Forum | MudGamers

Change of focus

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1:24 am
December 8, 2008

Orrin

Admin

posts 139

I've decided to change the focus of MudGamers away from trying to create a flash gaming community and instead towards a more traditional mud community and listings site. I wanted to do a lot of cool stuff like multi game chat, hi scores, ranking ladders, achievements etc, however if people aren't interested then it's not worth me spending the time on it.

The mudgamers specific flash client has been replaced with a generic one and for games that are not enabled for flash I will look at putting in a java connection option.

These changes will apply to any new submissions and then I will update the existing listings.

I'm also considering some form of daily/regular rating so if anyone has strong opinions one way or the other, now would be a good time to discuss them!

2:29 am
December 8, 2008

Gotrek

Australia

Member

posts 50

I wouldn't abandon those ideas just yet at best put them onhold until site traffic picks up. Obviously I'd like the ratings system to stay as is and just add a daily vote with a disclaime "This vote doesn't nessecarily reflect the quality of the MUD".

4:49 pm
December 8, 2008

Orrin

Admin

posts 139

I had a look at changing things around last night and I've decided to stick with the flash client as it's a lot better than the java options. What I am going to do however is set up a proxy so I can put a Flash connection for all the games without requiring any changes to be made by the muds themselves.

This should make it much easier for games to list on the site and I'll be doing some more promotion to encourage this.

2:34 am
December 9, 2008

Fire

Austin, Texas

Member

posts 53

I've always liked the flash client, it's good to keep it, I think. A proxy could also help those people who are behind a firewall at work.

As far as waning interest here, it never quite felt like it was booming anyway. Change, of any sort, could be good. I know that I personally stopped visiting for several weeks, though I kept an eye out on the RSS feeds. Turns out, those feeds were defunct and a visit to the site showed a few new comments I hadn't seen on my toolbar. Since then, I haven't bothered with re-adding new feeds. If you plan to revamp the site, I'll have to do that.

While I appreciate the sentiment that comes with catering directly to the gamers themselves, I wonder now if that might be a bit flawed. Consider: The most active people in the text-based gaming community seem to be the creators, or would-be creators, of those games. Sure, there are exceptions to the rule, but for the most part, Gaming Creators (henceforth: GCs) are more likely to visit other sites in search of new content to feed the flames with. Players, on the other hand, seem to visit sites they are aware of and spend more of their time on the forums of their favorite game than say googling for other social sites.

If the above is true, then creating a site that caters directly to the player is possible, but you would have to give more control to the game creators than usual. An example of this would be sub-forums, or specialty forums. You could link directly from the game's website to a sub-forum here. By giving moderation powers to the GCs, you could effectively provide both the GCs and the players a service at the same time without effectively creating a larger moderation problem for yourself. Of course, you need to be careful and hold the GCs legally responsible for the posted materials or you could find yourself surrounded by strange men in suits, one holding a gavel.

Other means of course are possible, but I'll leave you to ponder that for a bit. If you are interested in more ideas, just ask us, I for one have more and I am sure your core (small though it may be) of GCs would willingly help out as well.

Genius without education is like silver in the mine – Benjamin Franklin

3:05 am
December 9, 2008

Orrin

Admin

posts 139

I think the main problem has been my lack of effort in promoting the site and the reason for that was that I met with quite a bit of opposition initially when trying to persuade admins to set up a socket server for the flash client.

The fact that only a handful of the games on the site were enabled for the flash client speaks for itself – there just wasn't the desire on the part of admins and I completely understand why people were hesitant. However in light of this I pretty much lost interest – this is after all a hobby project for me, and I have other things to do which actually pay!

Now I've put in the proxy server it means muds do not need a policy server or any changes to use the flash client on this site so hopefully that barrier should now be removed and we can take the site forward. Once I have things a little more settled I'm going to start emailing more mud owners about the site and asking them to list their games.

I agree players are more likely to use game specific forums, and I think offering sub forums to individual games could be a really good idea – certainly for the smaller games.

Another thing I need to consider is revenue generation. If we want to attract genuinely new players to the mud community then we have to get the word out and that will invariably cost money – whether through google adwords or banner ads etc.

My aim with the site was always to provide an accessible listing of games for players to choose from with the ability to easily play the games directly from the website. I particulary wanted to create a site that would appeal to players unfamiliar with muds. These are all things I feel that existing community and listings sites lack.

3:24 am
December 9, 2008

Gotrek

Australia

Member

posts 50

I don't know what the google ads and etc are worth, but it might be worth investigating adding to this to the list; having a group on facebook, which you can inturn advertise there for like $10 (if I remember correctly).

4:45 am
December 9, 2008

Gotrek

Australia

Member

posts 50

Not to get ahead of ourselves here but I must strike while the idea factory is running hot. You should consider having some sort of annual site awards for Best MUD overall, best mud in (whatever category) etc, etc. Not something particularly useful to suggest at the minute but something for consideration that saves it being done down the track if things pick up and become more hectic.

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