Discussion: Player Retention Rates

I have watched it briefly before, but it still seems to be incredibly rare and uncommon for a stream to happen. What I am talking about is having things occur weekly that can feed hype and encourage conversation. It doesn't even have to be on the development front as long as it is something to look forward to and is a confirmation that progress is happening. A screenshot of something (or part of something) the build teams made or something vague that encourages discussions would be perfect as well. Going even farther, a picture of a cow and a date for some new cow involved event or change is an example of what I am talking about.

Just a suggestion; you should be more direct. I mean, I'm not always playing when Aikar is having a livestream, so I'm not going to see what he says there. And I don't have a fb or twitter that I actively use so I'm not going to see what you say there either. Same thing with a lot of players. You should use the forums as your main communication tool. Don't make people have to dig to find info, just tell them lol

But not everyone has/wants all of the media that EMC uses. Personally, my parents won't let me join fb/twitter so I can't see those outlets meaning I'm losing out on information when I don't have a choice.

I always get prompted with the login screen that I can't get to go away unless I would actually login.

You should be. Most players are bias when it comes to EMC, myself included, because we love this place. And rightfully so!

With all due respect: there is a huge difference between reading dry statistical data and drawing your own conclusions from them and actually seeing things unfold yourself.

I won't claim that I see everything, and obviously you have more extensive access than me. But all the players which I encountered to have run straight off into the Frontier had been online for over 10 minutes, with some exceptions being down to 7 - 8 minutes. That doesn't really imply running through the tutorial.

And of course I also have some comments from players who I did manage to get back to town.

However, you are also right of course: there is a clear warning which says that it might be best to go to town and not directly into the Frontier. However, to my knowledge (from the top of my head) there's nothing in the tutorial which warns people that they won't be able to chat outside town (I could be mistaken). And although I fully support the idea I also think its fair to acknowledge that this disability is a rather unique one. On most servers players can chat all the time.

So I don't think you can fully rule out the option that there aren't plenty of players who end up feeling totally alone and abandoned, and therefor take off.

Yah, well... I've started taking a little bit of interest into the Spigot project and right now, time of writing, roughly 1,900 people are participating there. That's Minecraft server software which in itself is a niche market. Yet roughly 2,000 on a website? 1066 logged on members?

Context: FreeBSD, one of the leading Unix-like operating systems. Website visitors right now (time of writing): 180.

I'm not too sure that you can fully pin this on Minecraft here

As long as I can like forum posts and breed animals on my res I'm happy.

I like random staff events. Always fun. I'm sad I couldn't go to the blizzard one last night, but one can't do it all. Is it possible maybe the wild and waste restrictions on town chat is a barrier to community ? It'd be one less perk for supporters I know, but would it make a better community? Is there any other barriers to community I'm not thinking of?

I always thought they throw things together last minute for promos (except for the ones involving structures).
Aikar has hinted at a Lethar, but I doubt that will be happening.

The last time I remember a picture hint was Dragon Tombs.

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I believe people always leave because we have a complicated system (flags, residences, separate wild/waste, special mobs/items, player settings) and I always thought that should be addressed with a new tutorial where new players learn about things as they find it and not thrown at them all at once in a 10 minute period. I have no doubt my idea was publically/secretly shot down by staff though.

Editing this part --> "Its not all down to the staff, events and how the server is organised". Sorry it sounds like a criticism to me as I read it this morning and it's definitely not. The staff do a great job on EMC, giving up their time for the benefit of others. End of Edit.

The game needs is a bunch of new block types, while I know some are added year on year by now we should have a lot more that allow for a broader expression of design in building. Some suggestions

A few Block types:
Poles - Vertical and horizontal
Metal floor - solid and perforated grating
Metal panel with rivets
Colored chests, wood can be dyed in real life so why the restriction
Wood paneling for wall and floors - I am sure a recipe could be added for this

This is a small list and I am sure these would add so much to the game and peoples builds and enjoyment.

I'll share my personal experience from when I joined.

Note- before I start, I am a very in-depth person, I love detail and exactness, and I feel the tutorial does a decent job of displaying both of these traits. Bright colors and simple sentences make the tutorial easy to understand in my opinion.

This post is about the first 10 minutes on EMC (tutorial)

A friend introduced me to EMC, so I had no issue with the tutorial as I was simply joining to play with her. I always read every single sign and word in a Minecraft server tutorial, unless there is so much stuff you can't tell where separate sentences begin and end (a certain economy server.) I thought the tutorial was quite simple; "okay a short intro, rules, wild and waste, town, cool".

From another player's point of view, I could see how one would be quickly turned off by such a tutorial, I think most people are looking on the lines of "I want to play and play now", like large arcade servers. I also think that for people looking for a survival server, they want to be put directly into the action, instead of having to go through a very long tutorial simply to do what they want to do. I think that the only type of players that will stay through the tutorial to begin their EMC careers are the ones looking for an ultra-tuned economy server.

For a higher player retention rate, I think separate tutorials would be helpful. At the beginning of the tutorial, perhaps a master teleport system leading to "town," "economy," and "survival" tutorials would help keep builders looking for a town server and survival players. The respective tutorials for these players would be much shorter than the full tutorial, covering just the necessities; i.e for survival, rules and wild/waste systems, and for town, rules and a basic rundown of the economy.

Just my thoughts.

To appeal to the existing EMC community you should make things more available to them, not expect them to make themselves more available to you. Like, I went on the EMC twitter thing and saw this:

"Just in! It is confirmed that a reindeer will be released in the 12 days of Christmas. The question is: Which one? 3 more days!"

Hey, that's pretty cool! A reindeer promo. I'm already looking forward to it. I'll probably especially plan to keep up with events and promos during the twelve days of Christmas, because I'd love to have a reindeer. Problem is, I don't use twitter. I wouldn't have even seen that message if we weren't discussing this. Most EMC players actually probably haven't seen it. So they're not excited about it, they're not making time to play because they don't know that EMC is having a special 12 days of Christmas series.
At this point I think it's equally important for you to not only attract new players but give existing players a reason to stay. To do that though you have to think like them, not expect them to think like you. A lot of people here, including me, are just casual players. We're not intensely immersed in everything. So we're not going to follow EMC on twitter/facebook, and then we're gonna think "oh look they never have events," which is wrong because you are having the twelve days thing, but we won't be wrong in thinking that because we had no idea.
You shouldn't expect people to hype themselves up, you have to feed them hype. If you put a short thread, all you have to say is something like "Hey! We're doing 12 Days of Christmas events! What will they be? Who knows! Check in on Dec. 14th to find out!" you'll have people excited and coming back to see what the events will be.
Also to clarify I'm not criticizing you, I also think the reason EMC isn't growing is because Minecraft in general has a dying base. These are just my two-cents on keeping players who have already joined. Also sorry if i'm not explaining myself very well lol I had a rough week so i'm pretty tired right now ;p

I'm not gonna lie, I noticed this quite a bit myself. In fact, I noticed this just yesterday when Boulder had to ban a new member for using illegal mods... The thought never ceases to cross my mind of "Do players even read the tutorial anymore? -_-"

I think we might wanna focus on changing this or finding some way to make it better first, for the influx of new players that's so heavily desired right now... especially since this is where all the new players spawn in~

(For the record, I love the new tutorial, but I guess most of these new players have little-to-no patience, which isn't any fault of the tutorial itself but rather a fault of the mindset of the general age group of people that join in. Sure, we have several like-minded adults that play and know better than this -- obviously -- but let's face it: Minecraft was a game targeted at kids, and that's exactly what you're gonna expect from time-to-time: kids that are a huge part of either the hacker/griefer category or the Take3 category.)

Well, in all fairness we have a news section on the forums where news such as this gets shared. And also: Krysyy has shared this news with us a few days ago on one of the news threads. Lessee if I can dig this up...

Ah, still haven't lost my touch: here you go.

However... at the risk of sounding a bit critical (which I'm actually not) I can come up with another reason why players might not be excited. Because we've been getting one of these promos every year Quite frankly I am eagerly anticipating the 12 days of Christmas because I can remember the period 2 years ago and it was pretty exciting. Something for everyone, staff really tried to please as many players as they could while also making sure to keep up warnings that not everything would be to everyones liking. But hey: diversity is the name of the game in my opinion

So much this ^^^

Still... although I do agree with you I also think we don't want EMC to become like some random mainstream server where you get constantly bombarded by all sorts of news snippets while you're playing. And right now I sometimes can't help wonder if they're not already at their limits where in-game advertisements go. Blizz's, illegal mods, hmm, and other things I can't recall right now

But sometimes a little hype can be interesting. Right now, when I throw 1.11 into town chat it's often a pretty good and lively subject to talk about. Hmm, I should put that to the test

Wow I went to sleep and am impressed by the feedback! So its as I assumed in some of the post. Its just Minecraft being old now is some of it. Mojang pls? Save ur game (java edition)

I'm contemplating exactly that for quite some time. The tutorial is there to provide information and give chance to new players to equip themselves with some important knowledge - but also to have them invest some time right at the beginning. The more they invest, the more it is likely that they will stay.

I'm thinking about the "survival" tutorial. The new player would not only have the chance to gain knowledge about the server, but would also get opportunities to show skills, to complete some tasks and earn rewards.

I like the idea that a new player could select the tutorial based on personal preferences.

"EMC is primarily Non-PVP play-your-way survival server with town and economy"
Q1) Are you beginner, intermediate or skilled player?

So, the tutorial would be set up in a way to try to learn something about new players (keep statistics) and to try to direct them to distinct tutorials. At the end, the player has already invested some time and has got some rewards to help them start on EMC. Perhaps they could get a hint about other new players with similar preferences.

PS: I think it would be wrong for the EMC staff to try to entertain players. It is far better to provide a good sandbox - both in-game and around the game and let them play and develop their own entertainment.

Has anyone noticed the massive new player invasion this evening? At least both SMP2 and SMP4 received quite a dose of new names just now. Bit ironic with this discussion ongoing