Newbie Friendly

[Murzim]

Any ideas for making the game more newbie friendly ?

Perhaps creating a flash presentation ?

I would be open to tutorial created by players like using camtasia or some other capturing program and compiling it.

The main problem seems to be that some newcomers appear completely clueless.

You have been through this phase, so we are open to suggestions.

[HateTheFake]

well i would start by making it so noone under level 4 can see crimes past very easy.

maybe when someone starts have an automatic welcome message, feel free to automatically place a helpers name there

maybe like a basic setup, when they sign on they see little bubbles that say things like this is your attributes, this is your specialty this is how u set up a crime and it would do it in steps. Make it show them how to do 1 crime 1 day of training on their first day and they can choose to use their other 5 elsewhere. (this would be 1 crime automatically, the coolest thing about this game is seeing how your crimes go, my i suggest rob people on a crowded bus.)

So basically it would look like-------

[HateTheFake]

I think it being this early in the game one of the biggest disappointments is the fact that MIG is ahead of any other gang by 100 million power. When most people play a game they play to get first. Mig has done well with getting high up. But its rather discouraging to new players. This game needs leaders to train new people how to play. If not then really they are competing amonst themselves. Maybe even lowering the gang limitations to 25-35 people would help this.

[Metus]

HTF, I don't think anyone even notices MIG or any other gang on their first day in the game. Perhaps it would be a good idea to make it easier for gangs who are aggressively pursueing new players to get in contact with new players. Make the email function more obvious and more user friendly. Put in a mass mail function for the players who joined today. Even better, make that function pick out people with certain specialties. Another idea is to use the in-game advertising for gangs so they can advertise to new players. Let's face it, a brand new player is very unlikely to click on a banner to buy something so why not use the advertisement banners for the first five days for gang adverts? Also, make it easier and more obvious how to use the forum. The forum is a great recruitment and interactive resource for new players but in my experience these are the least likely people to register and pore through the information found there. These seem like pretty easy adjustments you could make to put newbies in close contact with the gangs that can help them. Just my 2 cents.

Metus

[Metus]

Another addition to this discussion. There are two ways to grow this game. One is capitalize on newbies. The other is to increase traffic from referring sites. My question is this: even if you increase traffic from other site ten or one hundred fold, what does it matter if they don't stay and play the game? I understand that there is a lot of focus on how BM stands in the rankings of various MMORPG lists but this does not help the game if the visitors from those sites do not stay.

Take advantage of the fact that a new person is ALREADY HERE. In the sales world, they call this a warm lead. They are already interested, already primed, ready to be hooked on the game. While it is important to spend resources to advertise the game on the web, it is much more important to get players already on the game to stay. In my opinion, this should be given more attention and more importance than voting or reviews or any other methods of free or paid advertisement.

Metus

[HateTheFake]

HTF, I don't think anyone even notices MIG or any other gang on their first day in the game. Perhaps it would be a good idea to make it easier for gangs who are aggressively pursueing new players to get in contact with new players. Make the email function more obvious and more user friendly. Put in a mass mail function for the players who joined today. Even better, make that function pick out people with certain specialties. Another idea is to use the in-game advertising for gangs so they can advertise to new players. Let's face it, a brand new player is very unlikely to click on a banner to buy something so why not use the advertisement banners for the first five days for gang adverts? Also, make it easier and more obvious how to use the forum. The forum is a great recruitment and interactive resource for new players but in my experience these are the least likely people to register and pore through the information found there. These seem like pretty easy adjustments you could make to put newbies in close contact with the gangs that can help them. Just my 2 cents.

Metus

i wish u were right metus, but i cant tell you how many level 1 brand new players apply to join mig then when they werent accepted never showed up again

[Metus]

I think the same could be said for any gang in the top ten though. The same certainly applied to the Corleones while I was there. In fact, I tried to make a point of giving rejected applicants some hope by sending them emails with instructions on how to get themselves a spot in the near future. Some of those same people ended up following me to the Untouchables.

The point I am making is not that the gangs are not important. The point I am making is that gangs should have better tools for helping newbies. Not only should they be directed more effectively to the forum, but some methods of in-game recruitment should be crafted, whether they be better email controls, in game adverts, forum adverts, or some other such tools.

Metus

[a21ozcoldcup]

Actually I can say for a fact that approximately 40 persons who applied to Trench Mafia this set no longer are active players. I think I will probably permanently relax the policy for allowing new players into the gang.. as much as I'd love to keep only Trenchwars players in our gang, that rule has probably effectively pushed 30 (assuming some tried other characters) players away from Booty Master. I should add that I always offer to help the new guys who apply but I think that HTF has a point (though it applies to all gangs, not just MIG) .. that people join and it's a little confusing initially and they think a gang would be glad to have them and sometimes it takes a day or two to get back to them or they aren't "good" enough of a player yet and when you're just starting a game, confused and noone's helping you.. it's easy to just quit..

Honestly, ideas like ideas like training gangs- HTF's or Athens branch .. that's a great concept. We should definitely have some gangs in the game geared towards training newbs.



How about making a list of "veterans" that when you first start playing Booty Master you get paired with one of these veterans and they can mentor you for your first 5 levels in the game. And after that you're on your own.

We could pool together a list of volunteer veterans that are willing to train and every new person who starts is automatically assigned to one of them?

[HateTheFake]

Actually I can say for a fact that approximately 40 persons who applied to Trench Mafia this set no longer are active players. I think I will probably permanently relax the policy for allowing new players into the gang.. as much as I'd love to keep only Trenchwars players in our gang, that rule has probably effectively pushed 30 (assuming some tried other characters) players away from Booty Master. I should add that I always offer to help the new guys who apply but I think that HTF has a point (though it applies to all gangs, not just MIG) .. that people join and it's a little confusing initially and they think a gang would be glad to have them and sometimes it takes a day or two to get back to them or they aren't "good" enough of a player yet and when you're just starting a game, confused and noone's helping you.. it's easy to just quit..

Honestly, ideas like ideas like training gangs- HTF's or Athens branch .. that's a great concept. We should definitely have some gangs in the game geared towards training newbs.



How about making a list of "veterans" that when you first start playing Booty Master you get paired with one of these veterans and they can mentor you for your first 5 levels in the game. And after that you're on your own.

We could pool together a list of volunteer veterans that are willing to train and every new person who starts is automatically assigned to one of them?

ill volunteer for this if needed

[Metus]

I proposed something like this on a macro scale on the last forums; having sort of a gang within a gang. Make it so a senior gang who has a lot of truly experienced and talented players is paired with a junior gang who has nothing but inexperienced players. These gangs should operate independently but share gang mass email and gang treasury, and the senior gang should be able to send non-limited items to the junior gang through courier.

I know there are a lot of problems with this setup and it goes against the idea of downsizing gangs. However, the reality of the situation is that the top gangs are doing this anyway the hard way. Why not facilitate the already accepted method of training up newbies? Why fight an already established process?

Metus