From the players I speak to in person and have brought over, they all say it is overwhelming at first and that they end up joining games that they do not understand.  For some the learning curve is much faster than others, but they all start wondering in the dark.  Any player I have brought over, I have coached through what different boards are about, ... to keep them around.  I think the coaching is too hard to do within the site so I propose the following.

I [still] think that there should be some way to limit the exposure of all of the new features wargear offers on the risk style rules, i.e. limited exposure to all of the boards.  For most of the core, we experience a slow release of the new types of game play and alteration to the rules and understand them well.  At first I was against any type of leveling for the players, but I have decided that this could be very useful (for many reason, this included).

I think there should be some number of games played on the standard maps before the flood of boards is exposed (maybe two is enough).  Then boards with slight alterations (say one), such as one way borders, fortify only borders, artillery borders, capitals, etc.  For all of these alterations I can think of a board that is easy to understand and similar to regular risk that would allow newer players to get use to the ideas.  After some number of games in this category (say 10 games), we expose the new players to everything.

I have certainly mentioned these ideas before, but we never seem to come to a decision as to what we are going to do.

Any other thoughts on the player retention problem would be most welcome.


One other idea that was brought up before is a player leveling system (not hidden as described above, but overt). My thought for this would be to have some leveling system that included, number of games played, number of wins, number of points, and achievement. Different levels could be signified by an icon next to player names.

There have been many suggestions for achievements in other forums and at first I didn't like the idea, but I have come around on this topic. These achievements in my mind should range from easy to really hard, here are some:
finish a game.
finish a turn.
finish 10 games.
leave a review.
make the top ten.
make it to #1 (that's right take out asm).
win a game against a top ten player.
win a game against the top player.

At first, I thought these might be cheesy, but I have decided that these types of things are what keep people playing other types of games so maybe they will work here.

With these and the leveling system that I am not separating off, but am thinking of as being related and separate, players have goals outside of specific games. Player levels might be:
l1: beginner, new to the site
l2: ________, finished 10 games, finished five achievements.
l3: ________, finished 20 games, finished 10 achievements, left a rating
l4: ________, finished 40 games collectively, playing on five different boards ...

The leveling system is something that would have to be discussed, but I think it might work or it might be more information that new players would be overwhelmed by. With this last thought in mind, I think that new players should not be confronted with any of this, but should have to go looking for it if they are interested in why players have different insignias next to their name.

Thanks for reading all of that.

I would caution against having achievements that have no "value", either to the player or to the site.  Unlocking boards is an obvious one for the player.  Leaving a review has value for the site.

I think the idea of having a graded first couple of achievements, like one game on a standard board to unlock a more complicated set of boards is not unreasonable as long as the new player gets the sense that all boards will be unlocked after only a few games. Of course, winning should not a requirement.  Also, if a player is "invited" to a private game, they would potentially be able to play on an otherwise locked board right out of the starting blocks (and it would count as credit toward unlocking other boards).

I'm not a huge fan of insignias.  I think it's quite enough that we can see players' ratings as they join game.  If you're into that sort of thing you can always go to the ratings pages and get stats till you drop.

M57 wrote:

I would caution against having achievements that have no "value", either to the player or to the site.  Unlocking boards is an obvious one for the player.  Leaving a review has value for the site.

I think the idea of having a graded first couple of achievements, like one game on a standard board to unlock a more complicated set of boards is not unreasonable as long as the new player gets the sense that all boards will be unlocked after only a few games. Of course, winning should not a requirement.  Also, if a player is "invited" to a private game, they would potentially be able to play on an otherwise locked board right out of the starting blocks (and it would count as credit toward unlocking other boards).

Agreed on all accounts.  The point of the achievement would be to give new players sometime to strive for and see progress (10 wins is much closer that making the top ten).  Also, the achievements should be set up to encourage players to be more active in the site (leaving reviews, playing new boards, ...).  I just want things that will keep the new players playing and this may not be it, but I am up for hearing suggestions and I in no way feel that I have the answers. 

My dream is to see 1000's of players playing the standard boards (because I know a certain percentage will evolve and desire playing the more difficult boards).  I just think the evolving should be directed, not just take it all in all at once.

I'm definitely for achievements or something like them. This was something that I wanted on WF too but never seen it come close to fruition. That's what I meant by "Enhanced Rankings (Goals)" on the Vote thread.

Missed this in your post, do you have any suggestions for specific goals? Was this discussed at length before? I remember all of this briefly, but couldn't find where it went.

I don't think it's been discussed too much in the past.  Some quick extra Rankings or Goals that I've thought of or seen (in addition to yours already posted, I liked those):

Games:

• Number of Boards with at least 1 CP.
• Number of Boards in #1 place.
• Played a public game on all boards.
• Won a public game on all boards.
• Played X Games (duplicate for team games)
• Won X Games (duplicate for team games)
• Played X Tournaments (+ team)
• Won X Tournaments (+ team)
• Top 25, Top 10, Top 5, Top 3, Top in Board CP (duplicate for Global Ranking)
• X public games wins in a row
• Taken X turns

Board Designer (this is something that I'd really like to see):

• Number of boards released.
• Number of boards with X ratings with at least X overall rating
• Board played X times
• Board ranked top 10, 5, 3, 1 (pending some sort of board Ranking system)
• Boards Favorited X times

Of course setting up a system that is not easily abused is a hurdle, but displaying this information on a per player basis (ie on the player's profile), and a current/all time display would be awesome.  I know I set personal goals on WF to keep me entertained (trying to overtake Dingo with number of boards with 1 medal is quite difficult!) which really kept me into WF.

Too many can look cluttery/confusing, but I think they would be a great way to help keep people on WG.

I think a cool stat would be the person who won on any given map in the fewest turns, would make a good achievement too.

This would require some work: A system for ranking games on a given map, so you if you think a game is particularly interesting or well played, you could nominate it, and games with a certain number of nominations would be in contention for the best game on a map. I think being in a game (win or lose) that was considered the best on a map would be a sweet achievement.

@Yertle: This is a good list and resembles what I was thinking. The played a game on all boards one is tricky (moving target). I thought this could be modified played on 10 boards, 50, 100, 200, etc. as new boards are released.

@Blackdog: I like these ideas, thanks for coming up with some tricky ones.

Reached a ranking of at least 2000+ on a board (with bars or something for each board reached).

Top New Players (Players joined within previous 6(?) months)
Both CP and Global Ranking

Post Count! :D

Funny this thread came up because a few weeks ago I decided my goal was to play on every board and then from there to have a ranking of 1000+ on each board, and from there to get at least 1 CP on each board.

I don't have any real expectation of obtaining the last two goals, but since I don't have a huge preference which boards I play it helps determine which games I join.

I also decided to keep my number of open games under 30 (from a high of 85), so that is slowing everything down. Well, slowing these goals down, it's helping in other areas of my life.

*Edit: I forgot to include getting a win on every board.  That's goal #2.

I definitely like the idea of an achievement system. It would be a great help for someone to set out a list of achievements and exactly what the criteria are. The award process will need to be automated so it will need to be based on calculate-able stats. Ideally it will scale nicely so achievements stay meaningful as the site grows.

Also if anyone has ideas for a design for the achievements themselves would be good... it needs to be easy to add new achievements without having to do a brand new design each time. I was thinking it would be a standard button / medal surround and in the middle of the medal it would incorporate a different image for each achievement, e.g. something like a tank or eagle or whatever.

http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/634p1/Membership_Alternatives

Post #17

Utimately the idea here is how do we get players to stay with WarGear, see some value and then decide to invest in that perceived value. Perhaps some sort of immeadiate recognition followed by laddered goals.

I know this might be totally outside the box. But everything in gaming has become achievement based (Valve, Steam, Etc.). A free way to encourage continued participation might be to have achievements.
-join a WarGear game
-Win a game
-win 10 games
-win 50 games
-win 10 games on the same board
-design and release a board
-have 25 games played on your board
-review 5 boards
-win a tournament

My point here is that some achievments would be easy for all players and some would require a greater commitment and thus a premium membership. I don't think the price is bad right now, we just need to incourage commitment so that people are willing to pay for it.

Just an idea and perhaps it deserves its own thread.

I agree with Raptor here. Just little star medals or something like on XBox Live. I know I kept playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance even though I won it just so I could get all the achievements. I never got them all, but I tried for much longer than just winning the game and then putting it away and never playing it again. Even an Achievement Tab on the profile page with just a list would be cool without any graphics if that is an issue (medals are cooler, however).

I would like to propose "The Risky Achievement" for eliminating an amount of players but not winning many games. I always go for the elim and then end up losing, but eliminating players is fun and I'm really just here for fun.

My original thought was to have a leveling system, so something like:
Private: (Bronze star)
Achievements:
Complete 10 games.
Win one game.
Review one board.
Complete a game on three different maps.

Sergeant: (Silver star)
Achievements:
Complete 50 games.
Win ten games
Review 5 boards
Complete a game on ten different maps.

Major:
...

General:
...

Addition achievements: (Every ten is a bar)
10 Championship points
board with 25 plays
...

Maybe I will finish this later, but that is the general idea. This information would be kept track of on a players profile (new tab) and their rank would appear somewhere on their profile page (I still like the idea of a symbol denoting this next to players name).

Sorry I left the above unfinished, I was called away while typing at work.

I was thinking that there would be four or more rankings and that it should be easy to make it through the first two just by sticking around and playing. After that, the third rank should require that you have actually earned some championship points (say 10) and then that the fourth requires a lot (like 50 or 100). For the most part, I thought that the main ranks should be earned by playing and reviewing and such. Then, I thought that the additional things like making a board that passes review or general board related things should go in the additional category. After that, as we come up with new achievements, they can go in the additional category and the number of possible bars would increase making it scalable.

Second Thought (I think I like this better)

If the above is not desirable, then we could go with a simple achievement page that has the possible achievements. I was thinking that this could work as follows:
Achievement level 1 level 2 level 3
Finish games: 10 games 50 games 100 games
Win games: 10 games 50 games 100 games
Make Boards: 1 games 5 games 10 games
...
Special achievements:
Earn 100 Championship points
...

Then these achievements could come with point values (1 for level 1, 3 for level 2 and 6 for level 3) and set points for the specials. This would give a new ranking score for players and could be set up in such a way that just playing games is not enough to advance high in the ranks.

I'm not sure another Point/Ranking is necessarily the way to go, unless it's something as simple as 1 point per achievement.
I just see Achievements/Goals as more personal than "global", although knowing how you fair against other players would be cool too.
...I think I may be contradicting myself a bit here :p

Im not sure what happed there...


i like the achevements idea. here are a few ideas


-Games played--5-50-250-1000-5000-10000-50000
-Games won--3-15-50-250-1000-5000-10000

-Tournaments played--3-10-50-200-500-1000-5000
-Tournaments won--2-5-20-50-100-250-500

-Posts in forum--5-20-100-500-1500-5000-10000

-Boards in public play--1-3-6-9-15-30
-Total games played on your boards--15-75-250-1000-5000-10000-50000

-most CP points held at one time--5-10-20-50-100-250-1000

-highest global ranking score--1100-1500-2000-2500-3500-5000-10000

-most turns taken in a hour--2-7-12-20-30-60-120


7 levels for each medal and if they looked like military ones you could have a cross or star hanging below a strip of colour
(Yellow, Blue, Red, Black, Black with yellow, Black with Blue, Black with Red)

I like the idea but I don't want another ranking system or something, just a personal goal thing with some sort of bragging wall showing medals earned or level reached or something like that.
We have a ranking system and while it would appear I don't participate in the rankings I try to, I just suck!

I don't think what is being discussed here is another ranking system. I think two goals are trying to be acheived:

1) Slowly acclimate people to the site
2) Give people some goals that are aside from the rankings. i.e the bragging wall that Risky mentioned.

I think this can be done with the ideas that have been presented so far.

First for "1) Slowly acclimate people to the site" we have titles and a different patch for each on the players page:

Disclaimer: None of the restrictions below apply to private games.

Private: New people, can only play a limited number of games on fairly standard maps. No tournaments, development or team games. Can't host a game. Upon completing 1 game they become

Corporal: Unlimited games on standard maps - including tournaments on fairly standard maps. Can host a game, but not a tournament. Upon completing 3 games they become

Sergeant: Open all maps all tournaments, but not SimulGear play or team play or development games. Can host tournaments. Upon completing 5 games they become

Lieutenant: Open team games and development games (if they wish). Upon completing 10 games they become

Major: Open Simulgear. Upon making one Forum post they become

Colonel: Upon obtaining 1 CP they become

General. And that's it.

Second for "2) Give people some goals that are aside from the rankings." put a list of same or different icons near the title patch that are color coded according to the levels KrocK posted in #18. Each achievement could be a star and white could be making the first level, yellow second, and so on up to 6 or 7 levels.

I may have overdid the titles - they can certainly be conflated if this sort of thing were put in place.