More training guilds are needed

[Captain Jack]

Hi everyone,

Looking at the future, we are going to need more training guilds. Right now, Pirates Glory is on one of its best periods ever.

-We have a steady influx of new players everyday.
-Players active is rising.
-Activity/Engagements is on good levels.
-Players online is constantly big and it is growing.

We estimate,that with current numbers, we are in need of new training guilds. Up to 20 members are good. Competition will be improved for everyone if some more training guilds pop up. If not training, then more guilds with a purpose will still help. Right now, this number is small. In short, we need more active leaders.

As administration, we are open to any suggestions that will help this cause.

[Kart]

If Pirates Glory is to continue to grow, Captain Jack is right. We will need more training guilds. Not just guilds that put into their description that they train new players, but guilds who are willing to commit themselves to helping these new players. Too many times you see a guild who says they are willing to train, only to tell the new players to read the guides and will do no more.

SSTG was created as a true training guild. Our initial plan was to train and then have players leave to join other guilds and we would bring in more new players to train. In reality what we have seen is a one on one training situation where new players are assigned mentors, as the players learn they do not want to leave. Instead they can be further trained so some of them will become mentors themselves to train more new players. The number of 20 does seem to be an effective ceiling for membership until enough mentors are created to take on more. As more mentors are created the numbers can be increased.

The secret we see in increasing the retention rate is creating personal relationships and making the game social in nature as well as competitive in nature. If you begin playing a game that is difficult in the beginning and you do not know anyone playing it, you are likely to not stay long. However, if you make friends quickly in the game you are likely to stay and enjoy your new friendships as well as enjoy the game. The future of Pirates Glory does not depend on us who have played the game for a while. Its stability depends upon new people coming in to replace the ones who leave through natural attrition of a game. Its growth depends upon those coming in and staying above the amount needed to cover the attrition of players.

[Warrior]

If Pirates Glory is to continue to grow, Captain Jack is right. We will need more training guilds. Not just guilds that put into their description that they train new players, but guilds who are willing to commit themselves to helping these new players. Too many times you see a guild who says they are willing to train, only to tell the new players to read the guides and will do no more.

SSTG was created as a true training guild. Our initial plan was to train and then have players leave to join other guilds and we would bring in more new players to train. In reality what we have seen is a one on one training situation where new players are assigned mentors, as the players learn they do not want to leave. Instead they can be further trained so some of them will become mentors themselves to train more new players. The number of 20 does seem to be an effective ceiling for membership until enough mentors are created to take on more. As more mentors are created the numbers can be increased.

The secret we see in increasing the retention rate is creating personal relationships and making the game social in nature as well as competitive in nature. If you begin playing a game that is difficult in the beginning and you do not know anyone playing it, you are likely to not stay long. However, if you make friends quickly in the game you are likely to stay and enjoy your new friendships as well as enjoy the game. The future of Pirates Glory does not depend on us who have played the game for a while. Its stability depends upon new people coming in to replace the ones who leave through natural attrition of a game. Its growth depends upon those coming in and staying above the amount needed to cover the attrition of players.

I've asked my a lot of my friends to try this game. But they seem to play for a week and then quit. They said that its a boring game. And I asked them why, and they said that the game is just about trading and piracy and its so boring.

The problem about retention rates is not training guilds. Its the interface. When new players start the game they are basically lost. They see some instructions first but that information is not sufficient. Most of the guilds just teach to do this and that for gold. But only some teach where is what. That is, new players do not know how to even apply to a guild. I know that the missions might help, but some players think the 3 circles ( mission circles - pirate, merchant, nobility mission ) are just for decoration or whatever you call it.... An in-game guide when you start the game about the interface, will be helpful in my opinion.

Training guilds are the second step. I dunno about other guilds, but in ZomB, when new players join, sometimes some of our players talk with them and help them out. So a normal guild is as good as a training guild imo. So here for retention rates, guilds are only the 2nd priority, interface is the first. Some new players don't even know that forums exist. If they know that there are forums then the threads at the tavern page are the only forums for them. For retention rates, this what 'I think' we should do - new players should get a small guide on the interface, i.e. that guide should provide them a list of things that would be there in HQ page, Plunder page, etc. They should be asked to copy that guide and save it for reference later.

[Captain Jack]

You are right for the interface. However,installing a new game interface is not an easy task. It requires extra funding and a lot of development time.

This game is not an investment, where someone/group invests an amount of money to release a final product. This game is an on-going project. This means that we lack the funding to do anything in large scale. We need to make decisions daily on what to develop next. We are putting priorities to everything, in order to keep the game alive and expand further.

Taking in mind the current situation in the particurlar game industry, the one of persisting browser games, we are doing very well. Most games have already died and those that still survive have seen a decrease of 80% in their playerbases. There is an example of the largest game in the industry that fell from 1Million ACTIVE players (registered does not mean many, active does, a game might have 20Million registered players but about 200k active) to 350k and it keeps dropping. The games remaining, manage to survive with huge advertising and expensive paid options. These are the current industry standards.

PG in the other hand is on the rise. We had a playerbase drop during 2014, which is normal as we have not released any major features. Since the release of Hideout however (and a little earlier) we are back to better standards (perhaps the best ever) and the playerbase at this moment, expands daily. We are advertising but our budget is again limited so advertising is limited as well.

This is why we are asking for some help.We have done this before and it always works to an extend. The true power of the game is the players that play in it. I have seen many games like this one (perhaps not as good) to fail over time, both as a gamer and as a developer. Near the fall, all the players get interested to help but it is already late. The key, is to help when something is on the rise.

One of the things to do to help, is the creation of a few more guilds. I must admit that Kart seems to be doing a very good job. A training's guild good job is mostly rated by their own retention rates and activity levels.

Of course, historically, the best way to help is to bring your friends over and "persuade" them to stay. Keep a record of their complaints, like Warrior did and report back to us. We will make the improvements, just like we will redesign the interface. Perhaps not immediately but only because we are limited in resources.

[Warrior]

Yeah ok, i understand that changing interface is not the best solution... But there should be some flow chart like help file that will list all that is in a link. For example :

Headquarters
1. Link to your fleets
2. Link to buy officers
3. Link to your fleets' profits
4. Link to your ships not in a fleet.

Market
1. Buy and sell resources
2. Link to shipwright
3. Link to Banks

Like this there should be a list of links inside a link. This will greatly help new players to find their way through the maze of menus and pages. Suppose they want to know how to join a guild then they will look at the help file and find that in the tavern there is a link to guilds and in that link you can apply to a guild. This is a big job but can be helpful and better than improving the interface.

Sir Roberts, may be you can do something like this in your website ?

[Roberts]

Yeah ok, i understand that changing interface is not the best solution... But there should be some flow chart like help file that will list all that is in a link. For example :

Headquarters
1. Link to your fleets
2. Link to buy officers
3. Link to your fleets' profits
4. Link to your ships not in a fleet.

Market
1. Buy and sell resources
2. Link to shipwright
3. Link to Banks

Like this there should be a list of links inside a link. This will greatly help new players to find their way through the maze of menus and pages. Suppose they want to know how to join a guild then they will look at the help file and find that in the tavern there is a link to guilds and in that link you can apply to a guild. This is a big job but can be helpful and better than improving the interface.

Sir Roberts, may be you can do something like this in your website ?

Read, now do you mean individual Flow charts that identify the buttons that lead to the page , or a flow chart for Market and another one for Headquaters?

By the looks of it , it will be a hard job to perform and take a few hours...

[Roberts]

Ahoy all,

I have added a tryout page for players to give me feedback if that is what they wanted i will include a link to the page in this thread...
http://seafishing.wix.com/pirates-glory#!tryout/c1nh1

This has so far got the HeadQuaters links..

Is this what you wanted Warrior?

- Sir Roberts

[Francois le Clerc]

nice pic warrior..

i am a pirate...just got used to technology
hold on is this possible- #hashtag

[Stan Rogers]

Something that causes a very low retention rate is the initial speed a new player can advance based on their gc requirements.
Many mistakes are made when a new player first joins and soon a new player finds themselves out of gold.
I have had a significantly higher retention percentage when I hand hold a new player along the basics and provide them with the gold they need to build a decent warship and the beginnings of a trade fleet.
Building a lvl 2 howker and going after the Red Pearl is a mission of failure and new players do not want failure. They also do not want to be faced with weeks of trading just to earn enough to build another ship.

If you want the retention rate to increase, allow new players to do stuff that helps them learn. One slip up by them will set their development back weeks so they do not return as the climb seems too steep. Increase the reward gold for doing the training missions. A new player needs more gold I think so they can get a little further into the game without having to stop from lack of funds if they make an error.

[Gunder]

I support the idea of more training guilds.

When I started, the game seemed interesting, but overwhelming. I did however realize very fast that this was the kind of game I was looking for; less action, more strategy. The factor that persuaded me to playing was that I was rewarded for the planning, not the amount of time I put into the game. I did not have to click some blinking gold icon every hour, I did not have to grind for hours to progress. All I had to do was make a plan and set it up.

I think that the strength of this game is also it's weakness. It is a very different game, IMO. And that should not change. It is not for everybody.

With that being said, I am not sure if I would have stayed without a guild like SSTG. I have never been in any other guild, so I cannot compare, but SSTG was very quick to assigning me a mentor and give me clear goals to achieve. I had one player regularly checking in on my progress, giving me advice and answering my questions. The leaders of the guild also occasionally checked and asked if I had any questions.

I also agree with his Majesty, King Kart, that the social aspect is very important. If you make friends, you stay. If you are a lonely wolf, you only need a small hiccup for you to quit. And the beginning is slow. You need somebody to tell you "Just hang in there!".