What does it take to establish a good playerbase for your PW?

[Legacy_olivier leroux]

               A good playerbase is what every PW needs and every PW owner is looking for. Some got it. Others don't even manage to get a modest but steady number of regular players.

If you're involved with one of the PWs that do have a good playerbase already you might be inclined to say that those PWs that don't just are not good enough to attract players. I don't think that's true though since I know a lot of original and well-crafted PWs that nevertheless suffer from the curse of oblivion.

Or you might say it's because these servers use haks other than the CEP which is probably closer to the root of the matter. I can see that haks are an obstacle in a new player's way and not many are willing to download them before they can even know if they would actually like the server. But I believe some servers are popular despite or also because of the additional haks they're using.

So my conclusion - and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to jump to it - is that the greatest problem of a server, what scares most players away, is the absence of players - which in turn stems from the fact that the absence of players scares most players away. A vicious cycle that's hard to break.

IMO there are a lot of severs out there that don't really deserve such a fate, that's why I thought it might be helpful to discuss ways to effectively promote your server and etablish a playerbase. You're all invited to take part in the discussion but please keep it constructive and don't abuse it for your own goals or to rant about PW philosophies you don't share.

What can you recommend beside posting an ad on these forums here? How did you establish a good playerbase for your own server?

***

My personal thoughts on this are that it could be a good idea to start by inviting players to your server at at an appointed time to run scheduled DM events or offer them an introductory tour to the server or something similar along these lines. If your invitation attracts attention, there will be more than 0 players online at the appointed time and others might follow (although admittedly that won't work if they need extra haks to join the server). In the best case these players will get to know each other and maybe come back for the next scheduled DM event, perhaps bring along their friends and who knows, even explore the server together another time, when there isn't a DM event.

Granted, this hope is a little idealistic but I imagine it's easier to establish a playerbase if you invite players to appointed dates and then interact with them or cause them to interact with each other. The goal of the DM event should be to introduce the players to your setting in a way that makes them curious enough to want to explore your world, even if there's no DM around.

What do you think? Could this work? Have you done it and had success with it? And what are your own thoughts, suggestions and tips on breaking the vicious cycle?
               
               

               

                     Modifié par olivier leroux, 24 juillet 2010 - 10:48 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_TSMDude]

                I think it is a great idea on the DM Set Times.

I wish and will aways wish that worlds were better connected so sometimes you could even have Guest DMs as we have some that are ten times better than I ever would be. There was one on FRC who I disagree alot with BUT would drop anything to be in one of his quest because they always rocked. I know several PWs who I think would be a blast to connect to as we all share similiar ideas and such like. Imagine if we all did pool resources....sorry I went on a tangent...

I still think one of the best ideas for NWN is a meeting of PW Admins to pool together players and Staff and link something together that would be an awesome game for all of us diehards that will not let NWN die...sorry I am still on a tangent...slowly gets off tangent.

What keeps players coming back?

I do not know. We have some players that have become believers in our world which in turn has fueled us to believe in it. It is harder than it sounds to keep those players around. We have lost some good players and gained some great ones. Through it all one of our longtime players gave me this and we found it really helpful.

I am reprinting it here as I think a lot of you might dig it. I have not contributed to this text in any other way than finding it, adding formatting, and posting it in places...
               
               

               

                     Modifié par TSMDude, 24 juillet 2010 - 10:18 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_TSMDude]

               Raph Koster's Laws of Online World Design



A Caveat

Ola's Law About Laws
Any general law about virtual worlds should be read as a challenge rather than as a guideline. You'll learn more from attacking it than from accepting it.

Design Rules

The secrets to a really long-lived, goal-oriented, online game of wide appeal

    * have multiple paths of advancement (individual features are nice, but making them ladders is better)
    * make it easy to switch between paths of advancementt (ideally, without having to start over)
    * make sure the milestones in the path of advancement are clear and visible and significant (having 600 meaningless milestones doesn't help)
    * ideally, make your game not have a sense of running out of significant milestones (try to make your ladder not feel finite)

Modes of expression
You're trying to provide as many modes of expression as possible in your online world. Character classes are just modes of expression, after all.

Persistence means it never goes away
Once you open your online world, expect to keep your team on it indefinitely. Some of these games have never closed. And closing one prematurely may result in losing the faith of your customers, damaging the prospects for other games in the same genre.

Macroing, botting, and automation
No matter what you do, someone is going to automate the process of playing your world.

Corollary:
Looking at what parts of your game players tend to automate is a good way to determine which parts of the game are tedious and/or not fun.

Game systems
No matter what you do, players will decode every formula, statictic, and algorithm in your world via experimentation.

It is always more rewarding to kill other players than to kill whatever the game sets up as a target.
A given player of level x can slay multiple creatures of level y. Therefore, killing a player of level x yields ny reward in purely in-game reward terms. Players will therefore always be more rewarding in game terms than monsters of comparable difficulty. However, there's also the fact that players will be more challenging and exciting to fight than monsters no matter what you do.

Never trust the client.
Never put anything on the client. The client is in the hands of the enemy. Never ever ever forget this.

J. C. Lawrence's "do it everywhere" law
If you do it one place, you have to do it everywhere. Players like clever things and will search them out. Once they find a clever thing they will search for other similar or related clever things that seem to be implied by what they found and will get pissed off if they don't find them.

Hyrup's "do it everywhere" Corollary
The more detailed you make the world, the more players will want to break away from the classical molds.

Dr Cat's Stamp Collecting Dilemma
"Lots of people might like stamp collecting in your virtual world. But those who do will never play with those who like other features. Should you have stamp collecting in your world?" We know that there are a wide range of features that people find enjoyable in online worlds. We also know that some of these features are in conflict with one another. Given the above, we don't yet know if it is possible to have a successful world that incorporates all the features, or whether the design must choose to exclude some of them in order to keep the players happy.

Koster's Law (Mike Sellers was actually the one to dub it thus)
The quality of roleplaying is inversely proportional to the number of people playing.

Hyrup's Counter-observation
The higher the fee, the better the roleplayers. (And of course, the smaller the playerbase.)

Enforcing roleplaying
A roleplay-mandated world is essentially going to have to be a fascist state. Whether or not this accords with your goals in making such a world is a decision you yourself will have to make.

Storytelling versus simulation
If you write a static story (or indeed include any static element) in your game, everyone in the world will know how it ends in a matter of days. Mathematically, it is not possible for a design team to create stories fast enough to supply everyone playing. This is the traditional approach to this sort of game nonetheless. You can try a sim-style game which doesn't supply stories but instead supplies freedom to make them. This is a lot harder and arguably has never been done successfully.

Players have higher expectations of the virtual world
The expectations are higher than of similar actions in the real world. For example: players will expect all labor to result in profit; they will expect life to be fair; they will expect to be protected from aggression before the fact, and not just to seek redress after the fact; they will expect problems to be resolved quickly; they will expect that their integrity will be assumed to be beyond reproach; in other words, they will expect too much, and you will not be able to supply it all. The trick is to manage the expectations.

Online game economies are hard
A faucet->drain economy is one where you spawn new stuff, let it pool in the "sink" that is the game, and then have a concomitant drain. Players will hate having this drain, but if you do not enforce ongoing expenditures, you will have Monty Haul syndrome, infinite accumulation of wealth, overall rise in the "standard of living" and capabilities of the average player, and thus unbalance in the game design and poor game longevity.

Ownership is key
You have to give players a sense of ownership in the game. This is what will make them stay--it is a "barrier to departure." Social bonds are not enough, because good social bonds extend outside the game. Instead, it is context. If they can build their own buildings, build a character, own possessions, hold down a job, feel a sense of responsibility to something that cannot be removed from the game--then you have ownership.

If your game is narrow, it will fail
Your game design must be expansive. Even the coolest game mechanic becomes tiresome after a time. You have to supply alternate ways of playing, or alternate ways of experiencing the world. Otherwise, the players will go to another world where they can have new experiences. This means new additions, or better yet, completely different subgames embedded in the actual game.

Lambert's Laws:

    * As a virtual world's "realism" increases, the pool of possible character actions increase.
    * The opportunities for exploitation and subversion are directly proportional to the pool size of possible character actions.
    * A bored player is a potential and willing subversive.
    * Players will eventually find the shortest path to the cheese.

Featuritis
No matter how many new features you have or add, the players will always want more.

Pleasing your Players
Despite your best intentions, any change will be looked upon as a bad change to a large percentage of your players. Even those who forgot they asked for it to begin with.

Hyrup's Loophole Law
If something can be abused, it will be.

Murphy's Law
Servers only crash and don't restart when you go out of town.

Dr Cat's Theorem
Attention is the currency of the future.

Dr Cat's Theorem as expressed by J C Lawrence
The basic medium of multiplayer games is communication.

Hanarra's Laws

    * Over time, your playerbase will come to be the group of people who most enjoy the style of play that your world offers. The others will eventually move to another game.
    * It is very hard to attract players of different gaming styles after the playerbase has been established. Any changes to promote different styles of play almost always conflict with the established desires of the current playerbase.
    * The ultimate goal of a virtual world is to create a place where people of all styles of play can contribute to the world in a manner that makes the game more satisfying for everyone.
    * The new players who enter the world for the first time are the best critics of it.
    * The opinions of those who leave are the hardest to obtain, but give the best indication of what changes need to be made to reach that ultimate goal.

Elmqvist's Law
In an online game, players find it rewarding to save the world. They find it more rewarding to save the world together, with lots of other people.

A corollary to Elmqvist's Law
In general, adding features to an online game that prevent people from playing together is a bad idea.

A caveat to the corollary to Elmqvist's Law
The exception would be features that enhance the sense of identity of groups of players, such as player languages.

Baron's Design Dichotomy
According to Jonathan Baron, there are two kinds of online games: Achievement Oriented, and Cumulative Character. In the former, the players who "win" do so because they they are the best at whatever the game offers. Their glory is achieved by shaming other players. In the latter, anyone can reach the pinnacle of achievement by mere persistence; the game is driven by sheer unadulterated capitalism.

Online identity
We spend a lot of time making people able to have a very strong personal identity in our worlds (letting them define themselves in great detail, down to eye color). But identity is portable. How many of you have been playing the same character in RPGs for 15 years, like me? You cannot count on a sense of identity, of character building, to keep someone in your game.

In game calendars
It's nice to have an in-game calendar. But emotional resonances will never accrue to in-game holidays. The only calendar that really matters is the real world one. Don't worry about breaking fiction--online games are about social interaction, not about fictional consistency.

Social Laws

Koster's Theorem
Virtual social bonds evolve from the fictional towards real social bonds. If you have good community ties, they will be out-of-character ties, not in-character ties. In other words, friendships will migrate right out of your world into email, real-life gatherings, etc.

Baron's Theorem
Hate is good. This is because conflict drives the formation of social bonds and thus of communities. It is an engine that brings players closer together.

Baron's Law
Glory is the reason why people play online; shame is what keeps them from playing online. Neither is possible without other people being present.

Mike Sellers' Hypothesis
"The more persistence a game tries to have; the longer it is set up to last; the greater number (and broader variety) of people it tries to attract; and in general the more immersive a game/world it set out to be--then the more breadth and depth of human experience it needs to support to be successful for more than say, 12-24 months. If you try to create a deeply immersive, broadly appealing, long-lasting world that does not adequately provide for human tendencies such as violence, acquisition, justice, family, community, exploration, etc (and I would contend we are nowhere close to doing this), you will see two results: first, individuals in the population will begin to display a wide range of fairly predictable socially pathological behaviors (including general malaise, complaining, excessive bullying and/or PKing, harassment, territoriality, inappropriate aggression, and open rebellion against those who run the game); and second, people will eventually vote with their feet--but only after having passionately cast 'a pox on both your houses.' In essence, if you set people up for an experience they deeply crave (and mostly cannot find in real life) and then don't deliver, they will become like spurned lovers--somebecome sullen and aggressive or neurotic, and eventually almost all leave."

Schubert's Law of Player Expectations
A new player's expectations of a virtual world are driven by his expectations of single-player games. In particular, he expects a narrow, predictable plotline with well-defined quests and a carefully sculpted for himself as the hero. He also expects no interference or disruption from other players. These are difficult, and sometimes impossible, expectations for a virtual world to actually meet.

Violence is inevitable
You're going to have violence done to people no matter what the facilities for it in the game are. It may be combat system, stealing, blocking entrances, trapping monsters,stealing kills to get experience, pestering, harassment, verbal violence, or just rudeness.

Is it a game?
It's a SERVICE. Not a game. It's a WORLD. Not a game. It's a COMMUNITY. Not a game. Anyone who says, "it's just a game" is missing the point.

Identity
You will NEVER have a solid unique identity for your problematic players. They essentially have complete anonymity because of the Internet. Even addresses, credit cards, and so on can be faked--and will be.

Jeff Kesselman's Theorem
A MUD universe is all about psychology. After all, there IS no physicality. It's all psych and group dynamics.

Psychological disinhibition
People act like jerks more easily online, because anonymity is intoxicating. It is easier to objectify other people and therefore to treat them badly. The only way to combat this is to get them to empathize more with other players.

Mass market facts
Disturbing for those used to smaller environments, but: administrative problems increase EXPONENTIALLY instead of linearly, as your playerbase digs deeper into the mass market. Traditional approaches tend to start to fail. Your playerbase probably isn't ready or willing to police itself.

Anonymity and in-game admins
The in-game admin faces a bizarre problem. He is exercising power that the ordinary virtual citizen cannot. And he is looked to in many ways to provide a certain atmosphere and level of civility in the environment. Yet the fact remains that no matter how scrupulously honest he is, no matter how just he shows himself to be, no matter how committed to the welfare of the virtual space he may prove himself, people will hate his guts. They will mistrust him precisely because he has power, and they can never know him. There will be false accusations galore, many insinuations of nefarious motives, and former friends will turn against him. It may be that the old saying about power and absolute power is just too ingrained in the psyche of most people; whatever the reasons, there has never been an online game whose admins could say with a straight face that all their players really trusted them (and by the way, it gets worse once you take money!).

Community size
Ideal community size is no larger than 250. Past that, you really get subcommunities.

Hans Henrik Staerfeldt's Law of Player/Admin Relations: The amount of whining players do is positively proportional to how much you pamper them.
Many players whine if they see any kind of bonus in it for them. It will simply be another way for them to achieve their goals. As an admin you hold the key to many of the goals that they have concerning the virtual environment you control. If you do not pamper the players and let them know that whining will not help them, the whining will subside.

Hal Black's Elaboration
The more responsive an admin is to user feedback of a given type, the more of that type the admin will get. Specifically, as an admin implements features from user suggestions, the more ideas for features will be submitted. Likewise, the more an admin coddles whiners, the more whining will ensue.

J C Lawrence's "stating the obvious" law
The more people you get, the more versions of "what we're really doing" you're going to get.

John Hanke's Law (cited by Mike Sellers)
In every aggregation of people online, there is an irreducible proportion of ... jerks (he used a different word :-)

Rewarding players
It is not possible to run a scenario or award player actions without other players crying favoritism.

Rewards
The longer your game runs, the less often you get kudos for your efforts.

Dundee's Law
Fighting the battle for nomenclature with your players is a futile act. Whatever they want to call things is what they will be called.

Ananda Dawnsinger's Law
The less disruption that occurs in a community, the less able the community is able to deal with disruption when it does occur.

Rickey's Law
People don't want "A story". They want *their* story.

Socialization requires downtime
Whatever the rewarded activity in your game is, it has to give people time to breathe if you want them to socialize.

Darklock's First Law
Cheating is an apparently advantageous violation of player assumptions about the game. When those assumptions are satisfied, all apparently advantageous methods are fair. When they are violated, no apparently advantageous methods are fair. "Using exterior means to influence the play of a game is not necessarily cheating. It is only cheating if it violates the assumptions of other players *and* provides an advantage. When a player expects that gaining levels in a game takes a long period of time, he will call any method of gaining them rapidly "cheating" -- even if it is an intentional feature of the game. When he expects that gaining levels is a rapid process, however, he will not think the people gaining them slowly are cheating... because that is not an apparently advantageous situation. It does not matter whether this actually *is* an advantageous situation, only whether it *appears* advantageous."

Corollary to Darklock's First Law
A bug is an apparently *disadvantageous* violation of player assumptions about the game. "This may be viewed as a specific application of Dundee's Law, "Fighting the battle for nomenclature with your players is a futile act. Whatever they want to call things is what they will be called." It does not matter whether "cheating" or a "bug" was an intentional part of the game design; it only matters whether the players *assumed* they were intentional."

Darklock's Second Law
Any violation of player assumptions is bad. "This follows from the first law because allowing violation of player assumptions is -- pathologically -- a unilateral "license to cheat". When you license any player to violate the assumptions of others, you imply a right for ALL players to violate the assumptions of others, and they will attempt to do so in an apparently advantageous fashion. This turns your playerbase into a society of cheaters, under the umbrella of truths we hold to be self-evident. (Which is, of course, a "slippery slope" argument. It does not logically follow that *any* such playerbase MUST degenerate into a society of cheaters; only that human nature and psychology make some degree of such degeneration likely. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.)"

J C Lawrence on Utopias
Don't strive for perfection, strive for expressive fertility. You can't create utopia, and if you did nobody would want to live there.

Who contributed (purposely or inadvertently!), sorted alphabetically:

    * Myself, of course. [Meme's comment - Raph, not I]
    * Richard Bartle: along with Roy Trubshaw, developed the first MUD.
    * Jonathan Baron: producer & designer for Air Warrior.
    * Hal Black: And another MUD-Dev member!
    * Dr Cat: the man behind Dragonspires and Furcadia.
    * Niklas Elmqvist: another active MUD-Dev member.
    * Ola Frosheim Grostad: researcher into virtual spaces, MUD-Dev member.
    * Marion Griffith: leads the !Overlord Project.
    * Hanarra, aka Jason Wilson,: of Nightfall.
    * Darrin Hyrup: designer and/or programmer for Gemstone, Dragon's Gate, Darkness Falls, and Magestorm.
    * Jeff Kesselman: helped run Dark Sun Online, and is developing DSO2.
    * Amy Jo Kim: consultant and web designer.
    * Jon A. Lambert: active MUD-Dev member.
    * J C Lawrence: moderator for the MUD-Dev mailing list.
    * Damion Schubert: a key designer for Meridian 59, Might & Magic Online, and Ultima Online.
    * Mike Sellers: a prime mover behind Meridian 59.
    * Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt: one of the guys who wrote the original DikuMUD.
    * Jeff Freeman, aka Dundee: UO emulator shard developer.
    * Caliban Tiresias Darklock
    * Dave Rickey: currently a designer for Dark Age of Camelot
    * Ananda Dawnsinger
    * And all the members of the MUD-Dev list as well.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Eagles Talon]

               There are many players around that try out different worlds from time to time, even if they don't intend to stay because of loyalty to a primary favorite server.  Some come back, some do not.  The main surce of players for any server are from two sources.  First would be from players new to the game.  In the case of NWN1, those are getting less and less as time goes by.  The second source is from players that are disillusioned with their current server, or perhaps their favored server has faded and no longer has support.  We saw a lot of these when NWN2 came out.  Many have returened when they found that multiplayer functions, in particlar DM support was not to be found in NWN2.



The occasional post on these forums, the NWN Vault and similar places is a good way to start.  Asking your regular players to spread the word to friends is also necesary.  But players will always be "stopping by" to check out new servers, or at least ones that are new to them. Yes, they want to see the player numbers in Gamespy.  Those numbers showing do attract them.  The world I play suffers from this mostly because the server instance, or module, that shows inGamespy is strictly a welcome module and does not show the players on line at any given time.  It was a risk, but it has worked for us.  We do not get many of those occasional power players that surf worlds.



The main trick is to get those visiting players to come back and find a home on your world.  And it's really no trick.  Good content.  DM support.  An active Development team that keeps the world vibrant.  All of these things can bring a player back for more.  But there is more.  The early levels, either by RP or Adventureing need to be interesting, entertaining and challenging (without being too deadly).  There needs to be content that a character can accomplish solo and without staff intervention, there needs to be content, story, etc. that is best accomplished with companions and there needs to be DM initiated content as well.  A well rounded community, staff and players alike, will ensure the long term continuity of any world, regardless of the short term influxes of players that will and should change from time to time.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Jenna WSI]

               Great thread... a quick note as I don't have time to read and digest it ALL now.

"So my conclusion - and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to jump to it - is that the greatest problem of a server, what scares most players away, is the absence of players - which in turn stems from the fact that the absence of players scares most players away. A vicious cycle that's hard to break."

I agree 100%. Some of the large community servers seem lacking of quality compared to some smaller servers. So why does this happen? There seems to be a tipping point... if you get X amount of people, lots more show up out of nowhere. This effect of people go where people are is something I've seen happen a million times when I used to work in a small retail store. You get a few people in browsing... all of a sudden 10 more walk in. You can see the browsers in the windows. Humans have a HUGE herd gene in there. There's been studies on this, for example one in an elevator. If you turn towards the inside of the elevator, and put your back to the door... everyone else will do it. BUT only if more than one person originally turned to face the back. Couples are less easy to influence, but eventually give in as well. Interesting stuff, to me.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Jenna WSI, 25 juillet 2010 - 05:35 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Sulhee]

               I think your idea of having DM scheduled sessions is on the right track--that's how I'd do it actually (speaking specifically for a serious roleplay-oriented server).

I can't speak from admin experience, but I can say why I don't stick around (or try) most PWs in two words: Leveling treadmill.

Many will say that the level shouldn't matter on a roleplaying server --and much of the time it doesn't, but the simple truth is that if you have characters that are 10 or even 5 levels apart, even in DM controlled combat you're going to have someone bored (or annoyed) when any kind of conflict does start.

One of the "rules" above helps explain this: Players don't want a story, they want their story.  In other words it's very likely that they want their character to be just as capable as the rest, but if the reality of the game's mechanics mean that their PC is going to be dropped dead by orcs (and another player's PC beating them easily), that player's personal story (or personal fiction as I used to call it) is being more or less disrupted.  Actually I'm over-simplifying all the problems large differences in level creates (I can think of plenty more).

Personally I've always said I'd jump at the chance to play on a static level or very limited level (i.e. 3-4 level difference max) server focusing on the 9-14th level range, which draws it's energy from player creativity, DM and player run plots, and a high level of IC PC conflict.  (An example would be to enable players to play as orcs, create their own 'orc clan' and such, which you can imagine would generate quite an entertaining activity for the "normal" PC races.)  

(I have an old module designed and mostly built to do exactly this which I never quite finished...)

A server like that, at the very least, would stand out quite well and it'd be a perfect environment to host DM-scheduled sessions for it to get started.  The problem I've always had with "regular" PW DM-hosted sessions on Neverwinter Connections is that darn level variance again, and I just don't have the patience to level up to the min needed for the sessions... leveling to properly participate is so boring!
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Sulhee, 26 juillet 2010 - 02:33 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Elvamir]

               Wow, what a great thread! Love to read this kind of stuff and see so many people who care about the players in the NWN community and discuss ways to improve things for them (make PW's more welcome and help them grow, in this case.) Guys (and gals?) like you are what keeps this wonderful game alive! '>

For me I can only reference what I've tried to do in World of Caenyr that has kept us with an active and larger than most player base - Community. I know that sound like a canned, typical type of answer but it really is the best one. Sure there's creating a good environment for people to roleplay, giving them an outlet to be creative and have fun, but when it comes to the question of why high quality servers might be small but others that are of lesser quality might be larger it probably has more to do with the community than the content. Not saying Caenyr is of poor quality, but it definitely isn't perfect either. '> But when you have a good community, an environment that promotes the players and not just their characters, then flaws will often be overlooked or forgiven because fun is had regardless.

That's all pretty verbose probably, but I guess the bottom line is not to forget why people come to NWN or really why they roleplay in general. Do that and you will have a tight community. Here have been my personal "community tentants" for the last 8 years running Caenyr, my "things that if I ever lose sight of then I need to quit because Caenyr won't be Caenyr." I always keep these things in the back of my mind as to what makes us successful so I don't ruin a good thing. '>

1) Escapism. Roleplaying is a way to live viciriously through the life of another, to explore sides of your own personality that you might have trouble expressing otherwise, or maybe just to get away from real life pressures for a bit. No matter the case the "escape" needs to be allowed, as easily as possible. If you make it too difficult for me to achieve that then I am not having fun, I don't come to play the game to stress out as much as I do in my real life.   That means an exciting and atmoshperic environment in the game, but it also means don't over do it on the rules and restrictions as much as possible. Rules have their place, you need them for some things but those things should be for "protecting" players not making their life hell because an Admin wants tighter control.

2) Creativity. Roleplaying is also about being a creative outlet. People love to let their imagination run wild if given the opportunity, few things are as freeing as that. The more opportunities you give people to endulge in their creative side, the more freedom you give them to influence and shape aspects of the "story" (whether it's their own or the story of the world they live in) the more they will appreciate coming to play. Again, have boundries for the sake of protecting the "mythos" of the world but not so many that the player is stuck in a straight line, a scripted story that isn't of their making.

3) Friends. Often overlooked in light of the other two, but equally if not more important. What do we love about table top D&D? It's more than the game, it's also about sitting around a table with a bunch of friends, laughing and joking and having a good time. There's no reason that has to be any different over the internet. Create the right setting that encourages people to become more than just fellow players, to get to know one another and become friends as well, and you will have a bunch of happy buddies playing on your module, having fun together.

4) Leadership. The most challenging bit, because it's not for everyone as much as most would like to think they are capable of it. What makes a good leader? Well first you have to know how to follow just as well as you lead, and you also need to listen and be able to adapt. Don't just be the boss and fight to maintain control for the sake of your own ego. Be the friend and the mentor that guides the community, protects them and generally cares for them. You'll earn their respect, their trust and their loytalty. A lot of players that have come to Caenyr have come because of problems with the leadership in other worlds. That's not to say I'm perfect, believe me I am FAAAAR from it.  But at the very least I genuinely care about the people in my community and want them to have a great time. As long as your heart is in the right place and you keep working on that goal people will forgive your mistakes.... mostly. '> And one more important thing about leadership is encouraging others to lead, and giving them the opportunity to do so. Any Admin that tries to do it all on their own is doomed from the start. You need leaders at every level within the community to keep it together and running smooth.

Anyway that's just my take on things. Not right or wrong, just what has worked for me and allowed the World of Caenyr community to thrive for over 8 years now, with many very very old players still around and new ones still showing up all the time. Sure as the NWN community has dwindled so have we, and one day this whole game will likely vanish from the face of the earth and our world with it. BUT, I can say without a doubt that if we found a new home the community would follow because of the values we all share that I listed up above. Hope any of that helps someone, there are some AMAZING PW's in this community and I'd hate to see any of them die out. '>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Elvamir, 27 juillet 2010 - 01:43 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_SuperFly_2000]

               I think the most important thing in the world is not to have a huge playerbase but to think about what type of server that you want to have. Personally I don't need more than a group of 3-4 players to enjoy myself.

Because if we start the discussion about how to get "the best server" we are quickly all going to fall in the same trap pits. Lets face it...WoW has the biggest playerbase ever and I'm still not going to play it....
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_olivier leroux]

               If you're able to find a group of 3-4 players to interact with, I'd consider it a good playerbase already. The question is how to get there if there are 0 players online most of the time. Thanks everyone for the excellent suggestions so far. Keep them coming!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_SuperFly_2000]

               Good question Olivier. Guess some times you are lucky. Lets say there is one player on the server, so I join. Then because of further sheep mentality a third player says to himself "Omg, theres two players on" so he joins as well...and there you got the adventure going :-P

Another way...which I can't emphasise enough is simply to communicate. I know that generally on some RP servers it is considered un-fine to do send tells or such and most players like to "lurk" but that is not the way to go I think.

Instead we need to get together on social mediums like MSN, Skype, X-Fire or whatever...Simply send a message to a player you see online "You gonna play NWN this evening?".

Lurking maybe works on servers where you always have players but even on thoose servers it might be a problem to actually meet because players don't understand the importance of tells.

NWN players - it is time to get organized!

Step out of the shadows and into the light! (yes, even rogues!)

Get X-Fire and join my NWN1 community there! (shameless plugg)

Yes ok...maybe that guild is my own thing...but hells people...we need some direct chat method and to see if other people are online. If people are to afraid to install X-Fire because they think it will install some virus on their computer I am up for forming an NWN community on Skype, MSN or anything...

Roleplayers are social....
               
               

               

                     Modifié par SuperFly_2000, 27 juillet 2010 - 02:55 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_GhostOfGod]

               Great topic. And here's my 2 cents...which is probably only worth 2 cents.

Now I am not as into RP as much as some other people are. Sometimes I just want to beat stuff up after a long day at work. So this is from the perspective of an average player looking for a PW I suppose. I'll try to be brutally honest.

1.) As already mentioned, player count. I pretty much ignore the 0's. Sad for all the great PWs but its true. One way to help with this is to have at least a few friends to log on to the PW and stayed logged on at all times. Even if they can't play, just have them logged in so that you have at least 2 people. Or if you have the money and a few comps at home you can buy an extra copy of the game or 2, make some characters and have them logged on. That right there will greatly increase your chances of someone at least stopping in to check out your PW.

2.) Haks. Maybe not so much a problem now as high speed internet is more common than dial up when I first started playing this game. But there was nothing more annoying than wanting to jump into a PW and get that screen that tells me I need a list of haks before i can play. I would just move on to the next server on the list. CEP is pretty much a requirement now so I expect that. But if there is a bunch more stuff I will probably not take the time to download it.

3.) Now that you have someone stopping into your PW, now what? You want to keep them there right? This is where it's good to have creative people on your team. Story writing skills or what not(I have none). You need something to grab those players and make them want to stay. Now after long discussion with many friends about this we agreed on a few major points.

       -The first thing the player sees! Does the player arrive in a super boring area that is poorly scripted, unappealing to the eye and super laggy? The first thing the new player sees should be one of the greatest things about your PW. Something that makes them Ooooh and Aaaah.

       -A sense of belonging! Not necessarily you in real life but your character. After a new player sees that super awesome first area you need to pull them instantly into the story or the theme of your PW. And I can not stress this enough: All players should be on the same team! Unless you have a very large player base then 2 teams against each other is fine.
Maybe there is one great city and you have to be a part of it's army. You get handed a uniform, a weapon and a military id when you get in. You get your first quest right away. Have some quests that get you familiar with the city. But not loooong boring tedious ones. Make them short and sweet and rewarding. You can do things like post a board with awards for that player or give them award items or what not. Maybe even a statue if they complete some great task for the army.
This team should have a common NPC enemy of some type (if small player base). Demons, fallen gods, mutant alien cows, etc. Now of course this team can be broken up into divisions/guilds based an class or what not, but this way the characters are all working together and fighting together for the same cause. And alignment is not important either. Doesn't have to be good vs. evil. Just team against team. Different alignments in the same team make for some great RP. I have seen it over and over again where everyone wants to start their own guilds. So they go off and make an Elven assassins guild and end up being the only member. Then another player want to make a dwarven forgers guild. Now he is the only member of his guild. Now you have your only five players all in their own separate guilds all spread out across your PW being bored and lonely. Unless they are all in mini guilds that are a part of the same main army/guild. Ultimately this creates the sense of kinsmanship and belonging that players really need. Just like the MMOs that are  so popular and keep people playing? This also encourages RP without having to encourage RP.

       -Accept all types of players and stop the restrictions. If people want to grind all day let them. If they want to RP all day let them. If they want to make a super cheese build let them. If they want to paint themselves pink and dance around in their underwear...let them! I quit 2 PWs because of implemented restrictions. One decided to add scripting to make you use your skill points at level up so I couldn't dump them all into one skill when I was 40th. All the people actually left this sever after that and some other crap they decided to change. And this was a server that you once had a waiting line to log into. I quit another server that didn't allow monks to have haste anymore(I love my monkeys). Instead of making restrictions you should make rewards for those who follow a path more to your liking. Maybe a character who gos pure build can get a whole set of fancy armor or an awesome weapon or something. Maybe people who RP get rare rp awarded items.
People just want to create the character that they want, pure and simple. And find a good home for that character. And those who don't want to RP will pretty much just be passer byes in the community. Even they still add to the atmosphere. Make the PW feel like it's "crack'n".

       -Fight against boredom! Raise your hand if you've ever found yourself sitting around the campfire that all the players sit around doing nothing and thinking of something to do. ~Raises hand~ Players need something to do at all times. Have quests, crafting, achievements/awards, etc. in your PW to keep people interested. Keep many of the quests related to the sense of team though. You need to gather supplies for the archers or the mages to fight against the threat, etc. And for the people who just want to grind have plenty of grindy type areas for them to grind to their hearts content.

       -Only ONE main city! Raise your hand if you've explored a PW and found lots of huge, awesome looking, completely empty and boring cities. ~Raises hand again~
Having one main city helps your players stay together. They will run into each other often if they are always returning to the same main place. Or would you rather have your one elf hang out in the elven city, the one dwarf hang out in the dwarven city, the one half orc...? Well you get the picture.
And every area besides the city should be useful and purposeful. Huge empty boring spaces are a huge turn off. There should also be at least one unique aspect to each of these areas. Something that you can do or get or whatever. Even if it's just something simple. A wishing well that takes a gold and casts bless on you for a short time. Maybe a small patch of pickable flowers in the next area, Etc.. And more areas does not = better if the areas are not interesting.

After that it is pretty much word of mouth. If you can catch and keep some players and they tell their friends then things will probably take off.

One mistake I've seen over and over also that can ruin a PW. A couple players wine about something so you feel like you then need to change it. If your PW aint broke then don't fix it. You can't please everyone who stops in to your PW so don't try. Especially if you already have a growing player base. That means that you have done something right. While you should still be open to suggestions, sometimes trying to change things to please people will in the long run hurt the PW.  When people get what they want..they eventually don't want it anymore. Then they want something else.

Well anyway that's that. Again this is just opinion but it is shared by many people I've talked to in game and in the community.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par GhostOfGod, 28 juillet 2010 - 08:24 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_GhostOfGod]

               EDIT: Accidental double post. Still getting used to things.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par GhostOfGod, 28 juillet 2010 - 03:36 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_olivier leroux]

               

GhostOfGod wrote...
You want to keep them there right? This is where it's good to have creative people on your team. Story writing skills or what not(I have none). You need something to grab those players and make them want to stay.
[...]
Have some quests that get you familiar with the city. But not loooong boring tedious ones. Make them short and sweet and rewarding.
[...]
And every area besides the city should be useful and purposeful. Huge empty boring spaces are a huge turn off. There should also be at least one unique aspect to each of these areas. Something that you can do or get or whatever. Even if it's just something simple. A wishing well that takes a gold and casts bless on you for a short time. Maybe a small patch of pickable flowers in the next area, Etc.. And more areas does not = better if the areas are not interesting.

Excellent points, thank you very much for writing them down!

I also agree on the Action vs. RP thoughts. I can relate to both sides and prefer those servers that don't force a specific playstyle onto you and the playerbase of which is tolerant towards variety. If there already is a playerbase, the old players should be welcoming and friendly to new players instead of acting superior. They should try to make the new players feel involved instead of unwanted. On some servers I've actually put up with a playstyle I'm usually not that fond of because the players were so nice and acted so naturally that I automatically adapted. Noone told me about their roleplaying rules OOC (which as a sidenote I find a quite ironic behavior for self-proclaimed roleplayers), instead they just lived them without trying to convert anyone and I followed their example because it was fun. IMO servers don't need a playstyle police, they need convincing attempts at integrating new players.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Ardak]

               One thing I would like to add to these fine guidelines is that the sense from the very beginning that the module is studiously constructed and looks professional. That sense of quality and the feeling that someone has put their heart to it from the very beginning is important at least to me when entering new server. In the end, the leaders and makers of the mod are the ones to ignite the passion for playing. I have seen worlds which are somewhat half-way done, and that does not really add to the playing experience. All in all, I think that if there's a world with 0 players which have been carefully constructed is better than world which is half-way done. There when the half-way done world gives a picture that people has disappeared because of the incomplete nature, the professionally crafted world is just one which is waiting for players to be plunged to it's adventure and secrets.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Ardak, 29 juillet 2010 - 04:46 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Jenna WSI]

               All very good posts.



"One mistake I've seen over and over also that can ruin a PW. A couple players wine about something so you feel like you then need to change it. If your PW aint broke then don't fix it. You can't please everyone who stops in to your PW so don't try. Especially if you already have a growing player base. That means that you have done something right. While you should still be open to suggestions, sometimes trying to change things to please people will in the long run hurt the PW.  When people get what they want..they eventually don't want it anymore. Then they want something else."



But amen to that.