BattleMaster Community
BattleMaster => Development => Topic started by: Igelfeld on March 05, 2011, 12:28:16 PM
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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?
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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.
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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. ^_^
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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.
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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.
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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. ^_^
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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?
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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?
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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".
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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
"""
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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.
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thumbs up, but agree with Anaris. All they need is region name, gold percentage (and an estimate), and army assignment.
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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]
"""
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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There, of course, would be a list of players online and currently in chat. One of the problems with the current message system for new players is that they have to know to either go to the messages section in game or go back to where all their characters are listed to see if they have new messages. I'm not proposing we change the current message system, merely that we have the instant messaging system (on newb island) so that they don't send out a message, wait one hour, don't see any new messages because they don't know to go back to their user page, then rage quit.
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What about a chatroom outside of the game? Just a shoutbox you can access on the family page... I doubt the reason people quit is because they cannot see the huge 'family' button...
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Of course they see that. They don't realize it is one of the main ways of seeing if you have new messages for your characters.
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Maybe it should be called the Start Menu? ;D
I'm just half-joking here. It's a good point that "Family" doesn't ring as "check new messages" very much. I just got used to that, but it is probably confusing to newcomers.
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One thing I can do—and intend to test soon—is put an indicator by the Messages link in the sidebar of the number of new messages you have.
The only question is whether to make it auto-check, or just update every time you go to a new page. Auto-checking might be too much of a load on the server, so it would need to be tested carefully.
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There, of course, would be a list of players online and currently in chat.
Hmm... I know I've seen something like that before... Where was it? Oh wait, I know. It was on IRC!
Srsly... what you're describing is exactly like IRC. So instead of reinventing the wheel, just send them to IRC. And if you don't want to force them to install a client, link them to the QuakeNet webchat page, with the two lines of instructions it would take for them to get to #battlemaster.
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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.
Please read prior posts before making a comment. I know there is an IRC channel. But ask yourself, how long do most new players go without knowing about the IRC? I went a year without knowing about it when I began. Since I mostly play via phone, I have never used it.
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I am not supporting the creation of in game chat but I would like to point out that 99% of the people I know who would be interested in playing do not know a thing about IRC and have no interest in learning. They want to play a game and expect all resources to be right there in the game. Of course, this is just my personal observation, others may vary.
All the same, I do not like the idea of a Training Continent or in game chat. Just my preference...
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They want to play a game and expect all resources to be right there in the game.
I like IRC, but I wouldn't want it become an in-game ressource... I played a game like that once, and it ended up eating all my time. The fact that BM is not live is a large reason why I play it.
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I wouldn't want to force people to use IRC, either. But as a resource for learning the game, it is there, and there's nothing wrong with pointing people toward it, to get their questions answered. We can even promote the use of it via a more prominent notice somewhere in game.
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That would be my compromise, instead of going full-on with the newb island. The key is getting better communication, as that will be the easiest way of teaching new players.
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If the goal was to make IRC mor prominent and accessible, I think it would be cool if BM had it,s own IRC webchat interface. You enter the webchat and it automatically takes you to the correct server and coatroom. Heck, it could even try to automatically give you the nick that matches your family name. Once in, you could use all the customary IRC commands and such. It would make things very simple for new users to simply click a link and find themselves in the BM chat room with a sensible nick.
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If the goal was to make IRC mor prominent and accessible, I think it would be cool if BM had it,s own IRC webchat interface. You enter the webchat and it automatically takes you to the correct server and coatroom. Heck, it could even try to automatically give you the nick that matches your family name. Once in, you could use all the customary IRC commands and such. It would make things very simple for new users to simply click a link and find themselves in the BM chat room with a sensible nick.
That's a pretty interesting idea, though somehow it needs to be separate from the medieval immersion side of BM.
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As another relatively new player, I think that the mentor system should be the first thing that is changed. As I see it (and have experienced it), there is currently a small chance that the players who are most active in the game AND who would like to help new folks will choose the mentor class, since it seems to inhibit their own ability to play characters up to their full potential. I agree strongly with the suggestion that a mentor should be a designation, rather than a class, or at least something like a sub-sub class that can be added onto any class in the game. Why shouldn't an infiltrator be able to mentor people if he or she has the time and desire to do it?
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Overhauls to the mentor system are indeed on the table. There has been much discussion over it. However, there are some major changes that a lot of this would require.
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after mentoring for almost two years, I would state few comments.
- threshold for mentoring class seems to be low, and i saw number of players who in my humble opinion did not take effort to learn very basics, but suddenly i see them as mentors. i can only imagine how can it affect new players.
- from what i see, the absolutely largest problem in new player retention is deep disappointment of some when they do not receive answer to their question within 15 minutes after they posted it. by the time you are able to explain them about game dynamics, many left already. there is also problem with players who, after they receive several initial lessons and several invitation to ask their question to at least send some voice of themselves - those who never answer a single letter are normally hopeless.
here i am talking about problem of very new players retention only. for bm in my opinion much bigger problem is old and half-old players retention, but that would be another subject.
so the welcoming message should:
- clearly explain to players that this is slow-paced game and they can find much interest in other things than online hanging
- encourage players to talk to their mentors. together with mentioned raising of threshold that should be very useful.
yes, to complete this proposal, something should be devised on how to motivate mentors.
while it can be true that some players do not want to give up their subclass, i would say that more problems is with incentive.
mentor goodies is very nice idea, but currently most of those goodies are rather weak, scout reports 13 turns old are not so big deal, or earning 30-40 gold, they should be made somewhat more fruitful.
and, yes, what about some sort of mentor rank based on cumulated number of goodies? few good sounding titles that could be reached and held whenever mentor class is switched on could gain i-c respect for the characters, our chars are claiming titles anyhow and that could be good incentive.
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Well, I don't use IRC and I think I learned the game well enough.
That being said, I don't know that the mentor class really does what it was set out to do. Really it would be better if everyone who was experienced could simply click "I'll help mentor this new player" when a new player is added. Just make it a flag. New players don't show up often enough that people are going to build a character around being a mentor (like they can around hero or infiltrator), but that doesn't mean that these players couldn't have a thing or two to teach.
So thusly, set the lessons people should know as flags. Each player can choose one or more flags (say, one flag for every 5 family fame points, starting at 10 fame), and at the end the player ranks their competency in each field.
I know, hippy "It takes a village" stuff, but weak mentor rewards could then be gained by everyone, so they don't need to be strengthened and people would want to buy in and train new players.
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I completely agree that such a chat page would need to be separate from the game itself. Kind of like the forum is. In fact, I believe that would be a good place to put the link - right next to the forum link on the menu bars. The only thing the webchat would be for is making it easier for players of any dork level to access and participate in the existing, OOC chat on IRC.
This way they can just click on the chat button while playing and ask anyone who is on how in the heck they can setup that stupid automatic caravan their Duke is demanding of them and potentially get immediate feedback. A potentially positive side effect is seeing the number of people participating in IRC go up.
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Actually, starting a "Questions from newbies" forum with a link straight on the login page would serve many of the same purposes as a chat.
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We have discussed this (meaning the newbie forum) with Tom, and gotten preliminary approval to do this. But he's the only one who can actually create new boards. So it's waiting on him finding an opportunity to do it. Please be patient. I'll see if I can bring it to his attention again.
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Well, that was fast.
http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/board,32.0.html