[Divunal-devel] Help!

[Michael Dartt]

[Advance warning: this is pretty long, but it's important; please bear
with me.]

I need everyone's help.  Quickly.

Some of you may have noticed the press release for 1.1.0 on the site.  I
didn't think of doing the PR until very close to the "release date" and
didn't have enough time to do some market research, so that document
never got sent out.  I'd like to do an actual media blitz soon, though,
probably for the next release and/or with an official announcement of
the TME Demo Center.  (You've *got* to check that area out--m4D propz to
Dave.)  Ideally, I'd like to be able to have some PR for any and all of
the significant changes, updates, etc. to TR and the other TME stuff.

Why spend time on this?  Because no one's going to know how awesome TR
and Divunal are unless we tell them.  Since we actually have a solid,
functional product, it's a good time to start making some noise.  Not
only could this help us snag more developers and authors, but it'll also
prime people for the eventual release of Divunal.  These are both Good
Things(TM).  And believe it or not, we can probably make it into some
more mainstream sites and perhaps some offline publications.

Now to address that subject line: I need your help.  In the grand
capitalist tradition of the division of labor, I'm basically handling
the PR stuff for TME, allowing other people to continue focusing on,
say, making a game....Still, I can't do it alone.  Ideally, those who
receive the press releases will use the contact info to try to find out
more (which is often the precursor to getting some good exposure).  I'd
like to be prepared to answer people's questions so I can bother other
folks as little as possible and help keep TME looking legit.

To that end, I'd like to hear what people think about TR and (to a
lesser extent at the moment) Divunal, especially those of you who have
worked on similar projects, programmed and/or authored for other MU*s,
and/or played a lot of games (esp. those in the Zork/Myst genre and MU*
stuff).  

Some questions off the top of my head:
* What got you interested in TR/Divunal?  What keeps you working on it?
* Are there any features TR/Divunal has that other MU*s don't, or that
are implemented in a better way?  (Esp. compared to the major ones like
Diku, ROM, LambdaMOO, etc.)
* How does your experience using the TR API/engine/server/client compare
to other games/systems you've programmed?  How does the software compare
technically?
* Do you think that text is a viable environment for a rich gaming
experience?  (Interperet "rich" how you will, though I'm thinking more
along the lines of "immersive" than "similar to Croesus".)
* What do you think of the way TME's projects are progressing and the
process involved?  How does it compare to other projects you've worked
on?
* What weaknesses/problems (of design, implementation, process, etc.) do
you see in TME's projects, if any?  Do you think these are being
effetively addressed?  What suggestions do you have for improvement?
* How involved are you in TME's projects?  If the answer is along the
lines of "not much", is there anything that TME could (seriously) do to
change that?

	Please feel free to add anything else you think is pertinent.
(Posting the topic to the list would be cool, too.  :-) )  While I'm
particularly interested in hearing from those with development and/or
play experience in other systems, I'd love to hear from everyone.  I'm
well aware that these questions could (I hope!) engender some rather
lengthly responses, and I'm fine with getting the answers separately if
that works better for you.  I also recognize that some of these
questions are more project management-oriented than PR, but it'd be
handy to have answers to them, too; e.g. if everyone's all psyched, that
could be worked into PR somewhere, or if there are problems, we can move
to fix them.  (And perhaps get an announcement or two out of that. :-) )
Don't hesitate to email me directly if you feel uncomfortable addressing
the list; I won't rat on you if you're critical--I will bring problems
to the attention of Glyph and Dave, but I won't mention names.

	Okay.  That's all for now, folks.  Sorry about the length, but I
needed to get this out.  Thanks in advance for your help!  :-)



--Mike/Jedin