Account Drive Brainstorming

Waldoff

Administrator
Staff member
I just got SoD completely working with the new Live patcher. It is also summer.

This means it is time for an account drive! I am hoping to have a quick discussion and start the drive next week utilizing whatever comes from this thread.

Previously we have done two kinds of account drives. One was to offer fame and entrance into a lottery for anyone who posted about SoD on another site or brought in friends. Last year we did one where we gave one fame per person who looked at the SoD site utilizing a "reference" URL each participant created.

The best way to truly get more people to check out SoD other than word of mouth is to buy advertisements. In the last account drive tons of people bought advertisements and translated that into fame by directing people to their reference URLs. This was quite efficacious to the cause but made some people uncomfortable with the money -> fame transaction that came out of it.

That being said I would like this year to have two options. The first one would be the same as previous years - get 50 people to check out SoD using your referral URL and you are put in the lotto for cool stuff, fame and a charm of power. Further, if people actually try us out utilizing your referral you get 10 fame per person.

Alternatively, I would like to allow people to buy their way in through advertisements. Donate 25 dollars for advertisements during the account drive and get into the special lotto. Finally (and this is the possibly controversial part), allow people during the account drive to give advertisement money directly for fame. Maybe a little more than a 1 dollar = 1 fame ratio. It would only be during the account drive and all money donated during this time would go directly into Facebook and Google advertisements and would be all spent down by the time the drive was over.

I do not want to make this jump to money account drives lightly. Server funds have been pretty spot on the last few months so any money gathered would go directly to promoting the server.

What do you guys think? Horrible idea? Gives too much advantage to those with lots of money? I would like to start the drive by Tuesday or Wed. Talk away!
 
this seemed cool until i saw it was 1,500 dolars for a race change
For the low price of $19.99 you too could own some stat food. You would be better off giving them the option to cash in half of what they spent on advertising for donator status.
 
I think this is great. Just what we need too. It doesnt sound unbalanced to allow people to buy ads to help the game out. Anything to help the server and get new people is amazing!
 
I think this is great. Just what we need too. It doesnt sound unbalanced to allow people to buy ads to help the game out. Anything to help the server and get new people is amazing!
Did you even read and comprehend the post?
 
Revamping the dream would be a good start.
Maybe improving the new player experience (beyond the dream) would drive in more players.

I'll admit: The first time I played, I wasn't really impressed with the dream. It wasn't as mystical, nor informative. It did not teach a new player how to play, nor teach them other things to do besides what is taught in the dream. It doesn't tell you much of anything besides, 'how to kill NPCs', 'Combat and Spells', 'Alignment', and 'Here's some food, drink, lore, and equipment.' That needs to change and show people what the game REALLY offers, not just what every other MMORPG has.

There's a lack of things to do that are actually intuitive to gameplay at lower levels as well. Lately, in modern MMOs, they mix minigames in with questing, mixing this into the old RPG elements of Shards of Dalaya would not be a bad idea at all.

Main issue at the end of the day is 'hooking' people at an early stage so that they want to see the rest of the game. Show them what's possible and they will stay for a lifetime.
 
I just got SoD completely working with the new Live patcher.

Question though, live has several zones that have been revamped and are far different then what we have. The 3 freeport zones, and the 3 desert zones (nwot, oasis, swot here) are some off the top of my head I know were heavily changed. Will the patcher here change them back, or will a seperate patch file have to be posted to download and unzip to the folder for people to be able to use those zones?
 
I think 1-1 dollar to fame ratio is WAAAAYYYY LOW. maybe 10 fame? idk. Also a Revamp on the dream would be cool. Pack that shit full of quests. make newbies spend atleast an hour in there rather than 5-10 mins of talk to this npc for 30 seconds and learn this crap and move onto the next one. i know when i first started i was an EQ veteran and a few things threw me off. The /cm and the alignment thing. maybe revamp it to have more than 1 quest for each thing. Make it so when you come out of the dream you're atleast level 5 and have quests to do for all of your spells for that level. It can be quite rough as a true blue noob to come out of the dream at level 1 with 2 spells and try to solo. on top of that our community isnt all about hanging out at newport gate to help noobs.

just my 2 cents
 
im all for making the dream an hour long newbie event but if you do please put a bypass for people who have finished it already
 
I support the double exp weekend for newbies and vets alike.

I think the dream could use some revamping. Might want some newbie bounty quests like the thurg ones, but just cash and level restricted, but work the same way as kill certain things have a presence spawn hail and kill something. Centered at a few cities as an outpost, maybe you can earn faction items. Would make getting gate necks easier or provide an alternative route for new players.

I think bounties are unique and would never know about them for 50 levels, if you were just starting.
 
How much have past drives done to increase the population?
 
im all for making the dream an hour long newbie event but if you do please put a bypass for people who have finished it already

+1000

Also, I mean everyone is always going to say "I support double exp" but in truth the community should have to work towards some sort of goal in order to obtain a reward like that. Maybe six hours of double exp for every 25 or 30 people referred or something, with an end date when we tally up the total number of referrals.
 
Also, I mean everyone is always going to say "I support double exp" but in truth the community should have to work towards some sort of goal in order to obtain a reward like that.

Agreed, but double exp weekend is pretty good advertisement. I don't know if you were around for the one we had last year for the facebook likes, but during it tons of people were playing. I even got three RL friends to try it out (one of which still plays) attracted by some quick leveling because of a double experience weekend,

Maybe a nice gluttonous splurge of exp could persuade a few of the vets to come back. I also think it would be good for the morale of active players who have recently had to adjust to another exp nerf.
 
Always a good idea but I think only a gluttonous surge of new content will be the thing to persuade some retirees back in.
 
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