Arc promotion experiment: Human Billboard
By
AlwaysAPrice,
Posted on: 2009-04-13 01:31 in Mission Architect
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I rec'd a lot of compliments on the advertising concept...
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And now you're getting one more. Very clever, and good job on the "having good manners" part. **/e clap** 
Dec out.
Nice idea, glad its working for you!
I wanted to get 5 (6 now) friends together and have us each hold up the scorecard emote to display the number of an arc for people to try. The idea was that we would advertise one arc for a while, then switch to another. At first we would advertise our own arcs, but we could take requests or even use the mechanism in various contests.
[SIZE=1][COLOR=Yellow][U]Virtue Heroes (Serenity's Children):[/U] [B]@Eek a Mouse, The Devil's Mark, Outlaw Sniper, Gas-Soaked Rag Man, Amazon Prime, Friday's Child, Hot Blooded,[/B][B]Flower of the Moon[/B], [B]Rouge Demon Hunter[/B], Stimulated Emission, Animatronic Wench, [B]Lennie Small[/B]
[U]Virtue Villains (Serenity's Orphans):[/U][/COLOR][/SIZE][SIZE=1][COLOR=Yellow] [/COLOR][/SIZE] [SIZE=1][COLOR=Yellow] [B]Eek a Rat[/B], [B]Bomb Blondeshell[/B], Babe Brute, Jeanne Dark, Fallen Angle[/COLOR][/SIZE]
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I wanted to get 5 (6 now) friends together and have us each hold up the scorecard emote to display the number of an arc for people to try. The idea was that we would advertise one arc for a while, then switch to another. At first we would advertise our own arcs, but we could take requests or even use the mechanism in various contests.
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That's a great idea! I had thought to put the arc ID # on each members' chest, but this gives you more versatility. Genius...if you have that many friends willing to help... ;P
Just make sure they double-check their numbers often and keep vigilant as some friendly buffs will pop characters out of emotes.
Craft your inventions in AE!!
Play "Crafter's Cafe" - Arc #487283. A 1 mission, NON-COMBAT AE arc with workable invention tables!
That's great! I was joking with SG-mates the other day about renaming my spines/nin stalker "Arc ID 4077", since I only created him when the look of my spines/nin minions in action really caught my fancy during testing. I settled for just putting a plug in his bio but now, hm. I might actually roll up a couple characters to do this with. I really like the idea because if one of your arc's main draws is neat customs and/or you're an RPer, you're displaying or even acting out a preview of what's in store.
And, if you're just futzing around creating characters or writing text for an arc and don't need a higher level to test with, why not do all your work at the AE terminal on that character?
Do you UHVU?
Orpheus Initiative | Parts Unknown
League of Misfits | The Reciprocators
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And, if you're just futzing around creating characters or writing text for an arc and don't need a higher level to test with, why not do all your work at the AE terminal on that character?
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Exactly! While hanging out in the various AEs around the city, I noticed a ton of players working on their arcs...just standing there for hours, taking up space. They could have been plugging one of their arcs at the same time!
The hardest part of the whole experiment was coming up with a name.
I wanted something that would immediately be recognizable as an arc promotion, stick out in a crowd, tell a 'promise at a glance', have all the info needed to play the arc, and be as personal as possible.
That's pretty tough to do in 20 characters!!
For my test, I went with the most basic and informative name I could think of. I wound up sacrificing the 'promise at a glance' but think for future iterations I may try to focus more in getting that in.
If anyone is thinking of trying this, here's my brainstorm list of promise-at-a-glance names:
<ul type="square">[*]Challenge
Fight me. arc- XXXXX
Test your skill XXXXX
AV challenge- XXXXX
[*]Enticement
Click me for fun
Help me in arc XXXXX
arcXXXXX-Girls wGuns
Cute.Fast.FUN.-XXXXX
My Funny Story-XXXXX
My Epic Story- XXXXX
Be a hero- arc XXXXX
[*]Appeals
Rate my mish- XXXXX
XXXXX-Please comment
Help me edit -XXXXX[/list]
Note: I was tempted to use leet-speak for space, but decided against it, as it can be seen as such a negative to players. If you had a leet-speak appropriate arc, tho, it could work!
Craft your inventions in AE!!
Play "Crafter's Cafe" - Arc #487283. A 1 mission, NON-COMBAT AE arc with workable invention tables!
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I wanted to get 5 (6 now) friends together and have us each hold up the scorecard emote to display the number of an arc for people to try. The idea was that we would advertise one arc for a while, then switch to another. At first we would advertise our own arcs, but we could take requests or even use the mechanism in various contests.
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I don't think there's a score0 emote . . .
They could do a /cointoss and have the coin icon suggest a zero? *shrug*
"I think you're confused. This is /b, not /b/."
An update:
My other experiment hit yesterday. I made a promotional poster, submitted it to be posted on the forums and it was
200+ forumites visited the thread and saw the poster!! Awesome. I eagerly anticipated coming home after work and seeing the results.
Not what I expected at all...I barely had a dozen more plays on the mish. Not bad...but not spectacular, either considering the exposure.
I played a bunch of arcs last night with my non-BB alts and had a couple more hits, but nothing major. Then I decided to work on a new arc and logged into my Human BB on Virtue to do it.
I had 2 plays in the 30 minutes I was in the editor as a Billboard! Could have been coincidence, but I doubt it.
I'll be curious to see the numbers tonight, as my poster thread has almost doubled in Views today.
Craft your inventions in AE!!
Play "Crafter's Cafe" - Arc #487283. A 1 mission, NON-COMBAT AE arc with workable invention tables!
I wrote down your arc number because I'm a huge Azumanga Daioh fan and I wanted to test it out.
But I've only ever watched Azumanga in Japanese... So it might be a little weird...
Another update:
So, Friday the Scoop came out with my little poster in it. Got a few plays off and continue to see some more trickle in.
Saturday I Human BB'd again and things have slowed down a bit on Virtue, Justice and Freedom. So I branched out to some lower pop servers. The big surprise was Triumph!
Triumph was somewhere in the middle on population at the time so I figured I may get 1 or 2, but was amazed at the response. It could have just been good timing, but I had 6 rates right on top of each other within the first 15 minutes.
The players on Triumph were fun, had good feedback, and even helped me advertise with their own AFK bubbles, dancing beside me 
I've gotta roll up an alt to play on that server -they know how to have fun! Plus, there seemed to be a big anime crowd there.
Guardian and Pinnacle were okay and Inifinty (which is often in the top 3 for population) was a complete dud.
I think I'll spend some more time on the lower pop servers to reach an audience I haven't hit yet. And it may be time to try villain-side later this week.
Edit: While I was on Justice, my arc hit 100 plays with 82 rates averaging at 4 stars! Not bad for a niche story.
Craft your inventions in AE!!
Play "Crafter's Cafe" - Arc #487283. A 1 mission, NON-COMBAT AE arc with workable invention tables!
So, this weekend I tested out an in-game advertising idea I had: the (virtual) Human Billboard
[/list]This promotion method is definitely not for everyone, but if you've got some spare time and an arc that needs exposure, I recommend giving it a go!
I rolled up a lvl 1 alt on a few servers, dressed her up as a character from my story arc, put a description and plug for my mission arc in her bio, then named her "Play my AEarc- 21391"
Once in-game I ran up to AE or a trainer, positioned myself in a visible-yet-unobstructive area, hit a dance emote and popped an AFK bubble over my head that read, "Read my bio for more details!"
I experimented with hanging out in the Atlas AE, Atlas Trainer, and Talos AE. Best results were from Atlas AE and Trainer...it seemed to go in spurts at both locations.
Virtue was the most responsive, followed by Justice, then Freedom. Infinity, Guardian, and Pinnacle were pretty much wasted time.
The results: I went from 8 ratings to 30+ in a weekend...mostly positive! I also got to talk to a few players after they gave feedback and made some adjustments based on their comments.
By far, this has been the most effective advertising I have done to get people to play my arc.
Things I learned:
<ul type="square">[*]Double-check your name immediately when you get in game.
Twice I rolled up a character and either transposed 2 numbers or left one out!! Wasted a good 30-45 minutes promoting the wrong arc #!! DOH!!
[*]Try to avoid chatting in broadcast.
The nature of having a name like "Play my arc..." brings out the worst in some players...they assume you're a bot or a gold farmer. Answering helpful questions in broadcast seemed to be received well, tho.
For the most part, I didn't talk at all unless I was answering someone's question. The whole concept is to be as non-spam as possible.
[*]If you're setting up in AE, move around every 15-30 minutes.
There's 2 or 3 main areas people go to click the computer and get a mish, if you just hang in one spot you'll miss a large amount of players who only use the computers on the other side.
[*]This playerbase rocks!!
I rec'd a lot of compliments on the advertising concept and felt generally well-received. Nobody harassed me or sent nasty tells. It was actually fun to watch players run by. Stop. Turn to look at me for a bit. Then run off and 10 or 15 minutes later get a tell & tickets!!
Craft your inventions in AE!!
Play "Crafter's Cafe" - Arc #487283. A 1 mission, NON-COMBAT AE arc with workable invention tables!