BattleMaster Community
BattleMaster => BM General Discussion => Topic started by: Wimpie on September 26, 2017, 02:27:17 PM
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Greetings members of the Forum,
I have been brainstorming with Renodin on the IRC chat about the possibility to boost our player number by more actively using the social media of Battlemaster.
I currently have no idea who actually owns our Facebook or Twitter page (I'm guessing it is Vita, I left him a note). But we would need someone to keep these things alive and post new and original content.
I found this on the volounteer page as well:
Social Media
Would you like to help spread the word of BattleMaster? Want to help keep the Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/2215079182) and Twitter account (https://twitter.com/_BattleMaster_) updated with news of in-game events? Have other recruitment or marketing ideas?
About the exact content, we were still brainstorming. Renodin mentioned something about interesting Roleplays, or nicely written ones. Important events in BM history (I'm thinking about the death or birth of new realms, invasions, death of legendary hero?,..), dev updates on new features or bug fixes (basically the announcements section),..
I created this thread for the following:
1. So Delvin/Vita would see it, because ultimately the decision what to do with those accounts is in their hands I think.
2.Search for someone (or more than 1?) who is willing to put in time and effort to post such stuff/handle the social media in general.
3. Get more ideas of interesting content we could share on those social media
4. If any of you have other types of ways of spreading awareness about BM or marketing/advertising, be my guest.
Feel free to add/apply/discuss/...
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Hi Wimpie,
I am pretty active on social media. I've had to be just to get GX the numbers it had. I serve as an admin, moderator, and owner for several pages and groups on facebook, for example. I also work closely with my current' company's social media manager. In that science, there are three general factors that drive a following:
- Consistent posting
- Original Content
- Discussions/threads
Constant posting is absolutely essential. It is the new advertising/marketing goal for companies to be on top of your news feed. For followers to click like and share, etc. Constant posting proves that there is an active and dynamic community following and that alone lures new followers every day. Consistent posting gets more shares, more shares means more followers, more followers mean more players, etc.
Original content is probably THE most important thing on this list. Followers are less and less interested by the shared and reshared posts that float around the internet. Everyone wants to be on the cutting edge of the next new thing or big story. And, unfortunately, simply posting roleplays won't generate the sort of traffic that would boost our player base, imho. Current players may love it, I know I would, but new people would more than likely find themselves lost. What I mean when I say OC in regards to BM, I am talking about pictures, videos, that sort of thing. Things that are unique enough to BM, or striking enough to the outsider, that they are compelled to learn more.
Both of these lead to the final portion: Discussion threads. People talking about your posts is the best indication of a healthy, active following. Take the recent conversation about graphic violence in roleplays, that was an outstanding conversation and, if shared to social media, may only grow. Discussing complex social issues, researching historically relevant items, comparing in-game situations to current media trends like movies and shows, these are the tie-ins that will help anchor new players. I have ideas for this: Roleplay of the Week, Featured Realm of the Day, Featured Character of the Day, etc.
All of that said, we won't get very far at all unless we motivate our current player base to feed into these three things. That means getting as many players as we can to join the facebook group/page, to follow BM on Twitter, hell I'll even make a fake Tinder/Grinder account just to randomly bring in more people if I have to, but unless we can find a way to get our current layers on board to get the ball rolling, I think we'd be doomed to fail before we even began. We need volunteers willing to like and share BM posts daily. To comment on threads daily. To suggest new topics and generate new content daily. It may sound like a lot, but in reality it may only take 5 minutes out of each of our days. but 5 minutes from each of us over an extended period will add up, my friends. I know it.
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Perhaps I'll start with getting to know who owns the FB/Twitter accounts (again, I think Vita) and linking them on the main page of BM. That and putting in a new announcement to join & share!
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I like a lot of what JeVondair is suggesting and it is what we also found worked well with our social media accounts. Our business went from luke-warm to we couldn't hire enough people to handle the workload in about a year. We found that posting 2-3 times a week on consistent days so the content was expected and looked forward to.
Targeting the LARPers and MUD players are the top targets that come to my mind.
Also, adding some, dare I say it... "bling" to the interface. Personally I prefer the minimalist nature of Battlemaster to allow my imagination to handle the visuals for me and the fact that all we have is a map to go by. But, with that said, humans are visual creatures and nothing says more than a picture to getting a concept across.
A call for entries might work out with all the talented folks that play the game to create visuals. Maybe a group of talent is assembled of players with artistic talent and they divvy up the work between them so there is a plan and consistency. Perhaps instead of monsters and undead, we get more descriptive, specific and visual. Some monsters are more powerful than others as are the undead. Visual imagery and distinctive descriptions of the different types of monstrosities and shamblers add appeal and terror even... people so love terror in their entertainment.
So, piggybacking off of JeVondair's ideas, have a featured monster (or undead) a week with a description, what continent they are mostly found on, etc. Featured images, player-made images... I think what I am saying is if you want to attract more players add more visuals and variety to the threats involved.
I think any of the invasions could be touted like WoW, Eve-Online or any of the other MMORPGs do when they have a special event. New wars breaking out or major turns that take place in on-going wars would also garner interest.
Not sure if there is any cash in the kitty, but advertising on Facebook and paying to promote tweets would be a huge leg up with spreading word to a targeted audience.
First steps would be:
- Call for creative/visual volunteers
- Form a social committee
- Social committee meets every other week to discuss direction and divy up work
- Designate a gatekeeper to handle the postings and ensure that they have a deputy gatekeeper for when they are unavailable
- Offer in-game bonuses for participating (gamify the participation without unbalancing the game itself)
- Setup a request/suggestion thread to collect ideas for imagery they would like to see in game and ensure there is a voting structure around the requests just like open source software development
Just some ideas.
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Nice ideas! I especially like the idea of having a featured monster/undead/daimon as well. I mean, we know from the advy item list what kind of monsters actually exist in the world, a few images and a wiki link could improve the role play game.
Additionally, to further engage our player base, I really believe that we should start using some sort of incentive. For example, if your character's wiki is selected to be featured, perhaps that character or family should be entitled to a small, IG reward, be it a magical item or scroll, a bit of gold, a fame point, what have you. Generating the momentum is really my biggest target here and, for various reasons, players have rarely shown inclination to do more than the minimum when they get nothing out of doing so.
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Has no one considered getting LARP groups involved in this? Maybe reaching out to some of them to see if they'd be willing to share? Larpers are most likely the ones that are going to be interested in this sort of game.
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Has no one considered getting LARP groups involved in this? Maybe reaching out to some of them to see if they'd be willing to share? Larpers are most likely the ones that are going to be interested in this sort of game.
That's how I boosted GX. I tapped Belegarth and Dagohir (much more the former than the latter) but in the end I was only able to retain a handful of the dozens I recruited for various newplayerquit reasons. I've tried posting multiple times on facebook forums like Tabletop and RPG grouops, but those groups have such low traffic, and everything smacking of advertising is so often struck down, that I don't think any measurable good came from it.
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I'd focus more on smaller groups or LARP communities rather than the huge LARPS. Probably north American ones too rather than European ones.
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Perhaps I'll start with getting to know who owns the FB/Twitter accounts (again, I think Vita) and linking them on the main page of BM. That and putting in a new announcement to join & share!
Tom alone is the owner of those accounts. At Facebook we have a group that can be usefull for spreading the game.
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https://www.facebook.com/groups/2215079182
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From all those ideas of groups where to post about BM: PLEASE DO SO. I have no idea what LARP is or should be but if you can post in there, go ahead :-).
Furthermore, nice ideas around here! Keep them coming.
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Well, like you said Wimpie, we should start with the official facebook page. i don't even know if we have a Twitter, but that could be a huge, untapped potential source and should be explored immediately.
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Generally that's a great idea and congrats to Wimpie for coming up with it. New players is what BM needs the most and getting social and tapping those hidden potential playerbases is the best way to get them.
Some ideas of where to look for new players:
- reddit
- indie game message boards (eg. bay12)
- discord
- tabletop communities message boards, local even
And don't forget to use many hashtags on twitter (I'm probably stating the obvious here).
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thought bay12 people hated BM for closing western dwilight?
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Whenever you post to forum or boards, feel free to add links to it here so others can see it and maybe react on it or help spread the word.
I've just contacted Tom to see if I can get those admin rights to both Facebook & Twitter pages. And then we're off to find some good content to post!
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Purrcious just like to repeat points discussed in IRC with Wimpie.
BM needs to improve the new player experience so that recruitment can be translated to player retention.
More Discussions here is highly encouraged:
https://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,7902.0.html
And finally some stats:
As of September
BM registered players: 419
Weekly Activity: 256
Daily Activity: 124
Text-based browser games has been in decline the couple last years, playing a lot of them and everything seems to be suffering in playerbase. This is probably highly affected by the fact that most people trying to kill time has now mobile games at their disposal.
More stats:
/r/browsermmo : 591 subscribers
/r/pbbg : 441 subscribers
/r/webgames : 93,579 <-- this are games with graphics though
A lot of the pbbg & browsermmo play games that doesn't have a limit on the time you can spend on them which is mostly called stamina or timed which battlemaster is; so we're really looking at a very niche market now.
This isn't a post to sound pessimistic but more about how to approach the matter more intelligently.
Battlemaster might have to really innovate or adapt to break to other audience.
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Little update, I was able to acquire editor rights to the BM Facebook page from Tom. He doesn't own the Twitter page, most likely it's Vita (who is yet to pop up).
For your information, go and like:
https://www.facebook.com/BattleMasterGame/
Next up will be to link those social media pages on the BM website somewhere and start spouting fun content.
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Marketing plans are easy to come together, the wiki has all of the content we need right at our fingertips and the rest we can innovate, but Purrc is right, BEFORE we go on the hunt for new players, we need to review the new player experience. It has been so many years since I started that I only remember those times with a vague sense of excitement. I'd like to see a QA control group of 2-5 players established that will create new families, document their experience, and come back with specific suggestions aimed at improving new player experiences. that way we have hard data instead of just spitballing.
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I'm not sure we will allow 2-5 players to create new accounts for that purpose.
If you mean new players (without an existing account), then of course, more than welcome!
Maybe I can work on some suggestions that have been given in the New Player experience, but those would need to be lined up.
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But did we not kind of try that with GX? All those new players, and the best feedback I could bring you was barely actionable - they were mostly overwhlemed and lost and trying to learn everything. I think that someone with significant BM experience would be better suited to noting what needs doing.
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Having checked Battlemaster's Twitter and Facebook social media feeds I am not surprised there was zero traction from the previous social media efforts. We can do so much better with the talented folks we have in game.
The rewards for involvement need to be decent if we want it to ramp up, continue and flourish. I understand the BM player history of non-involvement. It is simply easier to login, do your turn and go about your business.
But, what if we gamified the involvement? Initially, we kind of handle involvement the way it is handled on these forums with "Peasant" or "Grand Duke" titles in a list like we have most famous and wealthy families in-game already. Depending on the level of involvement and or number of social media posts, players receive rewards just as pointed out previously as in-game rewards of scrolls, unique items, etc., but as we move forward the knowledge is made openly available that there is a greater reward system being built where participants have access to a small continent - maybe a clone of the Colonies or War Island. Or if that is too much, then additional character slots or a single character per continent restrictions lifted. Or perhaps that special continent allows for two characters per family again to help fill in gaps. None of this should detract from the existing game of course and should someone cease participating in the social media campaign, they lose their bonuses.
I'm trying to not involve a lot of new code or dev time with these ideas, but I don't see any way around some time being necessary.
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I think the main problem here also is that not everyone wants to reveal their social media account (real Facebook account or Twitter account) to the community. So you could not link their involvement on social media to their BM account.
Also, it would mean someone following up on all the involvement to be able to get a reward system going.
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I think the main problem here also is that not everyone wants to reveal their social media account (real Facebook account or Twitter account) to the community. So you could not link their involvement on social media to their BM account.
Also, it would mean someone following up on all the involvement to be able to get a reward system going.
That and vice versa. I believe many members prefer keeping their gaming habits more private. Myself included.
That said, giving some minor perks to people who contribute to the game's promotion via social platforms seems reasonable.
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Has anyone considered a very low budget, but highly targeted, facebook ad campaign to promote the game to people who already play similar games?
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Has anyone considered a very low budget, but highly targeted, facebook ad campaign to promote the game to people who already play similar games?
That is actually a great point.
We could even hold a special donation campaign among current players to get the money for a facebook/google ad campaign(and or perhaps just as good, cheaper competitors?).
Facebook and google can target their ad's incredibly well, much better then we could.
I am not sure if it's possible but we could even mix in some of our own ideas of good targets with the existing algorithm they already use.
Why haven't we tried this before actually?
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If we were going to do it I'd suggest we think very carefully about what kind of adverts we want to do. They'd need to be something that highlights the best aspects of the game and the opportunities for new players without also looking like just another spam advert for some online single player fantasy game stuffed full of adverts, malware and mild nudity.
Perhaps we could have adverts along the lines of:
It's been years since the start of the war that has sundered the East Continent. Armies of knights clash in battles as the two great alliances strain against one another.
Greater Xavax has fallen and its nobles seek exile in the ancient northern realm of Sirion. The King of Caligus leads his armies south. The city state of First Oligarch makes its last stand and the nobles of the great southern democracy of Vix Tiramora debate plans to reshape the continent in their own image.
Every knight, every noble, every lord and every ruler is a player. This is a turn-based game where the actions of players create the history of continents. Realms rise and fall off the back of their rivalries, diplomacy and military organisation.
Join them as a new noble in a realm where you'll be part of a team from the very start. Make a name for yourself, choose your destiny and, perhaps, rise to greatness.
Play now at: Battlemaster.org
Obviously we'd need graphics/videos to accompany the adverts to make them stand out but that's the kind of thing that I think might grab people's attention.
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-snip-
Oh, so we have a creative director on the block. And a good one at that. I absolutely love your idea.
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I'm not sure if there's budget for these kinds of things. The little donations that battlemaster has, go directly into payments for the servers etc.
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I'm not sure if there's budget for these kinds of things. The little donations that battlemaster has, go directly into payments for the servers etc.
Obviously BM doesn't have any kind of advertising budget, but I'm sure we could do a whip around amongst players - I'm sure people would be prepared to chip in enough for a trial bout of advertising to try to bring more players into the game.
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Okay let's be concrete, this isn't a Facebook page of a million dollar company with millions of followers.
Let's get a first post going. What graphic content (what about a funny meme to start off perhaps?) or textual content should I post on the FB page. Something decent, please.
Also, the goal should be to get people interested in the game & in the page. Get likes, get people going to the website.
Could be:
- A funny meme about it being almost weekend & thus more time for BM?
- A fact about something that is happening in BM right now
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Go!
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I made a thread just for EC memes that got some content put up, remember? Wimpie if you're the fb admin, maybe we can get a few of those posted?
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If we're talking about generating content, we could have a meme generation contest with a vote on the forums. Winner gets 1,000 gold or a magic item sent to the character of their choice? Or maybe the Sir/Lady title that donators get?
https://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,7615.0.html
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I actually used your very first one! ;D
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For whatever reason I must not have been getting notifications for the page... I see reviews are turned on, so might be worth having people do those as well
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So did we get the Twitter up and running?
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So did we get the Twitter up and running?
Vita is absent (I have no idea if he has vacation or just taking a break from it all) so I did not get any response yet.
And I'm fairly sure he was the one behind twitter account.
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Ah, well thank you for checking on that! Hopefully we'll hear from him soon. I genuinely think that may be out best option moving forward.
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Got access to the Twitter page, only to find out that the Facebook page is in fact linked to a different Twitter account:
https://twitter.com/BattleMasterOrg
Now trying to figure out who the admin is on that one.. The good thing is, anything I post on facebook will appear on Twitter as well!
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All set to go, people.
https://www.facebook.com/BattleMasterGame/
The Facebook page is linked to the correct Twitter account:
https://twitter.com/_BattleMaster_
Go follow, like, ...
Next: new content to fill it!
Ideas are welcome.
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Regarding the Twitter, will you be able to post a turnchange every day?
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Regarding the Twitter, will you be able to post a turnchange every day?
I'm not a machine :) I miss a turn every now and then. But I'm online very regularly.
Why, what evil plan are you putting together?
I think I will initially take charge of the social media, and then later we could see if it goes well, if we can appoint someone. It aren't my accounts, so I get to use them. We better not have EVERYONE know their login credentials ;)
EDIT: I like the meme thread you started, to be honest, to pull some good ones (and neutral ones) off to post. But that won't be attracting new players or a new crowd. That'll only make existing players or old players laugh.