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Problems Recruiting

Firebrand

Inactive Member
So, I'm trying to recruit more and more players for the site, and I've run into a hard brick wall: People see how big the forums are, how big the wiki is, see how the number of registered users... and immediately beg off because its too big. I'm trying to help the site, but apparently I'm making things worse.
 
That's a hurdle with things of this scope but thing's I'd suggest is try to sell them on a few cool points. I mean I saw the mindy and heard cat girls in 80's space japan so that sold me. Try talking about things your doing or neat things about a plot going on your part of this might help get over that hurdle.

I know when i'm trying to get people in for events for stuff I dm for local events I try to sell what it is we are doing and that gets them in the door. Once you get them there then it's just showing them some stuff you highlighted.
 
let them know they dont have to take it all in...

have them make a new player introduction.
Show them the active plots.
Find a plot that sounds interesting.
Join the discord and everyone will help you make a character.
Anything they miss can be addressed in character creation. They are new and we arent cruel and are willing to help.

it is not a requirement they know 20 years worth of lore. They can learn at their own pace or ask if they need help. Even the amount of players shouldnt dissuade them unless they are trying to join a plot as large as the kaiyo without knowing its size (Theres nothing wrong with the kaiyo. I just think it might be intimidating trying to join a plot that big right off the bat with that many people and that quick pacing for them to try to absorb.)
 
As a new player, I think I will pitch in my experience in this field of how things get over a new player. So no offense meant in any regards, but hey maybe it can be taken in as a learning curve?

I've had SARP on my radar already a year or so, the very first thing that held me back was that it was quite overwhelming when scouting the website. Now when giving it a second try a few weeks ago, it was still daunting to get the correct information. Yes, you get awesome support from a community that is very open. But only if you ask in the channel, while this sound like common sense to some, it is a threshold that can be overwhelming to pass. People, in general, are shy and want to take the easy route.

Again I totally understand that 20 years worth of lore is not something you make an easy guide for or create a easy route. But it is worth considering that it might lower the expectation of gaining more members when that line is quite far. For example, I created a Daur as the first character and it was well written, good organized and yet I had 10 tabs open to get this character going. Again I got brilliant support on every front, but it cost time and effort that might be too much for a new player. On the other side, it is not very clear who is Faction Leader of what faction. Yes, I see the roles in Discord and yes I get a general idea where to go to when someone points in the right direction. But its build on a structure face-to-face, everyone that is long enough in the community knows who does what eventually. This might be challenging for the new players also.

Anything else...mmm yes, plot ideas being regularly updated. Now I am grateful this got addressed already by the audits, but it is something a new player looks at, is the community active? Is there a story, well hell yea there is. Thought the pages are out of date a little bit.

Well, these are my two cents, hope I have not made any enemies now.
 
In my opinion, I think a good idea should be to create a page/part of the newbie guide that mentions who the FMs are and contact notes for them. I'm normally set to offline on Discord, for example, but can normally be "summoned"/alerted with a ping, while there are some FMs who prefer to be DM'd instead of asked in the genchats/new threads.

While I haven't been around as much in recent times, I know we have always had an issue of one or two people - the same people normally - always diving on new members. This is great but it also tends to "choke" options if that person wants the new member to go down one specific route. Wolfe's issue of needing 10 pages would be alleviated, IMO, if there had been someone to sit there and walk him through the Daur & give him things. This isn't me ragging on the one who runs them but I know as an FM I rarely see anyone else mimic my idea of promoting other ideas/factions that might fit players more. A big issue here can be resolved if we FMs are willing to step-up not just for their faction but site health, too, and assist new members when approached/they see it.

But as to the original points: it is 100% impossible to lessen the site age and size impact on new players. This is something that happens to everyone. Even I went through it, as I'd seen SARP years before but pushed it off before my experience & interest took over. The only way to shortcut it is to tell new players to try out the smaller factions. And no, I'm not talking about any of the current "main ones", such as Yamatai, Nepleslia, or the NDC/S6. I'm talking about encouraging them into factions that don't have more than 3-4 years minimum to pick up/RP with fellow members adequately. And I get that people might think this isn't the case for them due to their guides & the ability to get someone going with basics, but when they interact with older members who reference things in the plots, that becomes an issue. If we had people taking an interest/attempt at more simple, less-content heavy groups like Abwehran or Freespacers (they are old but are fundamentally due to the nature of their individualism very easy to catch-up on) then I do think the entry gap would be a little easier/allowing for them to learn the setting and get roots.

But the issue there is almost none of the minor factions that would work have plot-bases, so this view will very likely get snubbed. All I know is that currently, we need to encourage new members to not walk into the "one faction option" that I've spotted more than once. I've complained some on my view that we have too many "one-faction" players as a result of it, which is precisely what creates cliques more so than anything else. We need people who are willing and actively trying to spread their RP to more than one area, otherwise, there'll continue being situations where new players will feel they can only find their one true faction.
 
Warning: Novel incoming

Do we have any discord bots? Would it be possible to have one of them respond to things like !newplayers , which would give a list of links to..
  1. A solid, concise, easy-to-follow new player page that introduces the setting, key concepts, rules, etc
  2. List of active plots and what they're looking for. Each plot should have 2-3 sentences explaining what it is, what faction it belongs to, be well-linked, etc so that people can dig in deeper if something catches their eye. The 'order' of the plots could be determined by most recent plot, plot that needs people the most, random, whatever
  3. New player guide (which would cover factions, species, etc, in a similar fashion to plots above)
Something like that could be a great way to reduce bias and make it so anyone who is on can give a new person all the resources they might need to get started.

The wiki itself could use an overhaul in some places to focus on specific, actionable content and then fluff second. Look at how D&D/Pathfinder/etc handle their creature and item blocks. They begin with short, easy to understand descriptions, then go into all the relevant stats you need for gameplay, then go into all the fluff. The more that the fluff is 'optional reading', the better, when it comes to getting new players in. Compare the current experience to something like making a character in a tabletop game. D&D 5e has seen a huge surge in players precisely because of how easy it is to get started. We don't have to simplify things all the way down, but there's a lot of opportunity for reducing friction.

The forums and wiki sometimes disagree on how you should proceed as a new player. The forum specifically says you don't need to make a wiki page.


In the above recommendation, the flow goes..
  1. I join the Discord server
  2. Someone (or automatically?) calls up the New Player stuff
  3. I look through the initial guide and get a feel for if Star Army is right for me. If it is, then I want to play!
  4. I look at the list of plots. Something catches my eye. I click on the 'Create a Character for this Faction' link (or something like that)
  5. That link gives me all the relevant info I need to be in that faction.
    1. A basic faction overview at the beginning that covers all the most important details
    2. Species are called out with quick blurbs and basic histories so that I can see what interests me and come up with a way to fit in.
      1. If I choose one, I should be able to get everything I need, at a basic level, without having to scroll.
    3. Occupations, etc, are likewise called out with simple explanations.
      1. Same. All the basics should be there without a need for scrolling.
      2. Occupation skills should still be front-and-center here
  6. I start to work on my character sheet at this point. The existing template generator is pretty good.
    1. I should know enough from my faction, species, and occupation's basic premise that I can make an okay first-pass history without help
    2. Skills should be straight-forward. "Get skills from your occupation, then add skills to customize. Optionally add information about how your character uses those skills that makes them special."
    3. Likewise equipment. I should already have a selection of them called out from my faction, species, and occupation. ('Weapon Familiarity: Elves are proficient with longbows (including composite longbows), longswords, rapiers, and shortbows (including composite shortbows), and treat any weapon with the word “elven” in its name as a martial weapon.' ...)
  7. And then I'm done
That's still a lot of steps! Compared to the 5E example where you go 'Race', 'Background', 'Class', 'Equipment'. Class even gives you recommended equipment loadouts, which is something we could (and already, to an extent!) do. This flow should be a bit easier.


We could even take it a step beyond that and really optimize things by making pre-made blocks to paste into your character sheet. The species one could be pre-filled with the age, size, etc ranges, as well as any other pertinent info, with instructions for the player to follow. Same for Occupations - "Copy and Paste this into the area where it says 'Occupation', this into the area where it says 'Skills', and this into the area where it says 'Equipment'. And in each of those it could say, 'Pick three more skills from the list at www.stararmyskills.com' 'You have an extra 3000 spacebucks to buy things, go to this page to see what is commonly available in your faction', and so on...

Somewhere along the way there should probably be something like Wes' timeline, especially if it's aimed at recent events. Timelines could (should?) be faction specific. ("All members of the Star Army, even new recruits, remember the war against the Mishhuvurthyar, a terrifying alien race that used its technological prowess to..." ... "In recent years, the Star Army has begun to repel a new invader, the Kuvexians, who use slave races to make up their vanguard." ...) etc etc. So long as I don't try to call out specific events, that gives me enough to say "Fought valiantly in the war against the Mishhu.." ... "... now seeking a new home aboard the SS Plotship".

Heck, even the way the ranks are setup right now, where you start at the lowest rank, is designed to help new players, right? "Yes, you're new, but so is your character! We would only expect a newly-minted Neko to know the things that you saw in the guide.." "As a new member of the NDC, there's a lot of history that you - and everyone else - simply doesn't know about the NDC's origins unless you went looking for it. You do know that.." And so on.

At any point, we can tell players that there is plenty of other stuff on the wiki. We can encourage them from the start - but we should make it clear that new players don't have to go any deeper into the 'waters' than what the initial guide offers them.

I'm new and all, so I don't have the experience you guys have with trying to get new people in. What I can say is that there's nothing about all the information here that requires it to be hard for new players to get started. If we care about it enough, I'd challenge us to find a way to get the whole process into the 30 minutes to an hour range with a high degree of success. That's still a big time investment for someone, but not any more so than writing a post.
 
This is some very well thought-out feedback and I'm going to keep it in mind and I'm going to see what parts of it are feasible for us.

One reason damage rating stats aren't more promninent is because they're not really important. The RP is story-based and not a game like a tabletop RPG so they're only there for GMs and players who prefer the option of a straightforward and consistent way to estimate combat weapon effects on stuff. But a lot of GMs don't use them I think.
 
They are important for giving you an idea of a weapons potential damage output.

Otherwise every single starship weapons is more powerful than all the other ones because the only thing to base it off of is the bias of the creator. And the *little killer* pistol is as powerful as the HHG because theres nothing to say its not~

It seems mostly a PVP thing, Which never happens here anymore cause everyone is bias about their tech and stuff and it has to be stronger than everyone elses and they will use FM/GM discression even if it wasnt. And because nobody can ever agree to lose, Even if the results are decided before hand. But its a useful system none the less.
 
They are important for giving you an idea of a weapons potential damage output.

Otherwise every single starship weapons is more powerful than all the other ones because the only thing to base it off of is the bias of the creator. And the *little killer* pistol is as powerful as the HHG because theres nothing to say its not~

It seems mostly a PVP thing, Which never happens here anymore cause everyone is bias about their tech and stuff and it has to be stronger than everyone elses and they will use FM/GM discression even if it wasnt. And because nobody can ever agree to lose, Even if the results are decided before hand. But its a useful system none the less.
Except the HHG is the most powerful pistol and anyone who says otherwise deserves to get shot by it until they change their mind.

Nepleslian sidearms are way better than the rest.
 
On that side note, I was kinda worried that my observation would not be carried or rather dismissed. But I am glad that the community embraces the suggestions, the feedback and even added their own observations to improve the community health. As mentioned before to me once, a community is only so much as to what people are willing to contribute to it, if it has no members it has no foundation and ceases to exist. So I am glad to see that even new members opinion is heard :D
 
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