How Would You Encourage Someone to Play?

Daklore

I don't know people outside the internet... therefore, it's incredibly easy for me to talk about Achaea and them not give me wtf looks(fine, text wtf looks, since I can't actually -see- them).

Convincing them that there's merit in a non-graphical game where you have to use your imagination, can't pretend to be the strongest person in the world on par with a god, or have to even roleplay...

That's another bag of beans altogether. One I'm not terribly interested in trying to get into. The only sensible people I've met, almost entirely came from Achaea... (and considering the people on Achaea... you know how this goes from here >P)

Ognog

This is how you encourage someone to play ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMrN3Rh55uM

Ruth

Most of my friends see this and think I'm coding or something, because of the spam whenever I'm bashing or actively participating in raids. I do feel semi-shy sometimes when my friends look over and see me play Achaea, but then I tell them it's text-based and the fun comes entirely from your own imagination and how you direct your character.

Managed to snag two friends to play with me. One never really got out of novicehood because he was just too busy to play in the end. The other one stuck around for quite a while (level 90) because he found that he absolutely enjoyed bashing/grinding and loved the fact he could act like some lofty high mage in the game. Then he went dormant because of army and his character got deleted. :C

I keep trying though, one of my other friends play some magicka MUD, I'm sure she'll love Achaea. I will spam my facebook wall with sailing screenshots! That always gets people!

Kitarel

Whenever I explain the game to anyone the first question they ask is "But what's the point?"

It's like a choose your own adventure that is being actively participated in by over a hundred people. This usually gets their attention until they see the wall of text. Getting them through the damn trial is hard enough but I am happy that quite a few of my friends do play Achaea who I knew in highschool, etc! @Marvi, @Ignika, @Niahm

I usually end up getting in 'deep' conversations with people about the complex game dynamics of combat, politics, religion, etc.

Also, never knew about that link! GAH

Tvistor

I don't understand why people ask "What's the point?". If I had a meaningful answer that wasn't "To win." then I could apply it to life and become the greatest philosopher ever.

Kitarel

My friend and I were once having a very animated conversation on the train about Achaea when some nerd seriously perks up, slides over and all of a sudden starts talking about - wait for it - World of Warcraft. When we told him he wasn't even close he kind of shuffled away and looked back down at his book. We tried to convince him to try Achaea but -gasp- a game without pictures? What are we in, 1984?

Delphinus

Ugh, tell me about it. I hate when some nerd starts talking about fantasy games.

Adalie

Kitarel said:

My friend and I were once having a very animated conversation on the train about Achaea when some nerd seriously perks up, slides over and all of a sudden starts talking about - wait for it - World of Warcraft. When we told him he wasn't even close he kind of shuffled away and looked back down at his book. We tried to convince him to try Achaea but -gasp- a game without pictures? What are we in, 1984?

Sort of off-topic, but I do want to say that I've played both WoW and Achaea, and they're certainly different, but to act high and mighty over one or the other is just silly. Sometimes, on WoW, I would be wowed (ick, pun not intended) at the beauty of the world, while sometimes in Achaea, I'd be awed by the depth of the debate I was engaged in. I especially remember, in WoW, the feeling of accomplishment after bringing down Yogg, back when that was the thing to do, with Daeki and Rho and Tania and Latus and some other online friends. It gave us all a really nice feeling of accomplishment and togetherness, since we'd been working for weeks to get there. Just because it has pretty pictures doesn't mean it can't be equally as enjoyable. They're almost totally separate games to me, and both absolutely engaging in their own ways. Let's not pretend that Achaea is the one and only game worth playing out there. :P

Kitarel said:

Whenever I explain the game to anyone the first question they ask is "But what's the point?"

I got this from the boyfriend at first. It took me a long time to finally convince him that it wasn't just typing in things like "I kill you," haha. Once I explained how complex the combat system is and especially about in-game politics, he started to get more excited about maybe playing. I hope I can actually convince him to log on soon! 

Kitarel

Not at all saying one is better than the other. He was talking about it into our conversation because he thought we were talking about WoW.

Sarapis

Finding a way to explain to people what it's all about is definitely hard.

Would it help if we put together a short video? Possibly a whiteboard-style video, for instance?

Tvistor

If you did, I would abuse my forum-powers elsewhere to draw in hundreds of victims.

Beya

Funny, actually. I was trying to explain Achaea to someone I met on TF2 the other day. I covered exciting combat, espionage, crafting, performing.

He only really perked up when I started complaining about novices that slink off into the wilderness in pairs.

Sorry to have dirtied up the gene pool, guys.

Ognog

@Sarapis If we could convince Simon and Lewis of The Yogscast to do a youtube walkthrough of their first experiences in Achaea it would be brilliant exposure for the game. These guys are real 'characters' - you should check out the voices they do when role playing in minecraft eg. Shadow of Israphel  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Gi9-UZKYo4

Sarapis

@Ognog I watched that, but I'm not sure how entertaining watching people play text MUDs would be. They rely mainly on the visuals on screen and then comment on them. 

I'm for any exposure, but maybe we need our own video to even tempt guys like that to take a look at us.

Halios

Guy from my law school today saw me pearling on a break from class and he asked what it was.

He knew about MUDs but he said he found them far too complicated and thought he would end up spending countless hours looking at help scrolls.

Averi

I have never successfully convinced a friend to try it.

In fact, I have a hard time even convincing my friends to sit still for 1.5 hours to watch a movie.

I think I need less active friends.

Randlog

I tried to get my family playing it, but as soon as they got caught up with class choices they suicided. I knew it was a mistake to tell them that command... I've only ever had one friend play it for a decent amount of time and I'm pretty sure he's quit it for life now though, constantly showing friends screenshots of awesome parts of the game to try and get them to play it and tell them awesome stuff that happened including the death of a bunch of gods to try and peak their interest, but it didn't work, they just think I'm crazy

Melodie

That would be because you are crazy. We all are.

Takes a special kind of crazy to love and play Achaea. The best kind.

Rinzai

Sarapis said:

Finding a way to explain to people what it's all about is definitely hard.

Would it help if we put together a short video? Possibly a whiteboard-style video, for instance?

I'm not sure that this would help, but maybe something like a teaser trailer on youtube that gives enough mystique to pull people in would be enough. Part of me thinks that people instantly thing "oh text based, pass" but enough to give that pen and paper d&d feel just with hundreds of players and tens of DMs could lure in folks.

It does lead me to another question about retention though, I feel that a lot of us go out of our way once there is someone who is actually completely knew or giving it another shot and not an alt. But is the new player or perceived new player retention high, and the goal is to just get more attention, players, or is there a focus on both areas ?

Sylvance

Randlog said:

I tried to get my family playing it, but as soon as they got caught up with class choices they suicided. I knew it was a mistake to tell them that command... I've only ever had one friend play it for a decent amount of time and I'm pretty sure he's quit it for life now though, constantly showing friends screenshots of awesome parts of the game to try and get them to play it and tell them awesome stuff that happened including the death of a bunch of gods to try and peak their interest, but it didn't work, they just think I'm crazy

Very confused as to how anybody is going to sell Achaea using screenshots, and I'm hooked on it myself...

Kellonius

I was convinced to play by my brother, because we always wanted games to play with one another. He stopped playing after a while, but I kept on! The only person that I convinced to play and consider it a success was the player behind Yharz. He and I went to high school together, and while I was sitting in this cake elective course, I was doing some outlining for an in game project I was working on(long time ago, back when there were guilds). He asked what I was doing, and I explained a lot of the game, starting with the simple, and ending with game mechanics that really make the game stand out. For example, back then, Achaea stood apart from other MUDs simply because you had things like balances(herb, sip, etc) and equilibrium. He really liked the complexity of the game more than anything. At the end of class, I remembered that I had printed out part of the mythos to read(this was before smart phones and laptops were readily available) and gave it to him to read. The next day he comes up to me, visibly excited and says "Xoran, Infernal, Mhaldor." 

Now every time I mention it, people say stuff like "I remember that guy! He was awesome!" And I feel like he was more successful than I was in his endeavors, in such a short time. 

Halios

The more that I consider this question, the answer is awesome novice aides.

You can get anyone to try something, but what really hooks people in is the goals and aspirations of the game. The potential.

The sole reason I got so hooked on the game was that Silvaria was my Naga mentor when I made Halios, and it just made me want to be guild leader, kill all the Shallamese, rob everyone, etc.

Tahquil

Stickfigure whiteboard movie for the win, Sarapis. Make it so.

Adalie

I wrote up this big blog post that I never actually posted once called "Why Text," or something like that, talking about all the perks of a text-based gaming environment. I should dig that back out, maybe.

Iocun

Sylvance said:

Randlog said:

I tried to get my family playing it, but as soon as they got caught up with class choices they suicided. I knew it was a mistake to tell them that command... I've only ever had one friend play it for a decent amount of time and I'm pretty sure he's quit it for life now though, constantly showing friends screenshots of awesome parts of the game to try and get them to play it and tell them awesome stuff that happened including the death of a bunch of gods to try and peak their interest, but it didn't work, they just think I'm crazy

Very confused as to how anybody is going to sell Achaea using screenshots, and I'm hooked on it myself...

All depends on the prettiness of ones GUI!

Sultani

Hit 'em with teh retro-chic ASCII art.

Horatio

Sylvance said:

Randlog said:

I tried to get my family playing it, but as soon as they got caught up with class choices they suicided. I knew it was a mistake to tell them that command... I've only ever had one friend play it for a decent amount of time and I'm pretty sure he's quit it for life now though, constantly showing friends screenshots of awesome parts of the game to try and get them to play it and tell them awesome stuff that happened including the death of a bunch of gods to try and peak their interest, but it didn't work, they just think I'm crazy

Very confused as to how anybody is going to sell Achaea using screenshots, and I'm hooked on it myself...

Interestingly enough, that's exactly how a friend of mine sold it to me and why I started playing ) We had an economics class together, and one day he brought in a couple of screen captures of an FFA he was in (said FFA was won by Kaeye, to give you a timeframe). My reaction was something along the lines of "Whoa, that's pretty awesome!" Ironically, despite FFA spam being the driving force behind my decision to play, I never became a combatant.

Halios said:

The more that I consider this question, the answer is awesome novice aides.

You can get anyone to try something, but what really hooks people in is the goals and aspirations of the game. The potential.

The sole reason I got so hooked on the game was that Silvaria was my Naga mentor when I made Halios, and it just made me want to be guild leader, kill all the Shallamese, rob everyone, etc.

For the most part, I would agree. The problem though is that novice aides are a House-related group of people, and a lot of Houses have ridiculous and tedious (even with the help of great novice aides) hoops to jump through before a player can really start knocking down his or her own goals. You really have to play someone else's game before you can start to play your own.

Adalie

Horatio said:

For the most part, I would agree. The problem though is that novice aides are a House-related group of people, and a lot of Houses have ridiculous and tedious (even with the help of great novice aides) hoops to jump through before a player can really start knocking down his or her own goals. You really have to play someone else's game before you can start to play your own.

I agree with this 100%.

Adalie

Haha, I just remembered this! Perhaps a screenshot filled with all my wit and hilarious wordplay will draw in new gamers!

But I don't think the orcs like my sense of humor:

Wattsee

Iocun said:

Sylvance said:

Randlog said:

I tried to get my family playing it, but as soon as they got caught up with class choices they suicided. I knew it was a mistake to tell them that command... I've only ever had one friend play it for a decent amount of time and I'm pretty sure he's quit it for life now though, constantly showing friends screenshots of awesome parts of the game to try and get them to play it and tell them awesome stuff that happened including the death of a bunch of gods to try and peak their interest, but it didn't work, they just think I'm crazy

Very confused as to how anybody is going to sell Achaea using screenshots, and I'm hooked on it myself...

All depends on the prettiness of ones GUI!

I do seem to recall a sexy blademaster GUI set up by Zulah, iirc, that still makes me want to play one.