Newbie Perks: Coded things we can do to keep new players.

[Lizzie]

Sometimes, I want to kick Malifaxis in the nuts. Twice.
Sometimes, I wish we had rep points on this forum.

Today, in this thread, regarding his recent post, it's the latter of the two.

[Talia]

One thing that is really surprising to me, as a new Storyteller, is just how many newbies we do have who manage to get through the account setup and then actually generate characters for themselves through our admittedly cumbersome game interface for character creation (which, the truth is, a lot of veterans don't even navigate very well). For example, I just approved three newbie characters a few minutes ago--players on their first or second character.

We're losing a lot of them somewhere after character approval, in the game experience. I believe they come for the ARM experience and then simply do not find it, so they log out and never come back. And what I mean by ARM experience is involving roleplay.

What if, instead of focusing on what the code does or does not / could or could not do to help newbies, what if we focused on what each of us as players can do to help retain newbies? What can we each do to get newbies involved? Then, let's do those things.

[Thunkkin]

What if, instead of focusing on what the code does or does not / could or could not do to help newbies, what if we focused on what each of us as players can do to help retain newbies? What can we each do to get newbies involved? Then, let's do those things.

Let us start the game as the very lowest of the low level clan members in certain clans.  I remember trying Arm a few times over the years (first time in 1995) and the thing that always made me drift off was going through the misery of sitting in a tavern passing out from trying to contact a leader or coming up with stupid chit-chat trying to find a job.  If there was a way to dump a newbie into a clan instantly ... it could be good.  Or a nightmare.  But there's nothing like having your first Sarge chewing you out before some gith or shield-wall related-disaster to *BAMF* get you addicted.

[Spoon]

To address a single problem:

Arm is harsh, we all love harsh. One of the few rules states that people have every right to be mean. However, newbies stand out like sore thumbs. If people are luring them away to kill them, they are likely losing us potential players. Especially after they just went through the character creation process for the first time, and then got killed by a player pretending to help them. In any other instance, brilliant, but with an obviously new player it's shitty (and they are really, really obvious).

I wouldn't be surprised at all if the staff already kept tabs on this, but if not it would be good to perhaps investigate any first PC deaths by another player within a certain amount of time. Maybe drop them an email to check in, even. And slap the arsehole who killed them a bit, because there isn't really any excuse. Even if you are playing a homicidal maniac you could cut them an OOC break and merely maim and rob them.

[Talia]

Like I mentioned previously, Vanth's research into newbie retention shows that 85% of players who leave the game after a first character leave a living character. Not a dead one. Death and/or PKilling apparently isn't the issue. The issue is that new players don't get into the game.

[Spoon]

True enough, but the fact it does happen kinds of shocks me enough. It's not uncommon for new players to mention how their first character was lead away to find water for example, be killed, and post about it on the boards.

Edit: I did state I was addressing a single problem at the top of my post...

[Malifaxis]

On Armageddon, a lot of folks are closed lipped... because the world is harsh, and everyone's just waiting for a weakness to exploit.  By opening up, it allows exploitation. 

I've gone out of my way to welcome newbies, and I've seen most of those newbies stay... especially the ones I took time to welcome in character, and show around in character.  Taking someone on a walking tour of Allanak only takes maybe thirty or fourty minutes, with some deviation for long questions, and can really, really help someone settle into the feel of armageddon.  It's not that much time to take to help a new player get situated.

If we all made that effort, we'd double our playerbase in a year.  Gay-rohn-teed.

[Talia]

True enough, but the fact it does happen kinds of shocks me enough. It's not uncommon for new players to mention how their first character was lead away to find water for example, be killed, and post about it on the boards.

Edit: I did state I was addressing a single problem at the top of my post...

You're right, you did state that, and you're not wrong...popping obvious newbs is simply bad form and definitely a hindrance of some magnitude to new-player retention.

If we all made that effort, we'd double our playerbase in a year.  Gay-rohn-teed.

My thoughts too.

[Potaje]

 Had a thought, seemed to argumentative so I have removed it.

[HavokBlue]

When I started playing a couple months ago, I apped a character in a newb-unfriendly area, read the docs while I waited for a response, logged in excited, and died in 8 minutes to an NPC/mudlet crash without ever encountering another player.

So I went and re-apped almost the same character in my newbishness, and wandered around doing silly newb things until I ran into a player who seemed to realize I was new. The five minutes he spent pointing things out to me kept my character alive for a decent amount of time, long enough to realize how awesome Arm is.

So yeah, when you see new people, think about what you'd be doing in their situation, and what would remedy it.