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 cornerstones of human progress. I strive to reach the highest levels of development possible. Producing advanced technology, automating the mundane labour of the old world. Educating and uplifting my people into an age of technological enlightenment.

3) The world works best when Governments and the Private sector work together. I strive to make a Nation in which the Private sector can thrive, while also caring for the welfare of the nation, and it's people.

4) The world is a global community. We are all on these planets together. Actions in one place, effect people in another. As such I strive to get to know other world leaders. So that I can work with them, for the benefit of all citizens of these worlds.

5) Simcountry is a deep and remarkable simulation of the real world. The systems designed in Simcountry, are based on real world systems, and work in similar ways. Many of the problems we confront as Presidents and CEOs in Simcountry, are similar to those faced in the real world. As such, if we can learn to understand these problems, and develop solutions to them here in Simcountry. Some of what we learn, may be able to transferred over to the real world.

I'd be interested to know what drives the Presidents and CEOs of Simcountry. What are your goals? What do you wish to achieve? Who are you going to become?

Signed President of DanNation on LU

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 bank of a nation's prosperity. Gold is consumed in electronics, and a handful of industries. However, it's true worth is driven by it's role in our central banks. Gradually accumulating a sizeable gold reserve. Is a testament to the prosperity of the nation, and the stability of it's financial system.

These are some of the things I think of as I work to improve my finances. Profit is a means, not an ends in of itself. It's what you do with your profit that defines you. So tell me, fellow leaders, what does what you have done with your profits, say about you?

Signed President of DanNation on LU

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 of war?

What is the inherent value (in real dollars) of certain types of players? Can conflict mixed with interesting personality types help retain players?

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

Who is your target customer and how do you reach and retain him/her, without isolating other player types?

An interesting academic exercise.

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 management help. That would be better both for those individuals and for society. Regarding colorful people, we agree with Dr. Martin Luther King: I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Who is your target customer and how do you reach and retain him/her, without isolating other player types?

This is the dilemma of the game. We want the right balance. We want both economic players and war players to enjoy the game. We don't want war players to get discouraged when they lose. But we also don't want warlords to engage in unlimited bullying.

Finding balance has been elusive.

The current status quo derives from a suggestion of a certain player. His suggestion for a balanced environment led to the creation of war levels.

War levels, plus the introduction of military units/mobile units/supply units, plus removing production of some powerful weapons from most worlds, plus removing the use of some weapons in sneak attacks, plus making CEO corps unattackable... altogether virtually killed PvP. In short, these changes made PvP too convoluted and time-consuming for 99% of players.

For years, Citizens for Military Reform have been campaigning to correct the damage done to the war game. We have argued for a 5-point military reform bill. So far, we are humbly pleased that roughly three and a half of our suggestions are at some point of implementation:

• Once again allowing weapons to be fired from military bases,
• Once again allowing production of all weapons on all worlds,
• Population consolidated into fewer cities, counties, and towns,
• Reducing the number of forts from unlimited to 150 (although unfortunately more can be added through production contracts).

These military reforms, coupled with the loosening of war levels, make us more hopeful about PvP.

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 wrote is the sum of why this game is trash, and only 5 people who have 10 accounts play the game. Because a serious conversation in this game is just another joke to the long term players who are even funnier then the joke.

I mean i remeber dub, players use to rant and rave about him being a "credit card warrior". Sure its good for the game, but really? You capitalize on a player, to just have others hate and discriminate. Not bad when someone wants to throw away money, but when theres a game with plenty of players who could have paid fairly over the years, just sad.

Just the let you know also; if a game DOES NOT HAVE a player base to base its value on, why would someone pay 1000s of dollers to play?? to look at them self? lol this is why we need real players in this game, REAL PLAYERS. sadly reading stuff like that ^ probably has had a few players actually quit lol.

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 you could perhaps upgrade them to become more specific to creating certain high level workers.

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.