I mentioned this in another thread, but I was actually quite surprised that I hadn't heard of this game before (being a fan of the genre). I was wondering if it was well known or not, so I put up a poll on a website that I have frequented for many years.

The discussion thread and poll is here: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3572818/1.html

If you don't want to register to see the poll results, here are the current answers:

Vendetta Online:
Never heard of it 27 (84%)
Played the 8 hour trial, but didn't like it 1 (03%)
Played the 8 hour trial but didn't want to pay monthly fee 1 (03%)
Have subscribed in the past but let it expire 1 (03%)
I am a current active subscriber 2 (06%)

So, basically, I am thinking this.

There is obviouslly a large userbase out there that isn't even aware of the game. I can also understand that the team doesn't have much time or budget to market the game to the amount it deserves.

So.

I put this to you, faithful player...

1. Do what you can to spread the word about this game. Post about it on your favourite messageboards and whatnot.
2. Be welcoming and patient with new players.
3. I propose a truce on new players until they reach say level 2 in most things, that should give them enough time to get familiar with things. I know this suggestion is bound to get pushback as the key feature of the game is pure PvP, and I agree with that. I am just saying to give BRAND NEW players a little bit of a break, at least until they are addicted and have subscribed. Or maybe even a truce on players still on the 8 hour trial, not sure how to easily know this in game though...

Anyway, that is just my .02.

Thoughts?

This is really their biggest problem from what I have seen....the lack of consistent promotional advertisement to raise awareness.

They had a great influx of players with the PA thing, but we need to maintain that influx if we assume that 90% aren't going to stick around for whatever reason. Perhaps they should open up an independent contractor position for someone to handle purely promotional activities, targeting what seems to be their niche market: 25-35 IT professionals and hobbyists.

There are a large number of web comics, online communities, etc that cater to these crowds that could be targeted accordingly.

No, I will not truce. You don't get to have tea with the Lich King just because you're a newb.

I am more lenient with newbs than vets, however.

There used to be a penalty for PKing low-level characters - it was removed because of rampant abuse (i.e., I'd get an alt up to 2/2/2/-/- or whatever the cap was, load up an IBG with hive posis and UCs, and go fuck with people who'd lose XP for killing me).

And I have already posted to every group I am member advertising VO... but most pplz prefer WoW or the newest mainstream game... I guess VO only attracts scifi lovers.

But what about a Player Run RL Awareness Week, inviting Guilds also, to make a lot of noise anywhere, and report it on Community Projects topic? Or even a contest for gaining new subs, with a RL prize as 6M individual subs?

Next,
I like they idea of protecting newbies/Alts, within these limits:
-Protection only covers own nation space
-Must have all stats <=2
-Must NOT have PKs.

To deal with abuses, once you get your first human blood, you're no longer covered.
And limited to native nation space.

To enforce that, my vote goes to a global temp KoS with increasing "freeze" time, not respawning until Noobkill penalty, for all alts from offender's account. Every repeated offend from account doubles KoS+freeze duration. (Extorsion is not killing...)

There was a thread about twitch based sandbox mmos on mmorpg.com
A couple months ago and the real problem seems to be 95% of mmo folk hate this style which of course when it was designed who knew *shrugs*

If this were the matrix we'd be in Xion rebelling against the machine it seems

VO was on every TV in the US for a couple of weeks, What does it take to get people to hear about it? (Of course, most of us have DVRs and don't watch commercials).

http://www.droid-life.com/2011/02/24/motorola-xoom-vendetta-commercial-is-only-missing-the-word-droid/

The devs need an internet marketing strategist, probably full time to bring the player numbers up.

Conversion is a separate issue. Hopefully they have taken mecha up on doing voice overs for the starting tutorials, because they need voice and/or video to be more effective I explaining how the game works.

I would even suggest changing the tutorial to have them thrown right into a hive skirmish where the bots don't attack them so they get to feel the action straight away. The awesome parts of vo are totally hidden to starting users, it's why I've made YouTube videos of queen bombing and tried to get some of the gameplay out there on YouTube because it's just not apparent to new users.

VO remains ill-prepared for prime time.

@alloh hell no, let me explain why I pirate nationspace from time to time, and I generally do not check license levels of my customers, and I could VERY easily blow up a newbie by mistake / carelessness.
p.s. if I'm pirating nation-space I know I have to get back from a HATED / KOS.

1. Do what you can to spread the word about this game. Post about it on your favourite messageboards and whatnot.
Sure good idea.

2. Be welcoming and patient with new players.
if you come in to 100 demanding your question be solved right that instant, sorry but no **** you but if you ask a question like your talking to a human and don't ask the question 40 times ( getting the same reply every time ). sure I'm willing to reply without being to much of a jerk about it. ( I'm generally harder on vets then on new players ).

3. I propose a truce on new players until they reach say level 2 in most things, that should give them enough time to get familiar with things. I know this suggestion is bound to get pushback as the key feature of the game is pure PvP, and I agree with that. I am just saying to give BRAND NEW players a little bit of a break, at least until they are addicted and have subscribed. Or maybe even a truce on players still on the 8 hour trial, not sure how to easily know this in game though...

No I don't like this, for a couple of reasons
1. as I pointed out to alloh I generally don't check license levels in nation-space nor do I care to. ( and yes its frustrating for pirates to have to check everyone's level ), I give everyone the same deal 400k or be destroyed.

2. any enforcement would be ineffective at best unless you use a newbie kill = ban like model ( something that would most likely mean you end up losing even MORE players then you ever gain ).

3. newbie's would be lied to for the first 2 levels or W/E you put the limit on and will not truly learn anything, we already have the training sector for the absolute basics.

4. Nation space is already pirate free ( rare times some of us hit up UIT nation-space ), ask for some money from a few people put generally you can trade there safely.

Also keep in mind if you link this to combat levels I could in theory create a trader alt with noob penalty still on it ;), might have to drop it Ultras but still.

Some seven months ago I'd been looking for a good space mmorpg and had tried a few games such as eve <quickly washes mouth out with carbolic> but wasn't having much luck in finding what I was looking for. Then, when I was almost ready to forget the whole space mmorpg idea, I accidentally stumbled across VO somewhere on yahoo.

I was immediately hooked as Vendetta-Online IS, for me at least, the dogs bollox and signed up for a six months sub after doing the free trial. Unfortunately I was called away on business not long after signing up and have only just recently started playing again, but that's another story.

Part of the initial attraction for me was the very fact that VO is not prime time and is unlike any other mmorpg I have come across, it's got that magical spark other beers just can't reach.

And the fact that the devs have kept their team so small all these years tells me a lot, maybe I'm wrong?

TRS: I like the idea of voice overs for the starting tutorials, that would be good.

It might also be a good idea if there was a noob forum section with perhaps some sticky threads to youtube vids, tutorials, and faq etc. etc. Or has this been suggested in the past?

@ Woodlander: Here is a good sticky for us starters:

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/13762

@ Deathzor:

If you come in to 100 demanding your question be solved right that instant, sorry but no

Well I came in to 100, asked a question and remember you being helpful with your answer right that instant! So you in reality you like newbies! And I encourage you to admit that freely here in public, nothing to be ashamed about. (-;

Sorry, but you contradict yourself:

I generally don't check license levels in nation-space nor do I care to. ( and yes its frustrating for pirates to have to check everyone's level ), I give everyone the same deal 400k or be destroyed.

Nation space is already pirate free

I think it shouold be clear for anyone who supports the survival and growth of the game (which after the painful slow death of Jumpgate is now the ONLY left twitch-based space sim MMOG): Kill any pirate or known PK who enters nationspace, or at least call the Vipers.

I think it is vital not to ruin the early game experience of newbies. Getting pirated later in the game is ok, but in a bus with a training blaster (or not much better) it is simply annoying.

And by the way, to the devs, I think it would be clever to drop plans to even increase that "exclusive nation standing" thing because this would prevent non-national guilds that work against griefing like VPR or TGFT from operating in large amounts of space.

This hampering of a non-national gameplay and roleplay I personally find more disturbing than getting pirated. I don't like predefined factions in MMOGs but tried VO because I thought with UIT I could stay out of nation conflicts (without getting punished for that). I like the game so far, but nearly buried plans to subscribe after trial when I read about this, and only some nice VPR folks talked me patiently into my first month in their forum.

Well that topic should be an own thread perhaps, but it matters here as well: Player-driven stuff in an MMOG is always more interesting than predefined or scripted content, so instead of changing the game mechanics for more newbie protection I suggest just not to obstruct the players in organising themselves and taking care of PKs.

In other news, I believe they finally pulled the plug on Jumpgate Classic on April 30th, and since Jumpgate Evolution won't happen there may be a few players ready to be snatched up..

Bungarus: The new player sticky you mentioned is good, don't get me wrong, but I was thinking more along the lines of an entirely separate section dedicated to noobs. So as an example you might have something under Forums like this - NewPilots General Bugs Suggestions etc. But then again I'm guessing there might not be enough new players passing through the forum to warrant it?

I'm of the opinion that once a new player leaves the training area then that pilot is fair game to any pirate he comes across, but let me quantify what I've just said...

For a start I seriously doubt new pilots are being slotted on a regular basis by pirates. Why you might ask? Well, believe it or not, most pirates are far from stupid. For one thing it's not in their best interest to go killing noobs all the time, no matter how tempting a proposition it may sound at first. Sure, you might get the odd exception to the rule but I'm willing to bet its once in a very blue moon.
Second, one of the first things I noticed when I started playing was how well structured and balanced the game is, at least to me as a noob; as you do more missions your gradually exposed to greater risk.
Third, if a new pilot is stupid enough to go wandering off into grey space then good luck - "at your target in front, go on!"
And finally, it's been said before but I'll say it again, VO is mainly about PvP and survival of the fittest, get used to it.

A vet slaughtering a newb in a bus is hardly PvP. It's just griefing / ganking. But I agree, "survival of the fittest" should apply, which means pilots dealing with griefers / gankers should not be hampered.

"And by the way, to the devs, I think it would be clever to drop plans to even increase that "exclusive nation standing" thing because this would prevent non-national guilds that work against griefing like VPR or TGFT from operating in large amounts of space"

Yeah, lets get rid of something that's been in the works for nearly ten years cause it makes you sad. You don't wanna get blasted? Keep the hell out of my space care bear.

He's crying about the UIT only being able to get decent standing with both Serco and Itani? Awww, that's too bad.

In other news,

For one thing it's not in their best interest to go killing noobs all the time, no matter how tempting a proposition it may sound at first. Sure, you might get the odd exception to the rule but I'm willing to bet its once in a very blue moon.

is wrong. Once I'm KOS, I enjoy sneaking into capital systems and hunting my enemy in their most secure sectors. What's even better, though, is being non-KOS and tracking noobs into unmonitored sectors of capital systems :D

"You don't wanna get blasted? Keep the hell out of my space care bear."

Carebaering was not the point, I said: "Getting pirated later in the game is ok", "This hampering of a non-national gameplay and roleplay I personally find more disturbing than getting pirated. "

"about the UIT only being able to get decent standing"

Wrong again, I said: "it would be clever to drop plans to even increase that exclusive nation standing"

I understood it might be "only a start" and a slippery slope towards closing one quarter of the space in the game which I think would be a ridiculous impact of the predefined "nation war" on players who have not the slightest interest in that but prefer to decide about their roleplay on their own, especially a bad impact on multi-national guilds.

Either start reading more carefully what was written or stop deliberately misinterpreting it.

"A vet slaughtering a newb in a bus is hardly PvP. It's just griefing / ganking. But I agree, "survival of the fittest" should apply, which means pilots dealing with griefers / gankers should not be hampered."

Bungarus: they aren't hampered. If I'm killing newbs in nation space, I am KOS and can be freely killed by anybody who feels like it. Also, the SF and turrets are all out to get me. (Unless, as Lecter points out, I do it in unmonitored sectors - but we can be killed without penalty in those just the same as newbies can.)

The only time anybody is "hampered" is when I'm behaving. What they whine about is not being able to kill me endlessly in nation space after I have already atoned for my crimes. (The fact that the process of atoning is a bit too easy is a subject for another thread.) If I am "Admired", that means I am not killing newbies in monitored space, and nobody has anything to fear in monitored space. If they venture into unmonitored space, that is their problem.

A note on terminology: Ganking is ganging up on somebody, especially if they don't expect it. Killing a random bus is not ganking unless it is already fighting somebody else. Also, "griefing" doesn't really apply in a game like this, as it implies the action is an invalid way to play the game, and such actions are not invalid here. The game's name is Vendetta, get a clue.

I could be in the minority, but I'd say go for artwork over marketing. A good looking product sells itself, and beneath that we all know Vendetta has rock solid gameplay. Waylon had his Waylonics, Luis had his new ship designs, where is the next graphical innovation going to come from? A re-interpretation of the classical ship designs would go a long way toward making VO cool to potential subscribers, and coming up with new graphical designs really is a full time job.

/2c