[MUD-Dev] Addressing newbies (was: attracting players)

Wed Apr 26 13:31:21 CEST 2000

Mud Imp wrote:
> I seem to be the worlds worst at being able to attract players. I've done
> everything that looks obvious. put ads on the message bases, listed the
> mud on the lists...asked what players I have to recruit...And I still have
> few players..yet I know there are muds out there that seem to have so many
> players they almost have to turn them away... What am I missing here that
> others have found? Anyone?

I have no idea, but this is an opportunity :).

Here is a checklist for desirable aspects:

1. Main functionality is intuitive. The user is not getting frustrated.
   This includes the ability to move and talk.

2. The user met a person that wanted her friendship. This is one of the
   most powerful factors.

3. The user got the impression that there "is more around the next
   corner". In a game environment this may include the awareness of
   certain dangerous or mythical areas that peeks curiosity and
   excitement. This is related to "depth".

4. The user got started on a task he would like to see completed.

5. The user did not experience a trauma. Example: "dying" and not
   knowing how to get back to "life".

6. The user felt he had accomplished something a few minutes after
   logging on for the first time {Mike Sellers}. A general problem with
   software is the need to learn quite a lot of mechanics and
   functionality to feel productive.

7. Browsability. The world communicates its variety/"breadth" in a
   comprehensible fashion. It is desirable that the user get the
   opportunity to "taste" what she finds most interesting.

This checklist focus on how the user meets the world itself, but one
should also think about external factors that matters: how accessible is
the software, how easy is the install procedure, is the user invited to
the system by good friends and has the user made an investment up front.
Branded and boxed products enjoy/reap the benefits of the up front
investment factor.

SOCIALIZATION AS A STRATEGY

The main issue is to get the newbie "tied up" in a social context, to be
a stranger/foreigner in a social context can be frustrating and
unpleasant. (One may consider to make the real culture visible in the
environment) If you make the early socialization a premise of your
design, then you can focus on making primary operations accessible and
let the more esoteric functionality be somewhat more obscure (and thus
potentially more powerful).

Stuff you can aim for:

* Lower the threshold for talking. This is both a functionality issue, a
cultural issue, but also a content issue. Do you provide perceived valid
reasons for chatting up strangers?

* Make movement and navigation easy and relatively safe. If newbies move
then they may meet more friendly people. You may compensate for this by
putting newbies in an area with many potentially friendly users, such as
a "public hang out". Bored people are more accepting to chatting than
busy users buying equipment or coding.

* Make it easy to locate and make contact with other users.

* Operations should be easily explainable with the communication means
your system provides (typically text). The system should provide the
users with an intuitive language for talking about operations. The
helping user should be able to verify that the helped user has
interpreted the instructions correctly and be able to identify what
needs to be corrected.

* Experienced users should benefit from taking care of and recruiting
new  users. New and experienced users should of course not compete over
the same resources. New users may be treated as a resource for
experienced users.

* Provide for and utilize the truly helpful users.  You may provide them
with tools to identify truly new users and whether they are in trouble
or not.  Helpful users care about genuine newbies, not new characters.

* Make the threshold for the newbie even lower than you deem necessary,
no matter how easy you think your system is to use.

NEWBIE TEAMS, BROTHERHOOD

One of the best experiences you can have in a virtual world is to
explore it with another newbie friend. The users get an opportunity to
show appreciation, joy and togetherness through the sharing of new
discoveries. By bonding with users on their own level they get the
confirmation that their existence in the world is valid, they become
useful. They also place themselves on the inside of an interpretative
context. The newbie brotherhood affords protection and support.
Co-operating newbies form subcultures that may protect them from verbal
attacks from the regular users. Subcultures may make your system more
dynamic.

The newbie relationship is about peerage. This is in contrast with
newbies being adopted by experienced users, which is a debt relation. A
debt the newbie will have trouble paying and thus may create a sense of
duty. The newbie brotherhood may be less efficient, but this is good, it
stretches the newbie experience, which in turn may make for stronger
long term bonding. The shortcuts that comes with adoption kill some of
the experiential potential of the world, it is much more of a "catching
up with" than a "being with" situation. 

In my opinion the best situation is where the primary experience is the
one of brotherhood without intrusive adoption by experienced users. It
would be better if the experienced users had a helpful/parental relation
to a brotherhood rather than having a newbie hang out with the
experienced. The ideal situation might be that the newbies form loose
ties to existing groups, their parental reference, but primarily stick
to their brotherhood.

Some issues to consider in relation to the newbie brotherhood:

* New users that log in within the same time frame should be placed in
the same location. New users should be able to tell whether other users
are new or not.

* New users should be able to get back together again, easily.  The
identity should be visible and clear, which affords recognition of
random acquaintances. Newbie areas should provide many intersections
that makes it more likely that their individual paths will cross often.
You must provide meeting places with landmarks that can be easily
located.

* Sacrifice realism to afford long distance communication and other
vital aids that affords co-operation and sharing of experiences while
retaining freedom to travel on your own.

* Make sure that the newbie experience is a good one and not a test. If
the newbie areas are boring then you increase the need for adoption to
get over the bump (This may be more typical of hack and slash (Diku)
than the more narrative/constructive worlds).

* Advertise your world in widely scoped time limited campaigns. Then you
get a surge of newbies, rather than a continuous stream of lonely ones.

--
Ola

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