Thread: Communtiy....

Hey guys just want to throw my 2 cents in on the issue of server growth.

I dont know tons about many of the issues facing us in growing our server and it succeeding but i feel i do have a lot of experience of game play on a variety of servers and missions. Ace and I in our many conversations about ways to better the server often refer to what we have experienced on the established servers that we feel made them attractive and populated.

The issue im targeting today is group additions and growth of the server. Ace and I are at a point where we are speaking of the catch 22 of whats best for the server and what is best for our enjoyment of game play. We know that without server success and growth there will be no platform at TPG in which the latter, our enjoyment of game play, will matter. The details of what gives us enjoyment, allows us to "dominate", etc, just wont matter. So we find ourselves analyzing the dynamics currently going on with our "growth".

So the server grows for many reasons like advertising, word of mouth, streamers, server lists, staying populated, action on the server, etc. But in its most basic state it is two things; Player acquisition/attraction and player retention. I want to focus on the player retention in this post.

Retention - Players come to the server in two ways, in groups and solo, obviously.

Factors of retention -
1. The most important factor and the one i want to focus on is the interaction of players on the server.
2. The size of the current groups and teamspeak channels. Groups being or appearing to large and to dominate, discouraging people to try their journey with us on our server.
3. Admins helpfulness, mission quality, server balance, mod quality, etc.

We all agree that server population directly effects server action and possibility for server fun. At first we found our self wishing and hoping for server pop to rise, GROUPS TO COME, and GROUPS TO FORM. We want competition, we want action, and we want fun. We are realizing this isn't happening, not quickly or even at a encouraging pace to date.

So Ace and I's conversation turned to well even though we are trying to keep our group small and trying to be friendly to all players in general maybe we still need to split up and both form new groups with people that are solo new players to the server.

What can/does that solve? Well it may make 2 new groups, it does take Ace and I apart which we enjoy playing together hurting our enjoyment, but in the big picture it really makes just 2 groups helping 6 to 8 players hopefully pulled into the community and putting their roots down here at TPG. Does that really solve much? That is putting the responsibility of server growth as it apply's to the factor of retention, on the backs of individuals. Should it be there? Is Krom and Scott's group or Nom ready to split and go make friends with the new players as they come and start a group from scratch? It may put a dent in our problem but is there a better solution?

I believe so, when looking at the similar mod called Overwatch on Arma 2, their was something I had never experienced before on the server hosted by CCG. Their mod positioned and designed their safe zones in a very unique way. Whether on purpose or by accident their safe zones where having a huge impact on their player retention. New players in these larger and more city like safezones would congregate their in their early moments, talking in direct, meeting other new players and often teaming up and bam, groups were being made and formed without the responsibility being on the back of the regs or individuals.

So I know you have many important factors facing the people in charge of the mod and server. Getting thing working properly, server advertising, teamspeak and player needs, I cant even imagine how much needs to be done im sure. However all this is for not if we dont grow. We are getting what appears to be a good number of individuals connecting. From observation I would say that many of them I never see again. Some of this we have no control over i understand, but I would think that retention of players needs to be right up there near the top of our focus. Thus making my and others suggestions hopefully under strong consideration. I dont know if it is possible or what is possible exactly but CCG communtiy was able to do something very unique. They made themselves not dependent on groups forming outside their server and outside their community, they made their server friendly to groups forming within their server.

Think about it, people stay if they dont feel lonely, if they are able to make friends, or simply feel like the server is alive.

I don't know how many people i saw while i was sitting in the safe zone buying building materials, ask someone if they wanted a gun or answer a question or just say hello, then like love at first sight he would say yes, then off to a mission like a gay groom and groom off on a honeymoon they would be off into the sunset.

Funny yes, but groups formed this way, player retention was accomplished like this. Hopefully we could look at this dynamic and see if there is anyway for us to achieve this creation of city/communtiy within our server. Maybe not the same way but however we do it, i believe player retention will be the key to our success!

Thx,

Smoke

What I think I am reading in all this is that you think having the safe zones contributed to group formation and are wondering if we could do the same.

If so I agree 100% How many times did we run into the stary trader in epoch and bump into the same guys we were fighting trying to make their way back. It is a safe area where players can meet up or get a group with out having their heads blown off immediately.

If we could implement this in two or three small locations? it could I believe really help retention of players.

Agree. The next step of this would be figure out how to implement "safe zones" via server config / is that even possible.

Side question, are there no Arma3 Epoch servers that have safezones? If there are not, being the first to have safezones for Arma3 would instantly make our population increase.

I remember playing a2 epoch and absolutely raging over the trader zones. People camping the edge of the zone, stealing, all the BS that went along with it.

I like the idea of having a truly safe zone for the reasons Sheriff mentioned. Encourages meet ups, player interactions, etc.

The issue blondy mentioned about defining the zone is the main problem. Then enforcing by the admin staff in the next.

Jam, 25m radius might work. My preference would be bigger maybe 100m, so you can land a chopper in the field beside the zone, not have to worry about am I close enough. Basically make it so there's no action in and around the trader.

Just to clarify we keep using trader zone but from my thoughts/understanding the only places we are thinking of making truly safe zones are the sites where you can spawn. North/East/West where there also happens to be a trader. All other traders you could shoot a player while he's buying an item.

I'm glad this discussion has come up because at the end of it I think we can at least remove a little more of the grey area as to what constitutes a safe zone.

Originally Posted by ATEXANnHISGUN

What I think I am reading in all this is that you think having the safe zones contributed to group formation and are wondering if we could do the same.

If so I agree 100% How many times did we run into the stary trader in epoch and bump into the same guys we were fighting trying to make their way back. It is a safe area where players can meet up or get a group with out having their heads blown off immediately.

If we could implement this in two or three small locations? it could I believe really help retention of players.

Where would you like them, I find the ccg ones were very well placed, would we use those or somewhere new?

Not to mention tha some people are hoarding the new spawn places with wehicles parked next to them!
I have spawned several times butt naked in to the eastern spawn place(the one inside the red hangar) only to be greeted by four guys armed to the teeth sitting there waiting for freshies.
And as i was running up hill seconds later shot in the back with nothing on me.

I know that it is a game and PvP is not forbidden ,but shooting freshies at spawn points is a dick move in my book.

I posted this about a week ago in another thread.

Originally Posted by Warprosper

Hello all,

"This is "random connect" I'm joining your Arma 3 server and noticed your TS connection info from your forums. As I logged into your ts server I noticed 2 large groups of 10-12 players. Being that there were only 30 players on the server is it safe to assume that these large groups are a common thing?"

I wanted to post here about some concerns I have about the group example we're currently setting. I know that the game is new and we're all learning different things about this mod, but at some point are we planning on switching or eliminating some of these larger groups? My concern is that we're going to eventually start seeing messages like the one above, and worse, people won't stick around because of it.

I remember this scenario back in the TPG Dayz era when we had that one clan on our server (GVC or something like that, one member was wilhelm I think ). They had about 5-6 people who were regulars on our server, and after about a month, they left. I don't know exactly why they left, but maybe it was because they were going against huge groups. I guess what I'm trying to say here is relating to the example we're setting. I feel as though it's in our best interests to split this community up into smaller groups and gather some sustainability in the population before we group up like we're currently doing.

Maybe I'm wrong about my assumptions, but I remain concerned.

There are already safe zones on the map. The Traders designated by a black dot are "no kill" zones. These are the ones with the small encampement around them. Are you saying that you would like to see more then the 3 that already exist?

So, if you havn't and want to really see what I am speaking of and how their dynamic works, see it in person. Join CCG Arma 2 server and run to their safe zones. They were about 100 m wide if and had rocks up around them protecting them but mainly giving a perception of safety to individuals.

As far as location, they were place real well at CCG. However ours dont have to be at those locations. Our current locations could work with some changes, or new locations. However CCG main trader was in Stary. There was something about the centrality of Stary that really encouraged map migration and kind of a aim point for players to "make new friends".

See what people would like...

No krom it is not that we need more. It is that they need to be constructed better and defined better. Markers, larger, zone, room to congregate. But something to do to. Mulitple telephone booths, maybe make more than one traders body be located in the trader.