Retention Revisited

[Chenier]

He's a Noble. And I just checked - Cybernations is still about. I guess with all the donations that Kevin pulls in there, it would be hard for it to be shut down.

That's weird. I used to play it, and then it closed for "maintenance" for a while, during which they proposed us an alternative game they were making (which totally sucked), before announcing it was down for good.

Unless it was brought back later, or I'm thinking of another game I also played. I remember we had a big alliance, real active forums, and then a hacker took over and destroyed the forums, which killed the alliance and therefore the game for most of us.

[Chenier]

Something else I noticed the other day:

When new players join the game, I am *much* more likely to greet him if he actually introduced himself. If I log in to see a dude has joined the realm 8 hours ago, but never even wrote as the game heavily suggests he does, I'm much more inclined to not even bother. From experience, odds of him replying are next to nil anyways.

[Andrew]

Something else I noticed the other day:

When new players join the game, I am *much* more likely to greet him if he actually introduced himself. If I log in to see a dude has joined the realm 8 hours ago, but never even wrote as the game heavily suggests he does, I'm much more inclined to not even bother. From experience, odds of him replying are next to nil anyways.

I've got to agree on this. We all get on at different times. If it's been more than an hour and the new person hasn't said anything, I'm inclined to ignore it most of the time. On the flipside, if I'm on when they join up, I'll send a message to almost any new person. Sometimes I'll even include instructions on how to reply.

[Chenier]

I've got to agree on this. We all get on at different times. If it's been more than an hour and the new person hasn't said anything, I'm inclined to ignore it most of the time. On the flipside, if I'm on when they join up, I'll send a message to almost any new person. Sometimes I'll even include instructions on how to reply.

Indeed, if he just joined, I always assumed that he might be writing it right now or have been distracted. Not so much so when multiple hours have passed, though.

[Alasteir]

For me, sending a letter about your new player is the best way to show to your entire realm that you are a real player, not someone trying to read letters from that realm with bots (things I can say, I saw).

[Jens Namtrah]

Something else I noticed the other day:

When new players join the game, I am *much* more likely to greet him if he actually introduced himself. If I log in to see a dude has joined the realm 8 hours ago, but never even wrote as the game heavily suggests he does, I'm much more inclined to not even bother. From experience, odds of him replying are next to nil anyways.

i don't recall, but there isn't a "message to realm" link when they start, is there?

perhaps instead of/integrated with the "start playing" link, there should be a simple link that says, "introduce yourself" and links to a "message all realm members"  -- they can click away from it, but it sort of pushes them into the idea that they should write something to everyone now

As obvious as it is to you or me, for a new player figuring out how to write a message to everyone might not be.

[Chenier]

Isn't there? When you create a new character, the game does insist on introducing yourself.

[Telrunya]

I know I didn't. I was new, I didn't know the atmosphere in BM, and was used to the Guilds you see in other games. I assumed the Realm were all some important guild people while I was just some lowly newbie and figured Id better just watch and observe before looking like I didn't know my place by casually chatting with everyone. That of course was years ago. It lasted till around the Ruler of CE, the most important guy in the Realm of all people!, send me a letter a few days later apologizing for the late welcome. New players simply don't know what Battlemaster is or how things go here. And some people, like me, will have a strong first reaction to watch and observe in such cases. Reaching out to those people will pull them in though.

[Tom]

I like this discussion, but I can't follow it closely.

When specific suggestions for improvements emerge, please let me know.

[Chenier]

Well, perhaps there should be a better indication of the culture of BM when people join the game, something that clearly tells them that the game is slow-paced and that it is usually expected of newcomers to introduce themselves, and that even newbies are valuable.

I thought we already had something of the sort, but I understand where Telrunya is coming from, and perhaps we need to better adjust people's expectations of the game to better reflect reality.

[Telrunya]

Keep in mind my experience is from years ago. The game has had a lot of changes since then, but it may still be at least partly valid :P

[Tom]

As I said: When you have specific change requests. Not "maybe there should be some kind of..." but "add the below 2 sentences to page X" or a specific feature request, where by "specific" I mean it is written down in enough detail for a developer to stop thinking, sit down and write the code.

[Vellos]

As I said: When you have specific change requests. Not "maybe there should be some kind of..." but "add the below 2 sentences to page X" or a specific feature request, where by "specific" I mean it is written down in enough detail for a developer to stop thinking, sit down and write the code.

IDEA #1
There should be a survey of new players.

When an account reaches 100 days old, immediately upon logging in to each specific character, a 5-question survey should pop up. This survey should also show up whenever someone less than 200 days old deletes a character. The questions should be:

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"Did someone in this realm personally greet you upon joining the realm?"
Answers:
Yes, in private message
Yes, publicly
No
Text field for explanation if desired

"Has your character gained any positions or been added to any special message groups (check all that apply)?"
Yes, a lordship
Yes, a marshal or vice-marshal position
Yes, a council position
Yes, a dukeship
Yes, added to special message groups
No
Text field for explanation if desired

"How much information have you received about the realm's foreign policy, military planning, or internal realm issues?"
Much more than I wanted
More than I wanted
About the right amount
Less than I wanted
Much less than I wanted
Text field for explanation if desired

"What is your character's average weekly income?"
0-30 gold
31-60 gold
61-100 gold
100-200 gold
201+ gold
Text field for explanation if desired

"Overall, how would you rate this realm, in terms of friendliness and community for new players (scale of 1-10, 10 being the best)?"
1-10 slider or something
Please explain why you gave this ranking

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These questions are totally arbitrary, flawed, probably leading, and will take a long time to give good data of any kind. But we need to get SOME kind of data, because right now this whole discussion is blind, based on data that is woefully inadequate and (from all appearances) somewhat awkwardly aggregated, with no grasp of individual levels.

The idea for a survey has been floating around since June. It has no downside, especially if we keep it SHORT, so that it isn't burdensome.

And it shouldn't boot you to an outside site. It should be an internal thing.

And the data needs to be at least semi-publicly accessible. Comments can maybe be redacted before being posted, but the answer selections need to be fully available, somehow easily sortable by realm and by continent, they need to be able to view individually or in the aggregate.

When such a database exists, with 5-10 datapoints for most realms, 50-100 for each continent, then we'll be able to make better generalizations about what type of people stay, and which realms (and which gameplay practices) seem most conducive to keeping newer players involved.

I figure players who drop before the 50-100 day range may be harder to keep. But if they stick around for several months, we should be able to keep'em.

[Morningstar]

Admittedly, I pulled a little bit of a tl:dr because I was glancing at this in a rush. I like the concept but not the target. 

Don't target the account at 100 days- especially if you're hitting all of their characters individually. Target the character at 100 days. Or 60, or whatever. A new account 100 days old may have one or two characters almost as old, but maybe another character with less than a month in the realm so your data is potentially skewed.

Another advantage to every character getting this type of questionnaire after X days is that we can get a feel for current/older players and what keeps them coming back or drives them away and thus makes it a good all-around resource for polling data.

[Chenier]

I find 100 days to be really too long.

If players quit, they'd do it long before then in most cases I believe. While having players answer this twice might be useful, I think we should try to get people's opinions before most of the ones that leave have already done so.