Lets Advertise...For real this time.

[Pakur]

Darnit!

[Rhytania]

Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. Carry on till a cease and desist letter comes up. Then we just shut it down. I doubt WoTC is really gonna care about a 30 - 40 slush fun on a mud that doesnt even tie itself directly to the license. Faerun.com got shut down cause it tied directly to its IP. At least we put up a thin veneer of compliance over our copyright infringement.

On second thought after reading Gwains post and WoTC's fine print, I extricate myself from ths discussion and will claim my 5th ammendment right to not incriminate myself.

On second note I am completely interested in donating to the FK Shleter for bruised and battered jackalopes. It is a travesty to see such amazing and rare animals head mounted on walls in truck stops from the I-10 to the I-95. If someone sets up a link for said charity I am positive people will also give out of the kindness of their hearts.

[Gwain]

Lawyers live for fine print.

http://www.wizards.com/fankit/fantoolkitdnd.html

[Siria]

Okay.. I read through the stuff Gwain just posted (no surprise since I'll be a lawyer - I had to read it).

I found this:

For purposes of this Policy, donations/tip jars and general advertising are not considered "e-commerce" activities.

So donations really shouldn't be a problem. We just have to make clear nobody has to pay, that we're a fan site and we don't own D&D or the worlds created for it.

But on the other hand, I'm not a US-lawyer so if there's someone with a better understanding of copy right laws: feel free to disagree with me!

[Gwain]

Since the game is not hosted in America, it would be up to their European Office?

[Solaghar]

One idea I just thought about to really drum up interest in a game like FK is that you could do a "Let's Play" of the game. Let's Play is where you show people what you're doing as you go through the game, in a thread on a forum, posting screen captures of what is going on at interesting moments, in a sense you show people what's happening to get them excited about what you're doing.

On one forum I visit, there are regularly 1000-2000 or so people watching this forum, reading about the games inside. http://forums.somethingawful.com/forumd ... orumid=191 It's 2 am now in the US and there are 1000 people visiting this subforum. By playing the game publicly like this, you'd invite people to watch and of course, several of them would want to join in and play as well to join in. Of course I wouldn't recommend showing people the slow grind of the early levels, 10 hours killing dummies or something won't entice anyone, but giving a few choices of places one could do quests, allowing people to take part in choosing your character's race, alignment, background, etc, it could really give FK a shot in the arm of players who are young with lots of free time.

[Rhytania]

Wow. That is an amazing idea!

Two thoughts off of this:

1) Can we do a 'livestream' of sorts? Maybe to an IRC type forum where people can only see what is happening in some of the more popular rooms like WD MS would be one, Ardeep Square, Purple Haze in ZK, and maybe Ranger Camp Fire Room in High Forest. Then It can posted on our Webpage as a PHP module so people wont have to actually use IRC to watch. This will definitely spur up some RP sessions in these rooms, as well as give people a taste of what they would be getting into.

2) I have talked about, and pitched, this a couple of times. I place where we can send in logs of RP sessions, that have been cleaned and formated into a story like narrative of RP's that you have logged. This would be beneficial as it can show new people (even old players) the type of RP and stories that happen here, as well as give the mud a sense of history. I cant count how many 3 am RP sessions happen that are just insane good, yet no one will ever know about it becuase once those characters fall of the grid, everything goes with them. Of course someone will have to go through and vet the logs, but I have seen this done in other places (mush's/moo's) and its help the players have a general sense of what is happening around them.

[Lathander]

Is this a real time type of thing where people sort of look through a window into that particular room as an outside observer? If so, and if we go forward with this innovative idea, we should have rprogs on those rooms that echo to anyone entering the room something like "OOC: This room can be watched by outside sources, please keep all out of character references to an absolute minimum."

Sounds like it has potential.

[Rhytania]

This room can be watched by outside sources, please keep all out of character references to an absolute minimum."

I would go so far as to say ban OOC completely. In those rooms alone. Otell would work just fine anyway if something has to be conveyed oocly.

[Pakur]

Wow there's some truly awesome ideas here. @_@

[Tavik]

I wouldn't say ban OOC entirely. It may be beneficial to occasionally provide evidence as to how newbie friendly everyone is around here. I think newbie friendliness is a pretty big point in our favor that differentiates us from a LOT of other MUDs. Showing outsiders that from time to time might be a valuable tool.

[Pakur]

Friday is payday =)