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KevinJardine's avatar
KevinJardine
Start Partner
12 days ago

Maintaining worlds

I have an ambitious space-themed treasure hunt game, Galactic Treasure Hunt, that was somewhat popular in June and July (around 10 players per day). I had ideas for how to improve it but then within the space of a week in August, visitors dropped to about 2 a week in mid-August and this has not recovered since. The most probable theory I have is that some algorithm changed somewhere in Horizon Worlds and the game is no longer being promoted.

As can be imagined, this was hugely discouraging for me and I abandoned my plans to further develop the world.

What do people think? Is there some other explanation for the drastic decline? It is not a perfect game, of course, which is why I had plans to improve it. But I think that it should be doing better than it is. And in July it was.

Link: https://horizon.meta.com/world/652276037540703

 

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9 Replies

  • VirtuallyARealDinosaur's avatar
    VirtuallyARealDinosaur
    Community Manager
    10 days ago

    Hey Kevin!

    Here's my thoughts: 

    1. I think the world is wonderfully built, but once I have completed finding all 8 artifacts, the world becomes more of a hangout world. This isn't inherently bad, hangout worlds are great! This does mean that having a steady number of people in the world is crucial to success of hangout worlds since the main attraction would be meeting and talking to other people. It could be that all these folks have brought their friends by to hunt the treasures and "completed" the activity.

    2. The name of your world includes "Treasure Hunt". Maybe the expectation of those joining is that there's going to be more treasure to hunt? Or that the objects spawn in different locations and you can hunt over and over to keep things interesting?

    I did have a great time finding all 8 artifacts myself. I hope the feedback helps you think about ways to keep folks coming back!

    • KevinJardine's avatar
      KevinJardine
      Start Partner
      10 days ago

      Thanks for the response. I think that you may be confusing Galactic Treasure Hunt with another world 

      Galactic Treasure Hunt has almost 100 treasures to find and 9 different missions scattered across many different star stations. So plenty to keep people busy, which is why it did attract almost 500 players in June and July.

      • VirtuallyARealDinosaur's avatar
        VirtuallyARealDinosaur
        Community Manager
        10 days ago

        Ah! That's my mistake. 

        I went back into the world and saw further instructions to use the starships to go to other stations to find more.


        Maybe large letters above each section of the station to say "Training Course". I know the instructions call it a training course, but it's easy to read past since folks are already primed to hunt for treasure.

        Or some sort of UI to track the artifacts you've found in the section and quests to usher folks to board a starship and fly to another station.

        Thanks for your response! It made me take time to slow down and go back through your instructions.

        EDIT: I did open the inventory which tracks the objects, but it disappears too quickly.

  • KevinJardine's avatar
    KevinJardine
    Start Partner
    10 days ago

    Given all the large signs and TOAST messages I have everywhere (plus a fleet of starships ready to use) I'm a little surprised that you say that but I'd be happy to accept detailed suggestions for further improvements.

    But that was not my question. I was wondering why there was such a drastic reduction in visitors and click throughs in August and why they never recovered.

    Does that reflect overall Horizon Worlds participation or there is something I can do to get the player numbers closer to what they were in July?

    • VirtuallyARealDinosaur's avatar
      VirtuallyARealDinosaur
      Community Manager
      10 days ago

      There have been some folks experiencing worlds crashing after an extended period (45m - 1hr) of time in the world.

      Maybe your world is affected by this?

      • KevinJardine's avatar
        KevinJardine
        Start Partner
        10 days ago

        The drop was in players not just in time. So I don't think that the extended period was the issue.

        My point is that I am not motivated to improve the game if the clickthrough rate suddenly drops to nothing. I need to feel that my actions have some influence on the player count and the abrupt drop from 50-60 visitors per week to 2 in mid-August made me think that I was wasting my time.

        I think that Horizon Worlds is a fantastic engine which is why I spend so much time developing for it. But the way worlds are promoted is so opaque to me that I hesitate.

  • KevinJardine's avatar
    KevinJardine
    Start Partner
    9 days ago

    I very much appreciate that you've taken the time to respond. When the world was getting traffic in June and July, I checked the Insight stats almost every day and there was never a crash. So I don't think that was it. I still think that the most likely explanation is that the world triggered something in a Horizon Worlds algorithm and got placed in a "do not promote" category. If that is true, then there is no point in me trying to improve the world until that is fixed.

  • KevinJardine's avatar
    KevinJardine
    Start Partner
    9 days ago

    I certainly would appreciate it if a Mentor looked over the world and gave me some advice to improve the game. As I mentioned it is a huge game with 9 missions and almost 100 treasures spread over many different star stations and I put a great deal of work into it.

    But I also would like to know if it is possible to return to the clickthrough level the world was getting in July.

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