PRESENTS...
There is a reality to running online gaming teams that I have called The Law of Diminishing Players. This law may not be obvious if you are fairly new, or if you’ve been around online gaming teams for a while you may already have experienced this phenomenon.
The law is pretty simple to understand but the effects, if not dealt with properly, can be devastating, and while its effects are consistent, the diminishing rate of your players is not consistent. What the heck am I talking about? I first "discovered" this law about a year after I started up one of my earliest teams back in 2003.
People who had joined my team a week previous, or even a month previous would have some type of conflict with school, work, spouse, (you name it) and they would say to me, "I have this thing to take care of…" or "I have to concentrate on school right now…" and they left the team.
95% of the time they say, "I'll be back just as soon as I take care of this thing." Over time you will hear some colorful "reasons" people leave the team. I wish I would have recorded some to get a laugh!
Did I believe them? Of course I believed them. I do-what-I-say and hold myself accountable to my word, doesn't everyone else? After about a year or so I started to get the picture:
But, that is just not reality; most will not come back to the team. Only a very small percentage, 1%-3%, will actually rejoin your team, and that assumes you have an excellent environment with no drama or very little drama among a host of other challenges.
I don't believe they want to lie to us. It's just that we typically don't like letting others down. Of course some will be straight and tell you they don't like your team, or your team is not what they are looking for, but these types are rare. There are still others that want to take your team from you and strike out on their own, but this is a topic for a separate article.
So what's the point to this? If you're interested in keeping a team going you need people.
The Law of Diminishing Players is this:
This means if you stop recruiting new members, you will eventually end up back at square one with only yourself on your team. I don't make this up. I wish this wasn't true! But, unfortunately it is the reality of online gaming teams.
You may have the perfect mix of players formed over the last six months, but unfortunately, the chances are that someone or several players will be leaving your perfect team.
Note that I speak of the average length of time of membership. Reality is that players will come all across the spectrum of commitment levels. You will talk to people who will ask to join your team and you will never hear from them again before they ever officially join, and at the other end of the spectrum you will find the opposite; you will find people who will remain steadfast and be a supportive team member for many years, but these last types are rare.
The good news is that once we embrace this law we can choose to operate in reality instead of living a fantasy. Whether you choose to ignore or heed this governing principle you will get what you sew. We can decide to take positive action and maintain a team that is moving forward and not stagnating, or we can ignore it and end up with ourselves and maybe one or two other players. Like gravity, taxes, and death, we cannot wish away nor ignore The Law of Diminishing Players and expect a positive result.
The Law of Diminishing Players logically leads to the following mode of thought:
There is no point in developing plans that includes former (or missing) members and those who have yet to join the team. Plan in the now.
If you have been a part of a team for any length of time you probably recognize this principle I've been talking about. In fact, you may have recognized it before but didn't think about it until now. So now that you recognize it and are willing to take positive action, what's next?
If you've made it this far into the article I will assume you are interested in building a lasting team. Regardless of the game-type, you can build a team that not only survives all the way through a game's maintenance phase, but one that also moves on to greater accomplishments.
The most important thing you can do right now besides inviting someone to join your team is to think about and write down the perfect potential member of your team.
Here's some items to jog your brain and get it flowing, and I encourage you to consider additional criteria:
What experience level are you looking for? New players? Hard-core elite players?
Are you looking to compete against other teams? Or form internal competitions? Both?
What kind of availability? Be realistic. 2 evenings per week? 5 nights per week?
What expansion packs should they have if applicable?
Should they be ready to donate to support a server?
Does attitude matter? If so, what kind of attitude should they have?
What else?
You need to answer these things for yourself and your team. There is no one perfect answer for all. There is a perfect answer for your team and it is up to you to figure that out. The answer for what type of player you want to recruit is closely linked to the mission or direction for your team. In fact, they go hand-in-hand. In part two, I will discuss the importance and application of this brain-jogging exercise.
Maxim #44 - Recruiting new members raises a unit's morale. Recruiting members is a basic & critical activity of all 3 phases of the Game-Cycle.
Maxim #49 - One should wage war with the soldiers that are here and now. Not the ones that have been and are gone, nor who have yet to be.