Secret Code?, In-Game Announcements Options

[Remus]

This thread was created for furres to discuss the new digo market advertisements that have been emitted all across Furcadia. Please try and keep the discussion light hearted and free of flaming and arguing, as the intention of this thread was originally to decipher a potential "secret code" and was made for the fun of it.

Here is a statement by Felorin regarding the announcements:

(Short summary - compare free Furcadia to the amount of advertising you get in free television, free radio, free web pages, non-free magazines and newspapers and comics, etc. We have far less than almost anyone, 1 short text ad per 2 hours. Long winded version follows below:)



Actually there's 12 a day, one ever 2 hours. I considered one every hour, but we're dealing with a community that's been used to ten years of very few ads, so I thought it was safer to start at once every 2 hours because I knew some people would complain. However something has been in the past, people tend to feel there's an obligation for someone to let them keep having it, just like that.

Furcadia, though, is a free gift to most of the people that play it. Only a small minority buy things from us. Which is fine, we decided to do it that way. If we decide to change what kind of "gift" we give the gaming public next year, as compared to last year, I think we're entitled to do so. And sometimes it's more a matter of need than anything else. Furcadia's been losing money for the last two years, and I'm just about out of inheritance money to make up the difference. If my parents hadn't passed away when they did I don't know how we'd have kept the game going. We hope that the next update will add enough cool new stuff to buy that we'll be profitable again, like we were in 2003-2004, only for good this time. But we have to get through the months ahead while we try to finish it.

If putting more advertising in helps us make enough money to keep the game going - I think it's not a "problem" that it's there, for everyone who's enjoying a free game to play. It's a "benefit" in that if we didn't do it, you might not be able to keep enjoying this free game in the years ahead. We also try to do things to keep the ads from being a problem for people. For instance, we put the text "[advertisement]" at the beginning of each ad, rather than at the end. If it were at the end, more people might read it first and we might sell a few more wings. Which I'd like to do. But if it's at the beginning, you can type "ignore [=] [advertisement]" and filter all of those out while still letting yourself see other system announcements, in case you want to know about server restarts or oher important stuff we might say. We're putting your interests ahead of our own there - we like to do that when we can afford to.

We also are keeping all of our ads related ONLY to stuff that's about Furcadia itself. Moving forward we want to provide places for players to advertise things like cool dreams they've made, artists who do portrait commissions, etc. on things like a special channel you can tune in only if you want to hear that stuff. Also possibly letting them buy ad links on our Forums, etc. (We hope providing a better outlet for this will keep people from spamming Allegria Island with bots, too.) All their advertising will be about interesting stuff in the game itself too, so your Furcadia experience isn't interrupted by unrelated subjects like ads for insurance, lawnmowers, furniture, etc. Which is what you'll get in most other media. I also tried to throw in a few interesting links to fun pages in some of our ads, so people could have a little fun clicking on them. Sorry if you don't like elephant jokes. But who doesn't like pirate treasures?

Honestly, I don't think you can really call it "flooding the market" with ads at a few seconds advertising per 2 hours of entertainment. Look at television, where one hour of free TV will often show you as much as 15 to 20 minutes of ads! Even if you pay a monthly fee to get HBO, they fill a little of the time between movies with ads for other movies & shows they have on. Radio has a lot of advertising, free websites have them present non-stop, even things you pay for like a movie in a movie theatre, a magazine, etc. have a lot more ads than we do. If anything I think we're a little stupid for not advertising enough to keep our income up to keep the company going, and to pay for more people to add improvements to the game at a faster pace (sorry we're so slow at that, we're trying to just work harder for now).

Anyway if you don't like the ads, they're very easy to filter out with the ignore command. If you don't - they're very infrequent and short, comparatively. And hey, if you've had a lot of free fun on Furcadia the last few years, and you want to help keep it around... Think about getting a portrait space or wings or something. Most of the people that buy those seem to feel they've gotten their money's worth in fun out of them - we almost never hear from anyone who wishes they hadn't bought 'em after they get something. (Oh no, did I just advertise again? Whoops!)

[Amya]

I've been wondering the same thing.

[Vibe]

Probably just typos and someone didn't look over it before posting it. Because by the looks there is only two of them. So you're good.

[Amya]

Hmm, typos for every single annoucement that's been sent out? I thought it was typos at first as well.. but it seemed too consistant almost.

[Remus]

Probably just typos and someone didn't look over it before posting it. Because by the looks there is only two of them. So you're good.

There's been a bunch, but this is the only one I saved.

[Fawkiia]

Its some sort of subliminal advertising according to what my friend said earlier.

[Remus]

Thanks Cutefangs! Now all someone has to do is interpret the capitalized letters.

[Remus]

New one:

[=] [advertisement] Do you dream of finding <a href=http://www.treasureexpeditions.com/Tales-of-Treasure.htm>treasure</a> and <a href=http://arbyte.us/images/treasure_chest_gold.jpg>gold</a>? Our <a href=http://sales.infire.com/sales/furcadia/cart.php4?cmd=list&topic=5>Golden Days of Summer Sale</a> has Golden DragonScales galore, two treasure cHests to find, and plenty mOrE! Only until the end of August, so don't delay! (#7) {oae}

[Shinichi Kudo]

RAWR

[Caz Ru Zult]

You all know too much.





A truck is coming by for you shortly.

[Spikes Littlepaw]

I sure wish they would update the system so they wouldn't post every couple of hours. It is becoming really annoying. Either that or make a change to the program so that you can shut off that channel like you can with the Fel and Talz channels if you want.



I just don't feel like typing in "ignore [#]" everytime I log on. Besides, if I do that, I end up missing important items like notifications of open houses and such.



Something needs to be done soon before the peasants revolt. hahaha

[Tree]

they annoy me so much

[Tree]

.

[Ahezhara]

shh#SA

[Narag]

Either "THERESMORETOCOMESOGETMESOMECASH" or "FREE CRUCIFIED" depending on the numerical base used to decode it.

[Farrier]

You may ignore "[#] [advertisement]", I believe.

[Tarket]

Ohh, the DiVinca Code...

[Xxysthstris]

Cntrl+F FTW.

[Remus]

[=] [advertisement] <a href=http://sales.infire.com/sales/furcadia/cart.php4?cmd=list&topic=5>M'rill's Treasure Chest!</a> is our hotteSt deal of the summer! Through August 31st only, you get Triwings, a Dragon, Batwings, SilVer Sponsorship, three colors of Roses, Portrait Spaces, and ten Golden DragonScales, for over 50% off! ThaT's right, you pay less than half the normal price, <a href=http://sales.infire.com/sales/furcadia/cart.php4?cmd=list&topic=5>check it out!</a> (#2) {fir}

[Kyudo]

Isn't it interesting how none of the DEP staff also hasn't posted on this topic and said anything about it..?