Discussion: How to bring back old players

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Nunzio
Posts: 68
Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2020 9:47 am
Location: USA, Virginia

Re: Discussion: How to bring back old players

Post by Nunzio » Mon May 24, 2021 11:50 am

So while reading this thread it got me thinking that maybe there could be some kind of specialization you can work towards. Razhak's ideas kind of touch on that and I actually really like them. My idea for specialization was having to do *something* to works towards getting what amounts to free practices in a practice area of your choice. This would show character progression and could be capped at a certain % (or not), but would only work for maybe 1 or 2 practice areas. You might see a bigger variety of play styles if people could specialize on practices.

Kordin
Posts: 712
Joined: Wed Feb 18, 2015 5:17 pm

Re: Discussion: How to bring back old players

Post by Kordin » Mon May 24, 2021 1:34 pm

Dartes wrote:
Mon May 24, 2021 8:19 am
Saif wrote:
Sun May 23, 2021 6:52 pm
Could be an idea to make a "newbie clan" where they can rank up etc. So they get a taste of how clans work. Something akin to when you first log on you get asked if you are a completely new player, if yes they get autoclanned into the "Adventurer" clan.
Hunter of the Horn! Rpish! Newbie can go to Illian Square and pledge to join the Hunt. Adds a bit of adventure and immersion. Could have thematic quests. Makes them explore a bit, feel a part of something, and gets more people to visit a city that's pretty isolated at the moment. It's also politically agnostic, so it would be a good first step without hurting chances at other clans while still being solidly within WoT lore. Win-win.
Half of them will probably end up warranted by Atienne for littering :lol:

Atienne
Posts: 397
Joined: Fri Oct 14, 2016 12:25 am

Re: Discussion: How to bring back old players

Post by Atienne » Mon May 24, 2021 2:26 pm

Kordin wrote:
Mon May 24, 2021 1:34 pm
Dartes wrote:
Mon May 24, 2021 8:19 am
Saif wrote:
Sun May 23, 2021 6:52 pm
Could be an idea to make a "newbie clan" where they can rank up etc. So they get a taste of how clans work. Something akin to when you first log on you get asked if you are a completely new player, if yes they get autoclanned into the "Adventurer" clan.
Hunter of the Horn! Rpish! Newbie can go to Illian Square and pledge to join the Hunt. Adds a bit of adventure and immersion. Could have thematic quests. Makes them explore a bit, feel a part of something, and gets more people to visit a city that's pretty isolated at the moment. It's also politically agnostic, so it would be a good first step without hurting chances at other clans while still being solidly within WoT lore. Win-win.
Half of them will probably end up warranted by Atienne for littering :lol:
we could solve two birds with one stone by making the newbie clan the illian streetsweeper association!

Sanguine
Posts: 351
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2015 9:48 pm

Re: Discussion: How to bring back old players

Post by Sanguine » Tue May 25, 2021 9:04 am

Razhak wrote:
Mon May 24, 2021 7:04 am
People are always confusing things in these kinds of threads. Even in the above posts people are talking about things that attract new players cris-crossed with things to attract old players to come back.

Most old players who left, left because of real life issues making it harder for them to invest the time needed to play. This game is quite time consuming if you want to achieve things, and most old players have actually achieved things already. Hence for them to be enticed to come back, there need be new things for them to achieve.
I'd argue I'm not confusing these things. The thread was titled how to bring back old players, but there is overlap between that and bringing back new players. Just like there is overlap in retaining existing new and old players. I don't think you are 100% correct that players need something to achieve. I think many players would just continue to play for the PK alone, there are players who have achieved everything, Lykan, Jaster, etc., others I'm sure, that continue to play. It's a combination of real life, and getting bored with the game, that I think is why they take a break. Sure, giving them something to achieve is good and important, but why spend imm time giving three players something to achieve when they could be spending more time giving potentially a hundred players something to do early on? When 15 of those 100 players stick around and get okay at PK, it's going to benefit the old three players more than a "rank 10," if you will.
Razhak wrote:
Mon May 24, 2021 7:04 am
This is a totally different beast from how to attract new players. Whereas a new player needs a way to learn, grow and get engrossed into the mud, most old players need a way for them to get back into the mindset where they want to spend (waste??) their time doing things on this mud.
Honest question from your particular point of view, as a player and character, do you think you are wasting your time on this game?
Razhak wrote:
Mon May 24, 2021 7:04 am
Breaking this down, basically new players need:
- newbie quests and/or clans for them to learn
- easy access to gold/basic equipment for them to re-eq and rent after "losing everything"
- good pre-rolled characters on all sides (the whole "experienced players" thing for different sides should be abandoned in my opinion).
I don't disagree with any of those things, but I would say primarily it goes like this, in my opinion of course. Always just my opinion.
1) better/smoother onboarding than Clive. Though, to be fair, I should probably try it from a newbie perspective soon, I don't think I have yet.
2) More importantly I'd rather have an oldbie guide a newbie in a fun experience to get said equipment. And to help them re-eq, because they will die, I hope they die, it's part of the fun. We all probably remember our first death!! Sadistically, I kind of miss newbies at level 10 dying to Smaher or Eleanor or Thwack or whoever it may be. PS if Thwack is still around, please let me know? Dude made my HS hears here SO fun!
3) Stats All right completely different animal to tackle, but I would argue they're okay as he is. Because we still play this game and newbies still come to this game even with that being a broken system! We used to be able to overcome bad stats by rerolls, I'm not sure it's possible anymore? I hope so.
4) This should probably be number zero, but I would argue the most important thing is mutual respect for each other as players of this game. Been a while since I've read it, but I would imagine if you don't break the house guest rule, and all of your actions is a player on this game don't even get close to any of those rules, you are a force of good for the game's growth! If you (the big You, not you who I'm replying to) are doing anything that could be misconstrued as breaking the house guest rule, which boils down to "don't be a dick," then I don't think you are doing the best You can to make Your game a welcoming place for more players to come and be slaughtered by You. You're doing Yourself a disservice.

Sanguine
Posts: 351
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2015 9:48 pm

Re: Discussion: How to bring back old players

Post by Sanguine » Tue May 25, 2021 9:06 am

Nunzio wrote:
Mon May 24, 2021 11:50 am
So while reading this thread it got me thinking that maybe there could be some kind of specialization you can work towards. Razhak's ideas kind of touch on that and I actually really like them. My idea for specialization was having to do *something* to works towards getting what amounts to free practices in a practice area of your choice. This would show character progression and could be capped at a certain % (or not), but would only work for maybe 1 or 2 practice areas. You might see a bigger variety of play styles if people could specialize on practices.
The game would greatly benefit from a small % of RP and/or PK (both, really) actual tangible bonus to grind toward! I bet the Immortals would love to have it! But that's coding, and likely brand new coding, not just tweaking what we have access to.

Mux
Posts: 17
Joined: Wed Jun 02, 2021 7:46 pm

Re: Discussion: How to bring back old players

Post by Mux » Sun Jun 06, 2021 2:53 am

WOTmud is the most immersive game I've ever played. So much to explore and so much to do! Sadly, there aren't as many players online as there used to be. The immortals have fixed much of the grinding crap. Statting is so much easier now than it was before. I think it should be done away with entirely; give everyone 19 19 18 stats and be done with it. Having to run bots to get perfect stats is silly. In general, fix stuff that requires an unhealthy obsession to the game to accomplish. I only have time to spend a few hours a few days a week. Make the game more fun for "casual" players like me. It's already fun enough for the hardcore players. :D For example, I really like the side trades, but it is unfortunate that the payout for them is so low.

Oh, and darkside raiding is a menace. PK used to be practically voluntarily and you could stay out of it if you avoided Fal Dara. Raids were few and far between because they were risky. If a fade took a group of trolls south maybe half of us would die because the humans would group up and attack us with superior numbers. Nowadays, there's almost no risk to it and catching trolls/fades that know what they are doing is almost impossible. Even attacking players in cities is relatively safe. Being attacked by one or more darkies when you are resting in a city square afk or solo-exping trees or whatever is frustrating. Maybe you don't have time to pk or you just don't want to, yet you are "forced" to it. It's not fun.

iria
Posts: 504
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2015 5:35 pm

Re: Discussion: How to bring back old players

Post by iria » Sun Jun 06, 2021 5:31 am

Unsure which time period you're talking about, but DS raids in Andor used to be daily. Chances of running into a group from Caemlyn-WB was way higher than it is these days. I guess if you're a newer player and only started playing within the last couple of years, the lower numbers might have made it seem like that, was definitely a period with a lull in Andor raids a few years back.

I agree with the AFK killing being a shame, hopefully it will be less and less, but who knows. Getting attacked while exping used to be expected. I think many of us still have ptsd of being blicked just as we get the killing hit on an ancient tree so we still sit with notice on doing dia h.dark whenever we're exping, now you can practically sit with an exp trigger doing those exp trainers without too much worry. Sure it still happens, but I feel like you are blowing it out of proportions, or could be you're just fairly unlucky. But this could prompt you to evolve as a player and focus on getting away from the trollocs, might even become fun. As you mention catching people who know what they are doing is relatively difficult, so if you learn a couple escape routes by heart in the areas you exp, this will likely count for you as well.

I think cities being relatively easy to raid for lower numbers is great, there's still plenty of places you can sit if you're afking, cityheads/coulin etc. But it means pk doesn't end whenever numbers become a little too skewed to one side.


Edit: Not to say your experiences are not valid, this is all subjective of course, but I always liked the "sense" of danger the mud had when I was a newer player and it was definitely one of the biggest factors to me sticking around all these years. But I ended up enjoying PK, so I imagine for someone who doesn't like to PK it can be annoying to have to run into a city and put a stop to whatever you were doing beforehand until the trollocs or whoever got bored and went somewhere else.

Mux
Posts: 17
Joined: Wed Jun 02, 2021 7:46 pm

Re: Discussion: How to bring back old players

Post by Mux » Sun Jun 06, 2021 9:49 am

The time period I'm talking about is when there was 100+ players online at the same time. Raiding was very risky for darkies so it wasn't done very often. Nowadays, trolls (and seanchans too!) are all over the map all the time.

Bottom line: I have no intention to "evolve as a player". I have a few hours to play between getting home from work and putting the kids to bed a few days per week. I would like to use them to have some fun in a Wheel of Time-inspired game. Being cannon fodder for players who have played this game since the late 90's is not fun. Maybe it's fun for the old timers (though I don't see it - must be like beating children in chess), but it's not fun for newer players. Two weeks ago me and my partner was ambushed by trolls as we were killing trees. I got away, but she was killed. I haven't seen her online since. There's a reason there's so few multiplayer games that allow unrestricted PK.

Thore
Posts: 378
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2015 2:06 am

Re: Discussion: How to bring back old players

Post by Thore » Sun Jun 06, 2021 10:19 am

Mux wrote:
Sun Jun 06, 2021 2:53 am
Oh, and darkside raiding is a menace. PK used to be practically voluntarily and you could stay out of it if you avoided Fal Dara. Raids were few and far between because they were risky. If a fade took a group of trolls south maybe half of us would die because the humans would group up and attack us with superior numbers. Nowadays, there's almost no risk to it and catching trolls/fades that know what they are doing is almost impossible. Even attacking players in cities is relatively safe. Being attacked by one or more darkies when you are resting in a city square afk or solo-exping trees or whatever is frustrating. Maybe you don't have time to pk or you just don't want to, yet you are "forced" to it. It's not fun.
Actually that's a pretty good point. I experienced it last night and I didn't even realize it. I was 1v1 vs a troll who was clearly lower level and lower starting hit points than me, and I knew someone would come, and sure enough a fade swoops in and they flee trap me and the road. I'm sure I could have played a better, but they were both pretty competent chasers so I died. And quit out of frustration. Not the kind of frustration that will have me raging or a gone for a long time, but the kind that is just bummed that I was actually looking for PK and that is the kind of PK I got. I'm not certain how fun it was for those guys either, and they even took my ABS! Which they are allowed to... But anyway, yeah, raiding PK is in a bad spot.

Are people still playing warriors? Does the damage mitigation help a lot against mobs? Maybe mobs need to hurt a little more now.. maybe we need more mini patty's to fight 1v2 or 2v1 at.. I sort of didn't even have the chance to get to one last night and I was only four or five rooms away from it lol.

Thore
Posts: 378
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2015 2:06 am

Re: Discussion: How to bring back old players

Post by Thore » Sun Jun 06, 2021 10:26 am

iria wrote:
Sun Jun 06, 2021 5:31 am
Unsure which time period you're talking about, but DS raids in Andor used to be daily. Chances of running into a group from Caemlyn-WB was way higher than it is these days. I guess if you're a newer player and only started playing within the last couple of years, the lower numbers might have made it seem like that, was definitely a period with a lull in Andor raids a few years back.

I agree with the AFK killing being a shame, hopefully it will be less and less, but who knows. Getting attacked while exping used to be expected. I think many of us still have ptsd of being blicked just as we get the killing hit on an ancient tree so we still sit with notice on doing dia h.dark whenever we're exping, now you can practically sit with an exp trigger doing those exp trainers without too much worry. Sure it still happens, but I feel like you are blowing it out of proportions, or could be you're just fairly unlucky. But this could prompt you to evolve as a player and focus on getting away from the trollocs, might even become fun. As you mention catching people who know what they are doing is relatively difficult, so if you learn a couple escape routes by heart in the areas you exp, this will likely count for you as well.

I think cities being relatively easy to raid for lower numbers is great, there's still plenty of places you can sit if you're afking, cityheads/coulin etc. But it means pk doesn't end whenever numbers become a little too skewed to one side.


Edit: Not to say your experiences are not valid, this is all subjective of course, but I always liked the "sense" of danger the mud had when I was a newer player and it was definitely one of the biggest factors to me sticking around all these years. But I ended up enjoying PK, so I imagine for someone who doesn't like to PK it can be annoying to have to run into a city and put a stop to whatever you were doing beforehand until the trollocs or whoever got bored and went somewhere else.
Honestly I'm kinda w Mux on this one. The cannon fodder thing is why players like Jaster and Zangief are doing themselves a disservice by playing the most bonused, most kitted out characters they have and also always playing together on the same side and just rolling people over. PK doesn't survive long-term with that occuring frequently. I've spoken to them about it FYI so I'm not just throwing insults around... Anyway hope ya stick around Mux. There ARE things you can do to avoid PK. I did it for a couple years after being called a vulture for something that was literally just me coming back from AFK due to work lol!

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