Alright, so for everyone who doesn't know me yet, I'm JoG. I have plenty of academy experience, and there are a few things that have made me leave academies in the past. Based off of those experiences, I will give you'll some tips that can possibly help in maintaining/creating a captive audience since the basic functions are/have been developed.
1 - You have to advertise. No way around this. You need to tell friends, etc. Only logical way to increase the users.
2 - You need to create something that is unique. Most academies are the same. There are the dorms, dueling shenanigans, wars, etc; but you need something that brings entertainment that other academies don't have. (Doing this will help you with number 1 above, as friends will tell their friends because it's a great experience)
3 - The community needs to be engaged. This will create the active audience. After you start and maintain this, users will come by themselves without the need for you to advertise. The word will spread, and that's how the mechanism works. Now how do you do this? Events ofc, or something that users are interested in, that can be completed with minimal factors needed to do it. Most academies do wars and all of that, usually something that keeps academies engaged are more unique events. That's for the staff to think about.
These are all of my views on how to create a good academy in a nutshell. I've seen way too many academies become inactive and boring. Part of the status of academies lies on the staff, and how well they can keep the place going. This was a revamp of this academy, don't let it slip now, or there won't be a third time. Thanks for reading.
- JoG