Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketing.

A place to discuss shard marketing ideas to find players seeking a T2A experience.
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Boomland Jenkins
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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by Boomland Jenkins »

Player retention is a community task. GMs and Players are part of the community and it's all of our jobs to pitch in here. Staff isn't being paid, but we're here (I think) because we love UO and enjoy working alongside the player base. Players want more players here, so to some extent, there is more to gain from a player being proactive in promoting UOSA. It also will always sound better coming from a player that "UOSA is awesome" - when you see Staff promoting their own shard with a louder voice than the players, it usually is looked down upon.
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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by AshBorn »

I feel the purpose of this...

"Transforming a permanent low level quest from one type of quest into another type of quest over a period of time does not change the fact that some sort of quest of this nature would be constantly going on. The point is that our storyline quests are temporary, and once they're done, the world will return to normal, whereas a transforming low level quest will simply mean that there is some constant quest system in place for new players to get a foothold, which isn't something that should be here." - Kaivan

...is to distort my idea back to being NEA instead of to take my idea and make it EA. Or at the very least, this response returns my suggestion to its initial stage.. back to when I first suggested it when it actually was a permanent quest line.

Take the gargoyle thing, make it appropriate to low skill players. Run that as often as you do them for non new players. Temporary, and afterwards the world goes back to normal. If the gargoyle thing is era accurate, then so is one that caters to lower skilled players.

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We will have to agree to disagree here...

"A lot of what has been suggested in this thread involves in-game changes, and aren't really relevant to outside community building." - Kaivan

...everything suggested here will effect current and non current players. The in game changes you make, will determine whether certain players will return to the game. In game changes can be advertised in the marketing that is done to entice new players and old players to return. The outside community is necessarily effected by the inside community. But I digress, I took 'Community Advancement' to mean new players, and player retention; rather than, just marketing to new players.

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The companion system seems very helpful and seems like it would be a great asset to this shard. If I achieve nothing else in this thread, other than this companion system, I will still consider it a success.

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Prioritization of accuracy over retention is sound. But that doesn't mean that an idea that starts out NEA cannot be changed to be era accurate, thus supporting both ideals.

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As for this....

"when you see Staff promoting their own shard with a louder voice than the players" - BLJ

... I'm not worried about the Staff being louder than the players. Seems like a tangential problem that is very unlikely to occur given the responses in this thread. Even if it did occur, it seems like a good problem to have lol.

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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by Kaivan »

AshBorn wrote:I feel the purpose of this...

"Transforming a permanent low level quest from one type of quest into another type of quest over a period of time does not change the fact that some sort of quest of this nature would be constantly going on. The point is that our storyline quests are temporary, and once they're done, the world will return to normal, whereas a transforming low level quest will simply mean that there is some constant quest system in place for new players to get a foothold, which isn't something that should be here." - Kaivan

...is to distort my idea back to being NEA instead of to take my idea and make it EA. Or at the very least, this response returns my suggestion to its initial stage.. back to when I first suggested it when it actually was a permanent quest line.
Given that your response stated that on one month we spawn orcs, and then on the next month we spawn rats, your response suggested that you were looking for monthly themed quests that would cater to new players. That was what I took away from that, and that type of proposal was no different than what you were providing before, except for varying the spawn, which smacked of a cheap way to get around the idea that it was a continuous spawn.
AshBorn wrote:Take the gargoyle thing, make it appropriate to low skill players. Run that as often as you do them for non new players. Temporary, and afterwards the world goes back to normal. If the gargoyle thing is era accurate, then so is one that caters to lower skilled players.
The purpose of the gargoyle quest isn't to be a high level event designed to cater to the whims of experienced players, but is intended to be a storyline event that gives the world a more natural feel while simultaneously providing a break from the normal game play. A frequent low level event with the intent of simply catering to newer players does not fit within the role of what these types of events are for. They are for story telling and role playing, not as a tool to support players of a given experience level. Now, of course, this doesn't preclude the possibility of things like town invasions of orcs or other such lower level quests, but they certainly aren't going to be run just to assist newer players.
AshBorn wrote:We will have to agree to disagree here...

"A lot of what has been suggested in this thread involves in-game changes, and aren't really relevant to outside community building." - Kaivan

...everything suggested here will effect current and non current players. The in game changes you make, will determine whether certain players will return to the game. In game changes can be advertised in the marketing that is done to entice new players and old players to return. The outside community is necessarily effected by the inside community. But I digress, I took 'Community Advancement' to mean new players, and player retention; rather than, just marketing to new players.
Ok, perhaps I wasn't being precise enough in what I said. The point of what I was saying is that most of the suggestions involve directly affecting internal operations of the server (greater assistance with player run events, more events from staff, and the Companion system), which are not directly related to outside community development. While it is true that these things will have an ancillary effect on the outside community due to things like newsletters about such changes and youtube videos about these things, they aren't directly related.

In any event, I'll bow out of this particular thread for the time being, as I have some big things to address in the next couple of days. But, I will say that I've briefly spoken with other staff members regarding the Companion system, and this is the most likely thing to actually change as a result of this thread.
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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by AshBorn »

Alright. Peace man. Thanks for the dialogue.

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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by Ali »

I think there are a lot of great ideas going on in here.


Players could make an impact without GM help in game.


I would suggest creating a Councilor Guild. Vets would have a character on the stone and try to spend a few hours a week moving around towns and dungeons seeing if people need help or have questions. The guild members could dress the same and have their role displayed prominently in the guild tag.


It would be nice to hear from members of NEW on what they are doing and what they need as far as player retention. There always seems to be people in NEW online so new players are finding them and getting set up. If you want to Trash Talk NEW please go to another thread.
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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by Ohm »

I like the idea of a Companion System..

But I do not think they should be allowed to hide.
Whether they can log onto their player account at the same time or not, allowing a Companion to hide is just opening a door for abuse
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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by nevermind »

:D nice thread guys. I would like to say iI just read 100% of it but the truth is that comes to 95% so if I missed something feel free to stomp on me for it :mrgreen:

Any way i feel this could be simplified greatly. I have been helping new players here since shortly after i was new my self I even joined a guild named OLD witch was created and maintained for the sole purpose of financing and supporting the NEW guild, but there management being what it is blew us off so we disbanded.

I still help any new player that I meet. I also know that most of the people posting in this thread do also. On their own time and at their own expense.

I dont propose to change that in any way. The way i see it is that any vet could volunteer to make any blue toon as a helper. nothing would change in game no powers no access. the only thing that would change is that any account under a certain amount of days would see that toon name in a different color in game. given the amount of people here that are willing to help new players they might get the occasional im busy atm at the bank but they would find us.

not a programmer here but that change should be simple .
this would create a couple of drawbacks for the GMs
1. creating an explanation of this on the main page
2. making exploitation of this a banning offence for the vet (pking)
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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by SirEricKain »

Where do we stand with this? I fully support it if we can minimize any abuse only.
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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by Gluttony »

I'm relatively new to this shard, I definitely wouldn't have stayed if not for Kyrie throwing me a bone and inviting me to a guild, helping me set up my options in razor, teaching me how to macro, etc. Some players never get this experience and I think if the companion system was implemented with the guidelines kavain highlighted (albeit the "hide" feature does sound like it would hurt more than help) it would succeed in drawing in players and retaining them so the rest of us have some competition :lol: judging by the job description of being a companion I would gladly pitch in if need be.

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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by Raefon »

/signed

This is a great thread!
I fully support this idea and i'd definitely volunteer to sign up should this happen!
This would definitely go further than "Here's a small deed go help yourself"

I try and help any new ones I see but that number has since been lesser.
As what morgan mentioned the challenge is finding these people to help.

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Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin

Post by Soma »

Felix for GM counsellor 2012 2015!
Please choose a more appropriate signature.

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