[Discussion] Newsletters, Player Retention, Advertising, Voting, and Events

I'd love to see some War events, something that could spice up war more. Now, these events would need to be controlled a bit though since there can't be a level 10 vs 150 because it's obvious who would win. I've put some ideas below. As for the reward, that could be a badge on the forums, maybe a store credit for war or something.

Ideas for events:

• Team Championship - 16 teams of 4 can battle it out to see who is the last one standing. Who can be in the team is what will keep it balanced, I wouldn't want to see a team of level 10's vs a team of 60+'s. So, how it will be kept fair is up to you.
• FFA Championship - Maybe 64 players who will play FFA's the top 8 people of each one will go through until it is left to the last 8ish will just be one FFA where the winner is the first person to 20 kills.

These are my only ideas currently but I deffinitely think there should be some events for War.

 

Newsletters:
Send one every time a new competition is announced. Send one every month (preferably not, but if you're gonna send newsletters might as well). Have the option to disable newsletters for the latter though

Player retention:
The Hub is good, but I don't think that is the issue. Well for HG, the main issue is that it is too noob unfriendly, I don't know if it's the same for war or whatever. Lemme give a specific example. SurvivalPvP. What prevents me from playing that is the fact that its already how many days into the map, which makes it almost impossible for someone to start up.

Another thing about player retention is how things look, and this is targeted to KitBrawl. The fighting arena doesn't look nice, and the hit detection (if it hasn't been changed yet) is horrible. Look at BlockPvP, they're a good KitPvP server. It allows you to break mushrooms to get more mushrooms, and they will regenerate back. Besides, KitPvP is a place for the noobs to practise, and eventually move to HG. Hotbar? Too little

In regards to the website, I think it's quite noob unfriendly. After 2-3 days it will be ok to understand, but initially, it's very hard. You post in the wrong section, and then see a mod say "Moved to xxx". It makes a noob feel bad.
Competitions are also hard to find. If you're on your phone, you can't see the competitions place straight away. Chances are you will go to Community. I suggest having a separate website for competitions, and the forums section for that will be just the summary. MCPVP had www.mcpvp.com/tournaments.

Advertising/Voting:
These 2 are linked in what I have to say. To get new players, you need players to vote. I don't know how effective this is, but I think it should help to a certain extent. How do you attract people to vote? Give incentives. Currently the voting tokens nobody knows what they are for, so they should have some use. MCPVP had a system for a short while where you vote and you get to use a kit for 3 hours. Maybe this is what Brawl can do, allow people to trade in voting tokens for a HG Kit, a CTF class, a new MinecraftBuild map, or something on War. This is what would get me to vote.

Advertising/Events:
I don't know if this applies to other gamemodes, but for HG there were quite a few YouTubers who have left Brawl. Why? At that time Brawl didn't do anything to HG, crits were broken, and there were a lot of problems. How do we get them back? Have a Quarter Quell. I know that quite a few will return and make a Quarter Quell video if there is one. StolenPvP is one of them. He has around 4k subs. bball0928 has about 70k and is somewhat alive. A QQ may attract him back. To have a QQ, you need to release HG out of beta. Fix stats first, and then work on other things.

 

Lag is the #1 issue on war
You should have some kinda tutorials for new players on all servers.
Didnt know how to change class on ctf when i was a newbie.

 

Sup @chickenputty,

I answered your questions in Overlord Blue......

If we begin sending out newsletters to your email for Brawl...

1. How often should we send them? I'm fine with Monthly or Quarterly. For players over 17, they probably have their own email, if younger then you might be clogging up their parents email. You could send everyone over 17 an email monthly and those under 17 a quarterly email.
   
2. What information should be in the email? 1) I would like to hear about new game development 2) Upgrades to games 3) Staff who have been promoted or left 4) Volumes of players month to date 5) Community Events 6) A human interest piece such as a staff bio or one for well known players 7) Tips for using Skype, TS, Commands, things that will help improve the in game experience 8) Feedback as to how we are doing 9) Public recognition for things such as being on the leader boards and staff members 10) I would recommend forming a team, like the wiki team to develop content for each month and review the survey's and emails.
   
3. Should we try to do giveaways or rewards in the email? If so, what? 1) I would approach this as a crowd sourcing of content, having gamers write their own articles or threads 2) Rewards for playing and responding to a monthly survey
   
4. What should it HAVE to have? Explain. (I listed content in question 1)
   
5. What should it NEVER have? Explain. Anything inappropiate. The majority of readers will be parents and not gamers so it should appeal to them as well, since they have the money .

Open up some recent newsletters you received from companies and see what you do and don't like. Post that information!


In regards to player retention (keeping players coming back and online)...

1. What needs to be improved? 1) Rotation of maps in COD 2) Reduce lag 3) I would like to see a role such as an Ambassador for the game who helps new people. Not a Mod but someone who can help new players with texture packs, understand the game, etc
   
2. Is the hub easy to navigate and understand for a noob? Explain. I think it is easy to navigate
   
3. Does the information on the servers allow you to understand them? If not, which? I think it is easy to navigate
   
4. What are we missing that other servers are doing to keep you coming back? 1) Rotation of maps in COD 2) I would like to see the current game continuously improved (let's give up on 2.0) and fix what we have.

In regards to advertising, I currently have the following down:
Voting sites
Minecraft fan forums
Reddit
YouTube (ours, paid YouTubers, player YouTubers, staff YouTubers)
Twitch (ours, paid, player, staff)
Purchase advertisements on voting sites

1. What else is there? What am I missing? I don't vote, but tell me more why does that matter? Does it increase the popularity of the game or some other metric?

In regards to our voting system...

1. Why do you vote? (or tempted to) I don't vote, because I haven't bothered. If it were super easy I might, I just don't.
   
2. Why do you not vote? (or tempted not to)
3. Why do you vote for other servers versus ours?

Regarding events:

1. What events would you like to see? (big and small) I would like to see clan battles
   
2. What giveaways would you like to see and where? I would like to see cool stuff added to Elite. Like the ability to change the map and game a certain number of times a day. More bullets, and other cool stuff worth the cost of it.

 

1)Brawl newsletters should be sent out once every month. One month seems like the right amount of time because every two weeks is a bit too much for the casual player. It's nice too see that a server is making progress constantly and every few weeks isn't enough to tell much progress has been made. As for avid Brawl players, more than one month seems like a bit too much time because updates on what's happening are nice too see on a regular basis.

2)The information should be something like the monthly Brawl news. It shows general information about what has happened in all areas. Maybe there could be status updates for servers in development like for War 2.0. I remember there was a thread that had every stage of WildWest development made by Singatured. It was encouraging to see that progress was being made and it helps keep a player playing Brawl. In addition,it could have the month's individual player count. Lastly, it should have recognition for notable members or a notable members section.

3)I don't think there should be givaways or rewards in the email, but it could have links to the current giveaway.

4)It should definitely have the choice to stop the newsletters because some people might not want to recieve them at all. This would also be for the parents who don't want the emails if their child is too young to have one and they used their's to get a forums account. I don't really know what else to put here besides my response in number 2.

5)It should never have shameless promotion like "Vote at these links: <link 1>, <link 2>" etc. It takes away from the connection to the player and makes it seem like a robotic message made to promote and not to inform .It is not inviting to see on any newsletter.

1) I think overall decoration could be improved a little. The hub is well decorated for the VIP, MVP, and ELITE zones, but not much for the main part. Most people would log in to the hub because that is the most advertised IP (brawl.com). If it were more decorated,more players would be initially hooked and would want to stay more. Also, if possible, lag should be improved. I don't see much of a problem with it, but I see people complaining about it all the time.

2)The hub is extremely easy to understand. You spawn in and you see all of the possible servers to get to. It doesn't get much easier than that .

3)Almost every server is very well explained and understandable except War. The thing about War is that I see PVT's all the time who ask, "What do I do" or, "When does the game start?" I feel this could be explained by a sign or something like that telling people that there's a countdown on the XP bar. Either that, or a must better option, a full on tutorial. It would explain everything you need to know about War. Anyone could know what to do after seeing that. Not everyone knows to right click on the ender eye either right away. That could be explained. Other than that, every server seems very understandable.

4)I don't play any other severs often enough to have something important to put here.

1)I don't vote often, but I am tempted to because of the bonuses it can get you. It can get you tokens to buy things on the servers (which are currently down I'm pretty sure) and the top three highest monthly voters. This gives credit in the shop, which is very enticing.

2)There really is no reason not to vote. The rewards are very well thought out. I personally don't vote because I have most of the stuff for War and I really don't need much else.

3)I know on another server, it gives many, many bonuses. Too much for the server to be fair for people who don't know how or who just don't vote. On one server, it gives access to kits that not even the highest donor rank can get you. It's not fair to the other players.

1) This one shouldn't give a Brawl shop reward, but just a marker that the player gets to show that they won. It is the top kills for War and WarZ. I would try to place in them if I got bored, but I wouldn't otherwise. It is really entertaining to see all of the submissions and to watch the actual video. There was a top 10 War kills video here. It would be something like that. Otherwise, I would like to see clan allies and clan enemies for War. It would be cool to face an enemy clan in competitions like most kills in a certain amount of time or the most EMPs in a certain amount of time. Something of the sort.

2) I can't think of any more givaways or bonuses for ranks here.

 

If we begin sending out newsletters to your email for Brawl...

1. How often should we send them?: I'd say every month with everything, if there's a major update, then send that ASAP.

1. What information should be in the email?: ONLY updates & new protocols.

1. Should we try to do giveaways or rewards in the email? If so, what?: I don't think you should do that. Mostly when you look at an email, you want to catch up to things and such, to be honest. I'm sure players look at social media WAY more than email. So like I said, only important things should be in the email. Giveaways or rewards should be on Twitter or other platforms so that people look at them often and since Twitter is very wide, you could retweet and such (you can't really do that in email).

1. What should it HAVE to have? Explain.: Protocols is a definite thing that must be included, some people may not check the forums news that much. I've even found a lot of people who don't even know about the ridealong protocol. I think these are important because it's a warning to all players, it also keeps players updated so they can tell their friends and such.

I also believe it should have BIG UPDATES, by that I mean not the minor ones such as MC-War gun tweaks and such. But updates that are game-changing (preferably an update that applies to one gamemode, not a base change such as voting, chatreports, etc.).

1. What should it NEVER have? Explain.: Minor updates... by that I mean /chatreport and such, these updates come around pretty much every 2 weeks or such. Many of these aren't totally gamemode-changing. Also minor additions, such as texture-packs.

In regards to player retention (keeping players coming back and online)...

1. What needs to be improved?

1. Is the hub easy to navigate and understand for a noob? Explain.: I think it is with the navigator. Although the only real thing that you need to know as a "noob" is how to get to other gamemodes. Portals are self-explanatory, and the compass seems to be as well. The only real reason you would have to explore the hub was if you were a donor, with the donor regions. Considering right now there's no specific things that are in the donor region, it shouldn't be a problem. But if anything does come along, it should point out to donors that you have your own place. Even though there's a navigator, there's barely anyone there.

1. Does the information on the servers allow you to understand them? If not, which?: I'm not really sure myself on this one. Currently it does say the necessities, Brawl did a good job on that, but in detail such as voting, social network. I don't think they need to build on anything else, because if one was truly going to want to find out EVERYTHING about Brawl (most players just want to play), couldn't they not be that lazy enough to view the wiki? I have constantly stressed on making the wiki more visible to the public, and argued that it should be the first choice if someone needed help. So I think it should have more attention because I and countless number of other people have made the wiki up-to-date with a whole lot of information.

1. What are we missing that other servers are doing to keep you coming back?: Mostly rewards that give you lots of stuff. Take for instance Mineplex, you get more rewards if you keep on coming back every single day, and from that you can open treasure chests which carries the same hype as CS:GO case opening (which everyone loves). If we make some sort of luck opening, then it will attract lots of YouTubers and dare people.

In regards to our voting system...

1. Why do you vote? (or tempted to): Solely for the purpose of attaining voting tokens, I doubt anyone really votes to help the server lol. I also think many players do it for winning the contest of the most frequent voter.

1. Why do you not vote? (or tempted not to): Knowing that if I miss one day of voting, it totally messes up my chance of winning the voting competition. Other than that nothing else really.

1. Why do you vote for other servers versus ours?: They have basically the same rewards. But like I said about Mineplex, they have lots of rewards in terms of voting and logging in everyday. Their voting tokens are more universal as opposed to ours. Considering if you vote, you get more gameplay advantages rather than cosmetics. Also most servers don't have voting support.

Regarding events:

1. What events would you like to see? (big and small): Small events every month, player opinion reflection. Big events when updates are more rarer to be seen, just to spice things up

1. What giveaways would you like to see and where?: More unique giveaways rather than just ranks. I really liked the Wild West access giveaway, but I think there should be giveaways that all people like. Considering that what if someone didn't like Wild West / Openworld kind of games? I don't really know about this, but I do say that Brawl is crazy about events. Maybe some more flashy events instead of all focused on who wins. There should be brackets and more organized events, as well as organized chat channels and such to calm down the crazed crowd.

 

In regards to player retention (keeping players coming back and online)...

1. What needs to be improved?
   To keep players online, you need progression. Why do so many of today's highest quality games have grinds? Why do they have leveling systems? To keep you addicted to constantly unlocking new things, letting there always be something new you can strive to achieve. I believe more of our gamemodes need to implement unlockables and more of them. Whether those unlockables are cosmetics, new maps, new weapons, whatever-- we need things to strive towards. (I could go on forever about progression systems, but there are other things I need to say)
   
   Login rewards would be pretty swag.
   
   As most of Brawl's gamemodes are heavily PvP oriented, I believe that adding some gamemodes that are more focused on cooperative PvE would be a fresh and welcome change to things, as I personally am not a huge fan of fighting against people, but rather working together with people towards a common goal, such as in Destiny working together to accomplish a vault.
   
   Another possibility would be to implement server-wide achievements such as "100 kills on war", "use the massive portal in the hub" "add a friend" and some more challenging ones, of course, such as finding secret areas, winning tournaments, spending time on a server, etc. The possibilities are huge for achievements! (Secret ones too )
2. Is the hub easy to navigate and understand for a noob? Explain.
   You have a compass, you go somewhere (even if the compass menu is relatively messy). Although, that's not (in my opinion) what a hub should be. I believe that the Hub should be a social center for the server. Where if you're alone you could go to meet up with some other people who are lonely and possibly make some new best friends. The hub shouldn't be static, there should be small things you could do in the hub that encourage friend making, such as brawl pits where two people can 1v1 and you can bet your coins on who wins, among other possibilities.
3. Does the information on the servers allow you to understand them? If not, which?
   War has no tutorial on how to upgrade, what numbers mean, what commands exist, etc. I haven't really played the other servers much.

Well putty, that's my $0.02

 

I agree with Mattyz_ about the QQ. HG really needs a QQ in order to get new/old players into HG. Plus, QQ publicize HG and can bring in a lot of revenue with people buying kits for it and alts (and unbans).
Voting is very op on all of the servers because you can buy p4 books on SPVP , diamond gear on warz and cool weapons on war. I vote very frequently to try to make Brawl a more popular server, and use the tokens to get good stuff on SPVP/warz and get xp on war (which is why I'm level 60 while only playing 3 hrs of war). The only improvement voteing can have is to make it so that you can rent HG/CTF kits/classes and maybe buy an extra map on build.
I don't really care about a newsletter because Totom3 posts recent updates for HG and there is the Brawl news that updates me on other things. I do think Brawl should have more sales to encourage people to buy ranks though.

In regard to the leveling system mcpvp had an XP system that was really cool. Here is a video explaining it: