How old are you?

Talonia

Hazarding a guess, I'd say this game attracts fewer people/year than it did back in the "glory days" because there are too many flashy alternatives like WoW, LoL or other things that even many of the players here have mentioned having characters on that attract people at the point where they can be sucked into a new game.  Achaea probably has much more retention of established players due to its depth (both PvP and RP), it's just that we have less opportunity to make newer players established ones.  It's an early retention problem, not a late one.  

Hazarding another guess, I'd say the fact that most of the established players have had such a long time to go about establishing their characters (building up rep, levels toward dragon, explorer ranking, bardic ranking, and especially artefacts) discourages other players from sticking around because they feel like there is already an ossified elite.  Look at most politicians, house leaders, orderheads, and top-tier fighters - they're principally well-established and medium-to-heavily artefacted dragons.  To support this argument, I've assembled some data on age/rank of characters who lead cities or houses.  This was calculated in my head, so forgive some errors in averaging.

Eleusis (Ravien) - 245y, rank 276
Sentinels (Xio) - 325, rank 80 (dragon)
Sylvans (Lucine) - 99, 685
Druids (Oceana) - 146, 89 (dragon)

average age = ~227

Ashtan (Dunn) - 152, 27 (dragon)
Occies (Amunet) - hidden, 817
SS (Otha) - 381, 421
Warlocks (Askiva) - 315, 363
Ashura (Isis) -  244, 18 (dragon)

average age = 273

Cyrene (Verrucht) - 298, 214 (dragon)

Wardens (Friztic) - 138, 235 (dragon)

Mojushai (??) - 59, 77 (dragon)

TyBeirdd (Serendi) - 85, 1041

AK (Saidie) 253, 139 (dragon)

Average age = 208

[Some people I picked out as former HL/leaders of Shallam]

Veldrin - 276, 9 (dragon)
Kard  - 271, 58 (dragon)
Draekar - 190, 13 (dragon)

Achilles - ???, 20 (dragon)
Silas - 247, 108 (dragon)
Lyndee - 267, 489
Halos - 328, 548
Wyverex - 277, 371

average = ~258

Naga (Jiraishin) - 117, 471

EF (Ruth) - 262, 92 (dragon)
Maldaathi (Xenomorph) - 354, 197 (dragon)

Congregation (Azor) - 359, 274 

average = 273

Hashan/SL (Vayne) - 206, 60 (dragon)
SW (Mannimar) - 66, 473
BL (Jacen) - 66, 565
Merchants (Kitarel) - 158, 173 (dragon)
average = 124

So the average ages of the characters leading organizations are well over 200 in all cases save one (Hashan), and that case is a neutral city (next lowest is Cyrene).  200 years of character age is 180 IC years of existence, which unless I'm way off on my math, means that most Achaean leaders are characters that are over 6 years old.  Seventeen out of thirty are dragons.  I'd be willing to bet that many of the younger people on this list are not first characters.    

It may have once been true that you could aspire to lead a city or another organization, as the front page proclaimed, but I'm not sure that many new people think that possibility meaningfully exists any longer, or at least, not within the time horizons they can imagine themselves playing a game.  I'd bet that's a big reason why a lot of younger players have gone to other games.  

I'm not saying we need term limits or anything (though maybe we do, and that'd be a good discussion to have elsewhere).  Just trying to explain the phenomenon Lodi was indicating.

Achilles

Achilles is 425 years old.  Good secretly supports stem cell research.

Katzchen

You can aspire to lead a city or organisation Talonia, though I would be surprised if someone managed it under the age of 50. You would have to put in an awful lot of work. Most cities or houses aren't going to judge whether you are worthy of leadership by your combat skills or rank.

Yes, heavily experienced older leaders are the norm, but that doesn't mean there isn't the odd exception of hard working young leaders. It's absolutely feasible for a new character to have a goal aspiring to be a house leader in say an IRL year (around 29-30 years IG) if they have the time, and put the work in.

Jiraishin

@Talonia It makes sense for House/city leaders to be established. I think it might be informative to see who holds jobs like HoN, House secretary, or Minister, at what age, for how long, and if they are promoted as well as who holds the highest positions. Newer characters also have opportunities to build reputations, gain experience or prestige, and become part of that elite.

On a side note, I kind of wish you'd done this math a few years ago. Jiraishin was HL at something like 47 years old, would've messed with the average nicely. Tvistor was quite young as well. I am fairly sure he is a first character; I know Jiraishin was mine.

Ellodin

Sherazad said:

26 years old, 27 next June. In azn years, I think that translates to 20 or younger forever. 

Well, forever, until you're old.

Katzchen

Jiraishin said:

@Talonia It makes sense for House/city leaders to be established. I think it might be informative to see who holds jobs like HoN, House secretary, or Minister, at what age, for how long, and if they are promoted as well as who holds the highest positions. Newer characters also have opportunities to build reputations, gain experience or prestige, and become part of that elite.

On a side note, I kind of wish you'd done this math a few years ago. Jiraishin was HL at something like 47 years old, would've messed with the average nicely. Tvistor was quite young as well. I am fairly sure he is a first character; I know Jiraishin was mine.

I know Kitarel has been house leader of the merchants for 70 years, so that's from in her 80's.

Wysteria

@Ellodin: I always love sending that image to my Asian friends, and nearly all of us agree that grandma at 120yo is pretty much spot on too!

Mannimar

While I can't speak for @Jacen or @Lucine, I was more or less a true newbie when I started Manni. I had the website's maps up side-by-side with the nexus client because I didn't know the MAP command existed (This was also before I figured out nexus had the same maps in its own little window), along with a dozen other ridiculous assumptions that I have since blocked from memory in my embarrassment.

His, or well my, intentions when I made Manni were to be helpful, and learn what I could about Achaea. This quickly developed, as I found things that I felt were weaknesses within my organizations, into me aspiring for a position of leadership so that I could enact the changes (hopefully improvements) that I felt were necessary.

If you look at players unable to see themselves in leadership role within a reasonable timeframe as a reason for them not sticking around, then I would have to say that the fault lies partially with the current established players, as much as it is the fault of those leaving for not committing to that goal and proving themselves capable of that role.

Favonius

@Idelisa I prefer to think of it as the 'should know better' category

Ognog

Could I really be the oldest player at 41?

Tanris

Talonia's point stands. Most people are not going to achieve hl/cl in an active city/house in under two years, which is not a timeframe most people are going to consider reasonable as a goal in a game. More established players will understand the factors in play, but as an initial impression it doesn't send a good one.

The age thing is more a culture thing, though. People are more quick to cry alt, as a lot of our new characters are alts in recent years (and it is probable that people are more reluctant to give younger players positions of authority due to that).

I'd be a huge advocate of hardcoded term limitations. I know for a fact I could easily have held onto cl for as long as I wanted to, and that's in one of the orgs with a lot of internal politics. It is completely feasible for a group or individual to stranglehold an org (there are too many examples of this historically and presently to list) indefinitely, to such a degree that even hugely established players are unlikely to be able to uproot them. One reason I stepped down was I felt things were beginning to feel too static, and I've not regreted it for a second. Changes in leadership put completely new angles on how a city/house/whatever is run, and the playerbase does ourselves no favours by trying to consolidate power at the cost of that.

Given that's a pretty entrenched thing though, hardcoded term limitations (with a you cannot hold x position until one other person has taken it clause) are probably a good idea.

Rispok

There are forms of house government that have term limits, such as Dictatorship. It would be neat if anyone used these governments,though. Seems like most houses do not.

Tanris

To be fair though, dictatorships are possible the worst house mechanic in Achaea outside of orgs where the divine picks the hl (Mhaldor).

They work great until you get someone in power who is doing your org damage, then you have no way to remove them for over an rl year. Dictatorship term limits is good, inability to remove that leader is not.

Trey

Katzchen said:

Jiraishin said:

@Talonia It makes sense for House/city leaders to be established. I think it might be informative to see who holds jobs like HoN, House secretary, or Minister, at what age, for how long, and if they are promoted as well as who holds the highest positions. Newer characters also have opportunities to build reputations, gain experience or prestige, and become part of that elite.

On a side note, I kind of wish you'd done this math a few years ago. Jiraishin was HL at
something like 47 years old, would've messed with the average nicely.
Tvistor was quite young as well. I am fairly sure he is a first
character; I know Jiraishin was mine.

I know Kitarel has been house leader of the merchants for 70 years, so that's from in her 80's.


I've been back in the Maldaathi longer than that, and she succeeded me, so she's close to 100 if not over it. Also, Kista was younger.

Rispok

Trey said:

Jiraishin said:

@Talonia It makes sense for House/city leaders to be established. I think it might be informative to see who holds jobs like HoN, House secretary, or Minister, at what age, for how long, and if they are promoted as well as who holds the highest positions. Newer characters also have opportunities to build reputations, gain experience or prestige, and become part of that elite.

On a side note, I kind of wish you'd done this math a few years ago. Jiraishin was HL at something like 47 years old, would've messed with the average nicely. Tvistor was quite young as well. I am fairly sure he is a first character; I know Jiraishin was mine.

I know Kitarel has been house leader of the merchants for 70 years, so that's from in her 80's.

I've been back in the Maldaathi longer than that, and she succeeded me, so she's close to 100 if not over it. Also, Kista was younger.

She has been house leader for no more than 67 years.

Rovelda

Ognog said:

Could I really be the oldest player at 41?

The button says 36+. Let's not specify more.

Jacen

Not counting the few weeks I played a decade ago, or the few times I logged in a couple years ago, Jacen is my first char.

Nakari

I feel like the problem is far more systematic then just house leadership. Quite frankly, it's hard to be a true newbie in Achaea. No graphics make things confusing, a relative lack of ooc support given to players when they are just beginning (I.E, auto sipper, explanations of how to use the various mapping options within various clients) and lack of ic support sometimes (it personally took me quite a while to learn that elixirs in Achaea were not resources to be hoarded like potios in other games) all makes starting Achaea when there are a vast number of other graphical mom's blaring adds out there very hard.

And heck, look at house reqs. I'm not going to make the claim that early house reqs are hard, because as someone who's played the game for years they aren't at all, but for someone coming new into the game there are a whole lot of terms and ideas and massive house help files of text that need to be read through and understood. Compare to something like WoW, which gives you a couple of little help icons and then invites you to go press a button at the bottom of your screen to shoot spells at everything near you. It only gets worse, after being a hard-coded newbie, because then all the sudden you lose most of the easy help network. Quests become something that you're expected to muddle through yourself, and denizens rarely actually explain what they want you to do particularly clearly. Further, there are only a select handful of quests that are particularly profitable, and none are good for leveling after the really early levels.

Quite frankly, it's hard to get into anything in Achaea. In WoW (and my info on WoW is dated back to mid WOTLK, for reference) if I start in a certain early leveling zone (I'll use Draenai), I'm instantly put into a story. I'm clearly told what I need to do where I need to go, I'm given rewards along the way, and by the end of everything I get to be hailed as a hero to my people by a whole lot of NPC's. I get to feel useful and a part of the story. Once I hit 18/19, which is a time investment of a handful of hours, I can start getting involved in early pve in terms of instances, and can be competently doing early pvp as well. And heck, I'm pretty sure that with their new system I can do all of this without paying anything. Achaea is the complete opposite of this, really. quests are menial and, perhaps especially due to their repeatable nature, don't feel like an especially crucial part of the storyline. Group pve is just spamming your bashing attack at higher level enemies with more people. Pvp is a downright nightmare to get into, requiring at the very least a cure system before one can even think of stepping near the arena, then multiple transed skills before one can even think of trying to fight, and then a steep learning curve before even being able to think of winning. (and this ignores artifacts, which depending on who you ask / depending on your class may or may not come into play in those last few steps) The transed skills alone represent a large investment of money (and I say money because making gold IG either requires additional investments of credits for fishing, or knowledge of effective questing, something that isn't readily available to new players. Heck, I still don't know how to quest well enough to make the gold people always like to talk about it making), and even after that it's still really hard to learn. All I have to do in WoW is use the same skills I've been leveling with, except aimed at other players.

And what about rp achievements that are not limited by org position? Take, for instance, knighthood. While I fully agree that this should be a significant ig achievement, and thus should be hard, hard for a more experienced player and hard for someone looking to try to get into the game are very different things. Things like the combat requirement for the Templars were rather tedious, taking (totally rough math here) something like a minimum of 40 hours of just combat, and that was when you were using the more efficient methods that one could not even constantly bet on being available (raids and rampages). Again, I get that it should really be difficult, and that it should be a somewhat exclusive achievement, but if I was just joining the game, that would not sound like a particularly fun or viable prospect (I could be most of the way to max level in WoW in that time). No matter how reasonable it is within the game world, it can still be a turn-off to someone looking to get involved.

So yeah, things like org leadership roles can take years to achieve, if ever. So do significant RP achievements, getting into combat without significant funds to spend, and many other aspects of the game. Especially for a game that is not the norm in terms of how it is played, none of this serves as a particularly good way to attract new players. Thus, it really shouldn't be a surprise that getting new people who actually stay around is hard.

tl;dr: it's hard to be a truly new player in Achaea. It's hard, and nobody understands.

Aktillum

I remember Sarapis saying on the forums that they're going to look long and hard at the newbie retention rate after the Bal'met event. This discussion really deserves a thread of its own because I'm sure we all have valuable ideas on how to attract more players.

Tanaar

Sena said:

Cahin said:

It could be that a lot of the younger players do not wish to identify themselves as such and are abstaining from answering (due to the public nature of the survey and results).

Jiraishin said:

Younger players might be more reluctant to share their ages not just because of possible loss of respect IG but because telling every person who reads the forums that you are 15, 16, years old might not be the safest thing.

It could also be that the players on the forums (and thus responding to this poll) are disproportionately long-time players (or just older), so newer/younger players are under-represented. There are too many biases for this to be a real indication of shifting demographics.

This was my thought as well. I think most of Achaea's true newbies are in the late teen range, and the ones that stick around age with it. Ergo, the forum population is more a function of the age of the game and the rate of retention of long time players. Hence, you get a mid-twenties median.

Kakotas

Part of newbie retention is good novice structuring and super active aides. If your head of novices isn't in for at least 2 hours a day it gets really hard to keep them. Knighthood is one of the hardest paths but we retain a whole lot of our novices even as part timers between another character just because we try to make it possible. The big thing is mentorship here. If you have people who understand mentoring novices in your house find ways to keep them they are a pretty rare breed in achaea.

Delphinus

Lodi said:

Wait... there's an age limit?

Mostly for legal reasons. See also COPPA.

Hayte

...4 months from moving into a new bracket and that suddenly made me realize that I'M ABOUT TO BE -censored- THIRTY WTF.

Cooper

I think it would be cool if newbies weren't encouraged/suggested to join houses/cities/pick a class right away.

You could give newbies a hunting skill, let them learn it with free lessons to get the hang of learning, and not open them up to anything but newbie zones until level 20-25, where they are shown each house and each city and get to pick what they want to be then.

With a -LOT- more information given slowly from level 1 to whatever is picked.

Katzchen

@Cooper that would be awesome... I'd much rather see newbies turning up with some semblance of a description, an idea of how custom emotes work, rather than having the house have to teach these borderline OOC things, or them bumbling along to find these very basic RP devices. It would also give them time to find out who their character is before jumping into such a major choice as to what orgs to join.

It would be nice if all cities had something like Mhaldor's Maric where newbies under certain requirements were inducted automatically, the same way you can join a house via Certimene.

Delphinus

The option is open to all, @Katzchen. Ashtan and Cyrene already utilise it, per the help files for those cities.

Kyrra

I'm almost in the next bracket.

Dunn

Got one more year in my bracket!

Ognog

There's no next bracket for me

Dethea

I just passed the 27-29 bracket

But, since I act/feel like I'm 15, maybe I should have checked that one? o_o