Sad State of affairs - Player retention

[Duck One]

ALFA approaches most questions like this: let's sample the 0.01% of the gaming community who call this place home, rather than the 99.99% who do not, then take pride in the harmony of the echo chamber.

... yes? We're not a general roleplaying community, we're a permadeath Forgotten Realms/D&D roleplaying community. We are purposefully filling a niche. What do you think would help us expand and flush out that niche?

Look around this place. Read the posts. Pick out the phrases, "It absolutely has to be this way", "If this changes, I will quit", etc.. Being stubbornly closed-minded is fine for an uncompromising artist who has a singular vision about their craft, but it poison for a community that wants to grow and thrive.

Your response is exactly what I would expect from someone who is heavily entrenched in a stagnant organization. There's a reason that successful organizations do things like celebrate diversity, bring in outside consulting, rotate people in responsibilities, and other measures to constantly keep freshness and vitality. You can't innovate well in a culture that doesn't embrace change and have an open mind. Instead of trying to figure out why you are different from someone and immediately dismiss them, try figuring out how you are similar and see what you can learn from them.

[Zelknolf]

lol?

Yes, the people who made ALFA an open source project just aren't paying attention to the broader community and don't learn from or exchange with others. There's a lot of things that can sensibly be criticized, but claiming that tech or infra don't share or collaborate enough? That's the sort of thing you hear from a person who just isn't looking.

[CloudDancing]

I've said this before; look at the places that have players and do what they are doing.

Our servers are spectacular backdrop to any kind of RP. That is our biggest asset.

If we don't change with the times and the demographics (and psychology) of people interested in NWN2 RP, Alfa is going to die.'

I don't need to make a list for you. You know what I am talking about.

[FoamBats4All]

I've said this before; look at the places that have players and do what they are doing.

Our servers are spectacular backdrop to any kind of RP. That is our biggest asset.

If we don't change with the times and the demographics (and psychology) of people interested in NWN2 RP, Alfa is going to die.'

I don't need to make a list for you. You know what I am talking about.

So... nude skins and sex with every type of humanoid (and non-humanoid) imaginable?

[Dorn]

What do people actually want from ALFA? I don't think we've answered that question and large parts of the charter are irrelevant now days.

Lets say:
- we all want to 'style' of RP and permadeath, no running, and so on to stay. AS there's little debate on that.
- we all agree that we're having this conversation to help us continue as we are for ~3 years, or with a few more folk. We all realise we're not going to grow to 100 peeps which is unlikely in a diminishing NWN2 community
- we all acknowledge that peoples time is short and massive time-consuming projects to change things are unlikely

Do we want:
1) More/some, people to be on my server when I log in outside organised DM/player events
2) More DMs
3) More trust to allow things to happen
4) More dynamism in the game

If we did, i'd suggest:
1) More/some, people to be on my server when I log in outside organised DM/player events - probably through steps to concentrate people along with some other stuff
2) More DMs - probably through steps to allow existing members to DM where they play as just telling people to DM hasn't worked for a year
3) More trust to allow things to happen - probably through 'imposed trust' in some areas such as DM-where-you-play oversight being "hardcore"
4) More dynamism in the game - probably through exposing people/DMs to the raft of easy to use tools created by Tech over the last few years but only recently adopted

[Arianna]

I've said this before; look at the places that have players and do what they are doing.

I am looking . ..
SO far . .
I know that having tried out Sigil , other than some interesting builds the place has held no interest for me. It was desolate even when there was over a dozen peeps logged in. When I can answer a riddle and get 300XP for it and repeat that every time I log in , [there seems to be no persistency] . . no thanks. Nor do I care for a world where you can't tell friend from enemy reasonably, having a Demon sell you potions in the bazzar and demons and devils and odd creatures walking the streets . . . Maybe its great for others, but not my thing .

Our servers are spectacular backdrop to any kind of RP. That is our biggest asset.

They are . .most of them are well built and have had new stuff added in the last year.

I would like to see ALFA servers advertised more as a challenging environment for hardcore roleplayers rather then trying to attract those that can't stand have to suffer for mistakes in judgement or be bothered with doing something with other players because your not min/maxed in gear to take on everything Solo.

If we don't change with the times and the demographics (and psychology) of people interested in NWN2 RP, Alfa is going to die.'

ALFA may die anyway. ALFA was never aimed at the community of gamers whose main aim in the game is the accumulation of xp and gear at the fastest possible rate, with little regard to story, alignment choices, or consequences for actions.

I know for myself if ALFA finally chooses to let DMs play where they DM, or drops the permadeath , I will be saying goodbye . . .but that is my personal choice in the matter.

I have a feeling that the definition of RP differs ALOT from person to person. I have a friend that insists that having a diverse set of choices in a dialog tree thus effecting choices later in the game is RP. For me the interactions between PCs or DM and PC is what constitutes RP.

I don't need to make a list for you. You know what I am talking about.

Actually I have no idea EXACTLY what your talking about and assuming your thinking is the same as mine on the subject is not something I prefer to do. Assumptions are one of the reasons ALFA seems to have so much internal bickering and misunderstandings.



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I would however like to see ALFA double the number of active PCs that a player can have. but not allow them to share storage, or have 2 logged in at the same time.

[Swift]

I would however like to see ALFA double the number of active PCs that a player can have. but not allow them to share storage, or have 2 logged in at the same time.

So...in other words...exactly the same as what we have now, but 4 PCs per player rather than two?

Have fun finding DMs when people have a PC on every server.

[Zelknolf]

So...in other words...exactly the same as what we have now, but 4 PCs per player rather than two?

Have fun finding DMs when people have a PC on every server.

We have four DMs trying to run plots. We have two DMs running plots. I don't think that acquiring more DMs should be our goal right now.

[oldgrayrogue]

Everyone -- less talking more playing. I think we all want the same thing -- a reasonably hardcore, permadeath story based RP experience. I have been trying to log on to TSM or BG every night this week. I am usually the only one logged on. It gets boring fast playing alone. If not for Heegz new infestation on TSM, and Zelk's multi part quests on BG, I wouldn't last long at all. ALFA already has everything it needs to deliver on its mission -- except regular players, PCs and DMs alike. Sure, some changes could be made to tweak things and to make it easier for folks to play and enjoy the experience, but if more folks just logged on and played on a regular basis this thread wouldn't even exist. I know I am stating the obvious, but we have 7 or 8 people commenting regularly in this thread on how to make ALFA better. That would make one hell of a group (with DM!) to log in and play with. I know, time zones RL, yadda yadda. I think you get the very simple point. The only fix ALFA really needs is for people to log in and play the game. ALFA still has enough members active to get 5-10 people on its servers with regularity. When JLM was DMing every day about a month ago, that is what we saw. So just log in and play as much as you can.

[ImStrokerAce]

I couldnt agree with you more OGR I think that could be our new mission statement: Less talking, more playing!

[gonz.0]

I've said this before; look at the places that have players and do what they are doing.

Our servers are spectacular backdrop to any kind of RP. That is our biggest asset.

If we don't change with the times and the demographics (and psychology) of people interested in NWN2 RP, Alfa is going to die.'

I don't need to make a list for you. You know what I am talking about.

So... nude skins and sex with every type of humanoid (and non-humanoid) imaginable?

That would be 'A land far away called Haven' and I don't think we need to be ALFACH, but we can relax a bit.

[CloudDancing]

I just don't think there are many hardcore role-players of NWN2 left any more. And the current climate in the gaming world, even the PC gaming world, is not growing any new ones.

A few things that would help:

1. Bye Bye Permadeath, Hello heavy penalties in gold and xp for becoming incapacitated and DM enforced permadeath. In effect, no technical dying because of video game mechanics; yes, dying because you rolled bad on a DM adventure.

2.Faster leveling:
1. DMs give proper amounts of XP. I should not get 375 XP from DM 1 and 9 XP from DM 2 for the same amount of playtime/RP.
2. RP XP increases (or accrues as a different type of RPXP) when one is in proximity or communicating with another character. I have seen this scripted and in-play and it is quite an effective tool to foster non-dm RP.

3. Stop being the abusive spouse:
Very few people like hanging out with someone who beats them down every time they seem them and makes their social life and free time unpleasant. Neither do they like to hang out with someone who promises companionship and then leaves them utterly alone for months on end. Do you want play a video game where you die every time you go out fight monsters, go on a quest, or explore or one where you slam your face into a wall repeatedly waiting for the one day the wall might be Dm'd by someone and you'll finally get over it, before you realize you are standing in front of another wall?

4. Stop defending your abusive spouse.

5. Remember the good old days. Things were better than. All we had was chat, two sticks to rub together, a badly pixelated tent, and areas with vectors everywhere and we still made good RP.

[maxcell]

I just don't think there are many hardcore role-players of NWN2 left any more. And the current climate in the gaming world, even the PC gaming world, is not growing any new ones.



5. Remember the good old days. Things were better then. All we had was chat, two sticks to rub together, a badly pixelated tent, and areas with vectors everywhere and we still made good RP.

I agree with these two.

[shad0wfax]

ALFA approaches most questions like this: let's sample the 0.01% of the gaming community who call this place home, rather than the 99.99% who do not, then take pride in the harmony of the echo chamber.

... yes? We're not a general roleplaying community, we're a permadeath Forgotten Realms/D&D roleplaying community. We are purposefully filling a niche. What do you think would help us expand and flush out that niche?

This is the rub. If we want more population, we have to abandon permadeath, loosen RP expectations, drastically increase XP, and essentially abandon our niche entirely to become Dalelands II or BGTotSC II.

[Zelknolf]

I might point toward the many people who tried to be World of Warcraft clones in the 2004-2010 span (also Everquest clones in the 1999-2005 span; also Neverwinter Nights [the AOL/SSI one] clones in the 1992-1997 span); trying to be a different world in a setting that relies heavily on community-- like all MMOs and role-playing environments-- simply copying the feature set results in a failed world. People who like that already have a game, and that other game already has all of their friends.