Where players found us: Month of April

[Nyr]

Raw data

Total new accounts created:  457
Duplicates (created multiple accounts out of confusion?): 4
Staff:  1
New accounts minus the above:  452



Where people came from
(noteworthy results mentioned)

Topmudsites:  87
Themudconnector:  148
Both (specifically mentioned):  2
Google:  54 (note that these can probably be attributed to either TMS or TMC)
Search/web: 9 (these also can probably be attributed to either TMS or TMC)
Friends/other players/family:  44
Reddit:  14
TvTropes:  3
Lifehacker/lifehacker comment thread: 2
Dune:  3
Your mom:  1
By accident:  1



At this point it is safe to say that this is our best month on record for new accounts.  That is an amazing accomplishment that has occurred (for the most part) due to high voting positions, word of mouth, and your stellar roleplaying performances!  Some credit can also definitely be given to the new website, though how much still remains to be seen.

However, what does that mean?  We're not really seeing 453 new players actually playing the game, are we?  Are the kryl and gith having a feast on dead noobs?  Is that why I can't buy anything anywhere?

Good questions!

Out of that 452, 139 did not create a character and bailed at that point (meaning they answered the Where Survey question and never actually did anything after that--I can't even look up an account because that did not save, for whatever reason...?) That's a good 30% that didn't even hit the application queue.  Given the rejections we've doled out this month, I am not sure whether these potential players would be serious potential players.

Of the remaining 313, 109 also did not create a character, but managed to get far enough to actually have their account listed in the system.  I'm not sure at which point this occurs. They did enough somehow to have their account data searchable, but there is no character listed.  They have not created a character, they have not been rejected, they have not been accepted--they just haven't tried to create a character yet.

Of the remaining 204, 63 were rejected and never reapplied.  For the most part, these are not marginal rejections.  Applications for hairy dwarves, superheroes, demons, etc.  Applications that have demonstrated no real desire to understand the game.  Applications that consist of descriptions that mention no physical attributes whatsoever and instead are a list of emotive responses, clothing, armor (including metal), and mystery.  This is the kind of stuff that gets rejected for the most part.

Of the remaining 141, 31 were accepted, but did not log in.  Their apps were fine but they just haven't done anything with them yet.  We can probably do something about this and remind these players that they are accepted and can play.

Of the remaining 110, 1 is stuck in revising.  Uh oh.  That really shouldn't happen and usually means the account or character is bugged somehow and needs to be wiped out.  We can fix this.

That leaves us with 4 that are applying presently, so I will discount those and go with the 105 that actually logged any time at all into the game.  This is approximately 23% of the "new accounts."  This 105 is an important figure; it is about four to five times the amount we had in January when Calavera looked at that data. 



Actual player retention figures are difficult to process.  We can figure out who played a lot this month out of those that started this month, sure, but are they going to stick around?  That is something we have to revisit each month.  I'm going to delve into the remaining 105 after this post, but I'll go ahead and provide a brief runthrough of our best method (which won't be proven out until the end of next month--explanation to follow).  The fastest, easiest way for us to figure out how many people "stick" from a given month is to filter our Where Survey for people that logged in from a certain month, then filter their last logins by "most recent."  To explain that a different way, we want to see who started in March (or February, or Janaury, or whatever) of a given year, then see if they are still playing at all at any point in the last month.  THAT is the best determination of retention, and while it may be a soberingly low number, consider that these people are STILL PLAYING TODAY even after starting for the first time months or even years ago.  Note also that these are pretty strict requirements.  If you go out more than a month, you see about double or triple the players.

I started at 2010 for no real reason, but I can and will eventually pull this data just for comparison's sake.

Excluding new staff accounts

2010

January:  1
February:  1
March:  2
April:  3
May:  7
June:  5
July:  3
August:  1
September:  1
October:  2
November:  4
December:  4

2010 Total:  34

2011

January:  2
February:  2
March:  0
April:  5
May:  1
June:  5
July:  2
August:  2
September:  1
October:  3
November:  3
December:  1

2011 Total:  27

2012

January:  4
February:  3
March:  5
April:  7
May:  2
June:  2
July:  1
August:  3
September:  2
October:  1
November:  6
December:  4

2012 Total:  40

2013

2013 statistics will be skewed by the database loss we had in March.  I am not including April's statistics quite yet based on these metrics (will do that in May).


Once we get a few of our tools fixed with regards to Where Survey Data, we can more accurately depict playtimes for the month for the rest of the new players that actually got into the game and played this month.

[AreteX]

This is all really awesome to read and interesting to see how the numbers match up and the retention rate.

I wonder if the your mom guy/girl is still playing... Yolo the dorf!

I have tried to recruit friends and whatnot into the game and it never seems to work out.  They get to the website and get overwhelmed because there really is a sense of dedication required to play Armageddon.  That dedication required pales in comparison to the reward you get from playing the game and it only takes one character to hook you.

I keep trying though, and keep voting.

[Desertman]

Nyr, well done, well done.

[Flincher]

This is interesting. It is extremely hard for a new player to make their first app without any in-game knowledge or experience with RPI mudding. When I first was making my character I had 7 years or so of RPI experience and I was still someone daunted to read pages and pages of lore to get a sense of how to properly fit into the game world.

I think a good solution would to have newbie character sheets that are essentially a basic character already designed with a back-round, ole and the proper skills to do that role. Plus a little explanation of how the character fits into their current setting. The only thing you have to leave up to the newbie is the name and personality of their character along with the description if they don't want something cookie-cutter.

The choices for what you can do in arm is what makes it great..but its overwhelming to learn what city you want to be in, what race fits you, what personality works and what guilds to pick for your skills so you can do what you want.

[Barsook]

Thanks Nyr, that's what I wanted to see.  

Like what AreteX said, I have tried to recruit my friends into playing (I was recruited by a friend but they quit a long time ago).  Is there something that, we the players, can do that can help to increase that number?

I think a good solution would to have newbie character sheets that are essentially a basic character already designed with a back-round, ole and the proper skills to do that role. Plus a little explanation of how the character fits into their current setting. The only thing you have to leave up to the newbie is the name and personality of their character along with the description if they don't want something cookie-cutter.

The choices for what you can do in arm is what makes it great..but its overwhelming to learn what city you want to be in, what race fits you, what personality works and what guilds to pick for your skills so you can do what you want.

I agree there, it's overwhelming for a new player.  One suggestion that I want to add is from what the staff said about "first two PC's must be human", should help also.

ETA: What did I say there?   I was thinking of coded during the chargen for newbies.  But would my idea still work with the first t two PC's must be human and some other limit, perhaps zero karma.

[Nyr]

Like what AreteX said, I have tried to recruit my friends into playing (I was recruited by a friend but they quit a long time ago).  Is there something that, we the players, can do that can help to increase that number?

Increase which number?

[Barsook]

Player retention figures.

[Nyr]

Player retention figures.

Which numbers, though?  I'm not sure what you mean and I'd want to be sure I am addressing the right question first.

[Desertman]

I always find that writing their first character for them based off of what they "think they want", goes a long way in getting them to play/keeping them around.

[Marauder Moe]

Maybe we should put one of the random character generators that players have coded up in the newbie doc areas.  IIRC, some of them were pretty damned good.  Tell them it's OK to modify this character or apply with it as-is.

[Nyr]

I always find that writing their first character for them based off of what they "think they want", goes a long way in getting them to play/keeping them around.

This is true--to a point--and we do this (also to a point).

Maybe we should put one of the random character generators that players have coded up in the newbie doc areas.  IIRC, some of them were pretty damned good.  Tell them it's OK to modify this character or apply with it as-is.

Right now in the intro area, there is a link to the generator that Amandagreathouse created (in the applicable spot--for the main description).

[Marauder Moe]

I love it when you guys beat me to a good idea.   

[Barsook]

Player retention figures.

Which numbers, though?  I'm not sure what you mean and I'd want to be sure I am addressing the right question first.

The first three, but it's more for the helpers.  Maybe have a newbie channel in the Chargen but only for the first PC created on that account.

ETA: You think a topic about why we, the players, have stuck around for whatever amount of time can help to solve some of the problems if we talk about what almost turned us off of the game?

[Nyr]

Okay, so I'll lump two of those categories together to get 54% of our new accounts.  248 people didn't even make characters.  These are people that got far enough to answer the Where Survey but not far enough to actually create a character (as in they didn't even create a PC with the name "screw off" and the sdesc "just trying the game out" and the background "wtf"--they didn't submit anything, they just gave up for whatever reason).

Potential option (that still requires code, which we do not have in place):  allow a randomly generated character concept for new players for their first character.  Since it is a randomly generated system, we assume that the apps it generates do not necessarily need oversight.

Pros:  more people might create characters.
Cons:

• The potential for malicious abuse.  I don't mean crappy playing, I mean playing intended to wreak havoc on the existing structure of the game.  We can (potentially) restrict this across IPs, but there is only so much one can do to prevent abuse at that level if we have an automated system.  If you can't imagine how this can be abused, we admire your innocence. 
• The potential for roleplay standards to dip substantially.  Now I do mean crappy playing.  There's no oversight here for these prospective players--we have no way to tell if they actually know what they are doing.  That's how we know to reject apps if they are in queue.  We rejected 63 people outright this month that didn't meet our standards.  That means they had the wherewithal to get this far into the application process and yet still didn't grasp the gameworld.

Okay, so in our hypothetical world where this code exists, we can slightly curb the concerns from above by giving new accounts the option for the first few PCs to create automatically generated PCs.  They would have to select it if they wanted to do that.  If they do so, it submits the app to the queue where it is flagged (maybe it even goes into a different queue).  This wouldn't deal with much, but it would be a start, perhaps.  We'd still face potential for problems beyond what we have now (newbies that try vs newbies that don't try).  It's probably true that there are some players in the first "category" that don't create accounts because they don't have the time to devote to it right now.  Maybe they feel it is a burdensome process to meet our requirements for characters--and on the fly, it probably is.  It does take a little bit of time to figure out how you want your character to look and where they are from, even if you're creating a generic description and background.  However, the way that the player writes that is one way we determine whether they are cut out for the game.

Next you mentioned the category of players that were rejected.  I am not sure how to not reject them.  Someone that is submitting an app for the Prince of Darkness, Lucifer, probably isn't going to adhere to the roleplay requirements of the game, and I am not terribly interested in trying to convert them into a player.  More often than not, it's someone that has not attempted to write a short description, main description, or background--it'd be debatable as to whether they'd even read the documentation for the game at all, even any of the quickstart stuff.

However, they did get far enough to try.  Maybe if they have a joke app or a crappy application, we can create a character for them (of course, usually the name is also inappropriate, and we currently cannot change that without the player doing it or without a coder doing it in-game).  Since we're going all hypothetical anyway, let's say we could change names, too.  We could create this for them and flag the account for monitoring when it entered the game.  We still get back to the problem of a lack of oversight (there's usually staff around, but sometimes there might not be someone watching) and the breaking of immersion/lack of proper roleplay and the increased potential for abuse.

I would personally be more interested in nabbing the people that are accepted but never play (we worked with what they had and approved them, or they were fine as-is).  I would also like to get the people that are accepted but get somehow turned off by the game (or bored with it) and find out what they didn't like or why it didn't work out for them.

In either case, it would appear we have a larger pool of people that are coming into the game and actually attempting it, and from that, we can hopefully identify a larger pool of players that stuck with the game (we will notice this at the end of next month).  That was the idea behind the voting drive and the focus on drawing players towards the game.



As for a topic about what almost turned off players about the game--sure, that might help!

[Fredd]

This is interesting. It is extremely hard for a new player to make their first app without any in-game knowledge or experience with RPI mudding. When I first was making my character I had 7 years or so of RPI experience and I was still someone daunted to read pages and pages of lore to get a sense of how to properly fit into the game world.

I think a good solution would to have newbie character sheets that are essentially a basic character already designed with a back-round, ole and the proper skills to do that role. Plus a little explanation of how the character fits into their current setting. The only thing you have to leave up to the newbie is the name and personality of their character along with the description if they don't want something cookie-cutter.

The choices for what you can do in arm is what makes it great..but its overwhelming to learn what city you want to be in, what race fits you, what personality works and what guilds to pick for your skills so you can do what you want.

I swear to krath we used to have a ton of sample pc's listed. Any chance the staff will put them back up? (I know we used to have some, because I submitted 2)

[Delirium]

What about writing up a bunch of sample PCs for prospective players to grab inspiration from? We can link to that page right in chargen. I'm sure the playerbase would be happy to contribute - as would I.

Sorry if this has already been suggested, I'm so tired my eyes are crossing and that's a mighty big wall of text up there.

[Barsook]

Okay, so I'll lump two of those categories together to get 54% of our new accounts.  248 people didn't even make characters.  These are people that got far enough to answer the Where Survey but not far enough to actually create a character (as in they didn't even create a PC with the name "screw off" and the sdesc "just trying the game out" and the background "wtf"--they didn't submit anything, they just gave up for whatever reason).

Potential option (that still requires code, which we do not have in place):  allow a randomly generated character concept for new players for their first character.  Since it is a randomly generated system, we assume that the apps it generates do not necessarily need oversight.

Pros:  more people might create characters.
Cons:

• The potential for malicious abuse.  I don't mean crappy playing, I mean playing intended to wreak havoc on the existing structure of the game.  We can (potentially) restrict this across IPs, but there is only so much one can do to prevent abuse at that level if we have an automated system.  If you can't imagine how this can be abused, we admire your innocence. 
• The potential for roleplay standards to dip substantially.  Now I do mean crappy playing.  There's no oversight here for these prospective players--we have no way to tell if they actually know what they are doing.  That's how we know to reject apps if they are in queue.  We rejected 63 people outright this month that didn't meet our standards.  That means they had the wherewithal to get this far into the application process and yet still didn't grasp the gameworld.

Okay, so in our hypothetical world where this code exists, we can slightly curb the concerns from above by giving new accounts the option for the first few PCs to create automatically generated PCs.  They would have to select it if they wanted to do that.  If they do so, it submits the app to the queue where it is flagged (maybe it even goes into a different queue).  This wouldn't deal with much, but it would be a start, perhaps.  We'd still face potential for problems beyond what we have now (newbies that try vs newbies that don't try).  It's probably true that there are some players in the first "category" that don't create accounts because they don't have the time to devote to it right now.  Maybe they feel it is a burdensome process to meet our requirements for characters--and on the fly, it probably is.  It does take a little bit of time to figure out how you want your character to look and where they are from, even if you're creating a generic description and background.  However, the way that the player writes that is one way we determine whether they are cut out for the game.

Maybe you and the other staff can have the review command on for them until they get their first karma point.  And maybe you guys can send some feedback via e-mail when needed because newbies wouldn't have a concept of the PC report just off the bat.

Next you mentioned the category of players that were rejected.  I am not sure how to not reject them.  Someone that is submitting an app for the Prince of Darkness, Lucifer, probably isn't going to adhere to the roleplay requirements of the game, and I am not terribly interested in trying to convert them into a player.  More often than not, it's someone that has not attempted to write a short description, main description, or background--it'd be debatable as to whether they'd even read the documentation for the game at all, even any of the quickstart stuff.

However, they did get far enough to try.  Maybe if they have a joke app or a crappy application, we can create a character for them (of course, usually the name is also inappropriate, and we currently cannot change that without the player doing it or without a coder doing it in-game).  Since we're going all hypothetical anyway, let's say we could change names, too.  We could create this for them and flag the account for monitoring when it entered the game.  We still get back to the problem of a lack of oversight (there's usually staff around, but sometimes there might not be someone watching) and the breaking of immersion/lack of proper roleplay and the increased potential for abuse.

I like that idea about flagging them and watching them like for the other newbies but more carefully.

I would personally be more interested in nabbing the people that are accepted but never play (we worked with what they had and approved them, or they were fine as-is).  I would also like to get the people that are accepted but get somehow turned off by the game (or bored with it) and find out what they didn't like or why it didn't work out for them.

Maybe an e-mail reminding them and asking them why they left to see if they will respond?

[Barsook]

What about writing up a bunch of sample PCs for prospective players to grab inspiration from? We can link to that page right in chargen. I'm sure the playerbase would be happy to contribute - as would I

+1, but I think it's on the old site still and isn't moved to the new yet.

[Morgenes]

It's been there since we launched:

http://www.armageddon.org/intro/sampledescs.php

And

http://www.armageddon.org/intro/samplebgs.php

[Fredd]

It's been there since we launched:

http://www.armageddon.org/intro/sampledescs.php

And

http://www.armageddon.org/intro/samplebgs.php

Yay! You used one of mine!

[Delirium]

awesome.

suggestion: pics over on the right instead of the left.

[Barsook]

The background page looks too messy and busy to my eye, maybe make it like the first page?

[Nyr]

Maybe you and the other staff can have the review command on for them until they get their first karma point.  And maybe you guys can send some feedback via e-mail when needed because newbies wouldn't have a concept of the PC report just off the bat.

I like that idea about flagging them and watching them like for the other newbies but more carefully.

This is a good idea--in theory.  It may be completely horrible in practice and only last a week until we "turn it off."  All I can say is that anything like this I'd only support if it were done provisionally as a pilot program with the ability to "turn it off."  Flooding the game with a bunch of players that may not understand what they are doing is not something we should approach lightly, and it may not be something we want to approach at all.  We do want to work on player retention, but this isn't player retention--it is player outreach to an entirely new category of player.

Could we try it?  Perhaps.  The impact on staff workload is not something to be discounted, either.  We have other things that we work on that do need our attention (responding to plots, developing them, acting on in-game stuff, fixing other things, etc.).

Maybe an e-mail reminding them and asking them why they left to see if they will respond?

Yes, that seems feasible and not very time-intensive, though we'd first need a way to identify them without digging through 450 new accounts each month (which honestly isn't that feasible and is very time-intensive).

[Barsook]

I see.  What category of player are you taking about?  Would using the helpers to review the newbies that are in the area of the helper work or would that annoy the helper?

[Scarecrow]

I think automated chargen would be a bad idea. Only for two reasons:

1) Trolling. It would be easy for someone looking to make trouble to make an account, app in an auto-gen, then run around acting like a douche with no concern for the setting, RP or how immersion breaking it could be. There are people who are that douchey who would do it. The need to write a description, bio, sdesc and all that keeps the trolls away, because it's all too much work for a troll.

2) Cardboard newbies. In Atonement RPI, there was an auto chargen feature. It allowed you to select certain features (body-size, height, scars, deformities) which would then be put together, along with an mdesc, to create a quickly made character. It tended to be a blaring signal that these PC's were underthought, brainless zombies that for the overwhelming majority, did act this way. They rarely emoted, had little interest in others, and just used their time to skillzor and grind skills. It also made everyone genuinely interested in the MUD, avoid these "cardboard zombies" like the plague, because they knew the quality of RP they'd get from them, which was none to very little.

Just my thoughts and experiences.

[Nyr]

I believe when you pointed out the "first three numbers," you were pointing out the following (correct me if I am wrong):

Out of that 452, 139 did not create a character and bailed at that point (meaning they answered the Where Survey question and never actually did anything after that--I can't even look up an account because that did not save, for whatever reason...?) That's a good 30% that didn't even hit the application queue.  Given the rejections we've doled out this month, I am not sure whether these potential players would be serious potential players.

So they aren't players, they are potential players.  The reason they have no account info has been explained by Morgenes. We occasionally do maintenance to clear out completely empty accounts that do not create a character (in this case, we have their records but no account anymore).

Of the remaining 313, 109 also did not create a character, but managed to get far enough to actually have their account listed in the system.  I'm not sure at which point this occurs. They did enough somehow to have their account data searchable, but there is no character listed.  They have not created a character, they have not been rejected, they have not been accepted--they just haven't tried to create a character yet.

These also aren't players, they are potential players.  They have not attempted to create a character.

Of the remaining 204, 63 were rejected and never reapplied.  For the most part, these are not marginal rejections.  Applications for hairy dwarves, superheroes, demons, etc.  Applications that have demonstrated no real desire to understand the game.  Applications that consist of descriptions that mention no physical attributes whatsoever and instead are a list of emotive responses, clothing, armor (including metal), and mystery.  This is the kind of stuff that gets rejected for the most part.

These also aren't players, but at least they have attempted to create a character.

The first two categories are 54% of the new accounts we had last month.  I was saying that technically, player retention would be targeting the people that actually got into the game but didn't stick (rather than people that never got into the game for any number of reasons).  It may be tempting to try and go after that whopping big number (and again, not saying we shouldn't, we should just go after it very carefully), but focusing on what we can improve for the players that DO get into the game might offer more rewards and also a higher caliber of player.

Identifying where/when/why these other players stopped playing is a good start.  That goes back to my original post:

Once we get a few of our tools fixed with regards to Where Survey Data, we can more accurately depict playtimes for the month for the rest of the new players that actually got into the game and played this month.

Right now, we'll have to do grunt work:  manually reviewing the 105+ people that got into the game to see who actually stuck around long enough to be an "active" player.  That isn't a measure of true retention (mentioned in first post), but it's a start for some data.  We can figure out what sets these players apart in the first place and what they did that got them to play (and play multiple characters, even).  Then we'll separate these players from the rest, the ones that just gave up after being in-game.  We can look over runlogs to see what they did, how far they got, etc.

[Barsook]

I see.  And yeah, data is just data now until you do something with it that gives meaning.