BattleMaster Community
BattleMaster => Development => Topic started by: Vellos on June 18, 2011, 06:24:23 PM
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So I got bored recently, and I kind of have a thing for spreadsheets. So I made one, charting out registration and activity on each continent based on the game-generated graphs. I made one chart for registration, one for the 3-day activity, and one for the day-to-day activity. I was particularly curious because the game-wide chart shows a strange divergence whereby registrations have been increasing lately, while 3-day activity has been declining.
A few summaries of the past 3 months worth noting:
In terms of registration, Beluaterra and Dwilight increased, FEI and Colonies declined a bit, while EC and Atamara declined the most. Thus, in terms of new characters, it would seem that Beluaterra and Dwilight are the best attractors, while EC and Atamara are the worst. Beluaterra say regstrations increase by almost 5%, Atamara fell by almost 4%.
But registration isn't everything. In terms of number of players who are "active" (3-day login line), Beluaterra and Dwilight still dominated. Colonies and FEI were next, followed, again, by EC and Atamara. The gap was wider, however: Beluaterra had effectively no change in number of "active players," while every other island declined. EC fell by 14%, Atamara by 12%.
In terms of highly active players (the 1-day login line), the story change somewhat. Dwilight and FEI lead the pack in retaining highly active players, with EC and Atamara next, followed by Beluaterra and the Colonies. However, the Colonies is an outlier: it lost 53% of its active players in the last 3 months... mostly because these data reflect a weekday measure beginning with a weekend measure ending, and the Colonies, being a "casual play" island, can be expected to have a bigger weekend effect. Dwilight had effectively no decline in highly active players, Beluaterra lost 27% of its (perhaps a weekend effect again? Though why Beluaterra would be abnormally effected is unclear to me).
What seems evident to me is that we have basically two worlds of BM experience. In Dwilight and Beluaterra, it would seem that player counts are not suffering too much. New players arrive and are broadly able to sustain the population. In EC and Atamara, this is just not the case. Those two continents are experiencing what I would call a precipitous decline (losing 12-14% of the active players seems like a big deal to me, especially on two very large continents).
It is possible that some of the decline in Atamara and EC is due to emigration. However, FEI, the Colonies, and Beluaterra are comparatively small. They would hardly seem able to account for the almost 150 active players Atamara and EC have lost in the past 3 months (probably more, as no doubt some new ones have arrived in the interval). Dwilight is big enough that it could have absorbed many, but, still, it seems like a stretch to me that this entire phenomenon can be explained by older players emigrating from EC and Atamara to FEI, Beluaterra, and Dwilight, especially given my own experience in Dwilight that newer players are remarkably prominent. The end of the invasion probably has a lot to do with Beluaterra's bouyancy and no doubt sucked many active players from other continents, but it seems strange that this "Invasion-ending" effect would drain exclusively from EC and Atamara. Rather, I would expect Beluaterran exiles to gravitate towards other unconventional islands, like Dwilight (the advent of the Manifest Path demonstrates that this migration pattern does have a significant effect). So I would not think the end of the invasion would be to blame for EC and Atamara's decline.
EC and Atamara represent a large chunk of the game: about 1,500 characters between them. Most players have a character on one or the other, I would bet.
However, that may be the source of some of our retention problem. EC and Atamara can't hold players very well, and loss of players on those continents gains a wide audience due to being large continents. Moreover, it isn't like Dwilight were losing nobles is just part of the game, and realms fade and die. On continents of long-term realms that have remarkable aversion to their own death (for BM realms), losing nobles is a remarkable crisis.
I would thus suggest that the retention problem (and it is a problem) should not be phrased as "What is Battlemaster doing wrong?" But, rather, primarily as "What is it that happens regularly in Atamara and EC that we are doing wrong, and that sometimes also happens elsewhere?"
I will venture two guesses:
1. Low turnover in positions (purely hearsay, but I "feel" like the other continents have more new-player opportunity, especially Dwilight, and the Dukes-per-capita rate of FEI is quite impressive)
2. Lack of concept (the islands that are prospering are all "concept islands")
3. Stationary alliances
Large alliances are briefly fun. Arcaea's bloc may be able to maintain the fun in FEI by virtue of being very concept-driven, same for SA in Dwilight. However, even such concept-driven blocs seem likely to have negative effects on retention. A prime example is Thulsoma/Averoth. As much as we were all frustrated about the clanning and abuses, those realms brought in tons of new players who, were they allowed a longer time to prosper and gradually integrate in other realms, might have provided a bigger boost to retention even as they settled down slightly. Maybe that's just wishful thinking, but I think it has a base on a reasonable argument.
This post was quite long. I don't know a way to share my raw data with others, but I can e-mail it to anyone who is interested. I also calculated some composite scores for continents and compared activity rates. For the curious, I was unable to find any meaningful connection between activity and retention: continents with more activity and high activity did not seem much more likely to retain players, and activity throughout BM has declined in the past 3 months, on every continent, but differences in activity have flattened out somewhat.
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An interesting read, but kind of depressing. I have the feeling, at least in Ibladesh, that we attract enough new players but that we are not capable of making them stick around. I try my best as mentor to offer them all the help they need but I have the feeling that many new players just quit the game after they took a first few looks at it (maybe logged in a few times, then gave up).
If we wish to keep more new players, a friendlier form of "new player policy" should be introduced. By this I do not mean that new players are flamed upon (on the contrary), but that they simply get lost in the complexity of Battlemaster. The single thing I recall, when I began playing battlemaster, was storming into a Falasian army on my own (being a part of Eston). In retrospect that was utterly stupid but it should give an idea to what new players are up.
A more thorough "introduction" to Battlemaster would be nice to make more new players stick around. I know, there are always people that will leave, no matter how much you help them... Nevertheless, I was thinking of a thorough tutorial when you join the game, or even a small realm/mini-island/? in which new players would be guided by a few experienced players to learn the ropes of the game, and where they can get the full attention without being lost in the complexity of a rather large realm.
Another idea just came to me, too: a video tutorial (youtube?) in which someone explains the basics of Battlemaster, and takes the viewer in, say, a 5 minute trip through the game in which he explains certain aspects and gives several tips of do's and don'ts.
Anyway, I'm all up for helping out new players, including working on a (larger) project to ease their welcome into BM. Because after all, this game is magnificent, and I want everyone to enjoy it as much as I do.
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Another idea just came to me, too: a video tutorial (youtube?) in which someone explains the basics of Battlemaster, and takes the viewer in, say, a 5 minute trip through the game in which he explains certain aspects and gives several tips of do's and don'ts.
I've been thinking of doing a Let's play of Battlemaster once one of my characters dies. After initial introductions to the game maybe do a weekly update of what's going on with the character or something like that. Mainly it's on hold because I don't have headphones with a microphone of them.
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And do either of you have anything substantive suggesting that EC and Atamara players are worse at welcoming new people?
Because there are pretty big differences between some of the continents in that data. Some continents are not suffering, or at least not nearly as much. We have some continents that are succeeding (Dwilight). We should figure out why, IMHO. Maybe Dwilight people are just better at welcoming newcomers? Unlikely, since Beluaterra has no newcomers at all (which is demonstrated in activity statistics, btw: Beluaterra reliably had the most active player populace, except for its "very active" rate plummeted recently it seems).
While no doubt better tutorials would help retention, I personally think most of the people who leave because of the learning curve will leave almost no matter what. My main worry is people who stay for a month, maybe two or three, then leave. Because those are the people we really should have and could have gotten, and I wonder why it seems like some continents are so much better/worse at sustaining themselves.
Helpful data would be:
1. Data on where new players start their first character or two.
2. Data on the average "account lifespan" of each continent.
3. Data on "per capita" amount of players with accounts <6 months old on each continent.
4. Data on deletion rates of accounts between 2 and 12 months old on each continent.
5. Data on average "account age" for position-holders on each continent.
Can process #5 myself for Dwilight, FEI, and Beluaterra, but it'll take a long time.
Good thing it's a gloomy day outside! Time for some more spreadsheets...
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For EC you should consider that there are 3 or so realms that are dying or already dead. That tends to drive away players from the island as they look for something new.
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True about EC. But Atamara was barely any better by any measure.
By the way, I measured the "account life" for the rulers of FEI, Dwilight, and Beluaterra. I used account number instead of date, because it was easier to enter into a spreadsheet and be done.
FEI: 20522 average, standard deviation of 8582; oldest account ID 3190, youngest 30497
Dwilight: 18716 average, standard deviation of 6685; oldest account ID 6895, youngest 31456
Beluaterra: 14855 average, standard deviation of 10812; oldest account ID 2905, youngest 29500
Beluaterra had several 4-digit account IDs, but three quite young accounts that skewed it and gave it that very large SD.
I don't know a way to access this data for EC, Atamara, or the Colonies. So either somebody else can post the links to the family accounts, or do it yourself and post the results.
Next up: dukes....
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A few things...
1. I agree that long-term stable alliances that effect no changes tend to be pretty boring, especially for new players. I don't think the SA bloc is a problem because they've been steadily spreading and they're not just refighting the same wars all over again (and what Arcaea-bloc are you talking about, anyway? We've got one ally that we can count on with any certainty at the moment, with the rest of the continent either at war with or neutral in the conflict right now) like, for instance, the Sirion/Fontan conflict. I think the situation on Atamara is a bit anomalous because the CE bloc clearly was making changes, and somehow no coalition united against their expanding influence until very recently. Why the current war isn't drawing more people I'm not sure, which leads to the next point...
2. Positions. After playing the game for several years and watching what happens in various realms, I'm convinced that it's not so much position turnover (though having some is of course required) as position (and influence) availability that draws people. I'm pretty confident in saying that Arcaea's one Lordship/Council seat per family rule has been the single biggest reason for its success, closely followed by more luck than I can shake a stick at and the general policy of just accepting that spies exist and telling people stuff anyway. All else being equal, the realms I've been in with position restrictions have had a much more happy and involved playerbase than those that haven't.
Now, as I alluded to, this isn't just game mechanic positions but opportunities to influence. Fear of spies (or factionalism) has ended up crippling a lot of places by making it so they don't share anything outside of the inner circle, and that leads to confused and bored people who don't think they have any say in the realm. People who don't think they have an opportunity to have a say tend to leave.
3. Gold. This one's pretty basic, but places that make an effort to get new characters reasonable oaths, as opposed to doing these godawful "trial oaths" at some ridiculous percentage (10% of a crappy rural, really?) are going to do better. This can also be mitigated by some sort of central gold distribution system (for instance, Perdan right now has CS requirements per army, and beyond your oath you get however much gold you need from the General to get a proper unit), but you have to make that really clear in the first few days for it to have much of an effect.
4. More effort making sure new players don't get lost. I'm blackly guilty of this one, as I don't tend to even bother saying anything to a new player until they've actually sent something, and half the time I get distracted and won't say anything even then.
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Could Tom put up a little voluntary questionnaire for when someone deletes their account? After a while, we might have some decent data about what leaving people think of the game, why they left, etc. This questionnaire could also be sent out to people who previous had accounts (if their addresses are still stored somewhere).
One drastic idea might be to make a new small island (smaller than the War Islands) that is specifically for new players. A few chosen experienced players can be there as mentors, but the rest are new players learning the game. After a specified time limit, the players are prompted to move their characters onto a different island to make way for new players. The game mechanics could also be altered on these islands slightly to hide a few bits of things from people - treaties, trade, rogue forces come to mind that can be changed a little to help new players.
EDIT:
2. Positions. After playing the game for several years and watching what happens in various realms, I'm convinced that it's not so much position turnover (though having some is of course required) as position (and influence) availability that draws people. I'm pretty confident in saying that Arcaea's one Lordship/Council seat per family rule has been the single biggest reason for its success, closely followed by more luck than I can shake a stick at and the general policy of just accepting that spies exist and telling people stuff anyway. All else being equal, the realms I've been in with position restrictions have had a much more happy and involved playerbase than those that haven't.
Possibly why Dwilight has a growing population too?
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2. Positions. After playing the game for several years and watching what happens in various realms, I'm convinced that it's not so much position turnover (though having some is of course required) as position (and influence) availability that draws people. I'm pretty confident in saying that Arcaea's one Lordship/Council seat per family rule has been the single biggest reason for its success, closely followed by more luck than I can shake a stick at and the general policy of just accepting that spies exist and telling people stuff anyway. All else being equal, the realms I've been in with position restrictions have had a much more happy and involved playerbase than those that haven't.
Very true. Though I would argue that turnover is a (major) factor in availability. But, position availability would probably be determined by:
1. Frequency and "success rate" of territorial wars; maybe "rate of creative destruction" of realms?
2. Viability of colony attempts
3. Turnover rates
4. Position restriction rules
5. Benevolence by high-ups
Anything else that could be determinant of position availability?
We should presumably, then, expect high involvement by new players in continents with wars that meaningfully alter power blocs, have viable colonial activity, have restrictions on family position accumulation, and high exposure to wounding and imprisonment.
Sounds like Dwilight, and it basically does exhibit high new player involvement (see earlier post and about dukes below), though not tons better than FEI; but FEI has fairly regular power shakeups.
For the curious, some more data, this time not rulers, but dukes:
FEI: 20016 average, 8925 standard deviation; minimum of 1607, maximum of 30856
Dwilight: 21256 average, 7205 standard deviation; minimum of 7434, maximum of 31456
Beluaterra: 16603 average, 10708 standard deviation; minimum of 383, maximum of 30497
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I'd add 6. Ease of getting into decision-making message groups.
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So I got bored recently, and I kind of have a thing for spreadsheets. So I made one, charting out registration and activity on each continent based on the game-generated graphs. I made one chart for registration, one for the 3-day activity, and one for the day-to-day activity. I was particularly curious because the game-wide chart shows a strange divergence whereby registrations have been increasing lately, while 3-day activity has been declining.
Too long, didn't (yet) read it all. However, I did see and have a personal interpretation of the player count stats. I believe, from vague memory, that player count always goes up at the start of summer, which I assume to be linked to students finally having some time off after their exams and looking for new games to occupy their time. However, they don't all stay, and it's also a good time for many older players to go on vacation. This, I believe, would explain why registered accounts grow, while activity trends aren't the least affected.
Overall, this early-summer player count boost has no significant impact on player count trends. Seems like an equal number of people leave as the extra that come for the season.
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Could be completely true, but still doesn't explain the divergence between continents.
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I'd be interested to know how long rulers have been in place on each continent. Perhaps some older rulers are getting a little set in their ways and developing decision making cliques which are hard to get into for new players?
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One thing I'd like to note:
Player population is highly seasonal, from my personal, informal observations throughout the year. Many students seem to play BM from their schools' computer labs. We tend to get more players during spring and autumn, when schools start, and bored students start surfing the web instead of doing their homework. Conversely, player population dips during summer and winter, when students (and everyone else) leave on vacations.
Do this survey again in September and you may see a different story.
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Could be completely true, but still doesn't explain the divergence between continents.
The Colonies seem to have younger rulers. There's not a lot going on, so that could explain a lot of the population loss--The only war is a 4v1 gangbang on Giblot, led by the largest realm on the continent. So that's probably not too exciting for about 75% of the island--two week march in one direction, fight a battle against peasant militia, then return home.
To make matters worse, nobles in two of the attacking realms have told me that they are fighting primarily because of "too much peace" messages. Hardly an exciting place to be.
Lukon needs a nice secession to make the island really interesting.
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Outer Tilog is yays. Who said no RP? I'm RPing. In fact, the only messages I have ever sent (and ever will send) are RPs. Gold colored paper, yeah! Not so subtly taking jabs at players/characters who insist on writing overly long, pretentious, and self-absorbed RPs by parodying them unskillfully? Of course! Mature language? Wonder why I haven't lost honor their due to vulgarity reports! Wahahahahahaha!!!
And I play a guy who speaks in a wannabe film noir style of self-monologue pretending to be a private detective who made a deal with the Devil and who needs to find answers by taking over Outer Tilog so he can annihilate all Gibbers and in that way avenge the death of his (non-existent) wife.
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Do this survey again in September and you may see a different story.
You may be assured that I plan to update it semi-regularly.
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I am a new player who has stuck around for a while. I suppose everyone on these boards can say that, but as someone who has recently gone through the period of adjustment, I'd like to lend my two cents to the discussion. I have nobles on Dwilight and Atamarra, and the distinctions that have been drawn before this have largely held true in my experience. On Dwilight, my character has managed to work his way into some minor positions of leadership mainly by being reliable and actively sending messages to people. This has been extremely fun and interesting for me, and has led to my sticking around the game for as long as I have. Unlike most online games, I do find this to be a real team game, and that's what keeps me hooked. In Atamarra, I've found relatively little opportunity for advancement or leadership so far. This isn't really a criticism, as the leaders of my realm seem to be extraordinarily nice, but when I look at the days in realm of the leaders, they are often in the thousands. That's great and wonderful, but also pretty intimidating to anyone new looking for an opportunity to advance beyond order-following knight. I know there are things I can do on my own to spice up the game, but I don't think most new players would know about them right away (and changing classes takes some time/honor/prestige anyways).
I would say that benevolence from the top is pretty important as it is difficult to make bank as a knight. (in 3 months of daily playing I've accumulated no surplus gold on either character - I'm dependent on the army sponsor for gold every single time I refit and haven't had any extra to spend on training or anything else) Another thing that was mentioned that I've found engaging is being invited in to message groups where decisions are debated and made - that's what gives me an understanding of the narrative arc of my realm, and deepens my engagement with the character.
Other players I'm sure have other priorities and likes/dislikes, but this has been my experience.
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Regarding gold...
That is highly realm and situation dependent. I've had precisely three characters who at any point in their life really had "surplus" gold. One of them was expressly created as an attempt to fill the coffers of House Bedwyr, and made a lot of money as a spy. One of them made it to a lordship in a completely peaceful realm with nothing going on, and the last is the Duke of a large city on Dwilight who only occasionally has surplus funds and those tend to get plowed into his religion or infrastructure improvements.
That's mostly because I've ended up playing in realms that are constantly fighting important wars where every piece of gold counted or on frontiers where there was jack-all gold to go around :) Consequently, House Bedwyr has the highest fame/family gold ratio that I'm aware of.
So, gold is one of those things that can depend on the place and time. It only annoys me when I see (for instance) the handful of people at the top of the realm leading 100 man units while most of the army is fielding fifteen or twenty. IC, I love seeing that in my enemies as it means I have a good shot at finding disaffected elements and it's incredibly inefficient. OOC, it bugs me, because that's the kind of thing that drives people away. Fifty vs thirty men is one thing, being a Duke has its perks. But 100 vs 15 is just silliness.
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Regarding gold...
That is highly realm and situation dependent. I've had precisely three characters who at any point in their life really had "surplus" gold. One of them was expressly created as an attempt to fill the coffers of House Bedwyr, and made a lot of money as a spy. One of them made it to a lordship in a completely peaceful realm with nothing going on, and the last is the Duke of a large city on Dwilight who only occasionally has surplus funds and those tend to get plowed into his religion or infrastructure improvements.
That's mostly because I've ended up playing in realms that are constantly fighting important wars where every piece of gold counted or on frontiers where there was jack-all gold to go around :) Consequently, House Bedwyr has the highest fame/family gold ratio that I'm aware of.
So, gold is one of those things that can depend on the place and time. It only annoys me when I see (for instance) the handful of people at the top of the realm leading 100 man units while most of the army is fielding fifteen or twenty. IC, I love seeing that in my enemies as it means I have a good shot at finding disaffected elements and it's incredibly inefficient. OOC, it bugs me, because that's the kind of thing that drives people away. Fifty vs thirty men is one thing, being a Duke has its perks. But 100 vs 15 is just silliness.
I've heard of knights in some realms on FEI receiving only 16-30 gold per tax. Such small amount seriously reduce the options and fun of knights in my opinion, and results in them constantly requiring handouts to support a decent unit. I'm sure some realms do this to ensure that the Lords/Dukes can dish out gold to the most "active" nobles, but to me its far too much micro control over the realm, to the detriment of some of the player base.
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I have a lord in a small region on Dwilight. By my calculations, assuming full production and 10% taxes (a long way off), I should get on average 79 gold per week. I offered my knight a very generous 25% -- but that means he will only get about 20 gold per week. Quite frankly, it is a pitiable sum.
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I'm sure some realms do this to ensure that the Lords/Dukes can dish out gold to the most "active" nobles, but to me its far too much micro control over the realm, to the detriment of some of the player base.
It's not always just a way to run around the IR restrictions on activity. Patronage is a time-tested way to run a realm. I have given gold to character who would do nothing useful that I know of with it, except that they would support me politically when needed.
Pure everyone-is-equal makes for less opportunities for politics.
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Pure everyone-is-equal makes for less opportunities for politics.
True, but there's a difference between favouritism and cronyism, and keeping most of the realm on such a small amount of income that they can't support anything resembling a reasonable unit.
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I've heard of knights in some realms on FEI receiving only 16-30 gold per tax. Such small amount seriously reduce the options and fun of knights in my opinion, and results in them constantly requiring handouts to support a decent unit. I'm sure some realms do this to ensure that the Lords/Dukes can dish out gold to the most "active" nobles, but to me its far too much micro control over the realm, to the detriment of some of the player base.
You won't believe how many times I've had to smack a lord in Darka for giving a knight a crappy oath that gave a 10-15 gold income from the region. It's not necessarily greed from the dukes/council that cause such problems. The lords of especially rural regions just often don't seem to realize that they will have to put up 50-60% of the regions income in total to oaths to give their knights a decent income.
In that sense the oldest tax system we've had was quite a bit better for retaining new players since everyone was guaranteed a decent income right off the bat since all the tax income of the realm was pooled and distributed fairly equally.
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EC and Atamara can't hold players very well, and loss of players on those continents gains a wide audience due to being large continents.
Joining new realms is a complete crapshoot. You can get a totally loser realm that blows your experience of the entire game. For example, here's an anecdotal story on my experience with a new character on EC:
Having had my character in Perdan killed in a war, I decided to go somewhere new on EC. I chose Fontan, specifically because of the changing political scene in the north (most of my experience on EC has been in the south), and the possibility of joining a war against Westmoor. So I started a new character and marched off toward the capital of Ashforth.
It was three days before anyone in Fontan sent a realm-wide message. And that was a copy/paste of a buro work report. During that entire time no one sent me a "Welcome to Fontan" message, no lords offered an oath, and there was no discussion of anything, at all. So three days of "Your men enjoy some free time." Since then, there have been a few messages, but all of the nature of "We need more police work in Krimml." You'd have sworn that this realm was already dead.
If a new player had joined this realm, and seen this "activity", then I'd expect them to just quit. Now, you could argue that the people in Fontan knew I was not a new player, and so didn't bother with the welcome messages. But then you could also say that a relative of the recently deceased ruler of Perdan joining Fontan would deserve special recognition.
Anyway, my point is that the new player experience drives new player retention. And quite often, from what I have heard, the new player experience can sometimes be pretty bad. Unfortunately we don't have any data on where new players actually start new characters, and how long they stick around. Tim (Anaris) might be able to do some data mining in the dev server, but I wouldn't have any idea what to look for, or what any of it would mean.
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A lot of those realm ads are severely outdated, for one thing, giving players the wrong impression about some realms that might be down to a single duchy but still proclaim they are the shining beacon of awesomeness that they were 4 years ago.
Another thing is that the current way for newly created characters to choose a duchy isn't really very informative. Also it puts them in a random region in the duchy, which, while it might show them around, doesn't lead to too many options. I'd rather they all just start in the capital, like emigrating characters. New players with their first characters certainly wouldn't understand the nuances of ditching their starter units for a better quality one to save money because days 3 and 7 give automatic family gold, nor would they likely understand the whole thing about different paraphernalia being available in different region types.
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I would say that benevolence from the top is pretty important as it is difficult to make bank as a knight. (in 3 months of daily playing I've accumulated no surplus gold on either character - I'm dependent on the army sponsor for gold every single time I refit and haven't had any extra to spend on training or anything else)
I'll start this comment out by saying that I do like the new oath system. It is pretty flexible, and allows individual knights to be rewarded for their loyalty and service. The ability to give out good marks to favored knights, and black marks for screwing up, and even the potential to protect knights from punishment and dissolve oaths out from under troublemakers, all great stuff. Good additions to the game, overall.
However, bluexmas' comment does outline the major failing of the oath system: Distributing the gold in an equitable manner to the knights of a realm. I don't care how "realistic" this system might be, it makes things difficult and problematic for new players. It allows experienced, or callous and uncaring, lords to pray on new players, to the ultimate detriment of the overall game. Some regions also don't have the gold potential to pay knights a decent income. I was lord of a region that made 230 gold, and required three knights for full estate coverage. Not exactly a lavish income for any of them. Of course that assumes you can actually find three people to be your knight.
People hate asking for gold to meet the recruiting requirements outlines by generals and marshals. Especially if they have to continually ask for gold each and every week, or after every battle. Kind of makes them feel like they're failing. And it's a pain in the ass. And then you have to wait. And maybe you won't get enough gold, or any gold at all. And some people just don't ever ask. And the people with the gold have to stay in a city to pass it out. But maybe they aren't in a city, so the request never gets filled. And then everybody gets mad at everyone because stuff's not getting done, etc., etc.
I'm not saying that we need to return to the old ways of tax distribution. But it does make me wonder if there is any kind of happy blend of the two, that can allow for some efficiency in getting gold out to those who need it, while still allowing for the good stuff that the new system brings. Allowing lords to do whatever they want is good for the lords. It supports the favoritism and political maneuvering aspect of things quite well. Except that it is not a very friendly game mechanic for newer players. It puts all the power into the hands of the lords, who can just say "10%, take it or leave it". And the new players are supposed to know that 10% of a rural is a bad oath?
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Hm, hey, remember when Chenier said that bankers were useless? We could give them some sort of option that could assign a portion of realm income first to priority recipients.
Like, the banker could have the comprehensive list of all nobles in the realm (except, maybe, the council, dukes, and lords, to prevent abuse). The judge and ruler already have similar lists in bans for the former and ooc bans and exiles for the latter. This would just have different mechanics and intent.
Basically the banker is notified of who needs financial aid. The banker selects a % of real income to be sent to those people, before all other calculations for realm income (or after, this is just rough idea). This information is public and can be checked under some page in the Information page, both to make sure it's happening, and because, well, this stuff should be public since it is the realm's stuff.
Yeah, it's unrealistic. But you know, I think I'd rather play a slightly unrealistic game than one that I do not like due to mechanics conflicting with realism.
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Well, we have wealth taxes--why not have reverse taxes (aka welfare) for poor knights?
Give the banker an option that says "if a knight receives less than x gold, give them gold from the realm share to make up for it".
And the realm should be able to levy effective taxes against the duchies to make up for it.
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Welfare? For nobles? You must be joking, sir!
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Well, we have wealth taxes--why not have reverse taxes (aka welfare) for poor knights?
Give the banker an option that says "if a knight receives less than x gold, give them gold from the realm share to make up for it".
And the realm should be able to levy effective taxes against the duchies to make up for it.
Come to Riombara.
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Come to Riombara.
I left once you sold out to the monsters, sorry.
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I left once you sold out to the monsters, sorry.
But we sold out to communism now! Everybody's equal. 8)
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I truly appreciate the discussion around this topic. I'm not sure that some kind of welfare system would be helpful IC, as that just reinforces the crappy lot of the new knight. I'd also like to second the comment made above that truly new players have no idea that 10% is a crappy oath - you have to dig pretty deep (for a new character especially) to figure out how much that will actually make you. And, if all of the offers you receive are low-balls, you would naturally assume that that's the way things are.
One suggestion might be to let ruler's set an oath % floor for their realm. Obviously, it should probably be done in a way so that the different types of regions can each be adjusted to have a different floor, otherwise the gold-rich cities would make it unwise for even the most benevolent rulers to get involved if it was a blanket adjust. Done properly though, this could be an effective way to advertise for realms, and let rulers make a statement about their realm's treatment of knights. Any thoughts?
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Regarding gold...
That is highly realm and situation dependent. I've had precisely three characters who at any point in their life really had "surplus" gold. One of them was expressly created as an attempt to fill the coffers of House Bedwyr, and made a lot of money as a spy. One of them made it to a lordship in a completely peaceful realm with nothing going on, and the last is the Duke of a large city on Dwilight who only occasionally has surplus funds and those tend to get plowed into his religion or infrastructure improvements.
That's mostly because I've ended up playing in realms that are constantly fighting important wars where every piece of gold counted or on frontiers where there was jack-all gold to go around :) Consequently, House Bedwyr has the highest fame/family gold ratio that I'm aware of.
So, gold is one of those things that can depend on the place and time. It only annoys me when I see (for instance) the handful of people at the top of the realm leading 100 man units while most of the army is fielding fifteen or twenty. IC, I love seeing that in my enemies as it means I have a good shot at finding disaffected elements and it's incredibly inefficient. OOC, it bugs me, because that's the kind of thing that drives people away. Fifty vs thirty men is one thing, being a Duke has its perks. But 100 vs 15 is just silliness.
I can't speak for everywhere, but in Enweil I've often led 100+ men units while others had tiny units. But hey, the dukes were giving me gold to spread out to my army, and when I made offers for gold to the army hardly anyone ever replied. So I just dumped most of it on my own unit. Sometimes, people are really to blame.
And really, some of these people were often directly given cash, and we never saw their units grow, and as far as I know everyone in Enweil has a good enough oath to recruit at least a respectful amount of men. So meh. Ducal handouts were really just a plus, mostly to help whoever wanted to lead a TO unit (anyone could, they just had to ask), or to replenish units decimated in battle. And while I didn't have the gold to recruit such huge units by myself, my income as lord of a rural was enough to pay for their salary without need for supplements. And those were highly-trained archers from the best available RCs.
Hm, hey, remember when Chenier said that bankers were useless? We could give them some sort of option that could assign a portion of realm income first to priority recipients.
Like, the banker could have the comprehensive list of all nobles in the realm (except, maybe, the council, dukes, and lords, to prevent abuse). The judge and ruler already have similar lists in bans for the former and ooc bans and exiles for the latter. This would just have different mechanics and intent.
Basically the banker is notified of who needs financial aid. The banker selects a % of real income to be sent to those people, before all other calculations for realm income (or after, this is just rough idea). This information is public and can be checked under some page in the Information page, both to make sure it's happening, and because, well, this stuff should be public since it is the realm's stuff.
Yeah, it's unrealistic. But you know, I think I'd rather play a slightly unrealistic game than one that I do not like due to mechanics conflicting with realism.
There is no option you could give the banker that you couldn't give someone else. I also deeply dislike the welfare tax idea, but would not oppose a capped class-based tax from coming back.
"Welfare" tax is just so damn abusable. It's one thing to cheat yourself out of the property tax to avoid giving your gold away, but to then grab the gold of other more needy nobles? It'd be cheap. Needy nobles would get ripped off by the malign.
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I was lord of a region that made 230 gold, and required three knights for full estate coverage. Not exactly a lavish income for any of them. Of course that assumes you can actually find three people to be your knight.
The Riombaran experience is valuable here.
Riombara has an ongoing IC feud between advocates of redistribution via high realm/duchy taxes (25% of all income of regions is now pooled realm-wide) and advocates of redistribution via food sales.
I'm an economist by training. I've run equilibrium models many, many times on many realms trying to determine what price of food could promote equality of incomes between typically poor rural regions and typically wealthy urban (or, often even wealthier due to food self-sufficiency and lower estate needs, townsland) regions.
I have never found a realm where the "equilibrium" (or, rather, the "nearest to equilibrium") price that would even income was less than 50 gold per 100 bushels. And yet most realms (D'Hara excluded perhaps) pay 20-40 for their food in internal trades.
This means that gold is redistributed through realm-wide tax shares or through donations, neither of which show up in oath-share estimations for knights. Moreover, this systematically impoverishes the (majority?) of players who hold rural oaths and positions.
I'll tell you what would make rural regions able to offer sizable oaths. If the game prohibited sales of food for less than 30 gold per 100 bushels.
Indirik, I bet your 230-gold producing region produced a surplus of food. I'll bet it wasn't an insignificant surplus. I'll bet that, given your need for 4 estates, your region ran a surplus of at least 200-400 bushels on a regular basis (only very large rural regions need 4 estates). If you could have been bringing in 100-200 gold in food sales, that might have changed things.
I will, however, say that I think this issue of wealth distribution should be split into a different thread. It is tangentially connected to retention, but hardly what I was talking about initially. Unless someone can demonstrate that the higher-retaining continents are more generous in distribution to poor knights....?
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I created a new character today, and I can confirm that the Colonies had the lowest average income, and I'm pretty sure Atamara had the highest.
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I have never found a realm where the "equilibrium" (or, rather, the "nearest to equilibrium") price that would even income was less than 50 gold per 100 bushels. And yet most realms (D'Hara excluded perhaps) pay 20-40 for their food in internal trades.
(...)
I'll tell you what would make rural regions able to offer sizable oaths. If the game prohibited sales of food for less than 30 gold per 100 bushels.
D'Hara does indeed sell internally to 50 gold per unit. I'd set a preferential rate too, if I could.
I don't like the idea of capping it at 30. It kinda destroys the potential to demand a regular shipment of food for dirt cheap as part of an armistice.
I think the fact that ox carts waste so much food is good enough incentive. I mean, I saw a transfer yesterday by ox carts, where 6 bushels made it and 94 were stolen by brigands. Kinda makes you want to use the caravans. Then since caravans cost gold, you want to ask a little at least in return. And since you are asking for gold, you don't feel as bad for asking for enough to make a profit.
It must be noted, though, that some regions are just crap. They neither produce enough gold nor enough food to cover the manpower they require for full estates. Most badlands are like this, but some rurals as well, my old region of Nemeno coming to mind. Selling food still wouldn't have been enough to sustain two nobles at decent income levels.
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I disliked the situation in Riombara from a different point of view: there where the game says "this duchy tax is a punishment", the players just seemed to ignore it and felt quite comfortable with a modern day socialist system of taxation and redistribution.
That disgusted me.
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I disliked the situation in Riombara from a different point of view: there where the game says "this duchy tax is a punishment", the players just seemed to ignore it and felt quite comfortable with a modern day socialist system of taxation and redistribution.
That disgusted me.
Taxes were *normal*, though, as far as I know. Mind you, they were small and went directly to the superior's pockets, but still.
Also, the game says "*probably* a punishment".
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Well, taxes were "normal" in the sense that the one being taxed would agree upon the amount of tax. Otherwise unrest would eventually grow. Taxes came with privileges.
Besides, I'm all for taxing and then putting it to use for the state, but what Riombara does is just re-distributing the gold automatically. A really, really socialist inspired idea. The main reason is "everyone an equal share". Mind you this is not a comment on socialism or whatnot, just that it has no place in Battlemaster.
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Well, taxes were "normal" in the sense that the one being taxed would agree upon the amount of tax. Otherwise unrest would eventually grow. Taxes came with privileges.
Besides, I'm all for taxing and then putting it to use for the state, but what Riombara does is just re-distributing the gold automatically. A really, really socialist inspired idea. The main reason is "everyone an equal share". Mind you this is not a comment on socialism or whatnot, just that it has no place in Battlemaster.
The values of shared realm taxes for gameplay purposes has been preached on these forums, though. Unmedieval, but not completely unfun. I like it being a possibility to debate within realms.
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The values of shared realm taxes for gameplay purposes has been preached on these forums, though. Unmedieval, but not completely unfun. I like it being a possibility to debate within realms.
It's also much closer to how the game used to work. I have been and still am bitterly opposed to the current tax system because intrigue possibilities and reality aside, it makes it much much much more difficult to get gold to new people and keep everyone in the realm at a reasonable level of gold when your regions are taking any damage, which I have seen leading to people leaving the game and is frankly just not fun.
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I tend to agree with Bedwyr, but not entirely. I'd split the oath system and the taxes apart a bit. Keep the oaths, and even a bit of the tax incentive portion of the system. But also allow easy realm-wide collection and distribution of taxes.
It is kinda-sorta possible to do this now. Dukes can forcibly tax regions. But regions cannot forcibly tax duchies. The current mechanic for realms to tax duchies is a bit broken, as it does not allow the realm to directly tax the city. Bankers can only tax the duchy entity, which dukes can avoid by simply not sending any of their own city's income to the duchy. So this system would require the willing cooperation of the duke, who would be able to set all on his own how much tax he sends to the realm.
If realms could forcibly tax duchies in an effective manner, then realms could devise new tax policies that would involve both a meaningful realm share for the nobility, and the possibility of lords giving extra income to favored knights.
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I like the idea of a possible "forced tax" on duchies (I believe that it should tax the entire duchy income, not the city itself), but I wouldn't mind if it were just an extra option. In essence this means that a ruler/banker could enforce taxes which would then be redistributed or whatnot throughout the entire realm, but doesn't have to. He might as well come to an agreement with a duke (which would be much more of a consensus then).
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Yes...The fact that there's no way to tax cities right now is one of the many, many, many reasons why Dukes are overpowered at the moment. I still think the easiest way to get around that short of revamping the tax system (which would still be my preference) would be to just auto-shunt all city income to the duchy tax pool.
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Yes...The fact that there's no way to tax cities right now is one of the many, many, many reasons why Dukes are overpowered at the moment. I still think the easiest way to get around that short of revamping the tax system (which would still be my preference) would be to just auto-shunt all city income to the duchy tax pool.
Problem with that is that then the knights of the city have no income. Well, I guess the Duke could manually give them bonds, but. . . .
Of course, being both the Duke of the richest city in the realm and the banker, I don't mind this idea otherwise. . . .
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If realms could forcibly tax duchies in an effective manner, then realms could devise new tax policies that would involve both a meaningful realm share for the nobility, and the possibility of lords giving extra income to favored knights.
Realms should be able to tax cities as proxies for duchies.
That will provoke dukes to seek "supplemental income:" ducal taxes. As is, ducal taxes are, in my experienced, widely under- or unused. If the realm could tax a city it would provoke the duke to seek vassals who he can tax. This will promote competition for vassals, as a larger duchy could run a lower ducal tax rate and still have the duke acquire the same income.
Such a system should create unrest, however. I'd love to see realms able to tax cities. I'd like to see realms penalized for taxing them at very high rates. Maybe something similar to Too Much Peace, but, instead, Too Many Taxes, which would increase the % of tax revenues that gets "wasted" (read: destroyed) as the tax rates on cities rise. Have no penalty for a substantial margin (maybe 0-10%), then an exponentially expanding penalty afterwards, starting small.
HOWEVER, returning to the topic of the thread:
Does anyone have any evidence suggesting that realms that give more gold to new players are more likely to retain nobles? Do continents with higher average incomes have higher retention (my guess: no)? Do realms that have high "realm shares" of taxes hold new players better?
Our practice of coming up with "solutions" to retention issues without having ever carefully diagnosed the problem is just not good. Until somebody has data suggesting that there may indeed be a meaningful link between gold systems that treat new characters preferentially...
Two additional notes:
1. Nobody replies to my comment about trade practices? Sad day.
2. I somehow doubt that most new characters are new players; it's a careful distinction that should be made, and "realm shares" benefit low-ranking characters, which may not actually be new players. There may be more effective targeting means.
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Such a system should create unrest, however. I'd love to see realms able to tax cities. I'd like to see realms penalized for taxing them at very high rates. Maybe something similar to Too Much Peace, but, instead, Too Many Taxes, which would increase the % of tax revenues that gets "wasted" (read: destroyed) as the tax rates on cities rise. Have no penalty for a substantial margin (maybe 0-10%), then an exponentially expanding penalty afterwards, starting small.
That already exists. I don't know the numbers, but there is a Royal Court overhead that ramps up as you take in more taxes, with nothing up to some percentage (10% of the realm gold, I think).
Does anyone have any evidence suggesting that realms that give more gold to new players are more likely to retain nobles? Do continents with higher average incomes have higher retention (my guess: no)? Do realms that have high "realm shares" of taxes hold new players better?
Realm shares are a bad way of handling it, as that gives everyone a bump in gold and "justifies" crappy oaths for new characters. And, as has been fairly conclusively demonstrated at the realm level (island statistics, average income per realm) at least twice on the d-list that I remember, average income is meaningless as that can mean "we have five dukes who rake in 1K a week and lords raking in 300 a week and a bunch of knights making 20 a week". Median income is what we need.
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This last point is crucial: old established Continents/realms might have high average gold marks, but if that doesn't make its way into the hands of new players (which I think is the problem we're discussing) the point is moot.
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Realms should be able to tax cities as proxies for duchies.
That will provoke dukes to seek "supplemental income:" ducal taxes. As is, ducal taxes are, in my experienced, widely under- or unused. If the realm could tax a city it would provoke the duke to seek vassals who he can tax. This will promote competition for vassals, as a larger duchy could run a lower ducal tax rate and still have the duke acquire the same income.
Except that if you take on knights with a share of the duchy income, as far as I know, they don't get any estates. In which case you are paying them and getting nothing in return, or just about.
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Except that if you take on knights with a share of the duchy income, as far as I know, they don't get any estates. In which case you are paying them and getting nothing in return, or just about.
He doesn't mention anything there about knights on the Ducal share though, just that they could use the Dukes power to tax regions in the Duchy to supplement income in the case that the Cities taxes are subject to realm tax.
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He doesn't mention anything there about knights on the Ducal share though, just that they could use the Dukes power to tax regions in the Duchy to supplement income in the case that the Cities taxes are subject to realm tax.
Well if he gives all of his city's gold to the ducal share, then where do his knights get their income from?
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Well if he gives all of his city's gold to the ducal share, then where do his knights get their income from?
Giving all a cities gold to the Ducal share was Bedwyr's idea. My understanding was Vellos was asking for the currently tax on Duchy share to be changed to a city tax. It would tax only the income directly associated with the city, which would make the Duchy Tax from regions something of a tax loophole. I could be wrong there.
Under Bedwyr's idea, I assume he meant either for Knights to receive their share before the taxes where transferred to the Duchy share for taxation purposes, or for the system to be changed so that knights of a Duchy receive their share from the Duchy pool instead of the city pool.
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My idea:
As is, the realm can only tax the "duchy treasury," which is fed by "duchy taxes."
I suggest, instead, that the realm can only tax the "city treasury" which is fed by "city taxes."
The "duchy treasury" still exists, and is a personal income for the duke alone.
What use does it have? Simple: the city tax can rake in gold for the realm. But that will weaken dukes. Dukes can respond with duchy taxes, which are currently underused. As the duchy treasury would be untaxed, it is essentially a levy by the duke on rural lords, as it currently is, but would have a stronger motive, as the reward for realms to deploy taxes on cities would be greater, due to the taxes actually being effective.
That already exists. I don't know the numbers, but there is a Royal Court overhead that ramps up as you take in more taxes, with nothing up to some percentage (10% of the realm gold, I think).
It does exist. And it is pitifully ineffective. Despite Riombara having 25-35% of it's total tax income (including property tax and other taxes) going to the realm on the whole, realm tax overhead still only amounted to between 0.2% and 0.3% of total tax revenues. It was practically a rounding error, even though sometimes a third of the gold in Riombara is realm-distributed.
I would have expected the penalty to be at least 3-5% at that point. But maybe that's just me.
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My idea:
As is, the realm can only tax the "duchy treasury," which is fed by "duchy taxes."
I suggest, instead, that the realm can only tax the "city treasury" which is fed by "city taxes."
The "duchy treasury" still exists, and is a personal income for the duke alone.
What use does it have? Simple: the city tax can rake in gold for the realm. But that will weaken dukes. Dukes can respond with duchy taxes, which are currently underused. As the duchy treasury would be untaxed, it is essentially a levy by the duke on rural lords, as it currently is, but would have a stronger motive, as the reward for realms to deploy taxes on cities would be greater, due to the taxes actually being effective.
Interesting idea.
Currently, it's so damn difficult to get to apply ducal taxes, though. Most dukes don't ask for them, and lords can easily change ducal allegiance with extreme ease if ever you ask for more than they care to part with. And it's usually impossible to justify as you get more gold than any of them, too.
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Interesting idea.
Currently, it's so damn difficult to get to apply ducal taxes, though. Most dukes don't ask for them, and lords can easily change ducal allegiance with extreme ease if ever you ask for more than they care to part with. And it's usually impossible to justify as you get more gold than any of them, too.
Partly right now there is little need to impose the tax, thus it is often easy to find a Duchy that will offer a 0% tax on your region. By making the regional taxes more important to the Duke, we should see proper competition in regards to these tax rates, creating another consideration as a Lord when deciding what Duchy to join. I would also imagine that those regions that can't switch to another Duchy may become the target of more aggressive taxes. If everything works as Vellos imagines, then suddenly Duke need to do much more for region lords in order to keep them and preserve their Duchy Taxes, which would become a much larger part of their income then it currently is.
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Partly right now there is little need to impose the tax, thus it is often easy to find a Duchy that will offer a 0% tax on your region. By making the regional taxes more important to the Duke, we should see proper competition in regards to these tax rates, creating another consideration as a Lord when deciding what Duchy to join. I would also imagine that those regions that can't switch to another Duchy may become the target of more aggressive taxes. If everything works as Vellos imagines, then suddenly Duke need to do much more for region lords in order to keep them and preserve their Duchy Taxes, which would become a much larger part of their income then it currently is.
Which, in the end, could simply be used to make the cities richer and the rurals poorer, though...
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Which, in the end, could simply be used to make the cities richer and the rurals poorer, though...
Almost certainly, maybe it will force the Rural lords to band together :) Certainly should see at least some realms actually pay an internal price for food.
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Currently, it's so damn difficult to get to apply ducal taxes, though. Most dukes don't ask for them, and lords can easily change ducal allegiance with extreme ease if ever you ask for more than they care to part with. And it's usually impossible to justify as you get more gold than any of them, too.
Duchy taxes will still be useless. You would have to levy ruinous taxes on rurals to make up even a modest 10% tax on most cities. Unless you had a LARGE duchy and could spread it out over many smaller regions. Which the majority of duchies don't have. One duke willing to take the income loss himself and not tax his vassals in return for the extra region allegiance would throw the tax curve out the window, too.
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Duchy taxes will still be useless. You would have to levy ruinous taxes on rurals to make up even a modest 10% tax on most cities. Unless you had a LARGE duchy and could spread it out over many smaller regions. Which the majority of duchies don't have. One duke willing to take the income loss himself and not tax his vassals in return for the extra region allegiance would throw the tax curve out the window, too.
No one said the Duke would be able to regain ALL his lost gold from taxing rural regions. One Duke willing to take the tax loss himself would simply make things more interesting, instant conflict as region lords clamber to join his Duchy if at all possible.
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Has anyone considered the effects of "culture" on players? I only bring this up because on Atamara Eston recently tried bringing a group ex-Norland players on board. The differences and clash in playing styles, role playing, and general approaches to the game drove many of our Eston players to leave including several long standing characters. Finding a match to the playing style a new player likes would seem to me to be a key factor in getting players to stay. If I had started with the Norland group, I would have left in a week or so but the players who liked that style were quite loyal to the game, even staying together after Norland was destroyed. Perhaps some mechanism to allow new players to experience several different realms/islands at the beginning and having to deactive characters after a period of time could be used to "see the world" and give a new player a better chance to find their home they truly enjoy.
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While that does sound interesting, I think it will be a gateway to abuses.
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While that does sound interesting, I think it will be a gateway to abuses.
Such as? It only brings to Dukes what already exists for Lords.
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I was referring to the idea of "tasting" several realms for new players.
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After a bit of thought, it might be easier if a weeks worth of the messages sent to all the characters in a realm could be made available to potential new players to read before selecting a realm. This would allow a potential player to get a feel for a realm before spending a couple of weeks only to find out he/she did not like the playing style of the realm they had selected. If some players find this unacceptable due to the potential for "spying" then perhaps a delay on the messages could be put in place for the potential new player, i.e. new player sees messages from a week ago or so. Much easier to implement I would think.
Roland
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Or how about a realm summary that explains the basic concepts of the realm? It's already there.
I hear your problems though. Sometimes it's disappointing and you wish you ended up somewhere else... still, try to make the best of it, and if you really don't like it, just migrate/join another realm. But I'm all up for finding a solution to this matter.
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The realm summaries as mostly outdated and self serving. A look at the communication, lack thereof, and roleplaying would go a long way to getting a new player into a realm that fits their playing style the first time. Failure to do so increases the chances that they will just walk away rather than try somewhere else. Do it right the first time!
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A new player who doesn't know any better really wouldn't know what they were looking at, though. So giving them a sample of messages is rather meaningless, as it has no context. Are 19 people posting Copy/Paste buro reports every turn a good thing? How about if the only two messages sent per day are long RPs? And what if the vast majority of the realm communication happens within the armies, duchies, guilds, religions, and message groups rather than the all-realm channel? What if the week picked for sample messages was a slow week? Or happens to involve the only OOC argument the realm had in the past two years?
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a lot of the global information page stuff could be provided--average income, total realm size, how many allies versus at war, total messages send over last 30 days, median days held for all positions, etc--to show newcomers what realm is likely to be more fun to play in. Surely there's some formula we could make to guess at the "fun" to be had--more enemies, higher income, higher message count, lower days held, and lower player count would all be positive indicators.
I know, I know, it's not a perfect system. But we need some semi-objective means of guessing at which realms are more fun than others, and highlighting realms where one can interact with others (talk/war) and do stuff (days held/realm size/income), would help retain newer players.
Second idea:
Perhaps have a "realm of the week" feature on the sign-up screen, that details one realm with a lot of detail?
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a lot of the global information page stuff could be provided--average income, total realm size, how many allies versus at war, total messages send over last 30 days, median days held for all positions, etc--to show newcomers what realm is likely to be more fun to play in. Surely there's some formula we could make to guess at the "fun" to be had--more enemies, higher income, higher message count, lower days held, and lower player count would all be positive indicators.
I know, I know, it's not a perfect system. But we need some semi-objective means of guessing at which realms are more fun than others, and highlighting realms where one can interact with others (talk/war) and do stuff (days held/realm size/income), would help retain newer players.
Second idea:
Perhaps have a "realm of the week" feature on the sign-up screen, that details one realm with a lot of detail?
This is all part of one of my previous suggestions on handing over more adequate tools in realm-picking.
A new player who doesn't know any better really wouldn't know what they were looking at, though. So giving them a sample of messages is rather meaningless, as it has no context. Are 19 people posting Copy/Paste buro reports every turn a good thing? How about if the only two messages sent per day are long RPs? And what if the vast majority of the realm communication happens within the armies, duchies, guilds, religions, and message groups rather than the all-realm channel? What if the week picked for sample messages was a slow week? Or happens to involve the only OOC argument the realm had in the past two years?
I'd say 19 people copy-pasting reports is better than none. It means the realm is active. And if it's active at sharing reports, it's probably because they are involved in something or preparing for something. They otherwise wouldn't bother with sharing so many reports.
Interesting read? No. But still a good hint.
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We already have something that tells us which duchies need knights, and "glory" which vaguely translates to how many battles in its regions. Of course these are all really vague anyway.
But making it more exact, that makes me wonder if the bigger realms might not just get bigger, and by extension, have the knights to keep growing bigger, while the smaller realms don't change much. The reason I say this is because I think some of you might have the wrong idea about the typical player who joins.
The typical player most likely has not the slightest clue about positions. Probably doesn't even know they exist, or what's so special about them. When they look at where they want to start, they're not thinking about getting a position, at least when I started I didn't know or care about positions. When my roommate in London wanted to start playing, he asked me which place had the best tactics in battle. The first question wasn't which realm had the best social mobility. It was about the action.
Now, some people might in fact go in knowing about all the positions, and be ambitious. But I think that for the vast majority of true new players who know nothing more than what was advertised, they join for the battles. So, a big realm generally has a stronger military. And I think most people who are naive to the inner workings of any environment would prefer a larger place. That's the same reason why in other MMOs the largest most prestigious guilds have the most applicants while the smaller guilds might at most have one or two curious or seriously interested individuals.
Also there is the factor of risk. It's considerably riskier as a new player to join with a small realm than a large realm because the assumption is that the large realm is well entrenched in its position. The smaller realm on the other hand, might be unstable. While this might not necessarily be true, that, I believe, is the common outside perception of those newly arrived to this game.
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We already have something that tells us which duchies need knights, and "glory" which vaguely translates to how many battles in its regions. Of course these are all really vague anyway.
But making it more exact, that makes me wonder if the bigger realms might not just get bigger, and by extension, have the knights to keep growing bigger, while the smaller realms don't change much. The reason I say this is because I think some of you might have the wrong idea about the typical player who joins.
The typical player most likely has not the slightest clue about positions. Probably doesn't even know they exist, or what's so special about them. When they look at where they want to start, they're not thinking about getting a position, at least when I started I didn't know or care about positions. When my roommate in London wanted to start playing, he asked me which place had the best tactics in battle. The first question wasn't which realm had the best social mobility. It was about the action.
Now, some people might in fact go in knowing about all the positions, and be ambitious. But I think that for the vast majority of true new players who know nothing more than what was advertised, they join for the battles. So, a big realm generally has a stronger military. And I think most people who are naive to the inner workings of any environment would prefer a larger place. That's the same reason why in other MMOs the largest most prestigious guilds have the most applicants while the smaller guilds might at most have one or two curious or seriously interested individuals.
Also there is the factor of risk. It's considerably riskier as a new player to join with a small realm than a large realm because the assumption is that the large realm is well entrenched in its position. The smaller realm on the other hand, might be unstable. While this might not necessarily be true, that, I believe, is the common outside perception of those newly arrived to this game.
I concur.
This, however, should not prevent us from helping new players make the most informed choice possible. We can't pidgeonhole everyone into the same stereotype, so having a lot of info will help people find realms that most suit their tastes, and will allow them to have more accurate expectations from their new home.
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What more should we give them then? We already tell them which regions might need knights, and which places have seen a lot of recent battles. Show CS, or gold income? Those are things which anyone with understanding of the Statistics page can see, so it's not exactly secret.
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What more should we give them then? We already tell them which regions might need knights, and which places have seen a lot of recent battles. Show CS, or gold income? Those are things which anyone with understanding of the Statistics page can see, so it's not exactly secret.
Amount of messages sent realm-wide within the last month, amount of non-report/non-order messages sent realm-wide within the last month, amount of time since the realm was last at war (not currently tracked by the game as far as I know, but would be a good idea), total number of battles over the last month, total number of "huge" battles over the last month (or 3), average knightly income, average days in realm of government members, average time in office of government members, to name a few off the top of my head. Newbies who only care for war will look only at the stats that interest them, while those who want more immersion will take a better look at activity indicators (messages) or rotation indicators (days in realm and days in office of government members).
I don't know what the current system is like for a total newbie, but I know that I found it pretty damn useless when I created a new character in a continent I didn't know very well. Not to mention that the data looked kinda sketchy. There were no indicators at all for almost all of the factors I take into consideration when picking a realm.
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This sounds like a very good start. You have hit all the things I would like to see in starting a new character.
Roland
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But making it more exact, that makes me wonder if the bigger realms might not just get bigger, and by extension, have the knights to keep growing bigger, while the smaller realms don't change much. The reason I say this is because I think some of you might have the wrong idea about the typical player who joins.
Also there is the factor of risk. It's considerably riskier as a new player to join with a small realm than a large realm because the assumption is that the large realm is well entrenched in its position. The smaller realm on the other hand, might be unstable. While this might not necessarily be true, that, I believe, is the common outside perception of those newly arrived to this game.
I don't think people realize how broadly spread this effect is and how much it causes feedback loops.
I've tried simplified studies of new players joining and leaving realms in both small and large realms which I am apart of, on both Dwilight and Atamara and my general perception is that more new nobles join larger realms. Now, Larger realms usually have less social mobility and turnover of positions, and thus in the long term, most of these nobles are less likely to stay and more likely to leave. The smaller realms are the ones with more social mobility and turnover of positions, but they see very little inward bringing of nobles for the realm, and thus the smaller realms stay small while the larger realms stay big.
Right now it is almost impossible for a small realm on Atamara to grow to be a big realm on Atamara because of simple noble count. Not enough nobles join the small realms to allow them to take new lands and grow larger. In addition, for many realms they don't even have enough nobles to hold all the regions they currently do without problems.
This is a cyclic process which causes a lot of our issues if my guess is correct.
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I don't think people realize how broadly spread this effect is and how much it causes feedback loops.
I've tried simplified studies of new players joining and leaving realms in both small and large realms which I am apart of, on both Dwilight and Atamara and my general perception is that more new nobles join larger realms. Now, Larger realms usually have less social mobility and turnover of positions, and thus in the long term, most of these nobles are less likely to stay and more likely to leave. The smaller realms are the ones with more social mobility and turnover of positions, but they see very little inward bringing of nobles for the realm, and thus the smaller realms stay small while the larger realms stay big.
Right now it is almost impossible for a small realm on Atamara to grow to be a big realm on Atamara because of simple noble count. Not enough nobles join the small realms to allow them to take new lands and grow larger. In addition, for many realms they don't even have enough nobles to hold all the regions they currently do without problems.
This is a cyclic process which causes a lot of our issues if my guess is correct.
Which brings us back to the estate system. Before, you would just expand as much as you could, and your great wealth would attract people to your realm in order to better help use and maintain it. Now, you need to do it the other way around, but it's not as easy to attract people with the *potential* of growth (and then long rebuilding times) and so most realms remain rather stagnant.
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Which brings us back to the estate system. Before, you would just expand as much as you could, and your great wealth would attract people to your realm in order to better help use and maintain it. Now, you need to do it the other way around, but it's not as easy to attract people with the *potential* of growth (and then long rebuilding times) and so most realms remain rather stagnant.
I agree completely. It seems that there are only 2 ways to solve this problem:
1. Revise the current estate issue, to allow less nobles to control more space.
2. Find 500 new players for the game.
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I agree completely. It seems that there are only 2 ways to solve this problem:
1. Revise the current estate issue, to allow less nobles to control more space.
2. Find 500 new players for the game.
1 is currently in the works, and the plan that I've seen should make it much, much easier to have wildly different noble populations depending on circumstances without crippling your realm or having a bunch of people with !@#$ty oaths.
2 sounds excellent, and all suggestions are welcome!
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2 sounds excellent, and all suggestions are welcome!
If I had them I would give them. The tough part of doing this is that Battlemaster is such a niche game. It is the absolute best type of game for its niche, but its niche is small and finding just the right kind of players that want to play this sort of game and dedicate the time to really put into having fun in battlemaster to its fullest extent (which I argue is more than 5 minutes a day when nobles really want to get the full experience) is very hard. The best way of finding new players to me that works so far is one already in implementation: Word of mouth. Those that play tell their friends who they think may be interested and get them to try it out.
Usually people will know which of their friends would like it and which won't. A vast majority of ppl that play online games wouldn't want to play battlemaster, but there is certainly a group that will and does.
So far that I can tell since speeding up the recruitment process is rather difficult(unless someone really starts pumping advertising money, which I doubt) then our best hope is to retain as many players as possible. One way in which we can work towards doing that (beyond fixing the estate system which you've already addressed) would be to allow new players more information about what can be gained from different realms upon joining. Specifically, generic pros and cons to both small and large realms. This is not even related to better specific information about individual realms, but it can give new players an idea of what life will be like in a small realm vs a big realm.
The reason I think this is important is because I pointed out just a bit earlier how those nobles who join large realms are less likely to have social mobility and progress in lordships. However, a new noble in a small realm could easily gain a lordship in their first weeks if they are actually playing the game and sending letters. This way we can cater the experience to what a player wants to do. Some players will want to join the largest realm they can just to fight in large battles, while some players will want to progress quickly in the game on the political landscape (like me), and that is best found in small realms. Some players may mistakenly think that the second category may also apply to large realms instead of small and thus be quickly discouraged. This is just one small example of a pro and con which could be pointed out to new players before picking a starting realm.
I know there is a point where there is information overload, but I think some thing should be available to players before playing should they wish to see it and understand. It doesn't have to be forced upon them, but perhaps a link or a side page when starting up can give them such information will allow them to gather information if they are interested in it. Not every player will want to read it, but those that will want to read it are more likely to stay longer in BM anyway, and they will also be further kept around once they have access to such information.
That is really my only suggestion I can come up with other than the ones I've suggested already in other threads.
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Another idea:
Stop losing the players who do join. If we doubled our "retention rate," defined as the % of players who register and remain active for, say, 12 months, I feel fairly confident that most of our player-count issues would be vastly mitigated.
Low hanging fruit. It's there to be picked.
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Another idea:
When an account has a character stay in a realm for 100 days the first time, it gives them a short, 5-part survey:
Please rate, 1 to 5 (1 being very poorly and 5 being very well) how well Realm X and the players in it have:
1. Instructed you in the basic gameplay of Battlemaster
2. Engaged you in roleplaying
3. Ensured you were able to participate in interesting realm functions
4. Helped you develop your character
5. Provided your character with a reasonable income
Also have a comment section.
Then, once a realm has several responses (say, 5 responses?), that score (maybe an average of some kind? To keep it current, maybe an average of the "last ten rankings"?) goes "public," where any player in the game can view it. New players would be shown the realm's score on those questions (or any other set of questions).
It could be abused, but only by people making lots of new accounts, then keeping a character from those accounts in a "target realm" for 100 days. That's a large investment to make for abuse for a fairly low return. The comment section could maybe be kept private, and Tom/the Devs would see it, maybe periodically releasing an anonymous and non-realm-specific summary of it occasionally.
This would at least give us a general idea of what problems new players are facing, and which realms are successfully addressing them. This would provide us some kind of standard (albeit a flawed and largely subjective one) against which to measure our attempts to include new players.
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Another idea:
When an account has a character stay in a realm for 100 days the first time, it gives them a short, 5-part survey:
Please rate, 1 to 5 (1 being very poorly and 5 being very well) how well Realm X and the players in it have:
1. Instructed you in the basic gameplay of Battlemaster
2. Engaged you in roleplaying
3. Ensured you were able to participate in interesting realm functions
4. Helped you develop your character
5. Provided your character with a reasonable income
Also have a comment section.
Then, once a realm has several responses (say, 5 responses?), that score (maybe an average of some kind? To keep it current, maybe an average of the "last ten rankings"?) goes "public," where any player in the game can view it. New players would be shown the realm's score on those questions (or any other set of questions).
This is something I really, really support. Mentor feedback is ok, but it's not really concerning the realm, and the results aren't displayed to anyone: even the mentors only get to know the amount of points they got. (or has this changed?)
There are lots of other things we could do to improve retention (from optional e-mail reminders for the first days, to in-game tutorials, to follow-up quizzes and such), but most of them involve coding, so I think the other one among my favorites is LilWolf's idea of making a step-by-step video. In fact, if anyone writes a script, I wouldn't mind doing the voice at all.
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Another idea:
Stop losing the players who do join. If we doubled our "retention rate," defined as the % of players who register and remain active for, say, 12 months, I feel fairly confident that most of our player-count issues would be vastly mitigated.
Low hanging fruit. It's there to be picked.
If you think retention rate is low hanging fruit you're a joke.
I think at the moment you are losing people who joined the game for battles. It takes several days of boring letters where you supposedly immediately upon joining forge an oath with somebody. After that it can take weeks to get the first decent fight. If I had joined the game in this state I would have left. But the war islands were around then and I lucked on my other realm choices.
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If you think retention rate is low hanging fruit you're a joke.
I think at the moment you are losing people who joined the game for battles. It takes several days of boring letters where you supposedly immediately upon joining forge an oath with somebody. After that it can take weeks to get the first decent fight. If I had joined the game in this state I would have left. But the war islands were around then and I lucked on my other realm choices.
Agreed. Retention rate is the crux of the problem, since we have plenty of new players joining from word of mouth alone but who are simple leaving since it's not fun or not what they expected.
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So, why is it that it's so hard for new players to get into the action on a good fight?
It couldn't have been so hard before, could it? I mean, I got seriously wounded in my first week.
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So, why is it that it's so hard for new players to get into the action on a good fight?
It couldn't have been so hard before, could it? I mean, I got seriously wounded in my first week.
It depends very heavily on what realm you start out in.
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Ok, so what realms are actually fighting actively?
I don't mean something dumb like what Madina was doing before against SA, where they just have the diplo status of war.
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Pretty much all realms on Dwilight with a long rogue border see action regularly. And though not as exciting as big human battles, they do offer good fun and lots of h/p.
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If I had them I would give them. The tough part of doing this is that Battlemaster is such a niche game. It is the absolute best type of game for its niche, but its niche is small and finding just the right kind of players that want to play this sort of game and dedicate the time to really put into having fun in battlemaster to its fullest extent (which I argue is more than 5 minutes a day when nobles really want to get the full experience) is very hard. The best way of finding new players to me that works so far is one already in implementation: Word of mouth. Those that play tell their friends who they think may be interested and get them to try it out.
I agree Word of Mouth and recruiting friends is probably one of the best ways to bring people in. Indeed, I came to think game because Vellos introduced it to me 3 or 4 years ago.
However, I've begun to doubt somewhat that relying on this method really is bringing in the numbers. I've introduced probably 5 or 6 people to the game, all of who lost interest after the first several days.
Essentially my questions is this: Word of Mouth is great, but what else do we have or can we do to bring in niche players?
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I agree Word of Mouth and recruiting friends is probably one of the best ways to bring people in. Indeed, I came to think game because Vellos introduced it to me 3 or 4 years ago.
However, I've begun to doubt somewhat that relying on this method really is bringing in the numbers. I've introduced probably 5 or 6 people to the game, all of who lost interest after the first several days.
Essentially my questions is this: Word of Mouth is great, but what else do we have or can we do to bring in niche players?
I think we need more information to answer that question.
So let me ask you: why did those 5 or 6 people lose interest? What were they expecting that BM did not provide?
If the answer is "WoW", then there's nothing we could do about it, and nor do we want to.
If the answer is more along the lines of, "People were rude, and nothing was actually happening," that's different.
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I think we need more information to answer that question.
So let me ask you: why did those 5 or 6 people lose interest? What were they expecting that BM did not provide?
If the answer is "WoW", then there's nothing we could do about it, and nor do we want to.
If the answer is more along the lines of, "People were rude, and nothing was actually happening," that's different.
That's a good question, and maybe my results with people are just that, my results and not reflective of normal success rates of recruiting friends.
But on to the question, why did those people lose interest? Hm. It is hard to say, I wouldn't say it was because they weren't the right kind of people. I've only ever tried introducing it to people whom I know and sincerely think they would be interested. Usually they are my friends who are into games to begin with, interested in fantasy or role playing to an extent, and usually those who enjoy either strategy or political wheeling and dealing. Doubly, they have all been people who I have revealed the game to over time. ie.
"What're you doing?"
"Oh, it's just this game I play called Battlemaster?"
"What is it?"
"It's kind of like a text-based roleplaying game merged with strategy, politics, etc."
And from there, based in their curiosity and interest level, delve further into explaining what you do in the game and what I've done.
"Yeah, I'm actually King of a realm with about 40-50 other people in it. Another character of mine is a Priest who is the Duke of a massive fortress who is trying to spread his religion over the continent"."
Further stories of my own characters or other characters and all of the different things you can do, etc. etc.
If still interested, I help them sign up, give them some advice on a starting realm based on what they may be interested (Military, politics, religion, etc.), usually help them write a first introductory letter to their realm (how they should style it, what to say, etc.) and then usually leave them be and then follow up the next few days asking them how BM is going and to my dismay their answer is usually "Oh yeah, I forgot all about that. I haven't logged in since."
Perhaps the few people I've tried just aren't the right folks for the game, it could be as simple as that. Though, I admit I've been a wee bit dismayed with my success levels. lol.
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My roommate at London always saw me playing this game and he asked me one day. I told him about it, and he got to making an account. He chose the family name Silenus. Then he looked at the info, browsed the wiki. And he didn't play because his exact words were: "It looks like it'll take too much effort."
Note this was in the fall/winter of 2008.
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Yep.
I must say I introduced about 5 people to the game, with different results.
My sister loved it. She enjoys the whole war thing, but mostly she enjoyed making RP and having fun while being a simple knight. She quit because it consumed too much of her time. Also, she had loads of fun on RedSpan, even during her fall. The battles didn't matter as much as the sense of camaraderie. Nonetheless, when she went to ASI she still played for a while, even visited me in Falasan for a few battles, but eventually she couldn't join the RPs for lack of time, and I assume the atmosphere inside ASI wasn't as close as in RedSpan.
edit: I talked to my sister, and she said the main reason she lost interest was for losing her redspanian friends when her region was sold and the realm was finished. The guild they had didn't last long, and most people left the island anyway. I suppose this problem can't really be countered by code, but by friendly receptions in other realms, to feel like home, and perhaps having more than one character (as a backup home).
A friend of mine who really likes war games and to play in teams was discouraged by the politics, and he didn't get to see much action when he joined, quit a few days after, found the game a bit confusing and unclear. I think it was just not his style.
A friend of my mother who joined mostly for the RP felt the atmosphere to be a little dark-ish, and not very responsive, also quit after a few days. I did advise her to go to Arcaea, but I don't recall whether she went or not. (she's also hard core player and forum admin in another game, so I'm not sure how much that influenced in her not wanting to work too hard to find her niche here)
My boyfriend (hah, he plays WoW, behold!) joined after watching me play for quite a while, and he's really into both strategy, team-play, war, politics and roleplay. He liked the players, he enjoyed the battling and politics and team-play. He left because of the ganging ups. (both due to deception with player attitudes and with the game for not having mechanisms to deal with it properly) I know some people really don't see the ganging ups as issues, but for those who want a fair fight and see in many continents the same sort of situation (it was some years ago, and he experimented that in 2 realms) with realms fighting lost battles and not advancing diplomatically, well, it's really hard to keep playing. He also left a realm who wanted to join one of the ganging ups, then left the game altogether.
The last is my mother (cheers!) who likes RP, politics, team-play, and nowadays I think she also likes the war thing. She's still playing, much more than I am, in fact. And loving it (despite the bugs and problems). You can ask her on IRC for more details, though. :p
As for myself, I was close to leaving BM several times. I hate the ganging ups, but I think we're working on codes to improve this a bit, so I wouldn't leave because of that. The reasons, over the years, were:
1. time consumption: the 5 minutes a day is really wishful thinking - just what you do when you really aren't playing but have to maintain a char and help the realm a little
2. the last days of my first realm: which involved both a very stressful period, followed by a very boring truce period, followed by uneven hopeless battles (though unavoidable and necessary for the wrap up), followed by lots of friends quitting or pausing the game, which finished lots of RP partnerships and story lines... - don't get me wrong, the whole war was extremely fun, even to the losing side, but the last days took their toll, waiting for each region to be taken over, discussing what now, seeing friends leave.
3. time consumption again, later on, but this time due to RP
4. my current chars are all but one paused because I don't have the time to play them in a meaningful way, and I don't see much fun in reading orders every 2-3 turns, seeing I can't follow them because they don't refer to me, doing some maintenance work and going away... Basically, I can't play bm lightweight :)
So... here you have some BM experiences, though they are a bit hearsay.
I'm a bit skeptical when talking about time consumption, because I think we can find time for stuff we're really enjoying. But I couldn't pinpoint what was it that made me not want to spend my free time here. I'll work on this later (hah).
edit2: Now that I think about it, maybe the whole "losing a dear realm" situation needs post-traumatic counseling, since so many people leave or pause, specially those who used to be in positions of power. :p It'd probably be healthier if more realms resigned instead of fighting to death.
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As for myself, I was close to leaving BM several times. I hate the ganging ups, but I think we're working on codes to improve this a bit, so I wouldn't leave because of that.
Well, we're trying to, but it's not trivial :-\
If you can think of anything specific that might help deal with this issue, please feel free to post it (in a separate thread, so as not to hijack this one).
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I am always thinking about this subject.
I just wrote a long and detailed text about how I arrive at BM but lost it due to a refresh made by mistake, so, you wont need to read it :p
In a short version, I've created a account at 2006 and didnt stay because I didnt have the time to play two games and BM appear to be too difficult.
Later, two years ago, I decided to try it again and have now 5 chars, all active but I still consider myself a newbie.
Was very, very, VERY upset when I created the fifth, a advy, at Atamara, and was in prison at the next turn. Did a mistake and was banned from my realm. Almost delete the char, but, I thought would be a chance to learn.
During all this time, I invited a lot of people to play, but only 2 are still playing. Most of the ones that did not stay, said it is too difficult and they are right.
I believe the key to retain new people is somehow related to what Artemesia said about being in a realm with a good army, with organized battles and lots of action.
Which new player will like to start in the middle of a war, with no gold, no resources, and not understanding anything?
It takes a lot of time to understand how to recruit, what to recruit, how to pay, how to train.
Another day, a newbie told me he was training every day. It would be nice if we werent under attack by all sides.
We have ties to our realms, we want to protect our regions, newbies dont have any ties.
If they cannot try and fail, and learn with mistakes, they will not stay.
BM dont have the attraction some games have. Dont have colours, dont have graphics, but we love it.
BM is for smart people, special people. Not everyone will like it, only a few will stay and I am sure, we want more players but we dont want the game to change much.
BM is difficult, has lots of details and
I find it specially interesting what Vellos said about the activity in the oldest islands. Some people know how I am always curious about how Sirion can have so many active players.
What they do? How they do? Maybe they could share their experience. I say Sirion because is the realm next door. There might be others realms with the same dinamic but this is the one I can follow, moreless.
Vellos conclusion is that EC and Atamara are the less active. Maybe because are the oldest islands, with long, old and boring stories (to the new players) and with old and non-interesting claims for regions.
A new player want to be able to create something, to conquer, to grow and specially, to make changes. If everything is already done, there is no motivation.
I got involved at the history of Asena, because of Tali. At PeL, because I met everyone at IRC. Couldnt stay at PoZ even being a very young Countess. Went to Thalmarkin because I was told it was the funniest realm and so far it is true.
So, if we have people that lead us to create ties with the realm we start, or to bring us to IRC, we stay, no matter how difficult it is.
It is late and I better stop for now but I have been thinking that maybe, we need a place to newbies to start. With less problems, more gold, more monsters and undeads to fight. Like a academy. A place to start and have fun, before looking for new adventures.
A place where old players could be mentoring all the time instead of using all resources to the incoming battles or starvation.
My short version is still too long. Sorry...
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Perhaps offering a 'lightweight' island would make a difference. The game would be stripped of all complex things. It would flatten the (now very steep) learning curve. I don't think this would result in a newbie island, becaus e I'm sure veteran players could also find a place there.
Basically, why not make a hybrid of BM and WI? The superstructure would be like WI, with attrition, troop production and troop upgrades. And the substructure would consist of players working as a team within one realm. When one realm dominates the map, the island gets reset :)
Advantages:
*stick true to the 'lightweight game' promise
*a place for new players to learn some aspects of the game, without too much complex things (that don't matter to a newbie anyways)
*no roleplay, thus no english skills needed. Less people on the regular island that simply play for the strategy aspect of the game, and are those silent characters never sending any letter
*a healthy mix of new and old players. For instance, I don't see noobs becoming the leader of one of the factions. If things like income and recruitment are realm-based (so everyone gets the same income), new players can take up a role of importance
Disadvantages:
*new coding(?)
*conservatism
Many of us liked WI when it first came out. However, the thing I missed most was teamplay, and how repetetive the games were. If you'd somehow keep track of another ladder with wins, you could scramble all participating players every round.
Maybe I should not have put this here, but I think what I'm suggesting is highly relevant to the player retention issue, because I see two main problems:
*the game is too complex for newbies
*the game works on a too big timescale. A lot of time and effort is needed to advance, and access the fun parts
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Some people know how I am always curious about how Sirion can have so many active players.
What they do? How they do? Maybe they could share their experience. I say Sirion because is the realm next door. There might be others realms with the same dinamic but this is the one I can follow, moreless.
Unfortunately, that period is more or less over. Simply put, Sirion was struggling for their own survival, fighting a gazillion battles in very short timescales making sure that almost everyone from veterans to newbies were funded immediately and thrown into the fray. Victories were abundant, but nevertheless there was never a moment to lose. Everyone was thrilled and engaged in every single battle that it was so important to win.
I started BM with a char in Sirion. I could not understand anything of what was going on, but the mere fact of moving where the general called for realm wide rallies (those were old times where the military hierarchy was a bit different) and engaging in HUGE battles against Fontan on almost weekly basis gave me enough interest to go on playing and trying to understand this super complex game.
Later the war intensity did not diminish. For one reason or another there were always battles to fight, and always tight enough to create a lot of cameratism between Sirion's nobles. During the peak of intensity Sirion had some 120 or more knights. We struggled to make sure everyone had some gold to field a unit, we were lucky to have competent general and marshals that made the war very much enjoyable.
Then, when we started winning clearly (and that was after some 4 RL years), things started to go badly. There was no more challenge, and everyone high in hierarchy relaxed. It started to be hard to find people willing to put a lot of time into being marshal/general as it was still a huge effort, but not so longer mandatory for sirion's survival. Everyone calmed down and people lost interest. Now Sirion is at peace with his historical enemy, that was beaten and forced to peace, and down to 80 knights, losing more steadily. After the super interesting war it's really hard to find new ways to commit people. Realm-wide sacrifices and team play - mandatory for Sirion's survival - left the place to arguing, dissent and all those political troubles that make life so frustrating for those in power.
To close this excursus and give some meaning to my post, I believe it would be probably helpful for new players to have access to many more informations about realms. The problem is that they would probably be unable to judge those informations given their poor knowledge of the game anyway.
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I think a game like BM is gonna have a naturally low retention rate. As others have said it's not for everyone since it is pretty unique. The problem is losing players that Would have liked the game but had their first experience in a realm that didn't suit them and because of that lost interest.
For example I started playing at the same time as two other friends. We all started in Cathay and two of us even managed to rise in the hierarchy relatively quickly. Still, it seemed like there was a very tight grip on power by the dukes who were also the executive. One by one we became disenchanted with Cathay and paused our characters there and started playing in Terran in dwilight. There it felt like we actually mattered and that even though we were merely knights we contributed an equal portion to the realm as the leader, judge etc. Of course, this is true everywhere, a realm is useless without knights to help out, but it's not everywhere that this fact is actually addressed.
In Cathay I would regularly be ignored by the dukes and once an idea I had that was approved by the king was never implemented because the general/duke thought he had a better idea. Perhaps this is midevially accurate and perhaps for some this is exactly the experience they want, to be treated like crap until they prove themselves and then from there on they can treat others like crap. In Terran there was a mutual respect among the players I appreciated and an SMA appropriate equality among nobles that was likewise refreshing.
In conclusion I think Vellos ( I believe it was him who suggested this but it could have been others as well) was bang on when he suggested improving the realm descriptions so that a player can be better informed when choosing a realm and have a better idea of what to expect once in the realm.
To reword/ summarize what others have said, here are my suggestions:
1. An anonymous questionnaire for players who are leaving the realm that asks five easy to answer questions around why they're leaving, what they liked, what they didn't like of the realm. These questionnaires could be collected five at a time ( to preserve anonymity) then sent to the leader of the realm (who will most likely forward them ooc to the council or to everyone, as he saw fit). Also, give the option to refuse the survey but have the survey give you one honor point for completion (this honor point only being available once per month regardless of how many realms you leave, to prevent abuse)
2. A similar survey after a hundred days in realm that ask: what are the advantages of being a noble in keplarstan, what are the disadvantages, what needs to be improved in keplerstan. The five most recent surveys are available to nobles when they are thinking about what realms they want to move to. This also rewards realms for improving player experience and having happier, more satisfied nobles. There should likewise be an honor point given for completion ( maybe 2 since a hundred days in a realm is something of an accomplishment) as well as the option to refuse the survey.
3. Get rid of the current system that explains how many nobles are needed. Literally everyone needs nobles so all that 1 noble for 2 regions crap is next to useless. Instead it should be: need for nobles: urgent, high, medium, low ( though I doubt anyone would use the low setting). This setting should be available to the realms leader to change as he sees fit.
In conclusion, if I hadn't stumbled onto Terran I would not be playing battle master most likely. We have to maximize the amount of people discovering realms that suit their personality and playing style if we wanna keep potential future battle master players
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3. Get rid of the current system that explains how many nobles are needed. Literally everyone needs nobles so all that 1 noble for 2 regions crap is next to useless. Instead it should be: need for nobles: urgent, high, medium, low ( though I doubt anyone would use the low setting). This setting should be available to the realms leader to change as he sees fit.
While I agree that the current system of indicating who needs nobles is not very informative, I don't think a self-selected indicator would work. You even say as much yourself: "...I doubt anyone would use the low setting". There would be no incentive to /not/ simply set it at High or Urgent and nail that sucker in place so it can never be changed again.
It's the same story with any other self-selected criteria, or self-written realm description. These things will get set to whatever the first ruler that sees them determines is most likely to get them new nobles, and then they will never be changed. Or changed so rarely, and by so few people, that they might as well not have been changed. And the changes that will be made will most certainly /not/ be of the type that would cause people to not join the realm.
Any type of hard criteria given to new players to help them choose their realm must be some game-generated set of statistics. New characters already have access to the realm summary written by the current pr previous ruler. That's where the player-written propaganda goes.
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Also a new map. Oh god a new map would be !@#$ing fantastic. And it would be something nice for new players to look at when they have no idea what's going on and they just wanna peruse the new world they'll soon be a part of.
I'm sorry but the maps we have now look they came out at the same time as windows 98. On the other hand I know toms been looking for new maps to work with for a while so I understand if it's a project thats easier said then done.
Go with civ 4 maps, or even civ 3!!! I would die if we could zoom in and out.... Wow I'm getting way to excited and off topic...
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Also a new map. Oh god a new map would be !@#$ing fantastic. And it would be something nice for new players to look at when they have no idea what's going on and they just wanna peruse the new world they'll soon be a part of.
I'm sorry but the maps we have now look they came out at the same time as windows 98. On the other hand I know toms been looking for new maps to work with for a while so I understand if it's a project thats easier said then done.
Go with civ 4 maps, or even civ 3!!! I would die if we could zoom in and out.... Wow I'm getting way to excited and off topic...
Just because Tom's looking for a new map editor, don't get your hopes up that that means there will be new maps in a week or two. Or even a month or two. Or even by this time next year.
Redoing the existing maps in a new editor might be feasible in that time frame. Creating a new continent takes vastly more than just drawing a new map, and is a huge undertaking. I know it sounds really cool, but I don't want you to be expecting it just around the corner and feel disappointed when it doesn't come.
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I agree with you Indirik, maybe the urgent high medium setting idea is flawed. Still, 100 day surveys wouldn't be player propaganda. I've joined a realm and stayed in it without really investing myself and I could have much to say about what I honestly liked and didn't like. And remember, it would only be the most recent five available so it would be constantly changing to adjust for evolving player experiences.
Also, if a realm only received glowing, stoked on life reviews, maybe that realms doing something right
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Still, 100 day surveys wouldn't be player propaganda. I've joined a realm and stayed in it without really investing myself and I could have much to say about what I honestly liked and didn't like. And remember, it would only be the most recent five available so it would be constantly changing to adjust for evolving player experiences.
Also, if a realm only received glowing, stoked on life reviews, maybe that realms doing something right
A "100 day survey" is an interesting idea. I wouldn't consider that in the same class as a realm-written propaganda piece, like the ruler-written realm summary.
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In conclusion, if I hadn't stumbled onto Terran I would not be playing battle master most likely. We have to maximize the amount of people discovering realms that suit their personality and playing style if we wanna keep potential future battle master players
Bottom line here being: and we can't trust realm descriptions and whatever information we're currently able to provide to be enough to do that. Surveys just might be able to do that, even if they come in the form of multiple choice questions.
I agree. Finding a realm that suits you makes all the difference. Also, realms that aren't interesting will eventually shrink, and will either have to become interesting or will eventually (and slowly) cease to exist. Which will give way to more interesting realms.
Many of us liked WI when it first came out. However, the thing I missed most was teamplay, and how repetetive the games were. If you'd somehow keep track of another ladder with wins, you could scramble all participating players every round.
I miss the in game War Islands specifically because of that: lots of battles all the time, lots of team play, not much politics (but still some), high turnover in positions, several experiments with the army, and everyone could go for world domination without feeling guilty or knowing the result would be boring, because then it would just reset. However, I don't think it's the answer here, and it might just give the wrong impression of what BM is about. Perhaps "newbie realms" instead of "newbie island" would be better.
I think we pinpointed two main problems, then:
1. The ability to choose a realm that will suit you
2. The learning curve
Now to tackle these...?
1.A Mostly, I like the idea of surveys. I wouldn't mind helping develop some 20 questions that might help grading a realm, so we can send randomly 5 of them when the person has spent 100 days in realm (and perhaps again at 500?), and/or when they leave the realm (some restriction here to avoid cloning for grades). This could be converted to a rating of sorts with maybe 3 categories (War, Politics, Atmosphere/Fun), which upon clicking you can see the multiple choice replies and other comments made about the realm. This should probably be moderated to avoid trolls. Do it in a way in which it updates itself: no use having the grades from last year working for the realm of today.
1.A' Or we could go crazy and do a match system! Players answer questions about what they like, players answer questions about the realms they're in or leaving, and every time they look for a new realm they can see match percentages. ;)
1.B I'm not sure this doesn't already happen, but it would be good to let everyone coming to a realm know the rating of mentors within the realm. We already have the mentor points and the questionnaire, so it's probably easier to make that into a "newbie-friendliness"grade
2.A Grade mentors as per 1.B: make it a competition between realms. They might try to do better if this makes a difference in whether new players join them or not.
2.B Consider in-game tutorials? They might be a pain in some games, but they also succeed in showing you where everything is, and they can always be skipped. I wouldn't tie them together in a huge "newbie-welcoming pack" where they'll spend all their hours training their men or recruiting new troops, but make them separate for each type of action, and the first one would take you through message screens (greet your realm, message a mentor), politics, data about yourself and your realm, possibly a hint at the wiki and forums...
2.C We could make a campaign for player-made learning material. Like updating the wiki tutorials (as we had some time ago), getting good mentor classes and giving them some spotlight. (is there a wiki page which gathers player-made tutorials and guides?)
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Perhaps offering a 'lightweight' island would make a difference. The game would be stripped of all complex things. It would flatten the (now very steep) learning curve. I don't think this would result in a newbie island, becaus e I'm sure veteran players could also find a place there.
Basically, why not make a hybrid of BM and WI? The superstructure would be like WI, with attrition, troop production and troop upgrades. And the substructure would consist of players working as a team within one realm. When one realm dominates the map, the island gets reset :)
Advantages:
*stick true to the 'lightweight game' promise
*a place for new players to learn some aspects of the game, without too much complex things (that don't matter to a newbie anyways)
*no roleplay, thus no english skills needed. Less people on the regular island that simply play for the strategy aspect of the game, and are those silent characters never sending any letter
*a healthy mix of new and old players. For instance, I don't see noobs becoming the leader of one of the factions. If things like income and recruitment are realm-based (so everyone gets the same income), new players can take up a role of importance
Disadvantages:
*new coding(?)
*conservatism
Many of us liked WI when it first came out. However, the thing I missed most was teamplay, and how repetetive the games were. If you'd somehow keep track of another ladder with wins, you could scramble all participating players every round.
Maybe I should not have put this here, but I think what I'm suggesting is highly relevant to the player retention issue, because I see two main problems:
*the game is too complex for newbies
*the game works on a too big timescale. A lot of time and effort is needed to advance, and access the fun parts
I love this idea. Sounds like it would be a very fun place to play.
And don't say colonies is lightweight. It's just slow. Friggin' slow. But not lightweight.
I dare say we truly lost something when the war islands were sunk... They were basically every newbie's paradise, and the last areas in the game where team play still prevailed at the same level that was common in every realm when I first joined this game. Its closing meant the end of an era. Once again punishing changes were made in order to "encourage" behaviors. But really, wars weren't being stopped on other continents on the basis that one could have them on the South-East Continent. Rather, people had a "get-away" island to enjoy all the wars and conflict they wanted while their other realms where in (inevitable) downer periods. Realms that couldn't afford to go to war couldn't afford it any more with the sinking of the war islands.
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And don't say colonies is lightweight. It's just slow. Friggin' slow. But not lightweight.
I dare say we truly lost something when the war islands were sunk... They were basically every newbie's paradise, and the last areas in the game where team play still prevailed at the same level that was common in every realm when I first joined this game. Its closing meant the end of an era. Once again punishing changes were made in order to "encourage" behaviors. But really, wars weren't being stopped on other continents on the basis that one could have them on the South-East Continent. Rather, people had a "get-away" island to enjoy all the wars and conflict they wanted while their other realms where in (inevitable) downer periods. Realms that couldn't afford to go to war couldn't afford it any more with the sinking of the war islands.
QFT
The War Islands were a blast, lots of fun and something happening all the time. Mostly because war was constant and something always on the go. Now I spend most of my days. . . holding court. Doing police work. And every so often, on really special occassions. Sometimes we have a war.
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The War Islands were a blast, lots of fun and something happening all the time. Mostly because war was constant and something always on the go. Now I spend most of my days. . . holding court. Doing police work. And every so often, on really special occassions. Sometimes we have a war.
Sorry, but I just *have* to say this. And I'm not aiming it at you, Phellan, honest. But I hear so much of these comments lately of "how come there are no wars, we never *do* anything...", usually combined with maudlin sentiments about the war islands.
Way back when, in the Good Old Days, back when there was all that marching around, and constant battles, do you remember what one of the most common complaints was? All that marching around and fighting. "All we ever do is march out, fight a battle, march home, march out, fight a battle, march home, time after time after time...."
Now I admit that the game focus has changed somewhat, from active conflict to maintenance. Definitely not good. We need more incentive for conflict, and more ability to sustain that conflict.
Just, be careful that the glasses you use to look at the past don't have too much of a rosy tint to them.
(Oh, and the war islands won't be coming back, either. Nor any other special-purpose island. Sorry.)
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QFT
The War Islands were a blast, lots of fun and something happening all the time. Mostly because war was constant and something always on the go. Now I spend most of my days. . . holding court. Doing police work. And every so often, on really special occassions. Sometimes we have a war.
For war islands reminiscence, please refer to this topic: http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,739.0.html (also for war islands complaints)
I'm back at the two points I think we can and should deal with:
1. The ability to choose a realm that will suit you
2. The learning curve
Perhaps a third
3. How to be patient with the slow pace of the game.
For the third, what I mean is: you log in the first time, do basic tasks to learn your way around, log out for lack of responses and never login again. Maybe the game could send some e-mail reminders (with a link or checkbox to opt-out, of course) for the first 2-3 days of the game, to remind the player about turns and all. I'd also add something for some time after the person has paused, like a month later (before deletion, of course), asking if they'd like to come back. If the e-mails have nice enough messages and are really only for these two occasions, it won't be too nagging.
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Oh, I don't doubt it :)
There needs to be a happy-medium though. And somewhere in here we need to lean back towards warring, because in far too many of my Realms I've seen people leave the Realm, or just flat out quit because it's not exciting enough. And some of the actual game mechanics are making it damn near impossible to make it fun for people (the other half are people who will fight tooth and nail to maintain their Realm regardless of any IC or reasonable motivation. Oh, but to do away with some of those stagnant islands and make new, deadly ones with lots of Rogues and potential for something new (oh, we need more Dwilights, but not the same map ;)).
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Sorry, but I just *have* to say this. And I'm not aiming it at you, Phellan, honest. But I hear so much of these comments lately of "how come there are no wars, we never *do* anything...", usually combined with maudlin sentiments about the war islands.
Way back when, in the Good Old Days, back when there was all that marching around, and constant battles, do you remember what one of the most common complaints was? All that marching around and fighting. "All we ever do is march out, fight a battle, march home, march out, fight a battle, march home, time after time after time...."
Now I admit that the game focus has changed somewhat, from active conflict to maintenance. Definitely not good. We need more incentive for conflict, and more ability to sustain that conflict.
Just, be careful that the glasses you use to look at the past don't have too much of a rosy tint to them.
(Oh, and the war islands won't be coming back, either. Nor any other special-purpose island. Sorry.)
While I remember some people saying that combat could perhaps be made more exciting, and that war alone did not always suffice to create a fun environment, and that wars tended to be over too great distances and there was often more marching than fighting, I never heard anyone say that there was too much fighting.
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I dare say we truly lost something when the war islands were sunk... They were basically every newbie's paradise, and the last areas in the game where team play still prevailed at the same level that was common in every realm when I first joined this game. Its closing meant the end of an era.
I wasn't around for the War Islands, so I hope people can enlighten me about what made them so special.
I guess I understand why they would be good for newbies, but when I was a newbie, I wouldn't have joined the War Islands because it was clear that these were special. The first island I joined was Atamara because the game went to great lengths to convince that this is the default choice, and that all others were special in their own way and should only be experienced after you learned the game. I am not convinced this is optimal.
As for the "team play paradise", off the top of my head I can see three reasons why that would be the case:
- The lack of food mechanism and control issues (were there even estates?) meant there was no reason at all to hoard anything from your realm-mates. This alleviated suspicion and meant everyone trusted everyone because there really wasn't much to gain otherwise.
- The fact that the realms were pre-defined meant you could never secede or found your own realm. Also, joining the War Islands to switch loyalty seems to defeat the purpose. Therefore everybody joined to play strategically for realm expansion, not for character ambition.
- The possibility of reset meant that it was much less tempting to strive to achieve goals for your characters. The only meaningful goal was for your realm to win the island.
It seems to me you think (1) is the main reason; I would argue (2) and (3) were way more important. Even with control issues, the war islands realms would have been still at war; no one would ever be afraid of losing their Lord's loyalty because the regions were not fed.
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I guess I understand why they would be good for newbies, but when I was a newbie, I wouldn't have joined the War Islands because it was clear that these were special. The first island I joined was Atamara because the game went to great lengths to convince that this is the default choice, and that all others were special in their own way and should only be experienced after you learned the game. I am not convinced this is optimal.
This is so true.
My first character was on Atamara as well. The continent selection page basically presents it as Vanilla Battlemaster 101. East Continent is presented as being old and entrenched, as if you need experience and previous knowledge of the island's events to go there. Beluaterra is immigrate only. Dwilight does a good job of remaining attractive; has an open message about open country needing new faces. Far East Island was labeled "Hardcore Roleplaying" for so long "with enforcement" obviously newbies aren't going to jump in there (though, I can't remember what the description is now). And the Colonies, is well, the Colonies.
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Maybe the game could send some e-mail reminders (with a link or checkbox to opt-out, of course) for the first 2-3 days of the game, to remind the player about turns and all. I'd also add something for some time after the person has paused, like a month later (before deletion, of course), asking if they'd like to come back. If the e-mails have nice enough messages and are really only for these two occasions, it won't be too nagging.
The first thing I looked for was contacts when I started up. If, during the first week or so, an e-mail went to the individual when a message was sent to them or activity happened like looting, this could quickly give the new player a better sense of the timeing of what was going on as well as acting as a catalyst to remind them of the game. Of course this assumes they check their e-mails more often than they check the game. Perhaps twitter or facebook posts might be better for some.
Roland
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I wasn't around for the War Islands, so I hope people can enlighten me about what made them so special.
No diplomacy, all realms locked at war. (I should say no "official" diplomacy. Realms could still have under the table agreements to not attack each other.)
No buro work, no police work, no civil work. Means no region maintenance. Lords could hold courts.
No food, I think.
The idea was to focus on just warfare.
- The lack of food mechanism and control issues (were there even estates?) meant there was no reason at all to hoard anything from your realm-mates. This alleviated suspicion and meant everyone trusted everyone because there really wasn't much to gain otherwise.
- The fact that the realms were pre-defined meant you could never secede or found your own realm. Also, joining the War Islands to switch loyalty seems to defeat the purpose. Therefore everybody joined to play strategically for realm expansion, not for character ambition.
- The possibility of reset meant that it was much less tempting to strive to achieve goals for your characters. The only meaningful goal was for your realm to win the island.
It seems to me you think (1) is the main reason; I would argue (2) and (3) were way more important. Even with control issues, the war islands realms would have been still at war; no one would ever be afraid of losing their Lord's loyalty because the regions were not fed.
IIRC, it was possible to secede and create realms. Isn't that how Toren was created on both SEI and SWI? Thing is there were only 3 cities and a stronghold. And since three of them were occupied by pre-generated realms, that doesn't leave much room for expansion. :p
I would argue that points 2 and 3 are not really true, either. Personal ambition is always a driving factor. Yes, the realms may all be at war, but *somebody* has to be the king. So why not me? After all, I *know* that I could do a better job than you, right? There were several rebellion in various S*I realms. One of the Toren pages specifically mentions the string of rebellions that crippled the realm.
Back when the war islands were around, I really don't think they were any more of a "team play paradise" than realms on any other island. When people describe the way their war islands realms were run, it sounds to me like they were describing the exact way Perdan was run back in 2006/7, on EC. I've heard that certain other realms on AT were even more team-focused than that.
Edit: fixed my borked quoting...
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The general sequence I have, and see other players having is joining the game, looking around for stuff to do, getting acquainted to it, and after some time start playing with a little less anxiety. What does this mean? That if a player joins the game and there is nothing more for him to do other than message everyone asking for a Lordship, and possibly traveling somewhere (though he doesn't really know where to travel), he is unlikely going to easily get a feel of the game, nor it will catch much of his attention. If he gets his estate and gets assigned to an army, but fails to get participation in what happens/is decided, or foresee any chance of political rising, then he is not likely going to get very interested.Of course, I am talking about one kind of player, there are several, but I feel this one takes at least a considerable part of those who seek the type of game BattleMaster is included in: political strategy.
I come from eRepublik, a game which had high potential but was torn down into a cheap copy of Farmville and Evony, which has, if nothing else, a great political system and community. I made it a little politic/social lab, and for politic parties and countries ended up diagnosing the same problem as BM: they failed to attract players because these didn't feel like part of something, the community. eRepublik doesn't have the limiting factor that is IC/OoC separation, and the risks involved in crossing it, so some of this ideas might not fully apply, or will have to be changed. In the virtual country of eUruguay we had between 50 to 100 active players (fluctuating population over the years) and as the game didn't offer a good message system we used an outside forum (every virtual country does that) and a IM system, first was MSN, then we migrated to IRC, where most of the countries were.
The most popular and effective tactic countries used for player retention was messaging the newcomers (later the game implemented a custom message the Country President would be able to edit) and inviting them to the Country forum and chat. Such gave players means of communication much more efficient, and the possibility of knowing what is going on around them, allowing them to join ongoing discussions and to fantasize and plan. A game is not very interesting when you don't have a goal, or something to look forward to.
On kingdoms, I would give the same diagnose I gave to political parties: their greatest problem is that they were becoming sects ruled by a tiny amount of people who kept for themselves all the information. And those positions were largely stagnant. Yes, I know this is how a Monarchy or such is supposed to work, but even if the setting is medieval, the players are not, and the nobles kept "being" in those times because they had little choice, unlike the players. Rotation of players is a good form of keeping people interested and making your realm a successful and attractive one. Even handling out ingame-irrelevant positions is quite useful actually ;) It is a problem when rulers choose old people who might not even be that focused in the game or specific continent, just as a means of keeping power controlled, for they might end up losing the power the new players give them.
A way that both gives newcomers an idea of what is going on, what is being discussed and what he can look forward to, and also helps a lot in the organization of low-rank nobles is the ingame forums system.
My idea, based on a small game, is having different sub-forums available in the game. One sub-forum open to all Nobles (or just Knights) in the realm and above, one for all Lords and above, one for each Guild, one for each Religion. In one of the 3 worlds that small game had, with certainly no more than 200 players, arguably less than 100, there were 41 brotherhoods, and for such, 41 of those small forums. That tends to make me believe such are not a nightmare in terms of data consumption and such related problems.
(http://oi56.tinypic.com/13ygj9z.jpg)
Example of the forum
The idea would be that you get a button added, or in Information, and you get access to the sub-forums available to you. These, as an initial idea, would be those previously stated (Religon, Guild, Realm-wide, possibly a Duchy-wide one, and one only for Lords and upper). The moderators in the brotherhoods of the game of the pictured were its founder (called Grandmaster, title which could be passed on) and its selected masters. In this case the Guilds and Religions moderators would be easy the Founder and Elders, with the Realm sub-forum for the King and the Duchy for the Duke to moderate.
One could say that this reduces the intrigue possibilities as information tends to get more public, but I assure you that a game with such forums still have lots of intrigues and the likes. It does get more difficult for people to withhold information and such, but it hardly becomes impossible. The benefit of people players ignorant is much less than the player retention of not doing the same.
It can also be argued that it is not medieval at all. I do agree, but it won't be the first non-medieval option in the game, and once again, the improved communication makes up for that.
There best part is that everything can be kept IC, and everything can be roleplayed. I see it as quite a boon for roleplaying, actually. But that is just my personal view.
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If what you are proposing is to turn the messaging system of guilds into forums, I doubt you'll have more traction. As you say, it is not within the medieval setting, and is not conductive to interactions having a medieval atmosphere.
However, this gives me an idea. One of the problems for new players may be simply that they log in once, see nothing happen, and just forget to log in the next day. What if new characters, when being created, could see all the realm-wide messages that were sent in the last 72 hrs? This way they would see that the game is not empty; and it would give them something to respond to other than the boilerplate introduction message.
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No buro work, no police work, no civil work. Means no region maintenance. Lords could hold courts.
So could region rebel at all? Or was it that once you TOed a region, it was yours at full stat unless the enemy TOed it back?
I would argue that points 2 and 3 are not really true, either. Personal ambition is always a driving factor. Yes, the realms may all be at war, but *somebody* has to be the king. So why not me? After all, I *know* that I could do a better job than you, right? There were several rebellion in various S*I realms. One of the Toren pages specifically mentions the string of rebellions that crippled the realm.
In that sense, yes. However, no one can win Dwilight; therefore your goal in the game must be self-defined, which gives you a wide liberty to adopt personal goals. On the War Islands, the overarching goal to win the island is always present.
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That would indeed be a great idea, in my opinion.
Do the Guilds have a mini forum in them, or just three boards for different levels of access that only a few people can modify? I confess I don't fully know their system, but the impression they gave me of it was along that line.
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So could region rebel at all? Or was it that once you TOed a region, it was yours at full stat unless the enemy TOed it back?
I believe they could, yes. But there was nothing you could really do directly to affect how the region recovered. It improved on its own, all by itself. You couldn't help it along, so there was no reason to sit around for a week doing NPW/CW. As soon as the region was driven from the enemy, your army could move on.
Of course, the flipside to this is that if you destroyed a region and made the peasants hate you, then it would hate your realm for a *long* time, as there was nothing you could do to make it any better.
In that sense, yes. However, no one can win Dwilight; therefore your goal in the game must be self-defined, which gives you a wide liberty to adopt personal goals. On the War Islands, the overarching goal to win the island is always present.
My character is trying to win Dwilight. :P (Of course, he has a personal definition of "winning" that does not involve every region on the map flying an Astrum banner.)
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Do the Guilds have a mini forum in them, or just three boards for different levels of access that only a few people can modify? I confess I don't fully know their system, but the impression they gave me of it was along that line.
There are no forums in BM. You send letter to people, and you can search all received and sent letters from the past month. If you want to write something more permanent, there is always the wiki; most realms roleplay documents in the wiki as being "deposited in the realm library".
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IIRC, it was possible to secede and create realms. Isn't that how Toren was created on both SEI and SWI? Thing is there were only 3 cities and a stronghold. And since three of them were occupied by pre-generated realms, that doesn't leave much room for expansion. :p
No, Toren was a pre-generated realm in the second incarnation of both islands.
I would argue that points 2 and 3 are not really true, either. Personal ambition is always a driving factor. Yes, the realms may all be at war, but *somebody* has to be the king. So why not me? After all, I *know* that I could do a better job than you, right? There were several rebellion in various S*I realms. One of the Toren pages specifically mentions the string of rebellions that crippled the realm.
Absolutely. There was plenty of scheming that went on there. I was part of it, at least on the first SEI.
Back when the war islands were around, I really don't think they were any more of a "team play paradise" than realms on any other island. When people describe the way their war islands realms were run, it sounds to me like they were describing the exact way Perdan was run back in 2006/7, on EC. I've heard that certain other realms on AT were even more team-focused than that.
This is precisely the point.
Back in 2004, the whole game was run that way. The reason the War Islands were removed was that the game in general had already moved past the utterly rigid team-play mode. Even the War Islands themselves were hotbeds of intrigue and (sometimes bizarre) politics when I returned, briefly, not long before Dwilight opened.
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My character is trying to win Dwilight. :P (Of course, he has a personal definition of "winning" that does not involve every region on the map flying an Astrum banner.)
That's my point, really.
On a war island, this would seem like a second-rate objective. Anyway, no one will remember what you achieved once the island is reset, unless it directly led to victory.
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Back in 2004, the whole game was run that way. The reason the War Islands were removed was that the game in general had already moved past the utterly rigid team-play mode. Even the War Islands themselves were hotbeds of intrigue and (sometimes bizarre) politics when I returned, briefly, not long before Dwilight opened.
Ah, that makes sense.
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As a new noble joins a realm, he most likely wants to know what is going on in the realm. Why not 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?
Also, what about all new nobles 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. By doing this continent wide the response on the questions of new nobles because faster and they can easily learn more then depending on a single mentor in a realm.
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I'd also like to mention something about the halcyon Golden Age of team play that people are casting the Olden Days (more or less, the time up through 2006) as.
It was, in many, many cases, a much less friendly atmosphere.
Everyone was expected to do everything for the realm, no exceptions.
Caught send family gold home? Banned!
Miss a few turns at the wrong time? Banned!
Not where your battlegroup was ordered to be? You're under suspicion as a spy!
Loitering in the capital? You're under suspicion as a gold-farmer!
Want to play a free spirit? Too bad.
Want to achieve ambitions of your own? You better plan on getting them by working up through the ranks, because ain't nobody gonna help you scheme and intrigue against the Ruler—unless there's already a faction in the realm that opposes him en masse. (Also, there are no guilds/secret societies to help you plot in secret.)
Have problems with something the ruler—or someone else in the realm—is doing? Think it was against the Social Contract? Well, you better hope Tom's paying attention, and feeling friendly towards you, because there there are no Titans to complain to.
Yes, I'm exaggerating, somewhat. But a lot of the things that are considered utterly wrong in BattleMaster today were commonplace back then. Tom's official guidelines on getting rid of inactive people who were using up realm resources was (IIRC) "Send them an order, and in a day, if they haven't followed it, ban them for not following orders." There have been a few high-profile multicheaters caught in the past year or so, but back then, I remember hearing about rulers ordering people in their realm to create spy accounts in other realms. (They were caught and locked, of course, but that's the ones I did hear about...)
So the moral of the story is be careful what you wish for. Team play can be fun, yes. But it can also create deep OOC animosities, like existed between (some people on) the different sides on the EC back then. And it can drive the leaders of each team to become hypercompetitive, and ridiculously demanding of those following them.
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Also, what about all new nobles 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. By doing this continent wide the response on the questions of new nobles because faster and they can easily learn more then depending on a single mentor in a realm.
I think that's an amazing idea! But the Titans would need to enforce a "mentor can't lure people to do wrong things for their realm's interest" rule.
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Also, what about all new nobles 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. By doing this continent wide the response on the questions of new nobles because faster and they can easily learn more then depending on a single mentor in a realm.
That actually sounds really cool. Tim, Rob, thoughts?
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No, Toren was a pre-generated realm in the second incarnation of both islands.
OK, that would explain that. But wasn't it at least possible to switch allegiance? I seem to recall hearing that happened.
The reason the War Islands were removed was that the game in general had already moved past the utterly rigid team-play mode.
Perhaps it has gone too far away from team-play?
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OK, that would explain that. But wasn't it at least possible to switch allegiance? I seem to recall hearing that happened.
I don't remember. Might be so.
Perhaps it has gone too far away from team-play?
Well, I think that's probably true, at least in some cases. I think that the dev team's vision has gotten too scattered, and we need to refocus our efforts and the direction of the game; I also think that the guidance of Tom and the dev team has changed the culture quite a bit.
I think that some of the change was necessary, but yes, it's gone too far to remain fun especially for newbies who don't know what they're getting into.
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Not where your battlegroup was ordered to be? You're under suspicion as a spy!
Loitering in the capital? You're under suspicion as a gold-farmer!
Want to play a free spirit? Too bad.
Want to achieve ambitions of your own? You better plan on getting them by working up through the ranks, because ain't nobody gonna help you scheme and intrigue against the Ruler—unless there's already a faction in the realm that opposes him en masse. (Also, there are no guilds/secret societies to help you plot in secret.)
You do realize that all of this still happens, right? It's not like the player base has suddenly decided that it's OK to do all of this stuff. Not only that, but the actions that triggered this behavior from the realm still happens. People still sit around and farm gold. People still create spy characters. Except now other players are too paranoid to do anything about it.
Yes, I'm exaggerating, somewhat. But a lot of the things that are considered utterly wrong in BattleMaster today were commonplace back then. Tom's official guidelines on getting rid of inactive people who were using up realm resources was (IIRC) "Send them an order, and in a day, if they haven't followed it, ban them for not following orders."
No question about it, the game has changed, and so has the player atmosphere. No more daily filling out of Excel spreadsheets to track your army. No more need to toe the line to keep from getting in trouble.
But then there's also much less meaningful warfare (for most islands/realms). Much less thrill of a fast paced conflict with your neighbor. No more fast-paced discussions in the military council after turn change to decide what to do. Much more sitting around doing police work and civil work. And worrying about food, and whether or not you have your estates covered. Much less sense of actually doing something that actually means something.
Yes, we have progressed in some areas. But somewhere along the way we've also lost a good bit of the sense of fun that we had.
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IIRC, it was possible to secede and create realms. Isn't that how Toren was created on both SEI and SWI? Thing is there were only 3 cities and a stronghold. And since three of them were occupied by pre-generated realms, that doesn't leave much room for expansion. :p
Toren was created by Tom as a fourth realm after the first SEI war ended. Secession was in fact possible though. In the second war, Sandalak City seceded from Ikalak and existed as a separate realm for a while until it was taken back by Ikalak.
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But then there's also much less meaningful warfare (for most islands/realms). Much less thrill of a fast paced conflict with your neighbor. No more fast-paced discussions in the military council after turn change to decide what to do. Much more sitting around doing police work and civil work. And worrying about food, and whether or not you have your estates covered. Much less sense of actually doing something that actually means something.
Yes, we have progressed in some areas. But somewhere along the way we've also lost a good bit of the sense of fun that we had.
And this is exactly why we're having retention problems. We need to bring that feeling of meaningful actions and fun times back.
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And this is exactly why we're having retention problems. We need to bring that feeling of meaningful actions and fun times back.
And ideas how to achieve that?
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And ideas how to achieve that?
- 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.
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However, this gives me an idea. One of the problems for new players may be simply that they log in once, see nothing happen, and just forget to log in the next day. What if new characters, when being created, could see all the realm-wide messages that were sent in the last 72 hrs? This way they would see that the game is not empty; and it would give them something to respond to other than the boilerplate introduction message.
This sounds good, although a bit prone to abuse.
Actually, I always thought that BM *had* to have some sort of way to store the important messages, keep archives, some kind of ingame library (it would be cool to have an ingame librarian ;) ). We do have the wiki, but people don't use that too much for day-to-day events, only to depict the larger events that are going on or have already passed.
But after I saw the screenshots of the ingame forum posted above... well, I don't really like it. :p How to make it work without losing the feel of letters? The send-to-region, send-to-realm, send-private feel? The formality built by it, the atmosphere? The ICness?
Nowadays, BM messaging works more like a chat room, where the history gets erased as more chatting comes up, and only if you manually copy it and save it somewhere else you're able to keep records. And as a chat room, everytime you go off topic or OOC, you're disrupting the chat: it's hard to keep many discussions going at one time, because people lose track of the subject and of which answer is regarding which topic. It's a built-in strategy to keep the atmosphere inside a realm, at any time: if you want to talk OOC, you go outside of the game (forums or IRC).
What I'd much rather see (and have been dreaming about in the past) would be an in-game actual chat room (restricted to people in the same region as you are). But this is probably for another thread.
And this is exactly why we're having retention problems. We need to bring that feeling of meaningful actions and fun times back.
I think this is why we're losing players on the whole. New player retention has more to do with specific new-player treatment than overall gameplay. Of course, if the game is bad for players, it's bad for new players. So yes, we do need to address this issue, but we also need to do stuff specifically for new players.
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- Provide Realms incentives for war
- Provide Realms incentives to limit number of alliances and peaceful relations
- Give character's more bonuses/rewards for combat
- Provide greater incentives for smaller Realms, making them more viable
- Grant more character-specific achievements / abilities, providing players incentive to partake in new actions and abilities
There are a lot of things we can add - right now a great deal of character development and the like are heavily RP'd. We could add in additional benefits and perks that characters recieve for their actions and choices in class and ways of life. This gives things to make people want to go to war to achieve those markers of fame and prestige.
Wars right now are tough to get going - Realms have to manage their regions and many are tied up in multiple and heavily connected alliances that can spiral into Realms opting out of wars for reasons like "it's my allies, ally, ally!" Provide incentives to limit the number of alliances or peaceful relations a Realm has - perhaps bonuses to Realm loyalty, stability, production as they identify more closely with their home nation (we're different from THEM, that's why we're not allied with those stinking D'Harans!). War may reduce production loss or discontent amongst the population because they are too focused on the "fight", with increased recruitment levels due to men wanting to defend their homeland - or achieve honour.
There are lots of game changes that can be made to provide incentives to fighting, and reduce the regional hit that can occur because the ability to look after your regions is taken away whilst at war. It makes sense to have reduced relations and war states help counter those effects - making it more preferable and achieveable to sustain war time states without the huge region hits that occur.
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The first thing I looked for was contacts when I started up. If, during the first week or so, an e-mail went to the individual when a message was sent to them or activity happened like looting, this could quickly give the new player a better sense of the timeing of what was going on as well as acting as a catalyst to remind them of the game. Of course this assumes they check their e-mails more often than they check the game. Perhaps twitter or facebook posts might be better for some.
Yup, there could be something here. I'd say potential things to e-mail about would be: private messages, mentoring messages, oath offers, army assignment, messages from your liege (even realm-wide ones, maybe, because lieges matter), orders, turn warnings (the sun will set in 1 hour), turn reports (during the day/last night, this happened:). I would rather them not to have the message contents in them (except maybe oath offers and army assignments, with a link to go check it out), for people to go read them in game.
Some of them, I'd signup for myself even today (PMs, orders). Looting and other activities that can happen too many times during a turn would potentially spam someone's inbox, and would probably annoy more than do good.
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Provide incentives to limit the number of alliances or peaceful relations a Realm has - perhaps bonuses to Realm loyalty, stability, production as they identify more closely with their home nation (we're different from THEM, that's why we're not allied with those stinking D'Harans!).
Treaty friction was supposed to add an incentive to not have all those extra treaties, by making you work to maintain them. I think the general consensus, though. has been that people *want* to have all those treaties. They don't like it when they can't have them.
War may reduce production loss or discontent amongst the population because they are too focused on the "fight", with increased recruitment levels due to men wanting to defend their homeland - or achieve honour.
Some of these effects are already present. Too Much Peace lowers the acceptable tax rate a realm can have. I believe it also reduces the number of recruits that your RCs produce. (Although that may be tied to low glory. I forget which it is, but it's there. Regardless, it's there, and hits high-quality RCs the hardest.)
There are lots of game changes that can be made to provide incentives to fighting, and reduce the regional hit that can occur because the ability to look after your regions is taken away whilst at war. It makes sense to have reduced relations and war states help counter those effects - making it more preferable and achieveable to sustain war time states without the huge region hits that occur.
A key thing to keep in mind is that merely being at the diplomatic state of "War" should not be enough to get you a bonus. If it is, then you'll get a series of continual cold wars, and war declarations like "Madina vs. Astrum", where no fighting ever *can* occur.
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Some of these effects are already present. Too Much Peace lowers the acceptable tax rate a realm can have. I believe it also reduces the number of recruits that your RCs produce. (Although that may be tied to low glory. I forget which it is, but it's there. Regardless, it's there, and hits high-quality RCs the hardest.)
I think one problem is that our "incentives" are to avoid "bad things happening". We should focus more on rewards instead of punishments I think. Too much peace punishes realms that can't get into a war, while making it even harder for them to fight a war in the future. For small realms this is especially a problem. (and I realize this is suppossed to be exempted for small realms, but since small realms are quite relative and differ greatly on different continents, it is still affecting a small realm like Coria, on Atamara, and there is nothign we can do about it because we're too small to fight in the massive war that is taking place.)
A declaration of war will destroy our realm, and without one, our realm is being destroyed by Too Much Peace. We'd like to go to war, but can't without changes anyway.
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I think another factor that reduces willingness to go to war is the extensive looting that seems to be the norm these days. Looting is fun when you're the one looting, not so much when it's being done to you. If your realm is on the frontline, then your border regions are almost guaranteed to suffer greatly. It's an effective way of depopulating regions, which then take weeks or months to recover, if they don't simply revolt.
And if you're a newbie and you're aligned to one of those regions, your income dwindles away... I can imagine it's no fun having to beg to be able to recruit 15-20 men, when you see members of your realm walk around with units 3-4 times that size. I wonder how many have given up on the game because of this.
I'm a fan of looting myself, but I do feel that it's being overused, as well as being too powerful. Every war that's going on in the game right now revolves around looting. The border between CE and Carelia: devastated. The central mountains and outlying regions on AT: devastated. The border between SoA and Sirion: devastated. The warzone between Caligus/Perdan/Ibladesh: devastated. The warzone between Caerwyn and Astrum: devastated. The population in these regions has been mostly slaughtered or starved, production is next to zero, infrastructure is destroyed. These areas either go rogue, or become pretty much useless to whoever owns them. Yet they still need estates if they want to be kept in the realm, which means people have to become knights of those regions, and more often than not, it's the new guys who are pushed into the role.
All of this doesn't help keeping the new guys interested in playing, I believe. They're starting to resemble pack mules who get to do the dirty, thankless jobs that the 'veterans' are too good for...
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Again, TMP and Treaty Friction both are punishments for failure to adhere to desired gameplay mechanics. This is the kind of coding we need to get away from - and it's the kind of coding that's killing the game, by making it less fun. There are no BENEFITS to these actions (just normalization of game play. Which, despite what everyone might think is not a benefit. You should have normalization with minimal efforts involved)
I'm in C'Thonia right now - my unit dropped to 11% training from TMP (from around 50-55%), making it effectively useless in battle. I can't even go fight rogues with that - never mind go take on Zonasa or Cathay or Arcaea. We're desperately trying to get into war, but region maintenance and TMP combined have effectively crippled our military. We can't war, we cant fight, and we can't leave our Realm. Basically, we are !@#$ed.
And this is not because we don't want to do these things - it's because the punishment based system of coding has destroyed our ability to do them.
We need to restructure the game mechanics to provide INCENTIVES. Making bad things happen to players or Realms because things aren't happening is a very, very bad way of trying to make game play happen. This is the single, biggest change that needs to be made to the way coding and game changes are made.
You want to avoid cold wars? Then have take overs, large battles, conquests, looting, pillaging etc all add to the "bonus" War provides (whether you're doing it or the other person is besides the point, so long as it happens - the peasants are joyous when they are winning, but get fearful and sign up when they are losing). At an initial declare, have a small positive effect - it can grow (helping the Realm stay at war) as "combat" related actions occur. If like the Astrum-Madina war there is no combat, then it should drop towards zero bonus. If the war isn't happening, the peasants lose their fear/enthusiasm for the war and eventually it becomes meaningless to them. It's the reverse of the TMP code - good things happen when you fight, as opposed to !@#$ty things happen when you don't. Fight because it's good for you - not because you'll suffer if you don't.
People like to have lots of treaties because it keeps them safe (and helps keep the realm safe) - but there's also no advantage to NOT being in mass alliances and peace fests. There is a distinct DISADVANTAGE to it however. Treaty Friction is another punishment way of trying to destroy these mass alliances.
Provide bonuses to Realms who *don't* have lots of mass alliances and peace - a measure maybe where having an ally or two and a peaceful relation or two is normal, or where being part of a small federation (but with no allies) is considered "normal" - being above that incurs negatives on your realm morale/loyalty/glory (a realm that never fights and is at peace/allied with everyone is hardly "glorious", more like a cowardly nation that can't stand up to anyone and never shows any military might). If you have less than the "normal" level of allies/peace you gain bonuses to your realm stats and glory. Bigger realms suffer higher negatives (but normal positives) since they shouldn't need allies to be safe, smaller Realms gain more positive benefits (but suffer the normal negatives) since they probably could use more allies but not having them should be rewarded.
This "balance" act works in the favour of everyone - it makes it possible to do ALL these things, but harder to have lots of alliances (but if you're at war, you may not notice them). Where as if you are smaller without a lot of allies (but at peace often) you'll still get some benefits.
The play styles and actions can balance out these differences. And the best part is that Realms with low-ally counts who fight a lot receive the best bonus combination - and that kind of small-realm constant warfare is what we are TRYING to encourage hopefully.
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The thing with looting is... realms need to use it in order to actually win a war. Most of the realms you talked about Sacha can easily recover from a lost battle, only by destroying their regions you can do meaningfull damage.
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I wouldn't go as far as to say that looting damages player retention. If a realm points newbies to destroyed regions that is a mistake and they are going to pay it losing the guy. Unfortunately, the game loses the potential new player as well. You can't blame looting for that though. I think it's quite appropriate that war torn areas are devastated.
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However, this gives me an idea. One of the problems for new players may be simply that they log in once, see nothing happen, and just forget to log in the next day. What if new characters, when being created, could see all the realm-wide messages that were sent in the last 72 hrs? This way they would see that the game is not empty; and it would give them something to respond to other than the boilerplate introduction message.
This is a very good idea. It establishes context and gets the player looking forward to the next turn. I can also act like a built in tutorial on what it means to act midevally.
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I wouldn't go as far as to say that looting damages player retention. If a realm points newbies to destroyed regions that is a mistake and they are going to pay it losing the guy. Unfortunately, the game loses the potential new player as well. You can't blame looting for that though. I think it's quite appropriate that war torn areas are devastated.
Looting became the monster it is today back when peasant count started to affect production. Back in the day you could have 10 peasants in the region, but still get 100% production. Back then looting was a fun way of stealing gold from your enemy, burning some food, maybe even making the region rogue. But all it took to recover was a bureaucrat and some civil work for a week or so and the region was good to go again and provided all the benefits it had before. No knight lost income because gold was distributed realm wide instead of per region basis. These days you have to wait months for the population to come back and the knights of the region struggle.
I think the game has lost a lot of its fun and lightness due to such realism additions and drive away new players.
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Well, maybe we should reduce the peasant casualties from looting, or at the very least make it impossible to slaughter hundreds of peasants every day with impunity. I've always found it quite unbelievable that peasant mobs would take on professional armies that are 10x stronger or more, repeatedly, when 99.5% of those who did it before them died a pointless death. It would make much more sense for the mobs to attack the individual units that trigger them. 100 peasants attacking 500 professional soldiers is never believable. 100 peasants attacking a unit of 50 men is. There would be casualties on both sides. If the unit wins, the peasants all die. If the peasant wins, the unit is destroyed or routed (much like in actual battle) and the surviving peasants remain as a mob until TC. This would make looting more risky for the attackers, making them more reluctant to risk their units for a bit of production damage, and it would still cost peasant lives, but not on a ridiculous scale.
Also, this should probably be made into a separate topic :P
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I think one problem is that our "incentives" are to avoid "bad things happening". We should focus more on rewards instead of punishments I think. Too much peace punishes realms that can't get into a war, while making it even harder for them to fight a war in the future. For small realms this is especially a problem. (and I realize this is suppossed to be exempted for small realms, but since small realms are quite relative and differ greatly on different continents, it is still affecting a small realm like Coria, on Atamara, and there is nothign we can do about it because we're too small to fight in the massive war that is taking place.)
A declaration of war will destroy our realm, and without one, our realm is being destroyed by Too Much Peace. We'd like to go to war, but can't without changes anyway.
Absolutely, all "incentives" so far have been along the lines of "do what we want or your life will become hell".
Rather than having penalties for peace (though I don't really object the current ones, though I'd like for some tweaks regarding the acceptable taxes to consider food shortages), we could just as easily boost control in realms who are at war, the bonus increasing for how many realms it is at war with. It'd also help realms that are being gang banged a little.
Treaty friction was supposed to add an incentive to not have all those extra treaties, by making you work to maintain them. I think the general consensus, though. has been that people *want* to have all those treaties. They don't like it when they can't have them.
Partly, but it's mostly the fact that it wants to make us put great work just to maintain the status quo.
Well, maybe we should reduce the peasant casualties from looting, or at the very least make it impossible to slaughter hundreds of peasants every day with impunity. I've always found it quite unbelievable that peasant mobs would take on professional armies that are 10x stronger or more, repeatedly, when 99.5% of those who did it before them died a pointless death. It would make much more sense for the mobs to attack the individual units that trigger them. 100 peasants attacking 500 professional soldiers is never believable. 100 peasants attacking a unit of 50 men is. There would be casualties on both sides. If the unit wins, the peasants all die. If the peasant wins, the unit is destroyed or routed (much like in actual battle) and the surviving peasants remain as a mob until TC. This would make looting more risky for the attackers, making them more reluctant to risk their units for a bit of production damage, and it would still cost peasant lives, but not on a ridiculous scale.
Also, this should probably be made into a separate topic :P
The big reason looting has become more popular is because of estates. Before, looting was rare because a TO was never out of the question. Now, with lack of nobles, we can be fairly certain that many regions will not be TOed, so one no longer cares for sympathy and one tries to deny his opponents in the only way other than TOs: revolt.
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Well, maybe we should reduce the peasant casualties from looting, or at the very least make it impossible to slaughter hundreds of peasants every day with impunity. I've always found it quite unbelievable that peasant mobs would take on professional armies that are 10x stronger or more, repeatedly, when 99.5% of those who did it before them died a pointless death. It would make much more sense for the mobs to attack the individual units that trigger them. 100 peasants attacking 500 professional soldiers is never believable. 100 peasants attacking a unit of 50 men is. There would be casualties on both sides. If the unit wins, the peasants all die. If the peasant wins, the unit is destroyed or routed (much like in actual battle) and the surviving peasants remain as a mob until TC. This would make looting more risky for the attackers, making them more reluctant to risk their units for a bit of production damage, and it would still cost peasant lives, but not on a ridiculous scale.
Also, this should probably be made into a separate topic :P
How about peasant militia forming when a friendly army arrives? Similar to how militia are "stirred up by your arrival or someone else". This way your army can make use of them on your own terms.
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This is a very good idea. It establishes context and gets the player looking forward to the next turn. I can also act like a built in tutorial on what it means to act midevally.
I disagree. It'll discourage leaders to use the public channels to discuss and plan as random newbies might get their messages and share it with their new realm.
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I disagree. It'll discourage leaders to use the public channels to discuss and plan as random newbies might get their messages and share it with their new realm.
At some point you have to consider, do I want to try what I can to keep things secret, or just share it with the realm so that everyone feels involved? Keeping things too much behind closed doors also frustrates a decent amount of nobles, people want to be involved, rather then just order following nobles. Ofcourse, you can't share everything, but most, you can.
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I disagree. It'll discourage leaders to use the public channels to discuss and plan as random newbies might get their messages and share it with their new realm.
I've yet to be in a realm that discusses anything of importance to the enemy in public. If you're not in an army, you'll pretty much have no idea what the realms military is doing in most realms. Most you tend to see is maybe some scoutings, a few arguments about something and maybe a diplomatic update from the ruler on something that every other ruler already knows. So I don't really see the harm in giving a glimpse at the past weeks messages.
Though this does raise the point that the game has become somewhat segregated. Most orders used to go realm wide, but the army system has made that disappear. This has very effectively shut out those that aren't in an army from easily following what's happening in the war their realm is fighting. Mostly that means courtiers etc. live in their own bubble while the army lives in its own.
For example, in Darka my priest character knows about the armies of the realm very little. All he hears is a few battle reports now and then. He has no idea where they're going, when they're coming home etc. He has no idea that within the army there have been some nice arguments that would have been fun to read. That information used to be very public. Now it would be an hassle to ask for updates all the time so you could live a little through the other nobles in the realm. He loses out on a lot.
That's probably also one point to consider in retention. If your character is not in the right segment of the realm, you just miss a lot of what happens. A lot of that being missed used to be in the realm wide channel.
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I disagree. It'll discourage leaders to use the public channels to discuss and plan as random newbies might get their messages and share it with their new realm.
Their new realm /is/ the realm of which they get the messages. The realm-wide channel is pretty much public anyway; if you're willing to discuss there, then this certainly won't change your mind.
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At some point you have to consider, do I want to try what I can to keep things secret, or just share it with the realm so that everyone feels involved? Keeping things too much behind closed doors also frustrates a decent amount of nobles, people want to be involved, rather then just order following nobles. Ofcourse, you can't share everything, but most, you can.
Many people already feel the current compromising hard, without random foreign nobles getting a chunk of their messages. Don't underestimate some people's paranoia, despite their good will.
I've yet to be in a realm that discusses anything of importance to the enemy in public. If you're not in an army, you'll pretty much have no idea what the realms military is doing in most realms. Most you tend to see is maybe some scoutings, a few arguments about something and maybe a diplomatic update from the ruler on something that every other ruler already knows. So I don't really see the harm in giving a glimpse at the past weeks messages.
Though this does raise the point that the game has become somewhat segregated. Most orders used to go realm wide, but the army system has made that disappear. This has very effectively shut out those that aren't in an army from easily following what's happening in the war their realm is fighting. Mostly that means courtiers etc. live in their own bubble while the army lives in its own.
For example, in Darka my priest character knows about the armies of the realm very little. All he hears is a few battle reports now and then. He has no idea where they're going, when they're coming home etc. He has no idea that within the army there have been some nice arguments that would have been fun to read. That information used to be very public. Now it would be an hassle to ask for updates all the time so you could live a little through the other nobles in the realm. He loses out on a lot.
That's probably also one point to consider in retention. If your character is not in the right segment of the realm, you just miss a lot of what happens. A lot of that being missed used to be in the realm wide channel.
I have. "most realms" isn't all realms. And it's not only military orders I'm talking about, but more like political plans. It's already enough to have to worry about leaks and spies, but random give-aways? As it has often been said, the integrity of the message system must not be mined or people will use outside communication methods to compensate.
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Many people already feel the current compromising hard, without random foreign nobles getting a chunk of their messages. Don't underestimate some people's paranoia, despite their good will.
I'm not sure we understand each other. I was proposing that newly created characters get the realm-wide messages of the realm they are being created in. They're not random foreign nobles, they are nobles of your realm.
New characters don't appear out of the blue; presumably they just turned eighteen or achieved recognition as high nobility, but they were there before. They are going to receive tomorrow's messages; why not have them receive yesterday's messages?
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I'm not sure we understand each other. I was proposing that newly created characters get the realm-wide messages of the realm they are being created in. They're not random foreign nobles, they are nobles of your realm.
New characters don't appear out of the blue; presumably they just turned eighteen or achieved recognition as high nobility, but they were there before. They are going to receive tomorrow's messages; why not have them receive yesterday's messages?
That's an interesting idea. It would give new players something to read. And it would tell experienced players right off the bat whether the realm was even alive anymore.
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The big reason looting has become more popular is because of estates. Before, looting was rare because a TO was never out of the question. Now, with lack of nobles, we can be fairly certain that many regions will not be TOed, so one no longer cares for sympathy and one tries to deny his opponents in the only way other than TOs: revolt.
^^^ This.
Very, very few realms actually try and TO regions during a war anymore. Those that do universally fail to actually make progress. TOs used to be SOP. YOu would almost always march on your enemy, and TO as you went. That rarely happens anymore. So you loot the regions clean, and move on. Of course this damages the roads, and slows *everything* down...
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Something that arises from this shift towards looting to revolt instead of taking over is less lordship openings...obviously. But this also ties into perceived social mobility because it is fairly uncommon to see current lords and dukes (especially dukes) vacate their positions except in revolt or inactivity. In the case of revolt, often the former lord is reinstated. In the case of inactivity, there's usually some long waitlist for the next in line.
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More reasons for the lower echelons to press for more conquest. New land = new openings. Right now, most of the time it's the realm leaders who decide where and when to attack... But if an entire 'lower caste' of nobles begins urging for war, a smart ruler would be wise to listen, lest he wants to turn them against him.
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Oddly enough, they rarely clamor for war. For many realms, people are content or even desire peace, and the ruler is all too happy to grant them that.
That is also assuming they talk at all. They do, sometimes, maybe. And then they stop and usually just follow orders.
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^^^ This.
Very, very few realms actually try and TO regions during a war anymore. Those that do universally fail to actually make progress. TOs used to be SOP. YOu would almost always march on your enemy, and TO as you went. That rarely happens anymore. So you loot the regions clean, and move on. Of course this damages the roads, and slows *everything* down...
I agree with the above, but I also see where a hard turn toward this type of play could result in a fancier version of the War Islands, which isn't what I signed up for. Overall, though, this would go a long way toward easing problems of expansion, promotion, and retention.
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I agree with the above, but I also see where a hard turn toward this type of play could result in a fancier version of the War Islands, which isn't what I signed up for. Overall, though, this would go a long way toward easing problems of expansion, promotion, and retention.
It use to be quite common to fight over border regions, TO'ing them. Wars tended to be fought until one Realm was utterly absorbed into another. Evenly fought wars tended to have a few regions switch back and forth until some peace (or allies were threatned to come in) could be negotiated. That led to simmering hostilities, where Realms would war, peace for a while (and hate each other), then find an excuse to go back to war (aka: Nighthelm and Soliferum, we must've warred a half dozen times until half the island marched on Nighthelm.). Best part was our wars rarely changed our borders (or would only change one region) so we always wanted to go back at them a little while later. There are some serious benefits to having an enemy or two on your border . . .
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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.
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Personally, I'd really love to see a OOC board - even if it's just a direct link here as a child board for each Realm under the Continent.
Something that new players can have to post questions, ask things, where there could be OOC introduction threads so players know who each other are, rather than just characters.
Also it could provide a place to store important messages/RP's etc that people could check out to get some idea of the history or playstyle of the Realm.
Wouldn't be for any IC actions or OOC planning, obviously since it would provide access as a child board to others outside. But it would give some "center" that new players could check out either before joining a realm or as a plaec where they can get involved in the community at large on a smaller scale. It would also provide an OOC place for players to comment on what's going on in the Realm - there is definately a certain intimidation factor about IC complaining about inactivity, goals etc as those in charge tend to have a more vested interest in their own actions, rather than making sure EVERYONE is having fun. Giving an OOC place where players could question how the Realm is function would be nice, it could give a place for construction criticism. (Yes yes, or trolled and turn into a flame war . . ugh, I'm optimistic!)
Plus this would avoid the OOC fest of messages we never want to see in game - if you want to critique and talk OOC, put it on the Boards where everyone (other Realms and Mods/GM's/Tom) can see whats being said and that it doesn't violate IR or ethical stuff relating to power gaming.
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- 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.
1. Haven't we been informed the new estate system will do a lot for this?
2. Decreased maintenance needs and a "steady-state" level for regions should help.... easier TOs maybe too?
3/4. Maybe make CTO'd regions have higher states that other regions? Maybe, if a colony is formed, make it trigger an immediate productivity boost around the home realm?
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Another idea:
When an account has a character stay in a realm for 100 days the first time, it gives them a short, 5-part survey:
Please rate, 1 to 5 (1 being very poorly and 5 being very well) how well Realm X and the players in it have:
1. Instructed you in the basic gameplay of Battlemaster
2. Engaged you in roleplaying
3. Ensured you were able to participate in interesting realm functions
4. Helped you develop your character
5. Provided your character with a reasonable income
Also have a comment section.
Then, once a realm has several responses (say, 5 responses?), that score (maybe an average of some kind? To keep it current, maybe an average of the "last ten rankings"?) goes "public," where any player in the game can view it. New players would be shown the realm's score on those questions (or any other set of questions).
It could be abused, but only by people making lots of new accounts, then keeping a character from those accounts in a "target realm" for 100 days. That's a large investment to make for abuse for a fairly low return. The comment section could maybe be kept private, and Tom/the Devs would see it, maybe periodically releasing an anonymous and non-realm-specific summary of it occasionally.
This would at least give us a general idea of what problems new players are facing, and which realms are successfully addressing them. This would provide us some kind of standard (albeit a flawed and largely subjective one) against which to measure our attempts to include new players.
This idea got some discussion, mostly positive.
If there are no negatives, we should do it. It can't be that hard to do. Even a flawed system is better than no system: at least we can begin data-collection so we can do more than just anecdotes.
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1. Haven't we been informed the new estate system will do a lot for this?
2. Decreased maintenance needs and a "steady-state" level for regions should help.... easier TOs maybe too?
3/4. Maybe make CTO'd regions have higher states that other regions? Maybe, if a colony is formed, make it trigger an immediate productivity boost around the home realm?
- Well, yes, I think it will. Listed for the sake of completeness. Besides, if I hadn't listed it, someone else would have, and then complained about how blind the devs were to what really needs fixed. :)
- Improved region control should make TOs easier, by the virtue of all border regions /not/ being depopulated and trashed. And if it is possible to To regions, people will actually try it, and probably move away from the "loot til it's rogue" philosophy.
- I vaguely remember Tom talking about something like that years ago. Some kind of temporary bonus a realm gets, that can only be gotten vi forming a new colony. I don't think it was ever done.
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5. Provided your character with a reasonable income
I think that this shows an important flaw in the game right now. To begin receiving income a new player has to beg for it. Either by begging for an oath that is meaningless (wage slavery) because they are new or by direct handouts.
I don't think new players should have to beg for money.
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Indeed it is a problem. And this survey could reveal which realms do it well, and which do not.
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No, that's not what I was saying at all. I don't think a noble should have to 'be provided' with gold in the first place.
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No, that's not what I was saying at all. I don't think a noble should have to 'be provided' with gold in the first place.
You shouldn't have to beg for gold. You should offer your blade, and convince someone that this blade at their service is worth more than the gold in their pocket. In most realms, this isn't difficult.
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You shouldn't have to beg for gold. You should offer your blade, and convince someone that this blade at their service is worth more than the gold in their pocket. In most realms, this isn't difficult.
Should I constantly be asking my liege or other lords for a better share?
Not 15 minutes ago I asked the "treasury" group of one of my characters realms for 75 gold. I can afford to recruit a unit or maintain it in the field, not both. And this is just a unit where soldiers cost 36 gold per 10.
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No, that's not what I was saying at all. I don't think a noble should have to 'be provided' with gold in the first place.
Should I constantly be asking my liege or other lords for a better share?
Not 15 minutes ago I asked the "treasury" group of one of my characters realms for 75 gold. I can afford to recruit a unit or maintain it in the field, not both. And this is just a unit where soldiers cost 36 gold per 10.
Duh, and no.
In a realm where oath shares are very low, new players would score the realm, presumably, rather low. In a realm where oath shares were more generous, new players might score the realm comparatively higher. There are three ways to provide a noble with regular income: realm shares, oath shares, and donations. A new player will probably not be nuanced enough to distinguish between all of these quite clearly.
We could phrase the question as, "How satisfied have you been with the amount of gold your character receives in this realm?"
I reiterate, if there are no major complaints to this idea, why isn't it happening?
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I'm not sure we understand each other. I was proposing that newly created characters get the realm-wide messages of the realm they are being created in. They're not random foreign nobles, they are nobles of your realm.
New characters don't appear out of the blue; presumably they just turned eighteen or achieved recognition as high nobility, but they were there before. They are going to receive tomorrow's messages; why not have them receive yesterday's messages?
Indeed we misunderstood each other. You first spoke of "receiving realm-wide letters", no "having access to messages sent within their realm prior to their date of arrival".
I support the latter.
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3/4. Maybe make CTO'd regions have higher states that other regions? Maybe, if a colony is formed, make it trigger an immediate productivity boost around the home realm?
CTOs, imo, should absolutely be easier to do.
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I reiterate, if there are no major complaints to this idea, why isn't it happening?
Because feature requests have to be implemented by people, not magic fairies?
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I reiterate, if there are no major complaints to this idea, why isn't it happening?
Because you are the only one who thinks it is very important and you're not a developer. No objections isn't the same as feature that must be implemented soon.
You shouldn't have to beg for gold. You should offer your blade, and convince someone that this blade at their service is worth more than the gold in their pocket. In most realms, this isn't difficult.
I know, I was referring to Velloses 'survey' where he says "Provided your character with a reasonable income".
The problem I still find with the blades is that the price of blades is too elastic. If you have enough blades per region the benefit of further blades falls pretty quickly, and taking knights then becomes grudging charity ("is there anyone who can take in these new knights?), and I don't think new players getting money from charity is good.
In addition the game treats oath offers as 'srs bsns', pledging your allegiance forevernever etc, and being shoehorned into one to even start getting money as you get in to the game is pretty annoying.
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Because feature requests have to be implemented by people, not magic fairies?
.... you're not magical?
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Things that seem to have agreement as "good ideas" from this thread:
1. Easier CTOs
2. Newbie survey
3. Some kind of improved gameplay guide, maybe a YouTube video
4. Access to the previous 7 days letters in a realm a new character joins
I miss anything?
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The problem I still find with the blades is that the price of blades is too elastic. If you have enough blades per region the benefit of further blades falls pretty quickly, and taking knights then becomes grudging charity ("is there anyone who can take in these new knights?), and I don't think new players getting money from charity is good.
Which realm is that? All the places I am currently playing in have a pressing need for nobles.
In addition the game treats oath offers as 'srs bsns', pledging your allegiance forevernever etc, and being shoehorned into one to even start getting money as you get in to the game is pretty annoying.
True; I think a better entrance guide is a better idea than to force general handouts. If the game tells you straight out "Your first oath should net you at least 40 gold/week", then you will know what to expect.
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CTOs, imo, should absolutely be easier to do.
The problem with CTOs is that you essentially need an city for it. And we all know cities are pretty darn tough to get into an situation where you're free to even attempt a normal TO, let alone a colony. Even then, it demands a lot of military power.
Now, back when colony takeovers were introduced you could actually start one in any region you wanted. That made starting one quite a bit easier since you didn't actually have to break through level 5 walls and defeat a bunch of militia and your enemies whole army. I'm not saying that's where we should return necessarily, but perhaps it should be considered whether CTO in townslands/rich mountain regions should be allowed. Quite a few of them are as or close to as rich as the smaller cities we have and could thus easily provide a solid enough start for a new realm. Once the colony gets its first city/stronghold maybe have the peasants demand the capital be moved to the more secure location to discourage keeping the capital in the townsland forever to keep access to the extra bank.
Sure, the colony would probably need a bit more long term support if not started in an city, but the initial effort would be less. At least the choice would be the players to make. Besides, even failed colonies would add to the game.
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Which realm is that? All the places I am currently playing in have a pressing need for nobles.
Sirion, Oritolon, Greater Aenilia. GA could use nobles, but to fight rather than region upkeep. Sirion, maybe but only because their war ended and have lost 1/5 nobles in the past few months and even then only a few.
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Sirion, Oritolon, Greater Aenilia. GA could use nobles, but to fight rather than region upkeep. Sirion, maybe but only because their war ended and have lost 1/5 nobles in the past few months and even then only a few.
There has definitely been a period where every region in Sirion had more than enough knights, and it was almost difficult to find place for new ones. Such an overcrowding led to amazing military performances, though. Now I wouldn't say there are too few knights in Sirion but certainly it's a whole different story.
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There has definitely been a period where every region in Sirion had more than enough knights, and it was almost difficult to find place for new ones. Such an overcrowding led to amazing military performances, though. Now I wouldn't say there are too few knights in Sirion but certainly it's a whole different story.
Yeah I came in just as they started to win decisively, and ended up having to beg for gold wihle knighting in a contested region (Montijo) for months.
Whats more the larger realms where this is common are often the most attractive for new players (unfortunate). At the same time these large realms also tend to have many battles (favourable). No matter what size realm a player joins there are problems (a difficult problem).
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Which realm is that? All the places I am currently playing in have a pressing need for nobles.
Giblot has been "full" several times, especially when we lose a region. Losing a region means that you have to find 3-4 estates at the same time.
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Giblot has been "full" several times, especially when we lose a region. Losing a region means that you have to find 3-4 estates at the same time.
This is just absolutely amazing to me, as I'm duke in a realm where I can gladly offer an oath share of 100 gold per week or more to any knight that joins my duchy even if no other lord in the realm wanted to take on another knight. Not to mention, that nearly every single region in my realm needs 1-2 more knights, just to reach estate support. (with the exception of the two cities).
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This is just absolutely amazing to me, as I'm duke in a realm where I can gladly offer an oath share of 100 gold per week or more to any knight that joins my duchy even if no other lord in the realm wanted to take on another knight. Not to mention, that nearly every single region in my realm needs 1-2 more knights, just to reach estate support. (with the exception of the two cities).
Well, do the math on how many nobles we can sustain, assuming a 10% tax rate and 50 gold per noble if able:
Briarull weekly income: 137 (3)
Wirkfyr weekly income: 137 (3)
Dalverdy weekly income: 140 (3)
Ammersfield weekly income: 147 (3)
Dregna: 228 (4, but this income was rogue two days ago so production is terrible)
So that's 16 nobles, out of 25 currently in realm.
Giblot weekly income: 790, which in theory is 15...
So... we could support another 5 knights, but we certainly don't need any more knights.
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Well, do the math on how many nobles we can sustain, assuming a 10% tax rate and 50 gold per noble if able:
Briarull weekly income: 137 (3)
Wirkfyr weekly income: 137 (3)
Dalverdy weekly income: 140 (3)
Ammersfield weekly income: 147 (3)
Dregna: 228 (4, but this income was rogue two days ago so production is terrible)
So that's 16 nobles, out of 25 currently in realm.
Giblot weekly income: 790, which in theory is 15...
So... we could support another 5 knights, but we certainly don't need any more knights.
You actually give 50 gold to each knight though? In my experience most realms only average 20-30 gold per knight. Also it is possible to run cities much higher then 10%, my townsland on Dwilight is running at 15% without any problems itself, the city runs higher again but requires some attention to maintain at that level.
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You actually give 50 gold to each knight though? In my experience most realms only average 20-30 gold per knight. Also it is possible to run cities much higher then 10%, my townsland on Dwilight is running at 15% without any problems itself, the city runs higher again but requires some attention to maintain at that level.
I just gave you base numbers, 10% tax rate, 100% production, 7 day tax collection period. Some of those regions have only 2 knights, and could support a third; others have 3 knights and really should get rid of one. And our priestess certainly doesn't need much gold.
The point is, we don't "need" more knights. So there are indeed realms that don't "need" knights for full coverage.
On the other hand, the other 3 realms I'm playing in do have a need for knights to varying degrees.
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I just gave you base numbers, 10% tax rate, 100% production, 7 day tax collection period. Some of those regions have only 2 knights, and could support a third; others have 3 knights and really should get rid of one. And our priestess certainly doesn't need much gold.
The point is, we don't "need" more knights. So there are indeed realms that don't "need" knights for full coverage.
On the other hand, the other 3 realms I'm playing in do have a need for knights to varying degrees.
You don't need more knights in terms of estate coverage, but more knights is always great for the military. Remember 2 knights with 20 troops are generally better then 1 knight with 40 troops.
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Some people have easy enough knights some people not enough some people too much I think this is because the number of required knights is too narrowly fixed, at just over 100% estate for every region in the realm. Marginal benefit of another knight drops too fast. There is small range of perfect number and not much room to move.
Tweaking the exact number is not the solution instead it is to make number of knights more elastic.
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Some people have easy enough knights some people not enough some people too much I think this is because the number of required knights is too narrowly fixed, at just over 100% estate for every region in the realm. Marginal benefit of another knight drops too fast. There is small range of perfect number and not much room to move.
Tweaking the exact number is not the solution instead it is to make number of knights more elastic.
This is exactly correct, and is part of what the new estate system is intended to do.
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Things that seem to have agreement as "good ideas" from this thread:
1. Easier CTOs
2. Newbie survey
3. Some kind of improved gameplay guide, maybe a YouTube video
4. Access to the previous 7 days letters in a realm a new character joins
I miss anything?
I still think that the first place a newbie arrive is crucial.
I would like to suggest that, newbies that arrive by friends invitation, could access the actual login page, choose a region, a realm, etc.
When a new player arrive by any other ways, I think they should be directed to a realm like that have gold, have action, and this can probably be evaluated by the newbie survey.
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You don't need more knights in terms of estate coverage, but more knights is always great for the military. Remember 2 knights with 20 troops are generally better then 1 knight with 40 troops.
Except that the gain in this case in realm-wide, while the cost is very much local. The realm has great incentives to accept new knights all the time, but the ones who can actually offer them oaths, the lords themselves, don't. The gain on estates is marginal, so they are just throwing their gold away out of charity.
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In my experience most realms only average 20-30 gold per knight.
20-30 gold per week? If someone offered any of my characters that kind of oath I'd laugh in their face and find someone else. That amount of gold is pathetic, unless the region region has been destroyed, and the offered oath will eventually amount to much more. You can't possibly recruit and maintain a decent unit (and no, I'm not talking about a 50 man elite force) on less than 40 gold a week. 25 gold? You'd be lucky to hire and pay 20 men, at most. And then you'd need help recruiting more if they ever got wiped out.
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Except that the gain in this case in realm-wide, while the cost is very much local. The realm has great incentives to accept new knights all the time, but the ones who can actually offer them oaths, the lords themselves, don't. The gain on estates is marginal, so they are just throwing their gold away out of charity.
Your knights don't aid you agendas? I recommend you get some new knights cause mine are MOST helpful in furthering my ambitions. The more knights I have, the less work I need to do to sway other nobles into my camp.
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Your knights don't aid you agendas? I recommend you get some new knights cause mine are MOST helpful in furthering my ambitions. The more knights I have, the less work I need to do to sway other nobles into my camp.
I think you're in the minority and most people just want to slaughter enemies and fight in big battles.
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I think you're in the minority and most people just want to slaughter enemies and fight in big battles.
And how is that not an agenda, simply means you knights can support you when you are trying to get the realm to war against the realm you dislike. Or better yet supporting you in your efforts to become Duke or whatever so you have even more gold to throw at battle.
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And how is that not an agenda, simply means you knights can support you when you are trying to get the realm to war against the realm you dislike. Or better yet supporting you in your efforts to become Duke or whatever so you have even more gold to throw at battle.
This is correct for personal agendas but not really relevant from a 'realm as a team' perspective. That going to war with somebody involves the rest of the realm is not essentially related.
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This is correct for personal agendas but not really relevant from a 'realm as a team' perspective. That going to war with somebody involves the rest of the realm is not essentially related.
Realm agendas are derived from the personal agendas of the powerful.
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Realm agendas are derived from the personal agendas of the powerful.
Which is kind what many of us are thinking is exactly the problem.
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Which is kind what many of us are thinking is exactly the problem.
But that's unavoidable. How do you define powerful? I see no other meaningful definition.
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Which is kind what many of us are thinking is exactly the problem.
I think the problem is that the powerful often have no agenda other than holding on to power.
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What? You all mean to tell me that this social experiment we call a game actually parallels real life? >:(
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Returning to the original topic:
I have continued to collect data. I do another set of data every 15ish days. As I do more reviews, there are two clear groups: Beluaterra, Dwilight, and Far East Island tend to swap off the "top positions" (based on activity and high-activity rates and changes in them, new registrations, changes in number of active or highly active players), while East Island, Atamara, and the Colonies continue to occupy the lowest positions.
A curious thing is that I cannot identify any relationship between levels of 3-day activity and retention. I expected to find that active continents had higher retention. High-activity also has little predictive usefulness (plus, high activity fluctuates so widely that its weekly changes are larger than its long-term changes).
East Island barely even managed to break even on registrations this time around (1.5% increase), while FEI and Dwilight saw very significant growth.*
*FEI and Dwilight also just had multi-cheating issues discovered. However, even if all multi-accounts are discounted, Dwilight still dominates the field for registrations, and FEI and Dwilight both remain leaders, though FEI falls to closer to Atamara and Beluaterra
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No characters can be created on BT, which means it gets less people, but is more likely to retain those it gets. Theoretically.
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I did have 20 or 30 players register in BM, most of the ones that got to the player making part did so in Dwilight over the last month (of which only 7 remain, unfortunately :-\). That might influence a bit.
It was agreed by most of them that Dwilight has the most appealing description when you are going to choose a continent to set your player in, and know nothing about the continents.
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Dwilight can also be a cold shower for some, particularly those who come in with 'silly' names and expect a lighthearted game... I'm gonna guess and say that SMA has driven quite a few newbies away already.
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Heh, maybe we should instead switch the emigration restriction to Dwilight instead of BT. With the way BT is now, and the likely result that we won't see any future Invasions in the same form as we have thusfar, I see no harm in letting people start directly in blight-ridden BT. On the other hand, I think it would be a slight jolt for people to be forced to have only one character, and be unable to roleplay Sir Deathrider Midnightdawn as a guitar-playing flamenco-dancing ninja detective scientist (I'm pretty sure you can get away with that on AT). Well, at least they'd get yelled at for doing that on Dwilight.
So my thought is that we do the immigration only for Dwilight, and lift BT's restrictions. Or at the very least impose the restriction on Dwilight and leave BT the way it is. But that would mean both testing continents are immigration only, which I don't think is a good idea.
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Dwilight can also be a cold shower for some, particularly those who come in with 'silly' names and expect a lighthearted game... I'm gonna guess and say that SMA has driven quite a few newbies away already.
The island description for Dwilight does mention SMA, and provides a link to the wiki SMA page. Anyone who bothers to read should see that, and know at least a bit of what they're getting into.
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We probably shouldn't overestimate new players so much. I don't think Dwilight is appropriate as a newbie-accessible island. BT isn't, and that was probably due to Invasions rather than any significant human mechanics. Well, Dwilight is much more different than the other continents (More so than 1 turn a day Colonies). You get only 1 noble character on the continent. You have to have a proper name. You have to be serious about what you say and do (Kind of).
I just don't think Dwilight is a very good continent to let new players join in immediately. It is far better to give them the other options (Yes, even BT) so they have some room to understand the feel of things before going off to the more "serious" place.
Hey, I even got SMA complaints against me for not using someone's full title...and the only time I did that was to this guy who insisted on signing his letters with a period at the end (this: . ) and continued to call me Garett (OMG!!!! How hard is it to copy+paste my signature?!) It made me scratch my head in annoyance.
Anyway, that's what I think ought to be the future for Dwilight. Does that mean fewer players will come? Possibly. But I think that way more people will actually stay.
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Hey, I even got SMA complaints against me for not using someone's full title...and the only time I did that was to this guy who insisted on signing his letters with a period at the end (this: . ) and continued to call me Garett (OMG!!!! How hard is it to copy+paste my signature?!) It made me scratch my head in annoyance.
He he he... The infamous Noble family.
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Hey, I even got SMA complaints against me for not using someone's full title...
I hope you weren't "punished" in any way.
It shouldn't be against SMA to not use someone's title, but you should expect them to get offended (and they should) if you don't unless maybe you are very, very close friends.
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I often insist to commoners that they shouldn't care about my titles and just call me Garret. Nobles are a different story. Man, why are nobles so troublesome?
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Heh, maybe we should instead switch the emigration restriction to Dwilight instead of BT. With the way BT is now, and the likely result that we won't see any future Invasions in the same form as we have thusfar, I see no harm in letting people start directly in blight-ridden BT. On the other hand, I think it would be a slight jolt for people to be forced to have only one character, and be unable to roleplay Sir Deathrider Midnightdawn as a guitar-playing flamenco-dancing ninja detective scientist (I'm pretty sure you can get away with that on AT). Well, at least they'd get yelled at for doing that on Dwilight.
So my thought is that we do the immigration only for Dwilight, and lift BT's restrictions. Or at the very least impose the restriction on Dwilight and leave BT the way it is. But that would mean both testing continents are immigration only, which I don't think is a good idea.
Call me an elitist, but I kinda like that you can't create new characters on BT. Mind you, I kinda hate that it means we get so many less people, too... but that's a lot because of how estates work. The plus side of being less is that it takes less to topple any government. :P
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We probably shouldn't overestimate new players so much. I don't think Dwilight is appropriate as a newbie-accessible island. BT isn't, and that was probably due to Invasions rather than any significant human mechanics. Well, Dwilight is much more different than the other continents (More so than 1 turn a day Colonies). You get only 1 noble character on the continent. You have to have a proper name. You have to be serious about what you say and do (Kind of).
I just don't think Dwilight is a very good continent to let new players join in immediately. It is far better to give them the other options (Yes, even BT) so they have some room to understand the feel of things before going off to the more "serious" place.
Hey, I even got SMA complaints against me for not using someone's full title...and the only time I did that was to this guy who insisted on signing his letters with a period at the end (this: . ) and continued to call me Garett (OMG!!!! How hard is it to copy+paste my signature?!) It made me scratch my head in annoyance.
Anyway, that's what I think ought to be the future for Dwilight. Does that mean fewer players will come? Possibly. But I think that way more people will actually stay.
I completely and totally disagree with this.
Dwilight is a piece of cake to keep new players in. Terran very rarely loses a new player. Constant fighting, frequent position turnover due to regions gained/lost, interesting religious dynamics, opportunities for expansion, constant demand for knights empowering the lower ranks...
Teaching new players SMA improves the whole game. Dwilight is already underpopulated; don't restrict it even more (especially since it's one of the only continents that is statistically not completely !@#$ing up in terms of retention).
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As someone on both sides of the equation, I feel justified in saying that it's not continents but nations.
Caerwyn hemmorages new nobles, because sure you get some greetings but it seems like new players are being used in a faction or schemed for or manipulated. Arcachon doesn't seem to have that problem at all. I think it's a very small sample size but people dislike feeling used. One of the selling points of the game is that you're part of a team from the start and I think it makes a big difference to new players as to if they are pawns in someone's scheme or if they are being brought into a club that has your back if something goes wrong.
Again small sample size, but that's just what I've noticed.
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As someone on both sides of the equation, I feel justified in saying that it's not continents but nations.
Caerwyn hemmorages new nobles, because sure you get some greetings but it seems like new players are being used in a faction or schemed for or manipulated. Arcachon doesn't seem to have that problem at all. I think it's a very small sample size but people dislike feeling used. One of the selling points of the game is that you're part of a team from the start and I think it makes a big difference to new players as to if they are pawns in someone's scheme or if they are being brought into a club that has your back if something goes wrong.
Again small sample size, but that's just what I've noticed.
Maybe its just me and those I play with, but I would have thought being brought into a scheme by a long-standing player would be just the thing to hook a new player. My favorite part of the game is working on the politics of trying to either gain power, or prevent abuse of power. Of course working together as a team for fighting wars and battles is important, but sometimes fixing teams that aren't working well is equally as important.
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Maybe its just me and those I play with, but I would have thought being brought into a scheme by a long-standing player would be just the thing to hook a new player.
I think he's probably referring too the attitude of talking to a new player just enough to get them to set up an estate and put them in army and then hoping they'll follow orders. Not the good kind of incorporation where the new player is talked, taken time to get to know, and then brought into an existing faction or power group.
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Maybe its just me and those I play with, but I would have thought being brought into a scheme by a long-standing player would be just the thing to hook a new player. My favorite part of the game is working on the politics of trying to either gain power, or prevent abuse of power. Of course working together as a team for fighting wars and battles is important, but sometimes fixing teams that aren't working well is equally as important.
I'd think too, but I tend to see apathy more than anything when I do this. Mind you, new players as a whole are usually not responsive at all. You welcome them, explain a bit what's going on, and tell them you are available for them if they have any questions, and then never get a reply. Just sucks all the will to even bother with them right out of you.
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Yeah, it's the whole "New players are good rubes" game. They don't know what a good offer is, or what's really going on, so they get drafted by one guy or other and never really have a full picture of what's going on or why. Then they're just left to sort of lollygag around without any direction.
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Which is why experienced players have to:
1. Repeatedly follow up
2. Offer opportunities for involvement directly
3. Be generous
In order to get good retention.
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1. Easy enough to do. For some reason a lot are too lazy even for this.
2. Not as easy as #1, though enough opportunities present themselves. Though more often than not the new player doesn't take advantage of this, so you shrug and leave him be.
3. Haha...yeah...sure. Maybe like 5 people in the entire game who actually want to do that with pure intentions. (Hint: I'm not one of them. If anyone actually listens to me, it will be in order to further my own goals, whatever they might be.)
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1. Easy enough to do. For some reason a lot are too lazy even for this.
2. Not as easy as #1, though enough opportunities present themselves. Though more often than not the new player doesn't take advantage of this, so you shrug and leave him be.
3. Haha...yeah...sure. Maybe like 5 people in the entire game who actually want to do that with pure intentions. (Hint: I'm not one of them. If anyone actually listens to me, it will be in order to further my own goals, whatever they might be.)
#2 isn't so hard. Even if you just pull some random "reconnaissance" mission out of your butt and send a new player out into the wilds with a bunch of scouts. A sense of purpose, a mission, these things help get new players connected. I personally plan to give a newbie-initiation mission soon of "delivering funds." I will get the new player to join a guild, send 100 gold, then deploy/him her to some mid-distance location with orders to deposit the funds at a guildhouse. This gets the character in a guild, teaches the player about guildhouses, ensures my guild is properly funded, teaches about travel, and gets involvement and the sense of a mission fulfilled.
#3... I didn't say with pure intentions. I fully expect that my generosity with new players will be repaid. It has in the past: my character in Terran is quite politically powerful, partly because he actively recruits new nobles to his following. Generosity with political ramifications may be even better for retention.
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For #3, I'll be the devil's advocate and say that what they don't know doesn't hurt them. What will it change to their lives if they lead 15 men instead of 40 (or more)? You probably don't want them running off doing TOs anyways. As long as they don't know their income is !@#$ and can maintain at least a few men, it shouldn't bother them.
As for the rest, I think that strife and plotting is actually a turn-off for most newbs. They expect a team game, and then realize that their "team" can't work together and is in a pityful state of disharmony. Their realm therefore "sucks".
Even I, as ambitious as I may be, started out like this. And while I did dream of power, I dreamt of leading a sanctioned colony in the name of my king or liege (for example, by creating a New Vur Hagin colony in Luz de Bia back in the days).
All of this despite how much more they can achieve as part of a smaller group and the potential of involvements these bring. Newbs tend to prefer being a marginal player in a big strong team than a strong player in a medium and mediocre team, apparently.
Which makes me think... Perhaps we should have surveys for the players every now and then? A kind of census, where we ask a ton of questions about everyone's experiences with the game, what they are looking forward to, and what they like the least. A few questions about what keeps people interested and the such. This could help us better target our retention efforts.
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For #3, I'll be the devil's advocate and say that what they don't know doesn't hurt them. What will it change to their lives if they lead 15 men instead of 40 (or more)? You probably don't want them running off doing TOs anyways. As long as they don't know their income is !@#$ and can maintain at least a few men, it shouldn't bother them.
As for the rest, I think that strife and plotting is actually a turn-off for most newbs. They expect a team game, and then realize that their "team" can't work together and is in a pityful state of disharmony. Their realm therefore "sucks".
Even I, as ambitious as I may be, started out like this. And while I did dream of power, I dreamt of leading a sanctioned colony in the name of my king or liege (for example, by creating a New Vur Hagin colony in Luz de Bia back in the days).
All of this despite how much more they can achieve as part of a smaller group and the potential of involvements these bring. Newbs tend to prefer being a marginal player in a big strong team than a strong player in a medium and mediocre team, apparently.
Which makes me think... Perhaps we should have surveys for the players every now and then? A kind of census, where we ask a ton of questions about everyone's experiences with the game, what they are looking forward to, and what they like the least. A few questions about what keeps people interested and the such. This could help us better target our retention efforts.
Actually, once a new player is with an army, they will notice the discreprancy between their unit and everyone else's. It also means the person who gave them said crap deal is a jerk.
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Actually, once a new player is with an army, they will notice the discreprancy between their unit and everyone else's. It also means the person who gave them said crap deal is a jerk.
But what *less* can they do? They can do just the same as everyone else, they are just less effective at it.
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But what *less* can they do? They can do just the same as everyone else, they are just less effective at it.
You know, I really didn't think I'd have to explain the difference between a 15 man unit and a 40 man unit. If we assume a unit with good training, over 70% cohesion, and over 60 weapon and armor, a 15 man unit will have about 300 CS. A 40 man unit will have over 600 CS. You only hurt your own realm by giving your knight a crappy tax rate.
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Fortunately money helps ease the pain.
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For #3, I'll be the devil's advocate and say that what they don't know doesn't hurt them. What will it change to their lives if they lead 15 men instead of 40 (or more)? You probably don't want them running off doing TOs anyways. As long as they don't know their income is !@#$ and can maintain at least a few men, it shouldn't bother them.
All of this despite how much more they can achieve as part of a smaller group and the potential of involvements these bring. Newbs tend to prefer being a marginal player in a big strong team than a strong player in a medium and mediocre team, apparently.
lmao
Yea, keep your knights with !@#$ty armies, eternally begging for money in order to maintain a small army, that will do wonders with retention! ::) Specially when they see the ruler and powerful people running around in large nasty armies, deciding the fate of battles practically on themselves, and they only getting a handful of orders (which if they fail to follow is no big deal, as they are quite expendable anyway, as long as they keep providing estate).
And, honestly, most people I've invited wanted to be /players/, not spectators of a very powerful realm. What you've described is the best way to drive away experienced players from your realm, and new players from the game. It only works with extremely unambitious people (the holy grail), multis, and half-active people that know you already, so they don't really care.
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You know, I really didn't think I'd have to explain the difference between a 15 man unit and a 40 man unit. If we assume a unit with good training, over 70% cohesion, and over 60 weapon and armor, a 15 man unit will have about 300 CS. A 40 man unit will have over 600 CS. You only hurt your own realm by giving your knight a crappy tax rate.
They will be less effective in battle. That's just means they are less good at what they do, not that they can't do as much. They can go fight battles or do civil work just as 80+ men units can. They just won't be that effective. And besides, that !@#$ty income in a rich realm can maybe allow them to do more than a good income in a poor realm.
lmao
Yea, keep your knights with !@#$ty armies, eternally begging for money in order to maintain a small army, that will do wonders with retention! ::) Specially when they see the ruler and powerful people running around in large nasty armies, deciding the fate of battles practically on themselves, and they only getting a handful of orders (which if they fail to follow is no big deal, as they are quite expendable anyway, as long as they keep providing estate).
And, honestly, most people I've invited wanted to be /players/, not spectators of a very powerful realm. What you've described is the best way to drive away experienced players from your realm, and new players from the game. It only works with extremely unambitious people (the holy grail), multis, and half-active people that know you already, so they don't really care.
Nowhere did I say that *I* did this. I just said I expect you are making more of a fuss about its consequences than it truly is.
I've personally always been ambitious, and in my first years I *always* saw dukes and powerful people having bigger units than I had. Was I disappointing? Sad? Angry? No, I considered it *normal* that people higher up get more prestigious units. The e-peen is earned. And as such, every time I could increase my income to increase my unit size, I was delighted. Basically, because I was increasing the size of my e-peen.
Because that's all unit size on the character scale is, an e-peen.
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Well, if your unit is too small you lose a lot of looting options, razing options, takeover options, and hunting if it gets really small.
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Well, if your unit is too small you lose a lot of looting options, razing options, takeover options, and hunting if it gets really small.
But you still get to loot. As for takeovers, newbies shouldn't be doing them anyways. Razing? I'm pretty sure that, as for takeovers, you need *big* units for them, and not just average? Not certain on that.
As for hunting, well, depends on how small we get. You need 20 men to hunt. 20 men of the cheapest type is usually affordable with a rather small income. And with 20 men, I think you get to pick your looting kind in most rurals.
So give someone enough gold to recruit 20 of the cheapest men, and you are giving him access to all the options he might need to use.
Again, though, I stress that I don't do that, and that I tend to be a rather generous lord. Knights can make valuable allies, especially if well-armed.
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Nowhere did I say that *I* did this. I just said I expect you are making more of a fuss about its consequences than it truly is.
Glad to know that. Hope I didn't imply you were actually doing it. I like to think I was keeping it hypothetical.
I've personally always been ambitious, and in my first years I *always* saw dukes and powerful people having bigger units than I had. Was I disappointing? Sad? Angry? No, I considered it *normal* that people higher up get more prestigious units. The e-peen is earned. And as such, every time I could increase my income to increase my unit size, I was delighted. Basically, because I was increasing the size of my e-peen.
Did you have 15 units and saw your superiors run around with 60 or 80 Cavarly or SFs units? There is one thing as bigger units, and there are other cases of excess.
So give someone enough gold to recruit 20 of the cheapest men, and you are giving him access to all the options he might need to use.
As long as they don't lose a single men in combat, and such. If they have infantry they tend to lose them after battles and have to replace them, you know how it works. In any case, though you were talking about 15 men units, it's not only about having all the options, but as being part of the happenings, not a mere spectator. If you don't feel you are a useful part of the team, the quality of your experience is at best different.
Of course Dukes and Kings will have more gold, more responsibilities and more say. The point is to balance how much of those, if any, the knights have.
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Having played as a character making a measly 16 gold per tax I can tell you that it is not a fun situation. Any loses require you to beg for gold, often even to repair I needed to get a gold supplement. Battles are a whole lot less fun if you feel that your troops barely make a difference even being there. Everyone expects that Dukes and Lords will support larger units, the question is how much larger can they be before the lower characters are left feeling like useless filler for the armies.
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Having played as a character making a measly 16 gold per tax I can tell you that it is not a fun situation. Any loses require you to beg for gold, often even to repair I needed to get a gold supplement. Battles are a whole lot less fun if you feel that your troops barely make a difference even being there. Everyone expects that Dukes and Lords will support larger units, the question is how much larger can they be before the lower characters are left feeling like useless filler for the armies.
Newbs don't know how much they can (or can't) make a difference. By the time they do, they should be smart enough to find a better oath than with the cheapskate they first got.
And I remember that the dukes had *much* bigger units than I had. They could wipe out rogues on their own, I could not. But then again, only they could, everyone else in the realm (in the days where knights outnumbered lords) had to work together. I wouldn't want to be stuck with that income anymore, but that doesn't mean I felt persecuted in any way when I began playing with it. Past 20 men, it's only about what one is used to. "Normal", "decent", and "acceptable" are all very subjective and relative, and if you ask 20 different people, you'll get 20 different answers.
The bigger problem is when newbs are put in the !@#$ty army that never does anything, not when they aren't given enough to be able to kill everything by themselves. Hell, I'd say it's a good thing if they need to work with others to deal with enemies and rogues, cooperation is what the game is all about.
Or if the dukes intentionally give small oaths in order to do manual transfers after. I hate such micro-managing. (note: not the same as giving everyone decent oaths and then giving a supplement to units that got significantly damaged compared to others, or to finance a takeover unit or two per army, which is perfectly legit imho)
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I literally spend the first three months with a unit of 15 men. When I finally scraped together some allies I got it up to 20.
It sucked hard, 300 CS was like my dream unit. Eventually I shanked the king in a coup, but still, 10% of a poor rural region is a raw deal, clearing 22-25 gold a tax day and actually worried my men might go up in training because then I couldn't afford to fix damage.
There really should be a code of "don't be a douchebag" for all lords.
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I think what you're talking about with cheapskate first oaths is completely stupid, new players shouldn't have to put up with that on principle regardless of expectations.
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Improving one's fate is what I found most fun in the game. The lower you start, the more you can improve. ;D
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It's not unnatural or uncommon human behavior for the established elite to tend to be exclusive, and desire to maintain that status at the expense of newcomers. Look at the early 20th century American conflicts between the established "aristocracy" and the new millionaires. Well, look anywhere that such a thing occurred and you'll find that in more cases than not, the old rich families weren't very happy with no-names having comparable, sometimes even greater, wealth than they had.
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Or if the dukes intentionally give small oaths in order to do manual transfers after. I hate such micro-managing. (note: not the same as giving everyone decent oaths and then giving a supplement to units that got significantly damaged compared to others, or to finance a takeover unit or two per army, which is perfectly legit imho)
Hm. That gives me an idea for another possible metric to display for people looking for a realm to join: gold handed out to non-lords via oaths, as compared to gold transfers from lords to non-lords.
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"Average Oath Income"
("Average Estate Income" for the new system...)
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"Average Oath Income"
("Average Estate Income" for the new system...)
Nice hint dropping you did there.... ;D
I wonder if the median income wouldn't be better? After all, if the problem is income inequality, the average won't tell you anything; the non-Lord average gives you a very specific information that may not paint the whole picture. In many realms, city estates could skew the average up, but could be reserved to a closed elite.
Would it be thinkable to code the Gini coefficient of a realm?
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Would it be thinkable to code the Gini coefficient of a realm?
Given that the one who would (most likely) be coding it hasn't a clue what you're talking about...probably not ;D
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Given that the one who would (most likely) be coding it hasn't a clue what you're talking about...probably not ;D
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient
Basically, it is a measure of inequality of income. In a realm where everyone has equal income, G=0; in a realm where a single person has all the income and everybody else zero, G=1. It is independent of sample size for large N (so may be skewed in very small realms) and of average income (so poor realms could have a good score) and is easily calculated if you have a list of the incomes of the realms (the 3rd formula on the wiki is probably the one you want to use).
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Seems only marginally useful. If you have to send someone to a wikipedia page to explain the math behind a term that only a statistician has ever heard of, then it seems a bit pointless.
Median may be better. But again, how many people will understand the difference between average and median? I'd say keep it simple, and use terms that any player wanting to join will understand.
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Seems only marginally useful. If you have to send someone to a wikipedia page to explain the math behind a term that only a statistician has ever heard of, then it seems a bit pointless.
Median may be better. But again, how many people will understand the difference between average and median? I'd say keep it simple, and use terms that any player wanting to join will understand.
Well, if I were to implement the Gini coefficient, I'd probably just display it as "Income Distribution: Very Uneven/Uneven/Moderately Even/Very Even" or something like that.
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Would any realm really have anything better than "Uneven"? I'd imagine only the smallest, poorest realms would approach "Moderately Even".
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Would any realm really have anything better than "Uneven"? I'd imagine only the smallest, poorest realms would approach "Moderately Even".
I don't know; it'd be an interesting thing to investigate.
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So, fire up your SQL-fu and check.
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Seems only marginally useful. If you have to send someone to a wikipedia page to explain the math behind a term that only a statistician has ever heard of, then it seems a bit pointless.
Median may be better. But again, how many people will understand the difference between average and median? I'd say keep it simple, and use terms that any player wanting to join will understand.
You may be right for the Gini coefficient, but I refuse to think that we can ask people to understand the difference between a liege and an officer, but not the difference between median and average.
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Gini coefficient would be interesting, but irrelevant for BM.
It requires a large sample so that the "top portion" is a meaningful group as is the "bottom portion." Assuming a realm of 30 nobles, comparing the top 10% to the bottom 10% is comparing 3 dukes to 3 new knights with no oaths. Comparing 2 samples of 3 is not very useful.
It could be interesting if set on a distribution of sorts with categorical labels, so that "comparatively equal" realms would get more.
But, better measures would be:
Average or median ratio of a lord's income to his/her knight's income (I think this would be an excellent measure, as it basically shows the oath shares being offered)
Ratio of gold given manually vs. through oaths (as Tim suggested)
A "haves and have-nots" Gini coefficient, wherein the income of the top 50% is compared to the bottom 50%
Economics is my course of study. If I think about this for a while, I can find us probably at least a dozen reasonable measures of inequality. And a way to weight and aggregate them. I might even color-code it. You have no idea how fun that would be for me. Give... me.... data!
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Nice hint dropping you did there.... ;D
I wonder if the median income wouldn't be better? After all, if the problem is income inequality, the average won't tell you anything; the non-Lord average gives you a very specific information that may not paint the whole picture. In many realms, city estates could skew the average up, but could be reserved to a closed elite.
Would it be thinkable to code the Gini coefficient of a realm?
I favor medians when it comes to wealth indicators. Averages are so biased.
Case in point, GDP per capita is higher in the US than in Québec. However, if you exclude the top 1%, it becomes higher in Québec than in the US. What does this mean? The US has more filthy rich people than Québec does, but unless you are among the 1% richest of your country, you are likely to live better in Québec than in the states.
All this to say, "averages" don't represent your "average" joe is people tend to imagine him (as they are rather judging the median joe with the averages).
My rant of the day against averages.
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Case in point, GDP per capita is higher in the US than in Québec. However, if you exclude the top 1%, it becomes higher in Québec than in the US. What does this mean? The US has more filthy rich people than Québec does, but unless you are among the 1% richest of your country, you are likely to live better in Québec than in the states.
But you speak French, so the standard of living drops significantly.
/nationalism
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Ohhhh, other economists!
I admit to being lazy with a lot of this stuff, and just sheer off the top and bottom 10% when it comes to real world stuff. For BM you could just sheer off Lords, then sheer off those who have no estates and those with a family member in the Lords (so cliques can't counterweight it), then get an average.
Averages tell you less, but they are easier for people to understand and with proper sheering, tell you the gist of what you need.
I'm used to working with crap datasets, so apologies for the lack of finesse generally used by my compatriots.
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But you speak French, so the standard of living drops significantly.
/nationalism
Bilingual people used to earn a lower average income than monolingual English speakers.
"Speaking white" ftw. >:(
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o.O France still = White...?
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o.O France still = White...?
What do you think they are? Asian?
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o.O France still = White...?
No, that's what the anglophones would say to the francophones. Speaking English is "speaking white".
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Bilingual people used to earn a lower average income than monolingual English speakers.
"Speaking white" ftw. >:(
My riposte was that French was as much speaking white. However, it appeared that I delivered an excellent feint that had you thinking it was a question of some sort.
Je ne suis pas un troll because I don't know how to write "troll" in French.
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My riposte was that French was as much speaking white. However, it appeared that I delivered an excellent feint that had you thinking it was a question of some sort.
Je ne suis pas un troll because I don't know how to write "troll" in French.
You gave me the impression that you misunderstood me into believing that french canadians were the ones who said to "speak white", which is not the case. What justified that expression, I don't know, that was before my time. In the time of the "white niggers of America" (Nègres blancs d'Amérique -> French canadians).
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The funny irony is that the British, from whom American English came about, were pretty much the latest European colonial power to colonize America, versus comparative nations like Spain, France, Holland, Portugal. And now just about everyone is apparently expected to speak English. :o
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Bilingual people used to earn a lower average income than monolingual English speakers.
Truly? That is extremely weird.
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It actually isn't that wierd. While French is a valuable skill (and is over-represented in government jobs), it is actually much less useful then many of the other skillsets which are taught in its place. A simple study of hours of mathematical or scientific training in schools highlights that descrepency, as does the fact that many bilinguals come from Eastern Canada, which is significantly poorer then the rest of Canada.
French Canadians often also suffer from a bunker mentality which causes them to have smaller, more homogeneous, reference circles. Networking is actually the single most important cash-earning skill a person can have, so a Torontian English speaker from the right part of town has significant advantages as compared to a Quebec City English/French speaker.
I, being a douchebag, tend to blame the Catholic Church which fought tooth and nail to keep Quebec and Northern NB from modernizing. At this point French is a dying language but no-one admits it and the upper class French Canadians want their kids speaking English without and accent.
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It actually isn't that wierd. While French is a valuable skill (and is over-represented in government jobs), it is actually much less useful then many of the other skillsets which are taught in its place. A simple study of hours of mathematical or scientific training in schools highlights that descrepency, as does the fact that many bilinguals come from Eastern Canada, which is significantly poorer then the rest of Canada.
It was discrimination, plain and simple. This was a local effect.
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...I like the accent though.
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It actually isn't that wierd. While French is a valuable skill (and is over-represented in government jobs), it is actually much less useful then many of the other skillsets which are taught in its place. A simple study of hours of mathematical or scientific training in schools highlights that descrepency, as does the fact that many bilinguals come from Eastern Canada, which is significantly poorer then the rest of Canada.
French Canadians often also suffer from a bunker mentality which causes them to have smaller, more homogeneous, reference circles. Networking is actually the single most important cash-earning skill a person can have, so a Torontian English speaker from the right part of town has significant advantages as compared to a Quebec City English/French speaker.
I, being a douchebag, tend to blame the Catholic Church which fought tooth and nail to keep Quebec and Northern NB from modernizing. At this point French is a dying language but no-one admits it and the upper class French Canadians want their kids speaking English without and accent.
The average I speak of was for Québec only, not the rest of Canada.
One of the big reasons explaining these statistics is that the bilingual people were mostly native french speakers, as while they had something to gain from learning English (and indeed gained more than unilingual french speakers), English-speakers had nothing to gain by learning French basically. Those bilingual people therefore mostly stemmed from poor neighborhoods, prone to debt and bad living conditions, and despite knowing English were heavily discriminated against for their French and Catholic origins by the English and Protestant capitalists. And let's face it, since money is what makes money, those born in English families were invariably richer than those born in French family (American Dream is a lie!).
English speakers are still strongly favored, economically, than French speakers in Québec. Their hospitals, universities, and other public institutions receive a much greater amount of financing/capital than those from the French network. And they wonder why McGill rates itself so well... >:(
The Church, heh... won't be getting any love from me!
As for French in the Rest of Canada (ROC), it is indeed dying off. When Gilles Duceppe said, on Radio-Canada, that if we did not separate soon we would face irreversible assimilation as is happening with the rest of the French Canadians, the Ontarian minister of French or the like wrote a public letter denouncing his words as false and fear-mongering, saying French is doing just fine in Ontario (http://www.ledevoir.com/politique/canada/327655/franco-ontariens-notre-avenir-n-est-pas-menace-m-duceppe (http://www.ledevoir.com/politique/canada/327655/franco-ontariens-notre-avenir-n-est-pas-menace-m-duceppe)). Of course, she spewed her propaganda, such as the fact that the number of French speakers rose by 5% over the last 5 years or something like that... completely ignoring that it dropped by 50% in 50 years basically, and that the definition of a French speaker in Ontario is so completely absurd that all you need is a grand-parent speaking it to be considered as speaking it yourself.
Yay for rantings about Canada.
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If we get rid of french people retention will increase.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_TfBbR6L0M (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_TfBbR6L0M)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WULsZJxPfws&feature=related
That's a clip from the show. You get a longer version here, but it's user-made images: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAbEgr1A37s&NR=1
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Though this doesn't seem to be enforced, considering I got myself promoted as lord without meeting the criteria (I suspect no better candidate came forth), does anyone else think this set of rules is the most elitist piece of !@#$ and anti-newb legislation there ever was?
http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Minas_Ithil/Civil_Ranking (http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Minas_Ithil/Civil_Ranking)
I find it disgusting, personally.
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lol an infiltrator gets to be baron(ess).
But it's MI, and just like all other things that bear the initials MI in BM, it's pointless.
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lol an infiltrator gets to be baron(ess).
I also loled when I saw that. Someone must have been trollin'.
I'm not sure what the hell grants a viscount title, but if lordship of a woodlands with 1900 pop requires 100 honour and 200 days in realm, I pray to god that no new nobles seeking promotions joins this realm, which fight about 3 battles since I joined it 183 days ago (took me forever to have enough honour to simply become a courtier).
Kudos to whoever destroys this realm.
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I suppose they only call themselves by those titles after reaching that, not meaning they get the actual Lordship, or need the title to gain the Lordship. If not, that is one realm I'm not playing in anytime soon :P
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If it's anything like most wiki projects of that nature, it was probably dreamed up and created/maintained by one or two people, and most of the realm doesn't even know it exists. The last edits were nearly two years ago, with the vast majority of being more than three years old. I wonder how many of the people on that list aren't even in MI anymore...
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If it's anything like most wiki projects of that nature, it was probably dreamed up and created/maintained by one or two people, and most of the realm doesn't even know it exists. The last edits were nearly two years ago, with the vast majority of being more than three years old. I wonder how many of the people on that list aren't even in MI anymore...
Oh, no; this was the primary ranking for Minas Ithil going back to...well, at least to the new Wiki, and probably to when I joined the game, in Jan 2004. It was created and maintained by Dead Angel's player, and frequently publicized in the realm. It was the way Lordships and other positions were determined.
I don't know if this is still the case, of course, but at least up until I retired Anton a few years ago, that wiki page was gospel for the Minas Ithil hierarchy.
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Oh, no; this was the primary ranking for Minas Ithil going back to...well, at least to the new Wiki, and probably to when I joined the game, in Jan 2004. It was created and maintained by Dead Angel's player, and frequently publicized in the realm. It was the way Lordships and other positions were determined.
I don't know if this is still the case, of course, but at least up until I retired Anton a few years ago, that wiki page was gospel for the Minas Ithil hierarchy.
I was made count of a woodlands with little honor and little time in realm. I think there weren't many candidates, though, and my family ties with the duke most likely helped.
But it was just pointed out by some angry Himoura that my appointment was not legal because of these. I doubt anyone but him will make much of a fuss, though, and even if he pursues it many people have something or other against him, so I don't expect to lose that lordship any time soon. Wouldn't really care if it did happen, though.
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I was made count of a woodlands with little honor and little time in realm. I think there weren't many candidates, though, and my family ties with the duke most likely helped.
But it was just pointed out by some angry Himoura that my appointment was not legal because of these. I doubt anyone but him will make much of a fuss, though, and even if he pursues it many people have something or other against him, so I don't expect to lose that lordship any time soon. Wouldn't really care if it did happen, though.
Not surprising. He keeps going back to Minas Ithil because people put up with him there, for the sake of his famous prior characters. I've seen him get shut down enough times in other realms, when he tries to pull the whole, "Don't you know who I am?!?!" thing...it's quite amusing to watch. Whereas in Minas Ithil, he has literally gotten away with murder, the King at the time essentially chuckling and saying, "Well, will ya look at that scamp? The things he gets up to, I tell ya. Well, boys will be boys."
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Yup, much of that indeed.
When he says "Don't you know who I am!?", all I got to say is "you are a dude that our current king banned when he was the judge". That's what ticked him off. ;D
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He's my knight in Raviel, and I warned him the first day to behave himself. He actually has, so far. of course, it's only been two weeks.
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He's my knight in Raviel, and I warned him the first day to behave himself. He actually has, so far. of course, it's only been two weeks.
I think he lasted a few months in Pian en Luries before he did something moronic and had to leave.
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He wandered around Terran for a while.
Then he got into a feud with my character over a few spilled drinks at a dinner party.
He is gone from Terran now.
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He asked me permission to join us some time back, I said sure. He'll either be a productive knight, or will have productive estates, or, worse off, will do quite a circus and entertain us all before he leaves. Much like Bowie was, imo. It's a winning scenario no matter what. 8)
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Returning to the original topic...
I've just done the numbers again. This time, over the preceding 60 days, Dwilight saw an almost 20% increase in registrations. FEI and ATamara had 9% and 8%. Others were around 5ish% registration growth.
The story is slightly different for active players, though more optimistic than previously. While EC continues to hemorrhage active players (had 500 at my earliest numbers, now has about 405), Atamara seems to have slowed its decline (though it too has lost almost 100 active players since April). Moreover, activity has shown a slight increase in Beluaterra and Dwilight. Those two continents have displayed some consistent strength and seem to be getting stronger. No doubt at least part of Dwilight's strength comes from its high growth in registration. It is actually disappointing that its almost 20% in registration growth has led to barely 5% growth in activity. But better some growth than none.
FEI had a decline in active players that can be 100% explained by the recent multi-sweep. Without that sweep, FEI probably would have continued to show growth.
In sum: as per the usual, Atamara and East Continent are failures, while Beluaterra, Dwilight, and FEI are successes.
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Thanks again for running the numbers, Vellos, that's useful information.
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Ya'll thought you could just forget about this thread didn't you?
Not so! Boredom strikes again, I have run the numbers!
They sharpen our trends this time. Why? Because of two things:
1. Cleanup scripte deleted tons of inactive accounts
2. The day that BM was down made me take my data on activity from a slightly different point on the lines, which was probably actually more representative
#1 was a very important effect. #2 probably only mattered for Dwilight, but we'll see in a day or two when new stats pages go up and I can cleanup my numbers on activity.
Over my 5 times taking data, I have scored each continent on activity, registrations, high activity, and rates of change of those things. I assign scores. The "rolling average" scores (of a maximum 6) are here for each continent thus far:
Dwilight- 4.83
Beluaterra- 4.08
Far East Island- 4.00
Atamara- 2.92
Colonies- 2.83
East Continent- 2.33
What does this say? It says that, broadly, across my measures, and across the entire period of time from late march/early April to today, we can see basically two "cohorts." Dwilight, Beluaterra, and FEI are reliably better at maintaining registrations, keeping retention, and in some cases propping up activity rates (or, at least, they do better compared to the other continents; they may still not be doing well enough). Atamara, the Colonies, and East Continent are the second cohort, with reliably poor numbers across almost every category. This should not be a huge cause of concern for the Colonies, where the activity numbers will be understandably lower , but it should greatly concern players in Atamara and East Continent... especially Atamara, given its size. Our "flagship continents" are dying, and rarely post any optimistic numbers.
To the most recent data, then.
The cleanup script revealed that, yes, many summer registrations are bogus. Much more than we might have hoped. The dataset I ran today went from May 15 until today, so it's basically our summer.
On EC, we can observe that, when we drop inactive accounts, the summer has seen an actual decline in registrations... to the tune of 9% of the continent's population vanishing. The number doubles when you measure only active players, and remains over 10% for even the most active players. To clarify, EC is losing players at an astonishing rate, and is losing active players at an even faster rate than "registered accounts" in general. Meaning that, not only are registrations not keeping pace with natural turnover, but players involved in BM are fleeing EC.
The story is essentially the same for Atamara, thought slightly less severe. WHile Atamara can be lumped into the same "retention cohort" as EC, it seems to maybe have at least some pocket of strength that is keeping its decline slightly managed. My intuition based on the charts is that Atamara sees more exogenous registration growth. Why this is, I couldn't say; maybe people invite friends to Atamara more, or experienced players are more likely to run "second characters" there, or its description is more appealing to new players. Atamara's numbers are bad, but not quite as bad as EC.
The Colonies has dismal numbers. It had the largest registration decline over the summer, and a large decline in active players, but actually managed to retain highly active players fairly well. This is extremely peculiar given the Colonies' slower play. However, numbers regarding highly active players are generally circumspect given the volatility in those charts, and especially in this case given the day of BM being down recently.
Beluaterra lost nobles, but only mildly so. Crucially, while in terms of registration Beluaterra looks like it might fit into the "underperformer" cohort, its activity graph is telling. It actually has a positively slopped activity chart. This is a big deal. Beluaterra is, according to the numbers, more densely populated by active players than it was in May. My subjective and unsubstantiated reasoning on this is that Beluaterra's activity is being sustained by the prospect of war. In terms of high activity, Beluaterra actually showed signs of significant growth, but, again, these numbers are dubious.
The Far East is a difficult statistical case. FEI's registration definitely fits with a growing continent; it hasn't grown much over the summer, but hasn't shrunk. Its activity is at first very poor; however, if we discount the multi-lock that messes it up, we will actually see that FEI has a very good activity chart. Outside of the multi-lock, it has actually stayed flat or grown. Regarding high activity, FEI has shown growth, but this growth was within its band of volatility. Overall, FEI is still struggling, but shows signs of strength.
Finally, the darling of anyone who loves retention, the astounding success of a continent, the one, the only... Dwilight!
It's a beautiful graph. Activity is basically steady with some seasonal shifts; little loss or gain. High activity shows gains, but this is, again, unreliable. But what is important here is registrations. Dwilight is one of the only continents that we can say with confidence is not depopulating. Its registration rate is at or above its natural replacement rate. This is a Good Thing. Even after the cleanup script deletions, Dwilight has more nobles today than in may, and the same or more active nobles and very active nobles. It is one of the only continents that can say this without qualifications.
My formal conclusion:
Let all nay-sayers of Dwilight go !@#$ themselves. It's the only continent that's not dying.
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That's right.
I just downgraded EC and Atamara's retention rating from AAA to AA+.
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Perhaps one of the most useful posts in this entire forum. Thank you, kind sir!
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That's right.
I just downgraded EC and Atamara's retention rating from AAA to AA+.
*gasp*
The world must be collapsing!
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On EC, we can observe that, when we drop inactive accounts, the summer has seen an actual decline in registrations... to the tune of 9% of the continent's population vanishing.
Does this analysis account for fluctuations in realm size? We could just be seeing a lot of player churn that are leaving losing realms or realms that lost for other continents. That's a pretty big confound.
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Does this analysis account for fluctuations in realm size? We could just be seeing a lot of player churn that are leaving losing realms or realms that lost for other continents. That's a pretty big confound.
No, it does not, but that doesn't matter for my purposes.
My purpose is only to see where players like to play; what continents are performing the best. I'm treating each continent as a variable– no measure of realms, politics, income, etc.
My goal in starting this thread was simply to start getting some numbers out there on retention. I'm hoping that, by Christmas break from university, I'll have assembled a fairly big pool of data... enough to be able to state confidently whether or not some continents are "winners" and some are "losers."
Once that is accomplished, we can begin to look more closely at why. But I think many players assume certain things are or aren't helping retention without any numbers. For example, you assume realms being destroyed will cause a net decrease in players, and that seems plausible, but maybe that should tell us that, if we want BM to survive, we should destroy fewer realms.
Now, personally, I think that's ludicrous. A destroyed realm only reduces retention if the player has no other fun location in which to play. For clans (Averoth, Thulsoma...) that means a destroyed realm will ruin the game for them. But for most of us, it doesn't. Moreover, if it's a mere "churn" of players from destroyed realms, new realms should pick up new nobles, meaning there should be a balance in the end. If it never balances out, again, maybe that should tell us that we need to find ways of fighting "conclusive" and "decisive" wars that don't involve destroying an enemy realm: maybe allow "victors" to ban X nobles from the defeated realm? Maybe have an easier land-turnover mechanic? Who knows?
But that's all tangential. My point is simply to determine if there are meaningful differences in retention. Thus far, the answer seems to be a resounding "Yes." That could change. Maybe Dwilight players are mostly summer-players (students and new people?) while EC and Atamara players are more year-around (older people, year-round jobs or careers).
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Mm, that only works if new realms are set up rather than existing realms expanding. Destroyed realms tend to cause sharp drops in characters, while expanded realms tend to cause a gradual increase, in my experience.
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Mm, that only works if new realms are set up rather than existing realms expanding. Destroyed realms tend to cause sharp drops in characters, while expanded realms tend to cause a gradual increase, in my experience.
Precisely. Or expanding realms with new regions. Dwilight is acting as a player sink attracting older players whose realms are losing regions over time. Sirion I know for a fact is having problems keeping characters even though it is a great realm, with a lot of lordship turnover. This despite Fontan and SoA losing badly to them. Westmoor's already started to get a few refugees, but I'm betting more than a few are leaving for other isles.
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No, it doesn't matter.
If destroyed realms lead to declining active player counts, they are bad for retention. End of story.
Across all of BM, numbers of active and very active players are declining, despite strong registration growth. Some continents mimic this pattern. Some do not. We need to figure out WHERE we are losing players. The data indicate it is in Atamara, EC, and the Colonies, mostly.
It is hypothetically possible that EC players are immigrating to, say, Dwilight, when their EC realm dies, and staying a while, then leaving Battlemaster, only to be replaced by even more new players who came directly to Dwilight.
.... it is possible. But is there anyone who thinks this is actually what's happening? EC is actually great at retention, but people emigrate and arrive at other continents, then delete, but those continents are somehow amazing at drawing new people in? That would require an explanation of why Dwilight, Beluaterra, and FEI draw in such a vastly higher number of new, active players.
Even if we get more particular, destroyed realms should not matter for retention even for a specific continent, let alone all continents. Yes, in the short term, they will decrease player counts if they are replaced by expanding old realms. But I'm not measuring short term. My shortest time period is 10-15 days. I intend to keep doing this fairly regularly for a long time. Maybe by Christmas we'll see that this summer, with its clear-cut differences, was a fluke. If so, I stand corrected. But the data, as it stands today, does not indicate that. In the long term a destroyed realm will lose nobles, and an expanded realm should attract nobles; if it fails to attract nobles, it will eventually die, or let regions go rogue. In either case, I would assume that, unless there is a chronic game-wide shortage of nobles on an even more severe scale than we currently have, those rogue regions will eventually be colonized by new realms that draw new nobles, or else be expanded into by overpopulated realms. It should generate an equilibrium. If it fails to do so, it is indicative that something about a continent is fundamentally unappealing.
What about destroyed realms could be unappealing? Hm, here's an idea: imagine a continent where one or two massive realms have never been taken down, never been defeated, despite sometimes vast alliances arranged against them. This/these realms are characterized by strong geographic advantages, very stable internal politics, and ruthless hegemony over their neighbors. They repeatedly destroy or dismember any realm near them that challenges their hegemony. They thus create constant drains on retention on their continents.
I'm not saying this is the case. I don't know why EC and Atamara have worse retention. But they do. And if it's because of realms being destroyed, maybe we should look at why that's happening and, if realms are destroyed on other continents (as they most certainly are) why those continents don't seem to lose as many nobles when it happens.
A final point: even if EC or Atamara are completely failing at retaining their nobles, that is not a justifying cause for closing them. That's not my argument at all. It is entirely possible that, while EC and Atamara are bad at hanging onto their own nobles, they offer "network economies" by providing variety and spice for peoples' "second characters," or for special niche markets of players who, if lost, would delete their "second characters" on other continents. To answer the question of whether EC or Atamara do have these effects would require a systematic network analysis of every account in BM with cluster analysis done on some kind of proxy variable representing the primacy of a character for a player. This would be very subjective and require a level of database access that I don't have, and a level of computational complexity that I'm unwilling to invest at the present time.
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Precisely. Or expanding realms with new regions. Dwilight is acting as a player sink attracting older players whose realms are losing regions over time. Sirion I know for a fact is having problems keeping characters even though it is a great realm, with a lot of lordship turnover. This despite Fontan and SoA losing badly to them. Westmoor's already started to get a few refugees, but I'm betting more than a few are leaving for other isles.
Show me the numbers. Show your evidence. In Terran, at least, we haven't seen any immigrants from EC in a while that I know of. Maybe other realms see it differently. But it's exactly this kind of bull!@#$ anecdotal arguing that I'd like for us to avoid.
Why might Dwilight be attracting players? Who knows? But whatever the case, it attracts more of everything: new registrations, active players, and very active players. Is a lot of that "internal migration" within BM? Absolutely. Does that matter? No. The flow of nobles between continents can be viewed as a market. It's a semi-free one; restrictions on movement are fairly short temporal barriers, small capital barriers, but a system of fairly restrictive quotas (nobles-per-continent limits). I expect if those limits were removed on Dwilight, EC and Atamara would suffer even more.
That doesn't mean that Dwilight is a villain or that EC or Atamara are necessarily bad. It just means that EC and Atamara are doing a poor job of competing in providing the kind of fun that players come to BM to get.
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What about destroyed realms could be unappealing? Hm, here's an idea: imagine a continent where one or two massive realms have never been taken down, never been defeated, despite sometimes vast alliances arranged against them. This/these realms are characterized by strong geographic advantages, very stable internal politics, and ruthless hegemony over their neighbors. They repeatedly destroy or dismember any realm near them that challenges their hegemony. They thus create constant drains on retention on their continents.
I'm not saying this is the case. I don't know why EC and Atamara have worse retention. But they do. And if it's because of realms being destroyed, maybe we should look at why that's happening and, if realms are destroyed on other continents (as they most certainly are) why those continents don't seem to lose as many nobles when it happens.
A final point: even if EC or Atamara are completely failing at retaining their nobles, that is not a justifying cause for closing them. That's not my argument at all. It is entirely possible that, while EC and Atamara are bad at hanging onto their own nobles, they offer "network economies" by providing variety and spice for peoples' "second characters," or for special niche markets of players who, if lost, would delete their "second characters" on other continents. To answer the question of whether EC or Atamara do have these effects would require a systematic network analysis of every account in BM with cluster analysis done on some kind of proxy variable representing the primacy of a character for a player. This would be very subjective and require a level of database access that I don't have, and a level of computational complexity that I'm unwilling to invest at the present time.
I think a better question is why do new players gravitate to one place over the other. It'd be relatively easy to look at the connections between all the different players and where their characters are, that is to say to actually test where people tend to play.
What might be more interesting to look at is where new players have their most advanced characters. More titles, more honor, more prestige, more guilds/religions joined. It could simply be that there is more action to be had and so they go and stay there. If they choose the older continents there is less churn so they're stuck waiting doing nothing.
Another interesting thing to look at might be where in the first month they receive the most messages from other players.
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Have you considered very simple "external" reasons - perhaps some islands have players who more actively recruit friends to the game?
Purely anecdotal, but I would say this is far more frequent on Dwilight and FEI than Atamara, for example.
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Mm, that only works if new realms are set up rather than existing realms expanding. Destroyed realms tend to cause sharp drops in characters, while expanded realms tend to cause a gradual increase, in my experience.
Not what we are seeing in Dwilight. Two realms have been destroyed, a third will be soon, and more than likely a fourth (although that doesn't count, it is just a secession from Caerwyn and has very few nobles).
If the numbers we are seeing from Vellos are correct, then Dwilight has been gaining nobles precisely when it should be losing them according to your logic. I think the problem for the other continents is that they aren't big enough. Dwilight is the size of at least two other continents, allowing whole regions to have their own local politics without involving the rest of the continent. This makes for immense variety and a greater chance for small realms to be formed. It also lessens the impact large realms have on the rest of the continent, preventing realms from dominating it. Religion, on the other hand...
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Have you considered very simple "external" reasons - perhaps some islands have players who more actively recruit friends to the game?
Purely anecdotal, but I would say this is far more frequent on Dwilight and FEI than Atamara, for example.
Why would that be? What has Dwilight that makes it more appealing/demanding for players to actively recruit other friends?
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Why would that be? What has Dwilight that makes it more appealing/demanding for players to actively recruit other friends?
Indeed, if anything we should see a spike in EC and Atamaran numbers in from people recruiting friends to fill the voids that are clearly shown in Vellos' data.
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If destroyed realms lead to declining active player counts, they are bad for retention. End of story.
I believe this is partially true. But let's not forget that the creation of a new realm upon the ruins of the old realm might undo the initial decline of activity, with most likely other (newer?) players taking up the roles of the previously active players that now left the continent because there is no room for them any longer.
Across all of BM, numbers of active and very active players are declining, despite strong registration growth. Some continents mimic this pattern. Some do not. We need to figure out WHERE we are losing players. The data indicate it is in Atamara, EC, and the Colonies, mostly.
For a few weeks, if not months, I have been pointing out that the mentor-system is very unrewarding. In Ibladesh (EC), we used to have a sharp increase of new nobles a while ago. I did my utter best to "educate" these nobles to make them stay, because we were in dire need of them. At a certain point we reached 100 nobles, so I figure it basically worked for a few weeks... now we're down to about 70-80 again. That is a massive loss. What I am trying to say is that while being a mentor I found it to be a very altruistic job, where the effort put into teaching new players the game is not properly reward because it is dependent on the new player itself rewarding the old player. This rarely happens in general (or am I just an exception?), and even when it does happen, you need more than one new player to reward you before you can do anything "fun" with it (the options aren't even that amazing). Not to mention that "education" can take up to 60 or even 100 days, and that most players by then already feel they know the game and don't see the need to reward their mentor any more.
I think there are several solutions to this. First would be an overhaul of the entire mentor system to make this type of game-play more competitive (compared to other classes). For starters, the class "mentor" can be removed or can be allowed as a third-class option, so it is no burden on the players who decide they actually want to work on keeping Battlemaster alive. Another option would be "force" new players into having a mentor - and maintaining contact with that mentor. I assume that now about 25% of the new players end up lost without a mentor and get auto-removed after two weeks. Probably 95% of them is just not interested in a text-based game. But that 5% might have become a real BM-player if they were probably guided.
Next to that the rewarding system for mentors still has to change. The battlemaster-community simply doesn't do enough to attract new players. I personally think that our devs (and Tom) are doing wonderful jobs, as well as some other players... but it should be more than that. Everybody should be aware of "retention" and should at least try to help out new players. A friendly and welcoming atmosphere is what keeps players here, even if they are initially not attracted to the type of game. I just recently experienced that myself, as I began playing a game I wasn't really attracted too, but it had a community so welcoming that I just wanted to hang around more.
I am still in favour of a rather small island where new players (only) can join, "guided" by a few experienced players that roam around in the realms (I picture this as the old War Islands) to teach them. Here new players can get used to the game, but also to things such as "being a lord", "being a council member" and many, many more aspects of the game. But I believe these ideas should fit in another thread where we can tackle the problem of a declining player base and the lack of mentor-rewarding goodies in the game itself.
That would require an explanation of why Dwilight, Beluaterra, and FEI draw in such a vastly higher number of new, active players.
I think these should be separated. I have never been on FEI before, so the only assumption I can make is that people are drawn there because it is an RP-heavy island. I know for myself that one day I will go there just for the RP-possibilities. Now Dwilight is a continent with many "unexplored" regions. Colonizing (read: the chance of making your own realm and write a little core history) is always attracting new players. Beluaterra had this kind of attraction back when it was still called "The New World" and was largely rogue. The fact that there are new realms being formed on Dwilight on a regular basis is what keeps players attracted to that continent. I believe however that, when it gets fully colonized, it will need to find something else to attract characters. But it is large enough to ensure many, many wars.
Beluattera might attract people because it is partially blighted ("This looks cool!") and because it had a mini-game set up around the invasion that created quite the buzz. Such things stimulate players to join these continents. Next to that an all-out war just broke out (with the exception of Melhed). Wars are always good.
What about destroyed realms could be unappealing? Hm, here's an idea: imagine a continent where one or two massive realms have never been taken down, never been defeated, despite sometimes vast alliances arranged against them. This/these realms are characterized by strong geographic advantages, very stable internal politics, and ruthless hegemony over their neighbors. They repeatedly destroy or dismember any realm near them that challenges their hegemony. They thus create constant drains on retention on their continents.
You just described EC.
My last suggestion is that a questionnaire is held: this would be able to give everyone clear and conclusive data and would allow us to tackle the problem more thoroughly. It is only by asking nearly every players that we can reveal what the "wants" and "dont's" are. The numbers given here by Vellos are very interesting and do show that there are some issues, but numbers rarely explain human behaviour: they only give an indication of it. Only by going out there and asking people how they feel about the game will give clearance.
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I didn't really the post thoroughly so I may have missed the math behind in - in particular whether you are considering only new accounts or number of chars in general. However, speaking of EC, certainly SoA, Sirion and Fontan's large number of nobles are but a far memory. Sirion because there is no more the fun war to fight, SoA and Fontan because they are largely destroyed and have little income. Besides ibby there is no realm in EC locked in a very fun war right now, that can explain why people leave.
As for dwilight, if I go to the statistics - noble count page I can't really see any realm increasing number of nobles, while the average trend is either stable or going down. Are numbers increasing and I can't read the plots or again I'm misinterpreting your data Vellos?
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Indeed, if anything we should see a spike in EC and Atamaran numbers in from people recruiting friends to fill the voids that are clearly shown in Vellos' data.
I think the types of players who prefer Dwilight are different from the types that like Atamara and EC. Obviously there is a bit of overlap, but I see Dwilight players being newer to the game, more aggressive about creating their own fun, more likely to "march to their own drummer".
I see Atamara and EC as old and tired, and unlikely to bother recruiting a bunch of friends.
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I think the types of players who prefer Dwilight are different from the types that like Atamara and EC. Obviously there is a bit of overlap, but I see Dwilight players being newer to the game, more aggressive about creating their own fun, more likely to "march to their own drummer".
I see Atamara and EC as old and tired, and unlikely to bother recruiting a bunch of friends.
I believe every continent attracts different kind of players. Now, since we have many characters, we'll also play on islands which aren't our favorites.
My favorite continent is EC, by far. I've got 2 characters there for a reason. The diplomacy being done in the north impacts the south in a very tangible way, and vice versa. The island is one unit where many moves have ripple effects across the entire island.
Then comes Far East. The same map but even smaller. The reason I like it less than EC is that it has a tendency to be more quiet, and it has a little too few regions.
Dwilight, the one everyone seems to like so much is so far the most boring one for me. Most of the time, it is too hard to even keep the regions the realm owns stable so it becomes beaurocracymaster deluxe over there. The wars are very few considering the size of the continent (due to everyone focusing on region stability before even being able to think of war), and you must marsch a long way to attack someone. The fights you do have are against undead and monsters and I'm one of those who always enjoyed battling against other players way more than monsters. Fighting the monsters is just another way to play beaurocracymaster. You fight them so they'll stop terorizing your regions. It's like a harsh court that you sometimes must chase around the kingdom.. I've only had characters in 2 of the realms of course, but that is my experience.
Then I've discovered more of what seems to be OOC-clan related on Dwilight, which spoils the fun abit. I have no evidence though :/
So basically, EC rocks, Far East is good and the rest sucks ;) Hopefully, my opinion of Dwilight will change with time, and perhaps the new estate update will help. We'll see.
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Then I've discovered more of what seems to be OOC-clan related on Dwilight, which spoils the fun abit. I have no evidence though :/
If you think you've discovered an OOC clan, report it. Gathering evidence is part of the job of the Titans—and now the Magistrates. Tell them what you've seen that leads you to believe it's a clan, and let them take it from there, one way or the other.
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I believe this is partially true. But let's not forget that the creation of a new realm upon the ruins of the old realm might undo the initial decline of activity, with most likely other (newer?) players taking up the roles of the previously active players that now left the continent because there is no room for them any longer.
Yes, creating new realms could conceivably be good for retention. But that kind of analysis is not, yet, the point of my investigation. First I'm trying to see IF there are actually continental differences. So far, the answer seems to be "yes." If we then discover that high-retention continents are those with lots of new-realm generation, then that gives us a clue on how we might proceed (of course, it might just be that high-retention begets realm-creation, rather than the other way around– but, again, that's an investigation for another day).
For a few weeks, if not months, I have been pointing out that the mentor-system is very unrewarding. In Ibladesh (EC), we used to have a sharp increase of new nobles a while ago. I did my utter best to "educate" these nobles to make them stay, because we were in dire need of them. At a certain point we reached 100 nobles, so I figure it basically worked for a few weeks... now we're down to about 70-80 again. That is a massive loss. What I am trying to say is that while being a mentor I found it to be a very altruistic job, where the effort put into teaching new players the game is not properly reward because it is dependent on the new player itself rewarding the old player. This rarely happens in general (or am I just an exception?), and even when it does happen, you need more than one new player to reward you before you can do anything "fun" with it (the options aren't even that amazing). Not to mention that "education" can take up to 60 or even 100 days, and that most players by then already feel they know the game and don't see the need to reward their mentor any more.
I think there are several solutions to this. First would be an overhaul of the entire mentor system to make this type of game-play more competitive (compared to other classes). For starters, the class "mentor" can be removed or can be allowed as a third-class option, so it is no burden on the players who decide they actually want to work on keeping Battlemaster alive. Another option would be "force" new players into having a mentor - and maintaining contact with that mentor. I assume that now about 25% of the new players end up lost without a mentor and get auto-removed after two weeks. Probably 95% of them is just not interested in a text-based game. But that 5% might have become a real BM-player if they were probably guided.
Next to that the rewarding system for mentors still has to change. The battlemaster-community simply doesn't do enough to attract new players. I personally think that our devs (and Tom) are doing wonderful jobs, as well as some other players... but it should be more than that. Everybody should be aware of "retention" and should at least try to help out new players. A friendly and welcoming atmosphere is what keeps players here, even if they are initially not attracted to the type of game. I just recently experienced that myself, as I began playing a game I wasn't really attracted too, but it had a community so welcoming that I just wanted to hang around more.
I am still in favour of a rather small island where new players (only) can join, "guided" by a few experienced players that roam around in the realms (I picture this as the old War Islands) to teach them. Here new players can get used to the game, but also to things such as "being a lord", "being a council member" and many, many more aspects of the game. But I believe these ideas should fit in another thread where we can tackle the problem of a declining player base and the lack of mentor-rewarding goodies in the game itself.
This seems like an issue for a second thread. Again, my goal right now isn't to answer the question "Does better mentoring create better retention?" I hope the answer to that is "yes." But right now I just want to see if there are actually differences between continents.
I think these should be separated. I have never been on FEI before, so the only assumption I can make is that people are drawn there because it is an RP-heavy island. I know for myself that one day I will go there just for the RP-possibilities. Now Dwilight is a continent with many "unexplored" regions. Colonizing (read: the chance of making your own realm and write a little core history) is always attracting new players. Beluaterra had this kind of attraction back when it was still called "The New World" and was largely rogue. The fact that there are new realms being formed on Dwilight on a regular basis is what keeps players attracted to that continent. I believe however that, when it gets fully colonized, it will need to find something else to attract characters. But it is large enough to ensure many, many wars.
Beluattera might attract people because it is partially blighted ("This looks cool!") and because it had a mini-game set up around the invasion that created quite the buzz. Such things stimulate players to join these continents. Next to that an all-out war just broke out (with the exception of Melhed). Wars are always good.
Those all sound plausible. I suggested in the first or second run of the data that the "themed islands" may be better at retention. This would make sense. So far, this is the only macro-theory I have on why some islands do better than others, because it's the only variable I've come up with that identifies issues at a continental level: the presence of a "theme." The Colonies has a theme that is inherently confounding for any study of retention or activity, so can be discounted. EC and Atamara are "vanilla BM." FEI is the "weakest" of the theme islands in terms of retention, and also has the "weakest" theme (the RP-heavy theme), but one that has recently seen some new strength with the development of Arcaea's hegemony. Beluaterra has a distinct theme of Invasions, Dwilight has a distinct frontier/colonial theme, but, due to player engagement, also has an interesting religious theme– though, if reports from within Sanguis Astroism are to be believed, that religious theme may be dying off demographically.
You just described EC.
Or Atamara. Take your pick.
My last suggestion is that a questionnaire is held: this would be able to give everyone clear and conclusive data and would allow us to tackle the problem more thoroughly. It is only by asking nearly every players that we can reveal what the "wants" and "dont's" are. The numbers given here by Vellos are very interesting and do show that there are some issues, but numbers rarely explain human behaviour: they only give an indication of it. Only by going out there and asking people how they feel about the game will give clearance.
I have been advocating for player surveys in various forms for several months. Nobody has made any substantive criticism of it. The only negative thing I've heard is that no devs have the time/interest to get around to implementing it, which is fair enough I suppose. Anyways, welcome to the BM-survey-data bandwagon.
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I believe every continent attracts different kind of players. Now, since we have many characters, we'll also play on islands which aren't our favorites.
This is probably true, but would require some large-scale cluster analysis to meaningfully demonstrate.
Whatever the case, because I believe it is true that EC and Atamara have meaningful player niches, I noted that, even if they have bad retention, that is not necessary justification for closing them.
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What about destroyed realms could be unappealing? Hm, here's an idea: imagine a continent where one or two massive realms have never been taken down, never been defeated, despite sometimes vast alliances arranged against them. This/these realms are characterized by strong geographic advantages, very stable internal politics, and ruthless hegemony over their neighbors. They repeatedly destroy or dismember any realm near them that challenges their hegemony. They thus create constant drains on retention on their continents.
Congratulations! You've described the Colonies, where Lukon has been partly responsible for the destruction of Portion, Alebad, Alowca, and Wetham. Oriolton is ever Lukon's ally, and is the only realm large enough to possibly defeat Lukon.
Giblot, Minas Thalion, and the Assassins stand in line, waiting for Lukon to destroy them in turn.
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This is interesting, actually. I didn't know anything about the colonies but, now that you mention it, I can see Lukon being such a power.
I suppose Beluaterra is more evenly balanced, as Enweil's block has meaningful resistance. FEI has no clear hegemon and complex politics. Dwilight.... SA is hegemonic maybe, but has a strongly RP-driven hegemony... and there re huge parts of the continent quite unconnected to SA.
Very interesting: a quick survey of Dwilight indicates that the realms that have gained nobles are Aurvandil, Barca, D'Hara, Libero, Madina, Pian en Luries, and Terran. Losers are Summerdale, Morek, Luria Nova, Itaulond, Caerwyn, Astrum. Stable are Fissoa, Corsanctum, Asylon. I looked at simple positive/negative, not really carefully analyzing amounts.
Still, at face value, this list seems, to me, to suggest that aggressive hegemonies do decrease retention, and not just for the losers. The big losers are the belligerents (Morek, Itaelond, Caerwyn, Astrum). Madina and Aurvandil are in a fairly stable war, and both gained. All Maroccidental realms gained. Luria Nova gained despite expansion, Pian en Luries gained despite contraction. Really, Luria Nova and Summerdale are the only major outliers I see in that list.
If/when I get time, I'll review the situation in the Colonies, EC, and Atamara as well.
IF we find that aggressive hegemonies reliable decrease retention on BOTH sides of the war... what would our response be? It'd essentially be a statistical support to the criticisms of gang-bang wars... except not only do they drive away players in losing realms, but also in winning realms.
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So, I did the numbers.
Now then, methodology here is not compatible with my continent-by-continent data. That data is in three categories: registered, active in past 3 days, and active in last 24 hours. It has no measure whatsoever of "characters currently present and non-paused on continent." The noble counts that go realm-by-realm measure nobles, regardless of activity. So these numbers cannot be meaningfully compared to my other numbers.
Winners in EC: Perdan, Westmoor
Losers in EC: Caligus, Ibladesh, OI, Sirion, SoA
Break-Even: Fontan
Winners in Atamara: Barony of Makar, Caergoth, Coria, Minas Ithil
Losers in Atamara: Cagilan Empire, Carelia, Darka, Eston, Suville, Talerium
Break-Even: Hammarsett, Tara
Winners in the Colonies: Lukon, Outer Tilog
Losers in the Colonies: Assassins
Break-Even: Giblot, Minas Thalion, Oritolon
I see no correlation between hegemony and retention in the Colonies, but maybe I don't understand it well enough. I'm not familiar enough with EC's politics enough to comment meaningfully.
Atamara is interesting, though. The biggest losers are Carelia, Cagilan, and Eston: countries I regard as primary belligerents (or at least they were when I was last there). Other losers are "primary allies" of belligerents: Talerium, Suville, Darka. Winners SEEM to be the less heavily involved nations: Hammarsett, BoM, MI, Caergoth. Outliers may be Coria and Tara. I'm not super-familiar with present Atamara diplomacy, so maybe someone else can flesh this out.
It has occurred to me that big wars may result in hero deaths, deportations, and executions. I am curious how much of the decreased noble counts seen in belligerent nations is due to these effects.
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Caergoth is more a "primary ally" than Suville, especially since Suville just withdrew from the war completely. Caergoth also gained an entire duchy, which likely matters.
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So, I did the numbers.
Now then, methodology here is not compatible with my continent-by-continent data. That data is in three categories: registered, active in past 3 days, and active in last 24 hours. It has no measure whatsoever of "characters currently present and non-paused on continent." The noble counts that go realm-by-realm measure nobles, regardless of activity. So these numbers cannot be meaningfully compared to my other numbers.
Winners in EC: Perdan, Westmoor
Losers in EC: Caligus, Ibladesh, OI, Sirion, SoA
Break-Even: Fontan
Winners in Atamara: Barony of Makar, Caergoth, Coria, Minas Ithil
Losers in Atamara: Cagilan Empire, Carelia, Darka, Eston, Suville, Talerium
Break-Even: Hammarsett, Tara
Winners in the Colonies: Lukon, Outer Tilog
Losers in the Colonies: Assassins
Break-Even: Giblot, Minas Thalion, Oritolon
I see no correlation between hegemony and retention in the Colonies, but maybe I don't understand it well enough. I'm not familiar enough with EC's politics enough to comment meaningfully.
Atamara is interesting, though. The biggest losers are Carelia, Cagilan, and Eston: countries I regard as primary belligerents (or at least they were when I was last there). Other losers are "primary allies" of belligerents: Talerium, Suville, Darka. Winners SEEM to be the less heavily involved nations: Hammarsett, BoM, MI, Caergoth. Outliers may be Coria and Tara. I'm not super-familiar with present Atamara diplomacy, so maybe someone else can flesh this out.
It has occurred to me that big wars may result in hero deaths, deportations, and executions. I am curious how much of the decreased noble counts seen in belligerent nations is due to these effects.
Um, I have to disagree with these numbers if this means what I think it does. Does "winners" indicate realms that are gaining nobles? Because I know for sure that Coria has steadily lost nobles over the past year. A year ago we had around 40 nobles or more, now we are around 20. So Corai would definitely be in the "loser" category.
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These numbers measure the last 3 months.
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These numbers measure the last 3 months.
Then you should double-check your numbers. BoM has definitely not been gaining members in any appreciable amount. The couple we've gained in that time period are completely inactive.
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Apologies, it's just over the last 1 month. My other data is 3 months, so I assumed this was as well.
Whatever the case, a month ago, BoM had 29 nobles. Now the statistics page says you have 30. When I took the data originally, it said you had 31.
As I said, the realm-by-realm numbers are much more difficult to deal with, as they often deal in smaller changes, and are shorter-term.
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In the interest of collecting as much data as possible, I went to an outside source. Alexa.com ranks sites based on numerous variables, including pageviews, traffic, time per user, etc. I have no idea how accurate its methodology is. But, assuming it is accurate, BM looks to be in a definite recovery.
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/battlemaster.org
In terms of "reach" (or % of internet users who visit BM), we've gone up 30% in the last 3 months... admittedly we're still well shy of our late 2010 peak on this chart (only goes back to autumn of 2010), but we're recovering from the low of this January.
In terms of pageviews, we've got a stark uptick. This I suspect is because of the forum. I am betting that Alexa measures the core as well, because around March/April, the pageviews spike tremendously, and pageviews/user spike even more, as does the average time spent on the site. All of this to me says that Alexa measures the forum, not just BM.
Even so, the rising reach would seem to indicate our audience is bigger than previously (though not at its best). Not sure why, but still interesting.
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are war islands included in alexa?
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hmmm.... dunno actually. That could be it as well.
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Haven't time to read the whole thread, but in case it helps to gather more tales of why people join, stay or leave, here are three from my experience:
1) Joined-and-left almost instantly
First time I joined battlemaster was in about 2005.
If I remember rightly, I joined the region of Venas on EC. The first turn I spent trying to work out what I was meant to do - since there were no welcome messages within the first hour I was there, and there was no obvious reason to do any of the rather limited number of available actions, I did nothing, and thought I'd come back later to see what would happen.
When I came back less than a day but two turns later, a horde of monsters had moved into Venas (I assume from an adjacent region). There was a battle, and given I was the only troop leader in the region, my unit was almost completely destroyed. Then the following turn I had been hit again by the monsters.
So after one day - and by the second time I'd logged in - I had lost my entire troop of men to some random monsters that had sprung up without warning. And there had only been a couple of scout reports during that day for me to read as well, and still no personal messages of welcome. So my opinion at the time was:
"This game sucks. First of all, nothing interesting has happened apart from one battle with monsters. Second of all, that battle completely destroyed me. Why would I want to play a game where I can lose my entire troop with no warning and with nothing I could do to prevent it?"
I left the game pretty much straight away.
2) Joined and stayed
Second time I joined was in 2007. I was looking for another game to play, and once again was attracted by the description of it on the homepage. It was only when I was half-way through the registration process that I suddenly realised this was the same game I'd played two years previously and hated. But I figured I might as well complete the registration given I'd nearly completed it by then.
This time I joined Falasan on Atamara.
And this time my first day was completely different. For a start, I spawned in Elroth, which was a busy thoroughfare between Barad Gardor and Barad Falas, so there were plenty of people there, and I didn't feel as if I was in the middle of nowhere, lost and vulnerable, as I had before.
I was then welcomed by a couple of players almost instantly. Falasan was at war with Eston, and it was a busy war with almost constant fighting, and a battle every day. It was only a day or so before I had a passable oath with Lord Kido of Elroth, and was placed in Falasan's main army.
Even before being put in the army, I'd been personally messaged by one or two of the other knights and told that I might be able to make myself useful in Belegmon, so I had some purpose right from the start, and some reason to do something straight away.
The things that made the difference were:
- Personal messages of greeting
- Some sort of instruction about what I could do to be helpful so I had something to do
3) New character and bad experience 1 (one player hogging all positions)
I created a Bureaucrat in Suville. I discovered that, unlike Falasan, I wasn't really involved in what was going on. At the time, Caergoth and Suville were separating from Abington. While in Abington for a few months at the start it was kind of ok, but after six months or so I then ended up in Suville, where one player was simultaneously both Ruler, Banker and Duchess of Suville, having already previously been both Banker and Duchess of Abington. I think also had another character as a region lord in the same realm, so one player with four positions in a highly populated realm. I felt very much that I was only there as a pawn to help this one player have fun running his own personal realm, so I walked the length of Atamara and joined Minas Ithil instead. It was nicer there, though I did find it took a while having to start again building relationships in a new realm which was less good.
It was approximately 12 months before any of my three noble characters got any position of any kind (lord, marshal, whatever). Meanwhile, other players (and the one in Suville, though the worst I saw, was by no means the only one) seemed to hold lots of positions in other places while me and others held none. That really put me off.
4) New character and bad experience 2
Perdan, this time. I created an angry, disobedient-but-just-polite-enough-to-get-away-with-it-most-of-the-time character. Bit of a rebel, but a rebel that still knew how to keep within the social constraints of nobility. Ish.
Problem this time was to do with the players themselves, and was twofold:
a) There seemed a core group of friends who held all the power in Perdan. Their characters all seemed to magically pop up to defend the other characters, and while that might have been acceptable in-character, the same players out-of-character again all backed each other up on every point of discussion, and it all felt very cliquey.
b) They seemed to be awful at understanding IC/OOC differences. I was trying to roleplay my character as a nasty piece of work, but he wasn't so stupidly disobedient to walk to up to nobles and insult them to their face, nor was he stupid enough to write rude letters to people. I wanted to roleplay him as being unpleasant, so people knew what he was like, and wouldn't then be surprised at his later actions of mild disobediance and his harsh tone. But I didn't want him just to be blatantly rude. So I roleplayed him a few times in a monologue, talking to himself or to his captain privately, being rude about the various other nobles behind their backs. Since most messages he'd got had been from the council, he was mostly rude about them. But rude about them, not rude to them.
Then, lo and behold, no sooner had he said these things in private, but all the council knew about it, and were sending him letters telling him off for being rude. The next RP I did described him as _thinking_ something unpleasant _in private_. Yet still within minutes the council members knew what he'd thought, knew it was mean, and were telling him off. Try as I might to explain to them that their OOC knowledge through my roleplay did not equal their characters' IC knowledge, I failed. I was accused of using roleplays to be rude about another character without them being able to defend themselves, when all I was doing was roleplaying my character as the nasty piece of work he was. If they'd left it a little longer, and had he actually had anything of any interest to do that he could have done in a disobedient way, they'd have had plenty of IC reason to be nasty back, but they weren't willing to wait and just took offence.
That, and the fact that they wrote letters and tagged them as "Roleplay", and generally mis-used the different message categories, identified to me that the main problem was that I was trying to play the game in a different way, that while it worked perfectly in Falasan, Abington, Suville, Minas Ithil (and still works now in my chars' current realms), for some reason the players in Perdan had their own way of playing the game and it was incompatible with mine.
So I had to leave Perdan to find somewhere better to play, and, just as having to leave Abington with my previous character, meant I had to start from square one again in terms of building up his personality in little RPs so that the other members of my realm knew what my character was like. So - I was the one that had to leave and start again, whereas they just got to continue in their positions of high power and lost nothing from my departure.
5) Good experience with new character.
Eventually, I deleted the two characters above (keeping the one in Falasan), and created a new one on Dwilight. In contrast to my previous experience, where it had taken 12 months to get any sort of position, and weeks if not months even to get onto a message group that had anything interesting going on to talk about, my Dwilight character was talked to as soon as he joined Morek. He was made to feel welcome, was given a purpose in helping fight the monsters, and after a month or two, had a lordship position for a week before monsters took it off him, and was a Vice Marshal and then Marshal of the smaller army.
Good experiences here were much like those of Falasan - made to feel welcomed, and given a purpose.
6) Quit completely
Went away for holiday for two weeks... when I came back I had a lot of catching up to do, and had slightly lost interest as a result of being away. I'd also lost the positions I'd previously held.
In the end, trying to enthuse myself, I created a carefully thought-out roleplay that was sent in bits to the whole realm... and yet barely anyone replied. At that point I figured I was spending far more effort in creating RPs that I thought would be nice for others, and very little time getting interesting replies back. Only a couple of players in Falasan (who were excellent) and a couple in Dwilight were providing much of interest, and eventually I just decided it was all a bit too much effort for too little gain, so just stopped logging in.
And then had no interest to come back because I'd not bothered to pause my account, so the whole thing was deleted.
7) Rejoined after all
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).
- In Oritolon, I had only two welcomes - from two lords who also offered me an oath. Thanks to those players (though actually, one of them was Revan again - I hadn't realised until I joined the realm that he was in both Carelia and Oritolon as well).
My character has no position of responsibility, yet sees others with more than one.
- In Carelia, the King is also the General. Two positions for one character means no position for someone else.
- I do notice that that Suville player is still there as Duchess of Suville, so there's not been any change of Dukeship for Suville for years, then - and yet still, to my annoyance, in all that time hasn't found time to write (or get someone else to write) a description of the city. And some of the rulers of realms have been so for two or three years. So it still seems hard (whether or not it is hard, it seems it) to break into the positions of power.
My character has limited purpose
- In Carelia, this isn't a problem - there's a war to fight and my character was even given a special mission to undertake (just a shame that the game wouldn't let him place his militia, so this mission was impossible to achieve, but hey)
- In Oritolon though, there's "too much peace", so all my character can do is civil work. He can't even do police work as he hasn't got enough honour to do that. There is so little to do that he's just wandering around looking a bit lost most of the time.
My RPs are sometimes ignored
- In Carelia, I've sent a message three times now to the elder members of Magna Serpaensism. Three times I've been completely ignored by all three of them.
- In Carelia, I contrived for my character to send out five messages to the wrong people, so that each character got a message that was inappropriate for them and/or made no sense. Only two of the receipients gave me any reply to them at all.
- But to be fair, my RPs to both Ruler and Judge were responded to with good and mulitiple replies, so it's not all bad of course.
- I can cope with the fact my lowly knights have almost nothing of interest to do button-wise if they have something of interest to do RP-wise. It's just a shame that there's not always much to do RP-wise either.
Conclusion:
Times I have been made to feel happy and have wanted to stay:
- When joining a realm, I have been sent personal messages of welcome that give me a little background info to the realm's current position.
- I have had a feeling of purpose: I can see why me being there is better than me not being there (other than just the fact my estate is useful).
- People respond to my RPs and continue them; other people post RPs I can respond to and continue
- Having plenty of messages to read that are not all kept secretly in senior message groups
- I have been able to see a chance that I might actually progress to have a position of importance for a while
- When I can get into the mindset that it is fun to write my own RPs and just read them to myself for my own amusement
Times I have been made to feel sad and have wanted to quit:
- Some players hogging positions of power...
- ...and there being so much less to do if you don't have a position of power.
- Not much turnover of those positions even if they're not hogging more than one per character
- All the RP being in secret message groups I'm not in
- Whole realms seemingly playing by a whole different set of RP rules than everyone else
- When I get into the mindset that it is fun to interact with other people, yet can't do so
Anyway, those are just my experiences, as someone who's joined three times now, and continues to waver between staying and quitting from one day to the next.
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Interesting. I've asked two new players, who I know that are active, to give me their first impressions about the game. I'll ask them, if they give them, that I can post them here for further discussion... if they answer, of course.
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b) They seemed to be awful at understanding IC/OOC differences. I was trying to roleplay my character as a nasty piece of work, but he wasn't so stupidly disobedient to walk to up to nobles and insult them to their face, nor was he stupid enough to write rude letters to people. I wanted to roleplay him as being unpleasant, so people knew what he was like, and wouldn't then be surprised at his later actions of mild disobediance and his harsh tone. But I didn't want him just to be blatantly rude. So I roleplayed him a few times in a monologue, talking to himself or to his captain privately, being rude about the various other nobles behind their backs. Since most messages he'd got had been from the council, he was mostly rude about them. But rude about them, not rude to them.
Then, lo and behold, no sooner had he said these things in private, but all the council knew about it, and were sending him letters telling him off for being rude. The next RP I did described him as _thinking_ something unpleasant _in private_. Yet still within minutes the council members knew what he'd thought, knew it was mean, and were telling him off. Try as I might to explain to them that their OOC knowledge through my roleplay did not equal their characters' IC knowledge, I failed. I was accused of using roleplays to be rude about another character without them being able to defend themselves, when all I was doing was roleplaying my character as the nasty piece of work he was. If they'd left it a little longer, and had he actually had anything of any interest to do that he could have done in a disobedient way, they'd have had plenty of IC reason to be nasty back, but they weren't willing to wait and just took offence.
To be fair, this is a two-fold problem.
First, this has been a pervasive problem in the past, and not just in Perdan. (But there were some notable instances of it in Perdan, which is probably why they were so touchy about it. ("We", actually, as I was there at the time, though without a character/family name, there's no way I would remember you.)) People would send RPs about their character thinking something, or talking privately to someone about, with various insults or slanders about other characters, specifically so they could say them without reprisal. Even if this was not your intention to do this, it has been done in the past, and caused some problems.
Second, there are quite a few players in the game who will not consider the circumstances of an RP in determining whether or not what they read is something their characters know or not. Sometimes they don't care, and sometimes it's a mistake. But it happens a lot. Especially if the information is something against their character or one of their friends or political allies.
That, and the fact that they wrote letters and tagged them as "Roleplay", and generally mis-used the different message categories, identified to me that the main problem was that I was trying to play the game in a different way, that while it worked perfectly in Falasan, Abington, Suville, Minas Ithil (and still works now in my chars' current realms), for some reason the players in Perdan had their own way of playing the game and it was incompatible with mine.
Yeah, tagging of messages is a tough one. I remember all kinds of long arguments in Perdan over the proper use of message tagging. People who wrote all their messages as "roleplays" because they are always in character and "playing a role, so it's a roleplay", messages tagged as orders just to use the red paper to get people's attentions, etc. Ugh.
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There's a little Gamist in all of us. Just depends on what draws you and what you consider your "levelups" and "endgame".
Here's my take, from about 5+ years experience in the past and then from my 1+ month returning.
Atamara- My first island. All time spent in Minas Ithil with 2 characters. Positions held- Judge, General, Lord.
Pros: Smaller regions make for faster travel time. Fairly decent income if the banker knew what they were doing (and later if duchies were set up right). Command structures seemed solid. Large, fairly frequent battles made for quick honor/prestige jumps. Few clan-ish behaviors noted. Frequent realm-wide RP opportunities due to frequent tournaments.
Cons: Realm hierarchy largely entrenched. When turnover occurs, tenure wins because longevity in realm means everything. Few opportunities for new council positions (Lots of Tyrannies/Monarchies in my time at least). Wars largely across the continent (regional wars tended to be putting down secession realms). Combat consists of refit/recruit/wait/repeat/march a week/fight/return. Few narrative RP interactions (unless they were silly and about tutus and badgers and pancakes).
East Continent- Time spent in Ubent, Fontan, Sirion, others (main account and Titan observer account). Positions held- none
Pros: Smaller regions make for faster travel time. Income tended to be fairly evenly distributed except for takeover units. Mostly efficient command structure. Fairly frequent battles provide honor/prestige jumps. Longstanding history (if you could find it).
Cons: Map shape makes war unsustainable North-South. Effective war only occurs East-West, else it's mostly sabre rattling. Realm hierarchy largely entrenched. Hard to learn details unless you make it into a special message group. Few opportunities to expand realms mean little opportunity to move up in position. Combat sometimes consisted of waiting a few weeks to decide where to march, marching a week, then fighting 1 day and going home. Few narrative RP interactions (roleplay here consists more of what you say than what you "do"). Often clan-like behavior from one or more groups.
Beluaterra- Time spent mostly in Melhed, though in others very early or later as an adventurer. Positions held- General, Lord
Pros: Best theme island. Quasi-often "reset". Characters must be immigrants, so are already at least partly established, both mechanically and in background. "Island-wide" wars that shift slightly after every invasion and are not limited to North-South or East-West alliances. Constant opportunities for expanding realms, gaining new titles, and sometimes founding new realms. Semi-frequent battles in realms who desire war, plus invasions make for good honor/prestige growth.
Cons:- Character/realm death undesirable to some. Not being able to start on BT limits new character placement (and once a character drops they're often set and never end up moving to BT). Emigration limitations in general (coming and going).
West Island (Colonies)- Time spent in Outer Tilog, Assassins, and Giblot. Positions held- General, Lord
Pros: Best niche realms- Outer Tilog and at least formerly, Assassins. Narrative RP is encouraged due to less turns a day.
Cons: Not really a running storyline of any sort. Island mentality seems to be Seek-and-Destroy-a-Realm. I honestly couldn't even name all the other realms in the south, at any given point- there's just a lack of cohesiveness to the island in that regard. Oh, and the whole 1 turn per day thing is a real turnoff to many. High travel times plus the one turn sometimes means 5-6 days to go 3 regions. Low-ish income (though low player count somewhat counters this).
Far East Island- Time spent in Svunnetland, Arcachon, Taith Aenil (Greater Aenilia). Positions held- Ruler, General, Banker, Judge, Duchess, Secession Leader, Successful Rebellion Leader, Marshal
Pros: Potential for great theme island. Realms with great history and background make immersion easier for some. Heavier RP environment leads to more politicking within realm, which leads to secessions/rebellions and more intrigue. There's always a tangible "bad guy" for every realm to gun for, given the RP attached to the actions. Always a war going on somewhere, but realms can withdraw and jump back in fairly easily.
Cons: Low to moderate income (this may be due to poor tax distribution- rich seem to stay rich and poor field 10-man units). Map shape makes war unsustainable North-South. East-West wars run rarely and usually end in one realm's destruction, assimilation, or surrender rather quickly. Lack of interaction from realm members seen as more problematic here, and growing.
Dwilight- Time spent in original Morek, Caerwyn. Positions held- General, Marshal
Pros: Constant room for expansion, new titles, new realms. Regional wars. Some monster invasions. Much of the continent still uninhabited/unexplored. SMA enforced so the ridiculousness that sometimes plagues other islands stays out.
Cons: Map too large to have real interaction with every realm.
So the way it plays out is that in MMO terms, Atamara and EC are PvP worlds where new characters are grunts and it takes lots of time to make a name for themselves. FEI flounders in potential as a RP-rich world, but has been watered down and lacks anything unique to draw/retain people. Colonies don't really know who or what they are, save a handful of unique realms in an otherwise dead island- and less turns per day don't help its cause. BT is a PvE world where the player can dabble in PvP if they want. Growth and opportunity are available, even if it means weathering another invasion to get your shot. Dwilight is a nice balance between PvE and PvP, with no ceiling on growth and opportunity.
That is why Dwilight and BT are doing better than the others. New players are joining and staying where they can have tangible proof of "winning" the game. That being- expansion/titles/achievements/honor/prestige. And in a relatively short amount of time. Why are EC and Atamara dying? Old guard, longstanding regimes, and no good way for new characters to break through. The growth curve for power and influence is almost an inverse exponential curve.
And so when people invite their friends to play- even when said inviting player may have characters on Dwilight and Atamara- they'll always invite their friend to join them on Dwilight, not Atamara. The old worlds have little end-game and leveling up is not worth the time investment.
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I do so hate comparisons to level based games.
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I do so hate comparisons to level based games.
Hate it all you want. The comparison is there simply by virtue of it being what people are used to. It's how games have worked from the dawn of time. Not always character levels, but in absence of that, levels to beat and then move onto the next level. The ones that don't have no progression and lose playerbase. The ones that do then have to fight to have a believable and attainable endgame or it suffers the same losses. Yet another reason why BT and Dwilight have the advantage over the others. Nobody's hit endgame on Dwilight- and won't at least until the whole continent is colonized. And BT gets an occasion reset by virtue of an invasion.
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What a limited scope you have in games, then.
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What a limited scope you have in games, then.
Thanks for the ad hominem. Really helps the conversation. Also doesn't disprove anything I said. Keep your elitist attitude if you want, but don't do it in a thread talking about how to retain new players. Seems a bit... out of place?
Face facts, you're drawing from primarily three different markets. One- the MMO crowd. WoW put themselves in front by making the game easily accessible, lots of options, and lots of leveling to make you feel like you're accomplishing something. By the time advancement slows to a crawl, you're already hooked. Two- the tabletop RPG crowd. Similar feel here. Create a character and build story as you gain skills. Always a sense of moving forward and advancing. And three- the FPS/RTS/turn-based strategy crowd. Give me a map, let me build my base/cities, let me wipe out my enemies. Game over, Load a new map.
Name me even three relatively well known games that you don't think follow the level/endgame ideas and I'll prove otherwise. That or I'll stand down.
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Thanks for the ad hominem. Really helps the conversation. Also doesn't disprove anything I said. Keep your elitist attitude if you want, but don't do it in a thread talking about how to retain new players. Seems a bit... out of place?
Face facts, you're drawing from primarily three different markets. One- the MMO crowd. WoW put themselves in front by making the game easily accessible, lots of options, and lots of leveling to make you feel like you're accomplishing something. By the time advancement slows to a crawl, you're already hooked. Two- the tabletop RPG crowd. Similar feel here. Create a character and build story as you gain skills. Always a sense of moving forward and advancing. And three- the FPS/RTS/turn-based strategy crowd. Give me a map, let me build my base/cities, let me wipe out my enemies. Game over, Load a new map.
Name me even three relatively well known games that you don't think follow the level/endgame ideas and I'll prove otherwise. That or I'll stand down.
Morning star has a good point. You want to feel as you're getting somewhere. BM has a large spectrum of getting somewhere, and you can choose yourself what to focus on, kind of like real life. That is the coolest bit. You can chase fame if you want, family fortune, expansion for your realm, getting a lordship, getting a specific council position (often ruler), plan to create your own realm, dwelve into religion and make that region the dominant one, create your own religion, right a wrong by revenge (either against a realm or another character) and so on. Then you spice up the main objective with smaller semi-plans and great RP + all the unexpected stuff that you can react to.
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Morning star has a good point. You want to feel as you're getting somewhere. BM has a large spectrum of getting somewhere, and you can choose yourself what to focus on, kind of like real life. That is the coolest bit. You can chase fame if you want, family fortune, expansion for your realm, getting a lordship, getting a specific council position (often ruler), plan to create your own realm, dwelve into religion and make that region the dominant one, create your own religion, right a wrong by revenge (either against a realm or another character) and so on. Then you spice up the main objective with smaller semi-plans and great RP + all the unexpected stuff that you can react to.
Yep, agreed, having some feeling of progression, so that after a certain amount of time, you feel it was worth the effort.
But how long-term are all those goals that came to mind?
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Getting a specific council position is even longer-term. Last time, it took me over a year before one of my characters became Banker of Falasan. And that was the only council position any of them got in the two years I played.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Some you missed out that is just about possible to do as a newbie, but only if others play along, which they often don't:
- Creating some roleplays that involve the realm and are memorable and engaging, and people say that they like
- Getting medals, which is often based on doing good roleplays and/or writing lots of good letters to people in the realm
In short - I agree that we mostly like to have our own personal goals. My concern is that every one that you mentioned take months, probably years in the game to achieve. There are precious few things you can achieve as a new player with a simple knight with 10 honour, 1 prestige, and an oath giving 25 gold per week. And I think the frustration at playing every day for months and months and having such a minimal feeling of progression must be part of the reason we're losing players after three months or so.
Once the novelty wears off, and you realise you've gone nowhere in three months, and there's no particular indication you'll go anywhere in the next three months either, you might just sack it off as a bad game and go elsewhere.
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One- the MMO crowd. WoW put themselves in front by making the game easily accessible, lots of options, and lots of leveling to make you feel like you're accomplishing something. By the time advancement slows to a crawl, you're already hooked. Two- the tabletop RPG crowd. Similar feel here. Create a character and build story as you gain skills. Always a sense of moving forward and advancing. And three- the FPS/RTS/turn-based strategy crowd. Give me a map, let me build my base/cities, let me wipe out my enemies. Game over, Load a new map.
Name me even three relatively well known games that you don't think follow the level/endgame ideas and I'll prove otherwise. That or I'll stand down.
I will venture that this is how I play all of my characters. They all have a few specific, defined goals that I establish for myself prior to being started. I may shift and adjust those goals several times in the early stages of developing the characters, but not too much. I most enjoy the game when I feel I am approaching the accomplishment of those specific goals (which rarely correlate to things like "conquer X duchy" or "gain Z position").
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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.
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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.
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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 :)
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Of course, you can set out to play a fool and entertain your realm:
http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Gellander_Family/Gaston (http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Gellander_Family/Gaston)
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Is there nobody who plays battlemaster for the battles anymore?
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
That's one of three reasons.
And in cases of TMP, that doesn't mean there isn't any opportunity to go fight more if you wish, but sometimes just lack of directives to do so. In these realms (D'Hara), no one would complain if you went out on your own or with a buddy or two to go fight rogues wherever you can find them.
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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.
NPC battles are never exciting.
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NPC battles are never exciting.
Exactly. More like grunt work.
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Exactly. More like grunt work.
Why? It's not as if PC armies were always that smart...
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Why? It's not as if PC armies were always that smart...
Feeling of superiority over PC armies? Difference between winning at checkers v.s the computer or the friend.
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Feeling of superiority over PC armies? Difference between winning at checkers v.s the computer or the friend.
The computer is often smarter than the friend?
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The computer is often smarter than the friend?
The computer doesn't get angry/upset when defeated? Inflicting emotions?
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The computer doesn't get angry/upset when defeated? Inflicting emotions?
/schadenfreude
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The computer is often smarter than the friend?
Playing the computer is obviously not the same as playing a person.
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Grinding through mobs is just that, grinding. PvP interaction actually has some meaning.
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/schadenfreude
Exactly :).
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And the computer is smarter than almost every player in the world in chess, I suppose therefore no tournaments actually need to be run.
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First a question: do we want to make a separate thread where we try to figure out why new players don't join the game/how we can improve the rate of them staying?
Then, I'd like to share this:
Out-of-Character from New Player (2 days ago)
Hello!
You are right about what I don't understand about the game ... Next to everything. Although the wiki and just clicking through helped a little. (Like giving the advice of becoming a student.)
The game explains very few, which is a little disappointing. I was hoping for a tutorial. But well.
So ... I can send a message to the realm. Is it then like ... Like a message you just wrote me? Everyone gets notified?
And ... What's also very important. I noticed the message types. What should I use when? (Like in one of those cases; Introducing, asking for an oath.)
I know, that new players can get quite annoying, but I ask to excuse this.
I answered him right away but he hasn't replied ever since... It appears he has another mentor though, an IRL friend of his that is in the same realm and "recruited" him.
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First a question: do we want to make a separate thread where we try to figure out why new players don't join the game/how we can improve the rate of them staying?
I don't think we need to separate. This thread is supposed to be about retention.
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If he has an IRL friend teaching him the ways of the game, then just be patient. He'll be ready to respond to other players as his friend teaches him the game.
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As a fairly new player myself, I only heard about this game through an IRL friend; nowhere else. When he told me about the RP involved, functions, interactions, etc... I was drawn in immediately.
One factor that stood out, was the player dedication to enforce RP, and the willingness to help one another. (On Dwilight and FE anyways.) I've played RP games before, but they've always become an upset, because nobody plays within the rules set upon them. >:(. Peer enforcement, in my opinion, is very uncommon, and everyone here should pat themselves on the back, especially Tom.
Now, I'm addicted, and attempting to integrate myself in the community as best as I can. (PeL <3, I will always be your archivist ;D.)
In summary: Advertise the community, because it's fantastic.
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Returning to my obsessive chart-making:
Numbers are in. In terms of registration, FEI and Dwilight showed slight growth. Beluaterra was flat. EC and Atamara showed 4%ish declines which, though not good, is much better than in the past: it may be that EC and Atamara are slowing their losses somehow. The Colonies continue to plummet into the depths.
In terms of active players, Atamara showed a controlled decline, but EC and the Colonies had double-digit losses of active players. Meanwhile, Dwilight and FEI actually increased the number of active players, while FEI was flat (discounting multi-locks FEI would be positive).
Numbers on highly active players are subject to skepticism, and vary widely. However, Beluaterra has been exhibiting what looks to be a medium-term real increase in active players. Notably, it posted an almost 30% gain in active players (and one of the first gains in "activity rates" I've seen yet). Dwilight and FEI also had strong increases in active players. EC and Atamara showed some declines, while the Colonies were flat.
This round showed one of the strongest divergences I've seen yet: FEI, Beluaterra, and Dwilight posted solid numbers in every category; actually some of the best numbers I've yet seen. EC, Atamara, and the Colonies showed bad numbers, in some cases better than in the past, but in at least some far worse. This would seem to support the idea that some continents are reliably better at getting and keeping players than others. We'll see how this holds up in the long run.
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That's very interesting results. I don't quite know what to make of them, but it is quite interesting that there's such a noticeable difference between the game worlds.
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Also, for what it's worth, I've compiled data for the entire timeline, from mid April to present.
Registration is up a little over 2% in Beluaterra and Dwilight. Flat in FEI. Down 8% in EC. Down 10% in Atamara. Down 14% in the Colonies.
Active players are up almost 3% in Beluaterra. They are down 6% in FEI and Dwilight. Down 14% in Atamara, 15% in the Colonies, and a whopping 20% in EC. That's right: the equivalent of 1 in 5 active players on EC has left since April.
Very active players are up 20% in Beluaterra, 15% in FEI, and 7% in Dwilight. They are down 4% in EC, 13% in Atamara, and an unbelievable 40% in the Colonies. Again, numbers on very active players are subject to major weekly fluctuations.
Activity is an odd story. Activity is flat in Beluaterra (slight increase, but so small as to be negligible). Activity is basically flat in the Colonies as well, overall. Activity is down 3% in Atamara, 5% in FEI, 6% in Beluaterra, and 9% in EC. Activity I measure as percent of registered players that log on in the preceding three days. Activity declined on all continents except Beluaterra, where it was flat.
High activity has lots of fluctuations, but is also an interesting story. High activity rose on every continent except the Colonies. The Colonies say a 15% decline in highly active players. ATamara saw a 0.44% increase. Dwilight had a 6% increase. Beluaterra saw an 8% increase. EC had 9%, , while FEI had 10%.
What is curious is that there is no discernible relationship between activity and retention. This actually shocks me. I expected to find evidence of either "Highly active continents keep people better" or "Highly active continents drive people away." I could understand either. As it is, neither seems to have much support. The most active (3-day) continent is Beluaterra, and they had good retention. The next most active continents are EC and Atamara. The least active continent is the Colonies, with low activity overall, but with a fairly steady rate of activity... but it has horrible retention. Meanwhile, Dwilight , EC, and FEI all started out with higher activity than the Colonies, but ended up much, much lower at the end of period... and there is no common retention type for Dwilight, EC, and FEI.
Same story with high activity: I can't seem to find any confirmation for a "Really active players intimidate and drive people away" scenario, nor for a "Less active players draw in new people" scenario. Activity levels do not seem to be directly connected to retention (though there could easily be some kind of indirect connection).
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What you might need to look at is the positions of the characters who rank high in activity when compared to low activity or removal of a character.
I would suspect that in all cases high ranking characters tend to have higher (at least, good) activity for the most part, but where we might find the difference is in the activity level of those who leave and are low ranking (either a minor lordship, or no lordships amongst their characters).
That is to say - how well those continents manage to convince newer and lower ranking nobles to be active (which could be seen as an indication of enjoyment - more active nobles tend to be more likely to stay since they have a reason to play).
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Well if I may throw in some remarks, with Summer in between activity rates are certainly going to be hard to connect to continent-limited reasons. Also, on BT a war just started that seemed to be pretty promising (at least from my point of view): it wouldn't surprise me to know that several active players moved their chars from elsewhere to BT just to join it in the last months.
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Both of your comments definitely have some merit, and my data can't really speak to the underlying issues in either.
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I'm going to copypasta what I got out of two new players on IRC and three players ingame (OOCly), when I asked them about their first impressions and what could be done to improve or ease the first days. This is the first one;
[00:05:06] <+Fleugs> I've been "busy" with a thread on the forum named "Player retention", and I'm trying to figure out what can be done to make the game easier for new players
[00:05:31] <+Frosted> oh cool
[00:05:32] <+Fleugs> i.e. what are the troubles you are experiencing, what could be better, what is good, ...
[00:06:41] <+Frosted> I like the social aspect of the game its kinda confuzzing when u first start out thou because theres so much information in different location
[00:08:32] <+Frosted> im curious how adventurers become nobles/knights
[00:09:01] <+Frosted> so far ive just been hunting undead with mine and resting because of fatigue
[00:10:34] <+Frosted> how does the battle system work when armies go up against each other i haven't been able to find any im=nformation on that
[00:16:09] <+Frosted> there was two tutorials when i started which helped explain basic character construction and different tabs/commands which was helpful
[00:16:44] <+Fleugs> you think they should be longer? or was it a nice introduction?
[00:17:34] <+Frosted> what i think would be helpful would be understanding the ranks like a chart or something explaining how you advance in the game
[00:19:23] <+Frosted> like to become a knight u need to swear an oath to a lord to become a lord you need...
Out-of-Character from Character of Frosted (5 days, 10 hours ago)
Thank you for the link to the starting guide and for your kind welcome. Im excited to learn the ropes and contribute to this great realm.
This is ofcourse not the entire conversation - much more was said, but is either irrelevant or goes about us explaining some parts to her. The part about the ranks was both interesting and puzzling for myself; I never really considered Battlemaster to have clear-defined ranks. Of course there is a certain hierarchy but they're all fluid. But this is ofcourse one player. The "starting guide" I link to my students is found here: http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Newbie_Guide (http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Newbie_Guide). They all seem to like it, and I've had a lot of positive response to it. However, it's a project that I never really got to finish, although I do want to. The TOC is horrible, I know. As I said, it's not finished. But I think it's a good start to where we could (or should?) go.
Second one (today - more might follow, I'm still in conversation);
[23:14:09] <Fleugs> well, I'm looking into what new players experience when they join the game, so I can work out ways to improve it for them
[23:14:16] <Fleugs> so if you could give me your first impressions, I'd be very grateful
[23:14:25] <Fleugs> that means: criticism, questions, suggestions, ...
[23:14:26] <annatolasi> ill do ok
[23:14:35] <annatolasi> but at the miment im quite lost lol
[23:14:42] <Fleugs> right, that's what I'm looking to work on
[23:14:58] <Fleugs> so if you could give me some impressions (if you have time, no pressure), I'd be very thankful
[23:18:38] <annatolasi> 1st i think
[23:18:53] <annatolasi> thereshall be either a tutorial
[23:19:12] <annatolasi> or either a link to irc chans so the nex players cna get help
[23:20:15] <annatolasi> i confused wth actions i can do or not do
[23:25:26] <Fleugs> like?
[23:25:57] <annatolasi> seems theyre a not a lot of actiosn to do the first day
[23:26:08] <Fleugs> probably right
[23:26:12] <Fleugs> the game isn't high-paced
[23:26:17] <Fleugs> not sure if you play any other games online?
[23:26:53] <Fleugs> tried this already? http://battlemaster.org/basics.php
[23:27:05] <annatolasi> yes im reading all
Here's a player that I contacted ingame, and I believe have posted before, but to get a clear overview I think gathering these experiences all together in one post is useful. At some point we (or I) will have to start "extracting" keywords to summarize... stuff.
Out-of-Character from Noton de Validus (7 days, 11 hours ago)
Hello!
You are right about what I don't understand about the game ... Next to everything. Although the wiki and just clicking through helped a little. (Like giving the advice of becoming a student.)
The game explains very few, which is a little disappointing. I was hoping for a tutorial. But well.
So ... I can send a message to the realm. Is it then like ... Like a message you just wrote me? Everyone gets notified?
And ... What's also very important. I noticed the message types. What should I use when? (Like in one of those cases; Introducing, asking for an oath.)
I know, that new players can get quite annoying, but I ask to excuse this.
It seems that all players have a different expectation of what Battlemaster is, and that it is up to us, as those that wish to improve the first contact for new players, to figure out what the middle way is to satisfy everyone. By this I do not mean we have to alter the essence of Battlemaster, but rather draw a clear picture - as much as that is possible - of what the game is. I stick to the point that a "Let's play" video (thanks Lilwolf for the idea) is a good start to get people going, but I imagine that not everyone will make the effort to watch Youtube. A high variety of possible ways of getting introduced to the game will help us get in contact with the largest amount of players possible.
A funny intermezzo from two players that returned after a "break", but which might give some insight too;
Out-of-Character from Returning player I (15 days, 4 hours ago)
Actually my friend I'm not really that new to the game I had played the game back when there was a country for aix and when perdan was barely a country its self I came back to playing this because I had so much playing it do to the constant movement and trying to find your enemies. I like how each country has to really think and try to out the best setings out for there armies. So I had to come back and play this game once more
Out-of-Character from Returning player I (15 days, 4 hours ago)
I left because i really wanted to concentrate on baseball so i never really had time for the computer and ny first impression was wow its the same exciting game just how I left it
Out-of-Character from Returning player II (14 days, 22 hours ago)
Simon,
I am in no way new to BM. I first started playing in '09 and kept for a year and a half. I then got a bit tired of the game and left, but now I've returned, as I will return one day to my first realm, Sirion.
I started playing because of a friend, who also was a 'Sirionite', and I loved the dynamic of this game, the fact that I could create a good roleplay and a story behind my char, and that if I did things good I could scale up in the ladder and start taking decisions (I got as far as Marshal and Baron, in different realms.) I was, and still am, a true nerd, computer geek, n' play role games (with physical dices even!) so this game fits right in my comfort zone...
Hope this helps, and in any case, ask around.
Saludos!
I love physical dice too!
One idea that I have been playing with, is (re)creating a small island filled with mentors and new players. The concept would be easy: a war-island sized continent, or perhaps smaller (depending on the average amount of new players joining Battlemaster) populated with some experienced players (mentors) that guide new players ("noobs") through the basics. Here new players can explore options without real reprimand; it would be sandbox island for them where they would primarily learn the game until they feel they are finished, or the mentor feels they are (to avoid abuse, ofcourse, and it turning into just another island). The new players would be able to achieve all sorts of positions (heck, if it's up to me they can try every position), and the mentors could help them out and/or intervene in case they make a "newbie-mistake" - or not, and just explain what went wrong. I know very well that the devs and Tom are swamped in work right now so I don't give this idea much of a chance, albeit I do think it has much potential. Please share your thoughts.
I am very willing to actually do something, and not only gather information. But right now, we need more information. I asked Tom if a questionnaire would be possible, and he said it would be if it were an external link that could be handed to players. Anybody knows a good site for making questionnaires? And what questions shall we ask? Judging from the length of this thread people are actually interested in this matter, and I hope that we as a community can help out the new players. It all comes to one point at the end: a warm community is nice and attracts people. It is amazing how important a "quick first hello" can be to make players stick around, even if you explain them that Battlemaster isn't a heavy-activity game at all.
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This is really interesting fleugs. About a tutorial some time ago myself and indirik played with the idea: the 2 tutorials that can be found in bm's homepage (if they are still there) are horribly outdated and show things that are no longer there, thus a wiki page full of images shaped as a tutorial could be cool. We thought about a simple beggining with a mentor/student interaction to show how it looks like, but everything can be added. Pictures are the key. A wall of text discourages anyone. Youtube video would clearly be better but it would be more difficult. The mentoring portal thast was suggested some time ago is another idea of merit, I believe there are a lot of introductory pages on the wiki and putting them in order would greatly benefit everyone.
Before we charge ahead with tutorials and stuff I would like to however take a step back and ask to those who possess this information (devs? tom?) whether the problem resides mainly in the amount of newcomers that abandon the game as opposed to before, or whether the decrease in players could be caused more by other reasons, like less registrations, more long-standing players quit, etc.
Frankly I've noticed that in a couple realms where I play that have been losing players steadily almost no one went away willingly (moved to another island, deleted, said goodbye), they all autopaused due to inactivity. It may not be that the problem of decaying player base is less connected to retention than we think but rather about people getting bored after a while for lack of things to do? These issue would require radically different methods to be solved and it would be cool to have some concrete data to understand where the problem resides mostly.
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I agree, Peri. Taking a step back is needed to see why players leave; I've had many account of people, over the years, saying that the game just "became a drag". And that last one literally came from a General. It meant that he couldn't bring up the time that is required to play battlemaster anymore, because he simply didn't care.
However, I think the target of this topic is twofolded;
1) Find out why players leave (or stay) and what can be done to change the "decay" in battlemaster.
2) Find out what can make it easier to have new players stay.
Point 2 is what I am working on. Point 1 will be at some point steady, because people don't tend to play a game into infinity. It is normal that they leave. Come and go. What I'm trying to do is make the "come" larger for the next few months/years so our player base increase. But it would be interesting to get some very solid data provided by Devs and/or Tom, if they have that (not sure if they keep records) next to the massive amounts of data that Vellos is already providing in this thread.
In any case, I'll be hunting for new players and I encourage everyone to do the same. Help them out and ask them, as soon as you can, what their first impressions are. First impressions are immensely important to retain new players. We need to improve the learning curve for Battlemaster (which is at the moment, I think, rather steep for a text-based browser game).
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1) Find out why players leave (or stay) and what can be done to change the "decay" in battlemaster.
2) Find out what can make it easier to have new players stay.
Point 2 is what I am working on. Point 1 will be at some point steady, because people don't tend to play a game into infinity. It is normal that they leave. Come and go. What I'm trying to do is make the "come" larger for the next few months/years so our player base increase.
That is certainly good, especially because if on 2) players can help, 1) it mostly falls on the devs and we have little ways to help. What am I saying is just that if however over time the player base decayed sensibly but there was no noticeable increase in the % of registered users who abandon the game in the first weeks, we're firing at the wrong target. Our efforts can help, BM can definitely benefit from a better system of tutorials and so, but one should make sure to know which is the source of the problem (likely, there will be an overlap of sources).
By the way you're lucky that the newcomers you speak with answer you. It has been a while since I've found one that did, and in particular I felt it depended heavily on whether I had the mentor subclass or not. I really believe the first thing that the devs must do is to modify the mentor class because fewer and fewer players are picking it, even if they would love to help others.
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Not all new players speak, and many fall into silence after a while - but then I already got some picture of their first impressions. ;) Anyway, I too think that the mentor class needs a serious and thorough overhaul: make it a "third class", that anyone can pick without having to sacrifice other classes. The reward system for mentors doesn't work anyway, it's by far not interesting enough to encourage people to become mentor. Some reasoning is need to encourage people to help new players: it's a matter of giving and receiving, but I will let it up to the devs & Tom to figure out what it should be.
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If every player talked to new folks like Fleugs, retention would be a much smaller issue.
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If every player talked to new folks like Fleugs, retention would be a much smaller issue.
If every new player answered to old players like those mentioned by Fleugs, retention would be a much smaller issue too.
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It's interesting that you both speak about "speaking", which I believe is very crucial in "new player retention" (let's call it that). Many players that join a browser-based game that is built upon a community rather than click-and-do buttons (e.g. Travian, or many others) expect social interaction within a short period of time from joining. This varies from person to person: some will hold out for five minutes, and when they don't get a message, they will simply never go to the website again. Some might hold out a day, but they end up in a rather bad realm, and still aren't contacted... they think the game is basically dead or everyone is just ignoring the noob (this is actually what happens at that point), and never return either.
Contacting a new player at the very beginning of his BM-career is very important. That human contact, that social interaction, that makes Battlemaster the game it is, will make new players feel "part of the community". It is fun to know how the mechanics of the game work, and it is something that we need to work on very hard... but the aspect of "speaking" is equally important. I imagine that when you try to convince someone to join Battlemaster, you tell him "it's a medieval-setting text-based RP browsergame". The "text-based" + "RP" automatically say that there is interaction with other players necessary to keep the game running; without interaction, no RP & nothing gets done. I'd like to give Madina as an example, when I was there (the realm was worthless, and it was the only time I left with a furious OOC-message flaming on them).
The question is though: how can we make sure that genuine human interaction can be guaranteed to new players within a respectable amount of time? I've been thinking about several solutions for that:
1) The community does have some very active players. I know Tom is primarily not a fan of players who exert their uber-activity over the game (I consider myself a very active player - bm is my homepage), but I do believe they can be put to good use. These very active players come from all timezones and thus overlaps, meaning that if they were gathered in a place where new players would arrive, new players would have a (semi-)guarantee of quick human contact. My theory is: there will always be very active players, and instead of fighting against them, try to use them for the good of the game.
1a) Like I have said before, gather new players & experienced (active) players on an island specifically made to teach the game. Do not scare new players of by using the word "teach", but rather describe it as a "new player friendly environment where you can explore all aspects of the game and there is constant guidance." It's all in the words. This island could be partially populated by these "very active" players. They don't necessarily have to be mentors: if we can put up a good tutorial-structure, we can even drop the player-mentor basis the game works on (at least partially).
1b) Link new players to the IRC. I've noticed, in the past few weeks, that the channel automatically flairs up when a new players joins it. People are genuinely ready to help new players out on IRC. We're a small nerd-community but we're a warm and open one, although you may find me trolling it rather often. Nevertheless I am always ready and eager to help new players, and will do everything I can to make their introduction to the game easier (less painful?).
2) This might only partially have to do with "early human interaction", but it's still a valid option. Have new players, after they conclude their "training" ("exploring, enjoying the fruits of the game, ...") rate their realm. Have them rate it on how well they were received, how well they were helped, ... There could be tons of criteria for this. I do believe there is some form of rating already present, in the form of "how many mentors" there are. But let's be honest: not every mentor is a good one, and the class is far from interesting. A more thorough "pre-joining" rating might help out new players to pick the right realm, where they can be "educated" properly. Also, it would encourage realms to encourage players to help new players; decent help -> decent rating -> more new players -> stronger realm -> more land -> need for more players -> decent help -> ... How awesome would it be if realms would actually compete to attract new players? In a way I tried this with Ibladesh, and to some extent it worked.
2a) The idea of Ibladesh brings me to a more specific concept; you can message all/one student, or all/one mentor, but you can't combine. When I was ruler I created a specific message group that combined new players and mentors. It came from the idea that a "group-learning" mentality might stimulate new players to ask questions freely, and join in conversation with other players (mentors), as well as allow them a "sandbox" mode to test out various kinds of messages, roleplays, ...
I'm simply playing with ideas, and it's very likely that I will come up with many more. I truly hope to get a response from the devs/Tom, if they have time, on these ideas & concepts. Don't fear to hammer them into the ground, as long as you explain why, so I can start thinking further about another solution.
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Maybe it would be good to have newbies 'rate' their realms on newbie-friendliness. After a week or so, they would rate the realm on such things as activity, friendliness of the regulars, helpfulness, atmosphere, anything a new player might find worth contemplating before joining a realm. The rating would then show up at the realm/duchy selection screen. For instance, Keplerstan might have a rating of A- or whatever method of rating we want, whereas Evilstani would score a paltry C-. This would have two advantages IMO:
1. It will attract newbies to good starter realms, hopefully making sure fewer of them leave the game shortly after joining.
2. It will give realms with low newbie-friendliness an incentive to make more efforts towards them, to improve their own rating and attract more newbies themselves.
edit: It occurs to me that this is basically the same thing Fleugs proposed earlier... guess I should read topics before replying, eh.
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Maybe it would be good to have newbies 'rate' their realms on newbie-friendliness. After a week or so, they would rate the realm on such things as activity, friendliness of the regulars, helpfulness, atmosphere, anything a new player might find worth contemplating before joining a realm. The rating would then show up at the realm/duchy selection screen. For instance, Keplerstan might have a rating of A- or whatever method of rating we want, whereas Evilstani would score a paltry C-. This would have two advantages IMO:
1. It will attract newbies to good starter realms, hopefully making sure fewer of them leave the game shortly after joining.
2. It will give realms with low newbie-friendliness an incentive to make more efforts towards them, to improve their own rating and attract more newbies themselves.
edit: It occurs to me that this is basically the same thing Fleugs proposed earlier... guess I should read topics before replying, eh.
Another idea:
When an account has a character stay in a realm for 100 days the first time, it gives them a short, 5-part survey:
Please rate, 1 to 5 (1 being very poorly and 5 being very well) how well Realm X and the players in it have:
1. Instructed you in the basic gameplay of Battlemaster
2. Engaged you in roleplaying
3. Ensured you were able to participate in interesting realm functions
4. Helped you develop your character
5. Provided your character with a reasonable income
Also have a comment section.
Then, once a realm has several responses (say, 5 responses?), that score (maybe an average of some kind? To keep it current, maybe an average of the "last ten rankings"?) goes "public," where any player in the game can view it. New players would be shown the realm's score on those questions (or any other set of questions).
It could be abused, but only by people making lots of new accounts, then keeping a character from those accounts in a "target realm" for 100 days. That's a large investment to make for abuse for a fairly low return. The comment section could maybe be kept private, and Tom/the Devs would see it, maybe periodically releasing an anonymous and non-realm-specific summary of it occasionally.
This would at least give us a general idea of what problems new players are facing, and which realms are successfully addressing them. This would provide us some kind of standard (albeit a flawed and largely subjective one) against which to measure our attempts to include new players.
I suggested it in June.
Nobody has come up with any criticism of it thus far, several people have independently suggested it.
I know how to work Survey Monkey surveys... but that's a very, very blunt instrument for what we want to do.
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I suggested it in June.
Nobody has come up with any criticism of it thus far, several people have independently suggested it.
I know how to work Survey Monkey surveys... but that's a very, very blunt instrument for what we want to do.
I would only suggest that it is done sooner than after 100 days. If someone stays that long, he/she will probably stay in the game.
I'm thinking three-four weeks max. I have a hunch that says that whoever goes inactive goes inactive very quickly.
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I would only suggest that it is done sooner than after 100 days. If someone stays that long, he/she will probably stay in the game.
I'm thinking three-four weeks max. I have a hunch that says that whoever goes inactive goes inactive very quickly.
Agreed, only there should be a first survey after 3-4 DAYS (with appropriate questions), then later follow up ones.
This is marketing - you don't have their attention for a month if things aren't going well.
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1b) Link new players to the IRC. I've noticed, in the past few weeks, that the channel automatically flairs up when a new players joins it. People are genuinely ready to help new players out on IRC. We're a small nerd-community but we're a warm and open one, although you may find me trolling it rather often. Nevertheless I am always ready and eager to help new players, and will do everything I can to make their introduction to the game easier (less painful?).
^
This would be an excellent idea. It compensates the fact that at start new players can do almost nothing, provides a feeling of being part of the community (adding to the social aspect of the game) and it can greatly help on answering doubts.
It is part cultural, when I just joined the game I got on IRC and most answers from the questions I had were either soft trolling (answering my questions with a joke and then silencing, thus not answering them), or 'why don't you look in the wiki?' (perhaps I did, and did not find the answer! >:(). In another game I used to play all the players were more or less used to welcome new players, and be nice to them, so it was fairly usual to see them arriving and getting help from everyone.
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When I was ruler I created a specific message group that combined new players and mentors. It came from the idea that a "group-learning" mentality might stimulate new players to ask questions freely, and join in conversation with other players (mentors), as well as allow them a "sandbox" mode to test out various kinds of messages, roleplays, ...
In Morek, since my ruler char is hero and can't be mentor, we created a guild for the purpose of welcoming newbies and teaching them stuff, much like the channel you explained. Newbies are invited to join the guild in the welcome message and ruler bulletin, many actually did, but there was always little to no interaction. I can easily found to be guilty, and complaining that newbies don't answer is not really a good defense, but frankly I can quickly lose interest or simply forget to keep in touch with newbies if after the initial 1-2 messages nothing comes back.
I agree that IRC gives a good environment where to learn things. I think it's pretty much established by now that while it gives a great rp ground, IC mentoring doesn't work as well as OOC one. Therefore creating a mentoring channel or something similar with a restricted amount of people allowed (if newbies join the main channel they will just get lost in the spam) and links to it within the game could be cool.
Also, I have no idea how the interface is for newcomers, but perhaps having them some sort of newbie standing orders reminding them a couple points of the game every time they log in could be good as well. (something like remember to interact, remember to write to mentors, join irc if you have questions blabla)
I don't know who's the mod of this channel, but to avoid repeating what was proposed before (like Vellos stressed) we should make a list of the most reasonable and agreed upon points for mentoring revamp and present it to the devs. I believe there are good suggestions in this thread already, and would improve considerably with some data from their part. I don't think they have the time to surf through such a long post thoroughly, let's help them.
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1b) Link new players to the IRC. I've noticed, in the past few weeks, that the channel automatically flairs up when a new players joins it. People are genuinely ready to help new players out on IRC. We're a small nerd-community but we're a warm and open one, although you may find me trolling it rather often. Nevertheless I am always ready and eager to help new players, and will do everything I can to make their introduction to the game easier (less painful?).
^
This would be an excellent idea. It compensates the fact that at start new players can do almost nothing, provides a feeling of being part of the community (adding to the social aspect of the game) and it can greatly help on answering doubts.
It is part cultural, when I just joined the game I got on IRC and most answers from the questions I had were either soft trolling (answering my questions with a joke and then silencing, thus not answering them), or 'why don't you look in the wiki?' (perhaps I did, and did not find the answer! >:(). In another game I used to play all the players were more or less used to welcome new players, and be nice to them, so it was fairly usual to see them arriving and getting help from everyone.
There is actually a way to set up an embedded webchat that goes (more or less) along with the BattleMaster theming, and, for logged in players, automatically picks up their family name as their nick and the realms/continents they're in, plus the main channel, as their auto-join channels.
I suggested this to Tom just before he went on vacation for a while, and he wasn't sure about it, but said he might be persuadable. I'd forgotten to bring it up again with him till now. I will do so again :)
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Anaris, that would be... amazing.
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This would be nice (the chat) but we will not move out of irc :p
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This would be nice (the chat) but we will not move out of irc :p
It is irc, just logs you into it from your BM page and auto-detects what channels you should start in and puts your family as your nick.
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I've done this before with Mibbit, but I'm guessing you codemonkey types know how to build it in yourself?
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That would be great! It would lower the treshold to get on irc too :)
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I know that Honcast uses Qwebirc (http://qwebirc.org/ (http://qwebirc.org/)) embedded on their site, which you can just easily access while watching a live stream of a match. I.e. a chatbox opens in your browser, which is the most convenient way to get the largest amount of people onto IRC for help.
Nevertheless there should be other options than IRC, for it depends on the activity of that channel a lot. When I joined eRepublik, I got onto their IRC too. They seemed to be somewhat used to getting new players on their irc; many of them linked me to well written tutorials and a forum, however. So IRC might be the ideal place to link people to (short) tutorials together with explaining the game/answering their questions.
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A video tutorial would be nice. Explain how to sign up, make an appropriate family name, character name, how to look for a good realm. Show how to write a sample introduction to a realm, explain that people aren't always online so be patient in joining a new realm. Stuff like that as an introduction to battlemaster. Perhaps create a mock account for the purpose of the video.
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Perhaps create a mock account for the purpose of the video.
Then secretly keep it and win Battlemaster. Gnagnagnagnagna.
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I suggested it in June.
Nobody has come up with any criticism of it thus far, several people have independently suggested it.
I know how to work Survey Monkey surveys... but that's a very, very blunt instrument for what we want to do.
For what it's worth, Vellos, I have had that post of yours flagged since you posted it. I think it's a good idea, and once we've got the current major code work out of the way (the big transition + new estates), I'd like to start working on implementing it.
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For what it's worth, Vellos, I have had that post of yours flagged since you posted it. I think it's a good idea, and once we've got the current major code work out of the way (the big transition + new estates), I'd like to start working on implementing it.
That's great to hear!
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I have not updated the numbers in a while.
So instead of offering a new convenience sample, I've got the summer-wide numbers.
EC had 5% decline in registration, 19% decline in active players, 11% decline in very active players. "Activity" fell from 72% of accounts being "active" to 61%. Active and very accounts peaked in late August. Active and very active accounts peaked in April. Minor increases in mid-August.
Atamara had 6% decline in registration, 14% decline in active players, 5% decline in very active players. "Activity" fell from 71% of accounts being "active" to 65%. Active and very active accounts peaked in April. Plateau throughout most of the summer.
The Colonies had 10% decline in registration, 11% decline in active players, 33% decline in very active players. "Activity" fell from 69% of accounts being "active" to 68%. Active and very active accounts peaked in April. Active accounts recently made a sub-peak in mid-August.
Beluaterra had 4% increase in registration, 2% decline in active players, 25% decline in very active players. "Activity" fell from 74% of accounts being "active" to 70%. Active accounts had a sustained high plateau throughout the second half of August. Very active accounts peaked in early September.
The Far East had 3% increase in registration, 6% decline in active players, 4% increase in very active players. "Activity" fell from 70% of accounts being "active" to 64%. Active accounts peaked in late August/early September, and seem to be cresting again now. Very active accounts peaked in mid-September.
Dwilight had 9% increase in registration, 5% decline in active players, 9% decline in very active players. "Activity" fell from 69% of accounts being "active" to 60%. Active and very accounts peaked in late August.
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It appears the strength of FEI, Dwilight, and Beluaterra has somewhat diminished as the summer ends. They peaked in late-summer, and are broadly in decline (though registrations continue to increase, other indicators do not). On no continent did the percentage of active players rise. On no continent did the absolute number of active players increase. Crucially, registrations, all total, even with major breaks in the line, fell by less than half a percent overall, if even that, depending on the measure. We saw 10% declines in active accounts, and 11% declines in very active accounts, despite increasing the distinct "continent-accounts" per character. We are not failing to attract new players. We are failing to keep them. Accounting for breaks in the graph, registrations could potentially have been 3-5% higher. To reiterate: a lack of advertising, a lack of new accounts, is not our weak point.
Even once people become active players for a period, they still leave.
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It would be interesting to have as added data the average duration of accounts that are abandoned. From the data of Vellos we can't understand whether the active accounts that give up are long-standing players that got bored or newcomers that tried the game a bit and then left it.
Anyway thanks Vellos for gathering this informations.
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It would be interesting to have as added data the average duration of accounts that are abandoned. From the data of Vellos we can't understand whether the active accounts that give up are long-standing players that got bored or newcomers that tried the game a bit and then left it.
Anyway thanks Vellos for gathering this informations.
Those was my thoughts exactly when I read it. Vellos said:
Even once people become active players for a period, they still leave.
However I don't think we have much stats to actually validate this claim?
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True, it is not strictly correct. It could be that every single new registration is highly active, but old players are leaving in droves; or it could be that no new accounts are active, and old players are slowly deactivating. So that claim was probably overbold.
But, the point stands that it isn't a lack of new players that seems to be the issue.
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True, it is not strictly correct. It could be that every single new registration is highly active, but old players are leaving in droves; or it could be that no new accounts are active, and old players are slowly deactivating.
Wouldn't tracking the highest active account ID give you some clues as to that? At the least, it would give you some idea of the rate of players signing up. Not entirely foolproof, but it is another data point.
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Wouldn't tracking the highest active account ID give you some clues as to that? At the least, it would give you some idea of the rate of players signing up. Not entirely foolproof, but it is another data point.
Is that data available?
Activity rates for accounts registered in prior to 2005, 2005, 2006, 2007, etc could prove interesting.
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Not directly, no. You can probably infer it without too much trouble just by looking at the new player joins in your various realms.
You wouldn't be able to get any historical data without data mining the player database, which I don't think Tom would appreciate, or even allow. :)
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Not directly, no. You can probably infer it without too much trouble just by looking at the new player joins in your various realms.
You wouldn't be able to get any historical data without data mining the player database, which I don't think Tom would appreciate, or even allow. :)
Wouldnt Tom be interested in more accurate data about the player base?
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I'm not sure if there is all that much to mine, as old player accounts are deleted.
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I'd imagine you could get a listing of active account numbers, and the dates they started their first character. The combination of the two would tell you about how many accounts were created between the particular dates. i.e. if account 10,000 was created on Jan 1, 2010, and account 12,450 was created on Jan 1, 2011, then you would know that ~2,450 accounts were created that year. The number of accounts still active would also let you know how many accounts were created and abandoned, too. You could probably get some kind of "churn rate" out of that.
What all this tells you, I don't know.
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I'm not sure if there is all that much to mine, as old player accounts are deleted.
if an entry in the DB was done every time an account was deleted to keep track of when that account was created, would give us data on how long people remain in the game before quitting. Would give us an idea if our player decline is due to new players not getting hooked or old players decaying away. We have suspicions, but no statistical evidence so far.
It would also be interesting to know who the most and least active player groups are.
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For what it's worth, as a "new" player (think I've been on EC for about four months now, Dwilight for about 1 and a half), I want to throw in my experiences. As limited as they may be, a qualitative post can run alongside a quantitative one.
First, a bit of background. As far as browser-based or web-based gaming goes, my "poison" before was Cybernations. Some of you may have played that before, or do at the moment. It is, in my opinion, a game full of trolls and people seeking to stroke their egos. An endless cycle of war wrapped up in a political simulation. I left it a long time ago because of this endless cycle (literally at all kinds of major times of the RL year, there were wars. Easter, Christmas, Summer, you name it). But what I took from that game was that there was just so much hatred between players on an OOC level. Yet, the developer and admin team of that game refused to separate IC from OOC. I personally had someone make RL threats towards me and my family, and the guy who runs the game basically did nothing. Nor did the Police for that matter, but that's another story and I'm digressing.
When I first joined, it was at the recommendation of an old friend of mine. I did so, I joined the East Continent and I joined Westmoor. Everyone was quick to welcome me, offer advice and the like. A completely different experience. I learned pretty quickly, developed a persona for Ravier (and Malos, later on) and enjoyed fighting Fontan and Sirion more recently, even if it was only one battle. Now Ravier is the Marshal of Westmoor's Army, and Malos is a respected Priest of the Church of Humanity. There was a sense of progression through actively taking part in the game and in the community of the Realm and Continent I was on. There still is as well.
Unfortunately there is a negative side to this as well. I recently made Alaron, my third noble. He is a character on Dwilight, as I felt I wanted to help with testing the game out in some manner, even if just a little. And I wanted to experience a SMA realm. The difference was quite clear immediately. I felt quite alone from the start - only one person welcomed me for instance. Yet a completely new player to the game joins and everyone from Ruler to Knight is welcoming them. It sounds petty, I understand, but it's not a good impression. I didn't feel welcome, and reconsidered my decision. I haven't deleted him due to perseverance, and running around slaying NPCs is quite fun in a way.
Then I come on to the topic of these forums. Having looked around and generally lurked about, reading topics rather than posting, I see animosity between players (not characters) regularly. I see rude attitudes from people, things like that. I can say with some degree of certainty that if I had come across the game on my own, checked out the forums and saw that, I would never have registered. It reminded me too much of CN. While people are not going to be consistently civil to others, some high-ranking members do display a negative attitude and it makes me wonder why. Keep in mind I've never used the BM IRC server either - precisely because I worry that the issue would be the same there.
What I'm trying to get at is that one of the issues I feel that should be looked at when we as a community look at retention and recruitment is the kind of image we project. Not one of rainbows and flowers, but at least one of a respectful community who will make you feel welcome, help you understand the basic systems of the game and let you carve your own path into the history books if you so choose. Not only that, but there are different kinds of retention based on your how long you've been playing, I'd say. How do we keep new players in? More medium-term who have a few months to a year behind them? And the older players who've been doing this for years?
These, I feel, are issues that need addressing. Not now, because of the major code updates and systems going into the game. But after that, I think as a community we need to look at this again and put our heads together. I'm sorry for the wall of text, but I felt that adding a relatively new player's views on the matter might help. Then again, I am kind of expecting to be told to sit down and shut up.
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That's a great observation, thank you.
I wonder if some kind of community-drive for a friendly atmosphere would work? If some people band together and want to discuss that, I'd be thrilled. It should come from the community, not through the GMs.
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For what it's worth, as a "new" player (think I've been on EC for about four months now, Dwilight for about 1 and a half), I want to throw in my experiences. As limited as they may be, a qualitative post can run alongside a quantitative one.
...
These, I feel, are issues that need addressing. Not now, because of the major code updates and systems going into the game. But after that, I think as a community we need to look at this again and put our heads together. I'm sorry for the wall of text, but I felt that adding a relatively new player's views on the matter might help. Then again, I am kind of expecting to be told to sit down and shut up.
All the stats in the world can't tell you what an actual "new player" like yourself can. I think we need to re-examine what SMA means. A new player should not be beneath the ruler's notice--the ruler has just allowed that character to advance from the ranks of the minor nobility and become a knight of the realm, yes? A highly prestigious position, not one to be ignored by the General or Duke or whatever. It's like when you see someone in a military uniform--you say "Thank you for your service", no matter if you're a fellow knight or the President of the United States.
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I can't say that it is "normal" for SMA realms to have the nobles high in the hierarchy to be disrespectful and ignoring everyone. They would not tolerate to be considered peers, I guess, but this doesn't prevent them from being kind and helpful towards newcomers. Thus, I would say it was probably more an unfortunate choice of realm rather than else.
It is by the way not very clear to me what do you mean with "A community-drive for a friendly atmosphere", Tom.
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Unfortunately there is a negative side to this as well. I recently made Alaron, my third noble. He is a character on Dwilight, as I felt I wanted to help with testing the game out in some manner, even if just a little. And I wanted to experience a SMA realm. The difference was quite clear immediately. I felt quite alone from the start - only one person welcomed me for instance. Yet a completely new player to the game joins and everyone from Ruler to Knight is welcoming them. It sounds petty, I understand, but it's not a good impression. I didn't feel welcome, and reconsidered my decision. I haven't deleted him due to perseverance, and running around slaying NPCs is quite fun in a way.
Is he a noble or an adventurer?
Activity is a realm-wide thing rather than a continent-wide thing, really. You have inactive realms on all continents and active ones too.
Sometimes, people are just tired of welcoming people and never getting a reply. I, for one, try to welcome new nobles as much as possible, but I know that some slip through unwelcomed because they joined at a time I had too many distractions, while I assumed someone else would do it.
Also, I thought cybernations didn't exist anymore?
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Very nice post, Ravier. I also get very annoyed by the trolling in the forum, even if way lighter compared to other games. When we OoC call other realms lame/fail (not jokingly), or some characters as idiots, though they are not being RP'd to be so, well... I feel there is a seed of conflict. You can say those same things in a more polite way.
By the way, I am always on IRC, and the atmosphere is much better in there, normally.
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The difference was quite clear immediately. I felt quite alone from the start - only one person welcomed me for instance. Yet a completely new player to the game joins and everyone from Ruler to Knight is welcoming them. It sounds petty, I understand, but it's not a good impression. I didn't feel welcome, and reconsidered my decision. I haven't deleted him due to perseverance, and running around slaying NPCs is quite fun in a way.
This is something I have noticed as well. New players are welcomed when they join the game or a new realm. That "OOC: New player, 0 days in the game)" tag gets people to really speak up and welcome them. But when you don't see it, most people figure you'll hit the ground running, or whatever.
The other thing that may have been different between your EC realm (Westmoor) and your Dwilight realm (Astrum) is that Westmoor was actively at war when you joined. That does make a big difference. Realms fighting wars tend to have quite a bit more chatter, and be more active overall. Realms at peace tend to fall off a bit.
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If you still have a noble in Astrum, send a message to Gustav Kuriga. He's always looking for knights to train into the next generation of military leaders in SA.
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This is something I have noticed as well. New players are welcomed when they join the game or a new realm. That "OOC: New player, 0 days in the game)" tag gets people to really speak up and welcome them. But when you don't see it, most people figure you'll hit the ground running, or whatever.
Definately. That new player tag is a big motivator to get off my ass to welcome someone. Otherwise, why should I bother greeting him if he doesn't bother writing to introduce himself? Goes both way.
The other thing that may have been different between your EC realm (Westmoor) and your Dwilight realm (Astrum) is that Westmoor was actively at war when you joined. That does make a big difference. Realms fighting wars tend to have quite a bit more chatter, and be more active overall. Realms at peace tend to fall off a bit.
Though there's a correlation indeed, that is a broad generalization. Realms will have more to talk about when at war, and so will talk more than when they are at peace, but silent realms are silent when compared to others no matter what. After all, if you aren't losing, wars don't tend to need more talking than what the orders are.
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If you still have a noble in Astrum, send a message to Gustav Kuriga. He's always looking for knights to train into the next generation of military leaders in SA.
To brainwash, you surely mean? ;D
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I guess I disagree with the consensus here.
I don't see any number of anecdotes as very useful. Ravier had a bad experience with a new character in Astrum; personally, I don't think we all have a duty all the time to go out of our way to personally greet every new noble. I like to, but I don't think it should be a big deal.
There may be some rancor on the forum, and we can try to clean that up some. And maybe we can try to be friendlier. I know that, for it's part, Terran just elected a noble to a lordship literally a week after he joined Terran. Some realms are doing it. Some aren't.
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To be quite honest, and maybe this sounds a little selfish, bit I've found myself with slightly less motivation to welcome a newbie since the New Estate System came to Dwilight.
Before, I welcomed every new Noble, eager to offer them an estate in my region in a realm in need of Knights. Now, all of sudden, I'm pulling in large amounts of cash with absolutely no Knights. And while I always try to make an effort to welcome new nobles to the realm out of a desire to help the game, however I won't lie that I've found myself with a little bit less motivation lately.
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And.... Terran just elected a Senator with only 6 days in-game.
Newbies, come join us! We will give you lordships! For serious!
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To be quite honest, and maybe this sounds a little selfish, bit I've found myself with slightly less motivation to welcome a newbie since the New Estate System came to Dwilight.
Before, I welcomed every new Noble, eager to offer them an estate in my region in a realm in need of Knights. Now, all of sudden, I'm pulling in large amounts of cash with absolutely no Knights. And while I always try to make an effort to welcome new nobles to the realm out of a desire to help the game, however I won't lie that I've found myself with a little bit less motivation lately.
The Duke should be the one who does the welcoming. One more noble = one more region!
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The Duke should be the one who does the welcoming. One more noble = one more region!
The duke gets lesser motivated when those new nobles don't say a word when they join and don't respond on letters.
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By the way, I am always on IRC, and the atmosphere is much better in there, normally.
The IRC channel is a pretty small group of players that have been there in most cases for years so they've learned to cope with each other. Pretty much anyone will be fine there as long as you don't take it too seriously(there's some weird humor etc.). It's easy to get along in a group that hovers in the 20 people range.
The forum brings a lot more people in the same place so you're bound to get the occasional bad message between certain people. Not really sure what could be done about that other than what Tom suggested. Maybe a more strict moderation line or warning messages about bad messages, but those might be a tad too harsh for such a thing.
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Is he a noble or an adventurer?
Activity is a realm-wide thing rather than a continent-wide thing, really. You have inactive realms on all continents and active ones too.
Sometimes, people are just tired of welcoming people and never getting a reply. I, for one, try to welcome new nobles as much as possible, but I know that some slip through unwelcomed because they joined at a time I had too many distractions, while I assumed someone else would do it.
Also, I thought cybernations didn't exist anymore?
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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Isn't there? When you create a new character, the game does insist on introducing yourself.
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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.
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I like this discussion, but I can't follow it closely.
When specific suggestions for improvements emerge, please let me know.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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True, some leave after only a day, a week, a month. But there would probably need to be two separate questionnaires to handle both sides. After all, questions about whether you've been able to get into a message group, a guild, a lord, or a political office for someone a week in would be worthless.
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True, some leave after only a day, a week, a month. But there would probably need to be two separate questionnaires to handle both sides. After all, questions about whether you've been able to get into a message group, a guild, a lord, or a political office for someone a week in would be worthless.
Indeed, those questions can wait. But overall appreciation, chattiness, and factors motivating or demotivating gameplay would be useful to collect after about a week or so.
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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.
And yet.... around 180 days TALKING about making a questionnaire is apparently too short.
« Reply #7 on: June 18, 2011, 09:23:26 pm »
Quote
Could Tom put up a little voluntary questionnaire for when someone deletes their account? After a while, we might have some decent data about what leaving people think of the game, why they left, etc. This questionnaire could also be sent out to people who previous had accounts (if their addresses are still stored somewhere).
Slightly different idea, but essentially the same. Fiddling while Rome burns...
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And yet.... around 180 days TALKING about making a questionnaire is apparently too short.
Slightly different idea, but essentially the same. Fiddling while Rome burns...
We didn't actually talk about it that long, the discussion just died.
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Maybe a 3-day questionnaire that gets emailed out, "hey, thanks for signing up, what did you think about the game?" to all new players.
And then a 100 day questionnaire as described previously for individual characters. Might help us determine which realms are the best for new players, perhaps--we could have the game suggest realms to new players. No, not n00b havens or anything like that, just have the game make recommendations to realms with more mentors and more open estates, active wars, etc.
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Perhaps we could use the surveys to give realms public rankings like "fun", "advancement", "money", and "war", that newbies can see? This would both lead newcomers to go to realms that are known for retention, as well as encouraging realms to improve themselves.
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I think new characters should be presented with some stats on the continents. Right now, on the continent selection screen, we have an old description of each continent, and one statistic: average gold per noble. We should expand that to list "number of battles in past 30 days", maybe something else. Things to help people decide which island to play on. Highest average income isn't bad, but i think people want to see the battle in Battle Master, you know?
Then, when they get to the duchy selection, they currently see a few options--glory, estates needed, and size of duchy, I think. We could maybe put some 'highlights' at the top of the duchy selection page: "Highest Average Income per Noble", "Highest CS", etc, the things discussed previously. That way, players--especially new players--can quickly see what makes each duchy special.
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We didn't actually talk about it that long, the discussion just died.
precisely. and all action with it.
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Action is being taken on this. It just hasn't reached the public yet.
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Action is being taken on this. It just hasn't reached the public yet.
Glad to hear it.
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Can someone tell me why I lost 1 point on family fame?
I'm a little confused because all I did was send personal messages to myself with Yuki and Kero.
I DIDN'T KNOW THAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN AND LOSE 1 POINT OF FAMILY FAME Q_Q
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Can someone tell me why I lost 1 point on family fame?
I'm a little confused because all I did was send personal messages to myself with Yuki and Kero.
I DIDN'T KNOW THAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN AND LOSE 1 POINT OF FAMILY FAME Q_Q
I can assure you that the message did not cause any fame changes.
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Can someone tell me why I lost 1 point on family fame?
I'm a little confused because all I did was send personal messages to myself with Yuki and Kero.
I DIDN'T KNOW THAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN AND LOSE 1 POINT OF FAMILY FAME Q_Q
What does this have to do with this thread? lol
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I'm sort of new to these kinds of forums so could you just please answer my question? :C
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I'm sort of new to these kinds of forums so could you just please answer my question? :C
unlikely anyone can tell you for certain, but:
there are a few glitches in the fame point system, where people are given them incorrectly, and then a clean up script removes them. it will be something to do with this.
Fame can never be subtracted for in-game actions. yours is just a programming issue
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I'm sort of new to these kinds of forums so could you just please answer my question? :C
First:
As Jens says, "losing" fame is, in at least 99% of cases, caused by the cleanup scripts recalculating your fame number based on the actual fame points you have achieved. This means that the number you have now is what you were supposed to have all along, but something glitched and gave you some extra.
Second:
If you have questions or problems, please post them in the Helpline forum. That is what it is there for. Please do not be afraid to create a new thread with a question. We will be happy to answer it, and it won't get drowned out by people talking about the original topic of another thread—or drown out the original topic itself, which is generally considered bad forum etiquette. :)
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I know it's terribly uncool to revive old dead topics, but I still think this is important. I'd love to have answered a survey on Luria Nova after 3-4 days I joined. Or another one when I reach 100 days.
Did this go anywhere?
Also, it's always too sad when you realize an amazing friend started playing again and deleted when you weren't paying attention. :(
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I know it's terribly uncool to revive old dead topics, but I still think this is important. I'd love to have answered a survey on Luria Nova after 3-4 days I joined. Or another one when I reach 100 days.
Did this go anywhere?
No; unfortunately, this, and much else, got shelved due to work on the Doctrine Transition.
We will finish that at some point, though (promise!), and this will be one of the important things on our list then.
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I figured I'd throw in my two cents. I was one of those people who started and then quit (although that was about 5 years ago). I recall immediately falling in love with the atmosphere of the game. I kept playing for about a year, but I lost interest. From what I remember, it felt too much like I was playing a faceless pawn. That was more my fault than other players, as I never tried to RP or create backstory or anything fun. Following your generals orders in war is interesting at first, but loses flair after awhile.
I came back to it on a drunken night a month or so ago. Started a character in Dwilight and EC. In Dwilight I got sucked in pretty good by the dynamic of churches, daimons, and randomly picking a town that was about to secede. It got me interested to figure out what was going on and I've been going through the Wiki like it's a fantasy novel. If there was a wiki back then with the amount of backstory there is now, I must have missed it. That and trying to immerse myself in RP, politics, and trying to create a story make me feel like I'm probably going to stick with BM this time.
Being invested (in a new realm, a power struggle, or creating a story) was what felt missing last time. I don't remember why I chose where I put my characters (probably arbitrary reasons), but Dwilight sucked me in. EC was dead at the time (peace and silence), but after getting sucked in by one continent it made me want to kick up a fuss and MAKE the other continent lively.
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but after getting sucked in by one continent it made me want to kick up a fuss and MAKE the other continent lively.
That ^
Totally agree and felt / feel the same way, though I'm not one for kicking up much of a fuss yet. I figure that comes with playing for enough time and getting bored of the status quo.
But anyways, the key to sticking around for me was IRC. Probably would have stopped playing already without the server and I only started playing a little over a couple weeks ago. Why? Probably because I would've felt either purposeless or overwhelmed. Purposeless in Atamarra and overwhelmed with all the hullabaloo in Dwilight.
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I agree about making an effort to shake things up. It just isn't always easy. Knowing the right buttons (not real buttons) to push can be a challange unless you are a 10 year veteran. I am working at it though!