Getting Old Players Back
-
I’ve seen a couple of posts from older players returning which is excellent to see!
How do we as a community get more people back? Do you know anyone on Facebook? Know them in RL? Do they hang out in any other IRC rooms you loiter in?
Likewise how do we reach out to prospective new players? I know it’s tricky trying to push a 16-ish year old game, so how can we do it?
I know there was a competition to design a new CoA website a while ago, did that ever go live? That would be an excellent starting point!
Lets DO THIS.
-
It is not necessarily outreach, but also managing issues such as the difficulty and low-rewards for lowbie quests (which can drive new players away) and fixing the server so that we appeal to explorers, achievers and socializers as well as killer achetypes.
But yes, a well developed website would help, as is...
- New Write Ups for the Current Setting
- Knowledge about the Surrounding Happpenings in an Easy to Read and Available Format in Setting Information, such as stuff in Zhentil Keep, Westgate, Dales, Anauroch, Sembia, the Sword Coast, this is for creating characters from these destinations.
- Opening up knowledge about important NPCs, which needs an updated version (please don't delete the old stuff, just archive them!)
- Post about various Server wide Plots that players can jump into, as well as what is publically known about them. If not by DMs, then encourage PCs to make posters about these plots, and how you can jump on the boat, or help various factions.
- DM Factions/PC Factions should all maintain a "Main Poster" which has all the relevant information about their perspective on major plots and major events. This should be maintained by PCs.
-
How is that going to get old players back or get new players in, unless I’ve missed something..?
You’re just saying how much you don’t want the PDs as a faction?
-
Savn made a good point in IRC about if you don't fix what drove players away, you'll have a hard time bringing back older players and retaining them.
In the past I've taken long breaks from CoA, these are some of my reasons:
-
Toxicity in IRC/non-IRC over ingame events. | This gets stale watching people going hyper salty or chestbeating over stuff that clearly aggravates other player(s). I'm guilty of it at times too, but at people should least have the decency to take it to PM or off official channels.
-
Boredom with high/grand goals or lack of opposition. | I make no secret; if I don't have a reason to login, I won't login. This is due to my belief that if you're ingame, you should be doing something other than idling about waiting for the next quest train. I get bored after a while if I don't have stuff moving onwards, or if people aren't wanting to get involved. And as Citizen Bane said in the past, boredom is the #1 killer of villain concepts. If you don't oppose, they will get bored and retire.
-
Lack of things to do. | By this I mean I've played a lot on the server and gotten some lofty achievements (at least to me). I have few things left to do. I prefer doing new things over rehashing and retreading the old. Why would I want to play generic mage #9001 when I can play a War Wizard instead? As an example. There's some exceptions to that, but creativity, at least for me, feels lacking at times.
-
Level range being outdated. | Let's be honest, we've done 1-12 (13 hardcap), then 1-10 (11-12 soft/hardcap) at varying times for nearly 16 years. We should consider increasing the level range, or at least addressing what's going on with lower levels that makes them a slog to go through. Or at least getting a consistent policy on expectations of high levels, and/or giving them more means (IE Gypsies being 1-10) of helping lower levels out on quests and so forth to get them up in XP.
-
Historical slagging off of other servers, despite CoA players actively playing on them. | Elephant in the room issue for me. I see people making jokes/insults about places like Sinfar and others, yet I've personally witnessed numerous CoA players actively playing there. It's gotten way past stale. We shouldn't be judgmental about how and where somebody spends their time. But let's just stop pretending we aren't overlapping a significant portion of our playerbase with other servers. CoA has never been about exclusivity despite what the cliques of the past may suggest.
-
Adventure and Intrigue being used as dogwhistle for "I think your RPing is trash, gtfo my server". | This is one I see cited by some as a reason for our playerbase having population issues. And I agree. Using A&I to degrade and ridicule concepts was unacceptable and should've been shut down at the time. We lost a lot of people to people using A&I as discrimination against other players. I don't think we'll ever get them back.
-
-
- Exploration EXP for each new area entered, when players have entered all explorable areas they can go to a NPC and get a special badge with some magical bonuses
- Exploration EXP for uncovering secret placeables around the server, when a player has found them all they can go to the same NPC again for another badge
- More exploration areas/road areas with little secrets, filling up the module with new secrets for new/old players to enjoy
- Bounty Monster system in which each player can collect a reward for the rare monsters they slay, after slaying 1000 different monsters, they once again get a badge!
- More puzzles in various places around the server, in which the player solving it get a item as well as a hint to where the next puzzle is
- Again, once a player has solved all puzzles, they collect a badge
- IG riddles/quizzes, about CoA lore. If a player gets an answer wrong, the system suggests which book they need to read to find the answer or which area they need to go to to find the right answer
- Once again, once all riddles/quizzes been answered, the player gets a badge
- If a player completes ALL quests IG, they also get a badge
- If a player plants every available plant IG, a badge
- If a player harvest every available plant IG, a badge
- If a player manages to fish all fishes IG, they get a fishing badge
- If a player crafts every item possible of their chosen crafting skill, get they a crafting badge
Once all possible badges been collected, the player gets the option to go on a special ultra rare quest with their friends
Basically, cub scouts CoA style. Gives lots of things to do IG solo, with a fun but useful reward. If you work hard on it, you get a fun reward to do with your friends. Kinda like a long term solo quest
-
@puffy Admit it, you just want us to play Stardew Valley.
-
Stardew Valley is a great game.
-
Harvest Moon is way better
-
This is actually great stuff for achievers and explorers, don't mock it, its something to fill the time, and something for them to do which they will enjoy
-
Heresy. Stardew Valley is way better than the latest Harvest Moon
-
@thune said in Getting Old Players Back:
This is actually great stuff for achievers and explorers, don't mock it, its something to fill the time, and something for them to do which they will enjoy
Don't think anyone is mocking, more like two rival games coming to it. Anyway, since several players admitted they enjoy it I don't see why it wouldn't help make stuff fun IG for people
-
What about a badge for mining all different types of ore.
Admittedly there's less types than plants but it involves fighting the ore guardians
-
@verk said in Getting Old Players Back:
What about a badge for mining all different types of ore.
Admittedly there's less types than plants but it involves fighting the ore guardians
Could be ore and gems?
-
For me it’s more general, showing people
that players can make a difference. “Mining badges” are fine but they aren’t going to make you go “this is the server for me” (IMO)Have more lore / information on awesome PCs about the place, show that the DM team is really focused on what players do etc.
Anyone can follow a DM plot through its stages and go through the motions - give the limelight to the well done characters and highlight the cool stuff players have done.
For example the Tychean Challenge hasn’t been updated in years, start there.
Have a “hall of fame” on the RtA, an OOC set of statues of player characters that have done awesome stuff for example
If I was hunting around and saw that I could be king of the wizards and saw that people had actually done that I would be all over it.
-
this is a good conversation, but don't talk anyone into buying this version of the game when we are working on switching to the EE :)
-
So is that actually, 100% happening then? I know a poll went up but never saw anything confirmed
Might be worth an announcement if that’s the case (and if I’ve missed it then I am rubbish at reading!)
-
I mean, new master server, steam sales, DLCs....Is there any sane reason not to do it? There are some database/tech things that need to be sorted which is why the team has been quiet, but unless we all get struck by lightning over the next few weeks I would say looking good on the move.
-
I agree it’s a good move, just some clear direction on it so people can start planning on getting the new game etc would be excellent.
Appreciate there is a lot of behind the scenes stuff to sort out with it, all good!
-
Get out the Thesaurus and summon Strawman. One of the strange arcanists that understand the database
-
Strawman's help would be amazing, but i always say live life first so if that's what he is doing good on him. The tech issues are not just coa related though, and hopefully beem dog will have easy solutions by the time they leave beta. Remind us if we are getting too quiet though, I have no problem keeping you guys up to date.