I think maybe one way to make harder for people to join up just for the free point would be so that you don't immediately join the faction (and get the point) the moment you express interest. Like it was mentioned, have the characters roleplay through the joining process by hunting down whoever was responsible for recruitment (could also be an NPC played by GMs, though that might eventually get too time consuming for them). After that they must either prove their worth or persuade the leader to be allowed to join. That's kinda my vision of it at least.
The process shouldn't be too long or difficult, but just enough that people can't say "Okay, I want to join X" "Sure, go ahead." "Yay, +1 to One-Handed, bye!"
Right there would still be a process. They would have to show interest. The faction would have to notice and decide whether to recruit or not and then also what type of "initiation" for lack of a better term there needs to be and have the character go through that.
I don't really know. Back when I ran my own forums (about 6 or so years ago), I'd go for another big round of advertising and affiliations whenever things got slow to draw in new people. And at the same time I'd make some new threads as well, even if they were just starting posts, so the site looked more alive and newcomers would have a place they could jump right in to start roleplaying.
But that's just what happened to work out for me, and it did require me to be a pretty active admin, so I'm not sure how that'd work right now with Gray having so little time. And I don't really know of a good way to bring back old inactive members, since I'm not too fond of activity checks or mass-emails myself.
Honestly, Im not sure what to do. Promotion was not something I did much on the first site. Luckily we had a pretty good stream of people coming in off of Heroscapers.com to get us up and going that helped to push us to the top of the lists. Or at least thats how it seemed to me anyway. We also had a much more open theme then, so it catered to more people's interests, but that led to complications that we are trying to avoid here and fantasy is pretty popular on its own...
Unfortunatly we don't have a site to pull people from like that currently and i can't think of any sites to draw from like we did with that one.
The only things i can think of are to talk to your friends that game. Post about your adventures on twitter and facebook and such and any other forums you might be a part of to try and get the word out. Not sure if it'll help or not tho and I'm sure alot of us have been doing things like that already.
I'm going to mention it to some of the people I see at conventions to see if i can draw them in.
I do agree that we need to appear as active as possible to help build interest for those that visit and show that we are an active site. To that end I will post a few threads shortly that I had been thinking of starting but holding back on to make up for the threads that have stalled at the moment.
Is there anything that you as players found confusing or had questions about as far as rules and character creation goes when you first signed on? I want to be sure that the start up rules are as clear as they can be for those wishing to join. I don't want people put off by misunderstandings or anything like that.
We get alot of "guest" traffic. We need to figure out a way to get there attention to turn them from guests to players. I wish there was a way to get feedback from them as to why they didn't join...
Perhaps a sign-on bonus promotion?
Free acclaim and/or gold to new players and possibly to existing players if they were the ones to bring them in... (just tossing out ideas at this point...)
I'm back, I'm bad and I'm here to terrorize you all. My super power of promotion will get back underway soon enough. Hopefully I can drag some newbies in with that.
The GMs are looking to expand the Lore section to flesh out the world a bit and to give new players some background information and possibly something to work with if they are having trouble coming up with ideas of their own.
One project will be a listing of some of the races found in the world with a short bio about them. It will not be meant as "You have to pick from this list", but more of a "If youre having trouble thinking of something, here are some ideas." And to help avoid "What the heck is a Worgen, Hatchling, Cathian, etc...?"
That being said, if anyone has any ideas for entries and or would like to take a shot at helping to write them feel free to reach out...
Silent as a shadow on padded feet...
Tauer [M:150:160:][D3v:http://rpgmenagerie.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=cs&thread=540&page=1#18960][b]While the Light's away, the Shadows will play.[/b]
“Put some clothes on, you weird, yellow-eyed, table-dancing, werewolf-training, cryptic, stare-me-right-in-the-eyes-and-don't-even-blink wench.”
Tauer [M:150:160:][D3v:http://rpgmenagerie.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=cs&thread=540&page=1#18960][b]While the Light's away, the Shadows will play.[/b]
So, I kinda had an idea to help with promotion that intertwines with a project i've wanted to do for a while. I've already spoken to Master Ravenhurst about it but, now that i've begun, I thought it time to share.
I've started a fictional blog from the point of view of a Wistvale local named John Harding who, for those of you who don't know him, was my first (and most favorite!) RPG character. The first few posts will cover his backstory then I'll start posting about events happening in and out of town. He'll be like a 'Man in the Background' NPC who players wouldn't take notice of or interact with.
My aim is to get potential readers interested in the site, the town, its characters and fill them in on current adventures/quests, so they'll have more of an understanding of what's going on if they choose to click on the link I'll add to the bottom of every post.
John will also have his own little storyline going in the blog, so I'll be treating him a bit like a second character. And who knows, maybe he will make an appearance now and again on the forum.
This is my first time blogging, so if it turns into an Epic fail at least I can say I tried and continue it as a fun little side project.
Thanks everyone who has contributed to this thread with ideas thus far. Let's keep the ball rolling Poppet knows the numbers on promotion and it's been proven to work. Fresh ideas are harder to come by so thank Tauer, I am quite interested to read up on the exploits of Mr Harding.
I will be helping out with this effort when I have some more time to devote to the site.