Business plan and priorities :)

[gillest63]

Reading the general forums again and I see some positive spamming going on about what to change and what oldies (yes you guys are oldies now) think...

So here is my analysis of the business plan and the customer base
- budget
- revenue
- expenses

Short term:
- Budget is done already if anyone is thinking about taking over the game
- Revenue:
any successful revenue is based on more than one customer segmentation, long term revenue is based on 3 things:
1- keep the loyal customer and make them even more loyal for you (very long term)
2- make the new customer to become part of the first segment (loyal customers)
3- Increase the prospects to increase second segment (new customers)....
That is basic sale strategy to make sure customer (player-database never comes dry and always increase)...

Ok, now to the case of Ryzom and customer expectations:

1 - Segment 1:The loyalty base:
the loyal base is there.. BIG TIME!!!!! I am sure some of you (love ya) refresh the ryzom.com page daily to see if anything new has come up... You (and me) loyal customer only want to know one thing: server back up, can enter credit card details again....... WOO effect for easy 6 months
maybe even one year: just knowing we can go back on this game and that things happen will secure loyal customer base for long enough
...... Oopps..... Did you notice the word?.... KNOWING.....
= information
= Communication
any loyal customer base will forgive a glitch as long as information is provided ....
Segment one I should rename the hard core Ryzom customers...
(my home page after nearly 1 year of my account not been able to log in is still ryzom.com)

2 - Segment 2: fairly new customers
I should not say new customers but butterflies: they know the game, they did like bees: came to test our flower; liked it but did not found any help from the game itself: they praised the community for the help and the gear they received but complained about the game not been helpful enough...
I agree....
But one thing to notice: they did not blame segment 1: they praise (90% easy) segment 1 for the help they received..... Without knowing it, they blame segment 3 (I will come back to that later) as well as the game initiation....
Game initiation = Silan and free trial...

THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF RYZOM = SILAN!!!!! (BAD BAD BAD FREE TRIAL)

we are talking about survival: this is not a game: this is education!!!!

Most seasoned players can go Silan and solo everything with little cleverness: no need other player, no need cooperation, no need team.....: I can solo 99% of Silan in 2 days.... then I come to mainlands as a new player after killing bosses and I get 5 yubos pissing on my dead body
Then I learn about mainland ninja yubo ways and i can survive a little but I do not find as much help as I want becos segment 3 is missing: segment 3 is the new blood..... (yes, seasoned players do help and heal out of team and give me supreme gear lvl 50 to get rid of the extra mats but something is missing....)

Segment 3 is the long life of any game.....
Segment 3 is the creaming that make segment 2 become part of segment 1

3- Segment 3:

SAVE THE PLANET: RECYCLE

The most important segment: the wasted player base
DO NOT underestimate the waste: this is what makes segment 2 become segment 1!!!
Please do think anything I am saying is bad mouthing: I have been a waste myself in many games.... But in all games I was a waste (waste = playing until level 50 out 250 and changing game) I teamed and helped some players that were as well in segment 3 and even tho I quited some may have become segment 2 in that particular game......
The bigger the "wasted" base is, the higher the chances are that players actually interested in the game will stay as the "wasted" base will help them go through the first 100 lvls....

So the most important thing to increase player base is actually how many new accounts are made and how many new accounts are deleting.... Some ppl may call me crazy, someone quoted 50.000 players in a thread.... BUT if 50k account are registered every 6 months and only 10% are not waste (I do not have MMO data and maybe is 5%) but if 5 or 10% only becomes segment 2.....
Then money is coming in..
Success is not far

So, considering any budget (gimme a budget and a financial plan I can tell you where the flow is); expenses is not important, balance is not important......
Most variable cost are always about 10 to 20 % of any budget.........
Only way to achieved any budget = revenue

I do not want Ryzom to be a Asian MMO (cash shop and **** like this) because it would lose its soul.... : (Do not lose your soul to Seoul )

But considering revenue and Segment, only one thing to do = COMMUNICATION

- Segment 1 of the revenue is there already: credit card is less than 1 meter away from the PC to pay to be back on ryzom as soon as possible (NO WIPE of my chara better please: I have been working on it since September 04 and still have a lot to achieve)
- Segment 2 can only be created through segment 3
- Segment 3 is our winner tonight: was the NUMBER 1 Failure of Nevrax... ( I am not even speaking about GF: GF communication from having tried their browser games = GF communication IS a failure )
Communication as well could be splitted in segments

Segment 1 want to know what is going on on the boards = here
Segment 3 need to be attracted through Wolrd wild communication: ADDS
MAKE IT KNOWN!!!!

MAKE PPL COME AND QUIT

That is what will make ppl stay~!!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am Gillest: Half of my life is locked on a Atys Server!!!
I am Gillest: anyone remembering Ryzom will always be my sister or my brother
I am Gillest: If I ever cross your path on Atys, remember one thing: I will never forget my journey with you
Themac: Tribute for you on that post (lot more of ppl I would name, choose one for that post)

[gillest63]

Anyway:

Basically:
- make it even more attractive to new player base in early levels
- Make it hard as well so they learn about teaming = no spoon feeding
- Focus any new release of the first 6 months to increase the number of players TRYING THE GAME....
- Sorry Final but Wipe is silly: all games you start to play as a newbie only gives you a challenge when you see uber players with uber gear around: this is what motivate players to stick on and to progress in the game...
You want to do... have..... the same as them: clever indirect marketing

Makes ppl stick to the game

[cynthel]

I hate uber gear, uber gear makes me want to quit a game. Why? Because you usually have to spend an ungodly amount of hours in one single shot to get one, or one piece of it. Maybe.

Makes me want to tear my hair off, better the uber gear be crafted, at least this way it's a reward everyone can attain whether by buying it from another player, and having thus grinded the money for it, or traded it for something else of value. Or it's something you've spent many hours getting to, but hours spent on your own time. None of this I have to spend 6 hours in a dungeon for, which I will have to do again and again, and again. You catch my drift. ^^

I like dungeons, because they are fun, however being forced in one way or another to do anything in a game, is just not 'fun'.

I disagree that Silan is bad, it's a good tutorial, however some of the quests are misleading and should be rewritten so the player does not get a skewed view that the whole game is cookie cutter like this.

[kalindra]

Uber gear in Ryzom IS crafted (Am not talking about NPC boss gear). It is still reasonably hard to obtain, but becomes way easier as you SOCIALIZE and make yourself HELPFUL. Helping others in this game is extremely worth it. When you help others, they are much more inclined to help you back. We have a very unique and helpful community.

Obtaining uber gear solo is not impossible... yet it'll take much, much longer.

On a side note : *tacklehuggle glomps Gillest* Happy to see you back here !

Sorry for the offtopic.

As for making Silan harder, in Gameforge's era, they made it easier by adding +200 points to your statbars (or something) to the characters and making the yubos easier to kill. You can question the validity of this choice.

[sidusar]

So for those too lazy to read the whole original post, it all comes down to more communication towards us and more advertisement for new players.

Which is what we kept telling GF too.

As for making Silan harder, in Gameforge's era, they made it easier by adding +200 points to your statbars (or something) to the characters and making the yubos easier to kill. You can question the validity of this choice.

Oooh, I'd forgotten that. Or blocked the memory more likely. Back when they announced this plan I made a new character myself and went smacking those yubos unarmed, and I really had to try hard to die.

And while they made those easy killings even easier, the poor newbies still had to try 50 times to find the forage source they needed with their 1-meter-range-10-degree-angle-10-second-duration prospect.

[cynthel]

Uber gear in Ryzom IS crafted (Am not talking about NPC boss gear). It is still reasonably hard to obtain, but becomes way easier as you SOCIALIZE and make yourself HELPFUL. Helping others in this game is extremely worth it. When you help others, they are much more inclined to help you back. We have a very unique and helpful community.

Obtaining uber gear solo is not impossible... yet it'll take much, much longer.

.

Humm what? I'm not saying obtaining 'uber' gear in Ryzom is easier, however is it more convenient for a certain type of player, yes I think so for the reasons you just stated.

Also I think I missed this statement earlier: "Make it hard as well so they learn about teaming = no spoon feeding"

O.o I'm sorry but that's exactly what pushed many potential players away from this game. You want a repeat dead game, please do this. I sound harsh but it is true, as long as you keep the elitist attitude that only people who love to learn things the hardest way possible should be allowed and dignified enough to play this game you will push people away. Especially those who are not used to a sandbox game.

What you want is an introduction that meets them and you in the middle. Something that will offer something familiar, seen in other games before while gently introducing them to what Ryzom really offers. I think that's what Silan was supposed to be and can become if a bit more polish and effort would go into it like I already mentioned above.

And yes I first played or tried this game a year before Silan was introduced and the experience completely turned me off, I was new to the MMO market and I hated I couldn't find what and how to do anything in Ryzom. I've changed a lot since then, but a lot of people, especially after the advent that was WoW, have not. After Silan I tried it again, and loved it. It's only through changes and financial status that I went away, not because of the game itself.

Please don't misunderstand what I'm trying to say, I don't mean to imply we should dilute the game and turn it into a quest driven clone of other MMO's, I really don't however I believe that innovation, fixing the bugs that are present, adding what was said to be coming and such should be what we want as well as a newbie zone that can successfully transition a traditional mmorpg player into a Ryzom sandbox loving player. ^_^ Can it be done? I don't know, I sure would love to see it.

EDIT: I sound like I'm rather scathed, and perhaps I am a bit, some of the posts I've read on these forums in the past have given me the impression that only people who fit a certain bill can really appreciate what Ryzom is, and don't dare ever change that. It's an attitude I don't understand, if you want your game to survive you'd think you'd find ways to support it and not slag it when things get difficult or don't go as you wanted. Obviously I was here when Gameforge was around, and that's probably what gives me the negative perception, it was not exactly the rosiest time in Ryzom's history.

I guess I'm afraid that because of fear of ruining the game people have loved for years, any change or mention of a change will be booed and hissed at instead of finding ways to incorporate it into your existing gaming experience. Does that make sense?

[sidusar]

Yes, it makes sense. It's true that some of us will lash out rather quickly and harshly at any suggestion that smells like "make Ryzom more like the standard MMO". You'll have to forgive us for that, it's probably the result of 3 years of constantly being promised different and unique content and only being delivered content that was designed to make Ryzom, exactly, more like the standard MMO...

For example, the outposts were announced to be about rebuilding the lands and dynamic environments. Instead they were released as the standard PvP battles for territory control. The complex fame system was announced to be leading up to the encyclopedia and more interactions with the tribes. Instead it was dumbed down to support a binary Kami vs Karavan global PvP mimicking the Horde vs Alliance system. And when it was finally announced they'd spent some development time on making the Kitin more of a threat, the (never released) Kitin Lair sounded more and more like an instanced Raid for uber gear the closer it got to release.

I'm afraid all of it has left us rather allergic to any more changes that could shift the focus of the game away from it's sandboxy nature. But not every suggestion for change will be automaticly shot down and most of us do recognise that there are also many features in other MMOs that would do well in Ryzom with a few adaptations. Particularly in the areas of interface and customisable housing. Just refrain from saying "WoW also has it" when you suggest such changes, and you should be fine.

And yeah, we do have a bit of an elitist attitude around here. It's just that we're all so proud of our community, but really, that's just of the friendliness of it. I suppose it does take a certain kind of player to be able to enjoy Ryzom at all, and that kind of player is rare amongst MMO players. But there is really no list of requirements we'll hold new players against before letting them in. If you enjoy Ryzom in whatever way then as long as you can treat other players respectfully, you are welcome.

We like Ryzom's steep learning curve because it helps to keep out the l33t k1dd13s, and we're afraid making it easier will lead to Atys being swamped with aforementioned l33ties. But it's true the same steep learning curve also pushes away many desirable players. Too many, apparently, since we consistently fail to attract enough players.

As you say, the old newbie islands were particularly bad at this. New players were immediatly thrown into the deep end, often without even finding any other players there to help them. Silan completely turned this around, right into the other extreme, leading players to think the whole game was quest-based and making them feel cheated when they came over to the real Atys and found it wasn't. A starter island that starts out quest-based and then gradually introduces the "choose for yourself what you want to do" playstyle of the mainland would be ideal. ^_^

(Disclaimer: I say we, but ofcourse I can't speak for the entire Ryzom community, or even for one single other member of that community besides myself. The above is just my impression of how many of us feel about things.)

[cynthel]

Thanks for that sidusar!

I realize that I think I had those thoughts brewing for a long time, since I quit basically and I never vented them properly before. Thanks for explaining some things, it makes it easier to understand the nature of the long existing community better. I didn't know the specifics of the outpost debacle either I think I was thrown in a semi war community vs Gameforge, which a lot of the frustration I sympathized with, one of the reasons I didn't choose this game over another was the severe lack of updates. It seemed like the game was really stagnant and Gameforge was spinning it's wheels...

But anyway moving on! I don't think you need to make Silan any harder, or maybe put it back to how it was before Gameforge made it EVEN easier, and remove the quest rewards, those over the top armors they gave, it should be strongly implied at the very beginning that your armor comes from crafting. The original starter newbie isle at least did that well. The problem with the original is that you didn't see other races, and that minimize how many people were on the island, Silan solved that. Silan offers detailed tutorials on how to do just about everything, KEEP that! It's very important for people who are used to hand holding, even though the rest of the game isn't like that, they won't need anymore hand holding once they have the basics down anyway. Any player who actually gets the game will move on fine after the initial tug

Remove quests that don't make sense to the world and that you'll never see again... Again balance the rewards instead of gear a player at that level should only dream of having or have worked a bit more for, offer crafting mats, harvesting tools not uber ones! Just something a bit better then what they had to get them going.

[sidusar]

Glad to be of service. Yes, by the time of the Gameforge era many were already fed up with 2 years of scarce and counterproductive (to them) updates from Nevrax. And many believed Gameforge didn't even have any real intention of improving the game. Nevrax at least gave the impression they were trying, from Gameforge we mainly heard silence.

But anyways, Silan! I've walked around the island, but I must admit I've never actually played through the entire quest chain. So all I know about that comes from other players. But from that impression, I think your analysis is spot-on. Let me try to make a more complete list of changes that I think would bring Silan closer to what you're suggesting (and which I agree with):

• Nerf the quest reward items. It's good that the quests give newbies some decent gear to start out with, but it shouldn't give awesome gear. It's a major selling point of Ryzom that all the best gear is crafted, and Silan should reflect that. The gear you can get from quests should be inferior to the best possible gear you can craft.
• Increase the access to materials. In particular, put in lots of different fine materials and even some choice materials up to q30. How are newbies going to be properly introduced to Ryzom's complex crafting system if all they have to work with is a very limited selection of fine mats? This also goes back to making crafted gear superior to quest-given gear, thus actually giving a reason to craft.
• Make harvesting easier. Low-level harvesting is a major turn-off for new players. Having to search for hours for a particular material is not fun. On how to make the harvesting easier I could start an entire new thread, but the simplest way would be to make the materials pop by themselves (like amber does around stables) for every foraging spot on the island.
• Remove the high-end quests. The starter quests are good because they offer a tutorial, but by the time you get to "kill the kirosta" the tutorial is long over and you're just questing for the sake of questing as you would in WoW. By the high-end of Silan, newbies should be learning that Ryzom isn't about quests, so there shouldn't be any quests sending them into the jungle at all, except repeatable mission and maybe later their first encyclopedia entry.
• For that matter, make the tutorial quests repeatable too. I don't know how many times I've seen newbies, anxious to get on the quest, click through the explanation without reading it and then realising they don't know what to do. Usually if they ask in universe chat someone is kind enough to tell them, but it's just sloppy that they can't pull the explanation back up. Also, repeatable quests emphasize the freedom of choice, while a quest you can only do once carries an implicit obligation to complete it.

This, accompanied with some changes in the dialog to support it, I think would go a long way towards making Silan a proper 'mid-way' introduction. One that offers new players the familiar quest-structure and hand holding to get them started, yet also shows them Ryzom's open-ended nature before they move over to the mainland.

[iphdrunk]

• Make harvesting easier. Low-level harvesting is a major turn-off for new players. Having to search for hours for a particular material is not fun. On how to make the harvesting easier I could start an entire new thread, but the simplest way would be to make the materials pop by themselves (like amber does around stables) for every foraging spot on the island.

This is important, imho. While I surely appreciate Ryzom harvesting and I would welcome more options, tweaks and advanced aspects, it is a *MAJOR* issue for new players.

While helping them (as whatever....) one of the recurring problems is that it is hard to explain, and it is frustrating for them, how the whole system goes. A new player cannot simply understand why, oh why, he had tracked that material with that tracking action and got to that point to 0m and then no way he can get a source after turning around, tweaking angles, ranges, etc... (even for the most advanced diggers there are still those "ehum" moments). Do not try to explain the impact of weather or, in a rainy afternoon, the notion of tesselation of terrain in zones and areas and the fact that the tracking action had taken you to the edge of a e.g. rectangular area, blah blah blah. If the new player cannot pull a node after tracking, for whatever mistic reason we can come up with, that is frustrating.

In all, the couple "tracking+prospecting" could be made more intuitive and smooth for a basic understanding, yet allow the finest details for advanced usage. (We are talking new players here, I know most of you have never had an issue with this )

Yours,
Ani