Announcements and incentives to increase in-game player count

[piqey]

We want players to have reasons to join the server when it's empty or getting close to it. So having the server announce benefits via Discord webhooks to anyone who joins when the population is low would incentivize people to join.

[TimTamTheFlimFlamBoJangles]

Having achievements and/or item drops that are only achievable in low player accounts is a great start, that won't incentivize everyone but as long as there's 1 or 2 people out there who are collectivists they'll join off that alone and that can help start chain reactions of others joining because the player count is rising.

[piqey]

Having achievements and/or item drops that are only achievable in low player accounts is a great start, that won't incentivize everyone but as long as there's 1 or 2 people out there who are collectivists they'll join off that alone and that can help start chain reactions of others joining because the player count is rising.

Do you have any ideas for the kinds of items they would give? It's never too early to resume working on PAC outfits, by the way. @ThomasTerp has pretty much finished the outfit system backend, so we're at a point where we can take outfits you've made and make them into items. You'd need to take the rarity of the items into account as well, as we don't want only basic or only complicated outfits for cosmetic items.

[piqey]

This also ties in with #11, as we will need PAC outfits for the cosmetics rewarded for the achievement rewards as denoted therein.

[piqey]

Perhaps we could have special versions of the quests described in #4 as drops from zombies during times of low population.
Or even add a special quest criterion that the number of human players remain under a certain number?

[piqey]

• Achievements that are only obtainable during low pop
• Items that drop only during low pop

[TimTamTheFlimFlamBoJangles]

In my personal opinion we can't reliably get every kind of player to always find the benefits we give on low player count good, but we don't need to we only need to properly incentivize some to start the chain so to speak. I suggest we focus on completionists. People who want their account to show they've done as much as they can on the server. So the perfect start would be achievements that necessitate or are helped by low player count. Here's a list of just a few idea achievements I'd throw in.

• Survive an entire game as the only player on the server.
• Be the only player on the server and have a friend join.
• Survive a game with only players on your friend list.
• Defeat a boss by yourself. (if we add bosses)]
• Survive a total of X hours as the only player on the server across all games.

There can also be achievements that aren't outright "this needs to be done on low pop" but completionists can recognize would be easier to achieve in low pop,

• Kill the same human player on your friend list twice in 1 game.
• Have the last survivor be your friend and kill them.

TF2 had a system where at set intervals they gave out items to player currently in-game. In essence, the less players playing the more likely you were to be the player chosen for an item, we could do this too.

Also to help keep player counts from going too low it would be good to incentivize players to be friends with each other outside of the server too. To be a community, as well as a server. There's no real gameplay ways to do that, that's down to just being a good mix of friendly but not too friendly so that it comes off as corporate. I hope I don't have to tell you this but servers that try too hard to do that just seem fake and only have the opposite effect.

[piqey]

[...] the perfect start would be achievements that necessitate or are helped by low player count.

I'm fine with this, as long as we don't invent a reason for people to leave as soon as others join. I can imagine joining to get something done, causing another player or two to join and leaving due to no longer being able to complete that achievement.

[piqey]

There can also be achievements that aren't outright "this needs to be done on low pop" but completionists can recognize would be easier to achieve in low pop,

• Kill the same human player on your friend list twice in 1 game.
• Have the last survivor be your friend and kill them.

I like these ideas. However, we probably need to set a minimum limit of players for them, even if it's only 3–4. Unless anyone disagrees.