Suggestions for increasing the population on Wayfinder.

[sdrocky]

Lets face it. We need to do something. Still waiting on the luvin.

1. Guilds could run more low level pugs.
2. Turbine could come through with server specific events (xp boost. CC days with reduced requirements for opening, giveaway events etc)

Any idea's.

[wax_on_wax_off]

Hmm, seems more likely that the incentive for Turbine is to leave the server that appeals to people until they get there as a ghost town as they must be making some nice revenue off the character transfers out of there.

[MeliCat]

You could try offering a raid training program like exists on Sarlona and Thelanis?

Also fostering newbies: people try DDO out every day. Some have played other MMOs and want to try this one, some have played PnP and are curious, some just want to try a 3d world with a fantasy element. Younger people and older people, nice people and weird people. The reasons they don't stay could be many. But possibly the biggest reason they don't stay is that they don't connect with people. If established players want to grow the playerbase this could be a potential way to do it. Not necessarily to play with new players - new players will want to take things at their own pace perhaps - but just to talk and just be around a be friendly. Due to the badly done guild renown system this isn't going to happen in a guild but it maybe possible to happen in channels or through a friendly website (not this one that can be a little intimidatingly vicious to new starters at times).

[sdrocky]

You could try offering a raid training program like exists on Sarlona and Thelanis?

Also fostering newbies: people try DDO out every day. Some have played other MMOs and want to try this one, some have played PnP and are curious, some just want to try a 3d world with a fantasy element. Younger people and older people, nice people and weird people. The reasons they don't stay could be many. But possibly the biggest reason they don't stay is that they don't connect with people. If established players want to grow the playerbase this could be a potential way to do it. Not necessarily to play with new players - new players will want to take things at their own pace perhaps - but just to talk and just be around a be friendly. Due to the badly done guild renown system this isn't going to happen in a guild but it maybe possible to happen in channels or through a friendly website (not this one that can be a little intimidatingly vicious to new starters at times).

The renown decay system has pretty much forced me to ask other officers to not enlist any more guild members unless it gets the ok from me. My attitude is that i should be able to let as many people into my guild to gain access to buffs and assistance from other guild members. The renown decay system stops this. But lets not derail the thread as there are many on this topic.

[wax_on_wax_off]

The renown decay system has pretty much forced me to ask other officers to not enlist any more guild members unless it gets the ok from me. My attitude is that i should be able to let as many people into my guild to gain access to buffs and assistance from other guild members. The renown decay system stops this. But lets not derail the thread as there are many on this topic.

I'd suggest to stop caring about renown. The best way to foster good relations is to give people a home that isn't at risk should they only play a little.

After 2 weeks an inactive account stops contributing to renown decay.

Not the best example but in our guild we never care about renown, we just get on and have fun, we never kick someone for going away and have guild members who haven't been online for almost 2 years. We're guild level 81 I think and only increasing slowly but that's okay.

[laurawilder]

To blame renown decay is simply smoke and mirrors.

It is the guilds and how they are ran and the decrease in pugs that are making it hard on new, casual low level players.

Even on wayfinder with its limited population all of the 10 largest guilds have over 100-500 members listed as active. These guilds tie up much of the playerbase on the server.

The problem is they all have grown too large to fast by leaders that truly do not care about helping the members or having guilds built around similar players. Seriously if you have a guild with 500 members as a leader you will not know them all. So you need to have active officers and only so many members under each.

I have had alts in 4 of the largest guilds on Wayfinder and can say the leaders do nothing to stimulate grouping or teaching new players about the game. Guilds were not created just to get ship bufs and feed the ego of the leaders that run them.

If your guild has say 200+ members and you are only lvl 40 and below you are running a poor guild and doing all a disservice. It just means you have officers blind inviting and then leaving guild newbs run with guild newbs until a few learn the game or get tired of the scene and leave.

If/when guilds are ran and function the way they should you would see not only more pugs and less decay but you would see less "inactive" players.

[sdrocky]

I'd suggest to stop caring about renown. The best way to foster good relations is to give people a home that isn't at risk should they only play a little.

After 2 weeks an inactive account stops contributing to renown decay.

Not the best example but in our guild we never care about renown, we just get on and have fun, we never kick someone for going away and have guild members who haven't been online for almost 2 years. We're guild level 81 I think and only increasing slowly but that's okay.

we don't kick people either. I have some members who havn't logged in for 9 months. They wont get kicked. I would like to see them back though. Not for the guild renown. Just because i miss playing with them.

And are you sure its 2 weeks. I thought it was 4.

Our guild is Hunters of Wayfinder. We currently have 15 active members, My.ddo reports us as being about size 96. We don't blind invite anyone. If you ask and quest with us you will most likely get in. It doesn't matter if your active or casual. It doesn't matter if you don't log for a year. you wont get kicked. We are mostly aussies, with a few Americans and others.

[MeliCat]

Well as I said, and I was trying very much to stay on topic, guilding does *not* work at the moment with decay and I said that. I suggested 2 other things in that post.

I have another suggestion for anyone who dualboxes but only really focuses mainly on one account. But I suspect I will be misunderstood like I was in my previous post so I will not say.

Good luck with growing your playerbase. :D

[sdrocky]

Hmm, seems more likely that the incentive for Turbine is to leave the server that appeals to people until they get there as a ghost town as they must be making some nice revenue off the character transfers out of there.

You can't currently transfer in or out of wayfinder. its borked. You also can't copy a toon to lamaland. that is also borked.

so no revenue of the transfer's ATM.

[sdrocky]

Well as I said, and I was trying very much to stay on topic, guilding does *not* work at the moment with decay and I said that. I suggested 2 other things in that post.

I have another suggestion for anyone who dualboxes but only really focuses mainly on one account. But I suspect I will be misunderstood like I was in my previous post so I will not say.

Good luck with growing your playerbase. :D

All good ideas. Thankyou.
I have access to 4 accounts. 1 vip, 2 premium and 1 f2p. I have a laptopp and a pc which can both run ddo. you can tell me about the dual boxing if you like.

[notte.oscura]

Even on wayfinder with its limited population all of the 10 largest guilds have over 100-500 members listed as active. These guilds tie up much of the playerbase on the server.

Where is this information coming from? I think that those numbers don't reflect the real situation.
Our guild (Blood Moon), has around 25 accounts as members, and I think the number never got over 30 in the whole history of the guild.
I know for sure that another top 10 ranked guild has less than 10 accounts in it.



I have had alts in 4 of the largest guilds on Wayfinder and can say the leaders do nothing to stimulate grouping or teaching new players about the game. Guilds were not created just to get ship bufs and feed the ego of the leaders that run them.

If your guild has say 200+ members and you are only lvl 40 and below you are running a poor guild and doing all a disservice. It just means you have officers blind inviting and then leaving guild newbs run with guild newbs until a few learn the game or get tired of the scene and leave.

If/when guilds are ran and function the way they should you would see not only more pugs and less decay but you would see less "inactive" players.

We raid 5 days a week, almost always with open groups (LFM) if we have room (which was 99% of the time up to some weeks ago, now we have more active members so we might fill up on some occasions).
Of course it often ended up in shortmanning the raids because very very few (or no one) would join. But the option was there.

I can't say I'm seeing the other guilds doing the same.
This of course refers to my playtime hours (European prime time), I can't see what's happening in other time frames :)

[Shadow7375]

To blame renown decay is simply smoke and mirrors.


Even on wayfinder with its limited population all of the 10 largest guilds have over 100-500 members listed as active. These guilds tie up much of the playerbase on the server.




You should not mistake characters/toons for accounts/members. The number you see on my.ddo reflects the characters in guild, not the accounts. An account can have as many as 40 characters.

[laurawilder]

to notte.oscura, I should have said largest based on membership not based on renown. The figures are such:

1 Clubbed Baby Seals lvl 92 renown 39,999,264
2 Blood Moon 68 15,836,249
3 Superiority Complex 62 12,150,538
4 Drachenzorn 62 12,018,812
5 SOPS 58 10,262,895
6 Blut 57 9,663,771
7 TeaParty Of TeaBags 52 7,120,254
8 Haus Feuerfuchs 51 6,742,551
9 Legion der Toten 50 6,409,691
10 Equilibrium 46 5,031,294

Guildname Guild Level and renown farmed.

So your guild is number 2 and the SC that merged with you number 3 and so on. The next list is based on guild size and yes it by accounts and not just characters shadow thank you but I do know the difference. So as an example from below I know that Stamp out Intolernace has a current score of 127 based on 257 accounts minus 137 inactive and 7 recent departures. So using them as an example this is why renown works like it should. They over expanded based on blind invites, that why 1 of ever 2 members are now inactive. They did not grow by inviting those quested with and then grooming them.

This is why Drachenzoen is the only guild on both lists. On a german server they have many active german members. Guild renown and decay work just fine the way they are. If you have a large mob of peoplein a community doing nothing or are absent you will go unnoticed or be thought poorly of, if you are all active and are on the thoughts and spoken of often you will grow. 20 true heroes will always be thought of better than a mob of 100 that sit in the tavern or leave town and leave a few to do the work.

Guildname Guild level and guild membership

1 Napaji 40 522
2 Drachenzorn 62 273
3 Knights Of Power 45 258
4 Nemesis 41 248
5 League of Extraordinary Heroes 32 232
6 Lords of Legend 37 168
7 Guild of Shadows 25 166
8 Helden Gmbh 40 156
9 TeaParty Of TeaBags 52 142
10 Stamp out Intolerance 36 103

[Modulex]

I think she means only the guild size measured by members, not level.

The point about removing inactive players from guild is solely caused by the fact that you nor the leader can't mark an account inactive/casual. While inactive, they wouldn't contribute to renown gain nor decay, even if they hop in once in a while to chat etc.
Or maybe they would gain only half renown, no decay?

[notte.oscura]

to notte.oscura, I should have said largest based on membership not based on renown.
The figures are such:

1 Clubbed Baby Seals lvl 92 renown 39,999,264
2 Blood Moon 68 15,836,249

That makes sense, I guess I misunderstood your sentence in the first place.

But just out of curiosity, where are these informations from?
There could still be problems with the data because Wayfinder doesn't have a lvl 92 guild...
And to be honest I find it strange that the second list hold the number of accounts. Accordingly to your information, a guild has 500+ accounts, others 200+, but I see so few characters on level 20 and above online. Still sounds more like the number of characters to me.

[TrinityTurtle]

My (limited) understanding of Wayfarer was that it was a server dedicated to the non-american markets? I assumed that being american (eastern standard time, or GM -5 I believe) would be a huge disadvantage for me in terms of finding other players awake during my active periods (as I assume they would be in the middle of the night in europe and during the workday in Asia, or vice versa. Time zones confuse me, I confess). Also, I thought given that there would be a larger population of people I can't communicate with. Are these concerns mistaken?

[sdrocky]

My (limited) understanding of Wayfarer was that it was a server dedicated to the non-american markets? I assumed that being american (eastern standard time, or GM -5 I believe) would be a huge disadvantage for me in terms of finding other players awake during my active periods (as I assume they would be in the middle of the night in europe and during the workday in Asia, or vice versa. Time zones confuse me, I confess). Also, I thought given that there would be a larger population of people I can't communicate with. Are these concerns mistaken?

Yes they are. There are people from every country on Wayfinder. I believe Teaparty of Teabags has a log of Americans. Some i have played with. Nice people. 1 guy even rang up 2 others at 3am to come play with me and my boy.

[sdrocky]

to notte.oscura, I should have said largest based on membership not based on renown. The figures are such:

1 Clubbed Baby Seals lvl 92 renown 39,999,264


Never seen or heard of this guild in wayfinder. ever. And they dont show up on the guild leader board either.

[Nestroy]

Never seen or heard of this guild in wayfinder. ever. And they dont show up on the guild leader board either.

Me neither. Please tell us, how did you get the guild name?

[Nestroy]

My (limited) understanding of Wayfarer was that it was a server dedicated to the non-american markets? I assumed that being american (eastern standard time, or GM -5 I believe) would be a huge disadvantage for me in terms of finding other players awake during my active periods (as I assume they would be in the middle of the night in europe and during the workday in Asia, or vice versa. Time zones confuse me, I confess). Also, I thought given that there would be a larger population of people I can't communicate with. Are these concerns mistaken?

To a certain extend these concerns are mistaken.

If you get up in the morning, here in good ol´Europe we eat our lunch. So basically you will find most players active here (after a long working day) around your lunch time and in the afternoon. And frankly said there are plenty of Americans doing their thing on the server so you as well may find more people online in your evening hours than any time else. Just give it a try and we are all looking forward for your comments on activity.

[laurawilder]

I have not heard of that guild either but assume it was built during build a guild time. Link to see information is following. Except for this unknown guild the other information seem fairly spot on.

http://ddocrafting.info/index.php?p=guildList

[sdrocky]

Truthfully I've never seen anyone on wayfinder in this guild. and im on every day. if you do a search on my.ddo.com for Clubbed Baby Seals you get nothing. if you do a google search you get a link to this thread, and lots of nasty pictures.

I'm having difficultly believing the data is correct. If there are any members of this guild please let us know it exists.

Also Superiority complex has had a guild rename to blood moon. I know this as i have a friend in this guild.

[McFunzel]

Clubbed Baby Seals do not exist
SupComplex+Blood moon are the same thing, one has been renamed to the other

[sdrocky]

Clubbed Baby Seals do not exist
SupComplex+Blood moon are the same thing, one has been renamed to the other

Thanks for confirming that my friend.

fin*
hunters of wayfinder

[IrielElenya]

Send invitations to friends you know play in other servers.
Add "Punch and Pie"...

Receive new players with Cupcakes, Siberys Cakes, and fists....

[Mathermune]

If you can handle the influx of new players and can deal with playing the long con. Change the name.

Call it Awayfinder.

Promotes it to the top of the server list. New players will be tempted to join the first server on the list.

[laurawilder]

Clubbed Baby Seals do not exist
SupComplex+Blood moon are the same thing, one has been renamed to the other


Incorrect. As I mentioned several post back SC and BM merged but both still exist. SC was not renamed and not all members left.

Unless I am seeing ghosts Illumdyl with SC is alive and well and still guilded everytime I see them on,and the last time that was, 2 minutes ago. LOL.

[sdrocky]

Lady i havnt seen an SC for months. Lots of bloodmoons though..

i will be on all weekend so will regularly check the who list.

Also superiority complex no longer show up on the guild list in my ddo.

i i see one i will withdraw my statement. But as it stands and with McFunzels confirmation (he has been in sc/blood moon since i met him on about week 4 of wayfinder being opened) i have to disagree.

So maybe its dated data that hasnt been refreshed. My.ddo may be borked. Maybe the data is borked as well. If the second is true it would not matter who draws the data. its still borked. As has been said in IT many times before bullsh*t in bullsh*t out.

[notte.oscura]

Incorrect. As I mentioned several post back SC and BM merged but both still exist. SC was not renamed and not all members left.

Unless I am seeing ghosts Illumdyl with SC is alive and well and still guilded everytime I see them on,and the last time that was, 2 minutes ago. LOL.
It's OT, but anyway, the guild Superiority Complex was renamed to Blood Moon some time (months) ago, during a guild merge that turned out not to work just a few days later.
Since yesterday, it has been renamed back to its original name, Superiority Complex.

[McFunzel]

Incorrect. As I mentioned several post back SC and BM merged but both still exist. SC was not renamed and not all members left.

Unless I am seeing ghosts Illumdyl with SC is alive and well and still guilded everytime I see them on,and the last time that was, 2 minutes ago. LOL.


still correct.
Blood Moon was renamed back to Superiority Complex on 08-30-2012 08:00am

edit* ****, notte beat me to it :D*

[blerkington]

Hi,

Perhaps your toons should pair off and make some babies. Sure, it will take a while, but in a few years you will have plenty more adventurers around.

Thanks.

[laurawilder]

Personally I am glad Kamikaze decided to change it back and use Superiority Complex again. Good to see one of the original guilds of the young server on the lists again and running around.

[sdrocky]

Aggreed. Things are right on Wayfinder seeing Superiority Complex running around again.

[FranOhmsford]

That makes sense, I guess I misunderstood your sentence in the first place.

But just out of curiosity, where are these informations from?
There could still be problems with the data because Wayfinder doesn't have a lvl 92 guild...
And to be honest I find it strange that the second list hold the number of accounts. Accordingly to your information, a guild has 500+ accounts, others 200+, but I see so few characters on level 20 and above online. Still sounds more like the number of characters to me.

If she's using MyDDO I have to point out that for some reason anyone who's ever been in my guild on Cannith is still counted on MyDDO as being a Guild member on the Guild's Page.

Yes Every single one - Even those who created a character, came to the harbour, requested a guild invite when I was feeling gracious and then logged off never to return.
I boot anyone gone more than a month and have never seen any of them return to the game.

Two years I've been playing DDO - My Guild was created the first week I arrived - That's a lot of accounts that are in no way part of my guild at this time.

[Pewf]

Offer free transfers again and I'll love to come over. :eek:

[sdrocky]

Offer free transfers again and I'll love to come over. :eek:

mate. come start a toon. even if only fo a favour run. I'm vip. ill open elite for ya.

[jamvaru]

I don't understand why there has to be different servers, anyways, except as a holdover from before, when technology wasn't as able to keep up with large numbers of players. Even if one computer or server couldn't handle all the players, there is distributed computing these days, which makes many computers behave as one. Even if that wasn't enough, we have separate instances of the same harbor or marketplace, etc.

The only reason to have separate servers is if people actually want to play in a self-contained environment for whatever reason, like speaking Deutsche, for example. I'm sure Chinese players would like to be able to play with people who speak and type in Chinese. So, I can't really complain about the population of Wayfinder, because I am in the Midwest of the USA. I would really like a server that was either located in my area or just served people from my area. I understand that it doesn't really make much difference anymore, with modern technology, the lag remains the same, wherever you are. I think oceanic distances are likely more laggy, overall.

I wouldn't want to exclude anyone from 'my' server, though. I just would rather play with people from the Midwest than people from either the east or west coast. I do enjoy playing with Australians and most Europeans.

In general, whatever the server, It seems to be a shame that people don't just put up pugs, especially with the auto pug option. Guilds are especially troublesome to join, apparently because of the 'decay' feature. How sad. I think you should remember that "the customer is always right" and give up stuff like decay. You can ask the players for more input, but I suspect they all feel that decay is dumb. It is a shame that guild people don't invite non-guild people to play, meaning they don't put up a pug. I ALWAYS do.

I guess sometimes I would rather play a different game. Nobody is perfect.

;]

[Bosco]

Lets face it. We need to do something. Still waiting on the luvin.

1. Guilds could run more low level pugs.
2. Turbine could come through with server specific events (xp boost. CC days with reduced requirements for opening, giveaway events etc)

Any idea's.

I thought that was the german/euro server. One of these three things might help.

1. Offer Lederhosen armor kits
2. Have a Turbine sausage lottery
3. Shut it down

[Ginarrbrik]

I thought that was the german/euro server. One of these three things might help.

1. Offer Lederhosen armor kits
2. Have a Turbine sausage lottery
3. Shut it down

lol

[notte.oscura]

I don't understand why there has to be different servers, anyways, except as a holdover from before, when technology wasn't as able to keep up with large numbers of players. Even if one computer or server couldn't handle all the players, there is distributed computing these days, which makes many computers behave as one.

Yes but if you want to be able to scale out you have to build for it... design your architecture around that principle and follow specifications based on the chosen technology.

DDO's design is what? 7-8 years old? More?
Maybe it will be a matter of discussion if a DDO2 will ever exist :)

[jamvaru]

I thought about ddo2 before, but now I think that to discontinue a game is tragic; look at City of Heroes, how sad

All you need to do is update the old content to run on the new engine and keep it as a secondary starting point; or just make the characters compatible, able to travel from realm to realm, using the old engine, for the heck of it, nostalgia

for your new game you design all new areas, etc. Like use Gygax's world, for example; i had an excellent tabletop map of it back in the day, i forget the name of it now, Greyhawk? I think so.

Personally, I would like to see a true representation of original AD&D, rather than 3.5 rules or whatever. Start from scratch, do a faithful translation to computer medium. Then you can do the same for 2.0, etc. Then each realm becomes an alternative in the same universe characters can travel to. The key is to make characters compatible in some way between realms. If you go to realm 1.0 you follow realm 1.0 rules, so you lose your feat bonuses and gain no feats, perhaps, who knows; at any rate, it is all pie in the sky; ddo will probably die