Ah...do you have any idea how many players are on a continent?
The smallest continent, the Colonies, has over 50 players even now. The largest, Dwilight, has nearly 300.
Shhhh, I'm trying to sell something. I don't need your logic and skepticism all up in my rhetoric and misleading numbers.
I see what you are saying, that it would take time and not attract near enough to cover Battlemaster at its height. But more people can't hurt us (as long as we don't hit a patch of serious griefers). Without throwing money at advertising, you need an efficient (and volunteer in this case) approach to marketing. This is all first-day spit-ball, so I welcome any input.
If it doesn't work, I know
I can't into viral marketing and I've wasted time/effort (and any who have helped). If it does, we have a good bump in numbers in Battlemaster and could probably re-campaign later. There may come a point where you don't get as much return on posting after exhausting the best places....but by then enough people might know about it and word of mouth might spread on its own.
Has there been a marketing effort for Battlemaster that attracted players more than posts on the Dwarf Fortress forum? I recall lurking old threads and finding a fair amount of players coming from there (that might be hindsight bias, though). I know the team has put together some really neat stuff for Battlemaster (which all can be used for hype, not to mention 10 year histories), but how much of it has been circulated?
