We need some more players.....

[bidocks]

Heya folks, yes, it's me.... I'm back.

Where have I been?

nwnravenloft.com
amiaworld.net
and yes... I tried sinfar.net for a couple hours.

Why you might ask, did I leave and go to all these other servers and why come back?

Well.... each of those servers has 30 or more players at any given time.... at peak times? 50 and more.... Sinfar *cringes* gets over 100..... but, I will speak of Ravenloft and Amia.

They both offer pretty easy ways to get started on their websites. As in... a new person who wants to play can be INGAME in less than an hour..... not so on CoPap..... I have a friend who is still waiting for her email about FORUM access (2 months?)... she gave up, don't worry about her. Another finally got her Alpha server access after..... 3 WEEKS!

Now, I may be more impulsive than most, but.... if I had to wait more than a day or two to TRY a server I'd never played on, I'd keep going.

What's my point?

THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE PLAYING NWN IN PERSISTENT WORLDS RIGHT NOW, AS YOU READ THIS. WHY AREN'T THEY HERE????

1: They can't find us.
2: We are convinced no new players want to play so the barrier for entry is so high no one can new can get in.
3: We don't even include basic information like server IP's EASILY FOUND on the website, wiki or Forum. I am familiar with our forums and it takes me a while to find them.
4: It feels like most have given up on NWN here.... the world is dying. I hate to say it, but.... once we believe it to be dead, it is. On Amia and Ravenloft, they average a new player every week or so! They are still building and rebuilding areas! They are still making changes to their world!

Now.... why did I come back?

I like the RP I have found on CoPap. I have made some friends here, not just people I play a game with, people that if something happened to them, I'd actually care. People that if I met them in the real world, I'd really want to sit down, share dinner or a drink with them (wellll, most of them ).

I don't really have the answers, but, I do know quite a bit about website SEO and can and would offer my help to get us noticed, but... honestly folks, the Alpha server thing is killing new players.

Just my thoughts

-B

[Themicles]

If you knew about someone not receiving the activation e-mail for the website, why was it not reported? I can not fix things I do not know about.

And our activation procedure here on this forum is no more difficult or lengthy than 90% of the community websites in existence. To not require the user to go through an activation e-mail is to invite a flood of spam bots. I know this because I've had to clean out thousands of bot accounts across the various websites I have run over the years. And the system is automated, its not like we have admin staff here that sits on requests and refuses to send out e-mails. If you want an example of how bad it is without proper user authentication, just look at how defaced and broken the WIKI here had become. In fact, so broken that it was used to hack into my webhosting account and spread a malware downloader to all of my sites. This is why I don't allow sites I host to not require user authentication.

Likewise, with the Alpha registration process, if we didn't have it do you know that I could use your user name and log into the servers with whatever password I decided to make up? I could then do whatever I wanted with your characters. Considering how many times we've had abusive players and even former staff that would most certainly take advantage if they had a chance.

[Themicles]

Speaking of the WIKI, I just went looking around for the addresses. Mind you I host you guys, but I do not run your world. Therefor I didn't know where to look for it... Yet the second place I went was the WIKI and look whats right on the front page: http://wiki.ysgard.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

[bidocks]

RE: IP's.... I stand corrected.

As for the Alpha thing.... I played on other places... not one instance of account theft... and honestly, Amia is like the Wild West. I don't understand, if it's that easy, why isn't it more rampant on places that have no protections?

[Themicles]

RE: IP's.... I stand corrected.

As for the Alpha thing.... I played on other places... not one instance of account theft... and honestly, Amia is like the Wild West. I don't understand, if it's that easy, why isn't it more rampant on places that have no protections?

Because its been kept pretty quiet. Thats the only reason that comes to mind.

Just because one world hasn't had it abused, doesn't mean no world will. We've already had a long history of abusive players that keep poking back in and trying cause trouble. It is not worth the risk leaving that gaping hole wide open.

[bidocks]

After a little checking.... Amia does have protections in place, through the CD key apparently. I know nothing about their system other than that and the fact that it was so seamless and unintrusive that I didn't even know there was protection in place, lol.

Would something like this be a bad thing for us? Might help with gaining new folks to play here... heck, maybe the whole CoPap could adopt?

[But I Ain't Got Wings]

I do not understand enough of how alpha works or how other worlds keep people from logging on with characters not theirs, to respond to that part.

But yes I agree the way to get people to play more on Copap is to make sign up easy and simple. I also think that we may get a mess of BAD peeps that way. But I am not sure of anyway other than making the process easy to increase out player base. Still the powers of Copap, have not come up with a way to make joining easy and less time consuming. I myself can not help, so I have resolved to play with who is here, and DM them until we are dust.

IF somebody has ideas and the knowledge and the will to help COpap, they should offer to help, myself I do what I can, BUT I know that I simply do not have the time l to change the world (Copap).

SINN

[_JM_]

It would be nice to see some new people. It does get a little dull seeing zeros in the player lists and got duller once I got Jayem back to level 40.

I can’t speak of the advertising because Jayem has been around for years and got created on Avlis after I was invited by a couple of people I knew to try it. I downloaded the demo of NWN and enjoyed that enough to try Avlis and enjoyed that enough to stick around, all be it with Jayem moving to Hala. But I did just search for “NWN Persistent World” though and nwnravenloft.com & amiaworld.net were at the bottom of page 1and I hadn’t seen any CoPaP worlds by the end of page 5. So some search engine optimisation might help.

I do keep an eye out for level 1 people to check if they need help and Jayem could afford aiding one character a week.

I didn’t have any trouble with the Alpha server. When they switched I got it confirmed that Jayem could go to Avlis within 24 hours. Using that method is more secure and less annoying than when Hala and Ysgard were on an in-game password system. So I agree with Themicles about sticking with the Alpha Server.

[Akai]

I agree that Alpha is a problem; I know at least 2 former players who don't play anymore because Alpha is too difficult. (I am actually among the more computer-savvy of my RPG group, appalling though that is.)

I also agree that we need some sort of security. What I would like to see as an addition to Alpha is allowing someone with a brand-new Gamespy ID that has never played on CoPaP before to be automatically registered to that CD Key, just by logging in. No idea if that's possible, however.

[Moonyju]

Signing up with Alpha may be a little difficult, but it's a ONE TIME thing. Once done, you're good to go on FOUR worlds, that are interconnected.

We have a whole Team of friendly DMs/staff on Hala and at least two people can validate Alpha registration. If it sounds complicated, PM the Hala Team account or any DM (see list here) and ask for help. Or poke us on IRC.

Players are more compelled to play where they have friends who play there already. If you have friends who would be interested in trying Hala out, do encourage them and follow up with us for their account/Alpha registration, if there are issues and with questions.

We have a good community here, friendly and good players/DMs. Events are usually open to all and guild outings are rarely "guild members only", unless the guild is working on something specific. The RP is awesome and fun and some people might have noticed flavours and other changes to scripts, codes and areas.

[Brayon]

Going to chime in on the Alpha part. There are 4 worlds with Alpha Access, and Admin. If your friend doesn't get a response from one world, hit up the admin on another. Its really that simple. Send them to IRC, and to all of the CoPaP worlds, not just one if they need help.

Brayon
Arkaz DM and Ambassador to CoPaP

[Psye Shaar]

Going to chime in on the Alpha part. There are 4 worlds with Alpha Access, and Admin. If your friend doesn't get a response from one world, hit up the admin on another. Its really that simple. Send them to IRC, and to all of the CoPaP worlds, not just one if they need help.

Brayon
Arkaz DM and Ambassador to CoPaP

This.

There's been a few people lately that did have to wait, but since that time it's all been tidied up considerably. I know this because I was the one that got your friend online bidocks (are they still around at all?)

Basically, if I'm on IRC or even have access to the internet via my phone, then I can register someone with Alpha. The same applies to most others I imagine (assuming they have a smart phone).

The only slight delay is if it's a returning player we don't know because then we cross reference with the other worlds just to check they are who they claim to be.