Keeping more players involved in the game

[P-J]

Currently MA spends a lot of time and effort in activities which bring in players into the game via one off ‘events’ and publicity, however, this doesn’t seem to be able to convert the majority into long-term customers…who come back regularly day after day. Instead we see spikes of activity around events.

If the game was more ‘sticky’ MA as they could get a better return on this investment and create more long-term customers this would be better for the players (the more people depositing the stronger MA becomes and the more players out there to buy/ sell items).

I would guess that MA would welcome discussion about this by the community …we may raise issues which they haven’t thought about. So any ideas on how more players could be retained? This isn’t about wish list stuff…more about how the game could become more ‘sticky’ for players after the first initial trial on the game… within the first few weeks.

I think (this is my personal view) is that the amount of money needed to regularly engage in activities within the game (hunting/ mining/ tailoring/ crafting etc) at a reasonable level for newish players is too high. This is particularly important in a game where the learning curve is steep (you need to know a lot to play efficiently and even then you can lose a lot of Peds). I think this is off-putting for new players.

[Stryker]

It was a random event that first brought my ears to PE. I believe 95% of the people (outside of Sweeden) who have joined in the last year or so, heard about this game through deathifiers purchase of TI. So odd events like this really do bring in the masses

[elisa]

[QUOTE=P-J]
I think (this is my personal view) is that the amount of money needed to regularly engage in activities within the game (hunting/ mining/ tailoring/ crafting etc) at a reasonable level for newish players is too high. This is particularly important in a game where the learning curve is steep (you need to know a lot to play efficiently and even then you can lose a lot of Peds). I think this is off-putting for new players.
[/QUOTE]

Well as far as I can see we are trying here to answer the question from another thread about how expensive PE is for players and how it should be in order to attract more people and convince them to stay for longer.
First, we were talking about loot distribution. This is an eternal topic in PE :laugh: MA has changed the loot system few times, and the most recent changes always reflect the current position of MA regarding loot. And this ain’t gonna change unless something goes terribly wrong (like it was with skills after 7.4. Eventually they rolled it back a little). So IMHO I usually find the discussions about loot entertaining, but pointless.

Regarding the whole issue of attracting new people, it has at least 2 sides:

1. Marketing and pure PR. Showing PE in the news, writing articles, giving any sort of publicity. This is MA and Marco’s job and there’s nothing more we can do about it. People actually do enough by bringing their frienlds, buddies and relatives into PE to fill the loot pool

2. The actual content, which would make people stay, and, as noticed before, people would be more convinced if it cost them less $.

But here’s IMHO few fundamental problems, which lie in the basis of the whole PE idea:

1. Player’s spending in PE cannot be capped. If somebody wants to pump loads of money into the game, it should be left up to his/her own discretion and sanity. Therefore neither MA nor community can’t prevent a new player to waste money as long as he/she can afford it. Same with older players

2. PE is not a 100% game. There were so many arguments about it, but let’s face the truth usually expressed by an answer ‘I guess PE is not for you’ to some whiner. The audience of virtual reality (or a hybrib, like PE, I’d say) is smaller than the audience of MMORPG in general. Quite a lot of players enjoy only shoot-and-slash gaming style with the acquisition of power as a primary goal. PE is different. PE-life is deeper than that.

3. PE is a long-term hobby/occupation. In order to achieve something in PE people need to stay in for longer time than classical MMOs. On the other side easy tasks are boring. Easy tasks wouldn’t hold the player for so long. Only difficult and diverse tasks (like survival in PE :laugh: ) attract for a long time.

This lead me to the conclusion that the way it works regarding expenses as in PE at the moment is there for a good reason. As long as PE evolves into ‘virtual universe’, not virtual game or virtual casino.

[kygon]

nice answer elisa +rep

[ufcfl]

I think a thing that could keep more beginners in the game would be a kind of demo. I mean, when you would begin in PE, you would first have a mid-level avatar with some virtual peds (untradable and undroppable), and skills that you can’t put in an implant. This way, beginners could really enter in the game at their first connection. And then, after a certain time/skill cap, they would be proposed 2 ways to continue playing :
1 - Buying the actual avatar and continuing with it
2 - Starting with a free unskilled avatar.

[emptywalls]

P-J, great topic, elisa, great post… ive been thinking a lot about why people dont stick around.

everyone gets excited about the ‘real world economy’ because they think ‘hey, i can withdraw! w00t!’

but then the cold hard reality sets in… your money is going one way… into the game. thats when a lot of people get the reality check, and stop playing… usually a couple of months in.

i gave up on the idea of ever withdrawing, im just here to enjoy the game.

so, to answer your question… the best way to make the game more ‘sticky’ and keep people around is to make it less expensive to play on a regular basis. Someone who plays economically should be able to play for days and days on a 20 dollar deposit. someone who wants the biggest gun and the best armor should, of course, be allowed to deposit all they want and blow their peds all over. go go credit card ubers! fill that loot pool!

there are plenty of other, better, cheaper games and forms of entertainment. i think the fact that it is far too expensive to play really turns off a lot of people after the initial excitement wears off. this creates a snowball effect where you see your friends and the people you ‘noobed’ with leaving, thereby you get the urge to leave as well.

i want more people to play, instead of just the gluttons for punishment and the gambling addicts. i would really like it if more people would come into the game and stick around for an extended period of time.

MA, IMHO has done a terrible job with community involvement and interaction. Their customer service leaves a lot to be desired. They have also done many things that were completely untrustworthy (1x0 nerf), crafting nerf. They are well known for releasing buggy software and then patching the crap out of it, and breaking things in a way that makes it even less enjoyable and more expensive.

On the flipside, they have done an amazing job of creating a very fun and exciting game. If it were less expensive and less buggy and there were more interaction between the community and MA, i think more people would be more excited about playing.

I have to say that I went out last night, for the first time in 7.6 with my gf and did some good hunting. We got a decent return, and had a lot of fun. I started playing with a very skeptical eye, but about 30 minutes in i found that i was once again having a great time playing this fantastic game.

I created PE Addict because i believe in PE. i love the game, but im also realistic. Theres only so much i can deposit, and so much crap i can and will take before i jump ship and find something better to do with my time. I hope that isnt any time soon.

Sorry. i try to balance my ‘the sky is falling’ posts with some positive comments… but being american, im only vocal when things go wrong, not when thing go right. Like everyone else, i need to be more free with my positive comments and less about my negative feelings.

GO MA! We love the game, we love you, just please tune things up and help us get more players involved!

[system]

The truth about MMORPGs is that the avergae lifespan of a player in a particular game is very short barring a few notable exceptions. I have played a few other games but none more than a few months. PE I have played for years. The reason is this game. Now we cannot know what the churn rate is for PE but I beleive, just from my friend list, that PE has an attraction that keeps people coming back.

Now, one thing they desperatly need to do is tap the american market. Get a demo in a gaming mag. Send reps to gaming conventions. Send reps to pass out discs at arcades and gaming stores.

DD
:evilking:

[Devilmaster]

----EDITED----

[Svetlana]

I think Elisa pointed out everything that came to mind for me

Advertising and marketing this game is a necessity to attract new players.

What keeps ppl in game? For me, it is the virtual aspect of the game… both old and new friends, the reality of the economy, etc. Great entertainment that I can play whenever I wish. If I am low on ped, I take out my whip/knuckles and have a fun hunt for 30 minutes if that’s all I can afford. If I have nothing to my name, I peruse auctions to see what I can get for things in storage And I always chat with friends

After all my time here, I’ve come to believe that MA has done an overall good job on keeping most players. DD pointed out, and rightfully so, that the avg avi life of most mmorpg’s is quite low compared to PE. Why is that? The real money is huge, and distinguishes PE from the others certainly. But the ability and need to interact with other ppl (and thus create strong friendships) is something that I have found to be extraordinarily unique to PE (I have only played PE, SWG and CoH btw).

Sure if there was a way to give the avg player a little more bang for his buck and MA could figure out an appropriate system to do so taking into account EVERYTHING then of course that would be nice

In the end, however, I think MA has to do very little to keep ppl. I myself cannot think of anything definite that would continue to keep ppl in game other than continually working on development. I recall last year at this time, and certainly before then, the lag was god forsaken. Now, I rarely lag… things like that keep ppl around- knowing that just around the corner the game will be just a little bit better in playing terms.

My :twocents: as always (tried to keep this one more positive as there are already threads about what MA could do to balance loots better, adjust things, etc)

[il1]

less risk - more fun

if the ped/fun ratio would be higher more ppl yould play it

i cant say it often enuff ..with the current way the game is using players as advertisers the gameplay must be improved greatly…

currently lets say PE is at 10ped/fun with an upward tendency…

IF PE would steadily aim at 1ped/fun we would have LOADS of players being active

examples:
when more low level armors were introduced it seemed they were going the rigth way..but with reduction of axes its been actually went totally in the wrong direction… but hey gnome doesnt even drop fully what can i say…
i had some friends testing PE and they just say WTF…
reality is 15-20$/month and THATS IT…(specificly for and industrial country)
we migth double the rate due to PE being underground and special with real economy…
but at the most 40-50$/ for hardcore gamers should be enuff with a steady return rate…that would also mean ~1kped for a rare item and maybe 10kped for and absolutly astonishing freaking ueber item.
well u smell my blow..

having fun should not be more expensive then an average pay day in RL
=>50-100$

dont give me the argument yeah but u could earn on ped exchange and what about the uebers that payed loads be4…

if you are real ..then u see that the inflation always burst in a bubble..and if u wanna play PE in 5 years still you need MORE players …like take EVE as an example… up to 15k players online on a weekend… 70-90k accounts.

PE 2-5k players max online on an event … 300k accounts

MANY ppl tested PE and know about it but too many found out its not for em..

me and raeky praised that so often but noone believes us…

and guess what even raeky is already gone

ahhhh well seems MA listens always too late…

[emptywalls]

good post il. this is a good thread, not whining, just realistically asking for things to change to improve the game. hopefully marco is reading this, and getting some ideas.

we want more players, and we want them to stay longer. the best advertising is word of mouth… and unfortunately all we have to say is ‘its really fun, but damn its expensive and buggy!’

thats not good advertising at all…

everyone i know has a big but.

[Peanuts]

Hi all,

I know it has been quite a while since I last posted here. There were basically two reasons for this. One reason seems to be touched on in this thread, and the other reason… well… I won’t get into right here and right now.

PE is an expensive game to play if you wish to make the most out of it. Even if you just want to be an average player, it is quite expensive to play. I can understand this is a business for MA and they want to make money from the game, but I think and feel that perhaps MA is trying too hard to make as much money as possible for the least amount of expenses, and that in turn, causes many players to leave PE for other online games.

I may be getting flak from some of you in this community for saying this, but PE is just a game. Some may call it more than a game… a virtual universe, but the fact of the matter is that it is just a game. A virtual universe in this case is a game. MA created this game… virtual universe, to make money.

I think DD touched on this earlier in this thread… regarding the online games and the time players spend on them. IMO the life of an online game is not that long before something bigger and better comes out that attracts the online gaming community. Perhaps when MA came out with the idea of PE, it was something new, but to some players, it is starting to get pretty old. MA does not really offer anything new to keep players in PE. All they do is just more of the same things… adding things that cost the player more money to play.

There are other online games out there that offer just as much (if not more) places to explore and things to see. There are games out there that offer a much bigger and interesting ‘virtual universe’ to explore. I was rather disappointed the first time I visited Amethera. There does not seem to be much there except for rolling hills. There are no high mountain peeks to climb or deep canyons to explore. As far as I know, there are no caves to explore either (at least on Eudoria there is one small cave, which I do not know if it is still even there).

I still visit PE but not on a regular basis. I am just about out of PED and I am not going to deposit even more into the game until it is a bit cheaper to play. I have deposited quite a bit into PE, and it upsets me that I do not have more to show for it. I did not spend my money foolishly on items I didnt need either. 95% of my money went to things like ammo and weapons and armor and repairs. For the amount that I have spent on hunting and skilling, it upsets me that my skills do not allow me to get better loots. I have tried different kinds of mobs in different areas at different times of the day, and no matter where I go or what I do, I am lucky if I get a 20% return. That discourages me even more from PE.

As far as the customer support and interaction that MA has with the PE community is concerned, this saddens me. It is almost like they alienate us and want nothing to do with us players. I have started playing another online game, which I will not mention the name of here, and I must say that I am very pleased with the effort this other company is making to interact with the gaming community. They joke around and have fun with everyone else on their forums just like they were regular members. What really gets me is their speedy responses and their willingness to keep their game evolving in the direction that the players want to see it go. This is so unlike MA who seems to have their own agenda and they really dont seem to be listening to their customers at all. This was MA’s choice. In this day and time when there are a lot more online games and those gaming companies are ‘fighting’ to capture the online gaming community, I think it is essential that the company gets more involved in the online community. This makes me sometimes think that MA does not really care.

If PE was less expensive to play and MA offered a wider variety of things to do that did not cost a small fortune to get started in, and if MA made PE a more interesting place to explore, it would attract a lot more people and they would stay a lot longer. Online gamers are spoiled these days, and it is up to the game company to keep up with the needs and wants of the player if they want to keep them. MA does not seem to be doing this, and this is sad because PE has the potential for so much more since many of the building blocks are already in place. They have proved that they can attract new players and keep things fun and interesting for a while, but now MA just needs to find a way to keep players in the game longer.

As for me, I am attracted to this other online game (which will remain nameless) not only because it is something new, but because of the customer support and relations that the game company has with its customers. Also, I have been playing this other game for about 2 months now and I don’t think I have even explored half of their ‘virtual universe’ yet.

[Epictetus]

[QUOTE=Svetlana]

Sure if there was a way to give the avg player a little more bang for his buck and MA could figure out an appropriate system to do so taking into account EVERYTHING then of course that would be nice
[/QUOTE]

There is a way - stop giving out so many ATH, uber loots, and quest loots. Take half of those and break them into globals and small HOFs so people like me at least feel excited about SOMETHING.

After all, we are talking about TIME which is the most precious commodity people have.

[Svetlana]

[QUOTE=Epictetus]
There is a way - stop giving out so many ATH, uber loots, and quest loots. Take half of those and break them into globals and small HOFs so people like me at least feel excited about SOMETHING.

After all, we are talking about TIME which is the most precious commodity people have.
[/QUOTE]

Here’s my thing Epic (and all those interested)… I take long breaks, and I am certainly not an active hunter, but in the past 2 months I have been using up my last 40 ped hunting without a problem…I keep profitting or breaking even every hunt nearly (I avg about 3 hunts per week although this week I have hunted every day). Of course, I am just planning on depositing when it runs out… and I have lots of things I could sell but am not going to I never hof, infact my last hof/global was over a year ago :eek: But for two months I’ve been living on the 40 ped and just today I had two loots over 40 ped. So, I guess I can empathize with those among us who are not as “lucky” (and certainly I must have some luck) but I also want to show that there are many of us who do not suffer from the “epidemic” problem of low loots…

just my :twocents: as always to show the other side of the coin for those interested

[The_Mighty]

There is a perception amongst all the guys I have spoke to who quit, that PE is a big black hole to sink your money into. Whether or not that perception is correct, I’m not going to bother going into. But that perception does need to be fixed.

[Peanuts]

[QUOTE=Epictetus]
There is a way - stop giving out so many ATH, uber loots, and quest loots. Take half of those and break them into globals and small HOFs so people like me at least feel excited about SOMETHING.

After all, we are talking about TIME which is the most precious commodity people have.
[/QUOTE]

Many players have been trying to suggest this to MA for a long time, but MA does not seem to listen. I too have written posts on these forums to discuss the matter.

IMO, there should be less hofs and better regular loots. I really do not care that much for a large hof. Sure, it would help a little but better regular loots is what would keep more players interested longer. I am not fussy or picky and I would be super happy if only my regular loot return was closer to 80 or 90% compared to the 20 or 30% I am currently getting. I am not playing PE to make money. I am just saying that MA should fix things so that players money lasts longer so they stay with the game longer. In the long run, MA may even make more money.

Let me give you a hypothetical example. Suppose there were two identical stores beside each other and they both carried the exact same products, but one offered cheaper prices than the other. Of course, more people would go to the less expensive store to buy the same items they would have bought in the more expensive store, but they would leave the store with less cash on them because they bought more items.

[system]

[QUOTE=Peanuts]
Many players have been trying to suggest this to MA for a long time, but MA does not seem to listen. I too have written posts on these forums to discuss the matter.

IMO, there should be less hofs and better regular loots. I really do not care that much for a large hof.
[/QUOTE]

It must be working for them or else they wouldn’t keep doing it. Right?

DD
:evilking:

[ultimababe]

[QUOTE=The Mighty]
There is a perception amongst all the guys I have spoke to who quit, that PE is a big black hole to sink your money into. Whether or not that perception is correct, I’m not going to bother going into. But that perception does need to be fixed.
[/QUOTE]

[b]Well observed.. however… you name me one online game where you put your money in and it doesnt disappear :wise:

Of course it’s a black hole..

That’s like saying “OMGWTFLOL… these slot machines just ate my money.. they really ought to fix that!”[/b]

[emptywalls]

DAMN fine posts, peanuts, and everyone else…

IMHO all we can hope is that MA is reading these posts, and takes our wishes into account. im not interested in lighting torches and storming MA and demanding changes. other people have tried that… we are just arent organized enough for that. one person saying ‘im pissed, arent you?! lets do something’ really doesnt get anyone anywhere.

ill vote with my feet, when im ready, as i hope everyone else will.

peanuts, PM sent… what game ya playing? sounds awesome…

[Etopia]

i really wonder why we keep posting on that kind of subject …

someone say loot sucks
other say i get 3k ped hof that game is good
other say , i preffert better average loot than big hof
other say weapon decay to mutch
other say MA dont listen to us
other say , MA dont do any effort
other say there to mutch bug
DD say MA is wonderfull game is wonderfull
knukles say you all sucks ma suck and evrything suck the suker…

well..

i am bored to write and read all time same things , so ,
i lets MA do they business , and i will link my deposit to how MA do the game.

for info , last friday , my FL was full green , in 2 day there was only half left , and today we are just little uper than before VU.
i dont know what MA server say , but i know on 25 people coming back to test VU , 20 gone away again after seeing no-loot , hof and bugs.