Another look at player retention.. (in General)

143 active users from the past 7 days

Last year around this time we were at around 230 give or take. So in the last year we've lost almost half our player base. Now some contributing factors.


The drop system

- came with a cash sink. My question why wasn't BA reduced in price by 20% also?
- No one, even before the cash sink has run an ncb and purchased all there BA without USD. <=== Major flaw if you ask me, at least give us a chance to compete!!

The Economy

- Has any one else noticed the lack of NUB sellouts recently? Hate to say it but allot of our player base was just NUB multi's looking to make a quick buck. Now that the market is down in the dumps it's not even worth it, not that it ever really was.
- Many have said that "the drop system" would have ruined the economy with large inflation prices, weird how the total opposite happens.


In my opinion the game can still be salvaged and the economy can be brought back. But I feel CB should focus on what it's got going for it rather than the flaws it has in the system.

For example rather than argue over the "OP" status of a weapon. Why not argue about how we can make Chat look a little bit more modern
(have you looked at it recently it looks the same now as it did back in 05, and it was never that good looking to begin with). Possibly Meebo?

End rant.

I've been begging for Meebo integration for a long while...
I actually talked to the devs there and got a friendly no.

I believe linking the CB auth system was a major hindrance.

In my opinion, to update increase player base we should fix the tutorial, add achievements of some kind, and add some type of graphics. Oh and we also probably need a new supporter item since its been over a year since such a thing was created.

The economy is how it is because of the huge boost to the monetary gain of referrals.

Agreed! I have made my fair share of posts about this only to have those who are intellectually superior to shoot every one of my thoughts down.


Same as above.


Because gameplay is the other half of what makes people come here. Gameplay mechanics should have just as much attention if not moreso than cosmetics. Just my opinion. (Watch someone intellectually superior come and shoot it down..../me starts. Counting the time.)

totally agree with ba costs

Also I know this has been brought up before, but an iphone App has enormous potential, CB would be perfect because the Specs are so low.

Have you seen some of the games out there in the APP store?

Examples.
- kingdoms at war
- Pets live -_-
- Haypi kingdom
- pirate nation
- Farmville
- And so many others....

Now no disrespect to these games, but let's face it in no way do they compare to CB.

An Android equivelant would be nice as well.

CB needs a facelift, plain and simple. It looks like crap.

Yes


Yes


Yes


Yes

As bad as the tutorial is for new players, it's nothing compared to the outdated GUI. But without Jon, there will never be a CB3. The real question is how do you bring back someone who doesn't care?

Jon cared enough to bring in help when he realized he was going to be too busy to work on CB. The interface updates that he and others began are in place for the most part (the fight page being the final big piece). It's my hope that with the new system in place that customization can reach a whole new level for CB. Allowing us to have many looks, and integration with other sites as well.

All of this takes time, what CB needs is players. People willing to fight, forge, and frequent the forums and chat. There are a number of developers working on our little issues, and others looking into simple apps for phones.

Get out and ask folks you know to try CB, ask them what they hate and report back... instead of banging on the forums asking someone to do something try doing something yourself. Crying wolf and claiming the sky is falling doesn't help.

I think most of us have tried recruiting friends at some point. When I did, the response I got was "it's boring." Since the game actually has a good bit of depth, I took that to mean it's visually boring.

The main problem was that these people didn't last longer than a single set of BA, which meant they didn't last long enough to understand it. The GUI facelift is a must.

Lol u guys are still trying. Gbless ya. Just had to come in here and make a post from my iPhone I finally got. Go CB go!! Haha
-best regards , Kev

an iphone app would certainly be a good step to take... Even if the facebook wave was stopped

Did pixel sage ever release his iPhone game?

I don't understand why this hasn't been added into an iphone app or face book app. It seems like the kind of game that would be perfect for those things. Although, then again I have no idea the coding aspect of such a task.

i agree. facebook app would be a great idea.

Lack of graphics.

A lot of my friends play similar games, like things like Castle Age on Facebook.

But they try CB and find it visually boring.

I keep my mouth shut normally regarding retention threads because I don't want to argue with the few people left in the game :) That being said, I'm getting a bit tired of seeing the same discussions over and over.

For the people claiming it needs a visual facelift: CB strikes me as a more complex game than the typical web-game or however you'd like to label it. How many times have we seen someone come in and add 15 spells to a team? Then someone has to sit down and explain why that doesn't work. For the typical individual whose attention span is all of 3 seconds, this is the first test to whether or not they'll stay.

Which leads me to the main point that simply cannot be overlooked:

- CB will only retain players that are somewhat competitive and interested in investing a decent amount of brainpower into the game.

- CB will struggle to retain people that are comfortable with the fact that, barring retirement of a few of the top players, will never get to flirt with the top 5, perhaps even 10 characters of the game.

To find a player with that combination is difficult in my opinion. "Hey, play this game, it has a lot of strategy involved... and if you play around the clock for 6 months straight during your NUB, you may be the 13th best!" doesn't have much appeal in my opinion.

I took a break for a few years and came back because as a collegiate coach, I need something that will give me a brief break during the day and I like to compete. Although Bejeweled on facebook is an easy fix to that, I enjoy the interaction with people in Carnageblender.

I realize that as a lot of people have invested years of their time as well as a lot of USD, a reset is not going to happen. And frankly that's not a bad thing: There's a lot of history, and I feel that there's a nice balance of attacking/counter-attacking that's led to a lot of competition for the few that are still here. What we need to find is achievable goals for anyone playing, whether they're the old man/woman of CB or a brand new player.

What that is I couldn't tell you - but I think it should be team-based. Clans are nice, but past the bonus % it isn't all that competitive. What are the odds we could make some sort of league-like system?

Off the top of my head it would work something like this: Teams would sign up, and each week you have a specific clan you're competing against. Each team has to use x amount of players, and handicaps could be PR-based, somewhat like bowling leagues. Ways to tally wins/losses could be varied - we could do strictly clan points based, or we can make it like a fantasy sports league with different categories. After x amount of weeks, we could have playoffs. A 'CB CUP' if you will.

It doesn't have to be that, but I feel that there has to be more competition. Fighting gets repetitive - rivalries are a good thing! Something has to be put in place that changes the GAMEPLAY. I'm not saying a visual change is a bad thing, but I just don't think that the people that will leave a game strictly because of its appearance is the type of person that's going to stick around long anyways.

Do we still have a mentor system? If not we should look into it - if the game doesn't have a good look, and the game is boring to some, then we better try showing them we have a nice community and sooner rather than later.

There's a lot more to what my thoughts are, but that's a start. Find ways to make the game about more than burning BA and increasing your MPR. Make a team game where a NUB can be on one team and have a sense of competition against the likes of novice/z/others. The more we're able to do this, the better chance we have of retaining new competitive players.

Isn't that what clans are supposed to be, though? A sort of "team gameplay?"

>The main problem was that these people didn't last longer than a single set of BA, which meant they didn't last long enough to understand it. The GUI facelift is a must.

http://www.carnageblender.com/shared/community-member.tcl?user_id=269845
http://www.carnageblender.com/shared/community-member.tcl?user_id=269945
http://www.carnageblender.com/shared/community-member.tcl?user_id=270012
http://www.carnageblender.com/shared/community-member.tcl?user_id=270032
http://www.carnageblender.com/shared/community-member.tcl?user_id=270082

It isn't hard to find new players who have joined up, fought through a couple battles and went "eh, no thanks" and left. I really think this is a combination of factors, but to me the two biggest are

the moshpit that is lower ranks
the disaster that is CB's GUI

Is it team gameplay in the aspect that our points are totaled together? Yes. Other than coordinating for ritual use, how much actual teamwork is required? Join the clan, fight on your own: There HAS to be a way to actually get people to work together.

Look at the threads that people start for other games - hundreds of posts regarding buying/selling things, attacking at this time, etc. There's no actual collaboration needed to play CB, which in my opinion is half the boredom.

Find a way to make clan fighting a little deeper than having active players that are able to avoid farming a little better than others. Change the style of the game without actually changing the game. This will appeal to new players while not destroying the hard work of the veterans.

people often attribute the reason for others not staying around to their own pet peeves from what i have seen. shade & i were actually gathering feedback from new users pretty much right after they quit logging in (within a week) when it was still fresh on their minds.

it was taking a bit of work, mostly on shade's part, and i had hoped when starting the project that it would be incorporated automatically into cb. in effect, when someone did not log in for a period of 100 hours straight, they were automatically sent the link to the google form.

any kind of survey such as this has a very low response rate and then only a small percentage of those responding give valuable feedback. the first step to fixing any problem (retention) is to determine the reason it is occurring. the opinions of those of us who have stuck around don't really count at all here.

below is the link to the form on google docs, i had started at first throwing out silly or trite responses but didn't towards the end.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AhqtN8y13_DadDlkNVZoZHNPM2tUNG1jbWY3MHRfWFE&hl=en

A good interactive tutorial would go a long way towards helping people into the game. The current one is rather unfriendly especially when it continually gets stuck around the hire a new minion part.

The excitement for most players is gone with Jon gone. He kept it hopping - always changing the mechanics, introducing new items, nerfing, boosting old ones. You don't need new player retention you need OLD PLAYER retention! This game can thrive on 250 - 400 active users. There is nothing left here but a shell.

Every time I come back I feel like I'm visiting the grave of a friend. I feel the tug on my heart, I stop by, I mourn for a bit, I leave flowers and then I get on with my life.

is that your real hair lg? if i could have hair like that i wouldn't shave my head bald! ; )

lol people actuallyreply to feedback forms?

one to two percent it would seem.

Yup... real hair... approaching 50 and I still have hair.... though the shower drain shows me my future each day as the pile gets bigger. DOH!

at 50?... don't complain that happened to me at 20!