Bringing old players back

[The Beggar]

Mort nailed it -

For me, Career + Family take precedence. If I've got extra time to waste, I'll log in if I want, and that can be chancy at best.

[Wild Card]

Hello, Wildcard!
We've noticed that you've not been active on Sundren Forums for quite some time now, and we miss you!

Could we not tempt you back?

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EFU should do something like this which sends out emails sporadicly to player's who haven't posted in some time. If anything it would remind them of the community and perhaps make them want to poke their head in again.

[trick_or_treat]

It's not like the good ole days when one could skip classes for a whole week and spend 14 hours / day playing, no.

Adolescence is stupid sometimes.

[putrid_plum]

Kids, work, life, girlfriends/wives, amoung many other things.  Youth is great for playing but being a grown up gives far less time to play games.  I try and get on as much as possible but I do enjoy living in the real world in my older age!

[Ebok]

Lurk lurk.

This is a game that requires a lot of time commitment in order to be enjoyable. As people grow older, their responsabilities toward society increase and their commitment to this community goes down accordingly.

Unfortunately, bringing back the old crowd of the 'good old days' isn't possible nor will everything be as you remembered it.

This. I still want to play, but life--well, it comes first. Honestly I never should have been playing as much as I was. >_>

Hey lookit, I'm back.

[Nuclear Catastrophe]

Bringing the old DM's back would be even better, but it's even MORE time intensive for those chaps, and if you can't committ to something 100% as a DM, then it's better sometimes to not committ at all, as otherwise you leave so many loose ends and confused people wandering around...

I want to play but I know if I get sucked in it will take away time that I really REALLY need to spend on certain other areas of my life :)

[Somniis]

Bringing back players and DMs who will immerse is very cool imo... Inviting new and used players and DMs who will immerse IG is cool too.
 
Just be aware that when people disappear from the forums and game (for months and years at a time)... don't take any of it personally. Life has many challenges, attractions, needs, desires... things to do... and not do.... Not all of it needs to be talked about... This is the strangest life I've ever had. EfU has always been a good life to have as well.

I've made time now, so I'm back... Keep rolling EfUians.

The Apocalypse is always happening. Always was :D

See you IG...

[River Walker]

What Mort and Howland said. Myself, I haven't been around in a few weeks because my workload at my job just increased threefold, and it takes a certain amount of mental energy to properly role-play that I just don't have right now.

EfU is best enjoyed when you can afford to give it your undivided attention, and I'd rather stop playing for a while than play half-assed.

[MirrorMask]

All I can say is my next account name will be "WillAFKrandomly4Newborn"

Fact.

[Eighties Burnout]

Yeah what mort said. i have a child getting ready to drive this year and going to university soon, damn am i that old?. Efu has never been anything short of awesome, and was a great alternative to my splintered pnp group i had a long time ago. maybe one day i will have time to get back into it, but finding time is really hard these days not that i ever contributed much anyway. Not to take anything away from all the many years of hard work from the d.m. staff cause they are certainly awesome, but damn i miss the underdark. I know it is nolstagia more than anything else but i liked the grittyness of it. i see alot of preludes going on i might jump on the band wagon. keep on rocking efu and d.m. Tom is nothing short of a genius.

[Wild Card]

With the number of preludes being run by DMs recently aimed at new players I would like to suggest a mass email go out to all of those who have registered a forum account inviting them to check out EFU. With Gamespy's support no longer it is important that servers tap into their existing base as opposed to looking to recruit new players. I know of two servers which have done the same as I would advise this server to do so as well.

[LastTyrant]

^ Very much agree with this! It certainly would not hurt nothin

[Joe Desu]

I have recently returned after a year away. Still trying to figure out who is who and what is where. Completely lost.

[Letsplayforfun]

It's very hard to come back even after 1 month, as a pc left unplayed is just outdated, and "outressourced" compared to regular players. I mean, if you can only hop on for 1h or 2 each week, it's hard getting involved in anything, and death of a pc is a much higher toll in terms of XP.

For DMs who can't commit 100% it's even harder as players expect them to know everything that they're asking help about.

Maybe finding ideas to keep non regular/ non hardcore players in the loop would help a bit.

[River Walker]

I know this might not be the most popular idea, but has anyone considered advertising? Both Facebook and reddit.com have some pretty well-targeted ad options that are reportedly quite effective. A couple of hundred dollars could possibly bring in dozens of new players.

Beyond that, expanding out into social media beyond the forums couldn't possibly hurt. What if we started an EfU subreddit? The forum screenshots threads are what originally convinced me to play here. If we were posing interesting screenshots where other people could see them it might entice people to ask, WTF is EfU?