another winning new players thread

[najdorf]

even if this has been discussed several times in different topics, i still want to share my opinion. thanks to those who take time reading all

this is about winning new players & converting them to loyals

i have been wondering for years, am I a weirdo for playing a game only 1 in a million people play (at most?) and how can i be so addicted to this if it is not so beautiful. if this community is a bunch of sick people like me and u, then what i have to say is irrelevant. but lets accept for a moment that mudding in zalanthas is beautiful & if everything beautiful and addictive in life attracts people, there is only one reason why we fail to boost number of players. the onboarding process

the universe target segment is actually huge for the reason i mentioned and yet many muds narrow it down to people with a mudding background. this approach is destined to fail and it keeps distancing the the big population who is attracted by the graphical game world more & more.

let me tell u.. over the past 10 years, i brought 16 friends and relatives to mud community (yes i counted) with no mudding background. easy part was selling them the value proposition, otherwise they wouldnt have created a character. at first as many of you probably experienced, people have a hard time understanding what is a mud and that it sucks having no graphics. i have my methods to overcome that, and it worked enough to excite them.

tough part is where i leave them play on their own, and moments later, confused by the complicatednes of the syntax they struggle, they fight to learn, but they stop it and churn.. but we have helpfiles, right? they could have read them, right? absolutely no. in this era, if your product can not engage the customer from right on, it fails. isnt it the case in many business? consider apps, u download it, u struggle with it, u get a crash, and u delete it immediately. why would it be different in our case? why dont we consider mudding/zalanthas as a product and treat it as one?

i am talking about customer experience. our newbies are our customers who walk through the door, and they leave the shop in seconds because of the hassle in the process of learning how to play it.. shouldnt we focus on making their lives easy in the onboarding process? because once they pass a certain threshold, their excitement and funtime will turn it into addiction, and we will win our lifetime customer. the current system fucks the experience so bad that we actually kick them through the door. how? let me tell u none of the friends (all 16) managed to go through character generation process without my help. i am not talking at all after the first login at all..

why dont we make it super super easy to enhance the learning curve of the newbies? and why is this not a first priority? for instance, what harm whould it bring to have these features for newbies?

- auto desc and background generation (asking eye color, height weight, muscle type and building a desc with random ordering)
- basic walkthrough in game (some mindset may tell mansas newbie guide is good enough but for the reasons i mentioned it will never work. it has to be hassle free for the new mudder). walkthrough should explain what descriptions are, what rooms are, should force player to use commands in simple scenarios until he can talk sit sleep buy fight flee, etc.
- npc/pc differentiation with a [NPC] tag only visible to newbies
- kill checks and warnings (when attacking a strong creature, a warning message and do you want to continue confirmation? same with attacking inside city whre player would turn criminal)
- trigger based messages to newbies on key events or regularly (i.e. you are hungry --> "you seem to be hungry, why dont you OPEN PACK and get that sausage off your pack?"  can be tens of instances events like this.. for instance first message after login can be: "would you like to buy some armor, you have to find an armor shop. Salarr is the bla bla bla. Want me to lead you there?"YES/NO if player clicks on yes, script can guide player with route directions
- give bonus coins in each login until 30th login. sounds lame, right? sure it is but the purpose is simple, to get them through that threshold and all sins up to that point can just be ignored for the greater good.
- and many other things u have already mentioned within the past 10+ years

i bet with the right setup, player winning will be easier, which will encourage us to chase people in our friends network to persuade them try armageddon and mudding.  i would love to see 1,000 players online when i login, and that is not a dream if we can fine tune the code to serve the dynamics of the new players: what they really need

[Harmless]

Not too long ago Codemaster started a thread in a similar vein, trying to modify messages and such so newbs aren't so baffled. I am in agreement with suggestions that are toggle-able that help newbs figure out how to get into the swing of things without needing to go to helpfiles.

[nauta]

I would love a thread similar to "Neat things..." which is "Quirky things...", a wish list sticky thread from us newbies about code that just was counterintuitive and required us to go to the helper chat or OOC to figure out.  

Here are some examples, but there are so many more:

o All the ways of getting at leaves/flowers.  I actually found out HELP PICK doesn't point to the plant picking helpfile!  And there's GET IN / BREAK and there's one for bark but I've forgotten it!

o How to deal with gurth (BREAK).

o Basics of sparring: DISENGAGE, MERCY ON, NOSAVE COMBAT; DRAW/SHEATH (rather than REMOVE); ETWO/ES.  This, I think, is actually documented somewhere.

o Basics of archery (this too might be documented).

o Knife belts and the keyword challenge!  Also LOAD as a command.

o How to make smokes.

o How to deal with mounts (HITCH/MOUNT/TITLE) and hitching a second mount.

o The glories of the KEYWORD command!

o The weird fact that everything is CRAFT except things that are BREW.

o That UNHITCH will make someone not follow you.

o Don't KICK anything in a bar brawl.  And use HIT!

o That dwarves are bald.  (Hehe, ok, fine that's not code.)

I used to have a lot but as time progresses all the little code quirks have become "normal".

[najdorf]

Not too long ago Codemaster started a thread in a similar vein, trying to modify messages and such so newbs aren't so baffled. I am in agreement with suggestions that are toggle-able that help newbs figure out how to get into the swing of things without needing to go to helpfiles.

yes, exactly.
i am curious what staff thinks on this matter?
is it that current system is good enough for newbies and they should go through helpfiles if really interested in?

i think it really matters if we have insight about these figures, in a pipeline view

- number of unique IPs who connected to first screen & not logged in to an account
- number of unique IPs who clicked to create character
- number of unique IPs who abandoned character creation process
- number of unique IPs who completed character generation
- number of unique IPs whose application is approved
- number of unique IPs who logged in 1 time
- number of unique IPs who logged in 2-5 times
- number of unique IPs who logged in 5+ times

that is how i would approach the situation, if the gap among steps is narrow, it means we are doing great. but lets assume this scenario where number of people we lose in each step is huge such as 15,000 --> 6,500 --> 2,200 --> 350 --> 130, ... then we should really start focusing on improving things with top top priority

[Nyr]

why dont we make it super super easy to enhance the learning curve of the newbies? and why is this not a first priority? for instance, what harm whould it bring to have these features for newbies?

Simply put:  because it isn't as easy as "why don't we make it super easy", and it also may well negatively affect what it is that existing players enjoy about the game.

Automatically determining a description = code that we do not have and debatably something we do not want.  If the prospective new player cannot communicate on at least the basic level required to read instructions and provide a few readable sentences, they may not be what we want to see in the game.  We reject at least one hundred of these each month, and often more than that!

Basic walkthrough in-game = code that we do not have, though it is something that could be developed to great effect for many areas.  This is the one area in which I agree with you; having either an area for a walkthrough (which we arguably have, to some basic degree) or basic code for basic game stuff for walkthrough (which is itself not very "basic" considering it doesn't exist and requires multiple iterations) would be preferable.  This would be closer to a long term project, and before even embarking on it, we'd need to assess the most efficient way to walk a potential newbie through the game.  It is arguable whether it would be more beneficial to just toss the newbie into the game among several veteran helper players (in an constructed event)...or spent dozens (if not hundreds?) of hours coding every possible response to coded stimuli to teach them things like "eat food" and "shoot gith."  However, when laid out that way, I lean towards the option of player interaction.  Who knows how many new players might opt for that kind of experience if it was guaranteed (provided they logged in on a certain day once per month or once every few weeks)?
 
NPC/PC differentiation = not sure this is something that players need or want.  New players definitely want it but for different reasons--they want to know if they are interacting with players.  Because of those differing reasons, it may be better to direct code efforts in a different direction, such as coming up with stock characters for new players to play in an organized RPT-type event once every week or so, governed by PCs and (hopefully!) staff.  They'll know they are in a game with other players, and players and staff are there, and they are in a unique event for their character.  That seems more likely and more beneficial.

Kill checks and warnings = no, this is an RPI and a permadeath game; you will screw up, you will die, and if you are new and doing something stupid, you will die stupidly.  This is what drives many players to continue to play the game...the difficulty involved, the fact that it is nearly roguelike at the beginning stages if you decide to go out on your own, and the fact that you do not get a second chance to rethink your stupid move.

Trigger based messages on key events = if you can't feed yourself, you are ignoring more than the basic rules of the game.  "Eat food object" is just plain code on its own.  Tamagotchis have that level of basic coding.  See above on kill checks and warnings; death is a good teacher and should remain that way.

Bonus coins = aren't we an RPI priding itself on permadeath and harshness?  What does this teach the new player?  That the first 30 days are a blissful experience bereft of all of the shittiness that can come of making mistakes and being on the wrong side of the law?  This might ease them into their character's survival, but we've seen plenty of evidence showing that the death of one's PC actually drives a player to create another.

Number of unique whatevers = we provide much of this on a month to month basis already, and you can read over previous threads to see how each month has gone.  This information has been compiled over the past couple of years.

I agree that we could improve areas of the game.  This is something we can always do.  These specific improvements you have suggested are perhaps a bit beyond the level of basic improvement and may be beyond the level of improvement, venturing into altering the scope of the game itself.

[najdorf]

I see your point, and there are two opposite directions,

1- Main priority for you and probably many others: preserve the values of armageddon and keep it enjoyable to existing playerbase. (as a direct result, it will be small)
2- Main priority in my OP: Reach to the masses, aim for 500, 900, 2000, ... players. (as a direct result, it will lose some of the core values)

My mindset was clearly on the second, and my examples were too extreme. And to preserve the values of the game while growing the numbers, I would have picked other ways, which may or may not succeed. (instead of rejecting at least 100+ players each month, trying to win them first, and kick those that can't adopt after a while. In all examples I give, they are supposed to be temporary. To the point when we win the player. Still 70% of them we may lose, but with the gains player base can break records.)

or, perhaps armageddon is good the way it is in terms of size and it is what makes it beautiful, but I still believe it has a huge potential to be both big & good anyways

[Lizzie]

A lot of the ideas presented in the OP are already in hack-n-slash games. The nag-screen HINTS system, which has driven me out of several games because it was an opt-out instead of an opt-in. Auto-gen descriptions - I knew when I came to Arm that if I had to see one more auto-desc I'd just quit gaming completely.

>The tall, dark man
This man is very tall, with long brown hair and green eyes.
He has a narrow build and is very muscular. He has a scar
on his left shoulder, a scar on his ankle, a scar on his left
wrist, a scar on his right wrist. He has a small tattoo of a
pink kenku hovering over a pretty flower on his back.

>The short light woman
This woman is short, with short blonde hair and purple eyes.
She has a thick build and is not muscular at all. She has a
scar on her right shoulder, a scar on her left hand, and a scar
on her abdomen. She has no tattooes.

>The medium-build fat man
>This man is medium height, with medium-length red hair
and brown eyes. He has a rotund build and is very flabby.
He has no scars. He has a tattoo of a whole ginka pie on
his chest.

No, a thousand times no. Not only that but - no. New players already have a hurdle to get over - the last thing they need is for their mdesc to scream STEAL MY BOOTS I'M NEW. Not to mention, this is a -text- game. They are expected to have at least a little creativity and writing ability. If they don't have that, they shouldn't be playing text games.

Bonus sids are for H&S, not for RPI.

Losing core values means losing Armageddon as a RPI. There are hundreds of non-RPIs that you can enjoy. There are but a handful of RPIs left, and only Armageddon has lasted as long as it has. I'd say the staff is doing SOMETHING right. I've played games that have hundreds of players logged in at any given moment. Most of them, from my experience, were afk scripting for money or crafted goods, and not bothering to interact with anyone at all. Why should they? The staff:player ratio was broad enough that they knew it wasn't likely anyone would catch them, even if it was against the rules. That's not a game I want to play and if it were, there are plenty of those games on the internet. No need to change Armageddon, if that's the reason you're changing it.

There are lots of changes that might be more fun, attractive, etc. But I personally would not want to see Arm turn into an MMO. In terms of DIKU games on the internet, Arm is actually pretty well populated. Most DIKUs out there have an average of 5-15 players on at any given moment, even during peak time. Arm has had upwards to 100 players all playing at the same time. Yesterday was the Super Bowl and there was still 42 players logged in before half-time. The night before when I did a random who check, I saw 67, and there wasn't any scheduled RPT going on.

If we boosted our -average- active PC existence to 100, I'd say that'd probably be enough. So there might be 25-50 people during off-off peak, 40-75 during off-peak, 65-125 during peak time, when there's no scheduled RPT going on.  Of course that means we'd probably have to say goodbye to the rare HRPTs because no way in hell would anyone be able to survive the screen scroll with 200+ people all engaged in the plotline at the same time.

[najdorf]

A lot of the ideas presented in the OP are already in hack-n-slash games. The nag-screen HINTS system, which has driven me out of several games because it was an opt-out instead of an opt-in. Auto-gen descriptions - I knew when I came to Arm that if I had to see one more auto-desc I'd just quit gaming completely.

If a lot of these ideas are there & it didn't help those muds achieve the numbers I estimated, perhaps you are right and my way of thinking is wrong.

[Lizzie]

A lot of the ideas presented in the OP are already in hack-n-slash games. The nag-screen HINTS system, which has driven me out of several games because it was an opt-out instead of an opt-in. Auto-gen descriptions - I knew when I came to Arm that if I had to see one more auto-desc I'd just quit gaming completely.

If a lot of these ideas are there & it didn't help those muds achieve the numbers I estimated, perhaps you are right and my way of thinking is wrong.

Actually, it has. Last I'd heard, Gemstone sometimes had over 1000 players all logged in simultaneously during their "events" (similar to our HRPTs). Averages in the hundreds during non-event days. Most of the Iron Realms games boast several hundred playing simultaneously. In fact, all of the Pay-to-play and pay-for-perks games have a few hundred at once, on average. However, they had to give up the roleplay to get that. They cater to the "lowest common denominator." They have to, because the lowest is the most common gamer. The min-maxing number crunching script-using afk-scripting loot-grabbing player is the -most- common type of player in the coded combat games. MUSHes cater to the exact opposite, and there are very few of those in comparison to the H&S types, or the "RP-encourage" or "RP somewhat enforced but you can talk about "levelling up" as long as you don't use the actual word "level."

The reason I feel we shouldn't be trying to attract significantly more players, is because most players who aren't already playing Arm, will turn Arm into one of THOSE games. Either a furry MUSH or a H&S. Perhaps sadly, the RPI attracts a very small niche demographic. But rather than complaining that we don't have enough - we should be boasting that OUR niche game has already attracted the vast majority of that niche demographic. In other words - the majority of people who play RPIs - play OURS. And that should be our selling point.

[Gunnerblaster]

In regards to the separation of NPC/PC's, I think it would be nice to have it as a toggable option, perhaps limited to a newly created account for a certain amount of time that basically will have the toggable option to show whether a character is an NPC or PC.

Code Select Expand

>brief player on

The tall, muscular man [PC] sits here, at the scarred table of baobab.
The short, tressy-haired woman [NPC] is here, leaning against the wall.

>brief player off

The tall, muscular man sits here, at the scarred table of baobab.
The short, tressy-haired woman is here, leaning against the wall.

It would be an invaluable tool for newer players trying to figure out who to actually talk to and not feel like they're being ignored and I imagine veterans wouldn't really have any use of it.

And like I mentioned before, maybe set it as an automatic thing for player accounts younger than 60 days or something.

[nauta]

In regards to the separation of NPC/PC's, I think it would be nice to have it as a toggable option, perhaps limited to a newly created account for a certain amount of time that basically will have the toggable option to show whether a character is an NPC or PC.

Code Select Expand

>brief player on

The tall, muscular man [PC] sits here, at the scarred table of baobab.
The short, tressy-haired woman [NPC] is here, leaning against the wall.

>brief player off

The tall, muscular man sits here, at the scarred table of baobab.
The short, tressy-haired woman is here, leaning against the wall.

It would be an invaluable tool for newer players trying to figure out who to actually talk to and not feel like they're being ignored and I imagine veterans wouldn't really have any use of it.

And like I mentioned before, maybe set it as an automatic thing for player accounts younger than 60 days or something.

A non-code alternative would be to have non-newbies interact with PCs; even if your PC is an anti-social, you can still emote something like "em remains seated quietly, brooding like a maniac" and distinguish yourself from an NPC in that way - if they demonstrate themselves as a pure newbie, you could contact them and OOC some gentle hints, e.g., point to the helper chat, to avoid breaking character.

Or maybe I'm missing something...  as a newb I never really needed the NPC/PC distinction, and I was (and still am) total newb.

[Gunnerblaster]

I guess I'm the only noob who hung out in the Gaj for like 2 IRL hours talking to NPC's and wondering why no one wanted to chat back

[Harmless]

Basic walkthrough in-game = code that we do not have, though it is something that could be developed to great effect for many areas.  This is the one area in which I agree with you; having either an area for a walkthrough (which we arguably have, to some basic degree) or basic code for basic game stuff for walkthrough (which is itself not very "basic" considering it doesn't exist and requires multiple iterations) would be preferable.  This would be closer to a long term project, and before even embarking on it, we'd need to assess the most efficient way to walk a potential newbie through the game.  It is arguable whether it would be more beneficial to just toss the newbie into the game among several veteran helper players (in an constructed event)...or spent dozens (if not hundreds?) of hours coding every possible response to coded stimuli to teach them things like "eat food" and "shoot gith."  However, when laid out that way, I lean towards the option of player interaction.  Who knows how many new players might opt for that kind of experience if it was guaranteed (provided they logged in on a certain day once per month or once every few weeks)?
 

This is great! I have to say this idea relates to my first MUSH experience. At first I was sitting alone in my area with no idea what people were doing. Eventually I was noticed by staff, and swept conveniently into a big scene going on -- just kinda plopped into it -- and I could watch what other players were actually doing, how they emoted and what they were saying, how the different opposing sides of the game world interacted. It was a big help to me as a brand new player, and I think it'd be great if we could do similar for new players.

What about an idea I suggested a long time ago to allow newbies the chance to play as a rat briefly in Allanak, while waiting for their first character to be approved? The rat would be basically powerless -- it could even be totally invisible so that other players aren't even distracted by it -- and would only be allowed to walk in certain areas. If it overextends outside of its zone somehow, it could have a timer for a verrin hawk or some other small predator swooping in to kill it and end the rat tourism mode. This could also let people passively watch the action in areas where there is likely to be some so they can get a taste.

(edited to add: I realize my constantly suggesting to be able to play as a rat on the GDB may seem like an obsession by now. It is.)

[James de Monet]

- basic walkthrough in game (some mindset may tell mansas newbie guide is good enough but for the reasons i mentioned it will never work. it has to be hassle free for the new mudder). walkthrough should explain what descriptions are, what rooms are, should force player to use commands in simple scenarios until he can talk sit sleep buy fight flee, etc.

I didn't have time to read this whole thread, but to this point, in the Arm Tools thread, there is a link to a website with a "New Player Tutorial". This tutorial is interactive, video-based and simulates starting a new character in Allanak. You may find this helpful for people just learning the syntax.

[RogueGunslinger]

That's a really cool tutorial.

[Fujikoma]

I'm all FOR giving newbies more coin to wrench off their corpse.  That being said, you know, if I'm going to spend so much time explaining the game to someone, actually convince them to sit down and read a bunch of documents, and give them ideas for what to start with for a background and desc and considerations for how this will affect their PC over the course of the game, trying to help guide them towards the sort of experience they're looking for, and we lose the player with two hours or so played, something's wrong. It could be, yes, that was not the kind of player we needed, or, it could be something about difficulty grasping syntaxt and basic concepts of the game on your first playthrough overwhelmes people who are new to muds, (much less RPIs) but VERY much want to try, and are excited by the whole concept. It could also be logging in, tavern sitting, and not finding anyone to speak to.

That said, contact starting at master, I think, will help boost retention greatly, as, if one's looking for a job, and somebody says Oh yeah, Sarge Pussnboots is always hirin', just gotta have your three small ready, then the player can actually use contact to immediately get involved in the wonderful experience of, spam-sparring and scraping latrines for the next year of their life. It helps to immediately immerse them in the game-world and give them an idea of the world around them, although, I will miss seeing newbs fall off their stools unconscious.

[wizturbo]

I think having a goal of massively increasing the player base of Armageddon is both unrealistic, and frankly, undesirable.  To double or maybe even triple our current player base however would be totally awesome.

[Fujikoma]

I think having a goal of massively increasing the player base of Armageddon is both unrealistic, and frankly, undesirable.  To double or maybe even triple our current player base however would be totally awesome.

I would go out of my way to schdule a Nakki RPT on the boards, then burn the Gaj down during it, in celebration. People might miss the echoes about smoke and flickering light in all the chaotic emoting and talking.

[Barsook]

I think having a goal of massively increasing the player base of Armageddon is both unrealistic, and frankly, undesirable.  To double or maybe even triple our current player base however would be totally awesome.

Yeah, too man people is too hack 'n slash feeling to me.

[Marauder Moe]

You know what wins new players?  Playing Armageddon.

You know what gets people playing Armageddon?  Knowing that Armageddon exists.

You know what lets people know Armageddon exists?  Being highly ranked on TMS and TMC.

You know what gets us highly ranked on TMS and TMC?  VOTING! 

DO IT NOW!  DO IT EVERY DAY!