Amnesty/Tale 4/Bastet

Teppy: ---
Teppy: Welcome, all...
Teppy: So I'll lay out the reasons that I can think of for not opening Welcoming Island, and the reasons for.
Teppy: Against: Players build their first things, and then have to tear them all down, and that's painful, especially to a new player.
Teppy: For: Easier to find mentors (maybe)
Tewosret: To me the biggest reason to open the island is the tutorial going down the mountain that explains what to do if nobody is around.
Teppy: Right
SparkleB: If the Against stands true, why do we have to "tear down" to get to level 1?
Teppy: Because the Island would just get cluttered.
Teppy: And there's no realistic, or easy-to-understand way to let players "move" their stuff.
SparkleB: My only concern will be - will there be mentors to help out, at the moment even Regional Chats struggle to get answers for some people at certain times of the day
Teppy: That's a concern.
Ari: A remedy for the against would be to allow 100% salvage for peasants on the island. But thats not really the input you're asking for. I do really think it would make helping new players get settled in easier, learn the basics of the game before they run around egypt.
Teppy: Actually, that's an excellent idea!
SimUser: As a new-ish player who started characters on both, I found it easier here, the welcoming island on t4 is nearly deserted by now
Teppy: Ok, and you arrived just ~1 month ago, SimUser - that's interesting (and good!) to hear.
Akiiki: Perhaps for those of us new to this tale, you could summarize the functional changes W.I. represents?
Teppy: Sure:
Teppy: With Welcoming Island, you do (alost) the same set of tasks for Citizenship, but the stuff you need to complete each step tends to be closer...
Teppy: And you can't wander off in the desert and get lost - because it's a small-ish island.
Usi: If those are the only arguments, in my opinion you're leaving a few out. It seems that those pros/cons only are from the point of view of the new player. There is also the point of view of the current players that don't want distaffs and wood planes in 'their' back yard. So to keep that separate, plus the fact that it's easier for mentors as well to find new players, are other pros that need to be considered. But that's just my humble opinion.
Teppy: I was just listing the newbie persepctive pros and cons, but yeah, that's something to consider too. ("pro")
Usi: Maybe a way to solve the against for new players (about having to tear down or leave stuff behind on welcome island) can be easily solved by making it possible for them to take stuff with them to egypt? like ... you're never allowed to take stuff to welcome island. and you're only allowed to take stuff from welcome to egypt if you're a peasant? Would that solve it?
Teppy: Yes, I think it would.
Bezurn: If there were a way to clean up newbie clutter that is rotting I think we wouldn't need newbie island
Teppy: In other Tales, laws allow for just that case.
Teppy: (I still must code the law here.)
Usi: My guess is that a lot of people don't understand what it takes to put up a Welcome Island. I mean as for server side resources. I'm definately one of them. Shouldn't that be taken into account as well? Maybe you could explain a little bit about what it takes for you to start a welcome island?
Teppy: No significant server resources.
Oznogg: also we have a small distaff problem in the mainland
Saledo: I forget... If a new player knows someone established can they port off the isalnd early or must they go through the tutorial there?
Teppy: In either case they must complete Citizenship. I'm revamping citizenship for Tale 5.
Usi: Are there still coming in enough new players (that are not alt accounts of experienced players) to justify a welcoming island, in your opinion? (question to teppy)
Teppy: Looks like ~25/day, so that's 1/hour...
Teppy: Definitely not worth hanging out on the island just in case, but it does make sense to travel there when a new player joins and shows up in the Immigrants channel.
Teppy: (Everyone knows about Immigrants, right?)
Linden: I have played this game (mostly brielfy) on a number of occasions since T1. In that time, I have only met a mentor on mentor island once, and that mentor ended up drawing me into a political circle which narrowed the game for me without my realising it. Here, dropped straight into it, I met many people and the game has really 'opened out' as a result. I am very, very much agains mentor island for this reason, and a number of others
Teppy: Huh. Anyone else have bad/good experiences with the island?
Oznogg: I agree with Linden
sheriti: good experience here... loved that the mentor island was an easy intro to the game, found it hard coming back after a few years ith no idea how to even make linen
Reese: The first time I played ATITD i was able to get off the island without the help of any mentor. but when I got to the mainland there was no contact with any players whatsoever so i gave it up. Could have just been the time of day
Set: Well another pro I guess is that when someone comes as a trial just to cause trouble their sphere of influence is somewhat quarantined by the island. It doesnt happen often but when it does it's nice that they are limited in what they can influence
Teppy: True. Although a griefer on the island may do more "damage" than on the mainland because he's harrassing new players instead of veterans who know to just ignore him.
sheriti: i think the island is just to teach basics but it does help... even though the real community life starts off once you leave the island and interact with everyone else
Tewosret: unless they badly influence new players to the point of them not subscribing, at least on the mainland players are usually dropped into populated areas and can warn new people against the bad influences
SimUser: I also wonder how many new players are people from t4 and they have no need of a welcoming island
Teppy: I'm not suggesting dropping the Citizenship level - although that's open for debate.
Teppy: (Not today though. And I don't think it's a huge problem anyway.)
Akiiki: And is the island a shared space, like the conflict shrine? Or is it instanced for each immigrant? If that's possible in the game engine, then instancing a new island and then allowing mentors to join it would solve the griefer on the island thing.
Teppy: It's a shared space. Instancing would be a lot of code.
Saledo: Well certainly the sigh tutorial could be done through popups while doing citizenship on the mainland couldnt it?
Teppy: Yeah, that;'s how I'm doing it for T5.
Oznogg: Teppy: how many Mentorship passes does this shard have in proportion to the main shard, and is the proportion significantly different?
Teppy: I can gather those stats, but it is a ratio thing - I'd guess about the same.
Jhaerek: I think one of the advantages of the Island would be the chance to interact with people representing diverse playstyles, if I'm a person who maybe likes keeping more to themselves and being out in the wilderness, I'm not going to stand much chance starting out by myself in an empty starting area in a region like NP, but maybe being on the island i can hook up with someone who can help me get underway and integrate me into some of the smaller clusters of community
Linden: I dont think that the emphasis should be on protecting established players -whether from griefing or old rotting distaffs -it has to be on bringing new players in and making them stick. The 'Freemium' space research (Chris Anderson's model) would all suggest that vibrant community is a big part of freemium stickiness - what I mean in rather less up my self terms is that the very postive community here on Bastet is the best possible way of getting new people to stay, and welcome island cuts them off from that by ghetttoising them
Teppy: We have had a *very* good conversion rate on Bastet - around 40% of people who create a trial account go on to pay for at least a month of the game.
Teppy: Lower later in the Tale as expected, but not hugely so.
Ari: Pretty sure there aren't many Mentorship passes here yet. Probably none at all. I'm more interested by the retention rate of new players between T4 A and B. Does having welcoming island lead to more players staying and paying, or does it take away frmo that? All-in-all, I'd rather do the one that leads to a larger player base.
Teppy: Oh, absolutely - that's the whole reason for this debate - if I knew the answer to that I'd just implement it.
Linden: Ditching welcome island is part of the reason for that I am totally certain
Saledo: But do you know how many are truly "new" and not just returning players/switched from main?
Teppy: Very hard to tell. At the Bastet launch I asked that veteran players use different names if they really did want to play both shards...
Teppy: And many did that. (Which I think was a big win.)
Teppy: Ok, so I started this chat pretty sure that I wanted to open Welcoming Island, and now I'm leaning against it.
Ari: To be fair, you did only ask for reasons against openning it. There are still plenty of good arguments for the other side.
Teppy: Ok, let me hear those.
Teppy: (I'll also do a non-binding poll, to make sure we don't have a silent majority on this subject!)
Set: As someone who lives in a non-chariot stop area, Welcome Island would sure help me be able to mentor more. in general I think the problem when a certain region has no people in it (even Saq or SA Ive seen no residents available to speak with a new player) now people from any region can check if there's a mentee needing help by simply clicking a welcome banner vs using travel time to get to another region
sheriti: i went to t4 to get the hang of the game before i paid for a full account here as i was utterly confused and a little quiet so didn't ask for help
Teppy: Poll is up; I'll monitor that for a day or so.
Lenala: I learned here instead of on the main shard. I went and tried the island. It's definitely quicker, but I got to know more people dropped into the midst of things, and had much more fun. No one came to the island to offer assistance when I tried it out. Not sure if that's to do with the time of day or where they are in the telling, though.
Linden: I would suggest as a solution: ditch mentor island, establish a mentoring channel which is game wide(and anyone can sign to) that new players are automatically signed to when they join the ggame
Teppy: I'm worried that such a channel becomes "global chat", which does cause technical problems on the server, and also dilutes the mentoring nature of the channel.
Teppy: ANd then removing a lag-causing "global chat" causes a huge shitstorm.
Jhaerek: Taking the other side of Lindens argument, I think that the different styles of people have to be taken into account. Not everyone is going to enjoy just being dropped into things, and may not be comfortable socializing on a large enough scale to have that work out for them. Having the welcome island gives them the option to find their own way, maybe meet up with a single person or small group that meets their needs, and they can go from there
Jhaerek: I just think that taking away the island forces people into one style, where having the island lets there be choice
Linden: Limit subscription to it in some way? Failing that, tell everyone about B! automatically?
Teppy: We do have regional chat, and just 3 regions that people get dropped into...
Teppy: (Well, I suppose with mentor-built welcome banners that's not strictly true.)
Teppy: (But nearly true.)
Usi: In the end it'll be your decision teppy. you know if your business model works or not (as for new players doing a stay-and-pay). If those numbers are dropping, maybe Welcome Island might be a good thing to try out for a while. Maybe do another ENN discussion in a month or so to evaluate, when you have new statistics? I'm sure it'll be a good incentive for current players to actually work on Mentorship Test and actually welcome new players to this sandy land.
Teppy: Ok, gotta wrap up anyway. The issue is, unfortunately (fortunately?) less clear :)
Teppy: Thanks, all. I'll try to code the laws over the next couple days.
Teppy: Teppy out!
Teppy: ---