World of Warcraft did it with its absolutely massive amounts of endgame content it built up over its long lifespan.
Star Wars: The Old Republic failed at it because it had none of said end-game content.
EVE Online survives because of its incredibly complex economy and high risk factor.
So, what does SK have to keep people from leaving? And what could be added to keep people from leaving from boredom?
Nah they only keep people giving them fancy stuff like accesories, recolored costume (they even dont put any effort on make costumes) and well i know they are working on "more fancy stuff" for your knight to make a TOP MODEL! YAY! MORE USELESS THINGS FOR OUR KNIGHTS!.
really spiral knight wouldnt have real major content like new bosses, new level, new enemies. this year would be the same as the previous one. of yeah battle sprites but... they are not the big deal only that we going to farm the same levels with our pets. big deal.
Sadly spiral its not to keep loyal and old fanbase its only mean attracts new players let them buy stuff play a bit then leave the game and the cycle repeat.
You find them, kidnap them, chain them to a pole, & force them.
It's not that hard.
Oh yeah of course.....cause everyone likes grinding for event tokens and paying for prize boxes every other month........
They don't stop people have leaving. Majority of the vets are actually gone. Majority of the old players are actually gone. They keep giving promo after promo to milk money from the new players to keep it running. I'm one of those players that haunt these forums even after I'm not playing because I'm waiting for some real content. A new boss not hidden behind a money wall. A new boss not hidden behind an event. I desire new levels, new story, new bosses that I can fight whenever I want. At least until that day comes I have plenty of other games to keep my interest.
I'd imagine that most people stay because it's addicting trying to get your knight to have better gear and a better rank. After a few months you get that Vanguard rank, and have 5-star gear, looking pretty fly.
Then, what's next? Seems like people still enjoy improving their knight so they'll want some useless accessories to look pretty. If they're in a Guild they probably have friends in the Guild that they enjoy playing with. Social is a big part in an MMO. It's usually what keeps people staying to play the game.
@Iron -- I agree with you on that, but make sure you feed them as well
Most free online games have a huge # of players joining it and leaving it Spiral Knights has many old active players, and a lot of new faces as well which well shows growth. This game is not dying at all they are making profit keeping us busy until some new "big content" update hits us from the looks of it we gain about 2 to 4 big changes a year in Sk so far.
Listed in order:
events
Bosses and new boss weapons
Blast Network...meh it didn't work out to well
LOCKDOWN--this right here brought back a ton of players
Shadow Lair
general story-line by introducing missions
prestige and danger missions
Black Kat!
Basically their shaping the game slowly... I CAN'T WAIT FOR PETS, Cause they will be awesome!
"Basically their shaping the game slowly... I CAN'T WAIT FOR PETS!!!!!!!!``CAUSE THEIR AWESOME!"
"I CAN'T WAIT FOR PETS!!!!!!!!``CAUSE THEIR AWESOME!"
"PETS!!!!!!!!``CAUSE THEIR AWESOME!"
"THEIR AWESOME!"
"THEIR"
EDIT: Edit your post all you want, your shame is still shown. You also used the wrong one at the beginning.
Give aways and stupid events. Get people to stick around the game a little while longer :D.
I guess it works, I've been seeing a bunch of friends logging on who have quit for a while.
@dragon, unfortunately that results in alot of this happening. :/
While the game is not really dying, it definately does not "grow". Truth to be said, it even gets less people, but this diminution is very, very slow. The Steam&Game stats is a pretty good indicator of a game population growth, and yeah I know not everyone plays through Steam, it still is the biggest players provider, by far.
Here is a link showing the stats history for Spiral Knights on Steam. Click me
Search for SK, check out the first graph for all-time stats. The stats show a slightly decreasing trend. Nothing to be alarmed about, I don't think the game will die anytime soon, but something must be done to counter this tendency before it gets ineluctable though.
World of Warcraft did it with its absolutely massive amounts of endgame content it built up over its long lifespan.
World of Warcraft also has a much higher budget to keep a larger crew of programmers and artists working on content. The SK team, being small as it is, has to balance retaining long-term players with resolving issues that prevent players from reaching that point in the first place. If most of your playerbase is quitting the game before they even complete Tier 2 content, then fixing problems causing that becomes the greatest priority. That's why we saw the addition of missions and the updates to rescue camp, to provide a more guided experience for new players to prevent them from getting lost in the game's concepts and losing interest.
Star Wars: The Old Republic failed at it because it had none of said end-game content.
Saying The Old Republic failed because it didn't have enough content is like saying the Hindenburg caught fire because the bulkheads weren't sturdy enough.
they just will keep a few players with fancy stuff. in this way, they not going to grown with it but will hold a bit of them. while a small portion of them will leave the game until real content its added (prolly 2014? well who know).
why worry? OOO wouldnt add anything new, only fancy stuff for your knight, "hey everyone would you like beat Vanaduke while you look handsome?" well thats what going to happen soon, very "soon". real content for the game well dont expect it this year. expect some make up for your knight and battle sprites. thats what would be all in this 2013 for spiral knights.
the only reason i keep playing spiral its because friends but they start already to leave the game so its only matter of time :/
If you can do all that, that someone will be imprisoned in an MMO. Unless you want to create players who have no life (and play with them), please let nature takes its course and allow people to leave.
"Saying The Old Republic failed because it didn't have enough content is like saying the Hindenburg caught fire because the bulkheads weren't sturdy enough."
Except that it's not. I'll explain what happened to SW:TOR:
-Players who got tired of WoW get the game on opening day.
-Said players power through the story and leveling sections of the game, and reach max level within a few weeks.
-The game is new, and has not had time to build up the same amount of endgame content, or community, that WoW has.
-Powerleveling guilds get world firsts, beat every raid, kill every boss, get the best possible gear, and explore every place the game has to offer very quickly.
-expecting the lots of endgame content they were familiar with, the players are disappointed with the game.
-The "Lead Group" of players leaves, cutting a significant chunk out of the game's subscriber count.
-The people who only wanted KOTOR 3 instead of SW:TOR play the game for the story and leave at the end of the story.
-The players that are left, the "normal people", the "casual players", are not enough people to sustain the subscriber-based model.
-The game goes Free-to-Play, with a weird system that essentially allows people to play through the entire story for free and leave, only restricting them in a few PvP instances and something about quickslot bars.
So no, saying The Old Republic failed because it didn't have enough content is NOT like saying the Hindenburg caught fire because the bulkheads weren't sturdy enough. Instead, it's more like saying the campfire went out because the people sitting around it didn't bring enough wood.
@Eltia: I don't mean "imprison" people in the game. I just mean make the game more appealing, so less veterans and new players alike leave out of boredom or frustration.
As long as PvP is interesting and fresh, most MMO can last quite a long time.
Yes, not everyone is interested in PvP, but its still a sizable population.
You can run out of maps to clear and get bored of fighting the same monsters with different skins in the same Ai, but fighting other players always brings something new to the table. Especially if you keep adding more gear to game, which is not necessarily stronger than before but at least different that gives you more options.
I played Age of Empires Online before this. Played it for 4 months. Got everything unlocked in game for free. Got all civics to maximum level, etc and I was bored, so I quit. The PvP just wasn't fun.
On the other hand, I still play my first MMO, Ragnarok Online that I started in 2003-04. Not often, but like once a week or something. Because I can always go in talk to friends and have some fun in PvP and Battlegrounds there.
give up on players , everyone quit thinking you not going to do anything else
RELEASE "GAME NAME" 2
or 3 depending how far you are
@Klipik. Change your title to "how do you make endgame more appealing" then.
And to answer that question, there are usually a couple of options:
First of all, lock the person who must not quit in a locked room with a locked door. Put a PC in there but make sure you can't really do anything but play the MMO with it. Guess what's gonna happen then!
If any problems occur, Carcass is a great band to draw inspiration form.
Event after Event after Event after Event.