I'm gonna make a quick stab on my ideas here. It has been haunting me for quite some time how bad most PW's are on presenting themselves and how unorganized and hard it is information on their own websites/forums.
Firstly,
it strikes me how few PW's understand the power of a real website as opposed to a forum. Most only have a forum and in worst case a very scattered one (i'll touch this later). Very "new-player-unfriendly" to say the least.
So...make a website for your PW and have all the important information there:
- What is this? Make sure to write this is an NWN1 PW and that it is a computer game. Many forums/sites don't even have that information which can make it hugely confusing for non NWN (put presumptive players here) players.
- IP!!! ....and a server status widget. Most PW's miss this totally. Again...."new-player-unfriendly". Please use the default port (5121). That should be possible.
- What kind of server is it? Roleplay, Action? Hardcore roleplay or not so hard core? High magic, low magic? I would recomend using the NWVault full PW sheet for cathegorizing your PW and have this on your website.
- Needed files and links to them. The red line is "simple and easy for players".
- How does this server deviate from the "normal game". For example are all classes and spells avaliable? I would prefer PW's deviating as little as possible from the "standard" but thats just me....
- If necessary write some rules but I personally think this is not needed as we would expect most to be grown ups...hopefully. Also a more "loose" rules-implementation-atmoshpere would be beneficial I think. Think of the player as your "customer".
Secondly,
the forum shouldn't be "scattered". My tip is to use less forum cathegories. It is well enough for most to just use: Announcments, General Discussion, IC-discussion, Guilds, Bugs and Technical and OFF-topic. Instead we most of the time see a huge number of cathegories.....do we really need them??
Make the forum readable by the public. Why should it be hidden in the first place? Making posts should ofcourse require login but keeping presumptive new players away by hiding the forum or parts of it I think is just a bad idea and unfortunately very common amongst PW's...
As importantly as a link from the website to the forum there should also be a link back to the website from the forum. Many miss this for some reason....
Thirdly,
use a server name and module name that makes sense and looks clean. Too many times there are Server names like "--- 000 ---" and module names like "Forgotten Realms" (which there are like 30 of at least).....doh....again...make it easy and make it look clean.
Write a server description!! ...and in the first few lines have the link to the website and also a few of the most important features describing the server. This will show up in external server browsers like Xfire and Gamespy.
I could go on...but this is just my first stab cause I'm on vacation. I'll get back to this at a later date
Modifié par SuperFly_2000, 01 avril 2012 - 10:19 .
