i kinda like asm's back-assiness here (as opposed to the other thread). it might be kinda neat for a noob to be a standard for a month, and if they stick around for that month, then they get an email or some mandatory pop-up when logging in, that tells them, "hey, thanks for stickin around. Here's a freemium 30 day membership for you to reaaaally try this site out".

This serves a couple purposes:
2) if they are the one and done type - like 56.7% of the people out there - they aren't stickin around anyway.
b) it actually might get people to stick around for a couple months, especially if we let them know in the signup information that Toaster was sposed to have done by now
III) they really get to experience the difference between standard and premium and will know that there's a difference, and could be excited to see what's up
four) we might get ppl to put up for premium on their own without asking, and if they're the one and done type, well hey, we got their $$

oh and a side question i've been meaning to ask tom: what happens to those ppl that don't come back. does their signin name go back into the ether at somepoint, or are we racking up member #s, without an indication of how many actives we actually have?

How hard would it be to set up something like Google ads to the Standard members' interface? That could be an alternate source of revenue, and could maybe even make it worth it to provide Standard members with the board state info on the the same page as the map, except there's a banner or something between the map and the player information table.

@Toaster: Well, I think you have to achieve a balance there. You want something that's good enough that you don't lose everybody when they have to start paying for more but not so good that you won't get anybody to pay.

I've been running into the high 60's lately and some days I feel it's not enough.

@'top:
<i>III) they really get to experience the difference between standard and premium and will know that there's a difference,</i>

Exactly.

I also never really understood the motivation to buy boards, either back in the Old World or here (theoretically). That despite the fact that somebody would buy my Indonesia for $2 every month or two for no discernible reason.

I don't see the value here either.  I only purchased two boards at TOS before I saw the value of the Premium membership and I only sold my boards 4 times (and I was shocked everytime).  I did not create boards to make money, it was for fun.

I would much rather have perks like extended membership or acheivements than the unpredictability of sales ($0.85).

I think there could be perks to paying for a board (better than the WF system).

Buying a board could allow you to create a Tournament and allow you to create Open (unranked) or Private games with customized Rules (instead of just Fog, open up all the Rules). Throw in some stats for Public Customized games and that helps too.

weathertop wrote:

it might be kinda neat for a noob to be a standard for a month, and if they stick around for that month, then they get an email or some mandatory pop-up when logging in, that tells them, "hey, thanks for stickin around. Here's a freemium 30 day membership for you to reaaaally try this site out"

Could be good, I think in many ways Premium is a little wasted on people who have just joined as they're not really going to need or understand all the extra features.

I quite like the combo of Raptor and asm's ideas about needing to 'earn' your month's free Premium with a few achievements - something pretty straightforward like playing 10 games or winning 5 games.

weathertop wrote:

what happens to those ppl that don't come back. does their signin name go back into the ether at somepoint, or are we racking up member #s, without an indication of how many actives we actually have?

There's no player name recycling at present - perhaps this could be implemented in future.

asm wrote:

(o) expand Standard a bit. Going from unlimited to 10 games is a BIG step down.

I agree with Toaster - I remember when I first got to 10 games on TOS and I was like 'woah, this is really getting out of control'. I played 1-2 games at a time for at least the first month.

Yertle wrote:

Buying a board could allow you to create a Tournament and allow you to create Open (unranked) or Private games with customized Rules (instead of just Fog, open up all the Rules). Throw in some stats for Public Customized games and that helps too.

Have to say that doesn't sound like much of an incentive. I thought the reason most people didn't buy games on TOS was because in most cases designers shared them for free with the option to buy - presumably out of a sense of gratitude to the designer.

Norseman wrote:

How hard would it be to set up something like Google ads to the Standard members' interface?

It would be pretty easy to do I suppose... I'm not that mad about the idea though, I quite like the ad free nature of the site. It's also not much of a money spinner in my experience unless you are serving a *lot* of pages. Maybe at some point but not right now.

tom wrote:

Yertle wrote:

Buying a board could allow you to create a Tournament and allow you to create Open (unranked) or Private games with customized Rules (instead of just Fog, open up all the Rules). Throw in some stats for Public Customized games and that helps too.

Have to say that doesn't sound like much of an incentive. I thought the reason most people didn't buy games on TOS was because in most cases designers shared them for free with the option to buy - presumably out of a sense of gratitude to the designer.

You thinking all maps will have to be purchased to play?

On WF you could create Custom games without purchasing a board and you could only create tournaments if you bought the map but there wasn't really a reason to create tournaments.  At least here there is incentive to purchase a map for both of those areas (you currently can't customize games, and tournaments will mean something).

Perhaps this could be tied in with the "achievements", buy 10 maps (or whatever) and get a free month of Premium (or whatever).

To me, selling maps is an unexpected perk, but forcing to buy a map to play it Ranked is something I more than likely wouldn't do (and IMO, would just drive down the number of games played, not increase anything).

Yertle wrote:

You thinking all maps will have to be purchased to play?

No - it would be at the designer's discretion. There would be a 'try before you buy' period - i.e. you could start some number (1-3 possibly) games on a board for free before having to buy a board. Just so you know you weren't buying a lemon.

Yertle wrote:

but forcing to buy a map to play it Ranked is something I more than likely wouldn't do (and IMO, would just drive down the number of games played, not increase anything).

ditto

tom wrote:

I quite like the combo of Raptor and asm's ideas about needing to 'earn' your month's free Premium with a few achievements - something pretty straightforward like playing 10 games or winning 5 games.

This reminded me of an idea I'd had a few weeks ago. Tying in with the need to introduce new players to the site in a way that doesn't overwhelm them but which still gets all the necessary info across, how hard would it be to set up a guide for new players to help them through their first game? It could be an animation that pops up and points out the features. For example, on turn one a box would pop up on the screen pointing to the drop-down menu for deploying units, and explain briefly what to do in that phase. Then there would be a box to explain attacking, fortifying, cards, etc. These boxes would have a few lines of text each, and appear only once the first time any feature is available for a player to use.

This might be a lot of work to write up and code, but I think it could be the most intuitive automated introduction to the site.

Kjeld wrote:

This reminded me of an idea I'd had a few weeks ago.

Right before you went on vacation?

asm wrote:

Kjeld wrote:

This reminded me of an idea I'd had a few weeks ago.

Right before you went on vacation?

Touché

think there were a bunch of opinions here:
http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/614/noob_signup_wizard

i even linked to a few examples of pre-game and in-game instructions.

asm wrote: ..,I think simple member retention is the problem that should be getting all the attention right now. It is a problem, I'm guessing a pretty big one. ... I think the shock of going from your free month to Standard is too much for most/many people...

This is so right, it supercedes my narcissistic inclination to quote only the "Freemium (C)Mongrel 2010 patent pending" part of the post.

Jumping in late here, but I would argue that the primary focus should be on getting the site glowing white hot with activity. Tournaments will be great, but pointless if there are not enough players to fill seats- and in the last week or so things have been sort of stale.

TOS broke ground in 2003, didn't really take off until 2007. Even without the restrictions on admission, these things take time.

However, I believe 10 boards is too few to get the ones who will be hooked hooked. And after a month of premium, the drop down could be perceived as a shakedown. I even saw on a profile "Leaving WG because the drop to standard is too restrictive".

Lastly, WT's solution is perfect- month of standard, month of premium.

But bigger than that, the 10 game limit NEEDS to be lifted.

Mongrel wrote:

But bigger than that, the 10 game limit NEEDS to be lifted.

Why? Ten games seems like around enough to me to keep a standard player interested, and it gives a strong incentive to pay $10 bucks for a premium membership.

I guess I don't get what the alternative would be. If you get rid of the # of games incentive, then what are premium folks paying for? The info tab is nice, I guess, and so are PM's. I just want to make sure that people enough people will pony up cash to keep Tom going.

A better discussion would be to define elements that would be enticing enough to pay $10 every three months, but not so fundamental to play that they would severely limit standard players.

From the perspective of someone who's on a standard account, not because the benefits for a premium aren't enough, but because this is a time where I've cancelled my Hockey Season tickets and HD Channel package... Reducing the features/abilities of a standard account anymore would just cause me to stop playing.

Kjeld wrote:

how hard would it be to set up a guide for new players to help them through their first game? It could be an animation that pops up and points out the features. For example, on turn one a box would pop up on the screen pointing to the drop-down menu for deploying units, and explain briefly what to do in that phase. Then there would be a box to explain attacking, fortifying, cards, etc. These boxes would have a few lines of text each, and appear only once the first time any feature is available for a player to use.

This might be a lot of work to write up and code, but I think it could be the most intuitive automated introduction to the site.

I'm in the process. 

It's not as "hard" as it is, time consuming.  The idea is not to have instruction during a live game (I think that would be annoying for people who already have a basic understanding of online Risk), but to have a tutorial with mock gameplay and instruction.

When I'm finished it should be pretty cool.

I'm not convinced of the necessity for a complete idiots guide to Risk in general or how this site works in particular.

Help files are necessary of course for the more esoteric parts, especially the various alternative game settings like limited moves, fortify and artillery boarders, capitols and the like.

The game itself is not that difficult. If someone can't figure out how to join a game and get the hang of moving their units around within 10 minutes then I seriously doubt this is going to be the type of game that will hold their interest enough to convince them to buck up for a Premium membership.

I would much rather see something like a one-time Introductory Page that a new member gets redirected to the first time they log in (and accessible from the Help menu after that). It would list things like:

1. Hi! Thanks for joining. If you are new to this type of strategy game click here for some BASICS. If you want to dive right in then you can JOIN A GAME waiting for players or CREATE A NEW GAME and wait for others to join. Blah blah short explanation about how turns are not instantaneous but that they can be cloe with LIGHTNING GAMES.

2. Be sure to check out your PROFILE. You can add a short message to let the community know who you are, upload a profile image, etc.

3. WarGear sends you emails to remind you when it's your turn, when asm posts an annoying message on the FORUMS, and for 17 thousand other things. You can manage which email message you receive by checking out your SETTINGS. Be sure to check out your SETTINGS eventually, there's a lot of neat stuff hidden in there.

4. Did we mention the FORUMS? Fully integrated into the site. Why not stop by and leave a message in the WELCOME FORUM to let us know you've joined so we know who we'll be beating up on in our next game.

5. Speaking of games, there are over 50 different BOARDS that you can play on (and counting!). Some are your basic style (INSERT RANDOM BASIC MAP HERE), and others are more complex (INSERT RANDOM HARD BOARD HERE). You can get an idea of how others feel about each board by checking out the RATINGS.

6. Once you lose your first game you can see how you compare to everyone else by checking out the RANKINGS.

Now get off my lawn and go play a game. Once you are thoroughly addicted to beating asm in all 50 maps you will feel compelled to buy PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP. Heck just go buy it now, bandwidth doesn't grow on trees you know. Damn hippy.

I love you guys. I really do.

I think that's great 11s... will update the site tonight to add. Also am adding two new forum areas - a Welcome Forum and a Strategy Forum.