We all want this game to succeed and be profitable so that the game we love can stay alive and new players can start getting into pox. One thing we are going to have to embrace in the months ahead is the training grounds and what that means for the game as a whole. Ideally with new advertising and hopefully a push by the devs to Promote Poxnora as a completely F2P game we will be seeing more and more people in the TG lobby. If things go really well hopefully a thousand people in the TG all playing for free. The people in the ranked in lobby will most likely be the same 100 or so core ranked players that have always been there. To grow this game the first priority is going to have to be filling the training grounds with as many casuals as possible. If that happens, then hopefully we will see a % of these new players become invested in pox and willing to spend money and compete in the ranked lobby. But at first myself and everyone else who is currently invested in this game is going to have to become a minority of the population. So how can you embrace your role as a dinosaur? First the most visually obvious thing to new players who only play F2P in the TG is going to be you have a blue name/rank symbol next to your name. Don't squander the importance of that as certain people who are new and just F2P casuals now might be interested in getting more serious about pox and dropping some cash to play ranked. This is less likely to happen if ranked players come across as entitled elitist jerks. So understand the power of even having a rank and what that is going to mean to the new guys. Second the game is going to have to be balanced around the needs of the casual and the new players. I understand it's hard not to feel entitled when you have been spending money and supporting pox for years. But if we want to attract a couple thousand of new people we are going to have to cater to them, both in game and on the forums etc. Third if you were there for the steam launch with SOE think back to some of the reasons that it failed. We had a large influx of new people trying pox, but really we failed to retain any of them. I know ranked play has been top of the food chain for years now, but everybody really needs to get on board with making the Training Grounds the new ultimate destination for new players. Familiarize yourself with it, how to make the most of it, and how to help new people understand it. Only by filling the training grounds are we going to see the trickle of people who are interested in joining ranked. It's like candy crush or any free game app on a phone. We want to get as many people playing as possible so that some of them will spend money. The happier we make people who play for free in the TG, the more likely they are to enjoy themselves and promote pox to people they know. Obviously just my 2 cents, but hopefully the community can embrace this even if it means most of us are going to be dinosaurs.
Great OP, and true. It's time for an overhaul, and some eggs might get broken. My sidenote: Getting rid of CP will truly help with new-player retention. I am from the era where CP meant something: you used it to buy abilities and it mattered. Now, it is just grind -- painful grind. I really want new players to be excited, and to STAY EXCITED like I did. I want them to get good and make the community richer and robuster and all kinds of other 'r' words. I don't care about being a dinosaur. Being afraid of change hasn't helped PoxNora one little bit, so far, in my opinion (full circle back to getting rid of CP, Owl!).
About the CP thing, I'll repost what I said in Morfeas' thread here. The devs heard pretty much 100% of the community say "we don't want cp anymore" They retained CP. They don't hate you, they didn't just ignore you out of spite. If you are going to have a F2P economy that gives content away. You are going to need a sink of some kind. Anyone who played a lot of MMOs is familiar with the concept of a gold sink. Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_sink Both CP and the rune forge exist for this reason and this reason alone.
I can't imagine that selling tokens has been a font of cash for Sony, nor will it be for Owl. Trully, I haven't spent a dime on tokens in years; Game Gold has been my token source since I had any to spare -- especially since I moved to only playing 3 factions regularly. That being said: newer players will probably need tokens. Earning CP is an excruciating drag, and it's not even because you absolutely need it -- a level 1 newbie vs. a level 1 newbie may not actually need maxed units -- but, even so, the perceived chore of it is akin to being forced to read a great novel in World Lit 101: '1001 Arabian Nights' was amazing until a professor told me I had to write a bunch of essays about it. Then, I suddenly hated 'Arabian Nights'. Whatever makes this game feel like a homework assignment, get rid of it. We've all had enough of that in our real lives, thanks.
Thanks. There is obviously a lot going on right now and obviously the devs are working like crazy just to get everything running stable and running smoothly. And there are some really good discussions going on about pricing and the CP system and rune accessibility. I feel like the one thing that holds this all together right now is a belief that this game is awesome and new people are going to want to play it. I just wanted to make a thread and take a second to refocus on that, even in the midst of working all the bugs out and figuring out the best way to go forward.
All in all I'd say that the community has been very welcoming to me although I'm far from the typical gamer and enjoyed the painful grind of throwing myself into ranked PvP against veterans well before I was ready. But, the system as it is right now has some fatal flaws with regards to attracting a significant number of new players. Going forward I believe there should be pre-made modifiable starter BGs for each faction that can be earned entirely for free without a huge grind as quite frankly, it's very difficult for a new player to build their own BGs with the present system... If I, as a hypothetical brand new player after a few days to a week of playing were to excitedly buy my first gold pack, I'd have barring incredible luck, 1-2 pieces of a 30 rune BG and seeing the incredible grind ahead of me would either give up, or start forking over some cash. Great, money! Well, no, because you've scared away a huge portion of the player base who would almost certainly have eventually bought into the system in some amount or another if they were given a BG from a faction of their choice that they could actually customize. Effectively, a new player would need to buy multiple packs containing exotics or better and knowledge of Pox box, or they'd have to spend weeks if not months grinding it out with the static free BGs before they can even think about building a BG which is not a realistic strategy for attracting players... In summation public decks are great introductions, but not having customizable starter decks at all is a critical mistake. Ideally, in my opinion a new players BG chronology should go like this: 1. Public Decks in SP and the training grounds(They will change frequently allowing players to constantly check out new strategies and play with workable themes!) <- This is already in the works from what I hear and is great. 2. One customizable starter deck from faction of choice after completing every faction tutorial. 3. Modifications to that deck from earned packs slowly building a unique style influenced by community and public decks as well as stepping into the brutal world of ranked matches.(hopefully with proper ranking so winning one game doesn't shoot you up to Exotic) 4. Diverging from obvious themes into more diverse or cross factional ones as rune collection grows. 5. Full blown addiction to deck building across multiple factions and competitive BGs in ranked play. This is basically what happened to me and why I'm hooked now with the exception that the Public Decks didn't exist and I regrettably had to pay for a grossly overpriced but still workable in SP starter deck which many people simply would not have the luxury of doing and now can't anyway. If I didn't have access to that customizable starter deck I'm very doubtful I would have kept playing...
I chuckled at this. ^ I feel after the bug/lag and balance begin to smooth out in the next few weeks, avenues such as social media, game platforms such as steam; should definitely be looked into again. Not many people will know about the game unless they hear about it of course.
CP isn't going to sink anything compare to chasing new players away due to grinding (most new players take the advise of saving their gold). And if new players aren't already a disadvantage because they are new, playing with lvl 1 champs for about 1 month. I've experienced grinding around that much time when I first started (this is way before they even have the gold system going, I almost quitted at one point). Leveling champs isn't a game when players first started, it's a chore that takes the time away from learning what's really important: the strategy that comes with upgraded abilities. Nothing is set in stone, and I wish they reconsider. Gold sink or sink potential new players? Also I just coughed up 30000 gold for packs (that is where all my present and future gold will be going).
how about we let champion runes choose to pick 0 or 1 upgrades and get a small % nora cost discount? this way uncp'd runes are quite so freaking horribly awful to play with? I agree that CP was an awesome invention when you had 12810801's of valid permutations and spending CP on abilities raised nora cost... now under the new simpler pick2 out of 4 system cp is pretty dumb.
Already a discussion on this, http://forums.poxnora.desertowlgame...on-exp-and-upgrades-poll.501/page-4#post-9479
