How to bring new players in 2019

Ok imma start this one off w 100% honesty, when this game first came out i was a nerdy middle schooler, and even back then i was here on the forums mostly trolling.. i played dcuo all through high school mostly as a controller, now im a tank,,,

But anyway now im in college actually majoring in marketing / advertising and well,,, ive learned a few things in class that well if dcuo applied I believe would bring in a bunch of players, mind you l dont know anything ab the financial cost that these things would take but i mean im pretty sure most of them would be free

1 get the DC insta & twitter to retweet or insta post the dlc card art when you launch a DLC, im pretty sure thatd b like free exposure

2 be more open on social media, ever seen how on twitter games like smite ect have dev update videos or wip i mean yes they try to sell in game currency every now & then but umm way more of the actual game stuff.. dcuos twitter is mostly just spam tweets about sales

3 go w the trends or well requested stories, the titian dlc was great & it was a existing story alot of people were excited for new titian content bc its different then the usual batman, superman, wonder woman... listen we know this is dc comics but those characters are playyyeddd outttt right now, we have booster gold in game why cant we get a booster dlc or another lesser character

Lastly, this one i know takes time & money ... but guys a new cinematic would go a long way! If it was full of made up characters using all post launch powers & their fighting darkside or something ive world of warcraft & star wars old republic got me interested soully based off the cinematics they make for their dlcs

It isn't that easy.

If posting Power girl's assets is more effective and plausible a community booster than what you've come up with, you need to go back to the drawing board.

How to bring in new players:

Recruitment Incentive program. For every referral you bring in that subs, or that spends over X amount of dollars, you get a unique, account-bound cosmetic item. Maybe some sort of Material, maybe a costume piece, or an emblem, or whatever.

Lots of MMOs run a recruitment program. And when they do, the players do the heavy lifting, and either bring their friends and family on board, or they create second accounts and spend money pretending to be a second person just to get the recruitment reward, which means either more players or more money.

It doesn't even need to be something that's super fancy or requires a lot of work. Something as simple as a color variant on one of the Movement Styles would probably see hundreds of people pressuring their friends to sign up "just to try it for a month", or buying subs for their kids as an excuse.

It's pretty simple. No amount of commercials and advertisements will ever mean more than Word of Mouth. If anybody's going to be doing the recruiting, it's the players, not Daybreak. So give the players a reason to do something about the population other than whine about it. It does work.

Make it a Fortnite but with DCU chars.

Run frequent ads on the DC Universe Streaming Service. There's a built-in audience right there!

[ANNOUNCER VOICE]"Did you enjoy this season of TITANS? Would you like to know MORE about their universe? THEN JOIN DC UNIVERSE ONLINE AND CREATE YOUR OWN TITAN!"[/ANNOUNCER VOICE]

thats a lie and would probably be a lawsuit for false advertisement. not going to go into the show (thats rant for another time) but DCUO teaches nothing about the titans. also to boot you cant JOIN the titans from get go (even though you should since they are technically lower then the JL). the preview has been long over so a person would have to play for quite a bit to get to the TT content.

getting their face (DCUO) out there is a good step but not like that.

Some days I wonder if getting new players is really the answer. There are many times that I feel that getting rid of some of the toxic players is a better answer.

My niece was here for the holidays, over the course of our casual conversations, she asked what online games I was playing. I started to tell her about this game (DCUO) and she showed a definite interest in it. I fired up the ol' ps4 and started running some dailies, and did a little 'questions and answers' session with her; while playing, so she could get a good 'feel' for the game. She liked the general game setup, and asked if she could try it out. After a short amount of time on ps4, she asked if she could start her own toon on pc. I, uh, let her use my pc account to start a toon (since the game was downloaded, and had subscriber perks). I let her do her own thing, (she's college aged, she can handle herself online) whilst I took one of my old fart catnaps.

Things were pleasant when I went to sleep. They weren't when I woke up.

My niece had an absolute blast doing the braniac ship tutorial, and the first few levels in Gotham doing missions for Batman. Right up until the point where she got the side mission to enter the watchtower. She got there, and the chat was toxic. So toxic, that she left the watchtower to resume the other missions.... and had the unfortunate luck to randomly run into a person that found out she was female and proceeded to do things that (I feel) are sexual harassment. She quit the game.

Her review? Game is fun, the people are terrible. I'll never play it, or recommend it to my friends.

So, yes, there are days that I feel new players would be nice, but permanently getting rid of the toxic players would be better.

then tell her to stay away from online in general? i know i sound mean but seriously there is a ignore/report feature in game for a reason. you can also turn off chat as well. i wont say DCUO is picture perfect chat because we all know its not but its not the worse chat out there. hell i WOULD recommend friends to play so you can play with THEM and not have to worry about online PUGs.

on the sexual harassment thing i would get the name and send a report to daybreak as they do take that stuff seriously.

well, online in general isn't a problem for her

Yes, ignorance is the best policy to fix problems, isn't it?
Reporting works great, the player gets a short time out (if they get one at all) and then they are back. OR... even better.... they create an alt and start the mess all over again.

I often ask myself this: "is the game relieving more stress than it gives" This game is fun.
I know of quite a few people that 'solo play' the game as much as possible because they want to avoid the drama. Would this game be better if the toxic players were moderated ingame? How soon do you feel it would happen, (if there was an ingame dcuo staff member handing out bans, or chat restrictions) that chat would clear up?

I'd volunteer my time if I could shut off the chat of people that constantly use profanity and do everything they can to circumvent the chat filter.

Bah... my coffee needs refilling. brb

thats why the profanity filter is a thing. if you turn it off then its free game. now that doesnt mean we should be reading about people telling others to go shoot up schools and such (and im not lying about that as i just read this while on PC before logging a hour ago). but if anything NO ONE should have to see chat like that or be harassed in any way. normally when it comes to things of that nature sending the report to daybreak with video/picture proof doesnt land the person a timeout but often a perma ban.

also it depends on the phase people go into as there are times ill see the toxic "hardcore" pvp players mucking up chat (which is odd since you would think they would go into the pvp phase... that or be villains) and then there are times the tower is silent because of the phase switch. its a dice roll. does the game need a chat mod, yes i would say so but for certain things.

all im saying is dont go off of chat in game for not wanting to bring others, that just in itself is dumb. you can very easily ignore the chat and report players that are harassing you. but still i say yes for having mods again. i remember back when the game launched in finding moderators in game standing on buildings and such. those light purple names often scared a lot of people lol.

As a very recently-returned, but not very experienced DCUO player, I'll give you my take, but please take this with a grain of salt. I played DCUO back in 2014 I think...subscription level, for a few months and got one toon to level 30, another to 28, and a third to level 5 or so. I then stopped playing until the urge to be a super hero and smash bad guys welled up inside me the other day, and I re-subbed to the game. This is where DCUO has something going for it...it's the only MMORPG that involves well established heroes and lore at the present time...this is not news to any of you. However, I'm not sure how many people actually realize this in the gaming world as a whole. I think some advertising and marketing of the game would help, but i am also well aware of the current financial situation of many game companies right now...Daybreak included. Money is tight.

Throwing money at things can sometimes help, but as we know, it has to be constructive and actually addressing core issues. One of the issues I see in DCUO, as a player of other MMORPG's...mainly WoW, is this feeling of being 'disjointed' after hitting level 30 and trying to up my CR. There is a 'flow' that's missing. It feels like I am jumping around, trying to find things to do, that aren't connected in any way...if that makes sense. Many of the alerts and 'instance" type events are very short when compared to other MMORPGs. This gives a feeling of very punctuated or staccato-type, rapid fire gameplay. Again, I'm basically a noob and might be missing something, but this is how the game feels at the present. I'm only CR 90 and have a long way to go...having said that, I also find the vast number of "Episodes" to be a bit confusing and daunting.

I am not complaining about this...content is good!!! It's just that it's being delivered in a different way to most games and this has it's own learning curve that has to be adopted. Instead of a massive update/expansion every couple of years, DCUO gets content every few months...this is great, but the episodes can pile up and seem a bit intimidating to new or returning players. I have many questions about what to do next, where to go...etc...thankfully I have joined a League with some really nice people that have been a great help with this. Joining a League and playing this game with like-minded people is probably one of the best things you can do...like with any MMORPG...the social aspect is key...why else would you play a MMORPG over a first person type game? I think DCUO does a good job of letting people know how important Leagues are to the enjoyment of your time spent online.

Overall I think DCUO is a great game with many things to love....DC based universe, super powers, etc. One of my favorite things is the old art they include in loading screens and other places...you get to see how the style and characters have evolved over the years...nostalgia is a great drug! The game could be better...sure...but I appreciate what already exists. I'm not a developer and have no knowledge about how to 'fix' games or to make them feel one way or another...so I will not berate or give directions to people that are much more informed than I.

Just my 2 cents.

Cheers!

Make more content newbie friendly. Most of the events we get are part of the endgame treadmill that newbies wont get to experience. Titans for example is endgame. In order to do that they must either grind or fork out the cash to cr boost which is another reason why people are turning away from this game- so much monetization. it's hard for newbies to get into dcuo because dbg is shooting themselves in the foot by locking out content to f2p and new subs that will prob just quit after their first month.

capsules too, so much dev time spent on quick pocket change vs focus on attracting new players...

Are you on a mission to kill DC? After two Aquaman DLC's, a Booster Gold DLC would be suicide.

Lower the cost of membership

Here are my thoughts as someone who started playing in beta, stopped playing full time in 2016 and recently came back to test the waters:

New players probably aren't going to start playing. Its just me being realistic about an 8 year old game with a dwindling playerbase. To rely on brand new players at this rate is probably a long shot. However, I think that you can start by opening up more of the game to them. We are on episode 33 and yet, the only thing new players have access to is T1-3 content, which at this rate can be blown through in weeks. How much money is coming in so players can either sub/purchase the episode content? Can't be much. I would open up all the episodes from 1-8 (Sons of Trigon) to free players. At this point those episodes are 6+ years old, and really not many players are in that content anyway. Open it up. Give me more for free. Keep free players playing your game longer. You can keep lairs behind the paywall.

"But I paid for it! Why do they get it free!" - Because its 6 years old. Even at a discounted rate, its not worth the purchase price. If im a new player and I look and see 33 Episodes in front of me, im just not gonna play long. Open SOMETHING up for free.

I would also aim to get old subscribers back in. The game has changed radically from year to year to year and it seems like we're finally at a point where its kind of "what you see is what you get". We went through so many years of combat and progression changes. Get players back in the mix and show what is available in 2018. Give all players between 3 weeks and one month free, and reopen the $30 for 3 month deal to all players from the beginning of the new year until February. Get old blood back in the game. Get them playing and paying for everything you have to offer.

Just my 2 cents.

They tried that (at least for PC players through SOE). Since they haven't continued it, or made another one, I can only imagine it wasn't exactly a big success.

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dc...-yet-recruit-a-friend-soe-dcuos-is-up.168476/

Booster actually has a pretty big following , deff woulda made for a better story then traveling to ww2

& yea $10 a month for people who’ve bought legendary before mighttttt work

And how is it hard to post something on a instagram page or not spam dcuos twitter with nothing but sales reminders n actually use it for informing & hyping the game

idk about the whole 1 -8 episodes but definitely t1 -t5 specific instances that pertain to the main story of the game . anything that has braniac in it. at least so you're left feeling satisfied enough to actually pay to start another set of the story. also maybe lump the episodes or dlcs together . all the green lantern content pertain to the same story and lead into one another from fight for the light to blackest night. maybe play with the item levels and cr scaling so it feels continuous, so they all lead into one another properly. maybe still keep them cr locked so people dont jump into them after completing something like fight for the light , you segway right into war of the light , then after that is blackest day , then blackest night same with all the league of assassins content , darkseid content and aquaman content. idk how youd do it all , and im afraid that changing the old content might break it but its kind of worth a try . im all for certain instance being down for repairs one by one for a revamp just to get replay ability for it