MagiStream Activity

[CinnaminDraconna]

I like the idea of more quests.. especially, repeatable quests.. but the creatures need to be something folk will want to collect a lot of.. the repeatables we have now aren't all that popular.. at least to me, other folk may have differing opinions.

And something I mentioned in the HWYD thread.. making an automated shop for Master Belmos, since he seems rather slow these days. He's got all those creatures in his 'sale' tabs, but we have no way of getting them quick like Remy's or the other Shops. Sometimes you need adults/hatchlings and not eggs after all.

[Ktanaqui]

I admit that my picture of MagiStream's recent state isn't great; I was gone (for the most part) for a really long time. I would like to note, however, that I didn't wish to start this conversation entirely on my own thoughts. I did talk to a few others first - people that have been far more active than I am.

It was never about money / income, which is why I didn't mention either in the OP, and why the title of the thread is "MagiStream Activity". It's entirely about how to entice more activity - either within the players already here, or by attracting new players. The latter is the only reason I mentioned ads - an extreme end of the spectrum. Less than ideal for MagiStream simply due to the nature of the business, as well, I'd like to note.

And - regardless of the fixation on a poor idea thrown into the wind simply for the purposes of getting people talking - the thread itself worked.

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I'm exhausted at the moment, so I'll go through the rest of the posts tomorrow to pay closer attention to everyone's ideas. (I'm curious what people think!)

[shadowrose45]

I think the whole issue revolves around getting more users. Lots are around in December....the holidays.

Surely, there is a way to bring new folks here from Facebook. FB and Instagram seem to be the go to places these days.

I get requests every day for candy crush and other games...a few FB ads might just help.

Some haven't been here long enough to remember the excitement when the tinsels and coals came out. Forums were in a buying frenzy. Elk were impossible to come by because everyone wanted breeding partners....

Some sites have a lot of people that collect user-made adoptables- they're popular, too.

As for quests...I wonder if some of the non-doable quests should come back. How many of us missed out on some of them entirely? I'd venture to say quite a few.

My main concern is the owners make enough to want to keep the site going. When I see donation pet sales dropping, I worry.

[Yunyi]

First, I think all adoptables sites are down a bit--I don't get the clicks I used to from Yarold's.
Second--no ad every brought me to an adoptable site. Friends on other kinds of forums got me hooked on Dragon Cave, that led me here for better art and faster play. I think adoptable sites grow by word of mouth, not advertisements.

And we need a little slowdown after the whole Halloween/Harvest/Christmas slew of events!

We had great quests and events last year--I think the site is doing a great job with plenty for folks to do.

This was posted a couple of pages back but I wanted to add on to it. I thought I was going crazy because I remembered Yarold's being much, much faster than it is now, as in I could go through multiple batches of eggs per day. Since I did come back from hiatus I thought maybe I had just remembered wrong...

I do believe that virtual adopt sites are not really the big hot thing right now. There's just too many other games, websites, and other forms of entertainment taking the big stage. The site is definitely less active than it used to be, but this isn't unique to MS. Not just that, but I think a lot of the active members back then were younger and had more time to devote to sites like this. That was 9 years ago... I know when I first joined I could devote hours and hours to MS at a time. Now, not so much.

I think it's very difficult to get new people to join and stick with it. Many of us who are still here have been here for years (I mean look at the join dates of people in this thread ). It's just hard for adoptable sites to compete for people's attention with all the other things that are being released. I'm not sure if there really is a solution to this--adoptable sites just aren't really as popular as they used to be.

[CinnaminDraconna]

fwiw I've been playing a different sort of online game a lot recently.. hidden object 'adventures'; specifically, Hidden City, Twin Moons, Secret Society and Seeker's Notes. They seem to be VERY popular, I see ads for them everywhere and they are full of ads themselves (constantly trying to get the players to buy things to help play the game).

Maybe some ads to advertise MagiStream wouldn't be a bad idea. *shrug*

[Tyriagris]

I apologise in advance for the word vomit.

My two cents on the discussion so far (doubt I'll be able to shut up later on, if I know myself at all, but hey ho... ) The thing is, I'm not sure how easy any of these ideas are to program and implement. Still, you asked for suggestions, so here are a few things I thought about that I think could be cool on MS in the future.

I'm not sure how many here remember it at all, and I only do vaguely, but there was a site-hosted (I THINK it was before Belmos became a thing) auction way, WAY back where people bid with shards, because MS was having... server troubles? I think? It's all very fuzzy at this point, because I was still too young to really pay much attention to the economic side of things and couldn't donate. As far as I recall, though, that auction (was it for an Elder CW...? ) solved matters beyond expectations.

I'm not saying it should be a regular thing, because I imagine it would get quite frustrating in the long run, but if MS was ever heading for an actual pinch, I could see another auction like that popping up before things turn into a catastrophe. God, I wish I remembered more about it. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

.... I also remember MS merchandise.

Since most of the previous discussion was player activity and influx, I'd say those are related. The more active current players are, the more the word will spread, and the more that happens, the more new people will come have a look, so I'll be focusing on possible ideas for MS to increase player activity, just so I won't ramble all over the place for three hours.

I do like the NPC idea, either automated like quests or the shops, or roleplayed. We do have a bunch of characters already, but it feels like the ones that get the most action are Belmos and Talyn - maybe there's some future thing planned for the other ones, of course, I can't know that, but at the moment it seems like there's potential.

-- Scavenger hunts for missing books or scrolls or NPC companions in return for creature rewards or gold or access to potions (like Lady Alua, but only once a day/week/month/whatever is appropriate for the potion, for example to unfreeze a creature or give a guarenteed breeding or work with another feature of the site aside from creatures, however that fits together) or items/sections of the keep ("find my escaped mist stalker and I'll lend you the key to the Shifting Library for a day." (insert other name for whatever could actually be part of the keep here, I just went with the first thing that came to mind)

-- Errands where you help them prepare potions or gather ingredients or god knows what for favours (see above).

-- Maybe you could have one of them as your personal tutor (thus unlocking something like a spell or a certain creature or something), but you need to pester them for it and have like a mini-quest to even get their attention. ... now that I write that out, it sounds a whole lot like the societies/guilds/etc, but I'll leave it in as a thought, anyway, because it could be a bit more specialised and work with something that's not creatures. (For example, one tutor can teach you how to more effectively take care of eggs, raising your egg limit by 1 or 2, while another can teach you how to better care for hatchlings, which grants 2 gold per click instead of one, and a third can teach you how to breed creatures (slightly increased success chances when breeding something), ... and so on. Tiny boons, but only one tutor at a time. You can always balance out the heaviness of the advantage (like an extra egg slot) by making the quests the NPCs give you accordingly difficult so it's something to work towards and earn.

Another thing I think many would like to see is more use for the collected creatures (I know how general that sounds, bear with me) than "hand in x of y for z quest". You guys put a lot of work into the creature descriptions and I adore the level of detail and continuity in all of those, they're amazing. So I, for one, would really love to see that put to use. So many creatures have unique characteristics and traits and abilities and I'd love if we could work them into some part of the magical studies aspect of what lore-magis are about. The research and exploration or general use. For example (because all of this is super vague and has been brought up x-thousand times already) assigning a creature to guard your eggs and gaining a ___% increased click rate (positive or negative), depending on the creature (which would make catching <1% hatchlings easier for some creatures (if the boost is negative), but it can also help with hatching eggs (if it's positive), and if the boost isn't too high, it (hopefully? I don't have the insight behind the scenes to really say for certain) break the balance too much. The problem with that idea is that it would require going through all existing creatures to assign actual specifics to them to make the whole programming side of it work, which is... a lot of creatures. I still wanted to bring up the idea, though, and maybe spark some others I'm not coherent enough to really word properly right now.

Or to save some time, we could have a quest and a few gradually released new creatures to introduce something like a weekly or monthly race between several of the same species. For example (off the top of my head), some sort of ostrich/emu creature that has stats like we had with the otrovian and domestic amagnae. Maybe speed and agility (to dodge obstacles) and stamina, that sort of thing. A while after they're released, there's the quest for a race track (is it discovered? Built? Magic-ed into existence? Another site-wide "crowdfunding" quest? I see a few options) and then there's a way to enter. Could be an entrance fee, or another small quest, or just a raffle and a lucky x winners (50? 100? more? Depending on activity and mood and so on - it could also start of small and then the race track gets "expanded" in the future, once it has become a bit popular at the keep, so more people can enter). The could be prizes - and betting, in theory. Could be a gold sink if NPCs enter, but could also be a lucky day for some user.

And before I actually end up writing a novel, I'll cut it short at this point, but I hope I sparked a thought or two for a few others to discuss this a bit further.

[Desade]

.... I also remember MS merchandise.

Haha!! I just got a flashback of someone standing on a snow pile, I think it was? Brandishing a broom or something wearing a Magistream shirt!

Ok, back to your serious discussion.

[Kestrad]

Honestly, I think part of the loss of activity is that MS happened to open at a good time for adoptables, when most of the people who play(ed) were between middle school and college aged, and now 9 years in a lot of previously super active players have jobs and other commitments eating up their time. I mean, I certainly spend much less time around here whenever I'm employed Add in the fact that adoptable sites in general are falling out of favor, and the snowball effect of more people leaving as the community diminishes more, and things do start feeling a bit dead.

We still have regular events and regular creature releases, and they're generally fun and active times, and our mods and admins are still around and active. Madd even started posting again! So honestly I'd say MS is actually doing pretty all right. Also iirc the auction Ty referred to was from that one time the site didn't have enough money to pay off its taxes (and I think the prize was actually just. whatever creature with whatever ID the winner wanted). I assume part of why Madd isn't around much anymore is that they've found a job, so hopefully it means MS won't be in straits nearly as dire as that in the future.

[randomname]

See now, I enjoyed collecting the streamborn Kirin, breading for hybrids, and figuring out naming schemes as much as anything that happened last year. The ties between the Christmas creatures and the quest in Jan or Feb was fab, and I managed to collect 950 pygmy phoenixes during Magiversary. I thought 2017 was an awfully good year here at good old MS.

For my money, the art and writing here still puts every other pixel website to shame.

And we get CTC for the whole month of December! That's not even an official event, it's just done out of the goodness of the organizers' hearts!

[shadowrose45]

We older players still enjoy the site. I know I'm not the only one in the 50+ club. It appeals to the hoarder in me, lol.

Life can be stressful. That anni game? I spent 90% of that game in the hospital and was on constantly. It was a great distraction.

I remember a Christmas I was totally broke, so my daughter and I did a Magistream Christmas. I still have those creatures.

The quests and the like are fun. I like breeding my own hybrids. I DETEST CLICK THREADS.

Ty had some awesome ideas, I think. I'd really like to see if the powers that be would allow player-made collectibles like PonyIsland and Unifaction had/have.

Tristan and Damian came up with a hell of a great site. The other admins and coders and players that go above and beyond keep it fun.

We need new blood. Younger and older. I love seeing excited new young players. I think some get discouraged by the high price of some older pets. 12 million for a CW. What kid not able to donate can come up with over 100 bucks worth of shards? I think players tend to forget 1 million gold is $20 of real money. I once paid someone 100 shards for a CW.

There are people who will continue to donate for the simple pleasure of being here. We just need to make various things that appeal to the masses.

The site is free...so many aren't. Tristan made sure we all got back lost critters. I don't worry when I'm gone months at a time that my critters will disappear.

I'd just like to see more than the 20 or so active players I see in the buy/sell forums. A way to get gold easier---cuz those of us that can donate more if we can actually sell some shards. Even selling shards is getting harder.

Ty, I think you're talking about the player that donated 1k for an elder CW? I remember that.

Pony Island allows people to sell their stuff for real money...I'm not sure if something like that would work here or not.