You don't seem to get it and you are negotiating with yourself, that's a big scary thought. Why would you make a stupid statement like "No one joining Heroes who has not played conquer before would have any interest in it" I never played conquer before, as many others on the forum who invested but we are all playing heroes. What makes us so different?
Why do you think you know what everyone in the world would or would not play?
Seems a bit egotistical to me.
The #1 market for projects like this is those who are nostalgic for the original game. We've proven time and time again that whenever we try advertising to wider groups (gamers from other communities or who have not played conquer before) it simply results in a huge headache for our support staff who are there to discuss account issues, bug reports and other such issues, not teach people how to play the game. That's not going into the abysmally low conversion rate of such advertisements. I think after over a decade of being involved in CO development, saying I have an idea of the type of people who plays these projects has been earned.
As someone who works as application developers and customer support i really agree with you. In developing a product it is better to target what you know best and target to convert player into a regular player. You have a decade of experience in this market and in order to make a good start, this decission is a sound one.
The critism that you are egoistic is baseless and just want to make jewels popular but not its usage. Concentrate on what make jewels valuable and not make jewels just in name. Look at dogecoin, it ride on hype and stay as so. No real serius usage.