Retention Revisited

[Morningstar]

Aiming for fame can be ok, but it is slow for people to get any at first (I've been back over a month now, and still on 0 fame).  And at higher levels particularly, actively aiming for more fame usually means powergaming to contrive any excuse to get your characters to do whatever it is they need to do for their next fame point.

Odd. I've been back for a little over a month and have 7 fame. Depends on where you land, what you do, and how often you're in a fight early on.

Family fortune can be ok, but it's not something new players can do much with early on.  You wealth drops with each new character, and takes ages to replenish.  And so many new nobles are offered a miserable oath offer, and take it for want of anything better, that they don't have much to put away.  Last time I played, it was a year before I had enough spare gold to seriously consider adding to my family wealth.

Very likely your choice of island. See my island assessment up a little higher.

Expansion for your realm you can't do as a new player.  After all, it's not really your realm to expand, you're merely a knight serving a lord.

But feeling like you're a part of accomplishing something together builds community. And it's a helluvalot better than just going to fight for no reason. Always a bigger morale boost to come away with new regions.

Getting a lordship is a common goal for new players.  But it can take months.  Last time it took me over a year with three characters before any of them got a lordship.  This time round, it's been over a month and even when my character was one of only two candidates in an election, and mine was the one from the right region, duchy, and with a claim, he didn't get it.  I imagine it may still be months before any of my characters find themselves with a position, just like last time.

See again, choice of island. Or even choice of realm. You want a quick opportunity? Find a good RP realm with a democracy. Same goes for council positions.

Creating your own realm I don't think is possible unless you're a Duke and you split off to form your own realm.  And becoming a Duke seems even more unlikely than becoming a council member - the cities so infrequently change hands.

Which is why (again, see above) Dwilight and BT have the biggest draw. Much of the islands are about expansion and breaking off.

Delve into religion is not possible as a new player because you can't be a priest until you have enough honour/time etc.  After a month playing, none of my characters can yet be priests.

Will give you this one, mostly. I think new characters should have all the main classes open from day 1. But that's for another discussion. However, my first month of playing has my first character able to switch to priest, which I'll be doing soon.

Creating your own religion is even less likely.  I believe you have to have a lordship position and/or be a priest to do that?  Certainly a new simple knight can't expect to be able to do that for months.

And characters in MMOs don't get mounts until level 20, or high level spells until higher levels. It's always a process of unlocking new abilities and goodies so that the game never gets stale.

Revenge sounds delightful, but you can't do that as a newbie either.  You can't revenge on them by stabbing them because you can't be an infiltrator without months of gaining honour and prestige.  You can't duel them because your swordmanship takes months to develop to a high enough level.  You can't revenge on a realm because you have no power in your own to gain support you'd need.

Again, with you on this one. You can't go into a realm cold plotting to get revenge for something that hasn't even happened yet.

[Huntsmaster]

So now, 2011, three years after last playing, I come back, and I find many of the same issues as before:

My characters had almost no welcome messages from anyone.
- In Carelia, I had one welcome from the banker, one miserable 10%-of-a-small-region oath offer without even a note with it from a lord just after my estate, and one decent welcome-plus-oath-offer from one player (thanks, Revan).

Aww.. I thought I gave you a decent welcome! I don't actually remember, though. I'm often short on time to engage in RPs the way I'd like, but I always enjoy reading yours.

[psymann]

I've certainly had a good few RPs from you, though I don't remember one in the first day I started (but that may just be my memory failing!).  I do remember being welcomed to the army by Agiri when I joined that, which is something very similar and probably equally important

[egamma]

Of course, you can set out to play a fool and entertain your realm:
http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Gellander_Family/Gaston

[Kai]

Is there nobody who plays battlemaster for the battles anymore?

[Kain]

Is there nobody who plays battlemaster for the battles anymore?

Well I do, partly. It is a part of the big whole. To be able to divide and conquer. But the pace of battle, with all the maintainence of regions needed before, between and afterwards has slowed it down significantly.

I think many of us look for other fun things to do while we wait for the regions to be well enough so that we can leave them alone for a while 

The regions used to be like 17-year olds. Every once in a while they'd have a party without permission or screw up badly, but you could generally leave them alone quite a lot of the time without it being a big deal. Just leave 50 euros on the table for emergencies and remind them that you have your phone on. Now the regions are like toddlers. They need constant care and supervision or they'll scream loudly for hours. If they fall the consequences are dire, and in the worst cases the kids will be neurotic and !@#$ed up for life.

EDIT:

A quiz for Lords: How old is your region?

Age 0-3 - I haven't slept for ages. I'm afraid of hitting myself with my sword. I can't find a babysitter and I'm more pissed off at my own baby then our enemies. I can't be bothered with them really.

Age 4-7 - I have this nice babysitter named Hork that is available sometimes after school. If the battle is in an adjecent region, I'm there...35% of the time. But I'll probably show up with less than clean clothes. I've given up on doing the laundry. It gets dirty so quickly anyway.

Age 8-12 He is now building megafortresses with lego + going to school. Hello severely limited freetime! Battle inside our realm? I am there to defend, my king.

Age 13-16 Now he hates me and says "bugger off" as soon as I enter his room. He says I embaress him. Teenagers... I'm going on the offensive. Enemies beware! If the battle is 5 regions or less from our capitol, count on me and my horse. I've done the laundry now, I promise.

Age 17-18 I seem to remember getting a kid many years ago but where is he? Buying drugs? No he would never do that. He is a good kid. Looting missions deep into enemy territory, marsches across entire islands to attack someone, I am not only there, it was my idea!

[vonGenf]

Well I do, partly. It is a part of the big whole. To be able to divide and conquer. But the pace of battle, with all the maintainence of regions needed before, between and afterwards has slowed it down significantly.

I think many of us look for other fun things to do while we wait for the regions to be well enough so that we can leave them alone for a while 

The regions used to be like 17-year olds. Every once in a while they'd have a party without permission or screw up badly, but you could generally leave them alone quite a lot of the time without it being a big deal. Just leave 50 euros on the table for emergencies and remind them that you have your phone on. Now the regions are like toddlers. They need constant care and supervision or they'll scream loudly for hours. If they fall the consequences are dire, and in the worst cases the kids will be neurotic and !@#$ed up for life.

Regions are like lawns. It does not matter how much you have, as long as you have more than your neighbors.

And they are full of little critters to stomp over, but that's incidental.

[psymann]

Is there nobody who plays battlemaster for the battles anymore?

Accepting that it depends which realm you start in, because last time I started the game, my first character was on the front line within five days and fighting a battle every other day for the next few weeks, but this time...

- in 37 days, my first character has had 5 battles, 2 of them were only against peasants, one was only against undead and one he created for himself only by wandering off two regions into enemy land and getting mashed up; only one was a 'proper' battle.
- in 23 days (12.5 days taking into account he's in the Colonies), my second character has had 1 battle, which was an easy win against undead

So if we're still talking about engaging new players quickly, then there's certainly no guarantee that battles will be available to do that.

[egamma]

2 of my 4 characters fight. Is it so bad that they are different?

Gaston fights as much as the rest of his army; I actually started the RP's to liven up my scout reports, and it took on a life of its' own. (FEI)

Gundelle fights with the army and is almost silent; I do mentor with her, at least. (AT)

Gellin is trying his hand at politics and diplomacy, and is currently in prison because the new diplomacy code isn't live and he got captured. (Colonies)

Gornak is a trader and hates battles; they aren't profitable, and the realm starves if he gets imprisoned.

[Gustav Kuriga]

Accepting that it depends which realm you start in, because last time I started the game, my first character was on the front line within five days and fighting a battle every other day for the next few weeks, but this time...

- in 37 days, my first character has had 5 battles, 2 of them were only against peasants, one was only against undead and one he created for himself only by wandering off two regions into enemy land and getting mashed up; only one was a 'proper' battle.
- in 23 days (12.5 days taking into account he's in the Colonies), my second character has had 1 battle, which was an easy win against undead

So if we're still talking about engaging new players quickly, then there's certainly no guarantee that battles will be available to do that.

I agree completely. If we make it so hard to focus on the battle prospect of the game, then we will continue to lose players. People came to play "Battle"master, not "Region Daycare Deluxe"master.

[Kain]

I agree completely. If we make it so hard to focus on the battle prospect of the game, then we will continue to lose players. People came to play "Battle"master, not "Region Daycare Deluxe"master.

I completely agree. The new estates can't get here fast enough. Hopefully they'll change all this.

[Chenier]

I agree completely. If we make it so hard to focus on the battle prospect of the game, then we will continue to lose players. People came to play "Battle"master, not "Region Daycare Deluxe"master.

You have to count battles with undead, though, as they do represent a good chunk of the fighting.

I agree that a 20000CS army moving on a 500CS rogue force might not be exciting, however.

[Gustav Kuriga]

I wasn't counting those battles for a specific reason, and even then, you usually only fight those if you are either in the defense army for your realm or your realm isn't at war. At least that has been my experience.

[Chenier]

I wasn't counting those battles for a specific reason, and even then, you usually only fight those if you are either in the defense army for your realm or your realm isn't at war. At least that has been my experience.

Not always true. I've fought plenty of rogues abroad, either because they were in my way, to help other realms out, or to get rid of TMP.

[Gustav Kuriga]

You didn't read my post well enough. If you fought them to stave off TMP, your realm either isn't at war or is not fighting a very active one. One of the times I said you would fight undead or monsters... you just proved my point without even meaning to.