As much use as a chocolate dwarf!

I'd love to have a set, but I get so few oportunities to play live thud (my family are so boring) that I'd probably end up just sitting alone in my room eating chocolate trolls - I guess it'd beat sittign alone drinking tho...

Mr Scrub

why not make trolls milk chocolate, dwarfs white and the thudstone(s) dark?

that would be very nice.

veeeerrryyyy nice indeed...

Chocolate? Hmmm, maybe that would finally get the missus interested in playing Thud!

Actually, I think the alcoholic Thud would give me a definite edge, especially if I keep playing dwarfs first...

Or do you drink when someone captures *your* piece?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you the one who's more into dwarfs, instead of Trolls? If you intend to lose a couple more dwarfs than you did before, let me know . I prefer Scotch.

If it will level the playing field...

How about... dwarfs are chocolate and trolls are hard candy? The stone is rock sugar. You know, the kind you get onna stick.

A sugary consumable Thud set would get a lot more attention from my family than the usual kind.

hmm, i think i would like that as well, not really a chocolate fan so hard sweets would be better coz they is gorgeous.

But, seriously, Lee and Dewi, I am thinking that the answer to your problem, which I do hope you find the answer to (because I look forward to having two full-time crack programmers attending to my Thud needs at all times) is not so much new products for the same audience as reaching the built-in Thud audience which we know must be out there.

I mean, when I heard about Thud, even before the book came out, I thought naturally I would want to play that, because why wouldn't you? I mean, if you are a Terry fan. But availability was limited. Over here, there was only a rumor of its existence, sort of like the yeti or the Loch Ness monster. Where to look?

I never thought of looking for online Thud until after I got a physical game. I think the key is to get the word out with some attractive come-ons in the circles where Discworld fans gather, probably mostly online. But there is also the idea of RL promotion. Terry comes through our area every September with his new book. I envision going to the signing this year, where everybody comes early to get good seats and waits with breathless anticipation, and asking who wants to play Thud while we wait.

But this is always the way with technical innovation, isn't it? The genius goes nowhere until you get the slick marketing type involved.

Who out there knows anything about marketing? Anyone?

I've been known to dabble in marketing a time or two. (although it is not my area of expertise) Here are a couple of suggestions.

1) Local - (around where Terry lives) - probably won't be too hard or time consuming. Run up a few brochures and place them in the places that Terry fans hang out - book signings, those that produce discworld merchandise that sort of thing. Don't worry about making it look swanky, just run them up in word and print them off, the website is where all the action is. Your main area of getting new sign-ups will be by word-of-mouth in that region anyways. Go along to any handy conventions or events (that most likley you would have gone to anyways) and play some demonstration games - with an advertisement for the website sitting in the background.

2) Not Local - Harder because you are much further away. Your only effective method will be internet based. Some suggestions - Banners for people to put up on personal pages. Connect people that are in close geographic area/same timezone - this is basework hopefully law of averages says they will know SOMEONE who will want to join. and if you get lots of different timezones happening then....24 hour Thud!!!!!!

2) Conversion - I've noticed a lot of guests that hang out in the forums...are they just players looking to see if the slowfire games are up and running or real guests? If they are real you might want to have a small chat applet happening (be aware I'm not IT proficint so I don't know how hard this will be) within the forums so that the scintillating personalities around here can get them hooked and talk about the game...or squirrels..without them even signing up.

It's the weekend so brain switch off now...and I'm going for another scotch and coke.

WP

I'd use acorns for dwarfs,
LIVE squirrels for trolls,
and an umbrella type squirrel trap for the stone.

Or divide a football pitch into squares and gather enough people to play the game with real humans. (or on a pool table if you prefer to play in the pub, although things might get a bit overcrowded on there).

Getting new players...

Games shops that sell the physical Thud sets mostly have some advertising space somewhere in the shop. Contact the games stores with a poster or some flyers advertising the site to put up in store. I have a small poster up in my shop currently, which is getting some attention on a regular basis. Other shop owners are likely to have something similar.

Making money from online Thud is something I have no idea on how to go about doing, unless you were to start running cash tournaments, and the effort involved in that route on many fronts would probably be prohibitive.

Has anyone managed to code a Thud AI yet? That really seems to be the next goal that would actually be a saleable product.

Couldn't Terry advertise it in the books? Cos that's the main market, right...?

I rather think he might have, inadvertently, let out the secret. The more time I spend around this crowd, the more I'm reminded of the cellar of Pointer & Pickles:

It seems to me that the big trouble now is to let the readers know that there really is a cellar at forum.thudgame.com!

And then you have Vetinari playing Thud with somebody in Uberwald using the clacks in Going Postal.

both those are valid: but it doesn't really tell the reader that this game ACTUALLY exists. a little more advertising i feel is in order.