Conquer Club

Concise description:
New players should be limited to playing the classic map until they have completed a set number of games.


Specifics/Details:
As a freemium, my speed games are restricted to certain game specifications. I think new players to the site should be similarly restricted. In particular manual deployment games can be ruined by a newbie depositing all their troops in 1 place then not making any further moves.
How many games I'm not sure: obviously one wants to encourage new players so maybe it shouldn't be too many, perhaps just 1 or 2, but enough to avoid those who join and never make a move. Perhaps it should be 1 for premium players and 2 for freemium; or perhaps just 2 for freemium, since I imagine very few pay to join then never play (are there any stats on that?).

How this will benefit the site and/or other comments:
It will a) avoid new players ruining games by not showing up after they join; b) make it easier to spot, and harder to indulge in, newbie farming; c) discourage the sad people from setting up multi accounts.

Lots of views, no comments... is that becuase it's already been rejected, or does it indicate tacit agreement?
Please express a view, thanks.

clangfield wrote:Concise description:
New players should be limited to playing the classic map until they have completed a set number of games.

why should they? what problem do you see that needs to be rectified by limiting them to only Classic ?

they play differently to me is not a good enough excuse.

greenoaks wrote:

clangfield wrote:Concise description:
New players should be limited to playing the classic map until they have completed a set number of games.

why should they? what problem do you see that needs to be rectified by limiting them to only Classic ?

they play differently to me is not a good enough excuse.

I'm trying to limit the number of games in which new players join then fail to make any moves at all. In particular manual assassin games (especially 3 player) just become pointless.
It's not just the map - the game type needs limiting too; but at least if it were concentrated in one area then one would know the risk of starting/ joining such games.
Obviously it's not just about completing games by deadbeating - they need to complete games by making a determined percentage of moves.
As mentioned, this has the added bonus of preventing 'losers' from setting up bogus accounts to help them with other games.

Classic is the worst map. Why not limit them to a good map like Eurasia Mini?

DoomYoshi wrote:Classic is the worst map. Why not limit them to a good map like Eurasia Mini?

I guess it's subjective as to what a good or bad map might be, but I'm happy to take a consensus. I suppose it might depend on the reinforcement and deployment restrictions.
I thought of Classic a) because it looks like the board game and b) there's nothing too complicated about it - the layout and gameplay are easy to understand.

I think they should be limited to a single less popular map like USA Rockies or something like that to encourage them to buy premium. Same with all other freemium members. Freemium offers way too many options for paying nothing.
This would also most likely speed up the games involving freemium players since they would all be on the same map.

Hate this idea for one reason only. A new player is just that, new, how can they learn if they cannot play?

If players do not want to play them, they can set up private games. Even experienced players with high ranks can be a noob at settings if they start to play it for the medal. So should we restrict them as well? So what is a new player? Someone who is new to the site or new to the setting How do you figure the new settings when we get them This would deter players from staying around. Imagine coming to a site to find 200+ maps and only being told you could only play one map for certain settings. This whole idea smacks of a freeium player tying to make the most of their limited games.

Sorry, but I think this idea is a terrible one. As koontz says, we want new players to join. If someone joins up only to see they can play on 0.5% of our available maps, they'll take their time (and future premium memberships) to the sites that have no such restrictions.

We already restrict some of the more difficult settings and don't allow new players to play those settings, which makes sense. We don't want to throw them into the most complicated games right away.

You don't entice someone to stick around by giving them access to only a small sample of the site. Many people do join this site because they're looking for a place to play a map very similar to the Classic map, but a ton of players stick around because of the varied selection of maps and settings.

I like your second and third points, OP. But as far as the first point, what's the difference between a new player joining a game and then never coming back and an experienced yet clueless player ruining the game through poor play? I'd say the second is more common, and we do have a system in place to prevent a new player from joining games with tricky settings, but there's nothing to keep a noob like me out of a foggy Assassin game. =)

We want Conquer Club to be appealing enough that new players keep coming back, not hamstring the site so much that they don't see much worth sticking around for.

macbone wrote:Sorry, but I think this idea is a terrible one. As koontz says, we want new players to join. If someone joins up only to see they can play on 0.5% of our available maps, they'll take their time (and future premium memberships) to the sites that have no such restrictions.

We already restrict some of the more difficult settings and don't allow new players to play those settings, which makes sense. We don't want to throw them into the most complicated games right away.

You don't entice someone to stick around by giving them access to only a small sample of the site. Many people do join this site because they're looking for a place to play a map very similar to the Classic map, but a ton of players stick around because of the varied selection of maps and settings.

I like your second and third points, OP. But as far as the first point, what's the difference between a new player joining a game and then never coming back and an experienced yet clueless player ruining the game through poor play? I'd say the second is more common, and we do have a system in place to prevent a new player from joining games with tricky settings, but there's nothing to keep a noob like me out of a foggy Assassin game. =)

We want Conquer Club to be appealing enough that new players keep coming back, not hamstring the site so much that they don't see much worth sticking around for.

I'm not sure that it's that much of an imposition to ask a newcomer to complete one test game before unleashing them on the rest of the site - I certainly wouldn't have minded.
Maybe it needs a bigger choice of maps. Maybe it's just 1 game that needs to be played. Maybe it shouldn't be manual deployment.
However I do think there is a world of difference between making bad moves (which may just be unsuccessful attempts) and making no moves - for example someone attacking the wrong assassinee can be advised of their error.
I would also reckon there's an element of off-putting caused by joiners not making any moves.
I agree it's a fine line. Open to other suggestions...

koontz1973 wrote:Hate this idea for one reason only. A new player is just that, new, how can they learn if they cannot play?

If players do not want to play them, they can set up private games. Even experienced players with high ranks can be a noob at settings if they start to play it for the medal. So should we restrict them as well? So what is a new player? Someone who is new to the site or new to the setting How do you figure the new settings when we get them This would deter players from staying around. Imagine coming to a site to find 200+ maps and only being told you could only play one map for certain settings. This whole idea smacks of a freeium player tying to make the most of their limited games.

A new player in this context is one who has just joined the site, has a question mark symbol and has no completed games in which they have made any moves.
Agreed, they have to play to learn; it's those who do not play that are the issue.
Nothing whatever to do with players new to settings; indeed, nothing to do with players. It's purely about non-players.

Ps I would join but I don't have enough time to play more games - and I'm sure you wouldn't want me to become a deadbeat

Just a quick interjection here --

New Recruits are restricted from playing our heavily complicated maps (Conquest Maps, Waterloo, AYBABTU, etc) so that mostly only maps with Classic Gameplay are playable to them. I don't think we'd ever restrict it as far as just 1 map, though!

BMO

Where is the evidence that new players are more likely to become premium if they have access to more maps? The reality could be the complete opposite. The only way to know one way or the other is to perform an experiment.
If you limit freemium members to one map(not classic because too many people only want to play this map anyway), you may lose members initially but they may be the members who have been here for ages and have no intention of getting premium anyway. I think it would be a good opportunity to observe the statistics of exactly which type of player joins/leaves.

There is anecdotal evidence - and tons of it.

In any case, this has been rejected from up high, so I will move this over now. Feel free to discuss the merits of the concept.

This has been extensively debated before:
viewtopic.php?t=102006
(I think there were 1-2 other related threads around the same time as this one.)

Just to add that I would never want to limit all freemium players, for obvious reasons - just want to get rid of those who join the site, join a game, and never make a move.
I think all you premiums would miss us regular freemiums if we weren't here...

DoomYoshi wrote:There is anecdotal evidence - and tons of it.

How many tons of anecdotal evidence make an ounce of direct evidence?

Funkyterrance wrote:

DoomYoshi wrote:There is anecdotal evidence - and tons of it.

How many tons of anecdotal evidence make an ounce of direct evidence?

I think the conversion ratio is something like 1:2, but I'm not around my measuring cups right now.

Improving new user experience is definitely a focus of the administration. This method (which seems originally to be intended to improve the experience of certain existing users), is not one of the methods that is being considered. REJECTED.