Arelith Promotional Drive

[98lbs of sad carryweight]

In answer to 98lbs - I really enjoyed reading your comments and definitely gave me some food for thought. I think you are right that there are some hurdles such an old game cannot surmount, at least not without even further departing from 3.5 D&D.

There is actually a 'how to get started on Arelith' article on our home page but it is out of date, if only a little. In general I should get back to regularly publishing there.

Do you think it would help to actually make myself and other key staff personally available for new players in a monthly Discord chat? We could likely easily add a tag/role to all recently joined so such Discord events were only for them.

Generally yes. Though I think people that make it to the discord also get help by the wider community too which is kind of the lifeblood of communities in the real life hobby too. But since I struggle sometimes to actually know what (for example) the setting is ought to be, this could help re-affirm that to newer people, it's also more official. I still think a more concentrated and easy to access place for key questions would be good.
Plus it bottlenecks it with staff availability.

I also did check again and just flat out didn't associate Players Handbook with the guide, which is actually pretty good now that I found it. Maybe the compendium of builds could be linked here if its curated a bit more so newer players can just follow that along, takes a bit of stress off and focus on the RP and exploring the world. My newbie friends usually direct their questions at me and everyone (all dozens or so) appreciated having a clear build guide to follow while learning the game rather than being bogged down by the choices and math ontop of getting into a large world where some baseline expectations do exist.

Though it still kind of lacks setting info in detail? A starter guide probably doesnt need it but the wiki could have a cordor entry where one could research it a bit. People will default to googling it and that's how they find 5e lore or in the case of the city itself - nothing
I learned in my 2nd year that Andunor was supposed to be similarish to skullport, then read up on skullport and then it made click while ingame I just kinda didn't know what to expect except "underdark" which can vary greatly. Just makes it a bit harder to jump in and get immersed.

Aradin is also 100% spot on with the social media. It's a pretty dedicated thing and benefits from someone having that as their focus too, social media stuff is really a skill.

[xanrael]

Xanrael - I think you make a really valuable comment in saying that a short video that highlights some key figures would go a long way.

I'll add for any video made for tutorial/promotional purposes, I'd include PCs wearing the new outfits. They're a leap ahead of the stock options and quickly show another positive element of the server.

[perseid]

I think a lot of the ideas that have already been said are good. Things like social media marketing seem like the intuitive way to reach a wider audience in an environment that doesn't really have a ton of organic new player traffic. That said, I think the Threads/Blue Sky suggestion was fairly well considered. There's a lot to the format that's desirable in terms of effort->output it seems to me and while I understand that there's reasons for withdrawing from Twitter... I mean ultimately it seems like the admission is that to some degree Twitter was nonetheless an effective tool for helping drive people to trying out the server and so re-establishing something at least analogous to that even if the audience is smaller might be good (who knows, maybe it'll turn out to be a better targeted audience since a lot of tech/nerd culture activists pivoted to those to protest Twitter).

[Irongron]

I've made accounts on both Mastodon (gaming) and Bluesky to promote Arelith. While together these have a much smaller reach than our (now closed) Facebook and Twitter presence. I'll nevertheless work on increasing our engagements there.

Regarding above posts Im still very much open to ideas, and especially willing to support any player efforts however I can.

[For My Next Trick]

Something that could be beneficial, is hosting some sort of a giveaway. I could donate 10 EE keys, for example. Go to gaming reddits, ask permission, host an Arelith sponsored giveaway with a promo post? Could go to different gaming groups focusing on TTRPG's. I think that having some people willing to give it a shot with the right promotional material to let them know what they are getting in on, could be useful.

[Irongron]

Bringing this topic up again, as we've recently been seeing some really great numbers, and had that link published in PC Gamer. (https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/23-ye ... community/)

Last Saturday we were just below 330 online, and for myself regularly reaching 400 would be justification for a lot of new content. It's great to see Arelith doing so well, and thanks to all players for spreading the word.

With the added attention it's a great time to push higher, or recommend server to others.

So here's a few more suggestions...

• Follow us & engage on Bluesky or Mastodon Games (We're on both with very modest numbers since I shut down our far larger Facebook and Twitter Presence over the last years because, well, I'm sure you can guess...).

• Give some honest comments on websites where the subject of Arelith comes up, it remains the case (sadly) that such threads are often dominated by those with an axe to grind against staff.

• Let me know about any events you have planned in game so I can spread the word, engage DM support.

• Continue giving feedback to help us improve the server for everyone.

• Give ideas!

Once again, really appreciated everyone. Remember I'm not interested in attracting players from other NWN servers, who are also trying to grow their communities, and that player numbers are not the end in themselves, but rather a large, living, breathing world with a host of interesting content.

[Inordinate]

Considering that today we almost approached 400 active players online, I'd say some of the problems that are derived from high player counts concentrated in a few areas should be addressed sooner rather than later. Surface itself may need to be carved up further, with bare minimum all of sailing been pushed into its own server given how disastrous crashes/restarts are to the whole experience as it is. Having this many players is great but if we do continue to have higher concurrent player counts the overall play experience is going to continue to be miserable due to lag.