About the "Spread the Word" announcement

[Miriam Ics]

Maybe we should have a sub-forum for marketing and advertising ideas. I am not sure this is the right forum to talk about the "Spread the Word" announcement.

I have been sharing the page of Battlemaster game many times, with my two facebook accounts, but this is not getting anywhere.
Not one of my friends start to play because of the post or liked it (and I do have tons of likes in some of my posts).

The posts at Battlemaster page are awesome to BM players, but doesn´t (or I think it doesn't) bring new players.
To bring new players, we need to post things that will make people curious about the game, curious enough to give a try.

We know that our actual players have many good ideas (see the win a key topic) when it comes to talk about the game.
What about a contest or something for, ideas for the viral, ideas for posts, ideas for anything that can bring new players by social media.

I hate how games at facebook public in our timeline all kind of colored posts, asking for help and sharing small gifts that you get when you click. But this works. I am not suggesting to do the same, but we need to find out what could catch new players attention.

Maybe contest about avatars for our chars, maybe battles animations at youtube. Maybe just some kind of graphic representation of the battles.

I would gladly post about a battle that my army won with some nice message that could probably caught the attention of my friends.

Not sure I can express myself right but those are some ideas.  I surely thing we need a brainstorm about this.

[Kain]

Either way we sure need new players. Many of the realms (if not most  ) are pretty dead (communication wise, fun wise) these days. I've tried to liven them up with but my attempts have not met the most enthusiastic of responses yet.

I sent out word to targeted people on facebook today. To friends who I know likes history, strategy and games. I believe you're correct when you say it is not enough to just like battlemaster on facebook. No new players (at least nearly) will come from that. Instead I wrote a summary of what i thought the game was and why they should join, made as a personal message to a targetted person. Then I feel the chance is pretty good that they'll at least try the game.

But if they do try, the realms cannot be all quiet! Then all new players will leave because it is boring. They don't want to create the fun. All they will see is "I don't understand the game, no one is explaining the game, nothing happens" and the natural consequence is of course "bye bye".

Despite this being one hell of a game in reality if you can just get the right culture going! I remember back in 2005 and 2006 (while the game has changed since then, it is still in most ways the same game) that some realms had unbelievably fun cultures where it was so much fun to log on and see the crazy stuff being talked about. Since then it seems to have been a steady decline until now 

[Lefanis]

I always thought BM is a game that would appeal to history/politics/economics students. I believe the best demographic to reach out to would be the student community, and it is BM's loss that the player base which started playing the game in their younger years has aged and perhaps lost some of its dynamism.

I'm going to be interning in Boston (lots of universities) next month, so I'd be happy to put up little BM posters in and around some of the colleges. Just the logo and a link perhaps, to make people curious enough to access the site.

Who knows, i might run into a certain 84 year old linguist who'd be willing to be recorded just saying BattleMaster 

[Foxglove]

But if they do try, the realms cannot be all quiet! Then all new players will leave because it is boring. They don't want to create the fun. All they will see is "I don't understand the game, no one is explaining the game, nothing happens" and the natural consequence is of course "bye bye".

Once you get new players, keeping them is the other half of the operation. One of the best things individual players can do to improve new player retention is to make the effort to say something in the realm-wide channel or respond to something that's said in the realm-wide. Do what you can to create a lively atmosphere in your realm. It can be an up hill struggle a lot of the time, but making a realm lively really helps new players. I was lucky enough to start in a realm that had a lot of chatter, and a bit of plotting, and that was a big part of why I'm still here. If I'd started in a realm that was as quiet as the grave, I don't know whether I'd have stayed in the game long enough to appreciate the qualities you see after a month or so of playing.

It's easier to do that when there's a war going on, but it's not impossible when there's peace. That being said, I think the game badly needs new features to better engage players during peace time. Most realms can't be at war all the time, and you really need more than a few tournaments to keep new players interested during peace.

[Penchant]

I agree on all of your points, though I would like to add something too. The huge reason I ended up staying as a BMer and liking it, was not because of lots of realm chatter but because somebody sent me a well written letter welcoming me to the realm and updating me on the realms current situation. It wasn't a massive letter nor even really offering my character anything IIRC but it was something personally sent to me, and just me.

[Kain]

The reason I stayed was because I started in a realm full of endless chatter (Avamar on EC) where many welcomed me and I also got a mentor early on which I asked everything to. It was also just a really good and welcoming atmosphere there.

I think I got that personal letter from the mentor so I really think the mentors are awesome. Don't know how many that are willing to be mentors these days? We got a new player in Westmoor just now. I don't think we have a mentor in the realm even so that says something

[Velax]

I was a Mentor for a while, but quit because it was too depressing. Most new players never bothered answering me, or stopped answering halfway through the training.

I remember one new player who was very attentive, always asked questions and always thanked me profusely for helping him. When we finished the training, he thanked me again, told me I'd been really helpful in getting him into the game and then deleted his account 20 minutes later.

[Penchant]

I was a Mentor for a while, but quit because it was too depressing. Most new players never bothered answering me, or stopped answering halfway through the training.

I remember one new player who was very attentive, always asked questions and always thanked me profusely for helping him. When we finished the training, he thanked me again, told me I'd been really helpful in getting him into the game and then deleted his account 20 minutes later.

One thing I think would help with getting more mentors/keeping them is if they weren't a class. I would definitely help out as a mentor if I didn't have subclasses necessary to my characters RP.

[egamma]

I was a Mentor for a while, but quit because it was too depressing. Most new players never bothered answering me, or stopped answering halfway through the training.

This. I would message 10 new players, and get one response.

[Penchant]

This. I would message 10 new players, and get one response.

Yeah, plenty of situations in this game is depressing, which just makes people do less and then its just a downward spiral.

[Miriam Ics]

Depressing is to see that most people only "like" or "share" cute pics or silly phrases.
I have been testing facebook as a regular user who want to share something good without paying for it.
It does not work.
I am selling a manual blender. My facebook friends and groups are 80% ecologically related therefore a manual blender is *something good* to be shared. It doesn't work. No one share this but, all my other posts with a cute bird or a sweet poem have more than 200 shares or likes.

My conclusion is that we need some professional help to "spread the word" because Facebook now is all about paying.

[Deytheur]

I was talking to a new player on IRC today and asked him how he found BM and he said that he saw an interview with Tom on a PBBG blog. Feeling particularly noobish I googled PBBG to find out what it meant and I found a few sites that rate or collect links to such games.

Just from the first page of a google I found a few
For example: http://www.pbbgwarp.com/index.php
http://www.pbbg.org/links.asp
http://www.top-pbbg.com/

Only one has a brief mention of BM. Perhaps these kind of sites would be a good place to publicise. People will already know they like the kind of game if they are looking at these sites.

I also went through 10 pages of google without finding any link to BM though plenty of other games so if there is a way to 'flag' BM for these kind of searches maybe that is a good idea too?

Maybe it is not much but maybe it is something.

[Vita`]

Deytheur, you might be interested in the following:

• http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Vote_for_BattleMaster
• http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Spread_the_Word