Immy Greeter Change Proposal
Greeter as a Side Gig with Commission

Instead of having immy greeter be a job, it should be something everyone after a playing a certain amount of time - maybe three months, maybe more - can do as a side gig. Players that greet someone then get paid if the player is still active after two weeks and again at four. There would possibly be a cap on the number of payouts you can get. I think this would accomplish a few things:

1) In my mind, the difference between an enjoyable Sindome experience and one that's not as enjoyable is one's character having friends. Immy greeters are not going to be able to remain friends with all of the immies that they greet. However, if many more character are doing immy greeting as a part time gig, they can remain friends with the immies they greeted, and the relationship can be more than one that spans a couple days when they get on their feet.

2) This system would prioritize player retention. No one is going to want to play Sindome if all they can do is do the basic automated immy job, find a place to stay, and avoid the obviously dangerous areas. A longer term relationship, incentivized by payouts only when the player is retained at two and four weeks, will give greeters an incentive to teach their immies more and get them involved in more things.

3) This would give immies a chance to get involved in a faction/enterprise/scheme or whatever else the greeter is involved in off the bat. Maybe the immy doesn't take it, but it at least gives that immy an easy option for something to get involved in.

4) My understanding is that greeting is very thankless work involves pouring in a lot of effort into people that end up not playing the game. This might be easier if we spread the burden around a bit.

5) To the extent a character does not want to work for the organization that pays immy greeters, this gives a player a chance to contribute while getting a little extra chy for their efforts.

My enjoyment of the the game was finding a pair of people that took me under their wing and doing some things for them other than just the automated job. I don't know if the above method would achieve this or not, but I can say that I can very directly attribute my enjoyment to their efforts. So if it did, I would say that's a powerful retention tool.

I did read some of the threads on being good at at the game and they were more than a little discouraging to read.

Telling people to be a badass when you can't figure out how to make a door work is a challenge. Saying UE doesn't matter after witnessing one player destroy five to seven doesn't make me think that's a good path either. Telling people to drive RP when you don't have connections or a clue is really hard.

Yet having some people that will work with you and give you little things to do that seem to be connected to something larger makes you want to keep logging on. I know my character is coded garbage, but that's fine. I don't expect anything else. But feeling connected to the game early on is huge, or at least has been for me.

If you are a bartender and you see a new immy in your bar, take pains to talk to them about what a rough week it's been and gossip about some of the IC events going on. If you're a joy, get a little sleazy (but not too sleazy) at them and tell 'em to come back when they've made some flash. If you're a ganger, talk tough and get in their face, make sure they know who runs shit in your neighborhood. Just don't, you know, actually run them off. Yeah I know you're RPing with your buddies and you're all oh-so-used to theme, but the new players aren't. Show off a little.

My first day here, that was more or less what I got and it left a huge impression on me. I wanted to stick around because I saw that PCs were creating stories in a living world. It would actually be a couple of days before anyone showed me SHI or crates and that was so much more boring than all the plot going on, even if I wasn't really a part of any of it yet.

I've always advocated that hooking new players in interesting ways is how we retain them, because I was lucky enough on my first time playing SD to have an amazingly talented character introduce me to theme.

If you can use the doublequote, you can get interesting RP started without knowing basically anything else in the game. It took me like, no joke, four days to figure out what the red text on my screen was, because nobody explained it to me, and I'd not heard any name for what the SIC network was, and therefore couldn't figure out what the helpfiles were for it. Since then, we have added numerous tutorials for speaking, emoting and the like, and have even added a super comprehensive @newbie guide.

Style over substance chums, fake it until you make it with those immies. So what if you've been in the dome two weeks longer than them? They don't know that. Play a grizzled vet and get them involved in the drama and intrigue that keeps us all logging back in.

I agree and disagree with you. I 100% agree Sindome is what you make of it, and even if you know the game well, you can't just hang around and expect interesting stuff to come to you, because generally speaking, it won't. I also wasn't blaming veterans or anyone, really. I just think the current system still lets a lot of people 'slip through'. YOU have to go out and make shit happen, and it's one of the earliest lessons people learn.

My point was, a new player can have all the drive and RP prowess in the world, but it means nothing if they don't know where to start. I count myself as someone who started out eager and willing (minus the RP prowess part, lol) and was left completely confused as to what to do because my first character didn't get a greeter. It's really disheartening, you have no idea where people are, how to get money, how to get a pad, or what you can do with your skills, and this is from someone who has experience with MUDs and text games, which, is not everyone who tries Sindome. Now, sure, I came back and ended up making a new character and that one had a greeter, and the difference was night and day, so that character developed a lot, but I don't expect everyone to do that.

Should we really turn players away just because they're not willing to learn the game the 'hard' way by themselves? Because if so, then we're getting on a whole other topic of curating player quality.

Little addendum: The whole putting resources and time onto players who disappear, that is entirely on you, and I've seen it happen with established characters too. Sometimes, people just disappear. It's life in the dome. Obviously, with immies, you have to be more cautious. Don't spend 8 hours with them straight after they come through the gate. Meet them, give them some tips, expose them to the setting, and then keep an eye on them. If you want a protégé, pick them carefully. See how often you see them, see if they're developing their character and then invest real resources and time on them. Immies don't need to be led on a leash 24/7, let them go out and meet other people, do other stuff. Even just a few words make all the difference.