Elysium Colony

Is basically my second life home. It is a dystopian future based rolpeplay sim...one I not only moderate but have helped build, watched grow and now am watching it die.

I haven this fate fall upon several roleplay sims that to me had good background stories, good builds and fair admin.

So my question is...where are the roleplayers and what is it that attracts them to a sim. Theres the older sims such as midian which have had a steady stream of traffic for some time then theres those that just fade out and Im not ready to give up yet....though I am quickly running out of ideas that will bring people back in.

The sim is in the process of being remodelled for the second time and we are planning events though from past experience I have seen that an event draws in players for only a little while, I cant seem to figure out what it is that keeps them there, perhaps we are doing something wrong....with over 50,000 people logged on at peak time there should be far more people interested than there currently is.


Aylin

Hmm, couldn't find it in search and not sure which of the 3 Elysium Islands it is, one I couldn't tp into to check.

its the one in Savuka and it may be SL bugs again. Not sure but I have figured out what was wrong with the build and thats something at least....or so I hope lol

Here is a list of some of the things I look for: regular events; people with a good understanding of the ongoing plots and characters to help draw you in; a wide variety of fun options for building a character, active recruitement; fun public places to play.

You might have an event planned to get them in with a series of fun plot things scheduled in the week after the event. In my experience if a person writes themselves into the story they will stay as long as the character remains fun.

Ah now I found it, brought some stuff from the vendors, didn't get time to check the sim out but the entry looks good.

It's an interesting question as to what makes a RP/game sim work, Aylin. I don't have the answer. As a sim oewner of sim organiser it can seem very strange tha a sim is not more visited, after all SL provides absolute freedom to create that game system or RP setting that you have always dreamed about and there must be some other players out there who share your dreams...

I have some suggestions as to what could contribute to RP/game sim traffic.

1. Residents come in all 'shapes and sizes'. Some love the creativity of new setting, some want a ready-built community and setting.

2. While there are 50,000 residents online at any one time there are probably 100,000 different things to try in SL.

3. It is very difficult for residents to find out about all the various RP/games sims. Some sort of central sites that capture everything that is happening amongst the active sites is very useful. RPGLand ( http://rpgland.extra.hu/news.php ) is a good example of this happening. You could consider registering there.

4. RP sims in particular can get very 'cliquey'. If new players feel rejected and largely unwanted by established players then the sim won't see it's active community grow.

As I say, I really don't have any answers (I wish I did) but there are some things to think about. I would very much welcome continuing this discussion either in this thread or in PM as it is great to see someone discussing this sort of issue.

I agree with all of those points and would emphasize the fourth one in particular as important.

I'm a long time RP player with a great deal of experience and what I most often find is that players go along ignored most of the time and are certainly never swept into things to really catch their interest.

A lot of these sims require an unacceptable number of rules and regulations to follow. Many classic RPers like myself come here to explore and enjoy an open world. If you keep it simple people will gravitate more freely toward it as they can jump in and have fun without trying to parse through all the crap.

Thirdly and I think most important is: Keep the RP going. Nothing is so dissatisfying to a gamer shopping around for some good RP than an empty sim or one with people who are simply chatting about the same tired topics that can be found in any other place in SL.

Do that and advertise and you will certainly pick up some of the loose players out there.