How attract new players ?

[dawn90]

Dear Community,

 

First of all let me introduce myself without giving my name: I'm a new user, I was a new user of the now defunct rose online, and. For some reason this morning I started thinking about this game that my friend introduced me to. And I can tell ya, at the beginning I didn't think I'd like it I mean it seemed like something without any disrespect something that only seven to twelve year olds would play, in no way did I think I would get hooked or even interested.

But he insisted. He made my avatar (character).

I think at the beginning there's some sort of training before you get to visit the real world if my memory serves me correctly - so it wasn't that interesting, I thought it seemed nice but I didn't get why I would play something like this: with no action - maybe I wasn't familiar with MMORPGS but I just didn't see the point and it didn't seem particularly appealing to me - at least not to the point where I would give it that much time.

 

After the initial introduction, you get transferred to the main village or something and you get all these people. I started to get into it - especially when I started getting my first weapons and I really liked my character, what got me was that everyone looked like a child; a child alone didn't seem that appealing but seeing this army of children I just thought it looked amazing, and I'm not a pedophile so that must mean something.

So I kept going.

And, met a few times with my friend - he had a higher level than I was, so he would pop up a few times and go.

He had sort of shiny armor or whatever he was wearing I don't remember exactly. But for me what was the most amazing about this game was that I had never seen something like that; I had never seen a game that made me feel this way.

It was a blue paradise.

I was almost more interested in hanging around than really getting better at it, or improving; and I think for anybody who is blue compatible these games are very important, it keeps that energy alive - and I had forgotten.

So even though I was reticent at the very beginning it won me over just by the way it looked.

It gave me this Naruto feel. But when he was still a child, which I think it was when he was at his best.

 

So, whoever is responsible for these types of games I say thank you.

Because you made me feel something I didn't feel very often.

[MeNewbie]

1. Social media

2.Active player base, sometimes friends are more important then the game, the game become just a host for them

3.Active events, pvp and pvm too

4.New content is just an option for now, 80% or more players are already god at this game so they did this before so for a new player is already new content.

5.Active supports,devs is always good to have around, for a new player been friend with a dev is a cool filing and they will love to return everytime and play because they have someone to share with.

6. Some hardcore content, kids now days love to become a hardcore player because once they got what they farmed for they have strong pretext to share with friends.

Much more can be done but that's for now.

[dawn90]

It‘s true, for these types of games, probably, always.

 

I don‘t believe for one second that anybody without a significant amount of blue aura in their energy system could possibly like this game.

I think that the true purpose of this game, is to serve as a some sort of meeting ground for people with that personality type.

Both of those, that played this game with me. Both of those were Ben Stiller types, if you know what I‘m saying, and there‘s not a lot of them out there - you have to meet.

And avenues have to be created in order for people with the ocean in their hearts to have a place that resonates with them.

 

Because where are you going to find this in real life?

 

Unless you live in Disneyland, you‘re probably not getting your dose of blue magic daily that you need if you‘re Ben Stiller.

Thus: Rose Online.

That‘s how I see it.

Edited January 25, 2022 by dawn90

[burymeinmsg]

On 1/13/2022 at 8:59 PM, OwlchemistVile said:

Make new, and hopefully "good" content. 
Word will get out, there's loads of people who've played ROSE before, waiting for something new. 

Just focus on making a good game, everything else happens naturally.

+1

Rose's biggest problem isn't awareness. It is that it is a 15+ year old game that is competing with an ever changing market of gamers that want something different to what gamers wanted 15 years ago. Just make a good game, everything else will fall into place.

[Cigojnar]

On 1/23/2022 at 9:51 PM, MeNewbie said:

5.Active supports,devs is always good to have around, for a new player been friend with a dev is a cool filing

 And not only for newbies, I remember back in the days there were months of playing w/o seeing single gm in game. It gave us feeling, they didn't care about the game, even more, that they played some other game instead

Some things are easily solved with gm presence in game. No need for screenshots or videos proving some player missconduct, if GM is there, he can see it with his own eyes and *POW*, 1 day BAN w/o warning. Next time a week and so on. Like a kind policeman with judge jurisdiction.

P.S.: I remember when game was p2p, gms were much more respected. Because perma ban ment you had to pay for another account, not just created another one and behaved  the very same way that got you banned.

Edited January 25, 2022 by Cigojnar

[Thystro]

I'd say:

• Search Engine Optimization
  • Create landingspages regarding keywords: MMORPG best, Free MMORPG, Free MMO, Anime mmorpg. I checked a lil bit on this in Ahrefs and SEMrush and there is about 20-30k monthly volume on these keywords.
• Google Ads
  • Create google ads search campaigns with certain keywords with high traffic low CPC (Costs per click) Keyword: Free MMORPG for example has a CPC from $0,20 which is a great keyword (high volume (11k volume worldwide), low competitive density).
• Social Ads
  • I've noticed on the Facebook Ads Manager you can target people who have liked or have interest in ROSE Online. Which is a target audience between 1.6-1.8m people. Create some sweet creatives on Facebook and Instagram and get them knowing that a new server is coming or is launching on a certain date. Get the hype running. You could also target people with intrest in MMO, MMORPG, Flyff? etc.
    
• Blogging
  • Try to place blogs or do interviews on MMORPG.com, MMOhuts, massivelyop and more.
• Launching on steam
  • Get some good reviews from the community who is already playing/willing to play
• Newsletters
  • Send out newsletters to the older database. Keep the community updated what is going on (If possible because of rights etc.)

Edited January 25, 2022 by Thystro

[EqMonkVeeshan]

honestly  do some sponsored streams with some big streamers. great way to get word out as well as  introduce a larger audience of players who may not have ever played it before. getting some of them into  early testing  as well could help draw more in. get some one like CohhCarnage to check it out try it out tweet about it etc.

[Thystro]

58 minutes ago, EqMonkVeeshan said:

honestly  do some sponsored streams with some big streamers. great way to get word out as well as  introduce a larger audience of players who may not have ever played it before. getting some of them into  early testing  as well could help draw more in. get some one like CohhCarnage to check it out try it out tweet about it etc.

If only it was that easy that CohhCarnage of all people would play this game. But there might be a few semi big/big streamers out there who have played this game back in 2004 or something.

[EqMonkVeeshan]

4 hours ago, Thystro said:

If only it was that easy that CohhCarnage of all people would play this game. But there might be a few semi big/big streamers out there who have played this game back in 2004 or something.

that is why I said sponsored stream not sure what his rates are but it might be worth  looking into. some times you have to spend money to make money.

[Thystro]

20 hours ago, EqMonkVeeshan said:

that is why I said sponsored stream not sure what his rates are but it might be worth  looking into. some times you have to spend money to make money.

I did some influencer marketing in the last couple of years. I can tell you one thing, it's hella expensive. 

[erko]

I would say the Youtube channels out there for MMOs(example TheLazyPeon, MMObyte) 

I don't think channels like this would need payment to do some advertising about an oldschool MMO coming back, as it is in their interest to post vidos about MMO's. 
I'm not that into social medias, but I guess TikTok is a good spot to focus on kids that would probably like the game.

Also(if possible) send out message to everyone that is following the Rose page on facebook(alot of people have probably hide the site or forgot about it) 
Even sending out emails to old players to the games/forums if possible. 

I would say social medias, facebook, youtube & Reddit. 

Lets not forget that its an old game, and kids/teenagers have other standars towards MMOs today than we had. 


 

[FrameXdrop]

I haven't seen this topic until someone pointed it to me, so i'm deleting my own and post my thoughts about it here:

 

A healthy mmo always need a healthy stream of newcomers because almost all players eventually quit for one reason or another. I got a few ideas that could help.

Updated models, graphics and post-processing: The game breaths a lot of nostalgia, and for its age it still looks pretty okay due to its stylized look. It also does look very outdated. To attract newcomers and a younger audience it would be wise to eventually try and update the visuals of the entire game. (I also heard there already are plans to do this after they fixed the most problematic parts of the codebase).

Stable economy: I said it before and i'll say it again. The biggest problem Rose had was the unstable economy and the ridiculous inflation. The economy in classic Rose supported people who played early and penalized the players who started playing years after release (just like real life, lol). Ways to fix the economy would be putting items behind account locks and add a lot of money sinks where players can put all their money in.

Marketing: I stumbled upon the rerelease of Rose by accident. Not because i saw a news site covering it, or heard it from someone, but because i was wondering if anyone still thought about the game and took a look at the reddit page where i stumbled upon the post. That's terrible, especially since now i'm aware this is already in production for quite a while. Marketing does cost a pretty amount of money, but it is neccessary one way or another to attract newcomers. (I also have a direct contact to a game marketeer if anyone needs it).

Modern MMO game mechanics: The gameplay of Rose is simple as it is difficult, which is perfect for any mmo because newcomers can learn how to play while old recurring players can focus on more difficult systems. Everything however does feel outdated. The implementation of WASD movement will already give the game a modern mechanic, but we're not there yet. Due to the engine's lack of Y-tracking there's no way of creating elevated gameplay. That would personally be a great second step of trying to implement (Also the map design should need a big overhaul to not let players get to the edge of the map. It would also be an amazing addition to add small party dungeons that you can start and end without monsters respawning. 

That would be a list of suggestions i have to try and attract newcomers to the game. I can't press enough on having at least a marketing plan because if people don't know, they won't come.

[RandomAblty]

Word of Mouth is also another thing . If we can make a great community and not be a toxic one like most mmorpgs, I'm sure many will recommend the game as they enjoy their stay. 

[skeptic]

Bringing the game to mobile would open the door to many new players. That said, I would imagine it would be quite the undertaking for the devs to bring such an old game to mobile. There actually is a mobile version of ROSE on Android but after trying it out it is not that good since it's basically an entirely different game.

Also twitch/youtube/etc influencers are an invaluable resource.

[Loerslang]

Steam would definitly help! 

Besides that i think Streaming and lots of youtube videos might help to grow the community.. 
Time will tell..

[Suspicious Josh]

Steam would be good, Achievements provide dopamine, and dopamine provides me with satisfaction.

[Wondertje]

On 7/9/2022 at 11:23 PM, Suspicious Josh said:

Achievements provide dopamine, and dopamine provides me with satisfaction.

I've literally kept playing games I hated just to get all achievements, can't just drop it

Edited July 13, 2022 by Wondertje

[namcost]

How to attract new players? Its kind of hard to do.... the best way would be to advertise first and foremost. Second would be to get known MMORPG streamers access to the game to get views. Thus more people hear about it and MAYBE want to play. OF course some people might hate the game and be like "why" and just ignore the game. But for those that would want to play, they would. Covering topics like "no pay to win" would also help pull some players who hear about the game but aren't sure. aka on the fence to "yeah im playing".... ALSO, having the ability to play the game from STEAM client would help. Downloading the game there and then playing. Steam generally has 25 million active users at any given time (average) so NOT being on steam would be a huge drawback. Maybe get on EPIC client as well? Not sure if that's possible. But yeah, the more the marrier. 

Edited July 23, 2022 by namcost

[Nkvc]

Rose's biggest problem right now is that it is heavily outdated. It looks old and is very basic in comparison to modern games which will make it very hard to attract new players. 

- Modernize the graphics. It doesn't need to be photo realistic ofc, but something similar to what WoW did. 

- Modernize game mechanics 

- Spend $$ on influencers and TikTok ads

- Launch on Steam and Epic Games

But yeah I'd say modernize the graphics would be most important because if the product (game) looks old and heavily outdated on ads, the ads aint gonna help that much. You'd probably only appeal to some niched gamers instead of a much broader audience. 

[Loerslang]

6 hours ago, Nkvc said:

Rose's biggest problem right now is that it is heavily outdated. It looks old and is very basic in comparison to modern games which will make it very hard to attract new players. 

- Modernize the graphics. It doesn't need to be photo realistic ofc, but something similar to what WoW did. 

- Modernize game mechanics 

- Spend $$ on influencers and TikTok ads

- Launch on Steam and Epic Games

But yeah I'd say modernize the graphics would be most important because if the product (game) looks old and heavily outdated on ads, the ads aint gonna help that much. You'd probably only appeal to some niched gamers instead of a much broader audience. 

In my opinion it really depends on the gameplay. World of Warcraft and for example Oldschool Runescape both look pretty old but still attract a lot of players just because of the fun gameplay. For me the older graphics come with a feeling of nostalgia which can be brought over to a new audience. Launching on Steam would be great but spending money on influencers goes a bit to far for me personally for what Rose is. 

[Suspicious Josh]

Stylized graphics always help games to age well, and rose has that, just needs certain textures to be cleaned up and made a little more cartoony for objects and buildings.

[Nkvc]

On 7/26/2022 at 2:37 PM, Loerslang said:

In my opinion it really depends on the gameplay. World of Warcraft and for example Oldschool Runescape both look pretty old but still attract a lot of players just because of the fun gameplay. For me the older graphics come with a feeling of nostalgia which can be brought over to a new audience. Launching on Steam would be great but spending money on influencers goes a bit to far for me personally for what Rose is. 

Yeah, I kind of touched that part as well when I said rose is very basic in comparison to other games. I don't know about EVO as I didn't play it but back on Ruff and Titan all you'd do in pvp is spam skills and pray to Jesus you'd time the stuns in order to kill off someone. There was no end game gear in different tiers, every knight wanted a skull breaker and either 3/15 or 5/20 jabber gear, everyone would use same skill rotation etc etc.

Now when it comes to graphics - why would anyone choose to play a game with almost 20 years old graphics and gameplay mechanics instead of WoW, RuneScape (new), New World, Elder Scrolls etc etc etc? You'd only attract very niched players and there are very few of them around in the whole gaming community. Rose doesn't need a whole graphics transformation, but rather something like WoW, RuneScape, GTA (older versions) did with updated textures, details, lightning, shadows and such. It would go a long way. Its obviously pretty easy to get us OG players on the hype train but we will have a very hard time attracting new players.

Influencers are expensive af, especially if you look at the biggest ones but they do bring enormous amounts of traffic. PewDiePie alone made a dead game sell a lot just from streaming and talkin random crap. I have 2 friends that tried to sell some gym clothing and products via ads and self made videos and I'm not gonna lie it went pretty decent but when they started doing ads via influencers it blew up and went next level pretty much right away. 

Edited July 28, 2022 by Nkvc

[Bobbity]

Imagine praying to Jesus when Arua's right there. Sad. Evo went a little further in terms of combat but your argument still applies. How would you grab an influencer and would it be from the MMO community? Anyone in mind?

[Vile]

have you tried using Sweet Scent. 

[OpG ZexTy]

On 7/8/2022 at 3:06 PM, Loerslang said:

Steam would definitly help! 

Besides that i think Streaming and lots of youtube videos might help to grow the community.. 
Time will tell..

I think YouTube videos would be a good idea too! I think any form of short content would be good to raise awareness (tiktok, insta reels, youtube shorts) and supplementing it with educational material (longer form youtube videos) like guides for classes, how/where to level, what is rose, etc. would help the new players start out instead of running around aimlessly.