There's been a lot of development and other Alter Aeon activity over the last couple of weeks, but the bigger question is, to what end? While making ad-hoc changes can improve things, it's not necessarily the best way to get to a particular destination.
There is a method to the madness here, and a specific end goal. In February, I'll be approximately tripling the advertising budget, and if I'm going to be spending that kind of money we damn well better be ready for it. I have no intention of getting traffic to the site only to fail the new arrivals in other ways.
This still leaves a lot of things to be done:
- Getting proper ad and propaganda materials ready.
- Level 33 should be in and available. Happy high level players advancing to a new goal will help new players feel like there's something interesting going on.
- A proper new version of the dClient should be available, hopefully with a prettier automap and better blind support.
On the plus side, the statistics collection on new players is rapidly improving, and we have a much better idea of where people drop out and where problem spots are. The 'saved character' rate is actually quite high now that false negatives have been properly weeded out; of the new connections that begin the character creation process, approximately half of them get to level 1 and save. This is excluding multis - it's a pretty close measure of brand new people who have never seen the game before.
The 50% 'player save' value is also consistent against the dClient numbers, which I had not expected. I would have thought that the dClient numbers would be higher, and they are after a fashion - but not nearly as high as they should be. The dClient clearly needs more work and polish.
In addition to this, I'm in the process of collecting statistics for the islands to see where new players drop out. This is a longer term collection, which will hopefully tell us how to streamline and improve areas on the islands.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
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8 comments:
Why don't you post the stats. How many new unique connections do we get a day, how did they find the mud, how many downloaded the custom client, where in the mud have the dropouts been, what percentage of them are blind, ect. You should also consider monitoring how many tells they get sent for the first 5 levels or so to determine what effect newbie helpers have. Also, you should develop a way to monitor the newbie channel to determine how often newbie questions get answered and how much time it takes on average to answer the question.
I'll be posting some stats and other information in the coming weeks, and probably discussing some of the things I'm trying or discovering about the process.
Regarding posting stats here, I do post things occasionally, but in general I haven't found it to be terribly useful. A lot of the stats I collect are very specific or have a lot of associated context; just as I don't post many game related stats on boards, I'm probably not going to be posting much raw data here.
Historically, I've found it best to post general descriptions of what I think I see in the data. When I do that, I get the real help - posts like yours, asking why I don't try X or if I have stat Y.
Thanks BTW, I'll see if I can find some way to work newbie channel and tell feedback into the system.
Naturally, the more secretive you keep things and the less sentimentalism and reflection you show, the less likely people will feel like they have anything to contribute to the game's development.
I guess I can tell that you understand this because we have this new interactive blog. I mean i don't want to see a bunch of raw garbaled data either. Just keep in mind that you may be able to reap other rewards by sharing your action plan with us, other than just "good ideas" that you think you'll be able to mine from the playerbase.
A friend referred me to this game, so it's good I found it first. One day while the Alter Aeon server was down, I took a peek at another MUD. Just a few seconds after I logged on, 2 different people welcomed me by name to the game via the newbie channel and offered help in any questions I might have. There was also a tower with a number of quests that teach the new mudder how to navigate within the world and interact with various aspects, such as the 'help insert word' function. I actually learned a lot of things I could do there that I could do here as well. I had already started here, and I tend to stay where I know at least a few people, but I must admit if I hadn't of gotten help from some people I knew IRL on Alter Aeon, I would have given up and tried elsewhere. (Took me three days to learn I could search additional corpses on the screen by typing search 2.corpse etc....and an additional 2 days to learn I could actually get money by saccing em.)
Leonad, newbie areas are always filled with tough decisions. We want to get people started and playing as quickly as possible, but giving them a huge list of possible commands right at the start is problematic. I've seen as many people leave due to information overload as not.
One thing that has been recommended is simply work much more tutorial material into the introductory areas that people have to regularly pass through. Do you think that would help?
Also, did you find the newbie channel to be of any assistance?
Yes I have found the newbie channel to be of assistance, though sometimes I wish I could still talk on it so as to perhaps help others with areas I've recently left. I think brief tutorials would help people learn the game more. If you are interested in that other game I was referring to for ideas I can put it here or tell you in game. I did not mean the other mud gave huge lists, but there were certain 'teachers' one could interact with to learn basic things such as magic use and using the map. I do like this game much more for the simple fact that it is much less complex. The other one when you log in you have to pick a class from a long list, then a subclass for that class, and then choose from a list of like 15 races...which took forever trying to decide on...lol
The truth is this. When I go to other muds, I see a bunch of garbage descriptions in the rooms. There is an overuse on colors, or an underuse on colors. All of the information is crammed into a couple rooms with massive long descriptions and mobs constantly telling me to do crap while I can't keep track of it, or want to. Alter Aeon has cut out all of that. I go to other muds and see this, and instantly don't give it a chance, it completely sucks. The way Alter Aeon has handled the newbie area/areas is extraordinarily great compared to other muds. People may say that this has nothing to do with staying at a game, but it does. I feel like I am overwhelmed with information, and the long description is so long, that I don't even want to read it. It's like when you are in math class and you are taking a math test. If you see just all the problems crammed together and they are all really long and stuff, you are like "Man, I don't even want to do this.", and you don't even want to look at the test, much the less start it. My point is, Alter Aeon has a great newbie welcoming already, and it is improving DAILY. I have few methods that I could argue could improve this, but we will all talk about them and see. I think we have a long way to go, and we have already come a long way. Alter Aeon will rise to the top all in good time. I think it is unique because we don't get a lot of "trolls" like other muds. We may not have 500 players on at a time, but we have a great playersbase. I think having our 40-50 players on at peak time beats the 400-500 players of trolls and other people like that. This is just my opinion.
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