So many people quitting games

I believe the key is to establish commitment to the game and maybe have a victory concept beyond that which is classic rule book victory, we have a solo win and a coalition win.

Some ideas might be a gold deposit which is refunded over the course of the game if you do not drop out, Example 100K at start and you get on day 4 10K on day 7 20K on day 10 30K and day 14 40K. Of course you restrict the game to only being able to use the gold as was originally deposited. If you are wiped out and you were not inactive you get whatever your gold balance is.

The other idea may be a sudden replacement on the 24th hour.

If someone signs up and does not get orders in for the first 24 hours they are kicked out and player is assigned to the country right away from the random sign ups with say a 10% resource bonus.

Well, I respect your suggestion I will counter it again by stating if you give people personalized instruction and join games with them and attempt to help teach them the ropes and your success rate was less than 50% do you really think offering a 'bonus' would really make any difference? While I concede I'm not nearly the best player in COW, I do know the way to build an economy and upgrade troops, and build a proper army. I would think personalized training would reap the best benefits of keeping/growing COW.

IMO with your suggestion all you would be doing is substituting one quitter with more than likely another one. The best way to slow down all the early drops is to raise the bar on the rank needed to get into the different types of games. It also wouldn't hurt to put in another stipulation that you must have 1 win (coal or single) to get into some of the games. It might be interesting to have a 100 game start with this feature to see if you can get enough buy in. That will seperate people in a real hurry!

COW has a lot of players/participants but not that may gamers who truly play the game.

The real problem is in the awful inflation of "free games" all around the net. People join them, expect to be able to play in half an hour, and at the smallest bump or slightest whim switch to the next one. Even getting back to the same site on the next day can be a problem. People don't want to learn basic game mechanics because they have learned 50 different mechanics over the last month alone. So yeah, we' ll have huge amounts of quitters forever.

On the plus side, the people that DO stay form communities, organize alliances and events, invest in becoming better players, etc. They are the true core of the game.

And yes, "one win required" maps WILL work to keep those players interested.

K.Rokossovski wrote:

The real problem is in the awful inflation of "free games" all around the net. People join them, expect to be able to play in half an hour, and at the smallest bump or slightest whim switch to the next one. Even getting back to the same site on the next day can be a problem. People don't want to learn basic game mechanics because they have learned 50 different mechanics over the last month alone. So yeah, we' ll have huge amounts of quitters forever.

On the plus side, the people that DO stay form communities, organize alliances and events, invest in becoming better players, etc. They are the true core of the game.

And yes, "one win required" maps WILL work to keep those players interested.

But, the first time that I play CoW, maybe 4 years ago or more, the introduction to a server was annoying. Automatically you are put in a new "tutorial game", without having the posibility of elect other maps or insde the game, the country. The mechanics are show you, in a in my point of view, a little unporductive way.

"Research this unit, built a barrack, use the gold that we give to you, now you are a commander, win the game or find new ones. if you have questions the development team can help you in the chat, bye bye ..."

This class of "tutorial" wasn't enough for me, and took me maybe 20 lvls or more to understand more deeply the gameplay. Stadistics combats, the number of units, the "coordinate attacks", all the branches to research, equitably to your strategic way. Adding to the continued disconnect players that broke the gameplay, having you the owe to defeat all the AI's, who normaly is more hard than alot of real players..., to win the game.

A secondary effect is the time you need to see the changes, 24 hours to built a IC, other 24h to move the troops. A game in real time affect directly in the arrival of new players. they are accustomed to don't have to wait more than 20 minutes in win a match.

I'm not saying that the time is bad, I'm saying that is an important disadvantage.

Always the players who is looking to World War games, like the "Risk format", and only think in a accurate gameplay, will be in agreement to wait the neccesary time. And futhermore being in the future a part of the "core" of CoW. Obviously.

So I'm in the idea to maybe have a team that teach the new players to have a real level in the beginning...

I agree that the tutorial should be more specialized and go deeper into the game mechanics. The first game shouldn't count for your stats neither. Bytro puts a lot of money in adds to attract new players to the game but they lose them in the tutorial. Also for the players who want to learn more about the game it would be good to have a senior player as mentor. There could be a list made of players that want to function as a mentor and then new players can apply. Then again this is kind of in place with the mods in the help chat.

I THINK AN INTERACTIVE TUTORIAL WHICH WALKS YOU THRU DOING A RESEARCH , INFRASTRUCTURE BUILD AND UNITS BUILD AND MOVEMENT WOULD SOLVE Two PROBLEMS.

1. IT WOULD GIVE NEW PLAYERS A CLUE

2.THE PLAYERS WOULD KNOW IF IT WAS A GAME THEY WOULD PUT TIME INTO.

Making access to other games dependent upon completion of the tutorial would help reduce quitting

DennytheC wrote:

I THINK AN INTERACTIVE TUTORIAL WHICH WALKS YOU THRU DOING A RESEARCH , INFRASTRUCTURE BUILD AND UNITS BUILD AND MOVEMENT WOULD SOLVE Two PROBLEMS.

1. IT WOULD GIVE NEW PLAYERS A CLUE

2.THE PLAYERS WOULD KNOW IF IT WAS A GAME THEY WOULD PUT TIME INTO.

Making access to other games dependent upon completion of the tutorial would help reduce quitting

It wouldn't, a player who doesn't know the game mechanics and joins a 50 or 100 player map will be attacked and defeated immediately. The 22 player maps are filled with beginners which is perfect to get some game experience.

Access to a lot of tips on what you should do in the 22 game couldn't hurt. Stressing the need to upgrade your core, research to upgrade your troops, etc may help keep some people and have some learn better an faster. Having someone to play a 22 game and be a helpful moderator was always my thoughts until I tried it myself with minimal positive results.

There is also a big push in COW of join a coalition but not much about what is expected. I can't count the times I have invaded a coal and his teammates never moved to help him...what we veterans see as common sense, isn't so common among the many.

Always all kind of people will try CoW and always only those with patience and a liking for long-lasting strategy games will stay. I think not so much can or should be done to make action lovers stay as well... at least CoW shouldn't change it's character for this clientele.

But measurements can be taken to minimize the impact of the quitters on those who really want to play.

My favourite: One hour after a player joins a map, a "Confirm-to-stay-on-map" button appears for him, for example on the upper right corner. If the player doesn't click this button within the next 5 hours, he will then turn inactive (as so far only happens after 2 full days of not logging in). So those who join a map and quickly lose their interest in it only block the slot for 6 hours. They can afterwards still come back by logging in again, but only as long as no other player joins the map and now rules their nation.

This change would also make it more feasible to start the historic world map with "starts when full" and random country selection, which would help in other aspects (see --> this post <--).

Then, there's also another kind of quitters - those who don't quit directly after start of the game, but at the moment they realize they won't win. To motivate these to stay on the map till the end, I propose a new ranking "victory points per game" (see --> this thread <--).