[MUD-Dev] MMORPGs & MUDs

[Dave Rickey]

From: Koster, Raph <rkoster at soe.sony.com>
> Michael Tresca:

>>   "In order to gain insight into the new player's challenges, we
>>   focused our exit survey research on why players
>>   left. Specifically, we focused on those players leaving early
>>   within the first month of play. We quickly realized that we
>>   were losing most of our new players within the first three play
>>   sessions due to a lack of clearly defined goals upon entry. "

> I did say "average." As I said above, I cannot go into much more
> detail, as I said in my last quoted paragraph above.

If you eliminate those that quit in the first month, the average
goes *way* up.  The thing is, most of what players make a fuss about
is not what makes most of the players quit.  Balance, stability,
content, all of these are important, but the most important factor
in short-term retention is pure playability, does that player find
the *core* gameplay fun, engaging, and easy to access?

> Another factor of interest on the commercial side has been the the
> "casualizing factor," for want of a better term. Basically, people
> by and large tend not to be recidivist in trying a game. Once they
> decide they don't like it, most of them never try it again. So as
> the game grows, you're hitting new people with your new
> acquisitions. But a game that has been fairly popular, such as UO,
> long ago exhausted all the hardcore CRPGers, all the mudders who
> were interested, all the core gamer geeks, and so on. Sure, some
> new entities of that type enter the market every year, and they
> may give it a try. But the bulk of new accounts comes from people
> who are not in those types. Especially as the client software
> price drops, they tend to be less of a core gamer, more casual,
> and--the key part--MUCH less tolerant of problems or difficulty in
> getting started.

> In other words, all the MMORPGs have found that as the game grows,
> the percentage of new players who give up early rises.

The thing is, you don't really have to worry about the player who
rants and raves and gives all of his character's stuff away in a
grand gesture before cancelling.  It's the ones that just softly
slip away that really bleed your bottom line.  However, 90%+ of
ongoing developer effort is focused on established players who say
'I'm going to quit if you don't put in something new to amuse me.'
Rarely do we go back and say "What's our newbie experience like
these days?"

--Dave

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