New Player Retention

[Igelfeld]

So I never participated in the D-list so I don't know if you guys have talked about this before, But I think this format could be useful to brainstorm about important issues concerning the game. Looking at the tops and flops it seems like a lot of people recognize the need for new players, and being a ruler of a tiny realm myself I tend to agree. So the question is how can we keep more of the players we get and how can we get more players? I think that if we work together we can probably come up with some good ideas that could help the situation.

Regarding player retention I have a few ideas that I would like to discuss. Mentors. When I first joined this game I had a good mentor, he helped me learn the ropes and get my feet under me, and for a while I enjoyed doing that for other people as well. So the question is how can we best set up our mentors to be successful.

There are two problems I currently see involving the way we use mentors, first is the diffusion of responsibility. Because all the mentors have all the students and there is no way to know who has sent what to whom, there is a great deal of confusion regarding what someone has been taught. This naturally leads to a certain students being almost ignored as all the other mentors assume that each other are taking care of the student. I think this is a significant issue in the current system.

When I first started, you had to pick a mentor, and then after you picked you could change if you had to. This served two important roles as it created a competitive aspect between mentors to get the students and assured that the only person that would be teaching that student was that mentor. The responsibility for retaining and teaching the student was on one person. I honestly see this set up as much more beneficial and my experience backs this up as I have been a mentor under both systems.

Under the old system, I would do all I could to craft a persuasive and compelling message to the new players as it was a one shot, you get it or you don't kind of deal. If I got the student, I knew that if I did a good job I would be well rewarded as I was the only person the student could reward, and that caused me to carefully examine the list and be sure to touch on all aspects. Also, that student was your student and with each one I would work to build a relationship so that their loyalty was towards me. Essentially, you could build a strong power base this way. Overall I found this experience quite rewarding and enjoyable, and the relationships I built through it almost got me elected as King.

Honestly I have not spent more than a few weeks at a time as a mentor in the new system because it lacks all the aspects I have mentioned above if there is more than one mentor. If the other mentors are unresponsive, than you have to wonder what they are sending or not sending the students. The responsibility for them is spread across everybody and therefore nobody actually takes control. Really I think it is just frustrating for the mentors and not as useful for the new players.

The other problem is the inability to know if your student is still active, this would be quite useful to mentors honestly, just something on the mentor page that says when the last logged on.

A second idea I had was what if mentors were able to set up an automatic message to the new realm members that would be sent maybe five minutes after the player joins the realm? One problem I think a lot of new players have is that initial lack of activity they experience, and this might negate that a little bit. Preferably, the mentors would have links to the wiki in these posts so the students could then follow up a bit.

Lastly, would it be possible for new players to have access to past messages if they wanted to? I don't think it would be a good idea to have a months worth of messages greet them when they join, but could we make it so that if they went to messages they could access one from today, yesterday onwards, last 7 days, and all messages as we can after we have been in the realm for a while? (could we do this after we join a new realm? that would be nice.) This would give the player the option to look over the news from the realm and see what is going on. As it is the student is essentially thrust into a realm with no idea of what has happened or is going on, admittedly many players will try and give a brief overview when welcoming the player, but the ability to actually see what is going on would be interesting.

Those are my ideas, what ideas do you guys have and what do you think of mine?

[LilWolf]

The problem picking a single mentor has is that the mentor you pick could well be a lazy one who doesn't really do anything. With the current system you at least have easier access to other mentors.

Back when I started playing Battlemaster the game was a lot easier to get into. All taxes came directly from the realm so there was no hunting for an oath or setting up your estate. You didn't have to rely on the lord caring enough to assign you to the right army, I think the ruler/general at the time had the power to throw anyone to the right battle group. So basically you were good to go the moment your character was created. No need to spend sometimes days doing confusing and trivial stuff.

A recent change made it so you don't need to be in your region to set your estate which is a good change it the right direction.
One of the problems I tend to see every time I create a new character is lords giving out really crappy oaths. Now, I know better than to accept such offers, but new players probably don't see that 10% of a rural region isn't going to give them much. So they end up with an oath that gives them 10 gold each tax. Doesn't do much to encourage playing when you can't afford to do anything. Would be nice if an oath offer from a lord included an estimated gold income with the percentage offered and maybe even warned the player on low offers that according to the estimate the income wouldn't even be enough to pay his current unit for a week.

So yeah, anything that makes it easier and faster for new players to get into the action would probably help keep them interested and with the game.

[Triggster]

I am an extremely new player (perhaps 1 month) and so have had recent experience with two different characters revealing two extremely different experiences.

My character on Atamara and more specifically Tara, sent me a lengthy message to begin with. He was the only mentor of the realm and explained how he was busy in real life and couldn't commit to a full lesson program but would answer any questions I had. I decided it would be easier to just read the manual and, so far, have found Battlemaster relatively easy to understand (only the basics though, military tactics etc. I guess will take more time and experience). Reading on the wiki it seems some players create whole lesson plans and guides which seems very in depth and it's interesting when players take their role of a mentor seriously (as fun roleplay material more than a chore). This is certainly a minority however.

My experience on Dwilight (Morek) was, simply put... rubbish. I became a student, messaged the mentors asking who would take me as their student(I believe there was around 3/4) and none responded! I decided to just carry on and get to grips with the realm happenings myself (read the wiki) but I can see how disheartening this would be for most people and prevent many newcomers staying on.  :(

In short, I believe mentors absolutely essential for retaining new players and anything that would encourage mentors to play their role well would greatly help. ^_^

[Igelfeld]

So yeah, anything that makes it easier and faster for new players to get into the action would probably help keep them interested and with the game.

Would it help new players if they were immediately placed into an army? That way from the beginning they would be able to figure out where they should be and what the realm is up to.  You could just have the starting army set by the general or something.

Regarding Oaths, any lord who offers one like that is really shortsighted. As a mentor, I always really helped my peps out regarding this as you can't just leave it to the lords.

[vonGenf]

In Morek, there is a guild called the "Academy of Noble Conduct". We try to get new nobles to join it, so that they can ask questions and get answers.

I'd gladly be a mentor, but IC, this would require dropping my ambassador subclass, and I don't want to do that! I think a guild is a much better setup.

I'm sorry to hear you had a bad experience. Feel free to send messages to the whole realm in Morek. You'll get answers.

[Triggster]

Yep yep I joined the "Academy of Noble Conduct" soon after joining Morek and I agree it is a good if not better setup. The ruler, Busto, has also readily answered any of my questions in depth. Perhaps then, the mentors of Morek could at least bother to message students back and recommend they join the academy? I think the reason I'm still playing battlemaster is more thanks to my initial experience in Tara rather than that of Morek. I have interacted with other players in Morek since then however and find it an interesting realm. ^_^

[vonGenf]

I'm also glad to know Tara is better, it's also where I started and it was awful back then.

I always though the problem stood with making mentors a subclass. It makes no sense, as being mentor is all about a willingness to answer questions, not about any in-game ability. Why can't we play an ambassador/mentor? Or a hero/mentor?

[Alpha]

I'd be in favor of removing the mentor class entirely, and replacing with the ability for anyone, after a certain account age, to become a mentor without losing a class choice. I tried the mentor class for sometime, but found it to be dreadfully boring. Not at all worth giving up another class. If any character could do it without penalty then one would likely see more active mentors.

Allow a small prestige bonus for new nobles who choose a mentor, and additional small bonuses(prestige or skill increases) for those who receive good marks from their mentors. For the mentor, all the current ability to write a book after a certain number of students.

[Igelfeld]

Would the removal of it as a subclass mean that far to many people would then be mentors though? what if the ruler appointed mentors much as he does ambassadors?

[wraith]

Couple of ideas for brainstorming with..

1) 'lite' option for new players first couple of chars..
Automatic oath to random lord in realm but funded a small amount per week by fictitious 'sponsors'.
Automatic assignment to largest army.
Option to move to 'full game' available any time.
Prestige/honour/gold/bonds/unit/stats size cap for balance.

2) Tutorial
Basically an optional scripted tutorial with tasks and achievements that happens between char creation and entering a realm. Maybe a little honour/prestige/gold for doing well. Could include anything a char needs to know. Could be lectures/quizzes or practical tasks as warrior, courtier, infil, priest, lord etc.IC played as noble's education. Done well could be fun and impart a lot of information but it's a lot of work to do in-game. Could be done as a stand-alone mini-game or even a basic quiz site, though.

[Iltaran]

Tutorials already exist (http://battlemaster.org/tutorial-1/ and http://battlemaster.org/tutorial-2/); I did them before I joined and found them a big help.

They're a bit hidden though and could probably do with being moved somewhere more obvious

[Perth]

Would it help new players if they were immediately placed into an army? That way from the beginning they would be able to figure out where they should be and what the realm is up to.  You could just have the starting army set by the general or something.

Great idea. I know many realms already have "training armies" dedicated for new nobles to learn the ropes anyways, usually dealing with home defense/monster spawnings, etc.

I'd be in favor of removing the mentor class entirely, and replacing with the ability for anyone, after a certain account age, to become a mentor without losing a class choice. I tried the mentor class for sometime, but found it to be dreadfully boring. Not at all worth giving up another class. If any character could do it without penalty then one would likely see more active mentors.

I also support this. I think there is generally a lack of (good) mentors because no one wants to have to change their subclass to do it. Sure, we all want new player retention, but above all else we want to have fun ourselves, why give up your desirable subclass and a hit your own fun just to teach new nobles how to play every few weeks (or months) if you're lucky?

A tid bit I would like to add to the discussion: I recently recruited a friend to BattleMaster. He joined, sent a simple intro message, and then was auto-paused and then deleted. The next time I saw him I mentioned it, and he said "oh, yeah, I just forgot about the game and logging in."

Perhaps this is silly of me, but I was shocked because I had forgotten that not everybody loves this game and thinks every day when they sit down at the computer, "need to check BM." I think the first few turns/days are incredibly crucial for retention and there needs to be a good way to grab their interest. Even "lets buy a unit" or "move to this region" simply aren't enough. Those aren't the reasons any of us play, there are deeper reasons, not just simple pure mechanics or button pushes. I think this deserves some significant consideration.

[Chenier]

I'd gladly be a mentor, but IC, this would require dropping my ambassador subclass, and I don't want to do that!

I feel you, same here. At least it's not your whole class anymore, but I still see little incentive to pick the subclass, when I can be ambassador instead.

There as also this thing about mentors "taking a step back from active duty". I'm not sure if my fear of the subclass is a relic of the old system, but with that I'd rather pick no subclass at all than that one, for the amount of newbies I cross, just to make sure I am not limited in my recruitment and stuff.

[Foundation]

I agree that the Mentor system is half-functional at best, since the best mentors I know in the game are ones that I've talked to on IRC...and don't even mention the ones that mentored my chars.  It seems that most active players would rather have heroes, cavaliers, or infiltrators etc rather than be a mentor just for the fame points.

There is the rare capable and awesome mentor, but note that I used the singular form, since they are like rare pokemon, occurring in every 50 realms or so. :)

Thus, we need to capitalize on those awesome players and their abilities to instruct and teach.  Perhaps have mentorship as a cloud rather than per realm, where players can just ask questions.  Though it seems like they might spill valuable information, how much do they *actually* have available?  Not much.  And would you rather they stay and become an awesome noble/knight/lord/duke/councilmember for your realm or leave as a dissatisfied new player?

[Peri]

I play busto the ruler of Morek and I try my best to help the newcomers there, but he's a hero and he can't be mentor. I have put in almost all the bulletins to join the academy of noble conduct and ask questions as an alternative path for newcomers to find substitute mentors because the "true" mentors are not always good or available. But since the games tells students to write to mentors in a lot of places, it's usually hard to let them understand it's not always the best way to learn.

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.