After speaking with another player today, we were brainstorming ways to try and encourage new players to the cluster and Munki's server, as well as maintaining them, especially on a pvp server. We thought about what we had seen in the past while playing on other servers, what worked, what didn't, and thought about the following proposal:
Having one map on the pvp cluster that is more of a 'cease fire' map, at least for base raiding and has the sole purpose of encouraging newer players to get good at the game while at the same time be exposed to 'alpha' tribes that are hell bent on pvp.
The issues we are seeing:
- New players are most of the time inexperienced with the game, or pvp in general. This means that they are usually out of their depth when up against more 'seasoned' players, and not as adaptable/resilient when bouncing back from a raid.
- At this stage in the wipe, there are a lot of abandoned bases now, with the odd 'alpha' base mixed in. From a new player's perspective (and remember the vast majority are not that experienced with the game or pvp) this is intimidating and leads them with the 'oh, well this sucks. This isn't safe,' and they move on. Now I know you could argue, 'well they shouldn't do that! How are they going to learn to pvp if they just give up!?' And you'd be right. But that doesn't change the reality that that's the natural reaction to a lot of these players, and if they feel they're on too hostile of a server, with developed alphas, they'll go to where they feel they'll have a smoother induction into pvp.
- As there are more inexperienced players joining, they take longer to build up than the experienced players, even if they have a larger tribe than an alpha, they may take a month to achieve what their alpha neighbour can achieve in a few days. If they are not given the chance to build up, and are not 'taken under the wing' so to speak, then we aren't going to see fresh new players sticking around.
- Attitude; and this again comes with inexperience with a pvp setting. Newer players need a chance to learn how to view the game from a pvp perspective. It's like game of thrones; don't get attached to a character (dino ;P). It also means they need to learn the art of bouncing back after a raid. Of course things are different if they were actively griefed and raided over and over again, but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the new players who have a wall blown out, a dodo killed and a smithy destroyed and view that as the end of the world.
The proposal:
Have Ragnarok on the pvp server set aside as the scrub 'bootcamp' server. Whether this just means that the bases there have an almost permanent orp setting, or no structure damage on all or certain days of the week, I don't know. But produce an environment where the newer players can learn about the game in a pvp setting, still be exposed to pvp while they're out farming or 'out in the wild', and still see 'alpha' levels of builds/exposure to occasionally ruthless pvp/possibly get assistance from alpha tribes to learn how to build up. The reason I pick Ragnarok as this map is that it already seems to be like this with the smaller tribes: pve builds. I only recently decided to actually explore Ragnarok, and that's what I saw, a lot of very pve style builds that would turn me off raiding them for the mere purpose of feeling like I was smashing a kid's cool sandcastle. I mean, a lot of the castles/bases look cool and interesting, but on a pvp server it's 'interesting' to see those tribes choose to have little to no defenses on them. What I'm proposing won't remove pvp from Ragnarok, and players would still need to watch their backs when out and about, but if a new player feels they can't build up and learn the game they're just going to move on and not produce us with fresh competition when they spread their wings to SE, Center or Island maps. It's also a map that can expose those players to a variety of dinos from the other maps all in one location.
The possible objections I can see people raising:
Tribes will just abuse this and hide their good loot on Ragnarok!
- Possibly. But let's be honest here. On a server with accelerated rates, is the raid more for resources? Or the fun of the raid? For smaller tribes, they won't really have anything the larger tribes are interested with anyway. Resources are irrelevant,
and I highly doubt that they would have breeding eggs or blueprints beyond what the alphas already have. As for the alphas who want to raid other alphas: I'm sure that I'm not alone in saying that if we all just built up and hid out on Ragnarok with all of our good loot it'd just get boring. Hell, the server's are already getting quiet. I personally have a small outpost on Ragnarok that's more for dino storage and if this was implemented, I would possible keep some things there for storage like blueprints,
backup eggs and gear to replace if I get raided on the Island where my main is (forges, smithys etc.) but if the pvp was getting dead on the Island or wherever else I was based I'd almost welcome a raid to spice things up. I'd even start leaving very good loot and sending out screen shots to entice raiders if things got too boring ;P
- You're forgetting one thing: People have to start from somewhere. Some new players learn pvp very fast and become seasoned killers and raiders under good mentors. However, others may take an entire wipe to get the feel of it, and just by being exposed to the pvp players on Munki's servers may find themselves being assisted or allowed into alliances or tribes on the other servers to learn more. Even if this takes more than one wipe, it produces a newer member to Munki's community to help it grow.
I'm not sure if this will work (actually, despite being optimistic, I'm fairly sure there are too many holes with the idea), and I know I had my concerns when this was suggested (see objections above). But what are other people's thoughts? Because in all honesty, I am still at a bit of a loss as to how to encourage newer players, and hold them, as it appears the issues we're seeing are recurrent.