Palace Premiere

The Palace Premiere After weeks and months of toil, you are finally ready to unveil your finest creation. You may decide to run your palace on a small and very private scale, or bite the bullet and use a 24/7 public server.

Things to take into consideration while you are deciding what to use:

• how much you are prepared to spend
• how many people you expect to visit your palace
• level of IT knowledge

What Server should I use?

There are many ways to run a palace.

Off your computer
This is the way all palaces start out. The palace is online while the owner is logged on. The address of the palace is basically the ip address of the computer from which it is running. As such, everytime the computer reconnects to the internet, the address changes. This is appropriate for small, private 'friends only' palaces.

Dynamic DNS ip Server
This is similar to the above except your address does not change. For a small fee, you can obtain a permanent address at http://www.dyndns.com/. DynDNS utilizes a small program which tracks your computer IP number everytime you connect to the internet and redirects people when they use your permanent address..

A private server
Some people are lucky enough to have their own servers or know someone who runs a server. This usually means you have to do a lot of the telnet chores yourself - like regular restarting of your palace, log switching etc.

Commercial servers
Commercial servers host your palace for a fee. They usually provide techinical support and routine palace maintenence (i.e.: all the telnet stuff). This is a list of all the servers I know. Use it as a starting point to shop around for the best deal.

Promoting your Palace

Advertising is an important part of bringing your palace to the world. Simply put, if nobody knows about your palace, no one will come. How actively you promote your palace depends on your aspirations and ambitions for your part of the palace kingdom.

Advertising strategies include:

• Getting listed in directories
• Holding your own events and being involved in interpalace events
• Linking for life
• Word of mouth
• Web sites

Sign up with directories

As I said before, directories don't visibly boost your visitor attendance. However, it does enable people to find you if they have heard of you. When you first join a directory, your palace gets placed in the 'new palace' section which increases the odds of being found by chance. Once you are off that list, and on a really long list which spans a few pages (especially if you are not on page number 1) the chances of finding you by browsing gets even lower.

Some directories have newsgroups attached. Make sure you join these newsgroups as they are a rich source of news and announcements about special events. Some newsgroups allow you to advertise about events in your palace. You can also use the Palacetools or Palaceplanet site to advertise your events.

• Available Directories:
  • The Palace Planet Directory - affiliated newsgroup Palace Planet Group

Holding your own events or joining interpalace tour events

Events refer to anything from a party to a month long themed special tour. They should be designed to attract attention so that a lot of people are pulled to your palace to view the event with the hopes that some of those people will stay. Interpalace events in particular are important for new, small, low population palaces. You will find out about these from newsgroups and by word of mouth. It is well worth the effort and most tours do not demand more than 2 rooms to showcase anyway.

Take advantage of special holidays, celebrations and birthdays. Any excuse to have a party! Parties are a good opportunity to bring people together. A mix of clever scripts (for e.g: music jukeboxes or drinks ordering scripts) to set the mood, activities and charming social wizards is essential. Publicise well and publicise a few days or weeks before hand, repeating and reminding people at reasonable intervals.

LINK FOR LIFE
What does this mean?

 

Well, as the palace server was made available to more and more people at no cost, the palace population began to spread out and become less concentrated in central palaces. While Communities.com still existed, the live directory and palace portal formed important links between palaces. There was also the promise of new users.

With the dissolution of Communities.com, the palaces that relied solely on the live directory were threatened with sudden and abrupt isolation in the vast datasphere. And the exodus of jaded users and lack of new users meant inevitable demise for the community.

Hence it is infinitely important as a palace owner, to form strong interpalace relationships for your palace survival.

As an owner of your own palace, you can become dangerously isolated, becoming immersed in building, scripting and gatesitting. Don't forget the reason why you came on palace in the first place - to meet people and make new friends.

When you visit other places, you get to see what other people are doing, perhaps find out about a interpalace event you didn't know about, discover clever ideas that people are willing to share and even compare your own work if you wish.

People are more amenable to linking to people they know and sometimes, knowing a friend of a friend helps as well.

Direct linking is the best way to boost visitor attendance. Make a link room and get as many reciprocated links as you can.

Join smaller palacerings especially those grouped by genre. This makes you easier to find especially if you have a targeted audience. On the Palace Planet site you find a list of available palacerings.

Word of Mouth

Never underestimate the gift of the gab. Nothing is more effective or more instantaneous than saying, "Hey, come see my palace!" If you are lucky to attract a crowd of regulars, they will do the same for your palace by just telling their friends.

A word of caution, over-promotion is just as detrimental as underpromotion. If the effect of your entry is "Oh no here he/she comes again..." you know that you are overdoing things a little. 'Slimey-vibes' can be sensed even through chat so beware if you are sucking up just for the sake of getting links. Friendship is always a good starting point. Everything else will follow.

Websites

All palaces should have a website. This can be as simple or as elaborate as you wish. The website should have at least the owner's contact information and an list of events held at your palace (if you are really organised). If you have Instant Palace set up, your website should link to that too. Having a website increases your overall links in the greater scheme of things especially if you get listed in a search engine. Iby has written a great tutorial on websites in the Palace Planet community Portal.

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