Revitalise the Game from the Ground Up
#1
Posted 16 November 2011 - 07:18
You have done many useful things recently. I have appreciated them, even if they have not directly effected me. It is good that you are showing engagement with FS.
However... the game is not thriving. The online numbers are not rising. New accounts do not equal new players. New accounts are multis, all too often.
I suggest a few ideas to save this game, and your business, which obviously depends upon this game, as no others within your stable are currently viable.
1) Give new players 1000 stamina. Ignore older players complaints. We NEED new players more than the diehards need an extra 500 stam.
2) Give them a tutorial that shows them how to hit level 5 quickly, give them free buffs to boost performance and explain why - none more than 175 level. People are hooked on these games by gaining levels - show them some of the inner workings and they will be all the more hooked, give them longer than 500 stam to flail around and screw up and they may give it a second shot.
3) Redesign your lower levels. Get rid of or fix the dead end that is the Fire Chasm - I have lost count of the noobs I have had to redirect out of there - so many just stop when it takes 75+ stam to walk out. You need to streamline the experience at the start - I understand that originally you were wanting to make multiple jump off points and make the world intriguing, that is no longer necessary with over 1200 levels of content ahead - there is a big enough world to worry about later. Make the new experience better directed - make the new player feel they are kicking ass and taking names, to use a phrase. As I said - you need a better tutorial that takes someone through Mountain Path, to the Cathedral of Ways and then to say the Elyas Desert, a linear progression of monsters to kill. The new player feels godlike smacking all these interesting monsters and seeing these sexy skills he enjoys now as a one off, but can learn for herself later. Point out alternate routes if you must, but make it EASY for new players to get hooked. And they need that 1000 stam to get a real feel for the game. 500 is a spit in the ocean.
4) The tutorial should lead new players to some options for starter guilds. Players are the lifeblood of guilds, guilds dominate the game, it follows that the game should lead one to another. I do not mean specific guilds, merely that new players should be explicitly shown how to look for guilds, and those guilds that will take on low level players. Guilds have filters for availability - new players should be able to see those filters, and make choices appropriately.
5) Kill multis. This could be #1 but it goes without saying. New accounts are not new players all the time. If you are technically not proficient enough to kill multis then let us know so we can all make some. If you can - kill them, and prevent any more from existing, they choke the life from new players and 'can' ruin their experience.
6) Advertise. You need to market this game. This should be the biggest game in the non-cable world. You have spent a long time making it better. It is perfect for less developed internet access areas. You are the dial up kings. Who is in your marketing department? Do you have one? WoW will kill you where people can get it. You go where advanced graphics packages can't. Where people have an hour a day for a game that does not penalise them for leaving half way through an activity. And if that is too adventurous - at least advertise yourselves in established markets again - the game is 4+ years old! Those 14yr olds have forgotten you - get the next lot!
This game is demographically beginning to resemble Japan - lots of old (high level) people with not enough young (low level) people to support them. If you can quote stats to show me how the lower level game is thriving in a way which is free of multi obfuscation of real players, show me, show us. You must be aware of this.
Open the game to newcomers. Advertise, give new and huge incentives to new players - 1K stam, some taste of AL 175, LIB 175 etc.. A better designed tutorial and redesign of the lower levels to streamline life for the noob. We need more of them - you as a business model, us, as a gaming community.
Anyone?
#2
Posted 16 November 2011 - 07:27
This is to the Cows.
You have done many useful things recently. I have appreciated them, even if they have not directly effected me. It is good that you are showing engagement with FS.
However... the game is not thriving. The online numbers are not rising. New accounts do not equal new players. New accounts are multis, all too often.
I suggest a few ideas to save this game, and your business, which obviously depends upon this game, as no others within your stable are currently viable.
1) Give new players 1000 stamina. Ignore older players complaints. We NEED new players more than the diehards need an extra 500 stam.
2) Give them a tutorial that shows them how to hit level 5 quickly, give them free buffs to boost performance and explain why - none more than 175 level. People are hooked on these games by gaining levels - show them some of the inner workings and they will be all the more hooked, give them longer than 500 stam to flail around and screw up and they may give it a second shot.
3) Redesign your lower levels. Get rid of or fix the dead end that is the Fire Chasm - I have lost count of the noobs I have had to redirect out of there - so many just stop when it takes 75+ stam to walk out. You need to streamline the experience at the start - I understand that originally you were wanting to make multiple jump off points and make the world intriguing, that is no longer necessary with over 1200 levels of content ahead - there is a big enough world to worry about later. Make the new experience better directed - make the new player feel they are kicking ass and taking names, to use a phrase. As I said - you need a better tutorial that takes someone through Mountain Path, to the Cathedral of Ways and then to say the Elyas Desert, a linear progression of monsters to kill. The new player feels godlike smacking all these interesting monsters and seeing these sexy skills he enjoys now as a one off, but can learn for herself later. Point out alternate routes if you must, but make it EASY for new players to get hooked. And they need that 1000 stam to get a real feel for the game. 500 is a spit in the ocean.
4) The tutorial should lead new players to some options for starter guilds. Players are the lifeblood of guilds, guilds dominate the game, it follows that the game should lead one to another. I do not mean specific guilds, merely that new players should be explicitly shown how to look for guilds, and those guilds that will take on low level players. Guilds have filters for availability - new players should be able to see those filters, and make choices appropriately.
5) Kill multis. This could be #1 but it goes without saying. New accounts are not new players all the time. If you are technically not proficient enough to kill multis then let us know so we can all make some. If you can - kill them, and prevent any more from existing, they choke the life from new players and 'can' ruin their experience.
6) Advertise. You need to market this game. This should be the biggest game in the non-cable world. You have spent a long time making it better. It is perfect for less developed internet access areas. You are the dial up kings. Who is in your marketing department? Do you have one? WoW will kill you where people can get it. You go where advanced graphics packages can't. Where people have an hour a day for a game that does not penalise them for leaving half way through an activity. And if that is too adventurous - at least advertise yourselves in established markets again - the game is 4+ years old! Those 14yr olds have forgotten you - get the next lot!
This game is demographically beginning to resemble Japan - lots of old (high level) people with not enough young (low level) people to support them. If you can quote stats to show me how the lower level game is thriving in a way which is free of multi obfuscation of real players, show me, show us. You must be aware of this.
Open the game to newcomers. Advertise, give new and huge incentives to new players - 1K stam, some taste of AL 175, LIB 175 etc.. A better designed tutorial and redesign of the lower levels to streamline life for the noob. We need more of them - you as a business model, us, as a gaming community.
Anyone?
All I have to say is "hear hear" - very well put discussion ...
#3
Posted 16 November 2011 - 09:35
We need new blood (not just for the pvpers :wink: )
Advertising has to be a must. I got into this game because my daughter suggested it. She got here because her friends from another game suggested it. I doubt I would ever have found FS on my own.
Remembering when I started to play FS ... Then we started with very little stam and I went through mine with no idea what I was doing and achieved nothing. Waiting for more stam took far too long, anything learned or trying to learn was gone by the time I had enough stam to try again. Either a decent amount of stam needs to be given at the start or perhaps a way to earn stam in the early stages. A good way of doing this would be to reward tutorial steps with reserve stam.
Next step .. a good tutorial is essential. I had no clue when I started and nowhere to look for advice. I did eventualy find a quest to do and from there just looked for quests as I didn't know what else to do. I only recall one quest that was intended to instruct, and it didn't. (the one that gives a doubler potion with absolutely no explanation of what the potion was or what it did.) Btw - I finally understood that quest when trying the new map on Alpha!
I 'gave up' on the game almost immediately and only came back to it a few weeks later ('cos I'm a stubborn old cat that doesn't like to fail). Many new players will be young (13 / 14 year olds) that won't have the patience to work out how to play. Just walking around till your stam is gone and finding you haven't even leveled, or know why you should, will be boring for them. The game needs a proper tutorial! I would suggest you ask some seasoned players just what to put in the tutorial and maybe even ask them to 'write' it (you have a community full of talent here!).
Guilds ... I refused or ignored all guild invites for a while, because I had no idea what a guild was or why I might need one, and I didn't want to interact with anyone then. This game thrives mainly on the community within it. It is the interactions we make and new friends we find that make this game. The tutorials need to explain about guilds. In another thread I saw a proposal for a 'dummy' guild which new players could join. Experienced players could maybe voluteer (via preferences) as associate members of such a guild so that they'd be available (in the guild online list) to give advice and help. (No advantage to such players and the dummy guild would have minimal structures with no upkeep and no store - or maybe a small store of shareable very low level gear.) New players could join via a quest and would have to leave and find a regular guild by, say, level 25 (when pvp protection ends).
I believe initial stam was addressed a while ago. Initial back pack spaces need to be addressed. Anyone that tried the alpha map will still be wondering how they ever managed with just 3 BPs at the start. Again, the tutorial quests could reward an extra BP space (or even give a choice of reserve stam or BP space).
The key is to hook them!
Multis ... You already know how we all feel about multis. The problem needs to be addressed.
#4
Posted 16 November 2011 - 11:06
Reading Lahona's post i felt like i was in my first day here, i also knew this game in an advertisement in another game, at first i felt lost, i hadn't any clue about game mechanics, i remember being level 5 or 6 and still be killing rats, those 500 stam disappeared so fast. When stam was recharged i didn't know much more about the game, i entered the Ethereal way and tried to kill the creatures that were there, i didn't knew why they were killing me all the times. At some moment i realized that some creatures gave more xp than others and i began to kill that creatures only. When i reached level 10 or so i decided to join a guild, although i didn't know what was that, i chose one at random and that action is the reason why i'm still here, the GF of that guild helped me a lot to understand the game, he gave me advices of what to wear, where to hunt, etc.
So hear the OP, and do your best to recruit and to cultivate the loyalty of more new players, as it is the only future of this game.
#5
Posted 16 November 2011 - 13:12
+1 to extra stam and reserve stam for new players
+1 to removing the dead end on the early level
+1 to a new game guide - But make this a fantastic introduction using the new map interface for all new players
The new map system should help to keep new players engaged - So get the bug fixes done a.s.a.p. and get it made mandatory game wide a.s.a.p HCS
#6
Posted 16 November 2011 - 15:14
#7
fs_tawebyrd
Posted 16 November 2011 - 15:53
#8
Posted 16 November 2011 - 20:27
#1 should be #5,,nothing is killing the game more than mutiples both the porfessional cheaters and those who simply are bored with their first account and cheat just to have a 2nd account. In another game which had grown past its MMO life (see below) they finally allowed players to buy a 2nd account with an upgrade and play it with a code set up to prevent any cross character trading ever. I dont know how or if this would work in FS with the way its set up but long and short multis are killing the game!
#1 sure why not? I felt 500 was too little to really get into the game anyway but give everyone 1000 reserve to make it fair,,,or at least as fair as possable
#2 YES!!! i noticed in alpha how little we are guided in the start and while a mini tutorial is done in krul the welcome message says go to Mt path. I dont agree as much with the buffs but those could also be included in the tutorial, perhaps new quest guys who just tll you about buffs and give a lower lvl AL and lib or such.
#3 is pretty much saying the things in #2 again,,,I am sure the loose ends such as fire chasm are intended for future additions. Hey theres a great idea! add more stuff going off of there!
#4 again this is pretty much all included in a tutorial
#5 yea kill multis and make it harder to create new ones
#6 heres a tricky one,,,most MMOs last a year tops, good ones 2-3 years and great ones pass the 4 year mark but im yet to see many pass 5. Its a sad fact of gaming life you get to a point where its all the same and theres no real way to add more content or EoC. FS has been advertised a few times long ago and for the most part the target market already knows about it. Comparing it to a cable game like WoW isnt applicable since I have tried WoW and tuned out for its own problems i prefer FS because I can log on and off at will and not have to have a high speed connection or do a download to play.The only place I could think of for advertising would be non US and non Euro areas
#9
fs_tangtop
Posted 16 November 2011 - 21:29
#10
Posted 16 November 2011 - 23:00
Maybe cold turkey.Get them hooked, then bring them down to earth.
I find it funny PvP protection protects from PvP but not GvGs. There's a mistake. The onslaught of being durability slapped certainly turns players away.
And I'm totally against ANY PvP protection even being offered passed level 25. I believe that upgrade release started the game down the wrong path. It was the first time I know that the devs went back on their word. Now the devs are hooked on making a few bucks and don't want to appear to flip-flop. Up to them. Integrity lost and the game turns less popular - the irony.
I do like some of the OPs ideas. A starting tutorial has always been needed. It's tougher then it seems to make a decent one. The redesign of dead-ends is a good idea too. Never thought about it, it's been so long. And MULTIS, don't get me started... all I'll say is I've been censored. And Tangtop's idea of unlimited stam until level 25/PvP Protection runs out is great. The devs need to officially pay him and/or their team instead of only ripping off their ideas. Without the Helper I and most of the players would quit. No wonder he'll be most influential again.
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“When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say.” -GRRM
#11
Posted 17 November 2011 - 02:14
A good tutorial is essential. I almost walked away from FS as I was still killing rats at level 16 or so. And the the ignore feature or the I am to good to help cause I am level 500+ also kills the game. we as a community have done that part of this 2 our selves. how often do we spend 500 gold or so too buy the level 2 a stones hammer just to help someone starting out? before I get flamed I am not saying that we should buy everything for the new blood but at least show that we care every once in awhile. give a free buff to a random level 25 and below and see how happy they get with out knowing what it even does.
#12
Posted 17 November 2011 - 05:54
First quest is to be given 500 gold and told to buy one of these AL 100's in the Special AH and return to get an AL 150 potion and 500 more gold. Quest points out the skill tree and other useful low level potions in the special AH like Lib 100 and Bers 175.
Second quest should give them weapon (+1 HP or something, pretty hot for level 1 lol) that has 0 out of 10 durability and direct them to repair it in the blacksmith and return it. Success is rewarded with a better weapon (kind of like the pick axe to mystic pick axe upgrade).
And amen to 1200 Max Stam for new players plus 1200 reserve stam. Give all existing players 1200 reserve stam so we don't whine too much. Make a quest where some wise loner guy teaches the youngsters about stam and tells them how to get a 1-time energy boost. I chose 1200 because it is the amount of stam you get from 24 hours of the initial stam gain +50.
Then the loner directs us to his brother, cause even a loner needs friends in the game, and he can tell us about guilds and the forum.
Upgrade the base BP to 6 slots too. That's the same as giving all of us 3 slots, but noobs need to be able to hold a base set (inferno, frostbite) with 3-4 items and have room for a drop or two.
Each starting player gets 1000 gold in their bank. Make sure it's banked, otherwise a new player will just lose it to the first nasty rat they see before they even now what to buy. Gold will help with a couple token things early in game and again keep players from getting frustrated early.
I came over with friends from another game. I'm the only one left, but my original GF had a really basic guide on our site I updated and still use. And that community kept me here long enough to get hooked.
#13
fs_ttt1129
Posted 17 November 2011 - 08:18
I had a hard time ever getting into the game until just recently i mean i have the 3 year medal and im level 70
The stam is a must by all accounts and so is the tutorial i felt incredibly lost and bored in the beginning of the game wandering aimlessly killing rats and dying to the ethereal guardian.
Also ADDS!!!!!!!!! The only reason i ever joined this game was because of an add on
battleon .comI like some of your points but not all so ill go by each one
#1 should be #5,,nothing is killing the game more than mutiples both the porfessional cheaters and those who simply are bored with their first account and cheat just to have a 2nd account. In another game which had grown past its MMO life (see below) they finally allowed players to buy a 2nd account with an upgrade and play it with a code set up to prevent any cross character trading ever. I dont know how or if this would work in FS with the way its set up but long and short multis are killing the game!
#1 sure why not? I felt 500 was too little to really get into the game anyway but give everyone 1000 reserve to make it fair,,,or at least as fair as possable
#2 YES!!! i noticed in alpha how little we are guided in the start and while a mini tutorial is done in krul the welcome message says go to Mt path. I dont agree as much with the buffs but those could also be included in the tutorial, perhaps new quest guys who just tll you about buffs and give a lower lvl AL and lib or such.
#3 is pretty much saying the things in #2 again,,,I am sure the loose ends such as fire chasm are intended for future additions. Hey theres a great idea! add more stuff going off of there!
#4 again this is pretty much all included in a tutorial
#5 yea kill multis and make it harder to create new ones
#6 heres a tricky one,,,most MMOs last a year tops, good ones 2-3 years and great ones pass the 4 year mark but im yet to see many pass 5. Its a sad fact of gaming life you get to a point where its all the same and theres no real way to add more content or EoC. FS has been advertised a few times long ago and for the most part the target market already knows about it. Comparing it to a cable game like WoW isnt applicable since I have tried WoW and tuned out for its own problems i prefer FS because I can log on and off at will and not have to have a high speed connection or do a download to play.The only place I could think of for advertising would be non US and non Euro areas
The target audience has certainly not been reached i know a lot of online gamers and no one else i know, knows about fallen sword
And to the players there's reasons they put rewards in for recruiting you know myself included shouldn't we put in a decent amount of effort to bring them in so the cows can hook em
#14
Posted 17 November 2011 - 20:23
The tutorial is a must - I remember when I started.. I stopped for a good bit of time and when I came back on, I was a much higher level and it was much less confusing than all the areas that are available (man did Alpha really bring back memories).
As for upping the Max stamina / BP spaces, I am all for it. I believe that this should be applied retroactively. It won't hurt players to give anyone 700 more max stamina (whether you are a veteran or not) and 3 more BP spaces. The reason why is because then no one has any room to complain, and then you won't get a huge influx of people wanting to restart because they will get 1200 stamina and 6 BP spaces vs. what they might have now.
As for cutting down on the multi accounts, I agree completely. Also on this note, I'd like to add please be consistent on how you treat accounts and game situations. I know there are many different items that go into a report/customer care situation, but there has to be some precedent set and stick to that precedent. There has been many people complaining about customer support and the unreliability in their decisions and actions. I am not naming any single individual, but rather the entire situation as a whole. If I remember correctly, this complaint has been brought up many times before.
#15
Posted 17 November 2011 - 21:56
#16
Posted 17 November 2011 - 22:11
We're actually working on a new tutorial now which aims to streamline the game for new players, explaining step-by-step how parts of the game work as they play through it. This also includes a new tutorial realm that new players start in
Awesome to hear Hoof! Any word on possibly upping the max stamina and starting BP spaces by any chance?
#17
Posted 17 November 2011 - 22:11
We're actually working on a new tutorial now which aims to streamline the game for new players, explaining step-by-step how parts of the game work as they play through it. This also includes a new tutorial realm that new players start in
can we test it once it is ready? maybe in alpha? theres a chance some good suggestion may come
#18
Posted 17 November 2011 - 22:53
Very good suggestions posted. However, the problem with adding more BP space (and maybe more stamina) is, it encourages multis. More BP Space, more space to store stuff. I think, the problem(s) with the multis should be sorted out first, before giving new players more.
#19
fs_ttt1129
Posted 17 November 2011 - 23:06
We're actually working on a new tutorial now which aims to streamline the game for new players, explaining step-by-step how parts of the game work as they play through it. This also includes a new tutorial realm that new players start in
awesome its good to know you guys are reading threads like these and a tutorial realm in itself is a good idea Ringhal i agree with you on the multi issue for someone with only 3 bp spaces <- me whats stopping someone from making a new account for an extra 5 as storage (75 fsp not spent on the game add it up) and so the tutorial and multis must be addressed first in my opinion but the hooves are working on this already so i say kudos to you guys and keep it up.
#20
Posted 18 November 2011 - 04:17
I did the Tutorial for this game, and from what I can remember, it was like: go to the World Map, look for a bunch of Rats and kill one. Tutorial over.
The new tutorial will be much more detailed (without being too verbose
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