(12-30-2021, 08:13 PM)Haste Wrote: Our current Wiki should be archived (mostly to prevent losing years/decades of player backstories and what not) and a new one should be set up from scratch, with an emphasis on guides and quick lore summaries. The landing page should get new players right to where they need to be (How the game itself works -> How a roleplay server works -> Everything else like more elaborate RP character creation guides and PvP guides and whatever).
The issue thus far has been getting people to write all these things. That, and the few people who have expressed an interest tend to end up wasting their time trying to repair the decade-out-of-date current wiki and some of the horror stories passing as guides on there.
Re-purposing, fixing, or improving on something that generally exists already would be much quicker and more effective. Starting from scratch will take you a lot longer. The current wiki is usable, it just need updating and some re-work. Let the community help and incentivize it. There's more than enough people that should be experts on their groups / factions / lore. As mentioned non-contentious stuff like guides and updating wrong info can be done by virtually anyone. Allow people to do it. Make an event and reward people for updating the wiki. Implement the model I suggested for community health check and an admin check for the content being written.
Create a new player section that contains:
- rules (that need to be cleaned out, revised, and assorted).
- what can you actually do in this game (Piracy, smuggling, raiding, fighting, trading, mining, etc.) with assorted guides on it.
- an NPOV of the main areas in the game and what to expect as interactions (Houses / Border worlds / etc.).
- IFF and IDs and how that works.
- Good etiquette vs. bad etiquette.
- RP - good and bad examples.
- Equipment and ships (basic guides).
- Combat (more in-depth guides).
- Examples of newbie friendly factions that new players can join.
The last part is actually quite important. We've been criticized by picking up new players on a regular basis. That couldn't be more wrong and myopic.
The reason why you have such a high attrition rate is because you expect a newbie to absorb an absurd amount of information. That and an ineffective information system for people to ''learn'' from. The average player will just quit - nobody has the time to learn 20 years worth of info and get dumped by vets all on their own. Or search through 50 pages worth of forum threads. The approach where you let newbies just find their ground is absolutely contra-productive.
You need to be incentivizing and encouraging groups / factions to pick up and train new players. And that mentality should come up from the top / administration. Instead we recently got told off on the official Discord that we are messaging new guys and getting them in and that we should stop - which is completely counter-intuitive.
People generally prefer to be a part of the team and are more likely to stay in a game if they enjoy the people they play with. Especially in a game that has absurdly high learning curve. That's just facts.
Absorbing new players is actually a good thing.
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
