New Player Retention

[Igelfeld]

Perhaps a possibility could be the ruler appointing "mentors" just as he picks ambassadors. Call it an IC method to put a tag on experienced and reliable players that you know would be willing to help newcomers.

I am going to move this to the feature request section, to see if we can get some development along these lines. What do you think about enabling new players to access old messages if the want to?

[DoctorHarte]

Well I was going to post this exact topic with my idea, but it seems a great community is already on the subject. Rather than edit my post, I'll just let you guys read it. It has some interesting points that haven't been mentioned. I understand my idea would bring more work to the Dev Team, but it would also funnel many more players into the game. Players that will stay.

Yeah, so the discussion has gone around a ton and BattleMaster has tried different tacts at advertising - but it costs money.

The problem I see BattleMaster to have with new players is that the game is just so complex. Even for a new player, finding a "liege" setting up and "estate" with an "oath offer" etc. All these terms are new to some players and familiar to others, but they still have little knowledge of what to do.

Of course there's always the FAQ and newbie guide, but those take a while and doesn't everyone just want to start playing, anyways? Today, modern games are not text based so we already are trying to find a specific audience. Granted some who try BM are not looking for a text-based game with such a complex system and get hooked, but majority of the time we all see the "Noble has gone inactive" message on the announcements from a new player going inactive.

Another aspect to look at this is "the first impression", when you meet someone new and want them to stay, you try and make a good first impression in them. Make them feel comfortable and fit in. This isn't what happens to new players. Most of them are just overwhelmed by the options the game provides and most of them don't want to take the time to read the manual.

So what's the solution? I see it a little something like this. The player starts out with the least amount of options possible to get started:
1) Say hello to them realm.
- Basically the left hand tab would only have the option "Messages". Once the new player has completed this, they receive more options as if they passed a section of a test.

2) Accept/Offer an Oath.
After passing the first "section", the player has the "Politics" button appear below the "Messages" button. 

3) Travel to the region and set up their estates.
The Travel button appears and once they arrive in their region, the Command button appears.

This process continues on until all the basic steps are complete. Meanwhile the whole time a window at the top gives instructions and tips to help the players along as well. For example, at the Travel section, the instructions should plainly lay out the facts that every turn is 12 hours and are at ______am and _______pm for you, depending on what they entered for their timezone. Explain the hours in the simplest form and that the player will arrive in the region of their estate in ____ hours.


With all this, I believe more players would stick with the game. It's just too hard to leave the job of teaching new players to those already playing. It's very disappointing for a new player to message someone and never receive a reply, especially on their first day. So rather than lay the first impression on the current players, give the game a smooth introduction so they are on somewhat of the same levels of knowledge about the function of the game once they start interacting with our armies and other aspects of the game.

Comments, questions, suggestions?

[Chenier]

I think it's a good idea, as new players sometimes otherwise feel really lost as to what to do, and saying hello is really a strict minimum some don't even do.

You don't need to actually travel to set your estates anymore, though.

[egamma]

It would be nice to have new players start in regions where they will likely be able to put their estate. They don't know which realm is best, so why not give them a shot at the realm that will at least have an estate for them?

I suggest dropping new players, kinda like adventurers, in any region that has no knights, or that lacks estate coverage. Of course, exclude rogue regions.

How many other people think that their starting realm was the best realm they've ever played in? I know mine wasn't. I think my income was about 15 gold/week, and no opportunity for advancement.

[Anaris]

Definitely an interesting idea.  We'd have to provide a button to skip all the preliminaries, though, for those who insist on just diving right in.

We've got some ideas that may remove the necessity for #2, if they work out.

[cjnodell]

Such random dropping should be optional at the least. I am more in favor of arming the new player with the information needed to make a good decision that works for them then making these decisions for them. I think that new players should have access to greater information about each realm. Things like how chatty things are compared to other realms. How much fighting the realm has been engaged in and what kind. The quality of mentorship rated by other new players. ect... A descriptive statement, made by the ruler for potential new players to see. Once a realm is picked, it think that the capital is the best place to start new players as there is no longer any need for new players to make the journey to their estate to get moving.

I am also not a big fan of auto army assignments or auto oaths unless a good IG reason is given. I think some of the best ideas are for an improved mentor system, a built in tutorial, and empowering the new player so they can better find a good fit for themselves.

[Foundation]

Pelgart, I do agree that it would be better for lords and knights to actually communicate, though most of the time a lord would just give an offer of x% of their region for new knights if they are looking for new knights, and thus it would make sense for these cases that the lord can allocate x% for up to 2 knights so new players can just click that rather than wait and get no response and feel left out.

This is to bridge the gap between "oh, what's this BattleMaster game" and "I kinda know how the oath system works now as my mentor has taught me".

[cjnodell]

Now that makes more sense. Standing offers that new players can select from. Kind of like a classified add:



"""
After asking around in the court of Kelperstan, you are made aware of the following Oath Offers:

A new Knight is needed in the region of Region. 15 gold per week. Potential advancement to steward. Immediate assignment to "Army of Soldiers." Local lord is known to be fair but strict. Expects strict obedience but is a proven mentor and teacher.

Next Add
"""

[Anaris]

A new Knight is needed in the region of Region.

Definitely possible.

15 gold per week.

Obvious extension to the above.

Potential advancement to steward.

Possible, but I sort of doubt people would actually say that a brand-new knight position had "potential advancement to steward."

Immediate assignment to "Army of Soldiers."

Also easily possible, and a sensible extension of the above.

Local lord is known to be fair but strict. Expects strict obedience but is a proven mentor and teacher.

That part's nearly impossible to do.  Any sort of subjective judgment of regions, lords, realms, duchies, or any other such group is so obviously open to abuse that I don't see any good way to make it informative and accurate, and still not take a full-time group of people with full access to everybody's messages and actions making such assessments.

[egamma]

thumbs up, but agree with Anaris. All they need is region name, gold percentage (and an estimate), and army assignment.

[cjnodell]

Sounds great to me. I was mostly having fun making a "classified add" Battlemaster style. While I dislike automatically assigning new players to armies and especially auto-oaths, I really like the idea of letting lords set standing oaf offers that are displayed on a page with all other oath offers. A new character would only need to look at the list of oath offers then select the one they like the most. I know that when I make an oath I like to know as much as possible about the region and the lord, so I think that it would be good for such information to be linked to such a listing of oaths. Perhaps making it so clicking on the Lord's name or Region name would take you to the family-info page or region info page. I think this could really make things easier for a new character and region lords... I can imagine such a page being displayed shortly after a new character arrives if there are open oath offers and being accessible to existing characters. I think that, if such a system were to go into place, it might be good if the region lord was able to refuse an oath offered...

"""
Lord            Region      Pay
Baron Victor      RegionA      37 Gold      [Offer Oath]
Count Richard      RegionB      41 Gold      [Offer Oath]
Duke Riley         RegionC      57 Gold      [Offer Oath]
"""

[Gustav Kuriga]

Sounds great to me. I was mostly having fun making a "classified add" Battlemaster style. While I dislike automatically assigning new players to armies and especially auto-oaths, I really like the idea of letting lords set standing oaf offers that are displayed on a page with all other oath offers. A new character would only need to look at the list of oath offers then select the one they like the most. I know that when I make an oath I like to know as much as possible about the region and the lord, so I think that it would be good for such information to be linked to such a listing of oaths. Perhaps making it so clicking on the Lord's name or Region name would take you to the family-info page or region info page. I think this could really make things easier for a new character and region lords... I can imagine such a page being displayed shortly after a new character arrives if there are open oath offers and being accessible to existing characters. I think that, if such a system were to go into place, it might be good if the region lord was able to refuse an oath offered...

"""
Lord            Region      Pay
Baron Victor      RegionA      37 Gold      [Offer Oath]
Count Richard      RegionB      41 Gold      [Offer Oath]
Duke Riley         RegionC      57 Gold      [Offer Oath]
"""

I agree with this completely. Also, I think there should be a dedicated training island, if possible. Volunteers would ask to be allowed to create a special character for said island in order to teach new players. The island would act as a sandbox for new players.

[Telrunya]

I think any form of new player island is one of the frequently rejected ideas. It bars them from getting into the real game from the start.

[Gustav Kuriga]

Well, yeah, if you are stupid enough to force it on players. I mean to just have it there as a non-mandatory learning resource. Instead of making mistakes in the harshly unforgiving actual game, they can have one character on newb island (not counting against his character count and being completely voluntary, no annoying flags on the page saying the new player should start on newb island) to experiment game mechanics and such with, seeing what effect they have and what all the menus show.

Also, perhaps the chat could be real-time? This would help immensely, especially since most new players would not know about the irc channels (or might even be playing via phone, like me, and so not be able to use irc). That way they can ask for help on cerrtain issues when they come up and get immediate answers. Just so we are clear, there would either be only one or no realms on newb island. That way it doesn't just become a griefing ground with realms of experienced players trouncing newbs.

[Anaris]

Also, perhaps the chat could be real-time? This would help immensely, especially since most new players would not know about the irc channels (or might even be playing via phone, like me, and so not be able to use irc). That way they can ask for help on cerrtain issues when they come up and get immediate answers. Just so we are clear, there would either be only one or no realms on newb island. That way it doesn't just become a griefing ground with realms of experienced players trouncing newbs.

Sorry, that's not practical in multiple ways.

The most obvious is this:

Say you join the game, and you find that oh! it's got real-time chat!  So you send a message, and wait patiently for a reply to come in.

But nobody is currently online, so you wait for 20 minutes and get nothing.  Disgusted—after all, it's supposed to be real-time chat! WTF, man?—you leave the game and never come back.

Far more useful would be a notice on the joining page that warns players that the game is not a fast-paced one like WoW where you can expect 30,000 other people to be online at the same time as you, and you will have to wait for responses to your questions.