Today, I enabled a feature rather unusual for a browser game: images and hyperlinks in chat. This includes animated gif files, as well. Images can be shared using a familiar UBB tag:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/LAX6bzn.png[/img]
Here’s an example of an image in the game’s chat:
Sharing an image in general chat
Links can also be shared using their UBB-like counterpart as well:
[url]http://i.imgur.com/LAX6bzn.png[/url]
And here’s an example of the hyperlink in chat. I made these always open in a new tab to save the user some headaches:
Sharing a hyperlink with my fellow heroes in Nevergrind
You can even use the /w command to whisper images or links to another user online! Future updates will allow users to change their “channel” similar to functionality found on old battle.net games.
Administrators even have special privileges to embed YouTube videos inside game chat! This is pretty fun when you want to share a cool video with your fellow adventurers.
Sharing YouTube videos in Nevergrind’s General Chat channel
One of my main concerns is making the combat and chat log bigger so that you can actually see all of the images your friends are sharing in chat. I may have to move the logs below the actual game itself. I’m not sure what I will do yet. Screen space is a precious resource!
A feature such as this is subject to spam and abuse, but, thanks to custom chat commands, I have the proper administrative tools to handle such cases. I may even allow trusted member of the community to use such commands in my stead. Commands like /ban, /suspend, and even /active (to reinstate) are all available to administrators.
I also have no idea if any other game features images and hyperlinks, but I have never heard of such a thing. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong! I’d love to know who else is doing such a thing.
The first character to hit level 99 is a human cleric named Zzion. It has been about 2 1/2 months since Nevergrind publically launched its server accounts. The path to level 99 is littered and strewn with the corpses of countless heroes that have attempted such an unlikely feat. Congratulations!!
Nevergrind, the EverQuest-inspired HTML5 browser RPG, climbed to new heights in June, 2015, with 102,477 pageviews across 13,033 sessions and 5,063 unique users. The previous record, 94,044, was set in April, 2015, when the game was initially launched along with its successful kickstarter campaign.
The monthy’s success was mostly driven by the re-design of the leaderboards and the Nevergrounds. The re-design took SEO and usability considerations in mind. For those reasons, the leaderboard was converted from an SPA to a conventional webpage design, allowing for direct linking to each leaderboard, such as the top 100 hardcore monks.
Predictably, this resulted in much higher pageviews, driving the monthly pages/session up to 7.86. I also observed higher session durations, which climbed above an average of 10 minutes, and higher lower bounce rates. Across all metrics user engagement appears to be on the rise, however the number of unique users and sessions is still well down compared to April, though that should be expected, to some extent, due to the massive marketing effort.
Throughout July I will be focusing on improving the game’s dynamic server features. Real-time chat was recently added, which has been extremely popular so far. I also plan to do several Youtube videos to help promote Nevergrind.
