(12-30-2021, 04:21 PM)Kauket Wrote: For the most part, I pretty much agree with your post, and I feel that it's a collation of opinions that has been repeated time and time again. The real question, what do we do, how do we do it, and how to go about it? The solutions? What will the staff team say? What /can/ they do without invoking immense anger from many users?
I can provide you solutions quite easily. I literally do this for a living - look at an operating model and fixing it. Implementing changes, processes, eliminate roadblocks, find out where the roadblock or bottleneck is operationally, provide quality control or checks where applicable. Optimization, marketing, you name it.
The questions is how much the administration is actually on board with this and how much they want to revive activity and actually listen. My interaction with the administration team has been limited but so far positive. But then again, I've only interacted with two people I believe. And the administration might be made of various faces with different interests that are divergent and not aligned in the slightest (which in itself, is a problem).
But anyway, solutions that are quick wins from the top of my mind (a proper plan can be made):
1) Fix and update the wiki - this can be community based and driven by the actual players. Long term veterans can write up and update pages of their groups / factions.
I am not the best example as DTR is relatively new Corsair faction (although we created our own wiki page because wiki is awesome). But there's veteran old Outcast players. They can fix the wiki and update it for anything Outcast related.
All of the combined material passes two checks - a community health check and an administration check. In the case, the community can't agree, an admin that the community agrees on their integrity can have the final say.
Repeat that model for every Discovery area - Liberty, Bretonia, etc.
For neutral stuff like guides, trading, fixing prices, everyone can contribute. And it should be easy to push because it's not contentious.
Have the administration make an event with prizes - 10 wiki pages equals to 100 mil or something else to fuel the community if they need additional incentive.
With the combined effort of everyone, the wiki can be fixed in 1 month. Create a page of articles for newbies - rules, good etiquette, good RP, with examples. Point them out to newbie friendly factions to take them under their wing. This way you can mitigate the horrible attrition rate this server has. Looking at just the site data visible to all, the attrition is staggering. Your population is declining from the looks of it and has been declining for some time.
I can make the speculation that probably COVID led to an activity spur at some point but if you don't fix the root cause, you won't attain the players.
2) Once you have this covered and have a good landing page for new players - start some basic marketing. Happy to provide pointers - mind you absolutely free of charge, won't cost a penny.
3) Do a community review on the rules - what's obsolete, what's old, what's stifling gameplay or interactions.
That's just the basics. Utilize Discord and wiki more. I can make an entire plan if I wanted to, assuming of course people are actually interested.
If I understand how the behind the scenes works and the administration, I can review the overall operating model there as well.
Honestly, a lot of the stuff is quick wins that are easy to implement. There are also people that are willing to do it from what I've seen.
The real question is whether this is the personal D&D session of a select group of people or an actual community. If it's the latter, the administration should get behind this easily if they are actually open-minded and able to reflect.
If it's the former, you can't do anything until you eliminate the people in power. They are happy with having their small 15 or whatever people circle-jerk in which case, it's a matter of moving to another game or server.
Happy to elaborate on anything else.
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
