Supporting Returning Players and ideas for Refer-a-Friend?

Let non-gold equip Legendary.

That's all I have to contribute here.

Not being forced to sign up with PSS1. Simple as that.

I would also like the idea of max or near max tradeskillers being able to change classes.

That way returning players that created tradeskillers would be able to try different classes without losing their tradeskill toons.

I think there could be something to win by encouraging more activity in the lower level parts of the game. While any such solution of course will be abused by people just creating new empty alt accounts, one can at least hope some of it will spill over to the real new people:
* Make some reward for grouping with lower level players. That will give them some free PLing which is ok, since it is at 92 the real game is anyways. Something like you accumulate points toward reward xx if you group and adventure with a lower level player that is 1: actively playing(measure number of input commands per sec, refer to the PQ's for such stuff?), and 2: is at least a silver subscriber(to make it a bit harder to just create empty accounts. Extra income for Sony is just a bonus), and 3: No highlevel characters on account. You could add 4: Playing from a different IP address, but that would be bad for families, friends playing from the same place etc.
* Make quests for killing the endmobs in the various lowlevel dungeons in group with at least one unmentored lower level player, same restrictions as above on the lower level player. Quest reward again should be points towards reward xx.
As for the reward: Make some reward that is _worthwhile_ even to raiders. That means it must be game best. The actual effect doesnt have to be that huge, and it better not be since it is easy to abuse any 'new player support' mechanism by making alts. For instance the reward could be a buff spell that grows in power depending on the number of points you have, capped of course but with cap high enough that it will take some significant effort to reach it. For instance 5% cb/pot extra at 92 max for 50ish hours spent with lower levels.
There need to be a requirement of max 1 highlevel per lowlevel to get full benefits or we would see groups of 5 highlevels and 1 lowlevel.
I know many raiders will disagree to this, but IMO: To get best of all in game, you should need to play both raid, heroic and solo parts of it. I fully support what Sony did in Skyshrine where the shoulder slot best in game was from a quest. Only the quest could have been a lot longer and the best in game item need to be the final reward.

While I have been in game since Beta alot of my friends have come and gone and come again.
To get them back the following may help.

Allow them a one time swap of character class/race etc.. So if they played a lvl 65 guardian .. let them come back one time as a lvl 65 wizard?

Increase the help? This is by far the best mmo but playing it can be confusing .. saome way to assist a player learning it?

So what if you use to have a lvl 50 Inquisitor .. basically the names of spells the aa well everything has changed.. you have 2 choices .. roll a new character or slog through the new .... so.....

What if you had a way to mentor down (chronomentor is fine just advertise it more) and earn maybe extra aa or a quest to play each lvl and do 2 quest at that lvl or more to earn some type of special mount or house etc etc. Give them a reason to relearn thier character so they dont feel so bad playing it.

Give the dungeon finder a revamp and or re do it so returnign players can find groups.

ADVERYISE ADVERTISE ADVERTISE I rarely see any advertisement and you should be. This is a great game and the best feature for new players and returning is Mentor and Mercs use that to get them back

Windstalker wrote:

-------
http://www.businessfast4ward.com/sm...er-acquisition/

• Acquiring a new customer can cost 6 to 7 times more than retaining an existing customer

• Businesses which boosted customer retention rates by as little as 5% saw increases in their profits ranging from 5% to a whopping 95%

First rule of triage, stop the bleeding. As has been said, stop driving away current customers.
When you need the gear from the zone (or better) to do the zone, people just give up. (Min/maxers of course don't have this problem.)
You need to revive PuGing and make it viable. There needs to be ways to get viable gear for heroic zones that do not require a group. So that people can get reasonable gear for zones. Make things worth doing.
DO AWAY WITH HEIRLOOM AND NO-TRADE, make everything attunable (or not) and TRADEABLE.
DO AWAY WITH THE XP PENALTY SO THAT grouping with people doesn't hurt the individuals XP and actually encourages people to group with people that are not min maxers.
Make NEW areas the best place to level and not mentoring/moloing in Sebelis.
Stop with the corny ideas like "Dungeon Maker" that basically show that you are not interested in developing real content, only gimicky content. Gimmicks give 'bumps', content gives increases.
Quit wasting time on things like SOEmote.
Quit developing content based on the top 5% of your player population, and develop for everyone.
Give people a 1 time chance to xfer servers (FOR EVERY TOON AND THEIR GUILD).

-------
As for getting customers back, if they aren't coming back when it's 'free' they aren't coming back. If you please current customers we will bring our friends back.

I hope this comment doesn't earn me a block or ban...and I'll be very disappointed if it is moderated because it's truthful feedback in a thread asking for it. There is nothing that would get me to consider referring a friend to this game as long as SmokeJumper is involved in the destruction of it.

How about making the LFD tool actually useful. Make it crossserver, make it stop putting you in a dungeon alone only to have to sit and wait for a miracle that others will join. Allow for more than 1 mercenary per person out at a time. Finish added quest poi's to the map for all zones.

Lets see
why is there the current requirements to obtain server transfer tokens? The system is automated now, allow actively paying accounts and even free to play accounts the ability to obtain the tokens. Also, transfer tokens are fairly pricey for a service that takes no manpower to accomplish.
Implement a way to keep a characters craft level but reset adventure class. Should include a warning that doing so will not reset quest log and therefore may prove more difficult to level via quests(although mob grinding is faster anyways).
Your current pvp system is awful. Come up with something inspiring here and you could see a resurgence. Whether that be special zones that tie servers against one another that provides something tangible. Losing side should not be punished because many servers lack pvp players, but a simple buff that increases loot drop quality or access to a special dungeon would be worthwhile
Eventually, tie events in EQ2 to rewards in upcoming EQNext. Nothing crazy, special appearance item/titles/house items(Im assuming they will return there)

Respox wrote:

+1 to this.
If this is partly about bringing in new people, it seems silly to me that I tell them don't worry about gear until you're 90. You can stand there naked, just don't get too close to the mobs while I run my pally through the zones and get you 1-60 in about 2-3 hours, then stand naked in SoS/Chelsith/Seb while I get you the rest of the way to 90 shortly.
To go even futher, if the heirloom gear was treasured and they could wear it when FTP it would likelyamke them feel better about their character. Make it really crummy gear if you want, but at least allow them something to put in the slot that will stay useful for a bit. As it is right now it would take almost as long to search on the broker and buy the gear than it would take to just level past the gear.

Vinyard@Antonia Bayle wrote:

+1 to this too.
When players can actually see the content that is there, I think they will be much more hooked on the game. As it is now, I take them at lvl 1 and CoV them to Stormhold (which btw is fun if you mentor down to 1 and go run through the first two rooms and holy ground, once you finally kill everything they ding about 10 levels from the first set), then run them through there until I swap toons and CoV them to the next dungeon, etc. There is no incentive for the to set foot in Antonica, TS, Nek, EL, Zek, etc.
If you could change the xp mechanics to where there was actually a decent reward for going through the overland content, I think there would be at least an incentive to group. Granted many of the dungeons are nice, but compared to the overland zones there is just not as much there and in my opinion does not make the game as appealing to new players.
---
If it's just about endgame, then give us the 200%xp bonus back, because I would love to see how fast I could grind someone up with that back on now. The problem is that they won't even know what 3/4 of the spells on their hotbar do, then they'll fail on easy fights like Exxodus in ST raid, when they say "I thought that spell was an Arcane....", lol .

Warpax wrote:

Had to say +1 to this too. Would actually be halfway decent if it was cross-server, and had mandatory tank/heal/support(bard or chanter/dps (x2)/random. Granted you may not be able to run challenge with the wrong setups, but really it would be better than now.
---
We know there is a gear score on the gear (when it appeared and disappeard before), show it to us. For example, I do not want to waste my time joining a group that is only running ST easy mode, likewise, a legendary geared healer and/or tank do not want to feel bad for failing when a group wants to run challenge (and I would not want them to). WoW has an item level (ilvl), and it seems to do a good job of setting up groups that are fairly similar in gear. I mean, if I'm pushing 4 or 500k on the last named in ST challenge, and the tank is in WL lego gear, it's going to turn into me tanking it on my scout, and that is not a win for anyone. I know that it is a hotbutton issue, but I think the use of a cross-server groupbuilder tool is needed with the current server pops more than ever.

This is how you could support returning players, or even the current ones, in no particular order:
Get rid of you-know-who and hire someone who isn't focused on real money transactions (RMT) instead of game content. If the jump to embrace RMT hadn't taken center stage, most of the problems that followed could have been avoided.
Hire enough competent staff to run the game properly. Or, pull some from making things for the SC store and have them work on in-game content. One problem right now is that PVP/Battlegrounds and Tradeskill is being handled by ONE person, and none of the areas are getting the attention they deserve. Because of this, your paying customers are getting more and more frustrated, resulting in a big loss of players who won't come back.
FIX BROKEN CONTENT. I cannot stress this enough. Mastercrafted gear errors that happened when a GU was released THIRTEEN MONTHS AGO still haven't been fixed. There are also a lot of broken raid encounters, gear, spells, I could go on and on.
COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR PLAYER BASE. You would think that after seven years, the people at SoE would have figured out that ignoring your customers and/or lying to them is one of the top reasons customers leave. Give regular updates, even if it is something as mundane as "x is being looked at, will let you know more soon.", then FOLLOW UP on it in a timely manner.
TEST CONTENT THOROUGHLY BEFORE LETTING IT HIT LIVE SERVERS. Right now, the next expansion that is set to release in mid-November isn't even up on Beta server yet. That gives about a month of testing, bug reporting, feedbacking, and then getting the bugs and problems fixed before release. This is another area that SoE fails in big time. Expansions should be up a MINIMUM of two months to be properly tested, plus giving time for code to be run through to make sure the expansion content doesn't mess up any regular content.
LISTEN AND HEAR YOUR PLAYERS. We are the ones who spend hours upon hours playing the game. When we say something isn't working and needs to be looked at, please believe we know what we are talking about. And no, I don't mean one person whining about something, but when you have a thread with 30 pages of people saying something is broken, please take it into consideration and look at it.

Finora@Everfrost wrote:

For returning players who have been gone 6 mo +, something that would be nice to have in the goodie bag for returning would be enough unlockers to unlock ONE character's gear and Gold access for 2 weeks (the unlockers to be used after that 2 weeks). Heck even have the Gold access for 2 weeks and then, for those who had actually played for x # of hours in that 2 weeks (i.e. 10+ hours, which is an average of less than 1 hour a day), a mail with a goodie bag 'reward' of a enough unlockers for 1 character's gear. That way the returning player, if they don't sub with gold, would have their most played character available without and initial unlockers. Or, to be beneficial to those who do sub gold, after the 2 weeks with a minimum amount of logged in time, an amount of SC equal to 1 character's worth of gear. Someone not going gold could use it for their unlockers and someone going gold could use it for something else.
For new players, it would be nice if there was an increased incentive to mentor other players. Chest rewards of alternate currency (like how shards are rewarded now) for the mentoring character which could be used to purchase level appropriate gear (i.e. the same stuff dropping in the heroic dungeons for the natural level) might be nice or even a chance for some of the crafting components for the V2 stuff. BUT, it would have to be limited to only while mentoring a lower level character and while that lower level character is also actively participating, elsewise it would be open to a lot of exploiting like the old RAF.

I'd happily refer friends to play this game as a Bronze or Silver account.
I would not encourage anyone to pay a monthly subscription.

I'm not going to interest any of my friends in the game if they have to gain 92 levels in order to play the game I play.

There are a lot of good ideas posted so far, more than I could possible quote to second them all. Of note is a set of unlockers for returning players plus gold sub options. Maybe two weeks of gold sub for previous subscribers and one week for new players. Let them experience what EQ2 is like naturally. I personally think the store and sub model is fair but only because I know the whole product of EQ2 and know it’s worth it.

As a “theme” I think bringing back old players and getting in new ones comes down to showing them what EQ2 really offers. It’s the deepest feature and content MMO out there but not enough realize it. Currently, signing up for a free trial and playing for an hour or two doesn’t do it as there are far too many systems that are worth note but are never seen. My suggestion:

Starting experience metaquest

• Each player starts out in the city they selected in character creation and is immediately greeted by an Ambassador. Previous subscribers would also get this quest as things could have changed since they last played.

• After a few bits of conversation a “meta quest” containing many regular quests pops up and offers a hefty reward. They are also given the option to go out and “kill things” in which they can be teleported, returning crystal in hand, to the current starting location and come back at their leisure.

• Each step of the metaquest will send them to places in their home city to craft, play with housing, write a book, adorn a piece of gear, put on a set of cosmetic gear, configure SoEMote, play with emotes (more on that later), etc. All of the features EQ2 has for its players. I know some of these quests already exist but I think they need to be bound together and kept shorter with options to go more in depth (e.g. crafting). One quest could be a diplomatic mission to Qeynos/Freeport or even the other starting cities so they see those. You could even add voiceover to each step for more emphasis.

• Once they are done and have their reward they can be sent by the Ambassador to the usual start location and continue thier journey.

By then they will have spent an hour or two seeing how much there is to do in EQ2 outside of combat and they will know where to go back to if they want to continue a certain activity. Most MMO players already know what combat is like and EQ2’s combat is similar to a lot of them. Showing them what makes EQ2 different is key and in a sea of F2P games you don’t have a lot of time to hook the fish.

Ulrichvon wrote:

But getting those 92 levels is a walk in the park, from what I keep seeing posted on these forums. That's especially true if you help power level them.
What alternative would you suggest?

A few more ideas that I think could perk people’s interest:

Class and profession interchanging

The ability to change to any class/profession once it’s unlocked by that class/profession NPC trainer via a single quest or chain. Any new class/profession would start as if you created a new character and would be held in stasis if you switched to another. This would be a subscription option and the idea is being able to fill another role or try something new without losing the achievements of your main.

Emote interaction mode

A toggled mode that allowed you to react to the emote queues of NPCs and players in real time. When an emote is initiated at you, or in some cases around you, a small text-based hotbar with a set of filtered reactions would appear based upon what the initial emote was. If someone came up to you and /wave you may have five buttons pop up, one of them /wave of course, and clicking it would /wave back to them. This could even be integrated into quests or Easter egg opportunities if the NPCs reacted to your emotes.

There about 130 different emotes and many have detailed animations and speech (different depending on the voice you choose) that I think often go unseen/unheard. I think a good way of reaching the full range of emotes could be an icon by your name that once clicked would reveal an organized cascade of emotes according to category. Keep the option for hotbar placement of course, I’m sure people like having that kind of access, I just think more would use them if they were easier to /reach.

If you want to bring back players and KEEP them, learn to listen to what your player base is telling you.
When everyone says what you're doing is wrong and you concentrate on the wrong things and you still keep doing it, well, then, you won't keep the players. It doesn't matter what rewards you offer when you still have huge bugs in the game, an archaic one processor system and instead on working on what matters you keep adding stuff to the Marketplace.
You guys have been told these things countless times and you still didn't get anything onboard and you can now clearly see the results of that attitude. You can't say you haven't been warned this will happen.

Drupal wrote:

Very well said, & much more politely than I've been inclined, lately.
Too bad that SOE won't listen to this advice, any more than it ever has in the past.