I have been playing this game for almost three weeks now. I have been playing long enough to reach level (almost) 33 and have gotten to know quite a few people in this game. Made some friends, am part of the Brethren Faction, and have grown to love this game more than any other MMO I have ever played. I have extreme experience in MMO's, I understand and pick up on game mechanics extremely fast, I have a natural understanding of MMO's in general. But that's just me....
Ever since I have been playing this game and saved up quite a bit of cash through hefty looting, working the markets, and just conserving my Info when I can, I came to a point where I had enough Info that I felt comfortable enough to buy tons of Trench Coats for males and females. What do I do with all of these Trench Coats you ask? I give them away to any new player that enters this game for the first time as a "Welcome to the game" gift. By doing this, I have many many many conversations with people who just logged in for the first time or people who have only logged on a couple times. Hang tight, this is necessary in getting to my point....
After talking to numerous people who have just started playing the game, I came to realize that they most often think they are alone in this game. They think this game is dead and that only a hand full of people play it. One guy I talked to was even *just* about ready to quit the game, because in his nine levels of playing, I was the first person he had seen in the game. He was under the assumption that this game was dead, and he was all alone....Not good.
I can understand why though. I recently came from another game called City of Heroes/Villains. In that game, when you first come out of the tutorial, you come to a place where massive amounts of people like to hang out. The first thing you see is people holding costume contests, socializing, showing off emote binds, so on and so forth. It shows the new players that the game is not only populated, but players do more in the game than just running missions. Players know that they are not alone, and thus stay in the game.
My proposal? Simple. Give Uriah a makeover. Make it a place where people actually want to be. Give it a wide open space where people can PvP. Add benches where people can sit. Give it a nice little place where people can dance. Make it the place everyone wants to be. Make it a place that will encourage players to hang out, this way if new players have questions, they are right where they need to be to get them answered. This game can be very confusing when you first start, and with nobody around to answer questions, it leaves you unguided and lost. Make Uriah the place to be. This way, when somebody logs on the game for the very first time, they know that they are not alone in the game. They will stay longer than a few levels and may even decide to stay long enough to see "Just how deep the rabbit hole goes."
This game has so much potential it is not even funny. But to see the potential of the game, you have to level beyond level ten. Best way to get people to want to level past ten, is let them see the people who also play the game. Let the players take control over the events, put them in a place where newer players can see them. Put them in a place where new players can see all the eye candy of the rewards the higher levels have reaped through their hard work and patience. It will give new players something to look forward to, and it will make the community larger. The game will increase in player numbers, and the game will be alot more social.
I believe if this were to happen, this games population would drastically increase.
Thanks for any opinions and feedback...be it positive or negative.
