You have heard me mention the new game introduction (which will replace the current manager license challenge) a couple of times now, both here and on the forums. Yesterday that design work came to an end – yes, the design is ready and the spec is written. Hopefully we can start working on it right after new year, because I’m like I small child on Christmas (a very fitting simile these days, eh?): Eagerly waiting for my gift. And it’s like I just can’t wait.
My enthusiasm about this project is not just because I think it’s much needed and will have good impact on new users, actually it’s rather because I think this will make the first month in Hattrick so much more fun and interesting. Becuase this game intro does not just aim on offering a better tutorial, it’s just not about educating new users the basics of the game. That’s important, but what is perhaps more important is to make the game a whole lot more fun and interesting the first month. That’s the key issue, and in turn that will also make it a lot more interesting to learn the basics.
I want new managers who just got their team a strong feeling of starting with their two empty hands, that you build your team from scratch. I want the manager to instantly feel that this is his team, and make the team more personal and dear. Also, when sharing my ideas with the rest of the game council Klas said that when you start up a football manager game – the first move can take hours if the game catches you. Not because it’s difficult, but because it’s so interesting and fun. I very much agree with this, it’s very fine moment and we should make the most of it.
Another thing which I think is lacking for new managers (in particular) is a good story. How does a manager’s journey in Hattrick begin, and what happened just before his arrival? And what challenges lies in front of him? I’m a real fan of the role playing part of Hattrick, when managers really role play their team and give it life. Knowing your origin will help all new users I think, but also encourage to give their team more life.
To be a little bit more detailed, the story starts with the someone from the board welcoming the user to the club and telling him about what the board expects from the manager. This character (board member) is one of two persons that will lead the manager through his first few weeks in the game. The other character responsible for this is the trainer, but the manager will not just get one – he will choose his trainer between a defensive, offensive or neutral (all just as good, and better than today). The appointed trainer will then lead the user through his next step – to pick his squad. Yes, he will get to choose! Twice! Because first he will only be able to pick around 15 (out of 20 or so), and then after the first match get to pick a few more guys.
The new manager will also not have access to all stuff right away. First of, he will only be responsible for training and matches. As he proceeds the game will open gradually for him, and the board will allow the manager to handle staff, transfers, arena and youth in steps. One can say it work like levels, just not very hard to reach at all – but a little bit depending on how active the manager is.
There are some more things happening in this as well, like how the fan club is founded etc, but I think you get the idea. The thought is also so knit this together with a help section on relevant pages, where these two mentioned characters will offer basic help. Even for current managers, but it’s something you can turn off if you don’t want them. This will simply be the best change ever!
Somewhat related to this there’s also been quite some talk about newbie guides and manuals lately, at least on the Global forum. I have to say I really love the initiative from the community around those issues, it’s really a joy to see. But at the same time, we should not be carried away here. And also think about what kind of guide/manual we want to offer.
First, you have to be prepared that even if we offer a newbie guide not everyone will read it. I mean, how many of us read the instruction manual for our new TV or other electronical device? We humans often put our hopes on learning by doing, and if that fails we try the very same thing once again. 🙂
That said, this doesn’t mean it’s bad idea to offer such a guide, quite the opposite – it’s a great idea. And especially one the community has made in my opinion – and there will for sure be users who will find it very useful and handy. There are humans who do things as one should do after all.
Secondly and for me perhaps even more important; let it be a guide and not an exact how-to. It should guide the user to the most useful/important things in the beginning, but not take any decision for him. This is a manager game after all, you have to leave the decision-making to the user. And I think, as a manager you want to make the decisions yourself, that’s perhaps the biggest reason for why you start to play a strategy/manager game at all. So lets not in our eagerness to help and make things easy in the end steal the fun from the new manager.
In my world, a good guide should provide the necessary info and explain the basics in order for the reader/manager to make his own decision. It might mean that the newbie manager may take decisions that are not 100% optimal according to you, but at least it’s his decision – and that makes any game a lot more interesting in my opinion. And when all comes around – that’s what this game is about. Make decisions and try to be a little smarter than the next guy.
With these words I will now take a break for Christmas and New Year. See you after the holidays again, and I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy new year!
Impressive! you almost make me start all over again, to see the results this idea!
I am wondering what managers that already are playing will notice about it. Will we also get more role playing issues?
Nice work!
Thanks! Yes, existing managers will in time also get things that help to tell a story, if you want to. But the main thing I think is to include the story in new game features, so managers also can use for roleplaying issues at the same time as it has other (and perhaps more important) purposes.
Sounds good! It´s a pity that I am not a newbie anymore!
Very nice Christmas present … server down …
Nice!
Will you make it available for testing for already existing users? Or are you going to implement it without testing?
We will test it for sure, but not on already existing users.
Your not going to test this on newbies right? Because if it goes wrong, there goes your latest stream of newbies.
We will naturally test it before newbies will be able to enjoy it, but when the first newbies get to do it one can say that’s also a kind of test – to see what difference it makes.
It is better to think of churn reduction and CRM-managment for your team…
System understanding the churn drivers will have a positive impact on retention from the first months of the introduction of new instruments (DX-activity, churn prediction, direct marketing, itc…).
If you need some help in Marketing Managment question, you can ask google about CRM strategy in the context of churn reduction.
P.S. correct understanding of CRM-strategy can help as well in “customer development”, which in turn will lead to an overall increase in revenues.
Good luck and i hope, your project will increase EBITDA not only by price instruments. Use all 4p 🙂
HT-manager
Poul_UA
When will this be launced?
I am just about to start a new team after a 4 year break. And would love to start this way if it is soon reality.
We have a few things in this which we need to investigate in detail how to do it, and before those investigations are done it’s impossible to say exactly how long it will take to complete the whole project. It is divided in steps, but it will most likely take this winter-spring to complete it all. So, even though I think this is a funnier start, I would recommend you not to wait for it.
Thank you for a quick answer! 🙂
I will go ahead and take a control of a new team then.
Thank you for the great work!
so the already excisting managers get nothing only the just started managers get this awesome upgrade of hattrick
Not quite. I hope you’ve read today’s editorial for example.
Hi, I’m new here. I just went to this blog after reading the last HT editorial. So I didn’t follow the whole discussion, but i wanted to give you a suggestion that in my eyes may be interesting for the new part for beginners.
I had one of my most memorable situations in HT just this week. And it was when in the 80° min of a friendly game stacked on 0-0 played with another member of a federation of mine the HT player with my real name (which is now very old, with TSI = 0) scored the 1-0!!!
Maybe (if this doesn’t conflict with your story) you should add the possibility to let new user generate a player with the own real name. This would add an additional personalization of the experience and maybe a motivation for not to leave the game after a month.
What do you think? shouldn’t be too complicated to implement
It’s not hard, but giving everyone the oppurtunity to name a player of his own also open up a can of worms (the option to choose really bad words etc). But it’s a great idea, and we’ve toyed a little with letting people choose a player name (with some kind of restriction) but where the name has to be taken from our database.
wewant training like the users who have supporter! when you put this update?
You mean that all users should get a report from your trainer (which is a Supporter feature today)? Don’t know if that ever will be a feature that will leave the Supporter package, even though it’s possible that it might be in some form.
I want to sell some players and nobody put me in figuring out how to make me stick and I want to do that at first the transfer market is now not buy anything: ( I want the old transfer market !!
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