New Player Onboarding and Retention

The current issue: Currently, the server has difficulty onboarding new players and gaining their interest within the first few critical moments of them joining. Historically, this wasn't an issue because the server had an abundance of players and staff members who could onboard new players as they joined. However, today, new players are left to their own devices without knowing how to play the game and are likely to wander the map aimlessly and then permanently leave. To improve the health of the server and to boost new player retention, I would like to make a few suggestions.

The 1-2-3 Tutorial: New players have a very short attention span and need a tutorial that can teach them the very basics of the game, then send them off to start. I would suggest implementing a simple tutorial in three simple steps that would teach new players where they should start. Example steps: 1. Get a job from (…) 2. Buy a property. 3. Get items from the resource world if needed. These are just some example steps so that new players can get a grasp on what they should be doing. It may also be helpful to have lengthier tutorials for a specific job, but the player would only read this if they were going down that path. I would also include a strict and very obvious warning about important server policies, like how committing a crime (such as robbing a gas station) can make you unhirable for government positions.

Website Tutorials: This would be the next steps after developing an in server 1-2-3 Tutorial. This would involve expanding upon the VindexCraft website and having tutorials about different parts of the server just as jobs, crafting, systems, and more. It is important to have a website tutorial since currently most the important information is buried in Discord which makes it incredible difficult for new players to find important information to learn about the world. I would treat the development of the website as an open-source project and encourage players to contribute their knowledge.

Tour Guide Role: Even with a tutorial, new players are often looking for some social interaction and a way to ask questions about the server (since it is very complicated). I recommend appointing motivated players who have been around for a very long time as tour guides. This role would give players the authority and the initiative to take action on greeting new players and showing them the world of Vindex. Nothing is more effective at keeping new players around than building more personal connections with them.

Housing Shortage: I have noticed there is a lack of desirable houses to be purchased on the map. Most of the good houses are taken by players who no longer join. I would suggest either developing a new housing area with vacant houses, or creating a policy about auctioning off old houses, and creating a document to log the auctioned amount to give that amount to the old player if they ever join back. This would give new players something to work towards, like buying a new house, and offset the housing shortage if we do get more players to stay.

Not all of these suggestions need to be implemented, but I hope they can give the server staff team some inspiration on how they can continue to maintain the server's health and grow the community of VindexCraft.