How to retain New Players

I look forward to a discussion of ideas to retain new players.

What I suggest is that when a player reaches game level 2 we give them 1 free month of premium membership so that they can continue to play the game and get addicted to it and then in the future purchase a premium membership extension.

We let players play for a very very long time for free.

some decide to support us, some don't and many stay very long.

Premium membership for one month will result in expiration a month later.

will it work?

They leave because it's so quiet and a lack of interaction. I don't think most of them get the premise of what this game is. If they came here looking for war, I would refer them to clash of clans. Very often I see new players start the game, jump into a war, then leave half way through. Ecomomics and infrastructure is boring for some I suppose. And this is not just about being profitable. Profits to what end? What's our national purpose? Our histories, the intrigue of the world stage. I miss that.

Thanks.
we are open for ideas, as always.

Well if new player starts playing and decided to go the economic route, here are the problems I think they face if they wanna start a empire .they can get 3 country's counting main by going to war lvl 2 where they still safe from raiders ,But if they wanna go higher game lvls they need more country's right ,so they either buy at 300 gold which is expensive and cost real money so thats probably out .but if they go the way of taking c3s they go up in war lvls which leaves them 2 choices 1 build up there country's in the hope they don't get raided or 2 buy war protection .which I might add makes the war lvls a joke seeing that they were thought of as a way to have a happy medium between econ and war

Andy, Knome, Players of Simcounty,

Simcounty is ultimately a sandbox game. It has no script, storyline, or win conditions. I truly love this about Simcountry. Games that have a fixed, beginning, middle, and end, can be completed, and after that, they are largely over.

On the other hand, a sandbox game like Simcountry, can continue to change and grow for years. It's limited only by the basic physics of the game mechanics, and by the players ability to set new and interesting goals for themselves.

To that end, I have set my own goals, outlining what I wish to achieve, and the role I wish to play here in Simcountry.

1) I am President for the people of DanNation. I am entrusted with their wellbeing, prosperity, and survival. Each decision I make, has an effect my people's lives. I strive to create the best possible life for them.

2) Civilisation, the advancement of technology and development, are the

I think you basically summed up what I've been looking for. That's the dialogue and "life" that makes this all interesting to me. The backstory we create for ourselves, our aimes, ideology, histories, ect..
This is the ultimate sandbox game. Could use more aesthetics to make it more lively and to better define ourselves. This game offers great mechanisms to use, but we need a way to convey our purposes and personal objectives. I think we get muddled in the technical details that makes it a little dry. The pursuit of a war game took too much attention. Also, there should be more to this than just making corps more "profitable". It's said a lot, but why? To what end? Maybe I'd prefer to just generate revenue, with enough surplus, to build a different society other than just for the sake of being more profitable..

Khome,

Agreed. As I am improving my economy, I often ask myself. What will I do with the extra revenue this will generate? So far these are my thoughts.

1) Improve the Welfare of my citizens (as measured by the Welfare Index, and the Consumption Quality Index). What is money, if not a means to provide for life?

2) Raise Wages. As a society becomes more productive. It is only fair, that the workers that made that possible, get to share in the fruits of that prosperity.

3) Fight back against the scourge of mortality. Is there any greater purpose than preserving the lives of our people? Extending lifespan may not be profitable. However we are a nation of people, not a nation of slaves. Our people deserve to live, even if their lives are not a source of profit.

4) Build a Central Bank Gold Reserve. When nations accumulate wealth, not all that wealth is "spent". Some is preserved, a ban

To create a workers utopia, protected by a people's liberation army. Basic summary

Khome,

So Joseph Stalin meets chairman Mao haha

Signed President of DanNation on LU

some players who get to experience the premium membership benefits may decide that they want to continue that rather than go back to playing for free. If giving these new players 1 month of free premium means that a few more players become supporting players rather than free players then that benefits the game which in turn will benefit all of us.

add a little bit of Lenin and Trotsky to.. ;)

Lower costs of the game would retain players. Lower costs by say 20%. This would both retain and attract new players. I have always felt the costs of the game are somewhat of a deterrent.

@Khome -go to the Simcountry wiki for histories on countries. Perhaps greater links or a game link to it might help.

I actually forgot about that... lol it's been years since I checked.

Locking them with a rope on a chair? Just thought. XD

Would love to know the metrics behind the scenes.

Look at historical marketing efforts.

Conversion rate of free to paying players over time.

Average length of paid membership?

Compare that data to major changes in game functionality.

Would be fun to look at that data over time.

Not sure what ownership goals are in terms of direction and time commitment.

Seems to me they want an interesting in depth global sim that appeals to a "small" group of people whom currently lean more towards economic cooperation rather then player v player conflict. Which is fine.

Does increased player v player war equal decreased membership, or increased? Does membership go down but real profits go up because Waring in this game can be expensive and you tend to keep paying players around?


What types of players left because of war?

What type of player stayed because

Es Mio, we appreciate your interest. The metrics behind the scenes are proprietary and confidential. We trust you understand the need for discretion, considering the keen competition in the game industry.

We especially have to be careful about Disney and its local spies. You understand, right?

However, we can address some of your questions generically.

Does increased player v player war equal decreased membership, or increased? Does membership go down but real profits go up because Waring in this game can be expensive and you tend to keep paying players around?

PvP generates more active players. That's also more profitable for the business. Once upon a time, one player spent $1,000 just to win a single PvP war. Those were the good old days, darn it.

Are the angry colorful people, who tend to war, an asset or liability to the game?

We suggest angry people consider getting anger

God, I forgot about that thread.

You ever wake up next to a stranger and think What the hell have I done?

Thats kind of how I feel right now, lol.

See what a half bottle of Makers Mark and too much free time can lead too!

Disneys nightly fireworks boom in my ears every night still. Mickey is indeed a devious spy.

We have GOT to know who spent a $1000! Out with it, Out! (Discretion, whats that?)

Waking up next to strangers and binge drinking are outdated. That's not politically correct behavior.

Confidentially, Doublestar was the one who spent $1,000 to win a PvP war. It was his war against the T.S.P.X. fed on Fearless Blue. As you know, TSPX was the abbreviation for Ton Skoton Prin Ximerono. Theoretically, that means something in Esperanto, although translators are baffled.

After that, the gamemasters imposed a spending limit of $50/month per player. They didn't want it to be too obvious that PvP is often pay to win. I wonder if they still have that limit.

That war was in 2006 or so. Before you helped wreck the war game.

Well, madoff. I personally miss Aries; Beause he use to come and clean you up like the stain you are. You know nothing of whats best for this game or anything else, and just because you know a few "credit card warriors" who paid astronomical amounts of money they would have just whipped there behind with; does not mean the long term success of something. If anything in the oligarchy of players who simply can just pay and give up, this is not even a game. Just whoever wants to waste a large sum of money they can piss away. Everything wrong with are world today.


Can tell the truth, if there was alot more solid long term players who actually had goals like myself, this game would be thriving. But instead we have people who don't even play a game trying to hump a rich mans leg, or a man who can throw away money, for a penny.

Nothing today will be politically correct tomorrow. Not even anyone writing will be. What you both wr

That was a good fight Madoff, Doublestar and myself had been preparing for it for 6-8 real months and as he had no game cash after previous defeat he needed to buy it to later buy military.I don't know if SC ever had conflict like that one with the amounts of weapons used. Doublestar lost 1 million navy fighters on his fleet because he forgot to defend it I had like 1 million fighters with 20 million drones and destroyed like 15-20 millions of interceptors from TSPX, then used 500k bombers to take down countries. Old good times, old big armies

During that war game masters stopped the war engine as they noticed like 50-60 countries taken within one day, later on more and more restrictions were put in place until war was stopped at the scale it once was.

As someone who repeatedly has come back to play and then leave, after boredom or RL issues, what brings me back is the economics and country building, the fact i can name and pick gov't type you know the extra things i can do of little consequence to the game itself, i think these things should be looked at more closely to add playability, for example you could restrict corps amounts or types based on the gov't chosen making it more challenging and also make it feel like it has some meaning. also you could stop letting everyone make the resources they need by just building a corp at home based on game levels, i think it should instead correspond to your geography and perhaps predetermined resources that allow you to build corps of that type. you could also change and diversify what schools (specifically universities) actually do by making them slightly more specific in purpose, maybe make tech uni's and business uni's or better yet

adding to the resource thing, it could be that that c3 next door has the resources you need to make corps at home that much more profitable by direct contracts, or you could make it so those resources pool in you empire thus allowing you to build corps you need by now holding said country. other than that im not sure i understand enough about the war game in general to comment really on how to make it better, other than to perhaps make the economic game more challenging in a way that makes war more appropriate and necessary

I like the idea of military units and moving on maps in general, but it should all work in a bit different way that today, many bugs need to be fixed, like auto-defense not working and etc. I think that number of units should be limited and completely depend on your war level, first war levels would allow you to build simple armies to conquer C3s or have some small pvps, hihger leves would allow to form units from stronger weapons. Amount of weapons to form the unit should no be limited, but instead the amount can participate into attacks should be limited.

I think that pvp game should go from attacking list of targets and move into army vs army combat, country occupation/reoccupation.

I really love this game of its potential, and hate sometimes.. as it is not as good as it could easily be.