right I played Furcadia a long time ago and got bored because it had nothing to do but it did allow you to create your own sort of regions or areas and totally script them out. So no you couldn''t go off and fight monsters and in my view it has nothing over a game like Ultima Online but they really did catch on the social aspect and that'' is the big thing, not how unique your advancement or skill system is or how great your monster AI is, it''s all about the social part and that''s what I''m saying if you want to make a successful MMORPG you need to get some big groups from other MMORPGS in.