Removed 23155/51557 accounts :/

[Nard]

Removed 23155/51557 accounts.
Removed 23572/47604 characters. (http://server.themanaworld.org/gm/purge ... acters.txt)

Removed 23578/47576 characters. (http://server.themanaworld.org/gm/purge-2012-02-15.txt)

9972 users registered on forum since it began

I was really surprised when I saw the number of chars and accounts suppressed in the last purge (last year too). More if we compare to the number of forum users.
I had then the idea to have a look to my accounts numbers. I created some at various time intervals until now. It seemed to me that these numbers increased very fast, and that it didn't correspond to my player experience, as I use to help newbies and that I see the new players number decrease dramatically.

I estimated, based on account creation dates and accounts numbers i knew, that there were (roughly) between 40 and 70 accounts created per day! (depending on the time period)

Now: 23155/365=63.4 seems to be coherent with my estimate.

It seems to me that either there is a problem with registration or you create a huge amount of accounts for a purpose I ignore.
Problem: In both cases, inactive real players are not responsible of data bases fragmentation.

[edit typo]

[Ginaria]

*shhhhhhhhhhh* Nard! Its the beginning of the Pinky Invasion... :D

[Nard]

@Ginaria, The Lady of Pinkies: Whoaow if only it could be the case!

I made a finer analysis:

Table.png (35.89 KiB) Viewed 5127 times

(French date format in col. 2: dd/mm/yyyy) sorry.

graph.png (24.41 KiB) Viewed 5127 times

The Char/Account ratio keeps steadily under 1: As most active players have at least 2-3 chars per account , empty accounts must be at least 2 to 3 times the number of active players (by active, I mean player who goes on playing after newbie stage).
The difference after-before seems to mean that 2010 purge suppressed more players that left the game at newbie stage and empty accounts than "active" players on "long vacation" and 2012 one did the opposite. If we add the fact that it decreased during 2011, we can conclude that an important part of active players left before february 2011 and during 2011, while the account creation rate has been reduced by 50%. Note that the february ratio of 84% begins to be an alarming one, there are much more empty accounts than used ones!
The account creation rate is still very high in 2011 (50 per day, 2 per hour!). And most of them are unused ones: how is it possible?
I can hardly believe that a surfer can create an account without having a look around, and anyway it is not my (our) experience ( TMW promotion). Active players cannot be responsible of it (@Frost: I stopped at 69 )
The only left possibilities I can see are 3:

• A pinkie invasion is preparing
• Some found a way to go through the captcha barrier and use it; thus there is a security issue
• There is a need ( for testing purposes? for advertizing purposes?) of a high rate of applications and a high number of empty players .

/me is puzzled

[Crush]

The account creation rate is still very high in 2011 (50 per day, 2 per hour!). And most of them are unused ones: how is it possible?

It would be interesting to know how many of these accounts create at least one character and how long they play it before quitting. Is there a specific entry barrier or frustrating situation at the beginning of the game which makes people stop exploring the game further?

Do people even realize what they are registering for? The registration page doesn't say anywhere that it is for an ingame account.

[o11c]

Some thing like the attached patch?

[Nard]

It would be interesting to know how many of these accounts create at least one character and how long they play it before quitting. Is there a specific entry barrier or frustrating situation at the beginning of the game which makes people stop exploring the game further?

Do people even realize what they are registering for? The registration page doesn't say anywhere that it is for an ingame account.

The numbers show clearly that there are a lot of empty accounts. As I often have a char sitting in Tulimshar with the intention to help new players I can certify that the number of real first time players has nothing to do with those I estimated (decrease of char/account) shows it anyway. I even tried, before making this post, to have a character in nothern Tulim, where the new players are now spawned.

Even if the site homepage (in fact the news page) could be improved, it is clear enough to find quickly information about the project and the game. I don't think it is likely that several dozen of surfers register without looking what they apply to, bots could. (There were still a few issues to be fixed yesterday on the download page. )

May I suggest a link in the registration mail, to validate the registration, before it is effective? It is now widely used on a lot of sites which require registration.


Nard.

[Kull]

Is there a specific entry barrier or frustrating situation at the beginning of the game which makes people stop exploring the game further?

Yes. The drop rates are horrid, the levelling is slow once you hit 30, and the selection of low-level items that are useful is weak, at best. I've seen many players get as far as Hurnscald and quit because it takes a ridiculous amount of time to hunt for pinkie antennae to complete the Scythe quest, for example. The Tulimshar quests also offer nothing of high value to the new player, it seems.

The biggest problem is the rate at which we level. The levelling system in this game needs a complete overhaul, in my opinion. Getting to level 99 takes forever, it would seem. It's like some sort of sick joke. This is not a good trait of the game. I would assume that it turns many people off from completing the game, because I've seen people quite because of it or say that they have considered leaving because levelling takes an absurd and unrealistic amount of time and dedication to the game. It's as if the devs expect that everyone wants to spend months at a time playing one game in order to complete the levelling process. They don't.

I've seen many players express their discontent with the levelling system, old and new alike. I can't even begin to count the amount of noobs I have given Infantry Helmets to that never return after realizing that they'll have to spend ~20 hours grinding just to get some decent armour on their own (and that's only if they know where to find the items they need, or how to acquire them, and have the proper stats needed to kill the specific monsters that drop those items).

I won't even begin to detail the huge income inequality between lower and higher level players, as it is painfully obvious to anyone who has sat in town for more than 10 minutes, or tried to purchase items at one of the player owned shops/markets.

In short; it's hard to level, items for noobs are boring, and Tulimshar quests offer nothing of value except experience. Who wants to play a game where the benefits are not equal to the amount of time and effort put in?

(Sorry if this seems like pointless ranting or doesn't make sense. I've had a few drinks today.)

[Ablu]

I guess every game has a high amount of newly created accounts. Even the rather unpopular invertika has a lot of accounts. The problem there is that people play for a few minutes, then stop and never return. Probably it is similar here.

[Frost]

It seems a lot of time has been spent on this topic, and quite a lot more is requested (eg. to re-examine the use of CAPTCHAs, to rewrite how accounts are registered.)

Before we divert resources from other work to this, I'm interested to hear a statement of the problem.
"Too many accounts" is not itself a problem. "Abandoned accounts" is not itself a problem. "People who try the game and don't like it" is not itself a problem. I'm not even sure "people register with no intention of playing" is a problem.

What makes this a high priority?

[Nard]

I guess every game has a high amount of newly created accounts. Even the rather unpopular invertika has a lot of accounts. The problem there is that people play for a few minutes, then stop and never return. Probably it is similar here.

I can be that some players may leave after a moment because, as pointed out by kull, levelling is rather long, and Tulimshar is still quite a silent place, though the efforts of bringing new content in the environs. but in no way you will see 2 new players per hour I mean with new account; appear near Sorfina.

It seems a lot of time has been spent on this topic, and quite a lot more is requested (eg. to re-examine the use of CAPTCHAs, to rewrite how accounts are registered.)...

I don't think I spent a lot of time about it since twice I have been told by this system's administrators that the size of chars database was the evil cause of all our lag game problems. Even if I didn't see a very noticeable performance improvement immediately after the purge. I must admit that it came a bit later.

"Too many accounts" is in itself a problem if it makes the databases increase a lot and thus, as it is a actually a random access file (as you told me), it will get quickly heavily fragmented with players operations. Then access times are much longer. So I can understand Freeyorp and Bjorn's point of view. More Freeyorp explained us, sometimes ago, that guild system had a bad memory management that justified the fact they disabled this feature. If player data base, parties... are managed the same way.... If I am wrong,please tell me and explain me why.

"Abandoned accounts" is not itself a problem. as long as the DB is not to big, I agree, but I'd prefer that real good players accounts

"People who try the game and don't like it" is not itself a problem. In an administrative point of view, I agree; as a player I can't If I was a content developer even more!
I'm not even sure "people register with no intention of playing" is a problem. cf too many accounts. And if not a system problem it is worth making a few efforts to understand why they do it. I sincerely doubt that "people who register with no intention of playing" have good intentions concerning this server.
And definitely, I hate seeing accounts of players I was friend with, deleted because a lot of "people who register with no intention of playing" make a database inflate too much. The only time that was wasted was the time required to delete the accounts and the time used to retrieve old backups because of crashes.

[Nard]

@kull: it seems that you haven't really explored the Tulimshar environs for a long time. There are new quests, which can bring you a noticeable experience as a new and little experienced player; by completing them you can get, a desert hat, a pair of dark green trousers, (or a green V-neck if you don't finish it and yes, it could be better). Along with pearls you can get emeralds and greenslimes give good experience AND job points until you can reach the other places of interest at level 40-50.
A considerable effort has been made for more than 1 1/2 years by the development team to bring new content to every levels. Perhaps it is not enough. In my opinion, content is more important that levelling: levelling is interesting because it allows you to do something, and if you have nothing to do...
Now, I am not fond of basketball like scores, Rugby or Football(soccer) ones satisfy me. Yes it is long to level to 99. I suggested more than a year ago that this range could be rescaled to a higher upper limit (128? with no better abilities), thus high score lovers could be more satisfied when they get lollypops. (btw we collect lollypops, dolls and useless kid toys don't we? )

edit:typo

[Jenalya]

Currently I can't think of anybody who is experienced in web-development and is willing to dedicate time to work on this. It already took about two days of persistent asking and nagging to get someone to update the main page with the news. I think the problem here is that currently nobody is responsible for this part of the project, at least that's the impression I got. Thanks to o11c for helping out to update the news.

But, not only the game sources and content are open, but also the website: https://github.com/themanaworld/themanaworld-website
So, help on this is very welcome.

[ZdlN]

The drop rates are horrid

On the other site i see very much noobs not put up the drops cause they think they have much of them and don't need. Later they need much of these drops for any quest (f.e. acorns and herbs).
So it seems to me, that much of them have not enough informations - whey only level and level and this becomes harder and harder until they are unpowered.

Maybe the most needed Wiki-sites should be linked from on point - The Mainpage of wiki do this, but the order:
TMW General Information

You don't want to start the game without knowing what is the content in it? Well check these pages and you'll learn more about everything: the items, the mobs. Well the entire project is described here!

Backstory
List of developers
List of game masters
Project description
Screenshots

Other Directions

List of other games based on TMW
List of player groups
List of servers

Informations For Players

Economy
Friendly Bots

and only after this there is the fundamental link for:
Getting started & Walkthrough
and then other "useful" pages.
The link should be an eye-catcher!

But if you later find the link you get an page with much text to read:
http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/Getting_started
- better are pictures and detailed points what to do to start (and harder is, what this page is not updatet to the new spawnpoint of newbies)

New players need a helping hand to put in the right way to avoid frustration befor realy find fun for this game.
- The first explained steps in my opinion should be:
First Quest until Hakan, registration for Aiden and Ishi and getting the skills - f.e. trade, emote, ...
Say them, that elenore heal player under lvl 10 - nobody go to here. Then also the quest-page.

Show the way with screenshots - not only say "south" - not every player go realy this long way to tulim bazar - they found an nearly empty city - only npc talking things that you have to know, but you not want to here in the first minutes there you not know why you are playing this game. - only for an nearly empty city??

Maybe there should be uniformed npc's in the city everythere - a newbi can ask and get order what to do next...

wow- long text - i better stop on this point, or no one read it later


Edit: or should these informations better in the topic http://forums.themanaworld.org/viewtopi ... 12&t=15837 ?

[Crush]

and only after this there is the fundamental link for:
Getting started & Walkthrough
and then other "useful" pages.
The link should be an eye-catcher!

When misinformation about the game is a problem, external documentation is the wrong way to approach it. Players of today expect games to be self-explaining. Any information which is required to fully enjoy a game should be taught to the player while playing. The moment when a player has to consult external documentation, the game failed to be intuitive.

Maybe the beginners quests in Tulimshar don't just have to provide items and nice stories, but also teach the player more essential information about the gameplay and how to advance most efficiently. Also, the full range of features should be introduced quite early. Like magic, for example. How many game hours does it take to notice that this essential feature even exists? Why is the start to the magic career so well-hidden in a remote cave? It should be introduced to the player in the first few hours.

[Ablu]

We are currently working on a questlog. I guess it are such things which are missing. A questlog gives the player a order what to do (in the beginning things like "equip XXX", "kill XXX", "talk to tutorial npc"). It could help to give the player additional info during the learning phase without sticking all information into npcs.