Twilight Forums

Absolutely. Assuming retcon ever comes out and Jick's feeling generous about it, I certainly hope to get a few mentions.

If you are active on other forums mention this game (that's how i found out about TH) or better make a cool signature with a link.

Hmmm.... items?

I suggest outfits to get tattoos, and tattoos give various effects.

Or maybe the outfit gives an effect, either one.

quantity over quality. Put your name out to as many browser-based game voting sites. Even if you end up in the bottom 9000, your name is still more likely to be found that not having it there in the first place.

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The easiest way to market oneself is to create a Twilight Heroes app for FaceBook that allows you to draw out
- your personal stats
- your hero type

Additionally, add a URL so that people who are interested in the game would check it out
I also help out by pushing it around on the RuneScape forums, though I admit most RuneScape players are highly violent and not into a browser-based game which acts like a proxy family.

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"A wise man benefits from his enemies far more than a fool dreams of gaining from his friends."
~ Baltasar Gracian (1601-58)

I'd use it. I'd be proud to show off my character!

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I've won the 100k DD bet so many times, I should have the title "Mr. Luck"

So, I was sitting here playing an MMORTS on Kongregate, and I was like, *slap self in face*, advertise to these people about TH. And then I was like, *slap self in face*, better idea, tell Ryme to get TH integrated with Kongregate for badges. Now, I realize that TH isn't even flashed based, but it /is/ a game and according to the documentation on the Kong API, you can use JavaScript and PHP for making API calls. The pros: TONNNNNNNSSSSSS of potential new players and alot of publicity. The cons: Someone will need to learn how to implement the API, not of all of the incoming playerbase will stay after they get badges for Kongregate. But I think a large amount of players will like the game enough to play even after getting the badges. So...? *slap self in face*

Good idea. *slaps Satan*

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The churches are empty / The priest has gone home / And we are left standing / Together alone
--October Project: "Dark Time"

Maybe find a way of displaying merit badges and their captions on FaceBook too? that should work out and distinguish Twilight from the other Twilight!

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"A wise man benefits from his enemies far more than a fool dreams of gaining from his friends."
~ Baltasar Gracian (1601-58)

Not really a big thing, but in case someone has a wikipedia user page, they might want to use:

{{User:Muhandes/Userboxes/Twilight Heroes}}

To see how the user box looks like:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... ght_Heroes

(If I had the actual moon used it would be even closer, but I think it's pretty close)

Good one.

I've another idea: can I try my hand at translating the wikipedia article on TH into Italian and Malay? maybe that'd help...?

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"A wise man benefits from his enemies far more than a fool dreams of gaining from his friends."
~ Baltasar Gracian (1601-58)

But if they can't read English, then why would they play a text-based game that is entirely in English?

It's not that they can't read English, it's probably that they prefer to use their primary language wikipedia. Similar to how we in the US using the US google search tend to find things written in our language, they probably find things written in their language.

does TH has a Facebook page?

That thing is the new fashion, everyone has it, creating a page there and sending a message to all players asking for them to add that account as friends if they have a Facebook account would give more visibility to the game and those players' friends could stumble on it, thus coming here and check it out.

I guess in that account there could be the game updates that show up in the log in page.

Also, what about making a video about the game to post on youtube?

Yep! We do! I think we have a "page" but not a "site" or maybe it's the other way around. Facebook was weird terms for different ways to use them to blab about yourself. I've been told that whatever one we *don't* have is the one we should have, and I'll get around to it someday.



The existing page never seemed that active, and the Twitter account we have seemed simpler and more effective at delivering updates, but I may try it again.

Satan, Malaysians can also read English.
Also, I think you should see these:
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Loathing
http://nn.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kingdom_of_Loathing

We're in the process of drafting an Italian wiki article for TH: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=966&p=24350#p24350

Ryme, please advise. Thanks.

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"A wise man benefits from his enemies far more than a fool dreams of gaining from his friends."
~ Baltasar Gracian (1601-58)

Better not. You don't want Ryme to be obviously involved with the article, or it gets tagged with COI (Conflict of Interests) and then it can be speedy deleted. Fans are OK.

Muhandes, it's clear that Ryme can't author the full article on his own, but we can decide on what info the article can show to other people. We're in the process of compressing the Bahasa Malaysia and English articles in order to form the Italian article; I've covered gameplay and special features (covered under the former language) and am now trying to get the English language section (concerning Twilight's reputation on-line) into a single paragraph too.

What I need now is some resources which detail how the assessments made by previous referees of Twilight being a counterfeit KoL were made prematurely

Ryme, we need to do more than just have a Fb-based "X likes Twilight Heroes" feature. Is there anyone here adept enough to create an Twilight Heroes app? maybe we can create a TH-based quiz on one of those generic quiz machines?
How do we go about creating one, anyway? I know that it is easy to insert questions and the like, but how do we set the scoring system? I suggest a simple app of 9 questions, whereby if 3 or more questions, say, are all As in a row, the person can be labelled as a Gadgeteer
And at the end of it, you can then have it say,

"Now that you know what hero you're likely to be, why not be one and join Twilight Heroes and save the world, eh?" (insert appropriate URL somewhere)

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"A wise man benefits from his enemies far more than a fool dreams of gaining from his friends."
~ Baltasar Gracian (1601-58)

Facebook quizes get very annoying very fast.

If we did anything, I'd like to see one that basically had something kind of silly like "what class are you" where the questions might be:

1) When in a tricky situation, I rely on:
a) my brain
b) tools
c) my brawn
d) firey explosions

Nothing serious, just a way to identify preferences, or joke around.

That said, I have zero time for months to come. Retcon is priority #1. And I have no idea how to program Facebook anything. If someone happens to be inclined, I'd spare 5 minutes for some guidance and copy editing, but otherwise the idea is going to languish until I don't have anything better to do, which comes after a looooooong list of additions and updates.

I can try building a quiz, but it is not easy - it needs quite a bit of work and FaceBook demands that they vet it in the end too also, it takes some patience because the TH app on Facebook needs to log on to TH itself, so unless there is a leaderboard it is difficult.
ALSO: due to greater commitments, I myself might end up like Ryme too. I've already salted my RuneScape game and there are others that seem to be about to follow - this game thankfully might not go that route.

_________________
"A wise man benefits from his enemies far more than a fool dreams of gaining from his friends."
~ Baltasar Gracian (1601-58)

I was going to suggest adding a page to TV tropes, but it looks like you're already there.

(Please be aware that TV tropes is slightly more addictive than crack, and should be avoided if you plan to do anything else within the next 6-10 hours)

It has been far too long since this thread had the dust kicked off.

Anyone have a new idea for getting some free/cheap advertising to bring in more players? I know the flyers idea was one of the good ones that I think we never actually followed through on (c'mon Cris, you know you want to make flyers!) but maybe someone can come up with an even better idea.

I know someone pinged me about flyers the other day, even. Sadly, art isn't my strong suit. Especially non-web art.

Anybody want to paint their body and streak the world series?

No, no, just kidding. That's totally illegal, nobody should do that. And the cameramen are very good about not letting the public see that stuff, so it'd be totally wasted.

Have you ever tried Google AdWords or the Facebook ads, Ryme? I was just looking at AdWords today, and the cost seems fairly reasonable. The minimum was $.01/click on the ad, and you can set a maximum so that you don't get hit with some kind of thousand dollar bill each month.

I've used AdWords in the past for other businesses, but not for TH. At the time it seemed like a really huge waste of money. It was a completely different business, though, so maybe I've ruled it out unnecessarily.

The FaceBook ads that I see tend to really annoy me. Maybe because they're all Zynga games and I've got a little bit of loathing for Zynga's business models and gameplay. I probably should look into them too.

I'll agree with the Facebook ads usually being annoying. It's almost always an ad for some game that is entirely different from what the ad seems to suggest, too.

Google, though, seems like it might be worth a shot. Even if it only brings in a dozen or two new players a month.

Please pardon the necro-bump.

Kinak, do you have any thing to say on this topic?

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Oh, lots

Two warnings before I start, though. First is that I haven't gone back and read the thread, this is my raw thoughts on the topic. Second is that I want to build up a cushion for server fees before I start jumping into advertising, so none of this will happen immediately.

Cons:
I like (tabletop) gaming conventions. Not necessarily because they're the best fit, although it works pretty well, but just because they're "my people" and I can talk to them comfortably for an entire weekend.

This is actually one of the things that me also running Metroplexity will help with directly. Neither Metroplexity nor Twilight Heroes needs a whole table, but with our powers combined...

Anyway, I expect to do Origins at some point because it's literally down the street. But I can't do too many others, even if the table space was magically free, because hotel stays are killer.

Web Advertising:
There are a number of ways to do cheap targeted web advertising. Off the top of my head: Google AdWords, Facebook ads, and Project Wonderful (the webcomic ads people).

Any of the three would be fine, although my natural inclination is Project Wonderful. Google can do some pretty amazing things, but I foresee a lot of effort going into balancing costs and effectiveness for different terms. And, frankly, I'd rather never give Facebook a dime while there's an alternative. Sorry Facebook fans.

But low-cost, targeted (at least to a specific comic's audience) advertising that helps other people's labors of love? That I can deal with.

Cheers!
Kinak

If you ever need a volunteer to help with one of those gaming convention booths, consider my hand raised high.

I haven't been to Origins or Gencon in *years*.
Always had fun, though. Where else can you play Car Wars with modded matchbox and hot wheels toys? Or play Robo Rally with Richard Garfield? Or Twilight Imperium with eleven opponents?!

Hm...

Careful, I might just take you up on that

Man, now you make me wish it was GenCon.

I will do my best to refrain from singing its praises, but it's been my wife and I's yearly vacation since we started dating, back when it was still in Milwaukee. Lots of life changes, some moving into and out of the industry, but it's never stopped being awesome.

Cheers!
Kinak

Don't do stuff at Origins... I could drive there and I would feel obligated to go again! Haven't been in a few years. This year was my first GenCon since 08 or so.. wasn't as good as I remembered.

It's a harsh fate

This year's GenCon was a little weird with neither Wizards nor White Wolf selling anything. Nobody seemed to know quite what to do with themselves.

Not to get too much into insider baseball, but the tabletop RPG industry is at a crossroads of sorts and the companies are all trying to figure out which way things are headed. My professional guess is that things will still be a little weird this year and probably calm down after that.

Cheers!
Kinak

Honestly, my main concern this year was buying the Shadowrun Runner's Toolkit that was delayed for-frickin'-ever. After that I bought a lot of Steampunk costuming supplies that I couldn't make, namely latex weapons. Getting more into boardgames than RPGs now though... too difficult to get a group of people to consistently meet anymore.

I actually picture the future of RPGs to turn into more boardgames, like D&D is doing. More mainstream appeal, easier to learn, can get more people, a lot harder to pirate.

I could, if nobody else can since i am a terrible writer, make a post about the game at www.9gag.com. It's mostly a humor site
but not strictly and has the bonus of having a gazillion visitors. Only con would be drawing trolls attention to the game making it just like every other comunity, but we can never be sure that will happen, might be the opposite.

I think we need to hard-code in some form of referral system. I was recently referred to a game called E-sim, which is frankly not nearly as good a text-based game as this. The game gives a bonus, in the form of a currency similar to silver stars for reaching a a certain level/staying for a certain length of time, which I think could be easily transferred to this system. I think it would be a great way for the player base to expand itself, maybe giving a bonus to those who refer a player who stays for a certain amount of time. I know I'd throw these referrals around and I have a fair amount of clout in other games that i think would go a decent way.

Yeah, I'll admit I could do without a lot of trolling. At least for the mod team's sake

Honestly, I really don't like those systems. Both personally, because it makes me feel like I can't trust people's suggestions, and because it encourages rampant multi-abuse even in games that would never have problems with it normally.

Cheers!
Kinak

If we're going to do the potential-troll mega site route, I'd rather deal with Something Awful goons...

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The churches are empty / The priest has gone home / And we are left standing / Together alone
--October Project: "Dark Time"

Even if you don't give an incentive to join, a game-sponsored link that I could easily plug into a forum pm or otherwise would be helpful. People click these things, try games out, and potentially stay. I feel like the level of activity has really died down as of late and it's really killing my enthusiasm for the game.