Warning! Wall of text, and none of it is anything you're interested in! The below is nothing but me rambling on about the problems I see in the current version of Plunder Gnome. Some of it may be interesting to game developers, as it shows the kinds of things which can keep players from getting into your game. To the average BYONDer, though, this post is useless.

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This post is about player retention in general, and Plunder Gnome (PG) specifically. Getting a person to give your game a try doesn't automatically mean that they'll become a fan, even if you have the best game in the world that they're guaranteed to have fun with.

If the player has a bad experience right off the bat, they'll leave, before they've even seen what the game is actually like. This is the problem I've been seeing with PG. I'll list a couple examples.

First, joining the game. PG is a competitive game. If there's no one to compete against, then you can't play. If a new player logs in, joins the red team, for instance, and then hits the "Go" button to start the game, they'll be told "Please wait until both teams have an equal number of players". They then might sit around for a minute or so. If no one comes around, they log out. Potential fan lost.

So what if a user does join the game, and gets to play a round? BYOND users expect tile-based movement, and PG doesn't have it. Pixel based movement is, arguably, PG's best feature, but it can be confusing if you've forgotten what non-BYOND games are like. A new user starts the game, and presses down. Their gnome moves down by three pixels. Instead of holding down the down button, they try to mash it quickly; this is an annoying control scheme for any player. Next, they get caught on a bush (this happens all the time); instead of simply moving down until their hat clears the bush, and then moving left, they keep trying to move left and into the bush. Diagonals would make even more sense (they'd slide around the bush) but that isn't how a BYOND player think. To them, they're in the turf below the bush, so the bush doesn't matter anymore. The problem is, PG doesn't use turfs, at all. If you're touching the bush graphically, you're touching the bush. The player logs out.

So what if a player can find someone to play against, and gets the fact that it's pixel based movement? Well, they might be presented with the snow board. The snow board has no friction, so Gnomes fly all over the place, and often get stuck on corners and sides of buildings. Again, their experience with tile based movement tells them to simple move down, but they're being held up by something on their left. Why they never decide to press right and get unstuck is beyond me... especially considering that often there are people telling them exactly how to get unstuck, but for whatever reason they ignore the output window. The snow board is a nice and appreciated change of pace for fans (it mixes things up) but it turns off new users. The player logs out.

So what if the player likes pixel movement, and gets a good normal board? Well, why would they ever read what the game is about! Bump into radishes to collect them. Bring them back to your door. You can carry 5, max. Steal radishes from the opposing team's door. Bump into a gnome from the side or behind to stun him. Have the most radishes at the end of the two rounds. You now know exactly how to play. In fact, someone is probably telling the new player exactly how to play, but why would they read the output window? Instead, they wander around for a couple moments getting their pixel legs, collect a couple radishes, and then come to the terrible realization that this game is about gnomes and vegetables. The player logs out, not enough jutsus.

So what if the player likes vegetables, and read the rules? Well, someone might try to show them how to stun someone. "Just walk up from the side, and bump your opponant. They'll be stunned for a couple seconds". The player then gets so pissed off that someone had the gall to stun him, that he logs off. Also, the thing that stunned him might have been the computer controlled character that ran into him, like the crab on the sea-side board (again, loved by long time players, but bad if a new player gets it). I don't know what it is, but players respond violently to getting stunned, even though it's such a fun part of the game. They just have this "NOBODY stuns ME" mentality.

So what if a player reads the rules, sees how simple it is to play, and enjoys bashing people? Well, what if there's only two players around? PG is best 2v2 or 3v3. You can play 1v1, but the matches are lop-sided. The player plays three rounds, looses all of them, and logs off.

So, what are all the ways I can loose players? I can make my game about vegetables and gnomes (instead of power levels and genin exams). I can use pixel based movement, instead of tile based. I can leave out a single player mode, meaning that I need two people to log in at the exact same time in order to play (or friends can invite each other, this is normally how it works). I can remove player selection of boards, meaning that new players are presented with expert boards which they can't handle. I can forget to give the player any incentive or notification about reading the rules, or how to even find the rules (is the question mark button not obvious?).

Some of these problems are beyond my control, they are based on the psychology of the player (the stun/ego problem is the best example of this). Some of these are within my power to change, but represent a major overhaul of every part of the game. Level selection, for example, would require remaking the entire interface, the inclusion of some sort of voting system, I'd need to put players who'd joined the match somewhere else instead of taking them directly to the map, I'd need some way of presenting, graphically, the maps which can be chosen, and all sorts of other problems. None of these are trivial changes. Or, I could just remove the 'fun' boards, leaving only the default styled ones. I've already started that process by increasing the frequency of the default board, and adding another one which is very similar.

That's all for today. Got a suggestion?