Why Illarion WILL fail

Everything about Illarion that fits nowhere else. / Alles über Illarion was inhaltlich in kein anderes Board passt.

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Hew Keenaxe
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Why Illarion WILL fail

Post by Hew Keenaxe »

During my ban, I needed something to do. So I searched... RPG games, RPG games for PC, Free RPG games, Free RPG games for PC... maybe some others. But Illarion was never offered. Ever. One game that did come up in all searches was Ruinscape. and it is far inferior to Illarion, but has thousands of players. If this game is never promoted and never offers welcoming arms to new players, it will just stay a personal hobby for a few die hard players.
Wake up! You have something here.
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wolfsword
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Re: Why Illarion WILL fail

Post by wolfsword »

I've only seen illarion on one, I *think* two sites. And I've been religiously trying to find similar games (and other mmos) since I was in middle school.
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rakust dorenstkzul
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Re: Why Illarion WILL fail

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Hew Keenaxe
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Re: Why Illarion WILL fail

Post by Hew Keenaxe »

I found this game 9 years ago by a similar search. The game was by my opinion much more fun back then, but far more inferior than it is now. The main reason being the active player base made it more fun. It brought the RP to the RPG. Now we have a better game, just no players. If it is not actively promoted, and those coming in, not welcomed, it dies as the project it started as. I love this game, thats why I still log in after all these years. But I dont want to play pretend with someone I have been doing so for the last 5 years more or so. I need someone new. I need their energy. I dont mean new characters, I mean new players. If I see one more update that doesnt include promotion, That says to me, you just give up. Promotion is all you need to worry about .
Another way to look at it
If you buy a new car today, sure as rain, the next model year will be just a bit better. But if none buy one, they will go out of business.
You have to sell your product if you still want to make it better.
This game is not flawless, But its biggest flaw is the lack of players.
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S'rrt
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Re: Why Illarion WILL fail

Post by S'rrt »

Obviously it's the lack of players that's bringing it down. You've pointed it out before and are being very negative with the titling of this thread. Have you seen to promotion sub-forum and how much has been done there? Granted the last update there was last year but still.

I'm doing my part by actively telling my friends about the game. Unfortunately it seems that taking that first step to try it out is huge, even intimidating for some.
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Q-wert
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Re: Why Illarion WILL fail

Post by Q-wert »

It is not like the few guys that actually do stuff for the game (instead of complaining) would not be aware.

http://illarion.org/mantis/view.php?id=9659


If you want more promotion, do promotion. Get in touch with the Community Managers, place flyers at your local rpg-shop, spread the word, write reviews, counter old hate-posts you can find when googling the game.

Or help bringing the game into a presentable state, as account and character creation/management in its current state are more of a hinderance than anything else. With beginning steps as rocky as they are now, I would not want to hand Illarion to any reviewer, despite the awesome game awaiting them once that hurdle is overcome.
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Nitram
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Re: Why Illarion WILL fail

Post by Nitram »

From my point of view there are still some things that need to be handled prior to an effective start of a larger scale promotion.

The most important thing (im my opinion) is the process of the registration and character creation. The old account system on the homepage is really hidious by todays standards and the one thing that currently takes out nearly 100% of all potential new players. The plan for fixing this is present, but a massive load of work. But I am on that.

Surely there are other aspects that could be better in the game, but for me nothing is as badly breaking it as the steps required to actually get into the game.

But other than that it is what Q-wert said. There are currently only very limited affords reagarding promotion until the milestone one is completed. This milestone is growing since the day it was created, but major parts of it are already done. This milestone is the one thing that is currently the reason why the staff is not actively promoting the game, because this milestone actually contains the issues that WILL scare a major part of the players we could gain away again.

We will not stop anyone who wants to promote Illarion in any way what so ever. But the promotion by the staff will not begin until that milestone is created.

Regards,
Nitram
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Estralis Seborian
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Re: Why Illarion WILL fail

Post by Estralis Seborian »

There are many true words in this thread. It is good to hear that Illarion is considered to be a more mature game than in its past. That it has lost some of its former spirit is also confirmed, not because of technical aspects but because of the changed player base. A change in player base might have its origin in technical details, but as the decrease in player numbers took place before the VBU, I seriously doubt the VBU can be blamed ;-). The player numbers did not skyrocket after VBU, though.

Our first development milestone is called "Stable state for reviewers and promotion". So promotion is a top priority. The main reason why no significant promotion takes place these days is that those who did promotion in the past are those who are also the driving force behind technical improvements. See Nitram's post on actual blocking points. These days, I personally aim more for finishing the work on the 150 new armour items and weapons we'll add to the game. I am aware that in future, we should focus more on promotion than we did in the past. Besides the core developers, we had many promising to do promotion, to create videos and what else not. But either, nothing really happened or completely inefficient approaches were chosen without any outcome. We even had voices against promotion, fearing that we might attract the "wrong" players or even "too many"...

For steering a proper promotion campaign, we should first fix what unique selling points there are. I can imagine the following top 3:
  1. Dynamic world with GM run factions and quests
  2. Enforced roleplaying
  3. Profound crafting system - You can craft almost every item in the game
One needs to take into account that many other games also offer enforced roleplaying (no unique selling point!) as well as crafting. Our game world is not as dynamic as we'd like it to be. This ties up directly with the limited player number and a certain lack of tools, to be addressed in development milestone V. But even without technical gadgets, our players and GMs have almost unlimited freedom to shape the world. Sadly, this freedom is not used and there are some boundary conditions necessary. Obviously, most world changing ideas are of destructive nature (kill the Don, destroy a temple) or of excluding/separating content (found a new city for German players only, build a house in the middle of nowhere). When we drafted the VBU world, we had the idea that the three factions shall form a triangle of everychanging storylines with diplomacy, trade, embargos, negotiations, blockades, skirmishes and even war if necessary. Escaping from this setup might be "easy", but if you kill the Don and build your hut in the forest, do you really improve the game for future plots and new players?

So, in conclusion, it is completely confirmed that more promotion should be done in future. We have dedicated promotion board with some good starting points. Everyone is free to contribute to promotion! Just don't assume the New York Times would be interested in Illarion and that handing out fliers in Hintertupfingen is the right way to promote an online game. Do it... online :-)! Rock, Paper, Shotgun, IndieDB, Gamejolt, anyone?

Estralis
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Kugar
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Re: Why Illarion WILL fail

Post by Kugar »

As far as promotion for this game is concerned, we already know that the GMs are working on it. They have stated explicitly in many a forum thread that they are. I remember even one not long ago that stated in clear terms that this would happen after a certain milestone (getting the game in a playable state for even those who don't have a clue) they would concentrate on that.

*Edited for relevence.
Last edited by Kugar on Fri Aug 07, 2015 11:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Hew Keenaxe
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Re: Why Illarion WILL fail

Post by Hew Keenaxe »

Truth is still truth. You may not like me, and as you may have noticed, I dont care. But the truth is, without players, this RP game cant exist. On a good day, thirty players are online, most times less than ten and sometimes none play now but this shoudnt keep you from doing so. This is no way to run a game. I heard your need to make this game perfect with your milestones, but what really is missing is the lack of players. The games physics are better than most. Get players! More players make this game better just by their diversity. But they also add to our need of where we need to improve. It keeps us focused with fresh eyes. You may think my way of going about this is rude, and it is, but you are addressing it, or I hope you are. Otherwise this game has failed.
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Pugnacious
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Re: Why Illarion WILL fail

Post by Pugnacious »

Players will play a game with flaws. They will bitch and complain, but they will play. But they wont play a game no one else plays. Player count is much more important than the graphic of a type of weapon. Promote! This game does not need to be perfect, it does need players.
Last edited by Pugnacious on Fri Aug 07, 2015 6:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Q-wert
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Re: Why Illarion WILL fail

Post by Q-wert »

New players won't play a game where they get stuck on character and account creation. And that is what is happening right now. It is quite an easy thing to overlook once one has the account going and played for a while, but as of now most people that make it to the download don't even make it ingame. (Not even mentioning the wrong fist impression of a broken game given to those making it.)

I am quite sure the developers are well aware that the main asset of the game are its players, but promotion for a game with an entry hurdle that (let me quote Nitram) "currently takes out nearly 100% of all potential new players" is a waste of effort. Once that is fixed (and that is what the milestone is about, not about polishing the game to a perfect state) promotion can and will get rolling.


PS: To them people insisting to know best: Go and help fix the problem. Bitching on the forums does not.
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Re: Why Illarion WILL fail

Post by Damien »

True stuff. You can advertise as much as you want, if you scare away the most new players the ads do'nt change much.
However: especially a "traditional" RP-game like illarion needs to put work into its advertising.
Many people nowadays are very used to features like ingame guild systems, mounts and last but not least a turnable 3D graphic. So if they expect something like that, many will still leave after five minutes when they can't find an answer to "where can i turn the map" or the like.

So...

Do the advertising right, right ?
Point out illarion's features and marks it's strengths. For example:

"The Retro-Style graphics perspective and it's huge, carefully hand-crafted map help to create the unique atmosphere of this game."
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