Where Survey - May

[Nergal]

New players help the game keep moving and improving. Today we look back on the month of May and see how we did with new players, and we'll take a second look at April to see who we retained from that month!

Some Facts
- Before April, we were hovering in the 180-190 unique logins per week range. In April we broke well past 200 per week, landing at 227 at the peak. And in May we broke past 230, landing at 233 unique logins last week. 230 has been our typical unique login count for the past few years, so it's good to see that we've got there again. June will show us whether we hold there or go higher.

- Despite the increase in unique logins, we had a steep drop in total new accounts: new players created 150 new accounts in May, compared to 310 in April. Likely factors include the decline in voting among the playerbase. This should show everyone how important it is to vote!

- Playtime of new accounts: Not every new account plays. Sometimes they don't submit a character. Sometimes they submit a character that gets rejected (usually a blank or silly app). And despite the drop in total new accounts, the percentage of accounts with any playtime at all held at nearly the same amount - with 43/150 new players (about 28.7%) playing for at least a minute in May and 83/310 new players (about 26.7%) playing for at least a minute in April.

Where did new accounts come from in May?

All accounts in general:
- 40 from friends/SOs/word of mouth
- 24 from Mud Connector
- 13 from Google
- 6 from Reddit
- 4 from Youtube
- 2 from TV Tropes
- 1 from Top Mud Sites
- 1 from SomethingAwful
- 1 from Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/shadeofdead)

- 58 other answers/no reason given

Of those who played for any length of time, word of mouth dominates, followed by people seeing us on Mud Connector.

Who did we retain from April?
In May, I reported this:

Of the 310 new accounts, a total of 81 players played for any length of time. 11 players played for over 24 hours and the remaining 70 played for under 24 hours.

Now that we're in June, a second look at the new accounts from April shows that two more people who created accounts tried the game (from 81 up to 83). 16 players played for over 24 hours and the remaining 67 played for under 24 hours. Of those 16 players, 10 have logged in at some point in the past 7 days. So that's ten new players we can reliably say are a solid part of the game.

What we learned and what we can do

I can't stress enough how important it is to vote, especially on Mud Connector - but getting your roleplay-inclined friends hooked is an even better way to get new players! We get most of our new, active players from word of mouth and from Mud Connector, in that order. If you want the game to grow, the simplest thing you can do is get an account on Mud Connector and vote for Armageddon once a day. For a more personal touch, talk about the game with friends and invite them over. If you get them to put your account or GDB name in for the question about where they heard about the game when they're making a new account, and they play for some time, you'll even get a shout-out in the July where survey post.

As the game steadily increases in both players and activity, it's hard to argue that the game isn't in a good place right now. It can get even better. And a part of that involves players chipping in by helping get new players and by actively playing the game. Run plots! Talk with your storytellers about what you're doing! Get out of apartments and clan compounds and show the playerbase that you're here. Getting new players doesn't matter one bit if they don't have anything to do once they get here.

[Jihelu]

"Getting new players doesn't matter one bit if they don't have anything to do once they get here.
"

So...we should all erp more?

[Riev]

I was thinking about that quote. I've seen some newbies passing by my local watering hole and I try to interact as best I can, hoping they don't feel overwhelmed. Its made me seem nicer than I SHOULD, but I've also noticed more people AFK'ing at the bar itself.

My sincere hope is that people who aren't in the social gathering spots are out DOING things, making things happen, and involving people, not Solo Skilling sneks or trying to backstab that rat.

[JustAnotherGuy]

Being a tad bit nicer to newbs is not a bad thing, but of course... we cannot be all "friendly" and crap, wouldn't be Arm if it wasn't.

[Riev]

Being a tad bit nicer to newbs is not a bad thing, but of course... we cannot be all "friendly" and crap, wouldn't be Arm if it wasn't.

This game has trained me to believe that just because they're ACTING like newbs, doesn't mean they ARE newbs, either. My mind goes to that time Malifaxis was playing some Nilazi or something, but he would just sit  in the middle of the Gaj floor and look stupid so people left him alone.

[Delirium]

I will always do my best to instruct new players. My PC may not be nice to them, but I will be as OOCly helpful as possible.

I'll never forget being an overwhelmed new player and being taken under the wing of an idie crew that saw me bumbling about.

[Feco]

- Before April, we were hovering in the 180-190 unique logins per week range. In April we broke well past 200 per week, landing at 227 at the peak. And in May we broke past 230, landing at 233 unique logins last week. 230 has been our typical unique login count for the past few years, so it's good to see that we've got there again. June will show us whether we hold there or go higher.

This makes me very happy.

[Kalden]

Analysis on churn? I know from experience in the Software as a Service world that if you grow 20% and churn 20%, it doesn't work out great....

[TheHandmaid]

Some kind of Helpchat or Helpline for newbie retention would be helpful. It need not always be staff to help, but can be trusted moderators.

[Feco]

Some kind of Helpchat or Helpline for newbie retention would be helpful. It need not always be staff to help, but can be trusted moderators.

There is a link on the main website to chat with helpers.  It's the button that says "GET LIVE HELP!"

[TheHandmaid]

I meant on the actual port, not all newbs know to look on the site, unfortunately.

[Riev]

What about something like the wish line? You just get a "someone says" over the Newbie channel. "(NEWBIE) Someone sends: How do I kill something if the game says I am being merciful?" or something like that?

[Erythil]

From people I know who I've recommended play the game, they describe the biggest barriers to having fun as not initially being able to tell the difference between PCs and NPCs, plus not being able to figure out where players actually congregate.  Pushing players into clans, with their closed compounds, further entrenches this issue.  I know it's probably anathema to a lot of players but a 'where' command that shows what public RP hotspots are currently active (like taverns, temples, the pile, etc.) wouldn't go amiss.

[manipura]

I meant on the actual port, not all newbs know to look on the site, unfortunately.

Isn't there already a list of links that would be helpful to new players?  Right after you log in and Enter Zalanthas?  Helper Chat, game website, GDB etc?

[sleepyhead]

A big obstacle to new players (and by this I mean players new to MUDs in general; people who have played MUDs or other text-based games are at least mostly fine with this, although Arm is particularly wordy) seems to be all the reading. Skimming for the important stuff and looking for certain keywords and sentence structures and so on is a skill we established players often take for granted after all this time. New players are frequently overwhelmed by line after line of text; not everyone is a speed reader, although Armageddon is a great way to become one.

The new color feature really helps, I'm sure! But you do have to set it up manually, which may be hard for a new player, especially one who doesn't know anything about what kinds of messages they'll encounter yet. Maybe there could be an easily toggled preset color scheme that is particularly helpful for people who don't yet know how to distinguish between emotes and coded messages. Such a feature would probably be useful for anyone, really. Maybe there could also be some tips in an easy-to-find place about what words one should particularly look out for. Newbies to text-based games tend to miss important things like when they're given things, when someone enters/leaves a room or sits down/stands up from their table, what PCs and NPCs are in a room that they just entered, and that's all OUTSIDE of combat, which is still spammy and confusing for many older players. Giving newbies advice on what to read for would not only help them notice these things better, it'd help making the endless lines of words seem less daunting.

[mansa]

I wonder if the immortals would allow an NPC / PC colour differentiation ?

That's sorta a big play - I wonder how immortal run NPCs would react.  Would people play against NPCs different than PCs?

Should that be a new account only feature?  - Are there other features that might be better for new players  that give them a 'cheat' or 'heads up' ?

Perhaps that could be time played based, too?  You played for 1 day time and you lose that newbie feature.

[Zenith]

I wonder if the immortals would allow an NPC / PC colour differentiation ?

That's sorta a big play - I wonder how immortal run NPCs would react.  Would people play against NPCs different than PCs?

Should that be a new account only feature?  - Are there other features that might be better for new players  that give them a 'cheat' or 'heads up' ?

Perhaps that could be time played based, too?  You played for 1 day time and you lose that newbie feature.

I like this idea, but instead of having it turn off after 1 day of playtime, I'd have it set to be turned off manually, or after a longer period of playtime.

When I was new, I also sometimes wished for the optional "tips" messages that had been available in the old SOI. It would be a great way to put out some basic background if people don't read all the docs. "Don't forget, in Armageddon, elves are sneaky, backstabbing jerks that can never be trusted." "Reminder: half-breeds are the lowest of the low and even a rat would spit on their corpse." "Today, try using "tell keyword" instead of "say"."

[sleepyhead]

I wonder if the immortals would allow an NPC / PC colour differentiation ?

That's sorta a big play - I wonder how immortal run NPCs would react.  Would people play against NPCs different than PCs?

Should that be a new account only feature?  - Are there other features that might be better for new players  that give them a 'cheat' or 'heads up' ?

Perhaps that could be time played based, too?  You played for 1 day time and you lose that newbie feature.

I like this idea, but instead of having it turn off after 1 day of playtime, I'd have it set to be turned off manually, or after a longer period of playtime.

When I was new, I also sometimes wished for the optional "tips" messages that had been available in the old SOI. It would be a great way to put out some basic background if people don't read all the docs. "Don't forget, in Armageddon, elves are sneaky, backstabbing jerks that can never be trusted." "Reminder: half-breeds are the lowest of the low and even a rat would spit on their corpse." "Today, try using "tell keyword" instead of "say"."

Tangent warning: Ha, it's funny you mention that, because the other day I was thinking about how much of a flashing neon noob sign it always has been to consistently use "say" instead of "tell." I used "say" when I first started, of course, and then quickly switched to "tell," which I used for years. Now for some reason I'm back to "say" again and I don't know why. I wonder if I give off noob vibes because of that.

[Delirium]

Eh, I use 'say' when I'm not talking directly to one person, or when otherwise appropriate.

Fuck 'em!

[Kialae]

I so habitually use 'tell' that I made a trigger to capture my 'tell' string and if I get the 'You're not sitting at a table you numb-fuck!' message it re-sends the line as a say.

[Delirium]

Actually there is "talk" "tell" AND "say".

Talk is for when you are sitting at something with someone, audible only to those at the table object or with the listen skill.

Tell is for when you're speaking directly to a character, audible to the room.

Say is undirected and audible to the whole room.

[Kialae]

You're right. I meant to say talk, not tell.