enzi666
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 161
Registered: 01-05-2004
IP: Logged

Stay with me for a second on this thought train. I'm writing a Steam review and wanted to check the factions that exist, some duckduckgo/google searches later I come to the realization that most of the information I want is hidden in the forum that's just not indexed very well (or at all?).
In internet years I'm a old nerd and going to forums is like an instinct I learned. People these days don't do that and rather type in search engines "drod wiki" come out empty handed and give up. Sadly forums got very niche over the years and with it a lot of information. I tested duckduckgo/google and came to the conclusion that the forum isn't indexed at all.

The thing is, I find that inaccessibility is the most detriment factor in a games reach to an audience.

For most great info of this game, caravel already has the data. For example, you can export a comment section to every room picture and provide an easy to search website on your own servers. Right now it's buried in search and you really have to know where to look. Again, also not indexed in any way.

I also think that having the game lore in an accessible form is great to find new players or get them interested.

Overall the principle of spoilers in trailers apply. If you give out small appetizers someone will like it and want more. The comments section alone for rooms could be so much fun to read or learn or once someone realizes that the story in this game is epic in scope. I believe most underestimate it completely because it doesn't look like much.

I'd help out but I think the caravel web departure is more than capable to do this in-house, also easier with data integration.

P.S.: I'm aware that over the years a lot of ZOMG I HAVE IDEA to make DROD more successful cropped up but how we overlooked SEO for so long is a mystery to me in retrospect.
What's really cruel as a long time fan it that it showed up on Steam on the worst possible time period. 50 games a day currently?

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58th Skywatcher

DROD AE: Finished - KDD2: Mastered
JTRH: Mastered
TCB: Mastered - RPG: Finished
GatEB: Mastered - TSS: Mastered

Jacob
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3746
Registered: 10-01-2004
IP: Logged

I may have missed the point but there are tons of articles on DROD lore, monsters, the Empire, etc on the caravelgames website itself rather than the forum. http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewsitepage.php?id=90294


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New to DROD? You may want to read this.
My Holds and Levels:

enzi666
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 161
Registered: 01-05-2004
IP: Logged

Most of the things I thought of are filled in the unofficial wiki after looking more carefully. The overview page isn't great so you have to dig deeper for something like characters.

Guess what I'm missing in the wiki is, factions and details of overarching story in a digestible manner.
Pearls would be the perfect man for that I guess.

The stories on the website are great but based on your knowledge about the world they are quite hard to read and they don't cover the games stories.

And the other thing is to make the "Search for room" feature in the forum and on the website more obvious/user friendly instead of integrating the same data into the wiki.

It goes against the spoiler principle that is taken serious here but maybe it's for the best to take a different approach.

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58th Skywatcher

DROD AE: Finished - KDD2: Mastered
JTRH: Mastered
TCB: Mastered - RPG: Finished
GatEB: Mastered - TSS: Mastered