Reinvigorating the Player Base

[Sionix]

With over 1000 days vet on this server , talking to 1000s of players during that time , the issues that seem to crop up now are as follows .but before I start with my opinions , il say what awakening has over other servers is stability and the "no wipe" policy . Only part I would throw in here is we have a solid core community that never hesitate to reach/help out other players. Other servers note us as an example where that is concerned.

7) open up more items from nge , cu , there are tons of people who just like to decorate and collect , we need
Some more fun items added . Ooooo yes please?

9) we need someone who can run regular events and more festive events during holiday times This would be great but do we have anyone willing to step and help with this? If so reach out to the devs and say HEY I can help?! They have asked us to do that a number of the times over the years. Personally I wouldn't do a good job at something like this but others might have a knack for it!

10) new vehicles , something a bit faster to get about on . This would be nice

12) increase vender listing times to 60 days OOoooo from a crafter standpoint YES PRETTY PLEASE WITH SUGAR ON TOP! Throw in a relist all button and I will even (well maybeeee) stop recycling certain people

Keeping in mind that I have no clue how do any of the above things to help this is a nice wish list in my eyes. Remember I am not a pvp'er, most of my toons just craft.

[Mudkipz]

Well I personally am not playing because my old characters were deleted if that were not the case i'd probably stop in every once and awhile and PVP. When I played I played mainly because of a really great group of people <CoA>. So I would say focusing really hard on accepting newer players into guilds which I think Turin seems to do, would be a big thing openly showing them and some stuff that Turin did like guild runs for Krayts, NS, SMC, DWB etc like that I know was a really good driver for our newer members.

The experience rate wasn't too bad but I was also unemployed at the time and that's pretty much the only reason I had unlocked two jedi and almost a third one I probably would've stuck to one had I been anyone else.

For loot drops I honestly never had too huge of a complaint about it you just have to figure out a method to max your kills per buff session, personally if I wanted tapes I would kill Axhva on respawn which you can solo with a rifleman+ squad leader and then I would move out to the SMC POI and put my squad leader in a safe position on the mountain where SMC wouldn't kill him or honestly you can just go get your squad leader maxed SMC experience and they won't attack it regardless and I would run in circles poisoning and diseases on the councilwomen and kill those + everything else in strafe range and it wasn't too bad for 20+ ca/aa drops. Krayts I would normally get 2-3 with my TK tank and aoe them down with a commando. I didn't really play swordsman or fencer so I didn't bother too much with Acklay the drop rates were just too bad and it wasn't something you could speed up.

Events were huge for us as well so I would say if that came back that could definitely have a positive effect on the community when Thor ran events he would have people group altogether and put the loot on random I believe and it would give those newer to the game a chance to get higher end loot tapes etc but not at too ridiculous of a rate.

I see a lot of the same hard core people around, hope everyone is doing well and good luck on the revitalization with pub 9. Maybe i'll come check it out.

[Turin]

Hello idah long time no see.

[AmerineJL]

I'm glad I'm not alone on the loot issue. A couple more thoughts.

Hard mode for Jedi is great because it essentially turns Jedi into a vet reward for the time invested. I have two Jedi; they are very obtainable but it takes patience. The unlock was as satisfying here as it was in live, which is a feat in and of itself. But I unlocked two Jedi because I had nothing else to do as I worked on the first unlock (won't say more to avoid spoilers). And that is the core problem. I remember my epic, solo journey in live to get the parts for a jetpack. It took hours, it was fun, and it was obtainable. But that kind of thing is out of reach here. I can't go out and solo grind for fun rewards the way I could in live. And we have to group and grind for hours as a group to get just about anything of value, if we are even lucky enough to get the drop. That doesn't work in EMUs where they all have inherently smaller player bases. The amazing players I know who figured out how to spend hours two-boxing a single spawn of a hard mob shouldn't represent the best case option. It shouldn't be that complicated to just go out and have some fun with the game.

There should be three general tiers of loot: lower level stuff that drops because it drops; mid-level, hard-but-not-impossible loot that you can reasonably grind and obtain as a solo or grouped player, and high-end, need a group, holy-hell-that-was-hard loot.

When I saw someone in a pod racer on a server zipping by, I asked how he got it and was ready to make a character just to grind away and get one. I didn't like other aspects of the server, but it reminded me why I'm playing an EMU. I don't want that sort of thing handed to me but I would like to be able to put in some time and, with luck, end up with something silly like that. You can't do that here. And that is the root issue for many from what I can gather. There should be epic loot that is epically hard to obtain. But there should be decent loot we can reasonably obtain, too. There has to be a satisfying solo experience while still incentivizing people to group up for harder mobs.

[trvandrew]

EXACTLY

[Athair]

I had no idea gen chat was up. freaked me out a moment. I've been so far removed for so long it has been plain silly.

I'm just hopeful that the next update will bring some back. I miss the large numbers of people.

[Peleliu]

I generally like this server and the pleasure it has given me over the years. What would I like to see?

1. More frequent, but much smaller updates. Perhaps 4 a year. Each one could focus on a set of things. Bug crushing could be one. Perhaps tuning a set of professions in another. Adding more quests. A vehicle addition update. Expand the pet roster update. I am ignorant of the effort required for mini updates like that, but I suspect some might be fairly easy such as allowing a wider range of pets to be tamed (should only involve flipping a yes/no switch somewhere). I also think mini updates would show people there is development activity, even if at a slow pace. Large updates seem to exponentially increase development times compared to focusing on a couple of things. Our devs are, presumably, also our players and surely want to be playing rather than deving too much. No need to burn them out.

2. Loot drops. OMG did I say that? Don't touch the rare drops, but switching out the useless or empty rolls on the tables for something at least marginally useful might quell the unrest. Kill Akxva get nothing? At least give it credits worth an average mission...say 20-30k. If loot does drop then at least get something like a +10 usable tape or newly added rare deco loot. Krayts? Well ancients should always drop something usable...even if a low-grade tissue.

3. Vendor 60-day listings. This is a huge one for so many people. We invest a huge amount of time into crafting and gathering resources as it is. Vendor vomit is a mental drain and eats so much of our available game time. Such a simple thing would improve crafter morale, improve the market, and allow us to enjoy our game.

4. Jedi. No secret that I never liked the idea of Jedi in Live and I certainly don't here. They just never belonged in this particular setting. I have, however, always loved the idea of Force Sensitive and the skill tree. I have been working on FS since day 1 here. I think I am 4/7 after 2.5 years. I'll get there one day. As for Jedi...I wish we could just slowly let them fade away and return to the game I loved when it was filled with scoundrels, scum, villains, heroes, and moisture farmers. Before the dark times...before the glow sticks.

[Deepfry]

Starter cities are empty.
A common statement I hear a lot from new starters is "Where are all the players?" A simple solution to this is a barker listing all the active cities. A more proactive solution is for a doc and ent to be set up in at least Mos Eisly cantina who is also a barker for the active cities.

My two cents on this point:
I like the barker idea, but I fear the problem is deeper rooted. For example:
New player comes online in Mos Eisley, wonders where everyone is, thinks everything seems dead. Hopefully he pays attention to the barker you suggest, and he heads off to a recommended player city, such as New Destiny, or Tusken's Bane, or wherever.
For me, this is where the problem truly begins. I can't speak for what the situation is in US prime time, but I can tell you that during the day in Europe, player cities are empty too. Take ND as an example. I'm there 5 mornings a week. You'll see Airy and Novro in the sky cantina (both AFK obviously). You might see one of Turin's toons in the treehouse. And that's it folks. So the new player is going to be extremely underwhelmed.
I've often wondered whether we are overstretching ourselves. Instead of having 6, 7, 8 (or whatever the number is) player cities each with a tiny handful of players online, and each struggling to keep up the required number of players to meet dual spec requirements, and struggling to keep vendors in malls, might it not make better sense to concentrate on properly maintaining a smaller number of player cities ?
It seems to me that the way things stand, new players (and old) can travel around all the recommended player cities "where all the action is" and find them empty.
Sorry if I sound harsh, but this is certainly my experience as a European player. Maybe in US prime time everything is different.

[Cynar]

The only thing that will bring the server to life is the community. You can get all of the development, tweaks, additions, CU & NGE’s in the world and it will not help. What the game needs is current players promoting playing the game to a new crop of players and getting the old players back into the fold. All of the above won’t do any good unless you get people interested in playing a 15 year old game. It didn’t work for SOE, why would it work for a handful of people in their spare time?

It’s a challenge and it’s a challenge you should not put solely on the Awakening team. If you want people to really play here then it’s up to you to make it happen. The Awakening staff should focus on development, support, and maintenance. This is not an “insert any game company here”. There simply isn’t the time and resources for a volunteer project to accomplish all of these things and try to sell a emu in a market saturated with new, fresh games.

While changes are being made and Publish 9 is being tested things you can do to help is promote, promote, promote. Social Media makes this possible. Tools like Facebook, Twitter, gaming sites & forums, top 100 lists, Reddit, YouTube, Twitch TV, and on. If every active player took 5 minutes every day for 2 or 3 months to promote this server, help new players in-game and on the forums, honest to god testing and real detailed feedback this server will rival swgemu every day of the week.

If all of you did this in lieu of complaining or making your personal self-interests a priority when posting here, go out and make a difference. Do it! The status quo just doesn’t cut it anymore folks. There are too many emu private servers popping up every month. You are the ones investing your time here. You want that changes to happen, help Awakening get the players here and help the new Awakening staff keep them here by doing all of the positive things I mentioned.

Word of mouth, voting on the top sites, and helping newbies should get your started. When Aso, Ed, and I started all of these we did these things with consistency and it worked. A small handful of people can make a dent, but 20-30 of you can make a difference!

[lassic]

Starter cities are empty.
A common statement I hear a lot from new starters is "Where are all the players?" A simple solution to this is a barker listing all the active cities. A more proactive solution is for a doc and ent to be set up in at least Mos Eisly cantina who is also a barker for the active cities.

I've often wondered whether we are overstretching ourselves. Instead of having 6, 7, 8 (or whatever the number is) player cities each with a tiny handful of players online, and each struggling to keep up the required number of players to meet dual spec requirements, and struggling to keep vendors in malls, might it not make better sense to concentrate on properly maintaining a smaller number of player cities ?
It seems to me that the way things stand, new players (and old) can travel around all the recommended player cities "where all the action is" and find them empty.
Sorry if I sound harsh, but this is certainly my experience as a European player. Maybe in US prime time everything is different.

We agree with you about reinvigorating the existing cities. We have had some success with a couple. Absinthe talked to a couple and they took over one of our cities that was failing due to a r/l issue with its mayor. I posted about Sanctuary and someone stepped up. Then we have folks who lose their shit when you try to point them in that way, i.e. markyd. It is not as simple a solution as you would think. There are a lot of folks who would like to do a city from ground up. Completely unaware of the investment of their time and resources in order to even minimally maintain a city. If they were to take over an existing city that is need of support, it would save them some of that investment. Anyway, good idea, but is is up to us as a community to do it, not the devs.

[Darkspecialist]

Then we have folks who lose their shit when you try to point them in that way, i.e. markyd. It is not as simple a solution as you would think. There are a lot of folks who would like to do a city from ground up. Completely unaware of the investment of their time and resources in order to even minimally maintain a city. If they were to take over an existing city that is need of support, it would save them some of that investment. Anyway, good idea, but is is up to us as a community to do it, not the devs.

since it was brought up..have you considered that maybe Markyd was right in his side of the argument? a couple people told him to maybe take on an a quiet existing city. Perhaps he/she simply didn't want to. Maybe he/she liked tatooine and maybe they like that corner of the map with all that open sand. Maybe they were apart of a city there on live on the server they played on and that spot had fond memories. Does Markyd play on this server anymore?

People say its up to the community but this is one example of how it went wrong. I am not blaming anyone about this but it isnt up to anyone else other than the owner of the account to do with their toons as they see fit. The argument was a few months ago and he is still being bashed by saying he lost his shit. There's people I dont want to associate with who still play but that doesnt give me the right to talk down to them regardless if i feel i am in the right or not.

[Cynar]

Then we have folks who lose their shit when you try to point them in that way, i.e. markyd. It is not as simple a solution as you would think. There are a lot of folks who would like to do a city from ground up. Completely unaware of the investment of their time and resources in order to even minimally maintain a city. If they were to take over an existing city that is need of support, it would save them some of that investment. Anyway, good idea, but is is up to us as a community to do it, not the devs.

since it was brought up..have you considered that maybe Markyd was right in his side of the argument? a couple people told him to maybe take on an a quiet existing city. Perhaps he/she simply didn't want to. Maybe he/she liked tatooine and maybe they like that corner of the map with all that open sand. Maybe they were apart of a city there on live on the server they played on and that spot had fond memories. Does Markyd play on this server anymore?

People say its up to the community but this is one example of how it went wrong. I am not blaming anyone about this but it isnt up to anyone else other than the owner of the account to do with their toons as they see fit. The argument was a few months ago and he is still being bashed by saying he lost his shit. There's people I dont want to associate with who still play but that doesnt give me the right to talk down to them regardless if i feel i am in the right or not.

Your argument is valid to a point with MarkyD. He has “lost his shit” on multiple servers now. Some of his ideas were unique and creative, his delivery and lack of knowing how to handle critique hurt him. Cannot blame the community for that. There are too many player cities and not enough players. This is the original teams fault. Between character slot limits being set incorrect, multiple account access, and limiting amount of player cities allowed has created the sprawling madness as it is now.

Btw my comments are in no way reflective of those of the new Awakening team. Please don’t take them as official representation of current staff or future plans. My opinions are purely my own and based upon decisions made by the original team and data from the last 3 years.

[abnel]

I'm going to try and paraphrase Cynar in terms of a marketing approach.

1: Have a good product that people want or need
We have this, it will be improved with Patch 9, the corvette and new quests not to mention FRS when it arrives. We have a great community of core players who will help.

2: Get the word out
While advertising in the tradition sense is not reasonable, having word of mouth about the server and the community is a cheap way of doing it. As Cynar indicated, this is up to us as a player community to do. We are all gamers and love this game, but do we talk about it with out friends in a positive way to bring people to this game? 5 minutes per day, I can do that.

3: Create a great experience
We have a great community, the key is having a great experience when people start. This is where I believe the move away from starter cities has hurt us as the initial experience is hard enough without finding the starter city empty.

4: Keep it fresh
This is the only place where the Dev's come in. New content, events (heck we as a community can do that), keeping up the communication from the Dev's is vital.

Side note: I notice they have gone quite of later, there was a great flurry of activity for a week or two, but this seems to have fallen silent recently.

So the call to action for you all:
Talk about the server
Talk about the good community
Get out there and post where you can
Keep up the good work in supporting new players

Airy

[StaticStrife]

Side note: I notice they have gone quite of later, there was a great flurry of activity for a week or two, but this seems to have fallen silent recently.

Airy

Oh, well, allow me pop in and say Hi. Let me say we have been listening. Some of the changes you guys want, we're working on trying to make it happen. Some things are going to put off for a later date while we work on the main project of getting Pub 9 to you guys. Some things are just not going to be possible. We don't want to talk publicly about it, promising something and then not being able to deliver. Keep an eye in Discord. Last night Dirge was engaging with the community about some changes we're making to Axkva, and invited the player base to come over to test center, and listening to player input, see what changes still need to be made. Theoretically we'd like to put out a patch with a few changes, introducing a few things, etc., once a month. Realistically it probably won't happen that often. Some things will be easy to yes, flip a few switches, change a few values. You'll probably see those changes first. Keep faith in us that we are working to improve the server, but it will be a slow process.

[Dirge]

4: Keep it fresh
This is the only place where the Dev's come in. New content, events (heck we as a community can do that), keeping up the communication from the Dev's is vital.

New quests, rewards, abilities, etc. are all things that we will consider adding to Awakening. Ideas for these things will usually come from our players in forums posts or overheard discussions in general chat or discord. Even though we may not always comment we do listen to the players and use their feedback to help us make decisions.

As for events, we intend to fill the Event Coordinator role in the near future. Until then, the community driven events are a great way to have fun together and staff will usually make sure one of us is available to assist.

Side note: I notice they have gone quite of later, there was a great flurry of activity for a week or two, but this seems to have fallen silent recently.

Trust me when I tell you that flurry of activity has continued on. Most of it goes on in the staff channel on discord though (at least one of us is usually around). Our main focus has been getting Publish 9 ready for release. There were a lot of changes in the default swgemu code that we needed to account for when merging the code. We also needed to address some issues that surfaced following the release of Publish 8. Lastly, our team has a long list of changes we would like to see implemented and wanted to include some of them in the upcoming update. Quite a bit of discussion went into deciding what to include now and what we should shelve for further debate and/or testing (we aren't doing anything on a whim). Those discussions will continue on after Publish 9 is released. Just because you can't hear us does not mean we have gone silent ;D

[StaticStrife]

Just because you can't hear us does not mean we have gone silent ;D

We're always watching. Be afraid, be very afraid.

[abnel]

Great to hear!

Let me know if I can help.. Let me create another account and I'll be happy to make and run a doc and ent to buff in Mos Eisly for those new starters.

Airy

[kithsyn]

Side note: I notice they have gone quite of later, there was a great flurry of activity for a week or two, but this seems to have fallen silent recently.

Airy

Oh, well, allow me pop in and say Hi. Let me say we have been listening. Some of the changes you guys want, we're working on trying to make it happen. Some things are going to put off for a later date while we work on the main project of getting Pub 9 to you guys. Some things are just not going to be possible. We don't want to talk publicly about it, promising something and then not being able to deliver. Keep an eye in Discord. Last night Dirge was engaging with the community about some changes we're making to Axkva, and invited the player base to come over to test center, and listening to player input, see what changes still need to be made. Theoretically we'd like to put out a patch with a few changes, introducing a few things, etc., once a month. Realistically it probably won't happen that often. Some things will be easy to yes, flip a few switches, change a few values. You'll probably see those changes first. Keep faith in us that we are working to improve the server, but it will be a slow process.

This is all good news. thanks for your work.