Where Players Found Us: Month of June

[Nyr]

Congratulations on another successful month!  The following info will be updated after the end of day, but let's take some time to see what we have already so that we can get ready for next month's voting!

2012 survey results
May post
April post
March post


Raw data

Total new accounts created:  467
Duplicates (created multiple accounts out of confusion?) or staff: 3
New accounts minus the above: 464



Where people came from
(noteworthy results mentioned)

Topmudsites:  55
Themudconnector: 162
Both (specifically mentioned):  1
Google:  49 (note that these can probably be attributed to either TMS or TMC)
Search/web:  19 (these also can probably be attributed to either TMS or TMC)
Friends/other players/family/co-workers:  43
--one of these friends started playing because their Armageddon friend recommended this because of their Nethack addiction
Reddit:  3
Web articles:  2
Random forums:  12
--some overlap from TMS and TMC forums here
Russian website that I can't interpret:  7
TVtropes:  2

Miscellaneous funnier or "odd" ones:
my penis told me
drunk and Google searching



Summary

We're still fairly high (only about a dozen or two under last month's numbers).  This is partly due to the new website (as mentioned last month) and partly due to YOU GUYS.  You rock!  SRSLY.

As mentioned last month, another interesting metric to point out is our new accounts numbers for the year.  This post details how we did in 2012 (and this one goes over account stats for the past 4 years).  To recap that below:

2009 -- 1481
2010 -- 1865
2011 -- 1325
2012 -- 1631

2013 data for new accounts (compiled from various sources):
January (83), February (123), March (235), April (457), May (491), June (464)
2013 total (so far) -- 1853

So far we've beaten every month except 2010...and we have half a year to go!



Out of that 464, 82 actually created a character and logged time in the game.  I can get more numbers on rejections and the like after we do maintenance and wipe out accounts from the past month that did not actually create characters.



Player Retention

Last month, I mentioned that the best way to determine real player retention would be to see who did the following:

started playing in x month
is still playing THIS month

To recap, our stats from 2010, 2011, and 2012:

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

I also mentioned that this year would be skewed due to the database issue we had which would've wiped records from 1/23 to 3/28.  Even with that, here's what we have for 2013.

2013

January: 2 (missing 8 days of that month's data)
February:  0 (missing all of that month's data)
March:  1 (missing 27 days of that month's data)
April:  9
May:  6

2013 Total so far:  18

That's pretty awesome.  We are set to increase our retention rate over previous years by a significant percentage!  I won't do all of the math right now as it's still half a year off.  I also probably need to go back and periodically update the previous year numbers.  That is probably something we can do once per quarter or twice per year.  I'll update that later then.



This Month's Players


5-6 hours of playtime or less:  65
--Ok, good.  We can find out what is turning off the players that have spent that much time in the game.  A few minutes?  They probably didn't intend to do more than look around.  A few hours?  Something must have occurred, no?  Or something didn't occur.

6+ hours of playtime:  17
--Ok, good.  From this, we can find out who got turned off AFTER putting in a significant time investment, but before being hooked.  Perfect.  So who's hooked this month--at least, so far?

Of the remaining 17 players, I narrowed down who was still logging in as recently as 5 days ago (technically I'm starting from the 25th forward).  That gets us 10 players.  Awesome stuff!

If you're a new player from this month and you're in the categories mentioned above, feel free to chime in here or elsewhere on the forums if you haven't already!  We'd love to hear from you.  What almost turned you off to the game?  What has hooked you?

[Gixustradt]

Newbie! And, funnily enough, the guy who told the Nethacker about the game!

I can't even believe I didn't find this game sooner. Cannot. I've been on Mudconnector a lot, played MUDs for years, and I almost missed this amazing game, it's too crazy.

It's the dedication. The forums! I like the friggen' forums! That never happens!

The permadeath, the mystery skills, the hierarchies and just...everything.

Everyone I've played with, even the bastards, has been wonderful, and I can't wait to keep going.

[Feco]

Newbie! And, funnily enough, the guy who told the Nethacker about the game!

I can't even believe I didn't find this game sooner. Cannot. I've been on Mudconnector a lot, played MUDs for years, and I almost missed this amazing game, it's too crazy.

It's the dedication. The forums! I like the friggen' forums! That never happens!

The permadeath, the mystery skills, the hierarchies and just...everything.

Everyone I've played with, even the bastards, has been wonderful, and I can't wait to keep going.

The bastards are the best.  My proudest Arm moment was when I was told that being a total bastard made a new player a potential permanent player.

Send Kudos using the request tool to anyone you may think have helped you really get into the game!  They'll appreciate it, and it might encourage them to send some as well!

[phantasmicPyromaniac]

Newbie speaking here!

What almost turned me off to the game (I love how that's automatically assumed) was the confusion of waking up in a bar, and the unavailability of a map.

Being a cocky bastard and not taking the game seriously, I had started my first PC as an Assassin Thug, took my bone knife, and ran flailing into the Grey Forest.  Bumped into a kryl, ran away, and got finished off by a cilops.

"This is too hard, I don't want to play anymore."

Only on a whim did I try again with a warrior [the rest of this has been redacted to protect your newb boots from being ganked prematurely!  -Nyr]

[Ktavialt]

^^ Gonna have to edit out some of that, current or recent character stuff goes bye-bye and gotta be vague, if at all (generally an at least 1 year rule, and depending on the subject it could be longer).  Nice though.  Go newbies.

[Harmless]

Feco, your suggestion to send kudos is a kindly one, but don't worry, we really don't need a kudos to be bastards.

[Potaje]

Feco, your suggestion to send kudos is a kindly one, but don't worry, we really don't need a kudos to be bastards.

The Drov you say, even bastards need love.

[Maso]

Feco, your suggestion to send kudos is a kindly one, but don't worry, we really don't need a kudos to be bastards.

The Drov you say, even bastards need love.

[KankWhisperer]

How much Karma does his penis' account have?

[Alkendor]

Not sure if I'm on here or on the July one... I used to play here like... two or three years ago. (Weird to see characters I used to know still walking around.)

I keep trying to remember why I left last time... I think it was a double combination of the girl my pc was in love with went another way and a feeling that I wasn't involved in anything big. I was talking to a helper the other day and they told me... they had a similiar issue and it was because they were playing too conservatively. So I've decided to risk a little more this time. Go out exploring new places I've never been instead of wandering the same 20 league stretch of grasslands. It's been an exciting adventure.