Where players found us: July

[Nyr]

Well, where did they find us from?  

2012 survey results
June post
May post
April post
March post


Raw data

Total new accounts created:  408
Duplicates (created multiple accounts out of confusion?)f: 2
New accounts minus the above: 406



Where people came from
(noteworthy results mentioned)

Topmudsites:  75
Themudconnector:  133
Google:  55 (note that these can probably be attributed to either TMS or TMC)
Search/web:  20 (these also can probably be attributed to either TMS or TMC)
Friends/other players/family/co-workers:  34
Reddit:  7
Web articles:  1
Random forums:  7
--some overlap from TMS and TMC forums here
TVtropes:  2 (still!)

Miscellaneous funnier or "odd" ones:
the dark alley in Chinatown
Achaea (2 players)
yahoo (apparently it is still a search engine)


Summary

A little copypasta below from last month's post:

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), July (406)
2013 total (so far) -- 2259

We've broken the record for most new accounts for any given year, and the year's not over!  Woo!



Out of that 406, 83 actually created a character and logged time in the game.



Player Retention

More copypasta.

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
June:  8

2013 Total so far:  26

I'm being a bit conservative with the above June numbers because there are a handful of players that had a lot of playtime in July, originally from June, but didn't play at the end of the month.

We're still on a path to increase retention and total playerbase size by a sizable percentage over last year.  If we assume even just 6 players stick per month from now on, we'll end up with retention of about 60 players this year, 50% higher than 2012.



This Month's Players

More copypasta.  The numbers are new though.

5-6 hours of playtime or less:  63
--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:  20
--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 20 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 11 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?  Were you crazy enough to try Armageddon for the first time during an HRPT?  If so, how confusing and/or problematic was it for you?

[Omn]

Hi Nyr,

I'm not quite a new player this month - I definitely would categorize myself as a new player. I've had an account for at least a year, but possibly still have under a day of playtime under my belt as I commonly log on, try to get used to the commands before I starve, and log off after inefficiently tumbling about. I love the ideas behind Armageddon and seriously adore the setting, but have a lot of difficulty with becoming adjusted to the system. As I play other Dikumuds, I feel as if I might be better off than others and suffering a detriment as well. I'm not new to roleplaying and feel like I have something to offer in terms of collaborative story writing. I simply have difficulty with following quick succession of information (poses, room description spam), and the lack of color makes organizing this information for me to coherently read quite difficult.

I recall that my first character wandered about and died, and I believe that I had problems trying to figure out whether other players were around (those deceptive NPCs), but now that I've become used to it, I actually really like the number of NPCs that I can't discern from players at a basic glance. And even though when I found players later I had a hard time finding ways to connect and get 'buy in'. Later, when I went to another area, I found people who could clearly tell I was new to the code and they elegantly helped out in an IC fashion.

In any case, I think the first issue I can share would be steep learning curve in terms of code, and the lack of color seriously exacerbated (exacerbates? present tense?) that for me. I have a couple other friends from muds who I have tried to excitedly pull over, but they've said they just can't do the lack of color.

Even coloring objects one color and npcs/characters another, with a highlight on room titles and another color on directions would be incredible. My attempts to color trigger clientside... have been a mess.

In the end, I keep coming back and trying because I want to be able to play. It's a beautiful game, untouchable by the others I play in terms of breadth and (I feel as if I'm guessing correctly) depth.

[Tamago]

i'm a new player, i literally joined a few days ago and for the most part the game seems so so interesting that it's hard to not want to play it, even though i have problems cause of my lack of experience with RP, the difference in language (i speak spanish) and specially emoting which confuses me to no end, i also agree with Omn, it's really hard for me to keep up with all the text i get at times, and a little color might make it easier.

[Delirium]

Would it help if we offered a download link for MUSHclient packaged with a worldfile and color triggers? If so, I could probably swing that. I know Agent137 has a great infobar script for MUSHclient already (personally I can't live without it) and I'm pretty sure there is a color file for zMud floating around. Perhaps we could gather all of these resources in one central location so new players who miss colors can take advantage.

[Nyr]

Would it help if we offered a download link for MUSHclient packaged with a worldfile and color triggers? If so, I could probably swing that. I know Agent137 has a great infobar script for MUSHclient already (personally I can't live without it) and I'm pretty sure there is a color file for zMud floating around. Perhaps we could gather all of these resources in one central location so new players who miss colors can take advantage.

That would be great!

[Delirium]

Alright, I'll work on that tonight.

[slvrmoontiger]

Nyr,

I was wondering, can you tell how many new players came up as a possible result of the announcements of the HRPT?


New players that have replied,

Though I find that in the beginning the room descriptions are quite helpful, after a while they become too much. There is a command brief room that will turn off the descriptions. From what I've read in the Code forum it is in the works that this command (when enabled) will allow you to only see PCs and NPCs in the room when you walk into it, then doing a look will show you the description as well as the PCs and NPCs. I'm not sure when this is getting coded. I was wondering if this would be helpful.

Welcome to Armageddon new players I hope you enjoy it.

[slvrmoontiger]

Would it help if we offered a download link for MUSHclient packaged with a worldfile and color triggers? If so, I could probably swing that. I know Agent137 has a great infobar script for MUSHclient already (personally I can't live without it) and I'm pretty sure there is a color file for zMud floating around. Perhaps we could gather all of these resources in one central location so new players who miss colors can take advantage.

Would be great if something like this could be done on other clients as well. Anyone know if there's anything out there for Mudlet?

[Tamago]

Would it help if we offered a download link for MUSHclient packaged with a worldfile and color triggers? If so, I could probably swing that. I know Agent137 has a great infobar script for MUSHclient already (personally I can't live without it) and I'm pretty sure there is a color file for zMud floating around. Perhaps we could gather all of these resources in one central location so new players who miss colors can take advantage.

it would most definitely help! i was just thinking this as i saw a MUSHClient modify for another Mud and i thougth it was really cool, it doesn't have to go that far, but a list of useful resources for us newbies would really help

i'm also trying to figure out how to make some kind of mapping in MUSHclient or mudlet, but no luck there

[Omn]

I bet people have done impressive workarounds with color triggers; I'd love to get access to them and see how they work. In my hack-job triggers I find it confusing when they pick up all of the same word in roomdescs and emotes.

I'm not sure if it was a part of the Arm 3.0 overhaul I read about, but has it ever been considered game-side to have a toggle to color objects, room titles and npcs/characters? I don't know if that represents a massive endeavor, but I assume since it hasn't happened in the past twenty years that it's something that wasn't desirable to staff for whichever reason.

[AmandaGreathouse]

There's a thread somewhere on it, where there's a massive package of color triggers somewhere I downloaded. I can't even recall, but it was awesome, and it even goes through and colors world-specific words, and has so many varied colors, but they're very interesting and nicely placed.

[Delirium]

If you can remember any specifics or link me the thread that'd be a great help, I'll try to compile a list of resources and hopefully there will be something for most tastes. Not everyone is going to want tons of color, for example I tend to go pretty light on it, with just enough to help me pick stuff out when scenes roll by quickly.

edit: derp phone

[janeshephard]

My MUD terminal is green on cyan. I use a really old UNIX mud client called tinyfugue. I'm almost 100% sure its not maintained much anymore. I tweaked a few lines just to get it to build on my mac.

[Delirium]

Green on cyan. How are you not blind??

[janeshephard]

Green on cyan. How are you not blind??

Looks fine to me

EDIT: It's better than white on black or black on white. Lots of horrid terminal windows out there.

[Delirium]

Okay that's more like green on dark blue though

Sorry for the derail!

[Ender]

Looks fine to me

[Tamago]

Looks fine to me

EDIT: It's better than white on black or black on white. Lots of horrid terminal windows out there.

oh wow, i'll keep my white on black thanks.. i'm kind of fond of my eyes

[slvrmoontiger]

Looks fine to me

EDIT: It's better than white on black or black on white. Lots of horrid terminal windows out there.

oh wow, i'll keep my white on black thanks.. i'm kind of fond of my eyes

White on black is my preferred setting. Or even off white on black. I then do commands in a medium green. At least Mudlet allows you to do that.

[Barsook]

I have seen green on black

[Qzzrbl]

You damn kids and your "options".

*has to use telnet from work*

[janeshephard]

Nyr is going to kill me for such a massive derail

[slvrmoontiger]

You damn kids and your "options".

*has to use telnet from work*

Don't you WORK at work?

I feel for you, I use Linux and before the very nice Barsook turned me to using Mudlet I used to use the terminal prompt. I kept saying things all weird not being able to fix my spelling mistakes and everything because I would type in a little bit and they the screen would scroll and I would forget where I was in my sentence. I learned to type a lot quicker than I already do and use very short answers. I swear I think people thought my character was stupid because he was very good at one word tells.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I would sure like to figure out how to retain more of those new accounts.  There has to be a reason that so few stay, beyond the lack of color.

How hard would it be to include color in the code, which we could simply toggle off if we didn't want to use it?

[Barsook]

You damn kids and your "options".

*has to use telnet from work*

Don't you WORK at work?

I feel for you, I use Linux and before the very nice Barsook turned me to using Mudlet I used to use the terminal prompt. I kept saying things all weird not being able to fix my spelling mistakes and everything because I would type in a little bit and they the screen would scroll and I would forget where I was in my sentence. I learned to type a lot quicker than I already do and use very short answers. I swear I think people thought my character was stupid because he was very good at one word tells.

Couldn't you use MUSHClient as a portable app?

(and *blushes*)