Discussion: Player Retention Rates

If I had to guess, I'd say that the number one thing killing off new players is the lack of a clear path to take when starting. A good number die off during the tutorial, but as people have said throughout the thread, quite a few of those are hackers or people who just want to make our lives miserable. After people make it through the tutorial, usually one of four things happens:

1. They see no clear instructions about what to do next, and leave.
2. They get a res, build a wood shack, plant their trees, make farms, get bored, and leave.
3. They go through ^^^, decide to stick around, go to the waste, and either can't find their way back to town (normal players not being able to talk in town chat while in the waste means they can't ask for help) or come back, play for a bit more, get bored, and leave.
4. They stick around, find some organization to take part in, and stick around.

It would be an smp10 if anything, and you only could play from phone or windows 10 version. It would be isolated from the rest

About every post above has some good points that show what's happening.

Minecraft changes, new people who join are different than two years ago, we change, community changes. EMC simply has to adapt, find out what the community needs and try to serve the community as good as possible.

Yes, only a little part of all MC players want to join a survival server where so many of the players are years of playing ahead of them. EMC simply has to do the best for the people who do want that. (I now remember the movie "In Time", where people have to earn access to the next world, but I'm not sure if that would work )

To keep players, EMC has to ask them what they need. Understand how the focus changes after playing several hundreds of hours on EMC. Identify the challenges that naturally follow.

Involve the community, feel its pulse, encourage and support development of the community instead of restricting it. Drop the authoritarian style, show the community that the CM is really serving them, taking care of their needs. Perhaps ask the community to choose their representatives / delegates to take over a part of the work. This community is not a bunch of spoiled and clueless kids. Be ready and willing to change.

Clearly he was hacking.

Damn Hackers..

Perhaps it's time to make a new sandbox game, this time with a proper highly efficient multitasking implementation in C++. No lag for 1000 players and more.

BTW, kids around me like to play TFC, they like the challenges, they like the chisel and sculpturing, they like how they learn something about the "real world" while playing.

What is TFC?

Terrafirmacraft, a much harder survival game with stone age / bronze age theme, where you really have to learn a lot to survive and make progress. It's rather complicated and too frustrating for small kids, I'd say it's for age 10+. Remotely comparable to MC, it's really a different game. E.g. to make metal armor, you need to master smelting, casting, welding, hammering etc. At the same time you need to take care of your diet to stay healthy. It's good for people who like to immerse into a stone age / bronze age world and really learn a lot.

I think a simpler sandbox game like MC is better for MMORPG. Perhaps some middle way would be optimal.

I personally play a lot of mod packs when Im not on EMC. I need the mechanical technical challenges in my life that they add. Especially when RF/EU Power is involved

I'm, like, take 19. Most of the people I knew left, I originally was a regular about a year or so ago. I have some seriously rare promos, so I came on occasionally JUST to keep from going Derelict. School, general life of course. Came back on to try to get back in, no one was around anymore except some acquaintances. Fast forward to now, I've decided that I want to build again, I already have the materials here, and I want to make new friends.

It's certainly pretty dead, but being around people who have been around almost just as long as I have, is pretty lively in itself. Being not too many people, but there are some tight groups. I do know of some complaints that if you don't succeed, there isn't really much to do unless you have friends, can stand the grind of living in survival and worry about resets, no real pvp, etc. Gotta really be into the economic aspect since that seems much of what the server is now, apart from the majority of friendly community.

I realized I never shared what most people have been sharing, so it's really time for that as well:

<raises hand>

Multiple times even, I suppose that makes me a bit geeky or nerdy?

Oh, that one is easy: I was specifically looking for a survival server, with an economy if possible. And with survival I didn't mean any of that modern sillyness (personal opinion obviously). Although you did had to survive in some way those games never really felt like Minecraft to me (think about a prison system or a pvp / factions system (where people love coming after newbies)). Minecraft is a system where you are pretty much in control over how you're playing the game so that's what I wanted.

I tried several servers but most weren't to my liking. There was one other server in particular (nope, no spoilers ) which I liked because it provided both a Creative and (somewhat) Survival world but in the end EMC's "no nonsense" approach (as I like to call it) fully won me over.

For example: although it was a culture shock for me at first; but being unable to teleport in the waste & wilderness is something which I came to consider a very valuable feature. Because this, amongst some other things (no MCmmo) really helped to keep my enthusiasm for the vanilla game alive.

I think I've shared this a few times already, but at one time in the past (I was on "another server" (the one before EMC)) I was playing a single player survival game and I actually had to adapt and get used to it. Because I had grown so accustomed to teleportation and several plugins that vanilla actually felt 'weird' to me.

Right now I've been playing for 2 years on the Empire and I've never had that experience anymore. Which is very important to me.

Part of it has been answered above. But I can't help add something generic as well: because I'm (still!) having a great time and much fun playing.

But to go into a little more detail: I can actually relate to KnightZer0 up there, part of this is also because I realize like no other that Minecraft is all about the game, and how you play it. Because there isn't really any winning or losing you need to keep that aspect of the game heavily in mind.

If you set goals for yourself which you then achieve in 3 months time, then what's left for you?

It took me approx. 1.5 years before my house actually had an official roof on top. Sure, part of that was because I kept getting distracted with other things and because I didn't always feel like building (I still consider myself a pretty bad / average builder). But it's also because I took my time.

Of course there's more....

I think we should also not take the massive freedom which EMC provides for granted either. I want to build myself a cool redstone contraption which does all sorts of cool things? I can go right ahead! I want to build yet another gold farm but this time make it the biggest in existence? The wasteland for gathering resources is thatta way, go have fun! Oh, but don't forget about /v +shop either!

I want to get another Minecraft account to keep me company (or, more common use, to AFK collect all sorts of stuff at a farm)? Go right ahead, build your own ALT army if you want to, no problem! (try that on <beeep> ).

I don't want to live on SMPx anymore but move to SMPy? No problem.

60x60 too small? Ok, try 120x120 on for size (something which I still haven't managed to put to full use, but I'm working on it!).

And lets also not forget about the tons of awesome updates which Aikar and the dev. team have brought us either. I did this last year, expect a repeat upcoming January: then I'll show you exactly what has happened in the past year and I have no doubts that it'll make some of us (myself included!) scratch ourselves behind the head once again while thinking "that's a pretty impressive list"

That too is the Empire. One of the many reasons I keep coming back to play, and will keep on doing so.

Normally I dont comment on threads, Im a pretty quiet player on EMC.
But yeah, I dont know why. But I have to comment on this thread.

I started playing minecraft like 2 years ago.
Started looking for a fun server, with a good community.
EMC was the first one I saw, after a day I figured out how to play multiplayer on MC...
And started playing on EMC, people helped me out alot.
Thanks to EMC I know how MC works.
So many people that helped me out in the first days!
Anon, Dramanya, Melon, Thakiddjumper, Nickblockmaster, Shel etc etc!
And that is a great community, helping and having respect for everyone.
But lately I see more negativity in the community each day.
I dont know how that come..
But its pissing me off.
What was a great community, is now a community that pisses me off way too often.
Maybe its just me, but I've been quiet for long enough.

But after 2 years playing EMC almost every day, Im starting to get bored.
People are leaving, or playing like once a month.
I've been resetting my resses way to many times. Just because I was bored and wanted to do something.
Been trying other servers, but everytime I came back to EMC.
I like the anti-grief, and that some mods arent allowed on the server.
It feels way more safer.
You can build up a great outpost, or can build a great house on your plot.
Without being afraid to be griefed. ( except for the outpost before the anti-grief update )
And ofcourse I cant without my friends on EMC.

Ofcourse, EMC got stuff to work on.
A server is never perfect.
But the staff of EMC are people, not robots.
Keep that in mind please.

This is my opinion, so yeah. Respect that please.
Thanks

I was just wondering Aikar, how difficult is it to add custom blocks to the game, within EMC that is.
Such as wall paneling, iron grates and floors etc.
Is there a lot of coding involved or just a case of adding new textures?

I've been thinking for a while now exactly what I could write here. But I was wandering around town earlier and it sort of came to me (I'll apologise in advance, this post has just descended into a nostalgia fest)

The reason I originally joined was because I saw a friend playing and I loved this idea of a sort of "city" where everyone had their own little bit of land. You could walk around and explore different residences. This was back before eggification, and I was watching him and a friend try to deliver a huge number of sheep to someone else. A few friends and I got our res's next to each other and we had this sort of small community.

I became active on the forums around this time and people were doing similar things. Around mid 2012 there were a few projects, trying to set up districts on different smps. I also found and joined wild outposts (namely the LLO), where large groups of us worked and lived together.

The problem I see now is that everything has become too robotic and self centred, the game has become too much of a grind. I've never had more than like, 200k rupees, because I've never gone and hoarded promos, or built huge farms and huge shops. I've never run a properly successful business. All I've done is the

I think what has happened, is that people are now looking for a different single player experience, through custom servers. When they want to interact with others, they look for games and PvP, where they can compete and try to prove themselves better.

I've just briefly looked through some of the forum topics from around the time I joined, and they really are quite different. There were random discussions about what people wanted to do, things people found. Looking at recent threads, they're all auctions, and questions about farms. I think the forums have become less of a community, and more a question and answer board.

The members of the forums have obviously changed too. If you go back a few years, there were these people who you could recognise, and who would recognise you. And everyone had a basic understanding and respect of each other. And I guess this was mainly to do with the fact that it was a smaller community, but people now seem to express less of their personality. They seem almost scared of it. In the recent US election thread, people spent more time discussing why the thread should be closed the moment of the election, than the election itself. And the relegation of topics such as that to a controversial section, just seems to me like a q and a board, where you'd have a small area off in the corner for other stuff.

The staff used to be truly part of the community, and players would mingle with them freely. But I think they've sort of ascended into this higher place now. When people like chickeneer and Krysyy first become mods (yeah, I've been here that long), they were people we already knew and where good friends with. When they become mods, it was a kind of "oh, cool, I'm happy for you, now lets continue what we were doing" thing.

And there was space in the community for others to contribute. I know a few people tried to make wikis and whatnot, and shavingfoam has made a few things. But projects like this are increasingly being controller from higher up, and others don't (and can't easily) come in and help with something.

Obviously, most of what I've talked about is systematic to the player base of minecraft, not just EMC. My criticism of EMC is that it hasn't done enough to keep up with with these changes, and where it has, it hasn't done well. The recent anti grief update is good for the people now searching for this single player within multiplayer experience. But for those of us who can remember back to what outposts were like in 2012-13, it's a hassle for what we have and want to do.

I also have to bring up dragon tombs. This was an awesome and unique looking update that would add a new and interesting aspect to the EMC experience. But over four years later, it's yet to deliver on its initial promises. All of the other updates since then, haven't been in the same vein. The survival update added the first step towards dragon tombs, but now that it's been around for three years with no real use, it's become a hassle to me personally.

To sum it all up, EMC hasn't done enough to retain the older players, who liked to play a certain way, whilst also not doing enough to entice new, different players to join. Why I'm still here, I can't quite pin down. I think I'm too emotionally invested in some of the things that I built all those years ago, and in the community here.

I'm sorry for the nostalgic, unordered, and unnecessarily extensive thoughts here, I just sort of kept writing, which is unusual for me

Minecraft for Windows 10 and Minecraft Edition are both written in C++ from scratch. They're actually really good performance wise.

Okay, so I am back for round two. I see ShelLuser has already surpassed that level in this thread So I feel it is safe to comment again. I also wanted to note that there were a few posts above that were eerily similar to something I had actually written a paragraph on, and then scrapped out of the prior post due to it seeming like an incomplete thought with regards to additional tutorial options. Maybe it was just a result of being tired when I composed that, or maybe it was still not done compiling in the cranium. Either way, I do see the benefit of something like M4ster_Miner proposed with extra tips and tricks depending on your play style.

This brings me to the next idea I had, which I feel could offer several opportunities to bolster the community, and it could also tackle that train of thought above. The key to this, pivots on a system that is already in place that evidently does a worthwhile job, otherwise, we wouldn't ever see any new players. What I am talking about is the derelict / open res system.

I don't know about you, but in my repertoire of games that I have played in the past there is one very iconic one that stands out when it comes to that of a town / city / capitol / metropolis....I think that was the progression in SimCity.

I also find it ideally ironic that this idea comes to mind and I have the opportunity to present it in a thread started by a member of the Build Team. While I am thinking about it, what exactly does the Build Team do? I know they worked on the tutorial a while back, and I suppose maybe they helped with the upcoming Extended Frontier Outpost designs, but what do they normally build? I am sure there is probably an obvious answer to that inquiry, and I just haven't looked in the right direction. Just curious, as my proposed idea could actually add to the build team work load.

Yes, I am throwing out several random ideas as if putting all the different parts of a piece of furniture on the floor to be constructed, so stay with me, and these random ever progressing thought patterns on this topic will come together.

Recently, I have actually taken time to use single player to help me in my design process for the build of Tempered Outpost.This got me to thinking that the ability to simply put down pre-built structures via a world-edit like modification (which I know [certain] staff can utilize) could help with this idea.

A couple of last thoughts to consider before putting all the pieces of this puzzle together. First off I believe I have made a comment about the derelict timer and the town landscape in the past. Yes, it was in June 2016 found here : https://empireminecraft.com/threads/suggestion-website-derelict-warning.65526/#post-1187923

Here is an Update on that to help drive home the idea here:

Residence #1a



Residence #1b - This pic really shows off the improvement to the town made by this resident.



Residence #2



Resident #3



As we can see from the pictures above that not much has changed on these residences from the ones in link from June 2016. We also do not see any improvement to the properties except for that nice looking build in the background. Wonder what that is?

(Tempered Outpost Headquarters still in progress in background)

The last piece of the puzzle to keep in mind are the "Open" residences. Here are a few pics of those:

SMP2 Overview showing "Open Residences"



And then the view from a nearby plot in my family's neighborhood.



Okay, so with all of those thoughts as background, let's get to the heart of the idea. Why not have pre-built homes / structures / buildings on open residences, and utilize them as starter homes for new players to hit the ground running. The type of build and content / signage / teleports contained inside or on the plot could be tailored to the type of play style a player chooses. If a player wants to go to the waste, use a teleport via their res after actually having made it to town versus the potential to bypass town all together and become lost in the waste / wild (Frontier).

This would allow us to offer more personal guidance from their home-base at the start. I personally feel that this idea if it were to be accepted would need to be in place for at least the first week. After the initial week, the signs and structure could be taken down at the player's discretion. What this would also do is give the town a fuller feel. There would not be so many empty vacant lots.

There could also be an option for players to purchase pre-built structures for their other currently held residences for players that are already long time members. I mean, if I could plop down a relatively nice looking build on a few that I happen to have that are vacant atm due to so much building elsewhere, I would consider it an opportunity to invest in the neighborhood to look more appealing.

Now before all the economist cringe entirely at this idea, I am not talking about diamond walled, gold laid walkways kind of structures. I am talking about some simplistic builds that could be easily put in place to fill the void that permeates too much of the town in my opinion. Simple starter homes could be basic blocks and instructions, then move on to more advanced builds in which you must supply the materials, and for a fee could purchase a certain type of build.

The build team could construct the initial builds for the various tutorial type residences, and then garner ideas from the community for future builds from build events to see what the next residence build will be. Over time there would come to be several of certain types of buildings around town which is not too far fetched. Have you ever noticed how construction crews build sections of town the same way? Each SMP should have it's own contest / event that would generate unique builds for each server and then have the community vote on the best build.

Even one build event per year could become something cool that would give players something to look forward to, and it would also help randomize the landscape. Who knows, we might could even push the envelope further and go full scale SimCity idea and have 3 categories of builds which could be residential (Homes), commercial (Shops), or industrial (Redstone powered facilities).

Part of this idea is to use these structures temporarily on open residences, and also to visit the time-frame in which a residence can truly stay derelict. I am completely in support of allowing one more time if it is due to military leave or other significant reason that they have conveyed to staff. I also think it would be cool if in such a state, their residence could list them as M.I.A. or something that would let others be aware that they doing something greater in real life, but intend to return at some point in the future. If I knew someone was on military leave, I would so try to acquire an extra Veterans Poppy to give them on their return.

Personally, I feel this could really make a positive impact on a lot of levels to help bolster the ranks of the Empire in the Minecraft universe. I also have taken to heart some of the suggestions above in regards to being more friendly. I have worked most of my life in retail, and when I read what Krysyy said, it rang all too true. I know that a simple smile is the best marketing tool any company can have, so simply saying Hi, and maybe add a can make all the difference. I can't promise old habits won't die hard, but I will attempt to interact more when in game with those around.

I hope you guys like the idea, and look forward to your thoughts about it.

I really like this overall topic, and the sense of camaraderie.

KnightZer0ne
Tempered Outpost Founder

This.

I see no shortage of new players coming through the tutorial. But once they're done with it there's often a shortage of people in town to chat with them and help guide them through the early stages site interaction. I think this in turn translates to what seems to be a high disconnect rate for new players.

I know town chat in the frontier, nether, and wastelands is currently a perk only for supporters. Maybe that needs to be reconsidered. Also, instead of being sent to an empty plot after the tutorial, how about starting people off in a kind of exploratory setting similar to Halloween Town where they can learn more about the server and get extra tokens or such by trading with established players? The more people interact, the more rewards they receive.

I did suggest a while ago that new players be given 24 hours of global chat, but they would be advance warned that it would expire. I feel this would make the disconnect rate a lot lower, as the whole 'why can't I chat' thing is the reason that a lot of players leave so soon. Staff never got back to me on that, but I think posting it here might get it more attention.

Suggestion: https://empireminecraft.com/threads...-supporter-global-chat-for-new-players.67296/

Edit:That like from Shel reminds me, I'm pretty sure he helped me come up with this idea, so thanks to him!

It is not hard to add new blocks and items, but the client has to be equipped with a matching resource pack and/or has to be modded to show them and handle them properly.
I don't know if automatic downloading of resources from the server works.