In my opinion this planet is not designed to keep new players. I do all professions but lately I've been doing a lot of mining, I end up at a lot of different Teleporters. Sometimes I end up at an Academy and see a green dot. Generally they are alone either sweating some Halix or standing at one of the guides. I think great, we're getting new people. Then I think "How long is this person going to stay under these circumstances?". No one hangs out at academys So unless a noob is brave enough to make a long, very long TP run to one of the main TPs they are never going to see people. The planet must seem very empty. The main TPs of the planet are Sanctuary Cove and 8 Coins HQ but these places are far from any noobs. This concerns me. Hard to sell an expensive to play game to a noob when they see no community. And we all know that the best part of EU is the Community. ------------------------------ Now a story of how I started on calypso 4 years ago..... This was Pre VU10, actually Pre VU 9.0 so things were a little different then they are now. Spawn in Port Atlantis Arrival area. Interact with the 4 Information terminals that were there. I do believe Simon or Emma were there but didn't realize they were official guides at the time. Making my way out of the arrival area there are dozens of green dots on my radar (PA square was a MAJOR trading area) There was lots of chats running because there were so many people around. Making my way into the service center there are so many people in there! Easy 2 layers of people standing around the auctioneer. I was impressed with the amount of people in the game. I either read on the forums or heard it in game that I could go sweat creatures and sell it for ped. So I venture outside of the city. Just to the North West of the city was a small island. 10+ people on that island sweating. There were people there giving focus charges, Healing and people killing the dry mobs. It was neat. Then someone says lets goto sweat camp. I swim to the North West shore and run. You get over a small hill and suddenly there is a sea, no an ocean of green dots on my radar. I got to the revival shed (god that thing was small) and there were what seemed like hundreds of people around. Healers, Focusers, and Traders. Just past the turrets were dozens more people sweating and hunting. Combibos to the East, Diakiba to the North West, Beryclad to the south. So many options, so many people it was great. 3 days later I deposited my first $10. Bought the super weapon called the Opalo and started swunting. I met my first soc mates there and we started doing TP runs. The rest is History. ------------------------------ Seeing the different between how my Entropia Universe life started and how someone is starting on Arkadia makes me wonder how we are to attract our own player base.
I think the official guides program will help a lot. :=) I guess the avatars who are selected will be supposed to hang arround to chat to the newcomers.
XeroX, you're generally a guy who talks a lot on the forums. You got anything else to say regarding what I said? I havn't heard of any official guide program for ARK but how are they going to implement that? As far as I've heard 4 of the 9 Academys are receiving Noobs. Are they going to have guides at all places noobs spawn? That is a lot of man power.
Hi Adamas, You raise some good points. Arkadia is taking a few steps to ramp up interaction with new arrivals. First, they've recruited active players to act as advisers to new arrivals, and show them other aspects Arkadia has to offer that may not yet be covered by the basic training in each FBA. Second, to my understanding, only three of the current 9 arrival zones will be used for new arrivals after an impending VU. I agree that community is a huge attraction for most participants. Hopefully, the current advisers can create enough of a presence to enhance and prolong that initial experience. Until the population of Arkadia begins to grow and solidify, we'll be brainstorming ideas to help participants get the most from their first impressions.
Oh, the good old days . I miss the old swamp camp. I hope they make a similar one or something. At Arkadia. It's definitely needed. Perhaps they can make more "puny" mob spawns. Near those academies. And put new rookie Arkadia weapons, and finder. That can only be bought from Arkadia TT. That will really help newbies too. They need a place where as big as CH, But as efficient as the "old" swamp camp from planet calypso was. And this takes time.
Thanks for the reply Puck. For now, the easiest solution seems to be to compress the noobs into one area instead of spreading them out. Sure, if we start getting 100+ noobs a day start spreading. But I dont see that many noobs currently so maybe bring people together is a short term and easy solution.
I does require time. However you can have 100 years and if there is PLACE for an "old school" type swamp camp it will never happen.
Yep, agreed. One of the things I personally have done with several new arrivals is take them (or let them drive) to Sanc Cove, Celeste, and 8coins.
Found this pic on PCF. Just look at that radar. Full of noobs. For those who dont know, this was Swamp camp Pre VU10
The OP was right on! I met a noob the other day that said he had been in game quite a while (I want to say days) and I was the first person he had seen. I took him sweating (as that is what he said he wanted to do first) and tried to impart as much info upon him as I could. Let him add me to his FL and offered my assistance in the future. I have not heard from him since though he is several hours ahead of me. We should probably limit the spawns to one location unless we have 100s of folks joining the game every day. I would put the number closer to 10-15 from what Ive seen. Otherwise folks are going to think this is an empty universe. My experience was similar to the OPs when I started. By the way, this noob had not decided this was the game for him -- he was still evaluating -- would not surprise me if he never came back. (if you are out there and remember me shout back in this thread (I pointed him to AF too))
I agree with you Therred. They need to make like only 1 spawn. (Big spawn of) From puny mobs, to Halix youngs. Oro's are to hard for newbies to sweat solo. Or together. And place a couple turrets around the "Outpost" or something. This outpost should be not far from the "starter place" on Planet Arkadia. There should be a new mission for newcomer. That helps you get there. Kinda like the calypso find the swamp mission. I'm not sure what city the newcomers start in. But I think they should start at a place most people will be at. Like sanctuary cove. Or 8 Coins. But perhaps CH wouldn't be a bad idea either. Since it's huge area. (That might impress them). But then they gotta make some changes / add spawns very near to CH. Otherwise they gonna be totally lost in there.
Yep I to remember a lot of green dots when I started and for me that was in Ithaca. And when I finally got to Atlantis there were even more green dots there. PA always felt crowded with people and lots of talk going on and indeed along the way to swamp camp you could run into dozens of people on Combibo Island. I realize that this planet is just starting and I also realize that there has not been much advertising and I believe the A-team is waiting for treasure hunting to arrive, but the planet is feeling more empty every day. This is not only Arkadia, I had the same feeling on Calypso before I left. Currently there are just to many planets for the amount of people we have. So either loose a few planets or get loads more people into the game. I think that spreading the newbies out over 9 starting points is WAY to many (although I understand the reason David told us) and also to let them start on one of the academies might not be a good idea, there are just no people around there to help them. Put an academy just outside Celeste or 8 coins and I'm sure that will be better.
I started around last Thursday, newcomer to EU. I'm not sure if things have changed since then, but I had access to 8 coins, Sanctuary Cove TPs, and 2 other FBA TPs (I think it was 3 total). Then when traveling to a firebase there is an archaeologist NPC that if you take the mission gives you the TP to Celeste Harbor.
Sorry to hear all of this. I myself tend to hang out at Celeste mostly now, except when out hunting, particularly as many are trying to encourage making that the main 'trading' area and gathering place, since it is our only city and also central in the storyline. We do have a boatload of advisors now in the official program, even with all 9 academies still active starting points (far as I know the patch or vu that changes that to only 3-4 hasn't happened yet), I admit I assumed they would all have some folks at them for any newcomers most of the time. I guess the sooner that fix to reduce the number of active spawn points for newcomers the better, in the meantime, I will try to make a point of hopping around to them all from time to time, only one person may make a big difference if it's true some of them are playing for days without seeing another avatar. I know there was also lots of discussion about trying to get one or more 'sweat camps' started, but don't know where or how that went, so off to look at those threads again now.
I had a ingame chat with Cyrus the other day and we talked about how to make the Arkadian population grow. I told him that (in my opinion) Arkadia needs to build his own playerbase, ofcourse there will be travelers from the other planets like most of us here but Arkadia needs players for who Arkadia is like Calypso is to us, their home. Bringing in new players is one thing, but keeping them is the real task. Arkadia could focus more on the new players expercience imo (like someone already said, find the swampcamp mission alike's) but the community is the more important factor. It's that what kept me here for more then 5 years already, we have a unique and great community here. I agree that the new arrivals should be concentrated for now, do that and use the Arkadia Advisor program (there are some great people in there) and the ball starts rolling. You can't just make a swamp camp, things like that need to grow naturally. The feeling i got after the chat with Cyrus is that all things we are discussing here in this topic are high on their priority list. But they need us older players for that aswell. The chat with Cyrus convinced and inspired me to also sign up for the Advisor program, don't know if i'm a good "mentor" but i will try my best to help the Arkadia community grow.
I totaly agree with you. The best thing would be to have just one place where all new arivals enter. Then not only will they see more ppl but we, more experianced players, can make a point of passing by at least once a day to help or just say welcome or heal some sweaters or just answer questions. If enough of us do this, and it would be easy if there was only one spawn point, we can realy help keep the new comers on our planet.
Here is a reply here from Dave posted on 6/27 ... As you guys can see, Dave and crew knows about these issues and are actively working on them. jc
On the part of gaining some new players. I have sent Cyrus an invitation to a Computer and gaming expo that is also connected to a 2000 man lan thats held yearly in South Africa (Rage expo) Hopefully they will be able to attend and if anyone knows of any other expos where Arkadia can setup a stall let them know.
In Germany we a have the "Games Com " in Köln (Cologne), think this year it is to late coz it is in August but maybe next year
To Adamas, All nice what you describe, but you (and many others) forget that at the time you mention Calypso was already a few years old. It had a few years to build up a community. The current situation is practically the same as when I started. I started in 2002 and there was almost nothing, no sweating, no fruit, no nothing. The community was very small and the Caly map was 1/4 of what it is now of Eudoria and you could run around for day's without seeing anyone. And Arkadia is at the same point now, it is new and it need to grow. But now we have sweating, fruit etc. What me kept was the warm and friendly community and the feeling of being a pioneer. It is a rough life but adventurous. It is up to us Arkadians to welcome the new arrivals and let them feel at home. New things will arrive over time to keep them busy, but for now we have to work with what we have. It is really of no use to compare this with another planet that had 10 years to build. What you wrote in this thread, wait 3 more years and than compare it to Arkadia. Regards, Ion
