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Question: How do you bootstrap an MMO to reach a critical mass of players so that the environment sustains itself? A friend and I built this MMO game called Pi

by jabo 15y ago

Question: How do you bootstrap an MMO to reach a critical mass of players so that the environment sustains itself? A friend and I built this MMO game called Pixza (http://pixza.com/lite http://pixza.com/lite) and we're finding it incredibly tough to bootstrap the ecosystem. The problem is that since it is an MMO game, it's not enjoyable with a few players. So after every wave of publicity, traffic comes in sporadically which does us no good. If all of the traffic came within a frame of 20 minutes of starting a game, I'm sure the game will explode. I've seen it happen during play testing with friends and family.

damncabbage 15y ago
Just some as-I-try-it feedback: 1) What am I doing? 2) Oh, okay, right. I move the blue blocks to make a "B". 3) Okay... Why am I doing this? I'm not sure what the game /is/, or why it's a challenge, or why it's any fun at all. Could you explain it a little further, please?
- jabo 15y ago
  There's a help button on the bottom of the page. We should make that more prominent may be?
sodafountan 15y ago
I had similar issues, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. You need some sort of primer visible to people know what they're supposed to be doing. Other than that it looks pretty intriguing, I like the nice clean graphics and from what I can tell it's a pretty novel idea (although, as mentioned, I don't know what the point of it is yet).
- jabo 15y ago
  Should we make the help button at the bottom of the page more prominent? Or was the help text not very clear?
citizenparker 15y ago
> "The problem is that since it is an MMO game, it's not enjoyable with a few players." I think this is your problem. All of the compelling virtual worlds I've been part of have some hook that works on the individual. If you doubt, log into one of the old classic MUDs like LegendMUD (http://www.legendmud.org/ http://www.legendmud.org/) or Blood Dusk (http://mud.dusk.org/ http://mud.dusk.org/). They're still compelling when you're alone in the world (and these days, that's pretty likely). I think it's perfectly legitimate to say your product is better in groups. I would hope so for something calling itself an "MMO." I think it has to be compelling by yourself to some extent though. I'd argue that every major virtual world from WoW to Second Life to even Minecraft has provided this. What's even better is that when you have that action that is compelling alone, the second person into your virtual world sees that person being awesome and then desires to join in. You open yourself up to getting a "First Follower" effect, in other words.
- TazeTSchnitzel 15y ago
  Then again, some kinds of games cannot really be played alone. Multiplayer shooters for instance.
  - jabo 15y ago
    "Then again, some kinds of games cannot really be played alone. Multiplayer shooters for instance." > This specifically applies to Pixza because offering a single-player mode in any form would change the dynamics of the game - because it is essentially a two-team game.

by jabo 15y ago

damncabbage 15y ago

Just some as-I-try-it feedback: 1) What am I doing? 2) Oh, okay, right. I move the blue blocks to make a "B". 3) Okay... Why am I doing this? I'm not sure what the game /is/, or why it's a challenge, or why it's any fun at all. Could you explain it a little further, please?

jabo 15y ago
There's a help button on the bottom of the page. We should make that more prominent may be?

sodafountan 15y ago

I had similar issues, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. You need some sort of primer visible to people know what they're supposed to be doing. Other than that it looks pretty intriguing, I like the nice clean graphics and from what I can tell it's a pretty novel idea (although, as mentioned, I don't know what the point of it is yet).

jabo 15y ago
Should we make the help button at the bottom of the page more prominent? Or was the help text not very clear?

citizenparker 15y ago

> "The problem is that since it is an MMO game, it's not enjoyable with a few players." I think this is your problem. All of the compelling virtual worlds I've been part of have some hook that works on the individual. If you doubt, log into one of the old classic MUDs like LegendMUD (http://www.legendmud.org/ http://www.legendmud.org/) or Blood Dusk (http://mud.dusk.org/ http://mud.dusk.org/). They're still compelling when you're alone in the world (and these days, that's pretty likely). I think it's perfectly legitimate to say your product is better in groups. I would hope so for something calling itself an "MMO." I think it has to be compelling by yourself to some extent though. I'd argue that every major virtual world from WoW to Second Life to even Minecraft has provided this. What's even better is that when you have that action that is compelling alone, the second person into your virtual world sees that person being awesome and then desires to join in. You open yourself up to getting a "First Follower" effect, in other words.

TazeTSchnitzel 15y ago
Then again, some kinds of games cannot really be played alone. Multiplayer shooters for instance.
- jabo 15y ago
  "Then again, some kinds of games cannot really be played alone. Multiplayer shooters for instance." > This specifically applies to Pixza because offering a single-player mode in any form would change the dynamics of the game - because it is essentially a two-team game.