Your First 5-10 Members...

For my site, we got the first handful of members in really quickly after a couple of days of nothing. I think you've got to post around a lot yourself and have a roleplay thread or two open for new members to join, to give the impression that you are definitely ready for roleplayers, and that you are active. Once people see that someone other than the staff has joined, a lot more are to follow.

 

That's the exact story of ours, we just opened with just myself and my co-admin. I'm doing a solo thread, as well as a paired through with him hoping that our one ad, plus word of mouth among others will draw people in. As you said, active staff is great, active roleplaying staff is even better. I couldn't agree with you more.

But man, the lagging times between those moments when newcomers arrive, uuuugh. I hate the not knowing if its going to take or not, but I'm naturally impatient xD. We've had some significant luck and so far our content is drawing a few stragglers in. Though what other ideas do you think are good for getting people to view your site, other than direct advertising?

 

We seem to have a stalling issue with our RP too. The core members are active enough but new blood isn't flowing in. We've tried a whole bunch of ways to get people to view the site but so far they don't seem effective.

 

Same issue bruh, I'm kind of iffy of site to site advertising, but apparently it works. There's always that...

Or maybe ask your veteran members to recruit and give them rewards for references, maybe even do a special staff sponsored plot - depending on what kind of site you're running.

 

I went on a site advertising blitz for a bit. Maybe I'll try again! We've tried the recruiting thing a bit as well. As for staff sponsored plots, that's a thing we do anyways every few months. I think it'll require perseverance more than anything else. Patience is required. :P

 

The hardest part of getting Revaliir off the ground was getting away from the stigma of the site we broke off of. We have to continually assure our members we are not like the ones we split from. We had 100 members day 1 of opening. That should tell you just how large the split was. However, it has been hard because of the stigma. We advertise like crazy but unless the stigma goes away.. what can you do?

 

This is a very cool list and I wholly agree with all of it! I also shamelessly try to pull in some friends from old sites, other games or communities I'm involved in as well. Just having even one or two other people involved to take some of the pressure of can make all the difference. Plus, it can be good to have someone around to find all the little plot holes or typos you've not been able to spot as you're too close to it.

I personally find that one of the hardest aspects of joining a brand new board is not knowing what sort of character will fit in. So I ensure that I get character wanted ads and a handful of canons up as soon as possible. I then post those adverts on sites like RPG-D or Shine. If you can get some characters you can interact with easily in early on it can help get the post rate up quickly.

I know this isn't necessarily about how to draw people in but I really thought Sandman's comment was worth highlighting because it's so true! You see so many new sites shut down after a couple of weeks because it hasn't been immediately flooded with interest and the admin feels it's a failure. It's so sad to see! Hang on in there and give it a bit of time. Everyone has different RL schedules and your players (or prospective players) schedules may not tally with yours.

 

I did an interest check first to see if anyone would be interested in joining my site if I were to make it, and 3 people said yes, so bam there was my first 3 members. Then I made a few different characters to get me over that 5 member hump. It meant I had to RP like crazy and stay active with 3 characters, but it made my site look busier. People won't join an inactive site.

 

Well, my first players weren't mine. I was part of their group and then, as it happens, I had an idea to start a alternate Never Ending Story, with a female Atreyu and more than one Harbinger of the Nothing. Needless to say, when me and my friends came up with our current idea? It wasn't hard to convince them to come along. Recruiting members outside that circle, however, has been difficult as I am finding it difficult to market the concept to the right crowd (having the option for original characters seems daunting, apparently.) But we have a solid 12 members, and of those? Only six where from previous RPs I've done.

 

We are still stuck on 3 distinct active members. I think our style of role playing is too old school for today's role players. Time will tell, :)

 

I'm going to assume you use storybook format rather than the *walks in* that it seems everyone else does? We've had two more members join us since I posted our RP on this site, so I wish everyone the best of luck finding new members.

Then again, we need ONE more player to fill a role and we can officially be alright for the planned story arc ... one role I thought people would be more interested in than the plethora of assassins and rogues we've had to, sadly, turn away. We have far too many of them as it is and we're looking for a balance.

Again, good luck. I'm going to sleep now.

 

Our format is an open storybook type. They normally start with an end-game idea, but how we get there is totally up to all those who participate (every adventure always have side quests), and you would always meet other new adventurers along the way so having new people join in to an ongoing story is relatively easy and does make sense for it to happen. We are new, so hopefully some folks will give it a go, :)

 

Our's is much the same way. A bit slow right now as we're all working and school just started for everyone again. Myself and the other two mods play all the NPCs required should a player find themselves wishing to go somewhere where no one else is.

Wish you all the best finding new people.

 

I've actually had so many core members come from so many different sources through various sites I've run in the past, it's hard to say what all really brings them - but talking about your site to friends, advertising like mad, getting your name out there, all of that kind of thing will bring those members to you. Think of it like looking for the diamonds in the rough. You'll get plenty of new members, guests, and prospective people... but the ones that stay and make your core 5 to 10 are pretty rare, and are gems once you find them!

I once saw it explained as like birds of a feather. You attract all the blue birds if you're blue; all the birds of another color will fly away. All sorts of kinds of birds will come look at your site, but the ones that stay are the true ones that will stick it through til the end!