We have good ideas here, but I see some problems we need to avoid at any cost.
I play RK, another game. The mayor problem there is between players.
Forums give us a "magic" and persistent memory of everything that happen, memory that people dont have and that is good to not have. Many problems or animosity goes away simply because we forget about them.
I think some ideas here are really good:
To make the last week of realm wide letters available to read for new nobles, so they have at least something to do while they wait.
To get all new nobles to join a guild automatically, in which the mentors/helpfull people of the realms are in to give advise to new nobles and teach them how to play the game.
To make the form with questions to be answered by newbies after some time in game.
For this last one I would say, could be a good idea not only for newbies, but to see what people - that dont come to forum or irc - think and feel about the game.
We could have, once in a year, a popup form with general questions that it would show better what the players think about the game.
Questions that will assure rules are being followed.
I like this list of ideas, but I think any of it are not easy to implement while the above are very easy and could be done in a short time.
Each of the ideas below need to have the consequences analised.
- Make it possible to maintain realms at a functional level without extensive buro/police/court work.
- Make it possible for realms to expand easier.
- Make founding of new realms easier.
- Provide incentives to reward realms for the creation of new realms.
- Make it easier for newly created realms to survive.
- Make working as a team more rewarding.
Someone said that a enemy realm could use a newbie char to read the plans.
Well, they can do this today too, just will take longer.
Its their problem if they want to cheat.
I think we have enough of cheating in real life, to be paranoic about it in a game as well.
At the end, what really, really works on retention, is to have the old players, giving warm welcomes to the newbies and making them feel they arrived at some kind of really nice place.
And I need to be honest: none of the realms I am in do this.
