Town Crier Guide

So you want to give the Town Crier something to say? Well, here's the place to read how! It's not arcane, but there's a bit of explaining to do.

First, lets go over the syntax of adding a Town Crier event. There are a few options:

• link a link to your content. No spaces allowed!
• expiration how many days your ad should last. Defaults to 30. Please be reasonable.
• gift how much gold players can obtain from clicking your ad.
• paid set this to 1 if you're paying via external methods (cash, etc). Omit otherwise.
• views how many views you want your ad to get before it expires
• blast set this to 1 if you want to message everyone in IRC. This does not send a message to their adventure log.

As such, here is a sample command run:

"Check out this really cool thing!" link=http://google.com blast=1 views=1000 gift=100 paid=1

What is a view?

• A view is when the event is put into the players adventure log. Whether or not the player actually clicks through or not, it is counted as a view.
• Using blast counts as allPlayersOnline/6 views. Here are the reasons for that:
  • It is assumed that some players have multiple characters, so we take away some for duplicate characters.
  • It is assumed that few people watch IRC (and there is no way to know for sure), so we take some away.
  • Blasts are not broadcast to WebFE (or any other client) currently, so we discount it by a few more.

What does it look like?

• In any external clients, the display will show simply as the advertisement text. External clients can opt to display links and create interactivity however they want.
• In IRC, if blast is set, players will see this:

>>> TOWN CRIER: [ http://google.com ] Check out this really cool thing!

Best Practices

• Take note that IRC has character limits. Limiting your message to around 150 characters works the best. Your messages are limited to 225 characters max.
• It is recommended to use a URL shortener (preferably one that handles analytics for you) when using links, so as not to take up too much space in your message.
• If you wish for your message to be visible on idle.land, and clickable, you may consider adding the link to your message as well. Please note, it will be duplicated in IRC.

Things to Note

• blast events happen every hour. One event is chosen randomly out of all available events that have blast set.
• I do not yet have my own url shortening service. If this feature is hotly used, I will make my own url shortener, with analytics about your events included. These analytics are things I keep track of already: how many duplicate clicks there were, how many gifts were awarded, the overall reach of your campaign, etc.
• If you are not using paid=1, then your gold will be deducted automatically upon submission, and is not refundable. The gold cost is calculated as viewsDesired*gift. If viewsDesired is <100, it is assumed to be 100. If gift is omitted, for calculation purposes, it will be 100. Otherwise, your gift will cost 100 gold + your original gift per person.
• Your event will be reviewed when it is seen, but feel free to prod a content moderator to look at it.
• Your event is not guaranteed to be seen.
• Your event will not show up in the general event feed (ie, on the frontpage of WebFE. If this is a hotly requested feature, it can be added.
• The system will be revised as feedback comes in. If you like / dislike something, speak up!