October Player Retention And More

[Bvie 1754]

Greetings

 

Even before my short stint on the Application Team, player retention was always my number one goal.

 

We've utilized Youtube Videos, Voting Websites, Planetminecraft, word of mouth, and more, to ensure LotC has a steady stream of players incoming.

 

But...what does all that do when they don't stay?

 

We've been a boat with many leaks, and only so many fingers to plug those leaks, for a long time.

But can we really pinpoint the causes that makes players leave?

 

Sure, we can throw around that its the lack of events, its the toxic community, its the laggy warclaims...whatever you want. 

But facts and numbers are always the best go-to for looking for a problem.

 

So, I went a bit more in-depth than my past retention posts, looking for answers:

 

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zGjfWDEMz_GdrrAZANVCxJlogDioQLb__AwsuOBoCUE/edit?usp=sharing

 

 

Overall Retention for October

 

I tried to be realistic with the cut off points.

Honestly, the chances of someone returning to LotC after a break of 10+ days, as a new player, are slim to none.

They haven't established the roots or relationships with people to make them want to come back to the server.

 

Those that have been offline for 5-9 days are in yellow, in danger of going inactive.

 

While those that are Currently Online-4 Days offline are considered green and active.

 

As you can see, nearly 60% of the players that joined us in October are already gone. While 10% of them are close to following.

 

While the active seems like a large amount, it's only 31 players.

And if you take a closer look at the GDoc on the left side, almost 1/4th of those players are close to being deemed 'in danger' of going inactive, for good.

 

 

Racial Division of Active Players from October

 

 

I took the numbers a step further, taking the active 31%(That, once again is close to dropping by 1/4th in a single day) and seeing where they currently are at on the server in terms of race.

 

As you can see, even though the overall applications for the month of October made it appear that Elves and Humans were almost equally active, a closer look shows that Humans still overshadow all races.

Their closest competitor, Elves of all types, still lags behind by 13% active players (or for those that are number challenged, 4 players).

 

 

Breakdown of Active Elves

 

 

Its always been hard to see how new players take to the Elven groups when their listed as just 'Elves'. 

 

Here we can see that the Elves that are deemed active (Active within the past 5 days) actually have an equal spread, with omnielf being the generic 'Elf' race.

 

 

Time Zones of All Applications

 

 

LotC is a server that caters to many people across the world. But where are the highs and the lows of current applications?

 

Well, as you can see above, the applicants are primarily coming from the EST timezone (GMT-5), with PST (GMT-8) and GMT/GMT+1 coming in behind them.

 

Once again, these numbers are for all applications throughout October. Lets take a closer look and see which of these applicants are still around though.

 

Time Zones of Active New Players from October

 

 

These numbers are a bit different than the ones above.

 

This shows that the active new players from October, the ones that are still playing, are from mainly the EST timezone, with 15 of the 31 players.

 

Where second place was a close call between PST and GMT/GMT+1 for all applicants though, PST wins by a landslide here, with 6 of the 31 players.

While this number seems low, they kept almost half of their total players for the month of October.

 

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for GMT/GMT+1. Where they started with almost the same as PST, they now only have 3 of the 31 players reigning from their time zone.

 

 

So what can we find out from all of this?

 

Well, we still can't put a finger on what is the main cause for players leaving.

 

We see that near 70% of the applications of October either have one foot out the door or are already long gone.

And with the active player group cutting it very close (remember what I said about 1/4th of them just being one day from going yellow), that number is only going to rise.

 

We can see that even though over all numbers showed Elves much closer to Humans, actual active player wise, it isn't the case. Humans still trump all the races.

Possibly, we need to look at the smaller groups to ensure that the new members they do get are retained? This could be a ooc and/or an ic issue, and probably is, so lets try and work on this.

 

We can see that Elves are equally spread through new members that are remaining active, which is nice.

 

We can see that the overall applications primarily come from three timezones, EST, PST, and GMT/GMT+1.

We can also see that those that are staying are mainly from EST and PST. For some reason, we're losing our GMT applicants.

Possibly, an overall lack of players in this time zone? A lack of general rp? A lack of events?

 

This leads to the question of, do we spread our resources thin in this area in an attempt to grab at loose strands?

Or do we consolidate our resources into the time zones that are already doing well, and further them and ensure they're active?

 

Going forwards....

 

Obviously, I'd love to see player retention skyrocket. But it's not something that's realistic. It's going to take time and effort from all parties and staff teams.

 

But hopefully looking at these numbers gives everyone a better idea of where the server stands, for October at least. 

 

I'll probably be proposing some ideas for the server to enhance player retention.

I know there's a GM that's trying to make retention their thing and basically copying Magic_Pastry's project that never got off the ground.

But honestly, while its a step in the right direction, there needs to be more done.

 

Anyway, time for bed

 

PS: Tom told me to link it to you AT ppls

@Lego XBOX @Gusano Arentonio @Cooliomafia @_Jandy_ @Parion @grimmothy k im tired of @'ing ppl.

[Old-Rattlesnake 1534]

This deserves all the rep just for the sheer amount of research and effort it took to document all this.

[AGP 3169]

The only realistic way to make player retention rise is to make Rp fun. People will stay when they have fun on the server. Rp is fun when there are people to Rp with. Currently there's no guarantee you can find people to Rp with in most places at most times.

 

Also, there's no guarantee that an applicant will ever enjoy the server so you can never expect player retention to near 100%.

[SeventhCircle 460]

Hmm does paint a sharp picture of the problems facing the server but as GiantPie points out the real root comes down to if people aren't having fun they aren't staying. I honestly believe just how confusing it is to get involved/finding rp can be a massive barrier to newcomers. I mean hell it's shockingly easy for new folks to get lost on the spawn island of all places. 

 

In general I believe we should consolidate our player base somewhat. We've allowed so many tiny settlements to pop up as of now it's quite clearly spreading our player base out to much. Which leads to a lack of always available rp for newer players. Which in my opinion is hugely important. I honestly wished the server wasn't split up across three worlds. When really we could all fit on just one of them. I know folks didn't really like Athera as it was to small but it really did make it so there was always RP close by.

[Nate1450 111]

Wow, thanks for taking the time to do all of this, SquirtGun

[claireanne 191]

knowledge.

 

it is entirely too late for all this information to be shoved in my brain

[Gone 869]

7 minutes ago, AGiantPie said:

The only realistic way to make player retention rise is to make Rp fun. People will stay when they have fun on the server. Rp is fun when there are people to Rp with. Currently there's no guarantee you can find people to Rp with in most places at most times.

 

This^ 
I've had new players randomly messaging me asking how to move around spawn, how to get to the capitals, or saying they're lost. Look at the map from a new player's perspective. 

They get dropped into a cave with no one around. Walk out to find rather large, and empty, island. Sure there's signs to somewhat direct people but honestly they're easy to miss. I've had to explain where the elven boat is to someone who wasn't even new. 

So say this new player figures out where the boat is and takes it to... Well to an empty dock on an even larger island with less signs around. People can easily get lost, frustrated since they don't know what they're doing, and log off. 

 

Look at previous maps. I remember joining in Anthos, finding people rping in the Cloud Temple moment I logged on the first time and being able to ask for directions. Someone even walked with me to the elven city. 

Fringe there were settlements really close to spawn so new players could find people easy. 

Thales too had places near spawn to rp (I remember the magic academies were really close) and where people could be found. 

Same with Athera. RP in spawn and close settlements.

Vailor as well had the very popular docks and obvious carts that put you really close to a capital if you took them. 

 

This spawn is too huge, confusing, and empty. Getting to settlements that actually have rp on this map simply takes too long for a newer player. I'd get frustrated and leave too if I had to deal with it and didn't know what I was doing. 

[AGP 3169]

Just now, Aelsioln said:

This spawn is too huge, confusing, and empty. Getting to settlements that actually have rp on this map simply takes too long for a newer player. I'd get frustrated and leave too if I had to deal with it and didn't know what I was doing. 

Agreed. Spawn is dumb. I've always said that spawn should be a room from where you can teleport to your or a race's green soulstone pillar.

 

That alone won't solve the more important problem of most settlements not having reliable Rp either, though I think it's clear that long travel times and difficulty finding settlements does not help new players get into the groove.

[Weabootrash 412]

Yeah pretty much what aesilion said, the spawn needs a redoing honestly and even though people say the vailor CT was bad for having too much memes and needed little RP. It atleast had noobs a chance to find their capital or RP with fellow people around their. 

 

They also need to make friends so that they can join back and find RP once they join back to the server and will eventually be apart of the community.

 

I kindav also think there needs to be more fast travel so that people dont have to run for 10 minutes to find dragur, or oren etc. It's really boring to run and there's never RP on the roads you just awkwardly stop and look at the person before one of you runs off.  

 

edit: oh **** yeah you should probably add a tutorial/map in the begging because that's nice.

[christian2142 79]

Nice things.

 

Really though, the amount of research and effort put into this was extensive and impressive, especially for a nation leader. Bravo.  

 

In response to the question proposed, I believe we should reinforce the already sturdy timezones. Focus on bolstering the player retention and activity. Not only are you creating an anchor for the playerbase (or a 'safe-zone' if you will), but in theory those playerbases would eventually influence (and therefore bolster) their neighboring timezones. The information presented already demonstrates the timezones most closely accompanying the most active ones being at least somewhat retentive, with the only outlier being 8-12. Aside from that, it's relatively deserted.

 

 

 

 

[colovian fur 8360]

spawning in some giant spinach land only to find long arduous journeys with little to no rp is a horrible welcoming gift 

 

we can't force people to enjoy the festering **** we all like  

 

maybe lotc is just getting more dated???

[justDEWit 133]

Amazing job collecting all of this data over time and creating this forum post.

 

I believe that more new players and people, in general, will stay longer if you make event lines or more people just make RP fun all together. The spawn is way too confusing to navigate through, so many don't know which way to go, even with the floating race and city names. RP is also often spread out among settlements, which is fine, but makes new players confused on where to go.

 

EDIT: Let me just add some solutions to these problems.  Add more frequent additions on the road to tell people that they are going the right way to a certain city (maybe add a distance measurement NPC's?) Event lines or just events in general will most likely aid in creating more RP in capital cities.

[Farryn 860]

I know we had our loose ends, Squirtgun, but holy ****... this research is amazing. Brilliant job!

[Silverstatik 218]

As a sorta in and out player who has struggled with retention, having people engage you in rp is kinda key, , but alot of that falls into guilds, guard cores, and armies recruiting, which not only cuts out those players looking for other kind of rp, it can be rather dull right from the get go. Nothing wrong with guard and guild rp as i love it and can be very fun, just new players can be very easily shuffled into a recruit type role and then largely ignored aside from some mundane stuff or sideline watching interesting things. The other result is a new player doesn't even get involved with a group and falls out failing to find rp entirely.

 

 I think some more ways to get people into a cool little story right from the get go, get them some chances to flesh out their character, maybe pick up a interesting item or two would go along ways to getting them interested in rping, and give them the base and experience to start their own rp with other new players and current players. Some things like being asked to help gather some supplies and test crazy potions for a alchemist, help guard someone exploring a ruin with some rp fight encounters for more fighter types, stealing something from a house with some theif scouting new talent, just for a few examples could be run. These would get the players comfortable talking with strangers, making some decisions, and give them something to go on for a character.

[shimmeringbliss 268]

Impressive research!

 

When I first started in Elysium, I met with players rather quickly. That got me interested and invested to stay on the server.

 

Its less now, but the new rp feeling was very pleasant. You really do need to see rp immediately, instead of hoping to find rp down the road or whatever.