Refer A Friend system

[BigMinnie]

More players is never a bad thing and referral system could help here. Probably most of you know what this is, but if not... It's a reward system created to motivate players to recruit friends for the game.

Here are some examples from other games:

League of Legends
SMITE
PALADINS
World of Warcraft
HotS
Trove

So in AOEO it could work in the way when he reach X level on some civ. you get a reward or you could make account level (you could use this for a lot of other thing) and each time you level up civ. play a PvP game or Crete mission and so on. You get XP and level up. And when a friend reaches X level on his account you get reward.

 

[MatrixSoft]

A very nice idea, but I think it's hard to do, but for this team nothing is impossible.

 

[Ardeshir]

Probably the easiest way to grow the game without paying for ad campaigns, bombarding the hell out of video/stream platforms and gaming forums, or getting lucky begging esports and tech companies and figures for ad space or promotion. I think the only issues (other than opportunity cost of working on it over other content) lie in making sure that it doesn't hit the economy too hard and make AOEO gold the national currency of Zimbabwe (bring it in with too much rewards, especially of certain kinds like the one I just mentioned, and you might need to nerf quest rewards, especially if daily reward rework results in gold incomes, and/or if Bahram's content doesn't help as a gold sink) and that it doesn't end up seeing most of its use by people making multiple accounts

 

[BigMinnie]

A very nice idea, but I think it's hard to do, but for this team nothing is impossible.

Probably the hardest thing to do would be to find best way to detect that player you invited at least played something and they would need to make a different registration (online registration), because the best way would be to spam links with your code in it. But for rewards they could do the same they have for daily rewards.

 

[Couldn'tCareLess]

Probably the hardest thing to do would be to find best way to detect that player you invited at least played something and they would need to make a different registration (online registration), because the best way would be to spam links with your code in it. But for rewards they could do the same they have for daily rewards.

Imagine that, trough the registration process there is an option that says "Friend invitation" or something, and that you would have to fill the gap with your friend email. That way you can track the player that brought the nobbie to the game.
Besides, talking about the reward, i think it would be nice if, instead of EP or Gold Coins, something else would be the reward.
I don't know, 5 Legendary Chests + 5 Vanity Items? Something like it.

 

[Ardeshir]

Probably a scaled rewards system imho. A single chest and one of small EP/gold/other currency payout for each with a bigger reward at milestone amounts. Seems to put the most mental pressure on getting signups (some games offer limited edition skins/cosmetics for 10/25 signups for instance)

 

[Couldn'tCareLess]

Probably a scaled rewards system imho. A single chest and one of small EP/gold/other currency payout for each with a bigger reward at milestone amounts. Seems to put the most mental pressure on getting signups (some games offer limited edition skins/cosmetics for 10/25 signups for instance)

Exacly, but we can argue that a player can always register a new account even if it is agains the rules.
So, the system would have to check out if someone else is playing the game (how many hours? where is the IP from? Have both played the game at the same time and together?) and that would tick some boxes and at the end of it the reward would be presented (not something right of the bat).

 

[Ardeshir]

So ban them and roll any economically-significant trades of theirs back? It's not too different to catching people making multiple accounts currently.

If you want to get proactive in prevention, maybe a requirement on completing x number of ingame quests or reaching x (x+20 for premium civs) level?

 

[Pikolo]

I agree, the game need a referral system to boost player base, even more now, when roman civ. is closing by and it would be big waste if it would most go unnoticed.

To make it work, the team would just need to make some sort of account level that goes to infinity and it uses the same XP that is used for civ. level. When invited player reaches X level both get some non-trad-able reward 50 EP + Legendary Chests or a vanity item('s) only obtainable through this system.

And as much as I understand, everything could be done server-sided.