I reflect a bit on my recollection of being a new player, indeed I have blogged about it a bit. \u00a0The goal of this recollection is to try to keep myself open to the experience that new players are having with Realms so that I can try to keep useful ideas floating to the surface for new player attraction and retention.<\/p>\n
I think it’s important to separate them because getting people in the door means nothing if we can’t keep them and keeping 100% of a very low attraction does little to help the overall situation. \u00a0Of course both attraction and retention are two-fold, attracting new players versus re-enticing older players and retaining new players versus retaining the existing player base.<\/p>\n
Attraction is a matter of advertising I think. \u00a0Traditionally I’ve felt the best method of advertising is word of mouth. \u00a0If your friend plays and helps you get up to speed then you’re likely to give it a go. \u00a0This is how I was recruited into the Realms of Despair by Daltorak so many years ago. \u00a0For this to be effective as a primary strategy there needs to be a critical mass of players and at present I believe we are probably below that threshold but it’s still a very good way of introducing new players. \u00a0Are you involved in role playing website? \u00a0Are there people there who might enjoy Realms RP? \u00a0Perhaps you have some friends who are big fans of retro gaming, does their interest extend into text based games?<\/p>\n
We certainly need to get the word out among the people who are already interested in muds as well, that is why voting on The Mud Connector<\/a> and Top Mud Sites<\/a>\u00a0is so very important. \u00a0We’ve languished around 25th for some time and recently we’ve beaten our way back into the top 20, but that’s not good enough. \u00a0I think that we’ll need to keep pushing for the top 10 before this will become a good source of new players, but again every little bit helps.<\/p>\n There has been a great deal of posting happening on the Facebook Realms of Despair group. \u00a0I think this is lighting a bit of a fire under some old players to come back in and check things out again. \u00a0An important question is why did they leave originally? \u00a0I think that topic could fill a few blog posts, but I do think it’s important that we listen to them. \u00a0Not everything can be addressed but perhaps things that didn’t make sense 5 or 8 years ago would make sense now.<\/p>\n So what about retention? \u00a0It used to be that the first stopping place of a true new player would be a guild. \u00a0I always thought that leaving them on their own until level 15 or even 20 was a little tough. \u00a0It’s the first little while when you need the most help. \u00a0Of course when channels were active and there were lots of NC online that helped to balance things quite a lot. \u00a0I am hopeful that the new guild builds will give a good home to new players again. \u00a0I also hope that the entry level is set somewhere to maximize the feeling of belonging and help.<\/p>\n New players are quite welcome in Arete but it is certainly not the order’s goal to replace guilds as a first stop for new players. \u00a0Not only do guilds offer a place that is more specialized towards learning a particular class but in principle there would be more people of similar level who you can join in leveling. \u00a0Nonetheless I think a sense of community and home for new players is important in helping with retention. \u00a0Everyone who answers questions or even says hello on channels is helping that sense of community.<\/p>\n I’ve seen a great deal of comments about “don’t level too fast” or “enjoy the adventure” but the fact is that when you don’t have an avatar, your goal is to get an avatar. \u00a0Your whole climb up the ladder is about entering the land of yellow spam and never having to eat, drink or sleep again. *eg* \u00a0I agree that there are a lot of interesting areas out for lower level players but I don’t think they get visited unless there’s a reason to go there. \u00a0If a new player is told there’s a piece of equipment that will help their leveling they’ll go there. \u00a0Unfortunately like Diablo, by the time you can get the equipment sometimes you no longer need it. \u00a0Still everyone’s going to do things differently. \u00a0The introduction of lowbie quests have been fairly well done I think there’s room to keep growing along these lines.<\/p>\n What about avatar engagement? \u00a0The classic problem. \u00a0There is no end game for Realms… the goals are what you set for yourself. \u00a0In an age of many players online, you have your choice of runs to attend to help you dress an army of characters. \u00a0This is something every player, new and old, can contribute to improving. \u00a0It is frustrating trying to get a critical mass of players together to go topple the next mob. \u00a0A system that scales mobs attacks and defenses by the number of characters in a room or an area could help this. \u00a0Any mob that is a tank switcher would need hardly any modification to it’s attack style and any mob that locks onto a single tank while the hitters beat it to death is probably due for an upgrade anyway. \u00a0So now a single player could reasonably go fight a wider range of mobiles. \u00a0It shouldn’t be easy. \u00a0You should be able to be insane and go one on one with Danbala and have a shot to win. \u00a0It shouldn’t be easy. \u00a0It should be a bit easier with multiple people to encourage the social aspect. \u00a0Hey can’t we just take multi checks off things and get to the same place? \u00a0Maybe. \u00a0Multi checks do help restrain some of the really over the top behavior that we’ve seen over the years and by keeping things solo we still support the idea that a new player has an equal shot at things. \u00a0Yes, better equipment will help a veteran, but that’s the privilege that you earn for playing. \u00a0The Falcon’s Quest is something I think is extremely well done, it gives something that is genuinely worthwhile to your character. \u00a0More things like this would help.<\/p>\n Fully automated quest system? \u00a0No… I think that’s overreaching, the quest council does a good job being creative. \u00a0Let’s untie their hands and give them a little more ability to give out cool prizes. \u00a0Glory is helpful but unique quest prizes are very nice too.<\/p>\n One of the biggest comments I’ve heard is that our areas are static and that stifles the ability of players to feel like they’re interacting with the game. \u00a0This is true and valid, from my point of view. \u00a0There is little interaction between areas because of the structure of objects and area files. \u00a0You have to be trusted to a certain level before you can figure out the numbers to use to make areas interact with one another and you create couplings that can break if one area changes out of lock step with the other. \u00a0With modern source control these text files can easily be tracked and dependencies maintained.<\/p>\n I say more interactivity and some source code help in allowing minor edits to an area. \u00a0When working on the Guild of Spirit I realized how stupid it is that the garden will be lush and green even when Realms tells me it’s snowing. \u00a0I would have to write another room with the winter description and a program to silently trans everything and everyone in the room to the winter room and then open and close passages so the exits would still work. \u00a0It’s quite doable. \u00a0I may even try to put some of this sort of thing into an area. \u00a0Who would want to do this for more than a few rooms however? \u00a0I think a high level of interactivity with some sort of overarching story within Realms can help.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Oh well, this is getting long in the tooth. \u00a0I’d love to hear from anyone reading this with your ideas on how we can make Realms better.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"