Topic

How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away?

Let's say you are one of those ultra-bored, high-level alpha players, languishing around the punch bowl, and you decide you are going to just leave the dance for a while.  Say you leave for three months.

How could your experience coming back to Glitch be different, i.e., better, than the re-entry experience with semi-abandoned accounts at other games?  How could Glitch keep you engaged in a less-committed way while you are gone?  How do you want your absence acknowledged or described by the game, to you or to other players who view your profile?

Do you want to come to find everything exactly as it was, or do you do want to see evidence that you left (which is usually framed as evidence of neglect, e.g., cockroaches in your house, piles of meat where pigs once were, dead crops)?   How do you want to get caught up with what has happened while you are/were away, with major events, things that happened to your friends, etc. (I am assuming here that nobody wants to review the individual update feeds for all or most of their friends list).

plz advise.

Posted 18 months ago by Nanookie Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

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  • I agree with The Cat Face, and would like to subscribe to its newsletter!
    Posted 18 months ago by katlazam Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "When we log back in, meat collectors could fill based on the amount of time we've been gone. "

    Ahahaha, I have an mental image of coming back after an extended absence and watching a meat collector starting to shake uncontrollably until it explodes into a giant pile of meat.

    Not that they would do that, of course.  But that would be funneeee.

    The decay-for-pay option (or pay-for-no-decay) is not something listed as subscriber benefit, that's true.  But do we know that subscriber benefits are set at stone at this point? Surely not, so I have always assumed it was a potential future option.  Although I offered up my .02 about it, it's not really what I was getting at.

    What I was getting at until I changed my mind about it was how Glitch could nurture players to have active accounts for a longer period of time than what is currently the average.  What IS currently the average, btw?    It seems like any MMO, including Glitch, has inherent limitations that cannot forestall boredom and eventually abandonment, by its players.  So supposedly there is the social glue to extend and deepen one's connection, but actually...is there?

    I have this katamari ball of internet connections, it really can't be made into a pretty spiderwebby network, because it's made up of people that I stuck to or stuck with me in my random crashing about on the internet.   It seems to me that sites that have a social component at their root are going to have a short-shorter-shortest half life because people don't stick to the sites, they stick to each other.  And actually, just the first roll is random--after that it's directed by your sticky people.  Whither they goest...

    ETA: Cat Face, I like those ideas.  And we need a long flowy beard, maybe even partially braided, in the vanity/wardrobe.  I know i would wear one.
    Posted 18 months ago by Nanookie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I can say for certain subscriber benefits are not set in stone, after the very tiny debacle over teleportation tokens, lol.
    Posted 18 months ago by Cerulean Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Keeping within the fun and wacky spirit of Glitch, this is what I would love my experience to be if I had been away for some extended amount of time (to be determined)...

    Upon logging in I find myself in a world frozen in time from the moment my account was "paused" or "frozen." All the animals are still, players are frozen mid-step or mid-jump.

    POOF! Next to me suddenly appears a time machine (perhaps in the style of an old antique elevator). Interested I jump in and I can now whisk myself back to the present and resume playing OR...

    The time machine elevator offers up some moments in time to stop and visit. 

    Perhaps these moments in time are events in the Glitch world I missed... a new world unlocked, an intense rook invasion in Groddle Forrest, a horde of tree killing lumber jacks cleared out West Spice, who knows.

    Having felt like I have caught up with missed events, I finally whisk myself back to the present. Upon exiting the time machine antique elevator I find my home, all kept tidy and neat. My plants all tended to. Before I can ask how...

    A Glitch avatar looking just like me approaches and explains that he is me from the future and had come back to keep things tidy while I was away. And just like that he enters the time machine and POOF! He is gone.

    Maybe one day I will catch up in time with my future Glitch self!
    Posted 18 months ago by en Subscriber! | Permalink
  • + 100 to TCF - like the beard idea, even on girls (have you seen my RL 'stache if I've not bleached in a while?!)
    +1000 to en!  (though I'd still like a task to clean the cobwebs/dust bunnies per riverwalker) 
    Posted 18 months ago by b3achy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Mary - it is a browser issue: http://beta.glitch.com/groups/RM1AHDS58K029O8/discuss/586/#reply-5900 
    Posted 18 months ago by jasbo Subscriber! | Permalink
  • en--that is top to bottom, front to back, inside to outside awesome.
    Posted 18 months ago by Nanookie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • jasbo, thanks. I'll try to use FF more often.
    Posted 18 months ago by MaryLiLamb Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thank you Nanookie.

    You asked a good question that is often not given much thought. The experience for a returning player can make the difference between whether or not they re-engage or not.
    Posted 18 months ago by en Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @katlazam: newsletter?
    Posted 18 months ago by The Cat Face Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Don't make returning too much fun else people will leave just to be able to come back :P
    I notice several people are scared of having accidents, injuries, or illnesses. I still think when this game goes live and if there are many many more people trying it out, those will not be the reasons they stay away, that is hopefully only so for a few. (Rather for none at all ofcourse).

    My concern is how TS will make money? (I don't think that they will make a lot with the current things that they get money for, they need more "sellable" content.)
    Ofcourse I want everything for free, but how long will the game continue if it isn't profitable? The devs need to feed their family too. So what could they implement that would make people pay, so they will have funds to keep working on the game, keep maintaining the servers it's run on etc. Therefore I thought an idea was that those who really like the game are probably the ones who are willing to pay a bit for it, and also are willing to pay for their account to remain untouched.
    Ofcourse, if space (datawise) isn't an issue then an inactive account is not an issue ofcourse, but I'm thinking big! (Like minecraft - it was a small game but grew big.)

    Personally, I wouldn't like the idea of living in an abandoned neighbourhood, nor feel I that it would be me who would have to move looking for more active ones, as I would feel that I would be punished for the absence of my neighbours. Not that I really met neighbours yet, but if the game goes live you might want to get in touch with them. I would want to know if it's an active neighborhood or if it's mostly abandoned before I buy a house somewhere, so I would like an indicator. Doesn't have to be on the day or person specific, but just a general something, and ofcourse not allready after 2 weeks of absence. Maybe just starting from a month or so. Maybe an activity meter for the neighboorhood? That way I would know if it is a viable place to hold streetparties or keep animals for us all.

    Now, if I would leave and come back, I wouldn't mind beginning in a sort of retirement home or "nuthouse".
    In the retirement home there would be the glitches who have begun to fade. Fading means the giants, who imagined us all, have started forgetting about you. You have to do a quest, like visit the shrines of all giants for them to remember you, to get your house and stuff back, because that's the first things that faded.

    The nuthouse would be that your imagination had run wild and you were off to some really far away unimagined places, and that you have just found your way back again to the border of imagined places. Again there would be a quest to get your stuff back. Or not, you just leave the building.

    Both at those two houses you could have the possibility of speaking to npc's which tell you what happened while you were gone. You could either talk to them all to hear all from the start of the world till the present, or just pick a few bits out of it, or not talk to them at all and just head to your house.
    Posted 18 months ago by Miriamele Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Just as a general question: I don't understand how you can tell a home is abandoned?  

    If an owner is offline, it just says that they are offline, not how long since they have been in the game.  I bought the last house available on my street, and I have only seen my immediate neighbors (Pixel and RideEm Cowboy) regularly, but it never occurred to me that the rest of the houses were abandoned.  Profiles don't show the last date a player was online anymore either, so how could you know a house is owned by a non-playing player?
    Posted 18 months ago by Nanookie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think there are some real logical business rules and user experience mechanisms devs can implement to determine how to deal with absent players.

    On the business end I'd do this:

    * After 3 weeks: Ping the user's email with a message: "You've been gone and the giants are beginning to forget you."
    * After for 5 weeks: Ping the user, "Careful, you might disappear." love the idea  Miriamele had about fading the characters.
    * After 8 weeks: Purgatory (or some other remote plane) mandatory for at least 1 continuous hour of play, with a mandatory quest.
    * After 3 months: Survey user, "May we close your account?" If they say yes, done. If they say no, log them into the game immediately. If they don't log in and play, send it again in one week. No response, delete in 100 days.
    * Leave of absence: Provide this option for users with up- & down- grades (Pay to keep things as-is for non-subscribers, non-paid can return with same level, bags and currants, wardrobe, but nothing else. Subscribers should be able to activate "leave of absence" three times within a year with nothing changing." Leave should be limited to 3 months before emails begin.

    For the user experience:
    When faded perhaps users must play for at least 5 hours to get "unfaded". As a faded half-life, you have to consume twice as much food to stay in the game.
    Maybe instead of being in purgatory, they are in an "astroplane" or something in the clouds that has it's own set of quests (I recommend three). Also, you should have to go to the wizard, oracle, genie to get a download of what's new since you left.
    For people who quit, let's give a funeral and stipulate that they cannot sign up again for at least 6 months (or else ppl would leave and come back just to have a funeral). Their stones could be in the clouds/astroplane/whatever, and one of the quests could be to find/visit it. or something for the faded people
    Posted 18 months ago by Spellbound Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Why would it be good business for TS to delete accounts?

    In any measure of success, the "number of accounts" measurement ranks high.  There is no business reason to reduce that number.
    Posted 18 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Perhaps focusing on cool features for the game is a much better business plan than spamming absentee players with a lot of nagware and hoops to get back into the game.

    If there's a lot of attrition, the devs will need to look at the game as a whole: are people leaving after they reach a certain level (a plateau) or are they leaving after the first few hours (initial engagement) - then focus their efforts on improving the draw to play in those areas.  Focusing on nagging people to play and then greeting them from their return with some purgatory they need to endure just sounds icky.

    I'm also not getting why subscribers should be treated differently in terms of 'leave of absence' than non-subscribers given staff's statements on there not being a pay-to-play business model.  The only thing that happens to you now if you don't play for a while is that any pigs or trees you may have in-game might be dead by the time you come back, so I'm not even sure I see a need for a leave of absence given the game as it stands now.
    Posted 18 months ago by zeeberk Subscriber! | Permalink
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