Grassroots DAoC advertisement campaign?

[Belomar]

As recent threads in this forum has uncovered (thanks particularly to Uncle Sicko for a very lucent post), I've realized that I am not alone in being concerned about the lack of new people coming to this game. I still love this game and can very well see myself playing it in another 6 months, but if people start disappearing, that time might well be cut short. I suspect that a mass exodus can easily start as some kind of chain reaction, which is why there needs to be a constant influx of new blood.

Now, GOA seems not to prioritize advertising DAoC for the English servers, and they are about to miss the huge Christmas crowd because of this (intentional?) oversight. But maybe there is something we, the players, can do about this. In other words, does anyone have any ideas on how to start a good grassroots advertisement campaign for the game? What can we do, besides telling our friends/relatives/enemies to pick up DAoC?

 

[Keri]

Well, having DAoC in the stores might help. I'm in Canada, and SI is due out tomorrow (although it will probably take at least an extra day to get shipments across the border, thanks to new regulations post 9/11). Most stores that had been selling DAoC now have no copies of DAoC ... the most I have seen is 4 at a brand new BestBuy. So ... a non-DAoC owner goes into his local EB [substitute favourite game store name] ... sees SI ... gets all excited, then (highly unlikely, but some people actually do) reads the fine print and sees that he has to buy DAoC as well ... and of course, the store doesn't have a single copy of it. So non-DAoC owner sadly leaves the store without buying SI. A month after SI release, store owner wonders why actual SI sales are nowhere near projected sales, and assumes that DAoC/SI must be a crappy game, so doesn't bother ordering more from his distributor.

And if you think I'm on the wrong track, look at EQ. I saw one of the EQ expansion packs in a store early this year, read the box, and saw that I had to have the original EQ in order to install the expansion. Could I find a copy of EQ anywhere? I looked for months and never found one.

Creating a successful game doesn't just depend on the product itself, the success largely depends on marketing. Unfortunately, far too many IT companies think that marketing staff need to be software engineers first, and they will "pick up on the marketing". WRONG!! Any decent marketing manager/director worth his salt will have been trained primarily in marketing. That training teaches him how to extract information from the software engineers to become fully knowledgeable about the product he is marketing.

 

[Damon_D]

Hmm I'm doing what I can here.. Allready drag'd like 4-5 rl friends into this game , and making sure I mention it everytime the word computer or game is mentioned in any conversation , even to unsuspecting customers...Tried to convince more of my old UO mates, but they dont wanna leave there tower's , nice flowers, ridable unicorns and general better Roleplay enviroment behind. One's we get player houses , our own mounts and more inter-activ events/quests we will prob get some of those peopel.. But for now they only see what they loos.. and they generaly hate the xp/lvl/skill-point thingy ( I like the way you gain skillpoints in UO better to so cant blame em ) So unless GOA get'ss there head out of there arses and starts to advertise more in places like the UK and Scandinavia there will be a shortage of fresh blood. They need to trow more of those free demo's with a month playtime in to the comp mag's , generaly peopel will try anything thats free atleast one's And as this is a good game some of em are bound to stick around...Well what ever happens we prob can agree on that they need to do SOMETHING !!

 

[old.Glendower]

contact Mythic about it

I have posted on Warcry on this issue, and I think if we all send Mythic some feedback via their website and post on Warcry (since mythic developers go there), and some other places, they might poke GOA with a stick. I imagine that the contract they have involves promotion of the game after all

 

[-Nxs-]

I think its a little to late, mentioned this game to the whole office at work, even those that play EQ tell others if they want to start a MMORPG then get DAOC as its a smaller game and less complex - ideal for a new player.

I've tried, hell I've even cleared the characters off my 2nd account and offered it to people to TRY before they buy. But those that are interested in a MMORPG are waiting for March/April for.... well... for you know what... no one even wants to spend time trying DAOC when they believe the next generation of MMORPG is only 3 or 4 months away.

Flogging a dead horse here

 

[Novamir]

i could write an article on www.savageuniverse.com , quite a large gaming community there

 

[Whoodoo_RD]

Bad news ppl, Mythic aint gonna give a monkeys tbh, and DAoC will die....just as soon as Imperator is launched.

Fact is once it is released, its already sold to the already established client base from here. Advertise and hey presto, double it.

I would seriously imagine that DAoC has made them a few bob already, so when the new game is introduced, they will just shift sideways to it.

Cant say when this wil happen, but Im sure Mythic will take all their data from DAoC and other games and put the results into the new game.

For me, I dont think longivity is what Mythic had in mind with DAoC, more they wanted to test the viability of drawing UO type ppl into something new. Seems to have worked too.

 

[Gandir]

Originally posted by Whoodoo_RD
Bad news ppl, Mythic aint gonna give a monkeys tbh, and DAoC will die....just as soon as Imperator is launched.

Fact is once it is released, its already sold to the already established client base from here. Advertise and hey presto, double it.

I would seriously imagine that DAoC has made them a few bob already, so when the new game is introduced, they will just shift sideways to it.

Cant say when this wil happen, but Im sure Mythic will take all their data from DAoC and other games and put the results into the new game.

For me, I dont think longivity is what Mythic had in mind with DAoC, more they wanted to test the viability of drawing UO type ppl into something new. Seems to have worked too.

First of all a major part of the players of DAoC would not migrate in to Imperator becaus it's not a Fantasy RPG! I my self is one of thouse sine I think a real RPG is a Fantasy RPG nothing else. Simply to say Fantasy ROCKS! And Mythic will not stop producing material to DAoC in a long time, there will be atleast 2 expansions more before this game will die. There are no new Fantasy RPG's comming up until the end of next year when EQ 2 and maybe even Darkfall online will go live. Shadowbane will soon go online but that will not draw much from DAoC since that game does offically, and royaly suck.

 

[Belomar]

Originally posted by Whoodoo_RD
Bad news ppl, Mythic aint gonna give a monkeys tbh, and DAoC will die....just as soon as Imperator is launched.

Thanks for your constructive comment to this thread. Look in the subject and my initial post and you will see that I was asking for suggestions on how to launch a grassroots advertisement campaign to further the game. Mythic and GOA will definitely continue maintaining the game as long as new people keep coming to the game and giving them money (just look at EverQuest).

Novamir: Sounds like a great idea. I am sure there are similar sites here in Sweden, I will have a look around. Others who are concerned about this should do the same

 

[bewal]

Originally posted by Belomar
As recent threads in this forum has uncovered (thanks particularly to Uncle Sicko for a very lucent post), I've realized that I am not alone in being concerned about the lack of new people coming to this game. I still love this game and can very well see myself playing it in another 6 months, but if people start disappearing, that time might well be cut short. I suspect that a mass exodus can easily start as some kind of chain reaction, which is why there needs to be a constant influx of new blood.

Now, GOA seems not to prioritize advertising DAoC for the English servers, and they are about to miss the huge Christmas crowd because of this (intentional?) oversight. But maybe there is something we, the players, can do about this. In other words, does anyone have any ideas on how to start a good grassroots advertisement campaign for the game? What can we do, besides telling our friends/relatives/enemies to pick up DAoC?

Not doubting or anything, but why do you figure that new people aren't coming to game? There statistics or anything like that? I see lot of noobies at starting areas daily and they aren't all alts. Of course its not going to be like it was in the beginning but.. Im not doubting here, just curious where this info comes from.

I think the main problem here is, that there are people who like the game but who understand that it takes more players than them to keep the game going. THese other wicked people aren't as good at leveling and generally working for their exp and might go to one of the other upcoming games, thus ruining Daoc for em dedicated people. The fear of so many new games coming in is the trouble. So what is threatening Daoc?

1. SWG is not fantasy game. Many will play it, but they will keep daoc active too.

2. Shadowbane is PvP server, lots of guildoriented people running around and ganging up on people, soloings not much fun, no crafting, etc. In Daoc you usually get to choose to pvp or not, SB will suck some people away, but not all.

3. WoW and EQ2 will come out sometime in future, and they are different from Daoc. RvR is still nice idea in Daoc, and it can be improved when its time to do so.

4. AC2... hmm

SO yes, there are games out there, but Daocs no worse from them, especially with Mythic pupmping out improvents all the time. Daoc has got problems but so does any game out there. When Mythic relizes that Imperator sounds dumb as hell (what if Roman EMpire never fell..??? c'mon...) they will stick with Daoc, hopefully...

 

[Whoodoo_RD]

Originally posted by Belomar
Thanks for your constructive comment to this thread. Look in the subject and my initial post and you will see that I was asking for suggestions on how to launch a grassroots advertisement campaign to further the game. Mythic and GOA will definitely continue maintaining the game as long as new people keep coming to the game and giving them money (just look at EverQuest).

Novamir: Sounds like a great idea. I am sure there are similar sites here in Sweden, I will have a look around. Others who are concerned about this should do the same

Sorry if i sound dismissive, but in the UK DAoC was hardly advertised at all, ppl shouted on here and other forums about this but to no avail.

I would love to see DAoC continue, but unless GOA (who are responsible for the advertising in Euro i imagine) do something to promote the game its fairly doomed to become stagnent with just us old hands playing. With the advent of not just Imperator, but also SWG, UO2, Shadowbane, and many other fantasy games, one of them is bound to pull a lot of this games client base towards it. Many people will make the choice of where they spend the cash and their time.

Surely there must be people reading these forums who are either in the employ of GOA or the retailers like GAME here in the UK who can comment on this. Or even make suggestions to your bosses to promote the game.

I love this game, but once i said Id never play or leave other games too, but have, CS i have not played since about april, Age of Empires since about March, Diablo2.....Q3.....etc etc.

Long live DAoC i say, for me anyway

 

[old.chesnor]

All EU daoc needs is a free trial (like AO and EQ). Advertising and improved distribution to game shop shelves is all fine and dandy, but full colour adverts and boxes on shelves don't make me buy games.

I and many others only play daoc because of the free beta. If it wasn't for that, I doubt very much I'd be playing. EQ gives a free trial, so does UO. For a game with a subscription model, a free trial is more or less mandatory these days, as competition in this sector is so fierce.