I must say, an auto join into a newbie clan is a good idea... you could have qualified clan owners who are committed to training new players and getting them started right earn an achievement which allows them to sign up to be a newbie spawning ground... the first half hour of a players existence is crucial, and we have to remember that the kaw learning curve is very tough to overcome.
Or! Or... Or... Fix the damn PvP fail rates. Noobs PvP at this size and if I'm "maxing" my pots 3 spy pots I can buy on steals against someone with 150 spy defense and has no spy defense pots, I shouldn't be losing everytime.
I remember a thread about revamping the tutorial made a few months ago by our friend Mango. There were quite a few suggestions about how to get newbies to join clans/academies in that discussion (hmm kc, did you miss that one? ) One thing I remember was reusing the totally superfluous "new clans" list for something a bit more usefull. Other suggestions ranged from wc updates when joining, to forcing newbies to post onto the wc during the tutorial and even color their names for a day in chats. As Station already said, newbies don't grasp the extreme importance of being in a clan. Not only to earn gold through ebs (and the initial volley), but simply to get started and understand notions like max ally bonus plunder, etc. When starting, one usually tries to find out on its own how this game works. And one either quits after a few clicks or manages to get initial volley stats after a week or two of questing and hitting other players (without allies, of course). People are scared to get locked immediately in a clan and don't realize that the clans aren't just a bunch of people protecting each other but a fundamental concept of the game. I also remember suggestions about integrating joining a virtual clan during the tutorial and getting led towards the cc, then to hitting an eb (why not with different mini-phases like TFO, 1 hit/ass/stl/scout and item), where you'd get rewards (why not your very first banner that you'd equip then). Plenty of interesting stuff in Mango's thread, I'll try to search for it once on a PC.
Instead of just telling them the basics about land build give new players at the start of the game an option for a tutorial or not ( the reason for people saying no would be that they already play the game and are starting a new account ) In the tutorial make it like a slide show and tell them what all the different buttons do in the game E.G pm, wall, speakers... Put effort into it, it they just believe it to be like any other game where they just attack the might just stop playing but if you go in depth of the many different things you can do, build on kaw and the general aim of the game! Overall just go into depth more about the tutorial so they know a bit about the game before the start, get frustrated and delete the app.
As a concept, what about dedicated beginner clans that have specific bonuses. 1. Larger speaker allowance to promote it. 2. Members can't be hit from external clans (experienced alt accounts of long time members 3. Additional plunder reward for admin who remove themselves from bigger ebs to give back. 4. I'm sure there's more...just an idea.
You could have an option for when u make a new clan to have new players automatically join it so they will already break that first barrier.
Thanks for your feedback so far everyone. Some really good ideas, and I think making new players stand out in world chat with perhaps a limited duration color and offering additional Tips when they play would be very beneficial. There are some other great ideas to get them into a new clan that will take a fair bit of development but we'll consider them all as well for future changes Feel free to keep sharing any other ideas you may have.
kaw_community perhaps kaw mods or other staff can create and run starter clans.. who can help with very basics and then they can turn them out after reach certain cs or skill level.. that way they also get first hand what problems people are having with game etc rather than General gripes say 1-5 known starter clans best option imo to prevent "no clan will accept me" "I want a good clan" "why do the devs hate me and/or players" "devs are just money hungry"... and so on.
Like the follow button, how about a 'Join Me' button, where u can click on someones button, & they choose to accept offer to join your clan like a 'follow'. It would save tons of time, Thanks ¥
I always liked the idea of adding another option to the help button and have you be connected with a properly checked over player that would be able to chat with this new player to fix his/her problem. Of course the player would have to qualify some checks for knowledge and if they are what you are looking for. maybe 1 staff member for quality control checking the chats but in the end having community volunteers run it would save time and add the one on one connection, making it easier to help and make the new player feel special.
How about a WC clickable update that links to new players as soon as they finish the tutorial? Or perhaps create a separate chat channel or location for this, so WC doesn't get spammed with these updates.
Imagine new players getting a flood of clan invites as soon as they start playing? How welcoming would that be?
Implement a feature where clan owners can change their clan status to 'recruiting'. And when they do this it adds their clan to a list of 'recommended clans'. Make this list available to new player, or force it into the tutorial. This would help new clans grow and help new players also. Another feature that needs to be added is a more in-depth explanation of Plunder bonus from allies and the importance of allies. It's very hard to explain on an industrial scale xD
Tell new players rp'ing is a bannable offence, this would increase the number of accounts that actually grow
Cheese has a great idea that he stole right out of my mind. Having the world chat update announce that a new player has joined kaw with the players name clickable would make it easier for starter clans to ad their clan on their wall and hopefully get them started
The "New clans" feature does need a reramp as mentioned, when I join monster garage was on that list, not much of a new clan is it? One of the major turn offs in the game is when the newbs do get into a clan, the owner and admins have no idea how to run a clan and do nothing to help them. I ran into this problem and it lead to me resetting and coming close to quiting. No doubt their are others who are less patient than me who would of just plan up quit. This means less no peeps and more people leaving the app because of a lack of understanding and a general frustration towards the game. Another thing would to be to link them to starter clans that know what there doing and how to teach em to play the game. A more recent issue that's been arising lately is the lack of allies at low prices, when you search at 100mill etc your lucky to find an ally to hire, since allies are the way to make a lot of gold in this game they're struggling to make it, struggling to grow and will get frustrated with the game and ultimately leaving. The only solution to this is to get new people through the door or to make bot accounts at certain prices for the sole reason of max plunder. Hopefully you take some of these ideas on board since otherwise the game will end up on the road to inactivity due to no new accounts.