Population Suggestions

[Billiam]

As i'm sure we are all aware (as most of us who frequent the forums looking for new posts, updates, info, are likely the loyal players of primal), the population is not doing well. The influx of people vs those who have either stopped playing or have stopped logging on as frequently is a serious issue.

Currently, there are a few guilds who are still capable of throwing their 40 mans together and plowing through content - but that is going to be the extent of it until we can bring in more people. We have 3-4 guilds (at most) and no new guilds are forming. The guilds that were forming during the kebab influx are / have crumbled and merged into other guilds. Take my previous guild for instance - we raided Molten Core for a couple weeks and people stopped logging on due to the pop or other issues and we had to merge into Murmur. And even then we have kept very few of the original people who raided those first couple weeks.

It is a very worrisome issue, and I think it is incredibly important for Primal to spend some resources or time hyping up the wonderful server and community they have over here. I really, really want to see this server succeed. I look at other servers and think to myself "Man.. I wish a chunk of those people could come over here and just try this. They'd love it.". I really think this server would be one of the best, if not THE best private servers if it had a deeper population pool. It already is a great server in terms of content, dev to community interaction, fixes, etc. But as we are all very aware, the pop is our main hurdle.

I have a couple suggestions I think Primal could use to maybe inspire some new folks to come try the server. I'm more than happy and in fact encourage a constructive discussion (forgoe the PvP vs PvE shit, a PvE private server can thrive easily, we've seen interest for them based on the new PvE based servers that are planned to be launched) on ideas for how we can bolster the population of Primal.


1. Hype Train for BWL needs to start like now. Start shoveling coal into that engine. Either a trailer for BWL, or a combination trailer outlining Primal's services / what makes it unique ALONG with hyping up the release of BWL. Outline the progressive scheme of the server as well as the challenging raid content. Something like this has to be well done in my opinion. Not tossed together by an amateur let's play video creator. In my head I imagine an outline of primal's features followed with an ending that mentions that if you start today you can hit max level soon enough to experience the launch of blackwing lair.


2. RAF. Recruit a friend will encourage more people to hop on if they know that they can receive benefits / increased XP for recruiting people, people will also join if they know its not going to take them 4 days played to hit 60. This feature could also be tagged onto the end of the trailer (if one is made) advertising recruit a friend and its benefits. Hype is what brings people to servers and new games alike. Its an incredibly powerful form of advertising these days. People go from hype train to hype train, and I think Primal needs to hop on one ASAP.


What are your thoughts?

Again, I really want to see this server succeed - and I assume that if you're reading this you're a loyalist and you do too. Brainstorming time folks.

Thanks for reading. Interested to hear any input on what can be done to help the population here.

[Relevant]

To your opening, I certainly agree. I love the server, it's just a struggle filling a BG or raid and it's just getting harder. With nothing to do at 60, it's only going to get worse. The low population is causing the low population.

I don't really have a good answer. I do like the idea about a hype video, but I don't know if BWL would mean anything for people with no account yet. Not unless they were given some method of quickly catching up. But RAF doesn't seem like a great idea, either. Seems like people would use it more on themselves than to actual recruit new people.

Excalibur does something (I don't know exactly how it works) where they have voting periods. At the end of the period, depending on how many votes were made determines how long of a double xp rate bonus the players are given (somewhere between the 2 day weekend and a full week). This would both encourage voting (there currently isn't any incentive) and also may draw crowds during the bonus xp times.

[leamas03]

I think you're on the right track with these.

I know this has been suggested before as well, and I'd like to throw XP weekends into the fold. As with the aforementioned suggestions, these really only help new players, but you must realize that a lot of new players aren't comfortable with another 1-60 grind at 1x rates, especially with the server being touted as a vanilla server. It's a huge turn off for a subset of users because they believe they'll invest a lot of time. And, with a handful of posts like this suggesting that the population is only getting worse, it'll be an even greater turn off because then they'll invest all that time into leveling and have nothing to show for it.

That being said, this doesn't do a great amount for existing users.

From my perspective players are leaving the server for two issues:
-Lack of PvP
-Perceived lack of PvE content

I personally disagree with the latter, and I think there are valuable opportunities in the former.

The PvE progression timeline has been brought up numerous times, and I don't really wish to get into it, but if this server is to survive content needs to be rolled out at a normal pace. Putting too much content out there too quick will hurt the server as raiders will get through the content and become just as bored as they are now.

As for PvP, however...

There has been a really solid change lately that will surely help with this. Implementing BG weekends every weekend is pivotal. It establishes a reason for people to play BG's and engage. Some think this change was too little too late, which may be the case. Still, there's more.

The problem with PvP is lack of players. If one team is stomping, the opposite side stops queueing. I'm not a great fan of the idea, but a temporary solution may just be to enable cross-faction queueing. The idea behind this is to allow players to queue as either side. I think there is a reasonable debate on this topic for many reasons, but for a temporary solution until both factions have a game to play, this could be good.

Another perceived problem in PvP is that a lot of players don't want to farm Arena. Or they don't for other reasons. Either way, arena isn't exactly bustling on this server. I think a lot of this has to do with two things, though. First, the only thing people queue is 2's, and because of this people only ever consider queueing 2's. 3's aren't done here. 5's are done by guilds for points. The second problem is that there is a perceived class imbalance in PvP, due partly to healing debuffs, lack of resilience, and a slew of other things. People believe the only way to do well in arena is to have a Shadow Priest or a Warlock on your team, because dots. For sPriests, this has been the case for a while, as they have virtually dominated the 2's scene for as long as I've been here (bg's too, not the point).

I think there is a solution to Arena altogether, and I have an area to focus. 3's. If people queue'd 3's on this server the PvP scene would flip on it's head. Different comps would emerge. sPriest may still be good, RPM may be good, PML may be good. . . So many things could happen. As it stands noone does 3's because noone does 3's, and noone likes 2's, and 5's are too far of a stretch. This all being said, is there a reasonable way in which we could incentivise the 3's brackets at certain peak hours or days? Perhaps from a community angle, perhaps from a server angle, there must be something possible here.

This was long winded. Forgive me.

[.juliangod14]

Because the server is boring and nonexistent to a casual that isn't in the 4 raiding guilds. None of the guilds raids times are convenient for me and I assume more than just me. Content that was pugable is now harder than MC. So at this point I log in post a few auctions and log off.

[Namya]

There is a thread like this already http://www.primalwow.org/forum/viewtopi ... 11&t=16742 . Thing is, only Nutty was interested in giving some ideas about this, rest of the admins are staying quiet about this and it is a great issue. Server lost at least 80 players since lolten released their new server and even those 4 guilds that are currently managing to scrape enough people for raid will begin to struggle.

Only thing that i can think of atm is for this server to start recruiting Brand Ambassadors,volunteers that will advertise this server on gaming forums, make hype vids for new content releases etc. One thing is clear tho, something needs to be done and as soon as possible.

[Nyeriah]

As mentioned by Prime several times, we don't really read General Discussion. We are discussing the things proposed by Nutty Boy and the other matters in private at the staff sections.

[leamas03]

@Nyeriah, is there a better place for us to make suggestions?

[Roel]

It's indeed important that we get a larger core of players instead of those who are only trying different servers, never to get settled anywhere.

As for a trailer and other promotional content, it would be great if someone with expertise steps up to show their worth. It's a good way to get added to the list of potential new staff members who are expected to help out instead of relying on other helpful souls to do it. But videos indeed require quite specific skills and experience, most of us would need to go through many failed attempts before something promising comes out of it. As with anything, gaining such experience takes a lot of time.

As for RAF, it shouldn't take long before we have that.

@Nyeriah, is there a better place for us to make suggestions?

This topic is posted in the suggestions forum which is obviously the right place for it. Nyeriah was talking about the countless of posts in General Discussion which are often not even clearly written as a suggestion.

[Tweaker]

Maybe give mounts at level 20?

[Indicted]

rip

[Shave]

the server. needs. to go. TBC.

[Cleofatra]

I'm glad the admins are responding in this thread. The server definitely needs some help but it will take effort from all players for it to be effective. Lately only a few people have really been doing something to try and up numbers. Every player that wants this server to work needs to do what they are capable of to recruit people. E.G. Recruit friends, share stuff on facebook, post on gaming forums, make videos, host PUGs, make alts and be active, stop raid-logging. If you aren't willing to do these things then I suggest to stop complaining.

And Repel you're a scumbag how about you delete your account and stop saying the same thing over and over again. You're a sheep that follows the hype train every where you go. You have no aspect of loyalty or genuinity. But to make things worse you're also a terrible human being who tries to actively sabotage servers with negativity, lies and rumors about your guild, and persuading those to follow you.

[Namya]

Also, one more thing that might be done is to enable character transfer. Aka, if you have minimum t2 gear on your previous server (ofc x1 one), you can get bis preraid gear and 60% mount for example. I am sure that a lot of people would be interested in that, not to mention RAF.

[Deim]

RAF is love, RAF is life, implement it! Without granting levels just summoning and slight exp ratio increase.

[Namya]

Just leave RAF as it's supposed to be, atm beggers can't be choosers so please stop with that bs. I don't mind if someone gets to 60 in a day, that person has to work his butt off anyway to earn gold and get the gear to be able to raid. Implement RAF and transfers, make it available for people that are new to the server and we will have population increase.