Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketing.

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Hydroxide
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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by Hydroxide »

I don't think this has been mentioned previously, if it has- sorry..

but what about fixing the spam laden Q & A section on the website first?
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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by morgan1109 »

Let’s stop for a minute and talk about peoples first days, since that is the hindrance we are all trying to solve. You’ve got two types of players joining the game, old vets and people who have never played the game. Let’s call them George and Morgan.

George loads up the game, and goes to picking his character. He probably chooses one of the premade warrior templates. When he gets to the stats screen, he thinks Mages use INT, Rogues use dex, this guy is a warrior so lets dump all those point in strength. He gets in game and immediately starts looking for something to whack on, he finds the smith on edge of town uses his starting gold to buy one or two pieces of armor. Then notices a wolf and decides to attack it. He swings slow as molasses, and maybe gets two or 3 hits in before he dies. He runs around Brit for 15-30 minutes trying to figure out where he needs to go to get rezzed then:
1. Rage quits
2. Gets rezzed, runs back to find his corpse decayed or is guarded by a wolf. Decides to take a chance with his 12 health to get his stuff back and gets killed with one bite, then rage quits.
3. Sits in the bank with no money, no skills, and no idea what to do next

Morgan boots up the game. Makes a 50/49/1 magery/healing/swordsmanship character. Runs to stables and buys a crook to train herding. Makes a second character on second account a 50/50 blacksmith/tinker, and goes about gathering ingots via mining. After about 36 hours his fighter has str/dex/int at 100/85/40 after macroing herding, musicianship, and anatomy. He sells most of his ingots to get some seed money to buy regs, scrolls, and bandages. He uses the rest of his ingots to make a couple sets of AR 26-27 armor, and a couple decent weapons. Then decides it’s time to venture out into the world knowing he can survive and begin working on his actual fighting skills and start “playing” the game.

So basically you end up with a shard filled with vets and masochists. That is unless we as players do something about it. It’s probably obvious by now, that I was morgan six months ago. My next step was to get a rune made to town so I could get back. I asked a lady to nicely mark a rune for me, and offered her the rune and additional regs. She took none of it and instead added me to her guild, gave me 5K worth of stuff. One of the other guildmates loaned me a house and bought me a paladin to train on and gave me a bunch of bandages for the training session. Then when the session was over was treated me to a couple sets of armor. I had access to a rune library. So basically at the 48 hour mark I was ready for some shame dungeon diving and ready to take on some real foes. It was awesome.

The point here is that even though I had a clear path laid out, intervention by other generous players greatly sped up the process. You do need more than vets to sustain this shard though, and something needs to be done to help the georges. I’d suggest starting them with 5K, and 225 stats to distribute so they “can” actually start playing from minute one, but that isn’t era accurate.

What I do right now is if I see a lost ghost running through town, I stop them. I ask if they need rezzed. Once rezzed I ask what happened. The answer will usually tell you whether the player is a new. I usually follow up by asking about stats to be sure. At this point they usually get 30 minutes to an hour of my time. I toss them a good chunk of cash, toss them some armor suits. I talk about what stats might be good for their character and how to raise them. I talk about using a second account to earn some cash while their fighter is macroing. I talk about how you can buy starting skills and how to do it. I gate them to the most appropriate town, and mark them a rune, etc. I talk about razor, I talk about UOAM and how to use it to find the stuff they need. Whatever I think they need to get started, I provide it if I can.

I’d do that far more often, but my problem and I’m sure most people’s problem is in fact identifying those who need help. Quite frankly all I need is a way to identify someone needs help and to show up at the spot of a page, and maybe the power to gate them to a safe place of their choice. I’d gladly give up a slot or one of my three accounts to do that. Being in person is important. When trying to walk someone through buying a skill, being able to be there and see the NPC’s name and type out the exact words they need to say helps a ton. The most important thing here isn’t necessarily the power, it’s being able to identify those who need help. The paging system sounds it would do that, and would be a solid option.
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Varak - Treasure Hunter
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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by AshBorn »

morgan1109 wrote:The most important thing here isn’t necessarily the power, it’s being able to identify those who need help. The paging system sounds it would do that, and would be a solid option.
This and Hydroxide's points are well taken. Identification and QA cleanup. I've definitely experienced problems with both of what you guys are talking about.

Please consider these as well! :)

**I was definitely a Morgan. But even as a Morgan, help was still appreciated big time. Imagine being a George..

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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by morgan1109 »

George was gleaned from personal experience as well. That was pretty much how I started out in 98, LOL. I remember vividly trying to put together a suit of bone armor from the skeletons at Brit graveyard because I couldn’t afford one. Dodging PK’s who were coming through about every 10-15 minutes it seemed like. Good times…

I was a little surprised that was the line you quoted. I thought for sure the line about the shard being filled with vets and masochists would be the first line quoted, heh heh.
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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by AshBorn »

Hahah!

Well as the quote says, it is the most important thing. :)

There are two lines I should have quoted actually to make clear two different points that I think are critical to any new implementations by the staff:

1) Identifying who is a new player;
2) Identifying the type of new player.

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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by Kaivan »

Hydroxide wrote:I don't think this has been mentioned previously, if it has- sorry..

but what about fixing the spam laden Q & A section on the website first?
This is something that we're planning on getting rid of entirely. Most of the information there is redundant, and the need for a separate login to access these resources is cumbersome and impractical.
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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by Kaivan »

AshBorn wrote:With all due respect, I think I'm being misunderstood if my posts showed my focus is help with player run events. It's not. My focus is helping new players get accustomed with the server so they don't hang up their newbie dagger and move elsewhere.
I was just observing what the focus of your posts had been about, and the last two posts have focused nearly entirely on what Counselors could to to help new players, and how they could also help with player run events. Our Companion system provides about as much practical help as can be expected from other players, where volunteers can help newer players with questions and show them some of the tactics that they have learned for starting out, should the newer player want it. They also help with answering some pages in a more timely manner, which not only helps to reveal anyone who may be a newer player but also improves the general response time we have to page requests. These tasks don't require any more power than we originally gave our Companions, which means that any discussion that involves the expansion of power is squarely within the second category of your response, which is the ability to help with player run events.
When I first started here, after I left being a counselor at IPY, I met Stranger who showed me the ropes. If not for him, I likely would have moved on quickly. The idea of starting all over again and learning a new server was very daunting even for a UO veteran. He turned me into a server vet of three years who helps new players each time I possibly can. He answered my questions and much more. Players do help now, definitely. But I think there is room for some improvement from the staff, and I gather that you agree with that point.
I certainly understand the idea of finding a mentor, but that is the type of thing that squarely falls on the shoulders of other players, and the Companion system allowed players to help in that particular role by showing newer players the ropes (much like morgan was explaining), or by simply showing an entirely green player how to do basic tasks, and explaining how they could get ahead. Beyond that point, and the reason I bolded your last sentence, staff should not permanently interfere with the game, as this directly interferes with the T2A mechanics. So in short, no, I don't really see what practical improvements can be made on the staff side of things that don't greatly interfere with the mechanics at large.
I appreciate the long response in addressing everything. It seems to me that whatever happened in the past with counselors has had quite a lasting effect. Ultimately it seems you want to help the paging problem with only giving the bare minimum of trust (the trust required to appropriately answer pages without trolling new players, and whatever else the companions could do - the help stuck thing you mentioned and anything else I don't know about).

As you said, very small powers were abused in the past. Well they may have been but that doesn't mean they will be in the future. I think there are people here who could be trusted with more than just the absolute minimum. You guys are extremely weary of trusting anyone. Im not judging you for this but merely attempting to point out that it could be time to keep moving forward and try again. (As you did with blaze, roadkill, and anarcho. That worked out very well, I'm sure you agree)
While some of this philosophy was already in place before I came on board, I had a large hand in crafting our overall policy for exactly what our separation of power are, so I can speak to exactly what we will and won't allow. On UOSA, if you have any elevated privileges to manipulate the world in any way, you MUST be at GM level, and MUST have no player accounts. Simply put, this is a hard line on the separation of players from staff as a way of reducing the potential for abuse and promote impartiality. This issue of abuse, which has a lot of historical examples of abuse on virtually every shard out there (UOG, Defiance, Metropolis, IPY, etc.) is the entire reason we got rid of the actual Counselor position. Given that, there is no practical way to allow Companions to have any real effect on the world, and as a result, what they can do must necessarily be limited in scope. The obvious corollary of additional GMs is not something that we are currently looking for, and is a process that we are very careful with, as we expect a large amount of responsibility from our staff members, and want to reduce the potential for abuse as much as possible. Unfortunately, even with this system in place, we've had abuses both at the companion level with the most basic of power, and we've had abuse at the GM level as well, so we're not willing to take any associated risk with elevated privileges for Companions (ever) or new staff (at this time).
To reiterate, my focus is helping new players. Whatever that may entail. From the simplest form, answering pages as a companion or counselor, to a more complicated form - GM who creates an intriguing new player quest line that expands on the current tutorial system or creates other things with the sole focus of new player retention. (I think a lot of good could be done here) gargoyles are great, but they don't exactly help new player retention. They help current player, who already have skilled up quite a bit, retention. Very good thing imo, but not really for fresh recruits; other than giving them something really cool to look forward to.
This is generally what I was referring to above when I referenced the lack of ways that staff could improve things in game. The gargoyle quest line isn't designed as a permanent quest line, and is intended to replicate the large Seer run quests on OSI servers. At some point in time it will be done, and the game will return to normal operation. What you're proposing, is a permanent quest line that is intended to assist new players with acclimating and perhaps even establishing themselves on the server. This is something that is akin to the quest lines found during mid to late UOR on the island of Haven, and they fall well outside of what we as staff members can or should do. The idea of helping newer players get started falls nearly entirely on the shoulders of other players, and we must necessarily take a hands off role in this regard, as we are dealing with the T2A era.
The things I would like to see, in order of priority:

1) Pages being timely answered (if population increases, this problem will expand)
This is something that can likely be partially solved via Companions should we choose to have them around, but the practicalities of life will get in the way of these things. We can't be at the keyboard all of the time as this isn't our job, and this means that sometimes pages will be answered after being in the queue for a long time, and sometimes this means that pages will just go unanswered.
2) New system for acclimating new players to the shard - storyline, a staff member showing up to greet them, answering questions about why the shard is different, and being on hand as a new player needs assistance (a lot of this is similar to the paging priority).
I addressed this particular issue above, but I'll restate it here. We cannot add in a quest line that is intended to help newer players, as that is enitrely out of line with the mechanics of the era.
3) Expanding on what Boomland does. Everything he has done has been a hit with the community. Double down on what works. Gargoyles, bagball, potion wars, monster bash, etc. I don't necessarily mean double the frequency. Doubling the types of things however would be great!
There really isn't a need to expand on what Boomland currently does. There are two separate quest lines being run, and fairly regular and varied types of events are already being run. We don't need more of that, arguably less.
4) Marketing. Boom does do this, but it deserves its own category. Hell, staff a marketing specialist. Someone who's soul job is marketing. Give them a red name on the forums so they feel special and their title is respected. They can take over this part so the rest of you can focus on what you do best. From Facebook, to search engines, to compiling a deserved YouTube channel, this category is infinitely expansive and could use its own specialist. This person could also forum moderate if that is lacking at all. No in game powers are needed.
I'll address this point at the bottom of the post, at least in part.
To reiterate an idea from another member of the community, as marketing goes -
Chicanery wrote: i think with the resources we have at our hands today, we can greatly improve the efficiencies of getting the right information to the right group of people who need it by utilizing YouTube. if we can set videos up on relevant stuff such as how to use razor, how to cycle a halberd (with a video that doesn't have a duration larger than 3 minutes), and other useful information.

i challenge you to reach out to the appropriate staff member and take the lead on creating a UOSA learner's YouTube channel and compile videos that are necessary for new people to come in and enjoy the shard at 90% less the hardship
5) Updating the website, wiki, etc. I know boom and the rest of you have been working on this but it's still not finished. The wiki is the most crucial. At least change the link on the site to forward to Booms wiki. New players will have no idea Booms wiki exists. Perhaps a client for Macs posted in the download section. Apple is huge now and we are missing that entire base. I tried to get it to run on my Mac and it's basically up to VMware. This would take a lot of effort for sure, so maybe it's something to look into down the road.
Updating the website is something that we are certainly working on, as well as the wiki. Once we do roll out the new website, the links will point to the proper locations for the wiki. As for an apple client, there is no practical way to natively run such a client on a Mac for the exact same reason that there is no practical way to run it on a Linux machine: The client binaries are compiled to run using Windows APIs and making them natively compatible with either system requires coding an entirely new client from scratch. Needless to say this is well outside the scope of what we or any other server can or should do, so players are stuck with the various virtualization solutions for running the game on other operating systems. A good alternative could be an entry into the wiki from someone who has actually installed their client under these operating systems, but that's about as much as can be expected.
6) Assisting players in whatever kinks they need worked out to try new, player ran, event ideas. As for me saying boom could answer what this means, I merely meant to say that he could tell us what he does on this subject so we could be more specific to what is required.
Short of offering suggestions, there is little that we can do to facilitate events for players beyond what we already do with announcements, broadcasts, and gates to the event location. We can't unreasonably interfere with the world at large to allow players to run their events, and largely the only additional assistance we could provide would be to manipulate the actual environment in a way that a player could not do on their own.
** I apologize if some of this is off topic to the OP (such as marketing and website work). But it all seemed to tie together in a general theme.
I'd like to point anyone who reads this post to this post that I just made regarding the intent of this forum. I think that this is a very important message to consider, because this particular statement suggests that this thread, and in some sense this forum, isn't supposed to be about these sorts of things. This forum directly exists to tackle these issues, and threads like this that focus on changing (at least somewhat) the game at large don't have a lot of bearing on the issues of trying to build up resources and strategies to support the game itself.

Given that, your suggestion regarding marketing is generally what Boomland specializes in. Effectively he's already filling the role of marketing and community specialist, and this forum is part of his efforts in that regard.
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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by Dunder Mifflin Inc »

Customer retention is more important than customer acquisition.

If you gain 1000 new players here and only 20 stay and actually play the game over a long period of time then who cares. I would rather only gain 200 new players and have 100 of them stay and play.

The marketing and retention need to come together at the same time to keep the acquired players here for the long haul. Otherwise, we are just spinning our wheels.

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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by morgan1109 »

You hit the nail on the head, Ash. If Ash, myself, and others can identify new players (newly created accounts), we can ease them into the game. This game is very unforgiving to the uninitiated. Giving us tools to identify these people and help them adjust to the game will help the server population quite a bit.

I don’t need special powers, necessarily. What I really need is information. It could be something as simple as changing the color font of their name if the account is under 7 days old, etc. Now that would mean the whole world would know and there is a contingent that would take advantage of that. I think overall it would be a net positive.

Another option would be allowing a select few to view a queue of young accounts online and location of account avatar in the game. We can swing by and welcome them to the game. Ask if they have any questions or need anything, etc. That would be very rewarding and very beneficial to the shard. It’s easy enough to pull that information from the server, and load it to a password protected webpage. You wouldn’t even need to change any of the game mechanics. I might need tracking on the character if they are moving around a lot.
Thanks,

Eomin - Armsman
Varak - Treasure Hunter
Djimon - Smith/Tinker/Carpenter
Lorne - Scribe
Herm - Assassin

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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by Kaivan »

Dunder Mifflin Inc wrote:Customer retention is more important than customer acquisition.

If you gain 1000 new players here and only 20 stay and actually play the game over a long period of time then who cares. I would rather only gain 200 new players and have 100 of them stay and play.

The marketing and retention need to come together at the same time to keep the acquired players here for the long haul. Otherwise, we are just spinning our wheels.
Both are valuable assets to have, but one generally implicates making changes to the product or service itself in order to increase retention. UOSA has never been about maximizing retention of players, as we're providing a very specific environment; we aren't stylized on the T2A era, we are trying to replicate the mechanics as closely as possible. As a result, our focus needs to be on things that don't affect the game overall such as new player quest systems, or changing the hue of new player names, but must focus on things external to the game itself.
morgan1109 wrote:You hit the nail on the head, Ash. If Ash, myself, and others can identify new players (newly created accounts), we can ease them into the game. This game is very unforgiving to the uninitiated. Giving us tools to identify these people and help them adjust to the game will help the server population quite a bit.

I don’t need special powers, necessarily. What I really need is information. It could be something as simple as changing the color font of their name if the account is under 7 days old, etc. Now that would mean the whole world would know and there is a contingent that would take advantage of that. I think overall it would be a net positive.

Another option would be allowing a select few to view a queue of young accounts online and location of account avatar in the game. We can swing by and welcome them to the game. Ask if they have any questions or need anything, etc. That would be very rewarding and very beneficial to the shard. It’s easy enough to pull that information from the server, and load it to a password protected webpage. You wouldn’t even need to change any of the game mechanics. I might need tracking on the character if they are moving around a lot.
Again, much of what you're suggesting is something that can be handled via the Companion system. New players can be identified within that system, and Companions can get in contact with other players who are known to help new players to help those new players out. Sure this adds some extra steps, but even when a player acts in the role of a Companion, there must be some separation between those Companions and their player characters.

Beyond that, and as a flat statement on the issue, there won't be any additional powers given to anyone who is in a player position. This means that a Companion system where you can help walk new players around and explain the game to them, answer basic pages, and perhaps even show up to events is a reasonable possibility, but we won't be giving extra information or access to regular players on regular accounts, even if it is outside of the game (edit: This, of course, refers to things in-game).
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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by morgan1109 »

Bah! When I first read your post K, I was ready to say sign me up as a companion. Then I got to the part where I couldn't play the game anymore. I get why you want that degree of separation. I won't even argue the point because it's sound. I'm just too selfish to give up actually playing the game to solely help. I'd prefer to do both.

I guess i'll keep helping the 1-2 a week I do now, rather than the 5-10 I would like to help each week.
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Djimon - Smith/Tinker/Carpenter
Lorne - Scribe
Herm - Assassin

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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by Kaivan »

I'll clarify what I meant. If the Companion system would come back under any circumstances, the requirement would be that in order to log on to a Companion account, the player would be unable to log on to any other account from that IP address while that Companion account was connected. Effectively, you are either playing, or you're acting in the role of a Companion, not both at the same time.
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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by AshBorn »

As for my post being in the wrong forum, I can see what you mean. But to be fair, it was headlined as "Community Advancement" and advancement I see as two things: Recruiting new players; and retaining new players. Marketing does not retain new players. So what does? Suggestions.

This thread did sort of morph into suggestions and era accuracy. Maybe it's time to move it?

---

Anyway -

The mac client thing - it does not have to be a recoding. It can just be a wine bundled package with the UOSA client like UOR has for its shard. That is not a ton of work as far as I know.

----

As for new player retention and the shard's purpose of achieving maximum era accuracy, those two items are not mutually exclusive.

You have us at a disadvantage since we do not know all the facets of this companion program. It sounds like a good idea if counselors, who are era accurate, are out of the question - as it seems they are.

---

As for the new player story line I suggested - Yes having a direct permanent story line is NEA. However, that doesn't mean the idea should be put to death. It does not have to be permanent. There can be a low level story line one month that uses orcs, and another the next month that uses sewer rats. It can be ever changing, and completely in line with what Seers did and what Boom currently does, just on a new player level. It could be the exact same thing as gargoyles except it revolves around low level mobs and not balrons/stone gargoyles. Instead of dropping silver off kills, maybe they drop logs or ingots.

There are era accurate ways to help new players get started. One way is as you suggested, a companion program. Another way could be like I suggested - with tweaks to be even more era accurate.

I think if the shard can be era accurate, and have new player retention ideas implemented, then that follows with the shard's stated purpose.

If you want ALL player retention responsibility to lie on the shoulder's of players, which seems to be the case, then yes of course this whole thread is probably worthless. Personally, I think the responsibility falls on both staff and the player base, and it should abide by era accuracy.

-----

As for giving additional powers to people in player positions, I understand that point 100%. Don't do that then if you don't feel its worth the risk. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't find people who are not in a player position to implement some of the things I and others have suggested.

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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by morgan1109 »

If all I am sacrificing by being a player companion is I can’t play two accounts at a time when in companion mode, sign me up. Companion work is a full time deal anyway. You can’t do it as a secondary activity. I think it would go a long way to easing the burden of starting fresh on the shard.

I’m not saying it’s the only thing we should do. I’m just saying it would be a good start and a step in the right direction. I’d like to learn more about what a companion entails and when it might be implemented.
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Lorne - Scribe
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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by Kaivan »

AshBorn wrote:As for my post being in the wrong forum, I can see what you mean. But to be fair, it was headlined as "Community Advancement" and advancement I see as two things: Recruiting new players; and retaining new players. Marketing does not retain new players. So what does? Suggestions.

This thread did sort of morph into suggestions and era accuracy. Maybe it's time to move it?
I don't really think that there is much to discuss regarding the overall suggestion of Counselors. If they return, they will exist as player Companions, and will have a limited role on the server, mainly focused on answering basic questions and greeting new players.
The mac client thing - it does not have to be a recoding. It can just be a wine bundled package with the UOSA client like UOR has for its shard. That is not a ton of work as far as I know.
It's true that we could simply provide a WINE package for Mac compatibility, or we could direct players who would like to connect using a Mac to a guide for doing just that via multiple programs, given that multiple virtualization options exist for Mac.
As for new player retention and the shard's purpose of achieving maximum era accuracy, those two items are not mutually exclusive.

You have us at a disadvantage since we do not know all the facets of this companion program. It sounds like a good idea if counselors, who are era accurate, are out of the question - as it seems they are.
I didn't say that player retention and era accuracy were necessarily mutually exclusive, but that our man goal is mechanical accuracy, not player retention. If such player retention goals interfere with that goal, we do prioritize one over the other.

As for the Companion program, here's what they could and couldn't generally do while logged in as a Companion.
  • Companions could move to new players and greet them using a listing of new players.
  • Companions could answer basic pages about questions and could facilitate some stuck requests by presenting the town selection option to stuck players.
  • Companions could not interact with the world in meaningful way, as they were basically living ghosts.
  • Companions could hide and unhide their own character.
  • Companions could send system messages to specific players.
  • Companions could broadcast messages to other staff members.
  • Companions could view some basic properties of players and items.
  • Companions could make themselves visible to players while hidden.
  • Companions could request that a player opens their browser to a specific webpage.
As for the new player story line I suggested - Yes having a direct permanent story line is NEA. However, that doesn't mean the idea should be put to death. It does not have to be permanent. There can be a low level story line one month that uses orcs, and another the next month that uses sewer rats. It can be ever changing, and completely in line with what Seers did and what Boom currently does, just on a new player level. It could be the exact same thing as gargoyles except it revolves around low level mobs and not balrons/stone gargoyles. Instead of dropping silver off kills, maybe they drop logs or ingots.
Transforming a permanent low level quest from one type of quest into another type of quest over a period of time does not change the fact that some sort of quest of this nature would be constantly going on. The point is that our storyline quests are temporary, and once they're done, the world will return to normal, whereas a transforming low level quest will simply mean that there is some constant quest system in place for new players to get a foothold, which isn't something that should be here.
There are era accurate ways to help new players get started. One way is as you suggested, a companion program. Another way could be like I suggested - with tweaks to be even more era accurate.
I'm not sure how a constant quest system, which was never a feature of T2A is defined as "more accurate". However, what can be done is producing better information outside of the game, which is going to be community generated for the most part. Sure, some of it is going to involve a reconstruction of the website (fixing broken links, new layout, etc.), and new guides for getting started such as the aforementioned Mac guide, but pretty much all of this process will take place outside of the game.
If you want ALL player retention responsibility to lie on the shoulder's of players, which seems to be the case, then yes of course this whole thread is probably worthless. Personally, I think the responsibility falls on both staff and the player base, and it should abide by era accuracy.
The vast majority of all player retention responsibility will generally fall on the shoulders of players, as most of the real effect we can have on the retention of players involves changing the game itself to be more welcoming to those players. Of course, as I mentioned above, that doesn't mean that all player retention is on the shoulders of the players, as it is possible for us to provide better information (a la website, wiki, basic guides, etc.), but beyond that, our hands are tied.
As for giving additional powers to people in player positions, I understand that point 100%. Don't do that then if you don't feel its worth the risk. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't find people who are not in a player position to implement some of the things I and others have suggested.
A lot of what has been suggested in this thread involves in-game changes, and aren't really relevant to outside community building. Other suggestions found in other threads such as better youtube information, guides, improvements to our web pages (wiki, main page), as well as e-mail newsletters have all been suggested, and we're certainly considering those ideas.
UOSA Historian and former staff member: August 11, 2008 - June 19, 2016

Useful links for researching T2A Mechanics

Stratics - UO Latest Updates - Newsgroup 1 - Noctalis - UO98.org

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