I've been working on a game called Hazordhu for a while now.
I'm not sure if it's the somewhat user-unfriendliness--most actions are done with the mouse, although I wrote a guide no one seems to read--or the lack of proper advertising(or any at all), but most of the people that hop on end up leaving soon after, minus the faithful group of people who've been with us since the really early times.
It's a big world in Hazordhu. It is meant to be played with as many people as possible.
In the early stages of the remake, we actually only gave people three skills to start out with. The only way to gain use of a different skill would be to master one you already have. Because of this, you needed at least two or three people with different skills.
Example:
For a normal wooden wall, you needed nails and wooden boards.
Boards are easy, just get a Woodcutter to kill some trees and turn the logs into boards.
Nails were harder to acquire at first. They require metal ore from a Miner, which would then have to be smelted into a bar by a Smith. To smelt bars, you would need a forge, built by a Mason with resources from Miners.
And of course, food would be good, so a farmer or a hunter would always be good to have around.
Currently, this system has been removed, hoping to make it easier for new players to build their dream house. Now, players are given the option to boost their skills at creation of their character, with the ability to use all the other ones.
Back to the problem. I need to figure out a way to keep players interested. At least, long enough for them to learn the basic aspects of the game.
A failed attempt was a great wall of text given in sections by several NPCs in an optional tutorial after creating your character. I think a tutorial may be a good idea, just not a wall of text.
I've found a pattern, though. The more people on at a time, the more people end up joining and staying, for at least as long as there's other players. So how do I get those players in the first place?
I think I may just have to get the game advertised a bit more. Unfortunately for me, I'm terrible at writing and advertising.
But until then, I need ideas for a decent first impression for new players hopping in so they won't leave afterwards.
I figure a troop of oldbies staying on to teach every newbie isn't the best idea, but not the worst. Just need a better one. Especially not when there's four races(one for special people, and one specially granted in-game). And by special people I mean (subscribers when there is an option to--being completely original and not anime-based--but currently) faithful people from the early stages.
Also if it's possible, any ideas to make resource gathering more interactive. Currently you double-click trees/mining deposits with the proper tool in hand. I feel that's a bit too cliche on BYOND and could use spicing up since the Classic version back in 06.
For more information on how the game got started, read about the original creators, F0lak and his gramps.
http://hazordhuremade.17.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=49
ID:77030
 Jul 20 2009, 11:44 pm (Edited on Jul 21 2009, 2:48 am)
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1. Name the NPC's after naruto + dbz characters.
2. Include the word Naruto in your gamename. 3. ??? 4. Profit. | |
Sun Knee wrote:
1. Name the NPC's after naruto + dbz characters. The humanoid NPCs(non-animals) are AI that can be commanded vocally(with Say) to do several tasks, such as resource gathering or defense against attackers. Currently there are no NPCs for any other thing. Stores are player-made, and player-run. Because of this, there are also no quest givers or anything. If a player wants # of a certain item, they can simply ask someone to retrieve it themselves. An NPC that won't use the resources for anything useful is a waste. Riku 123q wrote: 64x64=Bad.Not entirely sure what you're referring to here. Anyway Good luck with this, It sounds fun.Thanks. I was really asking for suggestions on how to give players a good time as early in the game as possible. I really don't know what to relate this game to, I don't play too many other games on BYOND and of the games I've played, none really remind me of this. Archipelago, Cow RP, etc. all have certain aspects similar to some in this game, but not exactly. | |
I'm not sure if it's the somewhat user-unfriendliness--most actions are done with the mouse, although I wrote a guide no one seems to read if a guide is required to understand your game, there's a problem there. BYOND's audience is 10-15 year olds mostly, and you won't find an attention span over 2 minutes there. the game needs to be 'pick up and play', not 'here's a novel to read on how to play the game' that being said i have tried out the game on several occasions, and i actually went through the extremely long winded wall-of-text tutorial and read everything they said, but once i got into the game, the actual mechanics and general aesthetics of the game were really disheartening and not the least bit exciting. the game world is too massive and the skill system is too 'scoped out', if you can understand what i'm saying. nothing you do feels like you have much of an impact, everything takes way too long to do, and the controls are pretty clunky and unintuitive. it doesn't play like a real game. but hey, that's what's hard about such open-ended games like this. you've got to try and nail that gameplay that really draws players in and keeps them, and it's the hardest part there is. | |
a well thought out and outlined developer journal i've found is a good start for advertising your game. while it won't gather much attention at first, a weekly report on the progress of your game will probably help more than any other advertising you can do. you want to show people that you are actively working on this project.
secondly, simplify your game. your target market is the mcdonalds generation, people want what they want and they want it now. thats the only way you will maintain that new playerbase you're getting. make the world smaller. if you designed it to be massive so lots of people would come, you fucked up. if your game gets big, then you add on more content. if not, don't bother. | |
Hmmm in your introduction you claim the game became a big hit, but uh how come no one ever heard of it? I mean Survival and the likes people heard of, and archipelago wasn't the ORIGINAL building game as you put it.
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Lord of light wrote:
Hmmm in your introduction you claim the game became a big hit, but uh how come no one ever heard of it? I mean Survival and the likes people heard of, and archipelago wasn't the ORIGINAL building game as you put it.I didn't write it, F0lak did. He was there when the original project started, I actually didn't come to the project until the later stages of the Classic and the early stages of the remake, which is what currently exists. | |
My advice is to keep them occupied. Always give them something to do, and make sure it's not too monotonous. Because different people bore of different things are different rates, ideally you want to give them a choice of things to do.
This is a general formula that works for a game such as World of Warcraft. You can grind quests, but if you get bored of that, you can take a time out and do some harvesting an crafting, or go do a different zone to do diferent quests, and so on. Also, consider putting up some screenshots on your hub to fish new players in. Burnout is inevitable, sooner or later players master what challenges they perceive in the game and move on, so you want to entice in some new blood. | |
- Less grind. Speed up all the resource gathering methods, no one likes grind(excluding punching pbags of course, that's great fun).
- More sounds. Hazordhu is a really quiet game, the only sound I can think of is the pickaxe. - Shrink the world. The game world is huge, normally a good thing but when your server averages <10 people at any given time it TOO big. You tend not to interact with anybody outside your race which segments what few players there are even more. An alternative may be quicker transportation between major points(i.e. teleportation). Also increase stamina and have it not knock you out when you reach the end. The walking pace is horrendously slow and it takes forever to get anywhere. These all result in people not going much beyond the start point making the huge world pointless if it's never explored. - Speed up language learning. Have people study at bookshelves to learn other languages. This ties in with the above. - More things to do. Currently the only thing to really do is construct buildings. Add some interesting little things to play around with, magic namely if you expand on it to do plenty of things. - Simplify the interface. Too many clicks are required to do stuff and it gets annoying. I have to open my inventory, juggle my pack if the tool I need is in there, drag tool on, put pack back etc. etc. Too much clicking for a simple tool change. I suggest allowing easier access to containers that doesn't require moving them off your person onto the ground every time you want to access it. | |
Oronar wrote:
- Less grind. Speed up all the resource gathering methods, no one likes grind(excluding punching pbags of course, that's great fun). I recently changed the resource gathering system. It's much faster if you feel like timing the hit. - More sounds. Hazordhu is a really quiet game, the only sound I can think of is the pickaxe. Definitely. - Shrink the world. The game world is huge, normally a good thing but when your server averages <10 people at any given time it TOO big. You tend not to interact with anybody outside your race which segments what few players there are even more. An alternative may be quicker transportation between major points(i.e. teleportation). Also increase stamina and have it not knock you out when you reach the end. The walking pace is horrendously slow and it takes forever to get anywhere. These all result in people not going much beyond the start point making the huge world pointless if it's never explored. Magic will have teleportation. We also have animal mounts now so you can ride stoofs(horses) to get places without passing out. I guess I could just make you stop running when you get tired. Not too realistic to run until you pass out, unless you're just that hardcore. - Speed up language learning. Have people study at bookshelves to learn other languages. This ties in with the above. Good idea. - More things to do. Currently the only thing to really do is construct buildings. Add some interesting little things to play around with, magic namely if you expand on it to do plenty of things. Just recently added alchemy. You can make potions now, but you won't know what they do until you drink it. Will be adding magic soon. - Simplify the interface. Too many clicks are required to do stuff and it gets annoying. I have to open my inventory, juggle my pack if the tool I need is in there, drag tool on, put pack back etc. etc. Too much clicking for a simple tool change. Other than the swap hands button, it shouldn't be too hard. Maybe automatic equipping with simple right click would help? I suggest allowing easier access to containers that doesn't require moving them off your person onto the ground every time you want to access it. Sure, I can do that. Not sure why I required it to be on the ground in the first place. Thanks for the suggestions, Oreo :) | |
I say it's the User Unfriendliness. :S I tried playing and all the different things just bamboozled me.
EDIT: "most actions are done with the mouse, although I wrote a guide no one seems to read" Answer: We don't read because the guide is long and tedious. If you want a long guide, at least make it interactible. | |
Use friendliness is definitely a sticking point of many BYOND games. It's one thing to make a game work, it's quite another to make it accessible.
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Just to add on to what Kaio said here, maybe you can give me some suggestions for ideas I've had to make the game more user friendly.
First and foremost: New mobs. The current mob hasn't any directions, which I've had feedback on saying it's a turnoff. I've been working on a new mob with directions, and in my opinion it's more appealing than the current one anyway. Secondly: Things to do. The biggest challenge here is the fact that the world is developed by players. The cancels out the opportunity of things such as quests, shops, and the like. Some ways I've thought of of making these things possible would be adding in an NPC system that would allow the owner of the NPC to set it as a quest NPC, a shop keeper, a guard, or just a random that wanders around. Another idea for NPC's would be adding in a starter town that would have some shop keepers and maybe even having a few quests. The world is massive, and there aren't a lot of players, so we could take some of the excess space and use it for questing purposes. I've also had some ideas for random things to do. Cards, dice, some balls to kick around, even a pet to raise have all come across my mind. Thirdly: Simplifying the interface. This is something we've been struggling with from the beginning of the game. As soon as BYOND 4 came out I had to have one, and as such threw one together quickly. The basic appearance of this interface has persevered throughout the games lifetime and while it has gotten better, still needs to be fine tuned, or even completely redone. Fourth: Advertisement. An old acquaintance of mine has graciously offered to advertise Hazordhu on a website that he's been working on. This website appeals to fans of roleplaying, which are just the people we're looking for. When my aforementioned icons come out I'll take some screenshots of the game and post them on the hub, just to give players something to look at before they get in the game. Fifth: The pace of the game. I've been thinking about making everything happen faster. Movement, Gathering, learning languages, all of these have been things that I know have turned players away from certain features of the game, if not the game altogether. Here are my ideas: Gathering: instead of the click *wait* Chance of success system that we have now, we could remove the *wait* and increase the chance of success, with a very small delay in between actions--2/10 of a second or so--so as not to have players spamming the gathering. This would also cut down on the interface complexity as we could then remove the gathering panel and the combat panel, wince we've added visual numbers. Edit: Sixth: Removing groups/races. Instead of allowing players to form their own groups, just remove the system altogether. Further cutting down on the interface, and it wouldn't make players feel left out if they were not in a group or organization. I'm also going to be removing the three other races from the game as playable races. Elves and Undead are being removed altogether, and Orcs will remain as a hostile threat in the north. Perhaps I could give them some forts in the mountains that players could attack if they so chose to. Also add in some flags that players could capture, giving the capture of said forts a measurable effect on the balance of power. :Edit Please give me some feedback. I'm always looking for ways to make my game better. | |
Anyway Good luck with this, It sounds fun.