In the beginning no one downloaded MTG Forge because no one knew about it, so I began my publicity campaign (which I think of as advertising). The first public thing I did was to begin this blog. Starting out was difficult and I was only getting 2 or 3 views a day which was abysmal. I even thought about closing it down. After I really understood what people wanted, just Magic and computer programming, I was able to focus and write articles that people enjoyed. I limited myself to only posting twice a week (for my sanity) and keeping the articles relatively short, 150-300 words.
The obvious first place to advertise is on Magic forums. So I posted some stuff on StarCityGames.com and was banned because I "advertised" too much. Now I understood that I need to advertise but in a gentle fashion, "Oh have you heard about this program that lets you play against the computer?" Another good place to advertise is the Wikipedia article on Magic: The Gathering. One day I casually added a paragraph about MTG Forge and I still get about 1/3 of my hits from Wikipedia.
Recently I advertised on cubedrafting.com. MTG Forge isn't really a cube but I posted about it anyways and 256 people read my post. (A cube is a special collection of cards that is specifically designed for drafting.)
Currently my blog gets around 150 views a day while is absolutely phenomenal but I still advertise a little in order to increase the number of people that know (and love) MTG Forge. :^)
p.s.
StarCityGames.com did forgive me and they let me write an article about MTG Forge and recently Abe Sargent also wrote about MTG Forge (thanks for the advertising).
Thanks for the tips! Didn't think about wikipedia..
ReplyDeleteI'm here because of the original SCG article.
ReplyDeleteI also wouldn't have thought about the wikipedia method.
I've posted a couple times on MTG Salvation in our official thread.
It's actually in "Magic: the Gathering video games" on wikipedia.
ReplyDeleteOne had a comment about programming MTG on russian site http://habrahabr.ru/, and now I and my friends are playing MTG Forge.
ReplyDeleteBut where is manaburn?! Is't it one of main features of MTG itself?
And, yeah, great work, man :)
Oh, and the most funny bag: one can use computer's card by right-clicking on it =)
ReplyDeletethe first isn't a bug, actually, the new rules have mana burn cancelled. we're not up to date with combat, that has changed drastically, too
ReplyDeleteyeah, left mouse button works too, btw. it probably gets fixed somewhen...
Yes, hopefully. It probably isn't that hard to fix, but will require a lot of work.
ReplyDeleteWe'll fix it someday, for now just play fair and don't click on the opponent's perms :)
Isn't that something easily fixable in Input_Main? Like "if (card's controller isn't human) return;" ?
ReplyDeleteGreat comments, thanks.
ReplyDelete"Isn't that something easily fixable in Input_Main? Like "if (card's controller isn't human) return;" ? "
ReplyDeleteDoh, yes you're right!
I made a one-line update in InputUtil.java which seems to fix it alright.
I was thinking of a way more tedious solution, and updating canPlay().
Gee, I was hoping Slightlymagic may have had SOMETHING to do with your publicity.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I put slightlymagic in a wikipedia article about Duels of the Planeswalkers when I opened the manalink forum, and that has helped a lot. It helped us you climb the google search rankings, and it helps people find us.
You have to put links to your blog/site as many places as possible, because you climb google by people clicking on them.
Damn straight. SEO 101 :)
ReplyDeleteThe slightly magic forums have been VERY useful, thanks.
ReplyDelete