Bring in New Players and Make Sure Old Ones Stay!

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Brandmeister Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Postmaster General Joined: 12 Oct 2012 Location: Laoshin Status: Offline Points: 2396	Post Options Post Reply Quote Brandmeister Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 01 Dec 2014 at 06:49
	I see it as a problem that players are told that Tenaril is precious, and that they should save it. That condemns them to a slow, lonely start in the newb ring. If Tenaril functioned like an instant exodus, it would be much better for joining a new alliance. I think it also frustrates people to spend weeks building up to a Warehouse 20, then 5 days on Exodus, only to trash it all when they move. I have said elsewhere that the community's discouragement of hunting, small armies, diplomats, and harvesting has killed the interest of many new players. The community doesn't allow newbies to take any action against each other, even scouts, without an unnecessary level of threats and interference. As to the larger gridlock, that's just a result of a permanent game where annihilation is possible. People are reluctant to take the risk on wars. Unfortunately that leads to boredom, and to minor conflicts attracting interest from bored big players who perceive little personal risk. To be fair, those tectonic plates have broken free twice in two years, leading to massive wars.

Veneke Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Wordsmith Joined: 07 Nov 2014 Status: Offline Points: 116	Post Options Post Reply Quote Veneke Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 01 Dec 2014 at 06:19
	Frankly I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that somebody thought it was a good idea to allow players have two accounts. However, if you're convinced by the argument to go from 1 to 2, it strikes me as much less problematic to go from 2 to 3. -- I can't speak much about how more established players feel, but as a new player the start of the game is pretty rough going. The problem, as I see it, is two-fold. First, the mechanics oblige a month-long newbie cycle, more or less. During this time you are essentially forced to beg, either from the community at large or your alliance. It's a disturbing experience, all things considered. Worse, this state of affairs seems to continue if you want to develop at any reasonable pace. I'm 3 weeks into the game, and despite having been fed res by GC, and my alliance, and I'm still around a week off the point where I can Exodus/Siege. That's really the point at which you leave the newbie phase. If there's a reason why newbie retention is so poor I'd definitely consider chalking it up to that month-long start. Second, the community is extremely averse to warfare and confrontational politics, both of which typically drives MMOs elsewhere. For a start, it's pretty common for new people to be told not to bother with the military at all. No new player wants to hear that the most exciting mechanics available to the game can be ignored. The few times actual politics has been discussed in GC invariably results in people being told to talk about it privately or, worse, some far more established player will threaten a level of action against others that prevents conflict between two, clearly bored, smaller players/alliances. Making stuff build faster and cheaper up until level 10 doesn't address the first issue. The longest time to completion, and res requirements is between level 15 and 20. Allowing them to hit level 10 more quickly will speed things up by a few days at most. So instead of having your second city in a week or so, you'll have it in under a week - then you'll have a long slog to Exodus/Siege/third city. In fact that switch from rapid to slow development will be made all the more apparent by the faster/cheaper building before level 10. As for the second, I'm not sure there's any solution for that. Which is a pity really, as I'm inclined to the view that it's really this which drives most new players away. -- A new server is a fine idea, but it'll only stay a level playing field for so long. Plenty of other MMOs with persistent worlds start new servers reasonably regularly, but just doing it once is not going to change anything in the medium to long term for new people coming to the game. It'll prove interesting to existing players, of course, but that's only one half of the problem - and given the number of people playing Illyriad, it's the smaller half.
	"May have been the losing side, still not convinced it was the wrong one." - Captain Malcolm Reynolds

Rill Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Postmaster General Player Council - Geographer Joined: 17 Jun 2011 Location: California Status: Offline Points: 6903	Post Options Post Reply Quote Rill Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 01 Dec 2014 at 06:17
	I think if you look at the attrition pattern in Illy, of course there is a lot of attrition immediately (in the first week). But then another "wave" of attrition comes after players settle their third city. So I don't think speeding up building is necessarily the answer for keeping folks long term. Speeding up building without speeding up resource production would be counterproductive, I believe. In fact, it has already been done once -- build times were substantially reduced for low-level buildings early in Illy history (before I began playing in June 2011). However, the rate of resource production was not also increased, and that has resulted in the situation that occurs today with new players essentially being dependent on the goodwill of the community to make substantial progress early on. It's certainly possible to progress independently (as my Newb Diaries post elsewhere demonstrates), but it is painstakingly slow. So I would suggest rather than looking to build times, look at resource production at low levels, or if build times are decreased again at least balance this with increased resource production.

ajqtrz Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Postmaster Joined: 24 May 2014 Location: USA Status: Offline Points: 500	Post Options Post Reply Quote ajqtrz Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 01 Dec 2014 at 04:09
	I suspect that no matter what "barrier" you place, somebody, or a lot of somebodies will reach it. Even in LoU you couldn't have more than 1001 cities and I would have made that in a few more months myself on one server. Unfortunately, given the nature of a digital world, there will always be some kind of limit. The 10 city limit (per account) is not really the problem, it is the maximum population of each city, which means the number of buildings you can build. Again, an artificial limit. If you want to retain people who have reached the limits you must make the upkeep of those limits more difficult to maintain. In other words, production should decrease over time if not attended to in some way or other by the player. There needs to be a law of entropy built into the game. Wars and tournaments provide this, but if the devs don't have the time to be constantly creating them, and the players would rather not fight amongst themselves, declining production and high maintenance is probably the only way. Along these lines it appears that once you reach a certain level of pop you can generate far more res than you can use in a peaceful environment. The storage of this abundance in hubs should be limited and costly above a certain point. Again, this means players would have to pay more attention to their cities and thus, could not just store up huge amounts. As for the new server. Why not? A new server could be used to make changes, build excitement, and let everybody start from scratch on an "even playing field." Like most games, if you get there late the party is already half over and somebody has already emptied the keg. And finally, as to accelerating the first city, I do think a faster start time, however that is done, is a good thing. Perhaps just something as simple as having a queue of 4 until you get your first level 10 building would do the trick. Much of the early loss of players, I think, is due to their being very small but not being able to get to their second city fast enough. That second city really does help the desire to stay so make it easier and retain players as a side benefit. AJ

Eons Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Greenhorn Joined: 16 Nov 2014 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 52	Post Options Post Reply Quote Eons Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 01 Dec 2014 at 02:53
	oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I like.

Wartow Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Postmaster Joined: 20 May 2014 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 870	Post Options Post Reply Quote Wartow Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 01 Dec 2014 at 02:38
	Eons - As Rill said in GC, congrats on your enthusiasm, but the ideas here need more work. My additional thoughts: -- The time an account can have a sitter must come from a balance that is accrued based on the number of active days. Everyone should get 14 days when they begin the game. Additional days are earned for each 20 calendar days of active participation. The most sitting days one can keep in their account is 30 days. -- I'm not sure the answer to more active accounts is to increase the number of accounts that one can own. I'd like to see a more complete use of magic, T3 diplos (see NoneTooBright for more info), and corresponding additional research to keep existing users busy. -- I'd also favor taking a cap off of the maximum number of cities that can be owned by a single player. The increased cost for additional cities should make achieving a large number of cities difficult and dependent on a highly functioning alliance. Speaking of alliances... how about a maximum number of cities for each alliance, rather than a maximum number of players, and make this limit based on the percentage of total players (or total cities or total population) in the game? -- Or... an alternative to increasing the total number of cities may be to treat sov structures as mini-cities. In addition to the graphic component on the map, and a new city view, these sov spaces can have a primary function (the structures we know them now), but additional capacity to produce resources along with a small capacity to store pretty much anything. These sov spaces are subject to diplo and military attack and a small capacity for defense. -- The closing of Lord of Ultima (LoU) earlier this year was a missed opportunity for Illyriad. While Illyriad has no "end game" an opportunity for LoU migrants to get involved in an LoU-style (extended) tournament would have been a great way to get people involved. I've been here since May and the sum of the excitement of the entire server has been Audrey and the changing of the seasons. Again, I appreciate the slow development and long-term nature of Illyriad but more events that can be a common experience for the game has the potential to draw players closer to each other and increased loyalty to the game. -- Just as in life... this game has economic influences on behavior... with lots of space with the introduction of the BL and plenty resources there is little motivation from an economic sense for conflict. Perhaps a game-wide natural disaster resulting in resource scarcity, aggressive factions forcing people from where they have settled, or NPC/Audrey hits on cities or caravans, would change some behavior of the community without crushing the generally friendly atmosphere in the game? So concludes my largely unsolicited opinions... \/\/artow


Sheza Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Forum Warrior Joined: 16 Oct 2012 Location: Kumala Status: Offline Points: 325	Post Options Post Reply Quote Sheza Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 01 Dec 2014 at 02:20
	No other servers..... new lands with differant quests and creatures .. and three accounts No.thanks .. please. maybe more cities .. rather have more space in my city . Edited by Sheza - 01 Dec 2014 at 16:16
	If Horses don't go to Heaven when they die. then I want to go where they go.

Eons Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Greenhorn Joined: 16 Nov 2014 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 52	Post Options Post Reply Quote Eons Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 01 Dec 2014 at 02:06
	*Ammendment to 2. If the possibility for three accounts were to arise, it would definitely be crucial to: greatly limit the ability of sitters, remove perma-sat accounts, or maybe even limit the number of sat accounts to one per character.

Consul Zynot Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Wordsmith Joined: 08 Aug 2014 Status: Offline Points: 110	Post Options Post Reply Quote Consul Zynot Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 01 Dec 2014 at 01:49
	Number 2- NO 3 ACCOUNTS? no more perma-sats . Edited by Consul Zynot - 01 Dec 2014 at 01:49

Eons Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Greenhorn Joined: 16 Nov 2014 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 52	Post Options Post Reply Quote Eons Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 01 Dec 2014 at 01:48
	4. A reward program for the players of Illy that have been here for years(or months), I'll leave the details on this one up to you guys to figure out.

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