Café de Nuit

Dear members of the Fraternity,

Our FoS website has been opened for a little more than six years now. We are extremely pleased with the results, but we are perplexed to find many D&D web sites have more members than us: EnWord, WotC’s, of course but even Broody’s.

Last December, when reviewing our marketing plan, we gave Nathan the mandate to find out why these sites have more traffic. So Nathan interviewed 4,000 people online from those well known D&D websites and we were very surprised of the results. The survey was done in February and the margin of error of this survey is 0,5%.

Our surveys and market research have told us many D&D fans avoid the FoS site because they find it too much oriented toward horror (71%) and more than half say it frightens them (56%). Of course, we want to get as many fans as possible to the FoS site so we had to make a bold move.

As many as 36 % of those avoiding the site do it simply because they are frightened by the avatars.

So we have a changed the set of avatars to smoother ones, and we will soon launch in April a new look for the FoS site, with a look more closer to good old family values and away from blood, fools, skulls and bones.

If you are still being offended by the old scary avatars, try refreshing the page in your browser. We apologize for those whose avatar haven't yet got the new version yet.

Even the Quoth the Raven netbook’s name will change to “Good Old Summer Fun with Funky Dice”

Hope you appreciate the new FoS site marketing orientation, and please react here with your comments, we are curious to hear them. However, please do not spoil it for the others elsewhere, by revealing it all too soon.

Joël, for the FoS

I must say this project has been nearly as much work as Mistipedia, but I don't mind since it's surely much more useful and important to the future of the site.

More Addams family values, definitely.

Although I really do think that all the members of the FoS should have been involved and have interviewd a total of north of 100,000 people. Equally, care really should have been taken to do this in multiple languages, targetting people of diverse ethnic, religious and gender backgrounds, not to mention those temporarily enabled, those temporarily re-enabled, and those plain and simply dead. One can't be too sure about these things.

It was, indeed, a LOT of work. Just a few days ago I was sure it wouldn't get done before April (fool that I was for volunteering for the job) but I think it will be very positive in terms of getting fresh blood to the site.

Er, I mean, get new members. Sorry! Old habits die hard.

Just to give you guys the full breakdown:

I had 3,987 people respond to at least part of our questionnaire (note that percentages will not match exactly because many questionnaires were only partially filled). All respondents were instructed to visit the site, if they hadn't already done so, and give their impressions.

As Joel said, 71% found the site too oriented to horror and gothic themes, whereas only 9% thought it was appropriately oriented. (Interestingly, almost as many...6%...thought it was insufficiently horror-oriented.) The remaining 14% were undecided.

Of the 85% percent who thought there was "too much horror" or were undecided, almost two thirds (56% of the total respondents) reported a negative experience in viewing the forums. The largest reason given for this was "scary avatars" (36%), followed by "scary posts", (25%), "scary moderators" (15%) and "bad encounters with Drusilla" (12%).

There is not much we can do about the moderators, and nothing we can do about Drusilla, but we figured we could at least start with the most pressing issues and work from there.

We do hope that you, as a fan community, can help us by not posting on horror or Gothic topics, as this appears to be a main source of unease for our visitors. Min/maxing 4e characters tests out to be a positive topic, so perhaps we could start a few threads on that?

Also, it would help if anyone could direct us to some nice pastel skins for the board, since they are especially appropriate at this time of year.

In honor of the occasion, I've scoured the internet for enterprising new artists for the new look. I think this new rendition of Strahd will do a good deal to bring new fans into the setting!



Look for my new column on Ravenloft Bunnies and Burrows in the next Quoth the Raven!

I bet 65% said they could hack this old version of phpBB, mweheheheh!

Oh hey, you guys have an icon of my pop idol now. Hurray!

As one of the newer members of the board I have to say that I am quite upset with this sudden change. I came to these boards specifically to get a fix for my horror jones, and now it will become just like every other RPG board out there. Heck there was already a fuzzy bunny picture!

While I am tempted to delete my account in protest, I am deciding instead to become the most irritating flamer on this board. No longer will I be polite when I disagree with someone, I will instead call them names, threaten physical violence and if necessary hack their accounts. I will also post hundred of pointless comments, thousands of off topic threads, and imbed inappropriate imagery as often as humanly possible. I will continue this rebellion until the FOS relents and not only returns the boards back to the way they ought to be, but also sends every member of the board a box of Jelly donuts.

You have been fairly warned!

So how come none of the moderators avatars have changed?

Hey!!! I want to see my new avatar!!!

(just posting because of that... also, I think it's a great idea so we can have a change every once in a while )

Ail wrote:Hey!!! I want to see my new avatar!!!

(just posting because of that... also, I think it's a great idea so we can have a change every once in a while )

Awww It didn't change...

I mean, I had to edit it myself.

Cool April's Fool thingy. For days I was wondering what it would be.

I'm enjoying my new avatar, Thanks all!

As mentioned by Joel, the old avatars (vile imagery that they are) will cling tenaciously to your browser cache (and retinas). If you're not seeing the new ones, or only some of them, try refreshing the page, or blinking furiously.

I love this day, and mainly just for what this site does