In addition to my idea of
creating a setting introduction page to combat setting intimidation, I want to restate another idea I had in IRC to combat player retention after the 1-2 week mark.
I am against the idea of creating segregated newbie plots,
especially if they're non-cannon for a variety of reasons that I don't want to go into right now. Instead, I am much more in favor of newbie-friendly plots designed to get new players quickly invested in the world and their characters.
I feel that a big cause of the loss of players is, to put it bluntly, people being distracted before they form an attachment or habit. They find SARP, get a character setup, join a plot, write post or two and then end up waiting to be able to post again. They spend a day or two waiting for the next chance to play their character (likely exacerbated by newbie apprehensiveness), and then get distracted by a steam sale, another community, or some other shiny attention grabbing thing. They then have no significant attachment pulling them back to SARP or their character and we lose them.
With that in mind, I'd like to propose a system of face paced but short term plots that are designed to be less complex lore-wise and overall friendly to newbies.
These would be plots with a small number (3-6) players with very high posting requirements (aiming for at least once a day) but short duration (perhaps two or three weeks). The plots would be open to both newbies and vets, but should always strive to have at least one of both and should leave at least one position open for new SARPers if there isn't one in the plot already. The idea is to get new players into the setting and checking the forums every day, and ideally give them a chance to do something cool or memorable within the first two weeks of play.
An example plot idea could be a small squad of infantry gets sent to investigate a distress signal on an unknown world. A single objective not attached to a larger plot that starts out with a definitive objective and call to action. In a larger overarching plot, it could be setup episodicly as a squad made up of volunteers on a large ship that gets sent on special missions (a new objective/plot every two weeks).