• JOKE
  • Agent
  • Offline

Topic: suggestions on keeping old players and gaining new ones.

Keeping the games older players and gaining new ones is probably the most important thing that this game can be doing so I would like to forward a few ideas on how I think they could be doing it different.

Communication

The dev blog telling us what is coming is a start. What needs to be done however is to shout about it. To add some marketing flair to it and to make all the hard work DO something for you.

I'll give you an example. The stealth patch recently was fantastic. It did two things that changed the face of pvp - made speed a secondary consideration and stopped a lot of the benny hill chasing and made the pounce more pronounced. It was a fantastic change with some new aditions on the side that added a whole relm of new content and playstyles for PVE, PvP and industry characters alike.

How was this communicated? We knew about a patch coming in the day before and had to guess. The problem with this is that new stuff keeps people logging in and keeps their accounts subbed. If they know something is coming they may wait a week before playing a different game in the hope that they like it.

How should it have been communicated?

Well the first thing is one big realisation - peiople like shiny ***. The addition should have had new bots that specifically do this. Dont make them great, give them no mids, one high and a couple of lows and make them a third of ewar cost. So you dont have to spend time on graphics make them the same as ewars with a different colour scheme 9stEVE does this a LOT. Lazy but it works well). At a stroke you remove 70% of scout arkhes and push a playerbase into trying something new.

The second thing is just as important. Deliver what you've done in an important way. Teaser trailer video's on youtube, snippits of information fed to us to keep us interested, give the patch a name and tell us a date its coming before it does (6 weeks before). when release approaches adapt the websites home page and do some marketing on the websites it would be free with (provided they can run a couple of three month free competitions). Make it so its an anticipated event and do it every three months.

You have a great game SHOW us its a great game.

You are making great changes SHOW us whats coming in a way that gets me hard.

Other things that i think would help:

An affiliate program that gets you 20% of monthly subscription for new accounts (not added time for existing)

A reoccurring monthly subscription (without it your making people choose if they want to play every month). Just as importantly when they cancel it you have the opportunity to ask why.

Lots of video's about new features and things coming and celebrating whats already around.

The most important thing that is vital to the future success is to make all of this predictable and pre planned. Make it so that you KNOW there will be new stuff in x months and every X months after that. It'll keep people subbing.

Proverbs 23:20-21 warns us, “Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags."
  • M2S
  • Agent
  • Offline

Re: suggestions on keeping old players and gaining new ones.

I'd like to see a ticketing system for bug reports and then use the forums for discussions (and toilet use).

Communication would be a nice start to getting more transparency into the game. I know a lot of players first mention the low online numbers (Probably because of EVE's usually online amount) and then the lack of GM's or official representation.

I heard a rumour that GM's were getting paid for their time logged in but I am seeing a few of the GM's online not saying a word or even responding to private messages. I really hope they're not getting paid for that. Talk about an employment exploit. yarr

I don't think the devs have enough time to worry about nice videos at the moment but that's a nice idea too. If they did have enough time they could do some PVP video. Patch notes would be nice to see them at least before the downtime. I know they probably don't want the Q.Q of "You nerfed my fav robot dude!" to swarm the forums too soon but an overview of what's changing would be great.

The Game
  • M2S
  • Agent
  • Offline

Re: suggestions on keeping old players and gaining new ones.

Jita wrote:

A reoccurring monthly subscription (without it your making people choose if they want to play every month).

This is probably more important than most would assume. +1

AXE JOKE ECORP N-A CIR
  • DoY
  • Agent
  • Offline

Re: suggestions on keeping old players and gaining new ones.

some of us can make videos by themselves and then just ask DEVs to post them

Have a productive day, Runner
  • M2S
  • Agent
  • Offline

Re: suggestions on keeping old players and gaining new ones.

Drahkar wrote:
Jita wrote:

A reoccurring monthly subscription (without it your making people choose if they want to play every month).

This is probably more important than most would assume. +1

To be honest I like the use of codes but I would like to also have them automatically applied with a pay-pal subscription. Subscriptions work out nicely and I've used them via pay-pal for other Indy games.

The Game
  • JOKE
  • Champion
  • Offline

Re: suggestions on keeping old players and gaining new ones.

I can give few suggestions, as slavonic player:

1. Give webmoney option, to buy subscription keys. It is really not comfortable to use paypal here for us, but in UA-RU timezone really many people who want's to pew-pew some bots and pay for this.

2. More high-end content. Many people who obtained mech\heavy mechs are bored, because there is no serious reason to play for them. Farm, deadly pvp, lack of pve ("***, this is boring" they thought) causing dropping the game. This is far not my problem tbh, just want to describe problem that comunity have. (According to a devblog announcement, we hopefully will have a lot of toys in this year=) )

3. Fix and improve graphics please. LOD, nise particle effects, awesome detailed bots, rich planet surface: SCI-FI fans want this features, i'm sure. Same about sounds. People want not just to play, they want to WATCH nice sci-fi movie.

One man army
http://www.perp-kill.net/related/239910
  • JOKE
  • Champion
  • Offline

Re: suggestions on keeping old players and gaining new ones.

4. If game community is interested, we can setup a first "perpetuum times" magazine with neutral (!!!!!) look into polytics, economy, warfare op's and other PO news. If you interested - contact me.

One man army
http://www.perp-kill.net/related/239910
  • *
  • Agent
  • Offline

Re: suggestions on keeping old players and gaining new ones.

I've got to comment that anyone who's truely neutral probably wouldnt have enough inside info to be interesting and those that do have sufficient juicy information would probably be too partisan to be considered neutral.... unfortunately

  • CIR
  • Banned
  • Offline

Re: suggestions on keeping old players and gaining new ones.

Just takes 1 serious person to interview CEO's / diplomats from all sides and post a neutral view point.

[18:20:30] <GLiMPSE> Chairman Of My Heart o/
CIR Complaint Form

The Imperial Grand Wizard of Justice
  • CIR
  • Agent
  • Offline

Re: suggestions on keeping old players and gaining new ones.

I wonder if corps and/or players would allow 'combat reporters' to fraps battles; like a News Corp that was set to blue by all sides. Could be a good strategy, if you are losing, to blow up the Arhke MKII fraps bot!

  • JOKE
  • Champion
  • Offline

Re: suggestions on keeping old players and gaining new ones.

Arga wrote:

I wonder if corps and/or players would allow 'combat reporters' to fraps battles; like a News Corp that was set to blue by all sides. Could be a good strategy, if you are losing, to blow up the Arhke MKII fraps bot!

With high probability, one of the FC will be in this bots

One man army
http://www.perp-kill.net/related/239910
  • CIR
  • Agent
  • Offline

Re: suggestions on keeping old players and gaining new ones.

You saw through my evil plan!

  • N-A
  • Agent
  • Offline

Re: suggestions on keeping old players and gaining new ones.

im not even sure what would make me wanna play anywhere near as much as i did a few months ago it just doesn't feel fun anymore and i have reached the end game so have nothing more to do

for me the mining/ nic grinding side is dead boring so i cant be bothered to do more than pvp and thats few and far between
i don't consider shooting at helpless miners and haulers fun and intrusions are just pure rubbish

  • GG
  • Agent
  • Offline

Re: suggestions on keeping old players and gaining new ones.

Maybe you should try and join a corp that is involved in some of the larger fights ... they are thoroughly entertaining.

Annihilator said: Walking careless onto hokko without masking is like jumping into a bathtub with the hungry 30cm piranhas (infestation)
GLiMPSE™'s CoolPoints™ Leaderboard
  • N-A
  • Agent
  • Offline

Re: suggestions on keeping old players and gaining new ones.

Heckle wrote:

Maybe you should try and join a corp that is involved in some of the larger fights ... they are thoroughly entertaining.


lol not with my ping they aren't anyhting more than 20 or 30 is a lag fest than means all i can do is watch my armour dissapear

that leads me on to my other issue with the game. the vocal player base seems to mostly consist of egotistical nerds with delusions of grandeur
it seams to me most of the people who play are eve dropouts who want to be top dog and are treating this game more like an eve reset rather than a new game with a new community

look at people with names like Jita

there is siddy who consistently talked about the good old days of eve   

then there are the ecorp guys who keep calling them fleets and ships

and our corp was no better

  • BKK
  • Agent
  • Offline

Re: suggestions on keeping old players and gaining new ones.

Ekim wrote:

...
i don't consider shooting at helpless miners and haulers fun and intrusions are just pure rubbish

why not? they are the main PvP force in the game! you have to shoot them, no matter where, no matter which circumstances.
They are not helpless - as revenge for their loss, they could leave the game untouched for a few weeks, removing their goods from the market, and their baiting-role from the battlefield!

... im not sure if that is sarcasm or reflection of the situation sad

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear
  • M2S
  • Agent
  • Offline

Re: suggestions on keeping old players and gaining new ones.

Helpless miners are pretty helpless. They are the only targets anymore.
If you dislike intrusions and dislike blobbing your currently in the wrong game. Even fights don't happen because there is no reason to risk losing anything when you can just dock up and wait for the sandstorm to pass by.

It's a sorry state. The only PVP are intrusions. Learn to love them or leave the game.

You'll be waiting a year or so for terrain ownership to take any real effect.

The Game
  • N-A
  • Agent
  • Offline

Re: suggestions on keeping old players and gaining new ones.

Alexander wrote:

Helpless miners are pretty helpless. They are the only targets anymore.
If you dislike intrusions and dislike blobbing your currently in the wrong game. Even fights don't happen because there is no reason to risk losing anything when you can just dock up and wait for the sandstorm to pass by.

It's a sorry state. The only PVP are intrusions. Learn to love them or leave the game.

You'll be waiting a year or so for terrain ownership to take any real effect.

that unfortunately is the problem and why i finding my self doing other things than play anymore

I really feel the game was launched too early , the fact that they have no more land sitting in the database waiting to be used is a huge mistake
if the game goes vial overnight not having more space for people is going to the games downfall.