Getting new players to stick around.

[Teshuvah]

Originally Posted by blazerv

I think we all agree that the tutorial shouldn't be a per player map anymore so can we get that changed so we can get this process going =D.

Just changing the current tutorial to not be per player would be a major mistake.
Some areas/items have to be there for each player and not "Gone" because someone else was already here. So it requires much more than that.

Arilou also changed the sign outside Tutorial Tower Gustavus See if that's better for players to see now

[ame]

*stares*
elec made me...

Wyvern becomes a great game after you figure out what you like to do and you begin looking forward to doing it repeatedly. RD-ing, for example. I like to say it plays like an arcade game, since those tend to be old school and very addicting, and follow similar formulas. Finding friends in this little alternate world is not a bad bonus. So after all this is accomplished, all you should want from life is more free time to play.

However.
I began to share the love for Wyvern with people I knew were fans of other internet games. I don’t know if everyone I talked to got as far as making an account, but every now and then someone will tell me why they quit. They were usually enthusiastic after my flattering review so I thought it looked promising, but I doubt any of them are still playing. Some common deal-breakers were things that are deeply part of Wyvern, like having to type commands, the graphics window, etc. Basically things that make the game “old”. This is fine because there will always be people who do appreciate them. Other things were the tutorial, training difficulty, chat channel, and difficulty getting items. So here are my thoughts on those.

Tutorial: New people want to get this thing over with as fast as possible and start playing. The Tutorial should be a place that shows not tells new players what wyvern is all about, yet, there is no other place like it. That’s not good. A solution could be integrating the tutorial into a ****ie town (wyvern is about towns, right?), a NEW-****ie town that you can leave after you pass level 1. A city with easily noticed, bright “info houses” that you can enter and learn things at your own pace as well as monster houses and shops. It should be very pretty. The main map should be open to all players so people could go introduce themselves if they want to. It would solve the issues from feeling like the tutorial is dragging on forever, logging out in the middle and despairing cause you think you have to start over, freedom to figure things out free of a system, and the horrible UGLINESS.

Training difficulty: The sheer difficulty of training, at lower levels, is fine how it is. People need to learn how to train carefully. If training is made any easier, people might level faster than they learn and when they die from their own ignorance they’re going to lose more xp and it’s going to hurt their character more. They are much more likely to quit from frustration if they feel like they can’t bounce back.

Chat channel: The social side of Wyvern is not great for new people. It’s easy to feel patronized on the shout channel by wizards or other players, new people don't always understand the role-play, and it doesn't matter whether its directed at them or not when they're feeling out the community. This etiquette topic has been beaten before so yadda yadda. It’s also very intimidating to shout, and this is not the case in most games. It’s hard to know, at first, what you are allowed to say… and if you slip up, ignorance is punished quickly. Wyvern is “family-friendly” but sometimes I’ll have another “family friendly” game open at the same time just to talk there. Wyvern has great values, and I can appreciate that, but they are enforced more strongly than games with much larger populations.

Getting items: I think you should start out with more gold, to make this easier. In my opinion it takes too long to outfit your character with anything. For a brand new player the first purchases might be a silly waste of gold anyway, and there should be more breathing room.

will post more later!

[Logwad]

Curious, who are the people we are trying to keep? By this I mean, at what point are you guys noticing new players getting to a point and stopping?

Do we have any statistics on a range of levels that players seem stuck on, on maps that frustrate players, on aspects of the game which players are continually clueless about despite our best efforts (not counting "how do i fight?!1"), or perhaps new players keep dying and cannot see how to get ahead with what little knowledge they have despite that experienced people know how to instantly get past level 10, etc.

When trying to solve a bug, you first figure out where it is located, and then you go about writing the solution. Of course, I am unaware of the extent that Wyvern stores information, or of the willingness of Rhialto to process the information.



On a side note, I found wyvern because I was looking for an online bomberman clone, but had also wanted to find a 2d tile based rpg that wasn't freaking anime, so when I noticed it by chance, I looked through the manual and it was love at first sight. If you guy's would like, I could fully detail my experiences as a young player, though not sure it would be too helpful, as I have always had different tastes in games than most.

[Electro]

So, I made a new character so that I could re-experience what it was like to be a low leveled player again.

The first glaring observation is that the tutorial IS in fact very informative. However, as a new player, I certainly would not want to wait for the 15-20 minutes that it actually takes to sit there and read every sign. My entire purpose of being there was to see just how informative the tutorial was, and I could barely bring myself to read all of the signs.

Whoever had the idea to make the tutorial interactive is a genious. I feel that this alone would keep the attention of new players.

Another observation is that although many players are quite willing to help, the opinions that they offer differ quite often. Perhaps a name or title could be given to those who to be believed? This could be achieved by instituting levels in the teachers guild, but by allowing players to "rate" the advice of others and award them points. This would cut down on the confusion of new players who receive contradictory advice.

I am also noticing how hard it is to earn money, and I know several good loot spots, so I can imagine the hardship totally new players go through in order to use their skill points. (I realize the answer to this is "explore, explore, explore, but do we really want to take completely new players out of their comfort blanket?) If they are forced to go to tougher areas in order to raise the money to become stronger, they will continue to die, and many deaths in a row, while common at lower levels, are discouraging.

I realize some of these points are not going to happen, but that is what the thread is for. Hopefully people seeing the kind of varying suggestions that have been posted will convince them to post their own ideas.

Thank you, and goodnight

[godwinson]

i agree with these ideas. the titles are nice, but what about having this addition to the teachers guild. have a quota to meet in order to join the guild and maintain that quota to stay in. have special "mentor armor" or something like that. I dont know what you guys would think of this, but i really do think this would boost the play in wyvern and we would most certainly see some revival within the game.

[Jacksparow]

Originally Posted by Logwad

Curious, who are the people we are trying to keep? By this I mean, at what point are you guys noticing new players getting to a point and stopping?

I remember with my first player ever I was stuck on level 9 for the longest time, because Kobolds stopped giving me exp.

[Teshuvah]

[quote=Logwad;27936]Curious, who are the people we are trying to keep? By this I mean, at what point are you guys noticing new players getting to a point and stopping?
QUOTE]

I have watched this for some time now.
I'd say 90% or higher, never get past the tutorial, go idle in the tutorial and are never seen again.
Some have asked questions, some never even figured out how to go through a door.

[Crier]

About the door thing, I'm not going to lie, when I first started, the very first thing that baffled me was how to get through a door.

A lot of people think they can move by clicking, they just have to be told you use the num-pad, if there were a magic mouth saying this in the beginning I think it would help that out some.


EDIT: As I was on this just came to me. It is great that there is help for new players, but people cannot be hanging around waiting for a level 1 to log and and jump on them by shouting "Hy u new?/?" and things along that line. It is find and dandy to help, but don't harass them in your over-zealousness to help.

[ame]

Yeah, if youre going to jump on helping level 1s, at least teach them the ignore command.

Teachers...
The teacher's guild doesn't do anything right now, and its hard to tell who's in it since after HoF that little [teacher] tag goes away. Hamel already said this, but it would be pretty cool if there was a teacherwho command that all players could use, to figure out who they should bug with their questions. I don't like the idea of passing a test to join, however. If a teacher doesn't know the answer to a question they should just say they don't know, ask someone else. The guild should be a list of players who are willing to be bugged. Also already mentioned, titles within the guild would be cool.

...Maybe "gratitude points" or something like that could be given to players in the same way as warning points, but they must be in the teacher's guild to receive them. Teachers could advance/fall in rank based on these points.

Mentors...
I am completely opposed to a mentor system... i would not enjoy being tied up with someone like that no matter how new I am.

Grouping...
Grouping is a good way to encourage socializing and see how other players fight. It's already a great way to gain xp if you group with someone 4 levels above you. But I hate it at my level, grouping results in slow going for all people involved, and its better to not group. It would be nice if groups were a little more productive for high levels, cause I miss it. Yeah that had nothing to do with new players.

and doors baffled me too.

[godwinson]

I really think what ame has said about the points that a teacher would receive and that it would determine the level you are within the guild is a good idea. That is a great idea. The gifts a teacher receives, I think, should be a type of armor. Nothing incredible, but different. Also, maybe an image upon joining the teachers guild would motivate more people to join the teachers guild. More teachers, more help to new players, more people as an overall playing wyvern.


NOTE: I think the image would be great, but all races would have to receive this image. The human only deal kind of stinks, and i hope it wouldn't apply to this guild. Also, if this idea is used, I think there should be some sort of small time quest or maybe some test. That would make sure every teacher knows the game.

A teacher MUST HELP in order to keep status and image too. Not helping new players will result in some sort of punishment, I at least think that anyway.


Back to wyvern

Bye

[Gustavus]

Originally Posted by Teshuvah

Just changing the current tutorial to not be per player would be a major mistake.
Some areas/items have to be there for each player and not "Gone" because someone else was already here. So it requires much more than that.

Arilou also changed the sign outside Tutorial Tower Gustavus See if that's better for players to see now

Thank you Arilou (and Teshuvah), the new sign was great. My wife agrees, it was *much* easier to notice and to recognize.

But . . . What happened? As of a few minutes ago it was reverted back to the older picture.

Also, doors are a problem in more than one way. The older doors, in what I think might be called "Zoo style," are certainly easy to see and recognize--but then, in many if not most cases, you have to know to "Apply" the door to go through it. The newer doors vary in how hard they are to see and recognize, and are still tricky to walk through when closed. (1) You "move to" to the door square to open the door. (2) You "move to" the door square again to go through the door. Yes, it is very simple *when you already know how*. Not sure there is any practical suggestion to be made.

I can suggest that the game Wizards try to avoid the worst of the styles of wall and door where the east-west doors nearly vanish when the doors are closed. I've played around with the map editor, and never quite figured out what to do about that problem. It is interesting to note that nearly all the doors in the tutorial are north-south, so maybe this is a well known problem.

--Gustavus

[Logwad]

Last time I checked, the teachers guild addition to my name screwed up my screen (pushed inventory and stuff to the right, leaving a big grey space) because my name and title were too long.

[rilian]

I love the idea of an interactive tutorial. Here is my take on it.

Instead of signs, use magic mouths to drive the players on at first.

Players appears on map, magic mouth says, to move do this...and try to follow the path going east or something to that sort

then when they get to the end of the trail have a door, tell them how to open the door with a magic mouth or whipser

then go step by step on what to do

instead of giving the player thier weapons/armor to start off, make them pick them up and wear/wield them and tell them how to do so with magic mouths. ie. they enter the room and a mouth says now we need some armor/weapons walk over to that sword/dagger/whatever, then a magic mouth says to pick up the "whatever" do this...

maybe even have different armors on display and allow them to pick one armor and one weapon and have it to where they can only keep one of each, if possible. most important part of this would be having them wear/wield their weapons but allowing them to pick and try on different stuff would be nice.

I think you guys get the picture but at some point you would still teach them to use signs and what not but this would be a much better way to get them started.

the tutorial would continue to tell them about magic and using the chatbox and training skills and guilds and all that but the majority of the tutorial would be a voice telling them exactly what to do, and i like the quest idea too, so after they get equiped with knowledge and items they have to go get an item and return it.

So that is my two cents on that.

I also would like to say that the teacher who idea is a great idea, would make it very easy for new players

[Burba]

Here are a couple ideas that have been mentioned but not posted:

Mentor Pyramid
Each player gets a mentor who is paid a percentage of the money that the new player makes.

Death Pit
New players are randomly summoned to a gladiatorial arena where they must do battle with their fellows until only one remains. The outcome doesn't matter, but you know, it encourages competitive spirit or whatever.

Anyway, I think most of the AFK in the tutorial people were trying out the game and didn't like something about it--the feel, the interface, the graphics, or the annoying shouts (or the deathly silence). That's something that I don't think a free game is going to shake, particularly an old free game with simple graphics.

Several years ago the graphics and what may be seen as confusing elements wouldn't have mattered as much. Wyvern looked like every other 2D RPG to me. The commands were the same as a typical text-based RPG. I'd even played games with a skill system similar to Wyvern, so what was new? The spells, particularly the spell graphics, were top notch, though. Yeah, they're a source of lag, but Wyvern would be a dull game without the spells.

My plan is to have a really cool demo video thing that has lots of nifty graphics and explains some of the game features! That might encourage some and inform those who don't know what Wyvern is about. Sorry I can't make it. I'm sick. And stuff. *cough*

[Teshuvah]

Originally Posted by Burba

Here are a couple ideas that have been mentioned but not posted:

Mentor Pyramid
Each player gets a mentor who is paid a percentage of the money that the new player makes.

Too easy to abuse, general bad idea to take money from new players.

Originally Posted by Burba

Death Pit
New players are randomly summoned to a gladiatorial arena where they must do battle with their fellows until only one remains. The outcome doesn't matter, but you know, it encourages competitive spirit or whatever.

Randomly Summoning a player who is busy doing something else, (Bad idea)
Forcing them to PK? (very bad idea)
To force players into PK or force them into any area by randomly disrupting and harassing them is not something that we are going to do to new players.

[Valkon]

Why not let Town Crier welcome new players?

This could somehow be linked to the account so it gets shouted only once per account. (not going into technical issues here)

[Crier]

I don't know about having the Town Crier welcome new people. As a new person I wanted to remain as incognito as possible until I "learned the ropes" and wouldn't be considered aI think that the Town Crier welcoming new people would embarrass some of them and drive them away.

[Tanm]

I like the idea of the Town Crier welcoming players, but Crier raised a valid counterpoint. Some players surely want to be left alone. Especially if new players start getting a flood of tells from current players offering help. It would at least confuse them, if not turn them off the game completely.

[Logwad]

Perhaps an announcement should be made to everyone in the teachers guild, along with a rule not to spam the poor guy with tells until they ask for help.

would get a message saying "Should you desire any help, just type "who teachers"(doesn't work, would need an actual command) and ask anyone on the list for help by typing "tell <player> <message>"" etc.

Additionally, the teachers guild could gain the ability to view (as like with the crystal ball or spell) any player below level 5 (random low level number) (assuming they have spying on), to check up on anyone who might need some help.

I think that should be sufficient as far as letting energetic players be more helpful.

[rilian]

I think that is a great idea logwood.
I like all of it, And im pretty sure everyone agrees that at the very least the "teacher who" part is a must.