Brainstorm session - what are we missing/how do we get more players?

[Chalgyr]

So, the basic notion of this, is - as I indicated on my note post on the MUD - is to address several things that hopefully have the same end results.

1) How do we retain the great players we already have?  what is the feature or thing that we can do code or area wise, that would make you want to invest more time into playing here?

2) Perhaps this is related to the above, but how do we get back old players that used to spend a lot of time here, but no longer do?  What would bring a Janus or Valkeo or Koryn out of 'retirement' so to speak? 

Perhaps #'s 1 & 2 are related - maybe the things that would address concerns for #1 would be enough to make those who fall into category #2 dust off their old characters.  The quick answers I usually hear when I ask these kinds of questions are: more roleplay and more players.  Not bad notions, but I think for the purpose of this particular exercise, not terribly realistic answers since those solutions are actually the problems we are trying to adress. 

3) How can we get more new players, and is there anything we can do to keep them?  How did you find out about us?  word of mouth?  A website?  Have you yourself tried to bring any new players in?  Do you know of any good, free places we could advertise a bit?  Is it getting someone to write us a nice player review on TMC, or is there a gaming/rp board out there you participate at that might have like-minded people who would be interested?  What was it about being a player here when you first began that made you decide you wanted to play here?  Were there any things that made you consider running toward the door and not spending your time here?

We can have a set time to discuss some of this stuff on the MUD if that is better, but I thought I would start with a forum post since this allows me to automatically 'track' the ideas and doesn't force everyone to be online at the same time, though it does cut out some of the spontaneous discussion as well. 

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

Chal

[Leesil]

I guess I get to be first.

As far as how and why I came to KOTL, I found it through TMC and checked it out because it had a similar code base to another MUD I had been paying that died due to loss of players. However the reason I stayed and kept coming back was the players and world history at first, and later the constant changes and evolution KOTL has gone through over the last 7-8 years I have been here.

OK so #1 - Keeping the players we have - I would say to continue with what has always made KOTL better than other MUDs, new areas (Yes I will eventually finish the one I'm working on!!!), ongoing changes and (usually) improvements to classes and races and an open environment of contribution and discussion.

#2 - Get back old players - As a relatively old player myself I have to admit that once you get to the top of 4th tier, or even close, things get a little dull because you have pretty much seen and done everything. The new additions for going past 200 are great and really help make it worth going on and I think more along those lines would help. The idea of another tier kind of thing where you can start over in a different class, perhaps with some of your old abilities carried over has been brought up a number of times and if doable would be cool to have. Or maybe revisiting the master classes idea or something similar.

#3 - Bring in new players - This is proably the most important one because new players makes the current and old players want to play more. Getting information about KOTL out would go a long way. raise our TMC rank (when we were in the 30's and pushing for top 20 we got a lot more new people joining), and can we please get pic posted on there!!!! And, I love you Gilly so please don't smite me we know raising kids as well as Chal is a full time and half job, but updating the website would help too. Maybe finding a player or two with experience who have the time and are willing to maintain it would be an idea.

And in a more general sense some new story lines to RP would be great. Maybe Imms working with the supremes and and rulers to put together some new storylines, i.e. Klevnone and Armengar joining forces to take care of those pesky mages in Calararian. Or Murkwood and Armengar working to incite hostilities between Klevnone and Mesilena. Or an outside faction moving into Orelax. (Whatever happened to the story line that started when the new races came in about the Otherworlders?)

Just my 357 dollars and 2 cents worth. (Sorry I went on for so long)

[Chalgyr]

Good suggestions - not too long at all, nothing to apologize for there.  I appreciate the feedback.  As for the pics for TMC, gilly made some up recently.  Just gotta figure out where she put them on the hard drive now... lol.  Please- more feedback gang!

[Daklore]

You need to old custom system with 2000 HP per custom! *grin* Actually what would help improve the game is to make it a less resistance-orientated game. Despite your intentions of "you don't need customs to reach level 200" you need customs to get to level 200, and beyond. As a level 197 Elitist I can hardly level solo because I bloody can't hit anything, what hits me tends to hit harder than I can outheal because I'm not resistance enough to the damtype -- again customs -- and I the only reliable method of attack for me is melee, which most mobs in level 200 areas avoid 90% of your melee hits.

As such what you need to draw in new players is a complete overhaul of the combat system -- and yes I realize this means either A) pwipe and recoding the entire codebase, or B) Make the bloody Scattered Ashes game you always planned on and make it look less ROM-like. I know, the codebase barely resembles stock rom as is, but it -feels- like every other ROM MUD out there. "Kill" "cast" "backstab" whatever to start autocombat. Rinse and repeat. What makes this different from stock rom is the fact that it is a very resistance orientated game, and with so many resistances out there and the limit we have on customs as is (50 per), the higher level areas make it tedious and time consuming to even be able to play -- which is where you're losing your higher leveled players who can't stand the grind.

Also I realize this post hasn't been replied too in gods knows how long, but you asked, I came back after a year, I answered.

You need to overhaul the combat system and either A) make it playable without heavy/full resistances and thusly limit the maximum resistance someone can attain for PK or B) Let us put 75 resistance on customs once more to reduce the grind and let a player with seven customs equally be able to survive level 175-200 zones the same as Enthor can.

Easiest solution: Start on Scattered Ashes and revamp the combat system from scratch.
Hardest solution: Pwipe us and lose all the players you have like the last pwipe (which is where the root cause probably lies)

[Lex]

I agree with dak on -mostly- everything. The only thing I don't completly agree on it the combat system. I think that the simple combat system will help newer players actually stick around. But then again, bores the vetrens. It's kinda a "double-edged sword" so to speak. Maybe by just adding new variations to the combat system it will keep both extremes involved. Oh and another pwipe would definatly be a bad idea.  *nod*

[Chalgyr]

Yeah - it's been about 6 years since the last pwipe - kinda wanna leave that topic alone, LOL.

It is a bit - I dunno, annoying perhaps that players often feel like they need customs to stay alive at higher levels, though - and this is just my opinion/observation; most of the people who leave don't do so around level 150 while they are grinding out customs - it's more like when they hit level 200 and don't have anywhere to go 'up'.  Or if I give them a leadership position (kind of glancing toward Klevnone at the moment).

Scattered ashes... yeah, dunno what to say about that currently.  One thing to keep in mind - back when we were looking at Scattered Ashes, we had 50-60 players a night, and an active imm staff of about 7 with active player builders.  Didn't seem as daunting back then.  I'd be curious what else would be of interest in the main, current framework.  New 'systems' or types of areas, things like that?

[Thescal]

To be completely honest, I agree with Daklore.
I was thinking about writing an idea involving at least some way of tweaking the resistances/skills to orient more of a dodging situation rather than just sitting there and absorbing whatever attacks someone throws at you. And I was one of the ones the MUD lost to the grind of getting customs. *sage* Left at lvl 60 something ish 4th tier, grinding customs.
But I'm back, 'cus I love ya' all too much. =D

[Chalgyr]

And... it's good to see you back.

I'll be honest - I'm not sure how else we'd want to tackle this - I really dislike the idea of a pwipe of any kind ever again.  There are people who've made 200 without full gear - though they got a lot of help in doing so, but that's always sort of how I pictured the end progression as well - to be in a group.  Dunno... seems like we lose a lot of people once they hit 200.  if we make it easier and quicker to do... won't we lose people that much quicker?  dunno

[Thescal]

Team oriented areas less than lvl 200. *sage*
I mean, kinda lifted from WoW, I assume... but, what the heck.
You'd have to level restrict the areas, say you can't even ENTER them UNLESS you're within the level range.
Have the little bad guys easy enough to solo, but as you go on, make it so you'd ACTUALLY need a priest, or enough people to do be able to nuke the enemies before they kill you.
And have the final bad guys in the area have a chance to drop a crystalline or something? I'unno. Just a thought.
It'd give us something fun to do other than grind for lvl 200. =D

[Thescal]

And addendum, have the final boss force you to gain a level every time you kill him. So you can't camp him. o_o Booyah.

[Lex]

I'm with you on everything but the last part. Lotsa exp yeah, but shouldn't be a -guaranteed- level

[Zelos]

Resistance needs to be modified. Just the other day a couple players got into an argument over resistances because one higher lvl was checking on lowbies to make sure they were getting theirs up for later.

This is how it goes, rogues and some of the scouts dodge attacks, the other scouts and warriors block attacks, mages and priests shield themselves with magic of one kind. As it has been said before resistances account for too much of the game play.

A single person that can max all of them can easily solo most anything leaving there to be difficulty in finding things to do. Make there be some challenge to playing instead of the relentless grind that drives people away constantly. Custom equipment should more of a want than a necessity.

Team oriented areas: I like it, I like level restrictions, and I like the no camping idea, possibly some other way of doing it though.

I present the idea of creating a voting system that rewards players for voting everyday with some kind of token or a random amount and type of quest tokens for voting everyday. Not sure how to do it, but I know WoW private servers do this to encourage people to vote everyday and as often as permitted.

(Edit 5/24/10) I was thinking last night while at work watching the blue collar comedy tour for the umtenth time this month and realized something, after you get all your customs, all stats are equal unless your human. I believe each race should have that one stat that they naturally excel in and get a bonus for later, even a point or two can make a big difference. Of course, humans wouldn't get crap, because well, they are humans.

There are my ideas and my opinions.

[Daklore]

Better yet, get rid of stat cap. Seriously, we have all these spells and affects that boost your stats so much, with customs they're pointless. Raise the stat cap to 65/70, or something. Granted level 200's will hate the boosted con they missed out on... *laugh*

[Zelos]

oh well, it can help with balance and making things a little more interesting.

[sye]

reward players that get new players to stay and they get past a certain age../time played and aren't from a static ip like AOL or Mudconnect *for obvious reasons*

Things like fantasy football and festivals really bring out people and get new people, so things like that.

I dont know, I been batting around a few ideas to suggest like something like 'rested' exp, or something that you can gain something by not actually being on.. so people who have a busy schedule can be incouraged to play too.. and people have something forward to look into when they get back on.

Anything from interest to bank money to.. every day not logged in when you log back on you can gain 10 tokens?  or maybe you can get.. something like a personal double exp for 10 mins?  if you haven't logged on in 7 days?  something akin to this, would really get people absorbed into coming back, and also be a nice perk to people with alts (so they can get some kind of bonus)

Who knows.. but some ideas could be batted around.

-Sye out