Actually, you should be able to, many other businesses do it.
You have to at least target your largest market: Older teens/adults on the forums, younger players on the game, etc.

It is impossible, as she said. For example most of the german WoW players are unhappy because of the localization.

Moonie
 

I hereby apply for a special exception to the "No posting re: external links, no discussing other MMORPGs" for the purposes of this discussion, on the grounds that Unixmad fostered this discussion in the first place, and with the restriction that we will be analyzing what other MMOs are doing to draw in traffic (and how we can do it better) rather than granting them free advertisement on our forums. Request as authorized/suggested by Sam, October 29, 2006, 19:40 GMT.

Revamp a lot of stuff I would say, but I'm not a businessman so whatever. Maybe I got good ideas, maybe not.

For trials make it where they can access only 1 world. That world has to be something attractive and fun. Have really good graphics, and some good gameplay that gets them hooked. Maybe using New World gfx and develop from there. You guys got the stuff so why not use it. Don't let trials see the poor quality playerworlds that are currently up.

Redo the serverlist and put some playerworlds on it that actually look good so that when people upgrade they see some attractive worlds, and all the same ****. Also try and help those worlds improve. Its sad to see nice looking worlds get nowhere or progress slowly because they can't get enough help from scripters. A tab with servers that are all original like Oasis, Doragon Koden, Zenkou, Archaic is/was. Give some eye candy with different gameplay. I'm not saying kill the current classic playerlist, but please do separate the quality ones from the crap. Probably make a new tab for those playerworlds that are completely original and have nice gfx.

I had some other ideas with accounts and stuff, but I got women on the brain and my flow ran out, but whatever you guys got the point of improving the quality? I know advertising is important , but it won't save Graal if the game is ugly and the gameplay sucks.

Hubworld for teh win!So we'd need some sort of cooperative development area, so if 20 worlds are all trying to make the perfect projectile that travels over pits but not through walls they're not all covering the same ground and wasting time...and/or a Default so people don't start with a totally blank world, but already have the most basic possible movement, weapons, baddies, etc - everything the Clientside Editor had to offer, at the least.Hmm, so certain PWs should be judged better than others? That could be interesting...Advertising might not the be the FIRST thing we should worry about, but it's still on the list. This is the thread about Advertising, because we need to be ready when called - from here you should be able to reach the threads on making a newbie world (mostly merged into the Hubworld theory) for trials to play on - Our Best Foot Forward as it were - as well as various other theories on how to save Graal, aside from we need to advertise and do it well.
Here's one of the discussions on sharing between PWs...Not sure where the other one cropped up.

Devil's been talking quite a bit about his contacts in the Australian Game Magazine industry, a relatively virgin territory for advertisement and, more importantly, one with a virtual monopoly. Thus, rather than having to decide between the literally hundreds of wide-circulation American magazines, one ad in one Australian magazine will reach a majority of the Australian readers - am I getting this right?

Well, anyway, what manner of format are we looking at for such an ad? Fullpage, halfpage, quarterpage, tower-ads? I imagine the space to work with is a factor of the advertising budget, but we could get an idea of the range. What manner of campaign would work best in Australia? I'm sure this isn't the first time it's come up, but what do Australians look for in video games? Surely not as obsessed with Grand Theft Auto as the Americans, or as obsessed with Guitar Hero as the Japanese?

I've inquired years ago to a magazine(s) about a half page, and receiving full pricing and all of that jazz. I think half a page would be fine, pointing out the key elements of what makes Graal, Graal!, the points being such things as "Build your own playerworld!" etc..

I really don't wish to waste my time, or the advertising departments at my contacts unless there is some interest from administration, which is what happened last time. And being an every-day player, should not be asked to PAY for Graal's advertising for my own country.

Anyway, I brought a few accounts to Graal back in the day, but this was when I was back at school and not all of my friends could upgrade simply because they were in high school etc.

I do honestly think that this advertising would work, and bring in enough customers.

Well, it's certainly something to bear in mind as an option; if Unixmad needs to advertise in Australia, you're certainly top of the list (in my book anyway, I can't speak for anyone else). Nobody's expected to volunteer, but if you have any of the pricing details that'd help the case for that he Should pony up the euros to advertise in Australia.

That settled, what ARE the key elements of what makes Graal so Graal-ey? You can make your own playerworld, sure...but you can do that on a lot of other Free Online 3D Worlds, and they can put 3d in their names. And have very splashy advertisements...that reminds me, need to see if I can post some for discussion...

Look it's not cheap, as expected.

For a 'casual' quarter-page you're looking at $1,155. But that is an "every now and then" type of advertising, and if it is more often that you wish to advertise, the price goes down a few hundred dollars.

Other than that, I also came up with the idea a few years ago, and spoke to unixmad about it. How about making a p2p, to "lend" to someone from a magazine for a week, so they can write up a review (in the same magazine I have spoken to before).

It's very cheap, if not requiring any money at all to be spent, expect for clicking a few buttons and giving someone an account for someone to review the game and put it in the magazine, then disabling the account after say, 1 week?

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With your last remarks, in regards to the players being drawn to Graal. (if that is what you meant).

Back in the day, yeah, I loved Zelda and this is what drew me to this game. That simple.

*shrugs* Nothing wrong with the This Is Retro Zelda campaign, it's done wonders in the past.

Yeah...I used to be in charge of getting people to review Graal...I guess we can all see how well I did...I had no idea what I was doing...

Is that in Australian dollars or American?

Remember, you never have full control of what a reviewer is going to say.

The game needs to prove it has what it takes to compete with the rest, just to make sure it gets seen at all.

Tyhm : Australian dollars.

Rufus : Yes I understand this, but it's worth a try isn't it.

It's certainly something to bear in mind...in my opinion, Graal needs to be able to put its best foot forward before submitting to review; Graal should be able to say "Here's your account, here's the homepage if you have any questions, you can get live support from the FAQ guild if it's really tricky; please join us this saturday for the annual sparfest and barbeque on Valkorlia, it should really be most splendid." As it stands, it seems to me any reviewers would be well advised to wear a hardhat.
It's nothing that would necessarily take years and years to get together either...take maybe a month to tidy up loose ends on all the servers while contacts are gathered - have everyone cordon off the work areas, etc. - then release the reviewers. Restaurants do it all the time when the health inspector's showing up.

Haha yeah that's fair enough. But without any admins looking at this, and saying "Wait, this is what we need, it could work", this may just be another good idea down the drain.

*shrugs* The way I look at it, Unixmad's going to do all the deciding, and all the paying, so he is kinda justified...I'm just trying to get things organized so if he comes out on the balcony of office and says "Who can hook me up with advertisers?", you can raise your hand and say "I got Australia's print side", Rufus can say "I have a handfull of proofs to choose from", someone else can say "I've been working on these slogans - how about Graal: From the makers of Zelda Online/The ultimate engine to relive your 8-bit childhood/the way the games Should have gone (and then we can have some images suggestive of Luigi throwing the Retainer Toadstool through a brick wall, etc)?"
Blind development sucks, but I figure it's the best way we can contribute.

Yeah fair enough, well I'll let the admins go through this info we've suggested and sit back and see what happens.

I think Zone could easily be reviewed quite well independently, you'd just need to hide the rest of the game >_<

Yea, if you were targeting a male playerbase. Honestly, how many females play Zone? I know of 2 offhand.

Is it that good? I can't say I've ever played it :/

Well, from a freeloader point of view its the one you can play the best without upgrading. And so they may stick around to be persuaded to upgrade.

I'd say you would get more players if you targeted a male playerbase.