zone population

[Weak]

Hey everyone, I'm curious about what you all think/feel on what we can do to really increase/maintain our members and also what we can do as a group or individually to attract new members. Especially now that the zone has been down for a bit I've talked to numerous people who say they won't return to the game and plenty more who miss it dearly (myself included). My first thought is that there's too much of a discrepancy in terms of new players positively interacting with the veterans of this game. . Weather that be twd, elim, pub, or even events. Maybe we can come up with a reward system to encourage proactive behavior?

[MegamanEXE]

This thread again? I'll get right to the point.



STEP 1. ADVERTISE

Lack of advertsing is the one thing causing all of our problems. No new players coming in and old players slowly hemorrhaging = shrinking and stagnating population.

How to fix this? Advertise. Put the damn money to work already, and don't half-ass it like has been done before. The biggest recent advertising push that I can remember is buying banner space on 420chan, but advertising to such a niche website, one not even related to gaming, did nothing to help our population problem. More, and relevant, eyes need to be on our ads.

How to advertise? SS/C gained popularity in the early days with the "meet people from around the world... then kill them" tagline. That worked in the era before internet gaming became commonplace, because the concept was new and interesting. But now that basically everyone has an internet connected PC with games, or a 360 or PS3 or some other internet connected console, the novelty has worn off. Therefore, new ads need to focus on other attractive aspects of Continuum.

What to advertise? Free-to-play gaming is one of the current trends in the gaming industry. It attracts people who would not otherwise play games, and often cater to people with lower-spec computers. However, people can become frustrated by pay-to-win aspects of such games. Therefore, push the line that Continuum is Free. Free. FREE! Fully free-to-play! No pay to win bullshit! Play on your great-grandmother's rig! Have as much fun as you want, without worrying about wallet warriors.

What else to advertise? The social aspect of the game. In many games, people are just names on a screen. Here, chatting is a central aspect, and people have personalities. Also, moddability of servers.




STEP 2. ENGAGE

So the ads have drawn a few people in. But they bounce right off: They log in once, stay for a few minutes, and leave, never to be seen again. Why? NO TUTORIAL! New players, especially those not accustomed to selecting servers every time they want to play a game, have to learn a lot before they even start the game in the first place. Once they get to the zone select screen, they don't have any indication where to go, especially if they don't have the right biller set. They might not even make it into TW at all before bouncing.

How to fix this? Work on the client download if possible. Make sure the billing server is correct, or offer a comprehensive yet friendly tutorial on the download page.

What next? Once they get into TW, they need a fantastic tutorial. How to implement this is still a major question, but needs to cover everything necessary to start playing and nothing else, otherwise they will get bored or intimidated and leave before getting their first kill. Also, I have tried to get a few people to play this game, and they all seemed mystified by ship movement, much less learning how to aim. Moving target bots would be a major asset in helping new players to understand the physics of Continuum.

What about after the tutorial? Engage with the newbies! Less intimidation = less bounce. Getting shot by a 15 year vet spamming "get gud fgt" macros is a sure way to turn people off to the community. If you see a newbie trying to dogfight in spawn with a jav, give them some direction so they won't get frustrated at dying without knowing why. Invite them to your squad, show them the ropes, and treat them as valuable community members. Also, make sure they understand how to use the .?help command to get staff help when they need it.




STEP 3. GROW

Now you have some new players who actually know how to fly and fight at a basic level. Great! But eventually, they will get bored of just shooting people in spawn and base.

How do we keep them coming back? Simple: events. Events in a general sense: hosted events and leagues, TWD, and TWL. Everyone plays TW game differently: some people like sitting in pub. Others like playing in leagues. Others like playing events. I am of the third camp: what kept me coming back to TW as a new player was the constant hosted events: always something new every day. They helped me learn how to fly even better, by challenging what I learned in pub. Wallbouncing and flying translates to racing. WBing translates to freezetag. And so on. Other than hosted events, keep pushing TWD and TWL as a method of organized play, to form close relationships with squadmates, and even rivals, with TWL being the final goal for the competition-oriented player.

Why not push TWD/TWL first? Because they require a deep knowledge of how the game operates in order to have any measure of success. What we, as veterans, take for granted, is our innate ability to put our ships exactly where we want them, whenever we want them. We have learned little tricks and maneuvers that are hard to explain, but come about through constant practice. Learning how to pilot ships in pub an unstructured pub setting, then learning new flight skills in events, gives the experience necessary to know how to fly and fight in a competitive setting. Still, allow new players to do what they want to do, and let them mature in their own unique way.



There. That's the simple way to increase and maintain population. Get people downloading, get them playing, and get them addicted. This will require the cooperation of everyone left here in TW, but if it's pulled off right, it could be a major turning point in Continuum's history. Here's to the next 15 years of Subspace.

[MegamanEXE]

Also, something I just thought of: be mindful of people using adblock. Many technical-minded people who would have a head start in learning the game, wouldn't see traditional advertising in the first place.

There are other methods of advertising. Probably the most effective would be to get a Youtube personality to play the game. I remember a few months ago that someone had said something about working with NerdCubed. This game would be a fantastic candidate for his Three Free Games Friday series, as seen here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...Zg8NUGWfiBLj1X

[Fork]

Well krynetix has added a map to tw pub (made by wormsurfer) as a trial to see if players (especially new players) like the new look and hope that new players stick around. Things could be trialled/ altered to meet the needs of the majority. Go check it out.

[paradise!]

we don't have a fully functional zone up and running yet. all of these discussions are premature until at least we get back on priit's server.

[Slum]

para, how come you ain't even entered the ASSS zone ? you too good for ASSS?

[Crescent Seal]

he 2 good 4 ass

kekekeke

[Dethdefire]

Hey everyone, I'm curious about what you all think/feel on what we can do to really increase/maintain our members and also what we can do as a group or individually to attract new members. Especially now that the zone has been down for a bit I've talked to numerous people who say they won't return to the game and plenty more who miss it dearly (myself included). My first thought is that there's too much of a discrepancy in terms of new players positively interacting with the veterans of this game. . Weather that be twd, elim, pub, or even events. Maybe we can come up with a reward system to encourage proactive behavior?

We could always try bringing back girls like b@by girl who like to strip on webcam. Those days were exciting!

[renzi]

should focus on the social aspect of this game since social media is so huge right now and international communication is so ez. add more social media-type features to the site, make a whole new social media-type ss site, somehow implement in game, etc. im not sure if this would even work, but ive never come up with a good idea for this game though, so theres that.

[Ephemeral]

Trying to increase zone population is premature until Pub/Zone is fixed to support new player retention.

New players need to feel invested in the game and given the opportunity to learn the basic skills before being owned. This means adding a mandatory new player training routine upon entering. Been discussed 1000 times but still no where near completion.

Pub itself has to be made more user friendly with a level playing field for new players. Pub bucks is flawed, by design it gives more experienced players stronger ships and an advantage. Fix this or remove it. And of course there are several other things that need to be resolved with pub.

I completely agree with Weak that thinking about how we 'reward players' should be a part of the Council direction. And congrats to him for at least trying to get the ball rolling with the Council instead of 'waiting'. He is the first of the newly elected Council members to show some leadership skills and a top down perspective.
eph

[KrynetiX]

Hi all,
There's one million and one things we need to do. We're taking this one step at a time. Whoever made the 'premature discussion' comment was absolutely correct - we don't have a fully functional zone online at the moment. Until then - our only concern is this.

The most important development in my opinion is TWD.

TWDev is working hard on this as we speak. This is the ONLY project being focused on by TWDev. Obviously, without a zone we have nothing to discuss.
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LATEST UPDATE: We'll be switching TW ASSS to a new server on Sunday. The ping for the zone will be MUCH better. See the comparison below:



Updates to expect on Sunday are too long to list here at the moment, but I will do my best to keep documenting changes and sharing the changelog somewhere on these forums.

Hope to see you all on Sunday!
Cheers, everyone

[Mighty]

hmm lol

[2pac]

Easy way to solve this unban everyone including me, tw has a ban list longer than its population and eg combined. It just shows you how much power trip these staff members have.

[Slum]

Easy way to solve this unban everyone including me, tw has a ban list longer than its population and eg combined. It just shows you how much power trip these staff members have.

Broken. Fucking. Record.

[Weak]

I know we need to get the server and basic zone back up and running but that's something the higher ups have control over, not the rest of us. That's why I was suggesting we focus on other things and come up with ideas that we can put in motion as soon as we get the zone back up. Problem I see is that we have good ideas but no focal starting point. I for one hope having this new council will actually be effective and not just one of those "oh we tried but it didn't work". Hopefully some of the other council members will start being more active on forums and get in touch so we can all collaborate and have ideas to bring up to the rest of the zone.