[imported_Lindenwood]

hey, hey, this IS a dream shard!

wat is it lacking??? dancing strippers lining up near britain bank?? :p

I meant exactly that. It is the perfect shard that everyone will love that effectively doesn't exist yet. Like in the Mars analogy, it is something everyone will think is cool. However, like any product, you can't start talking about it until you either have the product / service prepared (like if it was up), or had a specified date (or date range) when the product / service will be available.

It would be like if you saw a commercial for a car that weighed 2500 lbs, had 600HP, could carry your whole family, towed 10,000 lbs, looked super snazzy, and was priced with the Honda Civic. Then, in that commercial, they told everyone to not buy a new car until their car comes out. If you said "we are still working on it, so we hope it will come soon," and the people knew that production had already gone much slower than expected, then they would just shrug it off as that dream car that will probably not come around until they dont need it or can't afford it anymore. Even if they didn't know production had been slower than expected, they still probably wouldn't hold much stock in its appearance.

However, if you said "coming in six months," or "coming next summer," or anything, the people who were going to buy a car this month or whatever might try to wait for it. On top of that, the people who dont need a car or were content with their own (like with another shard), might actually want to start getting ready to buy this car. Plus, as the time when expected release comes, their interest will return and they will be more likely to check on it to see if it is going as planned. If there was no release date posted, few people will really want to keep tabs on it, and most will just wait until they "see it to believe it." However, if everyone goes this route, then initial sales of the product will be low (player base at shard startup), and thus less people will be attracted to them (nobody will join a shard with not that people people), and sales will never be as high as they could have been with a release date given (people will leave out of boredom just as fast as new ones come in, so the shard may never reach the numbers it should have been able to).

Another, shorter analogy:
People don't get very excited about movie previews with no release date (or date range). They might go "wow, that looks really good!," but then they will never really want to keep tabs on it. Wheras if it had a posted release date, they might be more inclined to look it up on the web or something. Because, hell, for all they know, that preview could have been what the initial marketing team put together to get the production funding from the bigwigs in Hollywood, and the movie may not be done for a few years.

I hope you understand what I am saying.

If you are wanting us all to vote so people will come to our shard, you MUST post at least a release date range, or even something like "We are hoping to have it done Early September" (or October, or whatever). That way people will hold more interest in it. Otherwise, most will come check it out, and see how cool it is going to be, but then just go elsewhere because they have no real expectation of it coming online. Worse, they could simply see that they can't log in, and assume it is a dead shard since there is no real solid mentin of when it is coming back online in the main pages, and not everyone wants to cruise the forums of every potential shard. Sure, many of them will check periodically, maybe very few weeks or month, but because many will come at different times from the shard's beginning, they will see a much smaller playerbase online than what it really is (say, 30-40 online, instead of the 80 there could be constantly if everyone came to the shard at the same time), and may leave.


Hell, even some players who frequent this board want a date range so their friends will know about when to come check it out, since most people dont check this forum daily or even weekly.

The only reason I can imagine as to why you wouldn't post a release date is because you are concerned that you may not be able to hold to it. If so, I completely understand, I really do. However, it will be far better to have to push back even two or three release dates, than it would be to give none at all.

Heh... I thought of another example, but this one is real.

In the CNC milling world, there was a guy who was making this fantastic milling table at a fantastic price. It was seriously too good to be true. Basically, you could buy a small mill and his aftermarket table for a total of maybe 800 bucks, and have a machine with the milling capacity of one that costs EASILY several times as much.

He started posting about it last September. He made a small website, had pictures of his prototype, and had enticing descriptions. He posted about it on CNC Maching boards, and got tons of interest. He began taking orders (and payments) in October. However, as the months passed, he kept delayed things (over and over). It soon became apparent that he was trying to make it too perfect, and most people were becoming impatient, as it already seemed like a great product. He was nice about it, and still responded to emails quickly (I sent and received probably 8 from him). He even refunded orders for people who simply didn't want to wait. Eventually, still, around April, people began to suspect him of fraud. He kept posting his new progresses ever few days, but people continued to lose trust and hope. Many lost interest. I know he easily lost dozens of customers, which, at ~550 a pop, is alot of money. I was one of them. I haven't checked on it since probably June, as I eventually just got tired of waiting and found a different route (making my own mill). Now, I have too much time and money into it to just go start over with his method, even if it was now available (basically, I already found another shard that I am content with enough to not want to start over on a new one, even if I know it may be better).

So, this guy went the opposite direction (being too quick with the release dates, rather than giving none at all), but still came to the same place; people losing (or new people not gaining) hope and interest in the product (shard) coming about. Yes, he will still surely make sales, but not nearly as many as he could have. However, a UO shard is much more dependent on "sales" (players) to gain more of them, than most any product. As even if the shard is the best shard ever, people wont likely come if nobody else is using the "product" (shard) either.



So, even a "hopefully it will be up in a month or so" from the staff would be sufficient to give people new hope and interest in playing here. Otherwise many will simply give up and either not play at all, or just find another shard they are content with. If thats the case, then they may not even come back later.






So... how often can one vote?