Advertising method

[MiddleMan]

Hello everyone.

I came up with an idea.

I think we are doing a great job to prepare most players for what comes after 30.5 / 30.6

The problem I find is to let as many players as possible know of our solution. Players in clans will most likely be informed, but I'm concerned about the players who aren't really well-known in the game or don't have a tie to a clan or moh community yet. What I'm talking about is about a ~10-20% player base who will not care too much about stopping play, if they think there is no way to keep playing.

Basically it comes to advertising. I would suggest creating a new place to let this target-audience know about this community and its help to keep the game alive - the server browser.

While many players join the server(s) they usually enjoy, some aren't there to banter or chit-chat - just play MOH in any server. Unless we have a full 100% clan commitment to advertise in their own servers, the server browser is one step behind in what the previous method might fail.

Tell me what you think about this. Creating 1-2 servers to fit nicely in the server browser and catch the browser's eye immediately to what will happen and what mohaas.net can do about it. I am willing to provide SOME finance to this if you think it could be worth it, but none of the technician work.

=[CMS]=MiddleMan

[PrinceCharming]

Nice idea.
I think the problem is even bigger. MOHAA is an old game but still, every month new players are entering the game. (not many but through time its important they can find the game)
So 10-20% might be 100% on a long term.

[MiddleMan]

Hello prince,

Indeed this does nothing towards future new players. In fact it would only serve as a short-term 1-month plan. But it still reaches many exisiting players in a direct way.

As for long-term, I can only see us attracting new players if we have a solid connection between the existing player base and the game. That means creating a bridge between all casual players that can feel at home here, so new players may feel its worth playing mohaa more regularly.
It would be unwise to leave the game just to the clans. It's fun to play between us, but newcomers may find it hard to join along and keep up.

Hence this idea of attracting the "just-started" players to continue playing through this community, and the server browser is what they most rely on at the moment.

[modder]

It is very hard to say what is going to happen after the shutdown.

My suggestion would be to start the heavy advertising when the first tool
version is ready. Financially I made the kick-start, but you are welcome to
join me if you like our work.

As soon as tool v1 is available, I propose the following advertisements:
- Add fake servers to mohaas to get attraction
- Add the ending "| join mohaas.net" as ending of all our servers
- Create/use our websites/forum/blogs/FB pages to make people aware of the situation

[Appelpitje]

Maybe also a script for everyone where you advertise ingame to mohaas.net and/or about the gamespy shutdown.

I can make some fake(empty) servers with the name to advertise in the gamelist.
I guess some people can do this.

Also in Xfire you can update your status like: Join us @ http://mohaas.net !

[MiddleMan]

Yes the whole point is "fake servers" for this last month or two of Gamespy. Let's use their list as much as we can before it ends, because nothing will be compared to how straightforward it is to some people untill the shutdown.

As I said my concern is to keep the players who enjoy the game but may lose hope that it can survive after the shutdown. Remember that some people decide to play the game before they have an idea of which server to join. So for these last weeks, "advertising" in the in-game serverlist for a method to keep playing after the shutdown is, imo, the best way to keep these players.

As you said there is no telling what will happen to people who buy the game after the shutdown. My hope is that we can make an easy transition that targets all players to make this shutdown seem like a transformation rather than a death of an era.

[modder]

Ok, I am in. Who can set up servers like that? And what shall we place as hostname?

[MiddleMan]

I don't have the contacts to create a server, hopefully Appel can help us with that. But i will help with the cost of it, given the information needed. Add me on xfire: thegoodmiddleman

As for advertising it's all about making something different. So, we want to catch the browser's eye, not to join the server, but to have him see this website along with the reason he should visit.

Few ideas:

- Short and CLEAR message that's easy on the eye
- Many spaces between words/characters
- Under GAMETYPE (and for other filters for that matter), if we can, create a new one through modding that helps convey the message
- Finally but not that neglectable, the idea of empty server can be pointless if some gamers exclude "Empty Servers" in filters, aswell as "Full Servers". To counter this we would need at least (1/2) players and someone available to ghost in the server. This could also be a bonus if someone actually joins the server and sees the nickname inside, along with any further directing/reasoning to this website.

A sketch I imagine:
' MOHAAS.NET - WHERE TO GO WHEN GAMESPY ENDS ' (1/2) mohaas.net
' MOHAAS.NET - GAMESPY DIES BUT THE GAME DOESN'T ' (1/2) mohaas.net

[MiddleMan]

Any updates/progress on the app?

I only insist on this thread because time is a factor. It will be harder to get all people who fit the category that makes this idea good, the longer we take untill we start showing this advertisement.

If you are unsure about what the goal of my idea is put it this way:
-make the more casual players know that they can enjoy the most of the game after the shutdown

My assumptions are, and there is space for debate here, that:
-all people love playing the game
-some people don't know they can keep playing after the shutdown
-some people don't even know about the shutdown
-some people won't want to play after the shutdown if they don't know WE are making it possible for them to play after the shutdown.

It is therefore a narrow category and obviously you can balance whether or not the idea is worth the money. But if we are to make this happen, it's best done as soon as the Tool can be shown

[modder]

I think I should be done next week.

There were some major issues in another project I had so I
couldn't focus on mohaas the last two days.

I will make a first version as easy as possible. There will be
a server list with connect buttons and an update function,
that should be enough.

Then we start advertising hard. Spam the internet etc.