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Welcome to my guide. Having made a moderately-popular obstacle course and an insanely popular laser game, I'm going to put together all my ideas for getting place visits. I'm using experience and a little bit of marketing and psychology to come up with this. =)
1. The first and foremost thing is the place. The place you make should be almost if not completely original. A place similar to another means that the place is easy to copy, and even if you get first page for a while, similar places are out there, and people like coming to things they've never seen before. Your place idea should not just get people to visit, but for them to stay for a while.
Work hard on your place. Make it yours. That doesn't necessarily mean it needs amazing scenery and decoration at all. Just have all the hints, instructions, and scripting you need for it to run exactly as you want. Get scripting help if you want, there are plenty of people that are willing to help you, and like seeing their scripts used successfully.
Test the place. Test it, and then test it some more, and then even go test it online before you completely open it. Everything must run smoothly and as intended, or people will think you didn't work hard enough on it. If there's an insignificant hole over there, you may as will fill it. Make sure everything regens, see to it that nothing can get stuck or broken, and if you can't fix them, have the thing regen. Make sure everything can run smoothly with a full server and for a long period of time.
2. Marketing
THE NAME OF YOUR PLACE IS CRUCIAL. Your goal is to get people to notice your game, think 'Wow, that's interesting.' and click on it. If it's something revolutionary, say it in the title! Be descriptive and eye catchy, adjectives are good. It's the name and the picture you display that make people decide to visit your place as opposed to that 'Get married and have kids' game that's hogging the most popular place. A good description is very useful as well, but your objective is to get people to notice your place. I've hardly clicked a place without intention of playing it, regardless the description. (Unless it ends up blank or with just awful spelling) Smart people can usually tell if a place is good just by its display. The huge majority of braindead players here are different. We'll get to them, though.
3. Popularity
This is a big one. The fact is, you can make a great place and have people really enjoy it, but you aren't going to ride it to any big tickets unless you can give it a good player base. The goal here is to get players into the server. Just publishing the place and hoping people will go won't do. Get a few friends together, have 3-5 people in the place. Some people scroll the back pages for a place to visit, and if your place is catchy (see marketing) then you've hooked another player, and another, and even more as you get higher in the games pages until you're on the first page. The first page is where all the braindead bandwagon-eers look to play. More people = More Bandwagoners = More people. If the place is good enough to make people want to stay for a long time, first page will rack up visits enough for the place to manage itself.
Note that it's much easier to take over the first page at night hours, many less people to compete with.
4. Change
A place makes it big, but to KEEP people coming, update! Fix things wrong, listen to people's suggestions, keep the game fresh. Once you've played a game and had fun, you won't feel as inclined to visit the very same game again if you see it. BUT, if you see that same game with 'This place! Major weapon update!' or 'New obstacle!' you'll of course want to check it out, because you already know the game is good, so you'll want to go check it out, even if it's not that big an update.
5. Socialize
This isn't really a big one, but it's helped me, actually. When I was pulling my course out of the darkness of being unnoticed, I went into one of the few servers I had and chatted with the people. By talking to them, I was usually able to keep the people in the game for a LONG time. Not only that, but I met some really nice people and got some great ideas. And, of course, if a person knows you personnaly, and they see your place on the games page, they'll visit just to help out.
Well, that's all I can think of. Spend time on the place, be original, market, and change. Hope it helps. Feel free to post if these strategies have helped you, or you think they will. Open to ideas, of course. =P
1. The first and foremost thing is the place. The place you make should be almost if not completely original. A place similar to another means that the place is easy to copy, and even if you get first page for a while, similar places are out there, and people like coming to things they've never seen before. Your place idea should not just get people to visit, but for them to stay for a while.
Work hard on your place. Make it yours. That doesn't necessarily mean it needs amazing scenery and decoration at all. Just have all the hints, instructions, and scripting you need for it to run exactly as you want. Get scripting help if you want, there are plenty of people that are willing to help you, and like seeing their scripts used successfully.
Test the place. Test it, and then test it some more, and then even go test it online before you completely open it. Everything must run smoothly and as intended, or people will think you didn't work hard enough on it. If there's an insignificant hole over there, you may as will fill it. Make sure everything regens, see to it that nothing can get stuck or broken, and if you can't fix them, have the thing regen. Make sure everything can run smoothly with a full server and for a long period of time.
2. Marketing
THE NAME OF YOUR PLACE IS CRUCIAL. Your goal is to get people to notice your game, think 'Wow, that's interesting.' and click on it. If it's something revolutionary, say it in the title! Be descriptive and eye catchy, adjectives are good. It's the name and the picture you display that make people decide to visit your place as opposed to that 'Get married and have kids' game that's hogging the most popular place. A good description is very useful as well, but your objective is to get people to notice your place. I've hardly clicked a place without intention of playing it, regardless the description. (Unless it ends up blank or with just awful spelling) Smart people can usually tell if a place is good just by its display. The huge majority of braindead players here are different. We'll get to them, though.
3. Popularity
This is a big one. The fact is, you can make a great place and have people really enjoy it, but you aren't going to ride it to any big tickets unless you can give it a good player base. The goal here is to get players into the server. Just publishing the place and hoping people will go won't do. Get a few friends together, have 3-5 people in the place. Some people scroll the back pages for a place to visit, and if your place is catchy (see marketing) then you've hooked another player, and another, and even more as you get higher in the games pages until you're on the first page. The first page is where all the braindead bandwagon-eers look to play. More people = More Bandwagoners = More people. If the place is good enough to make people want to stay for a long time, first page will rack up visits enough for the place to manage itself.
Note that it's much easier to take over the first page at night hours, many less people to compete with.
4. Change
A place makes it big, but to KEEP people coming, update! Fix things wrong, listen to people's suggestions, keep the game fresh. Once you've played a game and had fun, you won't feel as inclined to visit the very same game again if you see it. BUT, if you see that same game with 'This place! Major weapon update!' or 'New obstacle!' you'll of course want to check it out, because you already know the game is good, so you'll want to go check it out, even if it's not that big an update.
5. Socialize
This isn't really a big one, but it's helped me, actually. When I was pulling my course out of the darkness of being unnoticed, I went into one of the few servers I had and chatted with the people. By talking to them, I was usually able to keep the people in the game for a LONG time. Not only that, but I met some really nice people and got some great ideas. And, of course, if a person knows you personnaly, and they see your place on the games page, they'll visit just to help out.
Well, that's all I can think of. Spend time on the place, be original, market, and change. Hope it helps. Feel free to post if these strategies have helped you, or you think they will. Open to ideas, of course. =P