MMO Quit Moments

[Scylla Rhiadra]

40 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

The example was that it could appear from all the data that Mentors hurt retention, when in fact the causality might be completely reversed: those encountering the worst such "quit moments" may be the ones most likely to seek the help of Mentors.

Yes, this image came to mind.

[Ayashe Ninetails]

1 hour ago, Paul Hexem said:

Well, considering that a well designed game doesn't need mentors because the tutorial phase covers it...

Of course, SL isn't your traditional game.

This. Maybe back in 2005, it wouldn't have seemed too strange, but in the age of well-designed tutorials with voice acting and guided prompts that fit nicely into the UI, finding human mentors at login in 2023 would be a huge quit moment for me. Final Fantasy XIV has (had?) mentors for sure, but they were experienced players who could invite new players to the newbie channel, answer questions in chat, and run dungeons with newbies to teach them about the party system. I don't even recall seeing any when running around the game when I did the trial - they just blended in, I assume.

I think with SL, there are a lot of quit moments right at the very start. The lingo, which isn't really shared with anything else on the market these days, might even be enough to make someone give up. Mentors could help, maybe, but I think we'd need a whole glossary up front or something. 

 

36 minutes ago, animats said:

If you don't get this fixed before mobile goes live, you will be laughed at by major reviewers. You cannot launch into the mass market/gamer space like this. You only get one chance to make a bad first impression. You don't think so? Go watch and read game reviews. The tolerance for immersion-breaking failures is zero.

I'm starting to get the feeling we're probably not the intended audience.

Edited July 5, 2023 by Ayashe Ninetails
Clarifyin'

[Love Zhaoying]

5 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Yes, this image came to mind.

Can you please explain the image for me? 

Do the dots represent avatar "seating positions", or "damage points" / "bullet holes" indicating an overall damage / failure state?

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

6 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Can you please explain the image for me? 

Do the dots represent avatar "seating positions", or "damage points" / "bullet holes" indicating an overall damage / failure state?

 

I'm not sure if you mean you don't understand the significance of the image, generally, or it's particular application?

The image represents a fallacy that has become known as "survivorship bias" -- when your data is drawn only from those who "survive" or "succeed" in a particular context or task, it will be biased because it does not provide data on failures. It was identified in part because of US studies of "hits" on bomber aircraft that survived raids over Germany: they calculated the relative frequency of hits on aircraft parts, and then armoured these more heavily -- not realizing that they weren't getting data on the hits that were severe enough to actually down the aircraft, because those aircraft didn't survive, and hence didn't contribute to the data.

Actually the mechanisms at work in terms of mentors may be the exact opposite of this: we're getting incomplete data on people who are speeding through the process without need of help from a mentor. Those who approach mentors are most likely to be those who are having problems, and hence mostly likely those who will quite. So, calculating retention on the basis of those who contact mentors is going to produce something that we might call "failure bias."

[Love Zhaoying]

7 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I'm not sure if you mean you don't understand the significance of the image, generally, or it's particular application?

Either/Both! Thanks for the essplanation!

8 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Actually the mechanisms at work in terms of mentors may be the exact opposite of this: we're getting incomplete data on people who are speeding through the process without need of help from a mentor. Those who approach mentors are most likely to be those who are having problems, and hence mostly likely those who will quite. So, calculating retention on the basis of those who contact mentors is going to produce something that we might call "failure bias."

This is similar to the general concept that "(mostly) only people who complain leave reviews" (of internet purchases, restaurants, etc.)  So a general "review bias".

 

[animats]

In "A Complaint is a Gift", a book for retailers, it says that for each customer who complains, there are ten that said nothing and will never come back.

[animats]

A new pain point: I've been seeing some new users stuck in pink/white cloud mode forever. Reported this in the JIRA. Got back the reply "If one of that avatar's 4 required wearables (eyes, hair, shape, skin) is missing or corrupt, then all viewers will see the avatar as a cloud. This is expected behavior."

That shouldn't be happening to new users. But I've seen it three times in the last two days, for users with age 3 days or less. I wonder if one of the starter avatars is damaged.

(Confusing the issue is that it takes way too long to get out of pink cloud mode in busy regions. I think this is the BOM baking server falling behind, but I'm not sure.)

[Scylla Rhiadra]

7 minutes ago, animats said:

In "A Complaint is a Gift", a book for retailers, it says that for each customer who complains, there are ten that said nothing and will never come back.

Assuming that LL is actually compiling data beyond a raw "number of sign-ups / number of repeat log-ins," it would be interesting to know how granular it is. Do they know, for instance, where in the process people are logging off? Or what they did / attempted to do before doing so?

[Ayashe Ninetails]

Speaking of quit moments and first impressions, I suspect we'll see a lot of answers to our questions once the mobile app is opened up to public reviews. 

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

1 hour ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

I'm starting to get the feeling we're probably not the intended audience.

I think they're going for a younger user base that has disposable income that they can spend on the game. I watched the replay of the Lab Gab thing and that's the impression I get.

[Rowan Amore]

It costs 6–7 times more to acquire a new customer than retain an existing one – Bain & Company.

[better Quar]

3 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

It costs 6–7 times more to acquire a new customer than retain an existing one – Bain & Company.

lol

[Sid Nagy]

2 hours ago, Kimmi Zehetbauer said:

I hate the GUI on the official client with a passion.  I gotten used to the original version it had in the beginning since it was simple and not broken --- now it's convoluted and hard to work around in. Why many people use 3rd party clients.

Not to start a viewer war, but IMHO the Linden viewer is the mother of all other viewers and for years and years already as solid as a rock. 90+% of viewer improvements come from the Lab and are adapted a few weeks/months later by the TPVs.

The main hobby of TPVs is adding some extras to make the GUI even more complicated and renaming every feature, so that communication between users of different viewers becomes more complicated. And yes, some are popular. IMHO mainly because of the memes circling around them about how terribly much better they are.
They have mainly the same features only parked on different places in the GUI and renamed. Main purpose: keep the gab between the viewers as huge as possible.
 

Edited July 5, 2023 by Sid Nagy

[Love Zhaoying]

14 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

It costs 6–7 times more to acquire a new customer than retain an existing one – Bain & Company.

I wonder if LL has considered or used the simple method of requesting initial feedback from all new users via email..

[Orwar]

18 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

Not to start a viewer war, but IMHO the Linden viewer is the mother of all other viewers and for years and years already as solid as a rock. 90+% of viewer improvements come from the Lab and are adapted a few weeks/months later by the TPVs.

   Firestorm has several features that the Linden viewer doesn't, many of which are considered absolutely essential to put up with SL for many of its users (derendering, area search, etc). Black Dragon has a lot of visual improvements and camera controls which make it a go-to for a lot of photographers and machinima makers. Taking a picture in the Linden viewer is a bit like drawing a stick figure in MS Paint and saving it as a JPEG. 

   The Linden viewer was the Explorer of viewers, people of course ditched it for Firefox, Opera, or Brave ages ago. With the new lick of paint it just felt like Edge, and if there's one sure way to get me to scream profanities at my monitor, it is when Microsoft tries to push Edge on me. Or Bing. Who the fudge uses Bing. Why does my OS suddenly default to Bing? What the !@#¤?!

[Ayashe Ninetails]

52 minutes ago, Kimmi Zehetbauer said:

I think they're going for a younger user base that has disposable income that they can spend on the game. I watched the replay of the Lab Gab thing and that's the impression I get.

I actually thought perhaps the opposite after seeing the Motown partnership. I've run into 20somethings who will scream "WHO?!" when someone mentions a grunge band from the 90s. 😄 I swear, some people don't keep up with anything if it doesn't have a massive social media presence.

[Love Zhaoying]

11 minutes ago, Orwar said:

The Linden viewer was the Explorer of viewers, people of course ditched it for Firefox, Opera, or Brave ages ago. With the new lick of paint it just felt like Edge, and if there's one sure way to get me to scream profanities at my monitor, it is when Microsoft tries to push Edge on me. Or Bing. Who the fudge uses Bing. Why does my OS suddenly default to Bing? What the !@#¤?!

I can has Chrome?

[Marigold Devin]

4 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

Not sure whether the problem is more that quit moments are undiscovered, or that they're not given the right priorities to fix. I'm pretty confident the Lab collects data to try to uncover circumstances that lead to quitting.

I wonder how well those quantifiable factors align with jira reports.

Apropos nothing, a purely hypothetical cautionary tale of retention data. Suppose six months from now they discover that the best predictor of quitting is spending time with a Mentor, and it's even dose-sensitive: the more time a newbie spends with a Mentor, the less likely they are to login again. Should they cancel the Mentor program?

I think it's going to be interesting to see what happens this time round with the mentor programme. 

There MUST be some patterns that some bod at LL have realised. 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

21 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

I actually thought perhaps the opposite after seeing the Motown partnership. I've run into 20somethings who will scream "WHO?!" when someone mentions a grunge band from the 90s. 😄 I swear, some people don't keep up with anything if it doesn't have a massive social media presence.

Yeah, this. Motown is not appealing to a younger demographic at all.

In fact, as Ayashe sort of suggests, it's aiming even older than my demographic.

That's not to fault it, per se. Motown totally merits this sort of attention. But Marvin Gaye is not going to bring in the 20-somethings. Or maybe even the 40-somethings.

[Bree Giffen]

Wait. Wait. Wait. If people who join SL are mostly introverts, the best idea was to create Mentors who require talking and interaction? The resulting social anxiety is going to be an 'I Quit' moment for a lot of them. 

[Paul Hexem]

1 hour ago, animats said:

A new pain point: I've been seeing some new users stuck in pink/white cloud mode forever. Reported this in the JIRA. Got back the reply "If one of that avatar's 4 required wearables (eyes, hair, shape, skin) is missing or corrupt, then all viewers will see the avatar as a cloud. This is expected behavior."

If anyone needs an example of "LL can't be bothered to fix quit moments", this is it. I can't even wrap my head around "essential assets getting corrupted and making you unable to load" is expected behavior.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 hour ago, Sid Nagy said:

The main hobby of TPVs is adding some extras to make the GUI even more complicated and renaming every feature, so that communication between users of different viewers becomes more complicated. And yes, some are popular. IMHO mainly because of the memes circling around them about how terribly much better they are.
They have mainly the same features only parked on different places in the GUI and renamed. Main purpose: keep the gab between the viewers as huge as possible.

36 minutes ago, Orwar said:

Firestorm has several features that the Linden viewer doesn't, many of which are considered absolutely essential to put up with SL for many of its users (derendering, area search, etc). Black Dragon has a lot of visual improvements and camera controls which make it a go-to for a lot of photographers and machinima makers. Taking a picture in the Linden viewer is a bit like drawing a stick figure in MS Paint and saving it as a JPEG.

Orwar is substantively correct here, although I think he's wrong that you can't take a decent pic in the LL viewer: you can. But it's not nearly as versatile or powerful as Black Dragon, or even Firestorm, in that regard.

But I will agree that taking good photographs is something of a niche use for the viewer. Lots and lots of people take snapshots, but it's a relatively small number who aim for really high quality pics necessitating the kinds of features found in FS and BD.

The problem with the LL viewer, as Orwar notes, is that it lacks a number of really useful features for everyday use. Derendering and area search are things I use a fair bit just in the course of shopping, or dancing. Rendering only friends is absolutely vital at crowded events, for instance. The LL Viewer needs to incorporate some of these features, and put them where they can accessed easily.

The other thing that really bugs me about the LL viewer is the way the tools and UI generally really hog screen space. The chat box is far larger than it needs to be; so is the camera tool.

[Rowan Amore]

6 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Yeah, this. Motown is not appealing to a younger demographic at all.

In fact, as Ayashe sort of suggests, it's aiming even older than my demographic.

That's not to fault it, per se. Motown totally merits this sort of attention. But Marvin Gaye is not going to bring in the 20-somethings. Or maybe even the 40-somethings.

You might be interested to know Motown isn't just for us older folks...

With its embrace of Southern hip-hop, Motown has turned the underground stars of SoundCloud into household names. Looking at the charts today, it’s a landscape dominated by Motown artists: there’s Lil Yachty and Matt Ox, two artists at the forefront of rap’s SoundCloud generation, while Migos keep scoring hits and City Girls featured on Drake’s “In My Feelings,” one of the biggest songs of 2018.

https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/modern-motown-today-new-artists/

[Luna Bliss]

3 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

2 hours ago, animats said:

A new pain point: I've been seeing some new users stuck in pink/white cloud mode forever. Reported this in the JIRA. Got back the reply "If one of that avatar's 4 required wearables (eyes, hair, shape, skin) is missing or corrupt, then all viewers will see the avatar as a cloud. This is expected behavior."

If anyone needs an example of "LL can't be bothered to fix quit moments", this is it. I can't even wrap my head around "essential assets getting corrupted and making you unable to load" is expected behavior.

People run around without their eyes?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Just now, Rowan Amore said:

You might be interested to know Motown isn't just for us older folks...

With its embrace of Southern hip-hop, Motown has turned the underground stars of SoundCloud into household names. Looking at the charts today, it’s a landscape dominated by Motown artists: there’s Lil Yachty and Matt Ox, two artists at the forefront of rap’s SoundCloud generation, while Migos keep scoring hits and City Girls featured on Drake’s “In My Feelings,” one of the biggest songs of 2018.

https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/modern-motown-today-new-artists/

Very cool! But does the Motown setup leverage that, do you think? (Serious question: I still haven't been!)