Website improvements to win more players

[Darkloam]

Hi,
I wanted to share a fresh new player's perspective on the shortfalls of the website here, which would definitely cause a reduced conversion from visitors to paying customers.

For example, new users will make a fairly quick prejudicial judgement on whether to download the game. They'll be asking questions like, will I get ganked, how much does it really cost to play and enjoy it, and what are the features.

Answers to these questions should be easy to find.

Home page
1) There is no "what is Pirates" short text on the top of the page. No immediate statement like "free to play MMO with sailing ship battles, deep economic game and opt-in PvP".
2) There is no link to a more detailed "what is Pirates" page, which should include features and screenshots, and gameplay videos.
3) There is no obvious link to a page on "the free to play pricing options"
4) The most prominent content is a blog RSS feed, which is interesting to experienced players but meaningless to new players. Demote its priority on the page and insert instead at the top some brief details on the game and links to more information.
5) No self-explanatory and prominent 'download the game' link, you have to deduce it's from the pirate guy saying 'free to play', or hidden under the "support" text sidebar menu. Make it big and easy to find.

The "free to play" page.
1) the steps 1-2-3 are good, however...
2) Really important information is hidden in the destination page of "Click here to compare features included with free-to-play accounts, Captain’s Club memberships, and Premium accounts." Make it more obvious. Include an excerpt of the table on this page, suggest "best value for money is just a one month subscription the Club, click to read more".
3) The "key features" should be expanded with a paragraph on each and an image. Sell them on the game without them needing to leave this page. For those wanting more detail, ideally also have an even more detailed 'about pirates page' which users can click over to.
4) There's no link back to the home page from this page!

About Pirates, detailed page
This page doesn't exist. One is needed. There is content in the wiki, but it's not written with a selling purpose.
You need to have details on the features and screenshots, and gameplay videos. Some explanation on the meaning of Spanish or French, as opposed to meaningless role-play blurb. If there's no meaningful gameplay different between the various nationalities, then state it so. Even the wiki is lacking in this regard.
Explain key features like fleets, ship building, conquest, economy, nationality and so on in short-form text which is honest but exciting.

In short, this appears to be a good game, which deserves to market itself better.

[Darkloam]

Having played the game itself a little more now, I noticed a dire lack of information in the wiki about the meaning or significance of things.

What's needed: a beginner's guide which goes deeper than superficial 'help' information, but gives answers that answer the crucial question of "so what".

Examples:
Whether economy is worth doing early on.

I'm L7, and as a Privateer I was given a warehouse and a lumber mill structure, but found that the oak and planks I could make just are not selling. Most likely because I'm selling in the newbie area. The Guide should say "you will not find the economic game particularly worthwhile until Level x or so, unless you are a freetrader" or something like that. It'd have saved me time and money. It is not self-evident that a Privateer should not play the economy early on, for example, because the tutorial goes to some length to explain it all to you but doesn't say "do it later".

Finding quest targets

The user interface, local map, is not very intuitively showing where I should go to turn in a quest or move to the next step of a quest. Sometimes the ! symbol is shown, but because I think that's a quest giver, I don't investigate, when in fact it was implying there's some kind of instanced room ready for me.
If the local map is not going to show me, as a design decision, then the quest text should tell me whether he's in a tavern, at sea, or standing around, rather than sometimes giving nothing beyond the city.

Travelling to other cities

I discovered by accident that you can 'book passage' to another city if you have left a boat there. That'd be handy to know during the tutorial.

The meaning of the careers

I picked Privateer by elimination, without really much understanding of the alternatives. There should be some meaningful explanations given for each career, for example: Naval Officers get heavy offense and defence in the end-game, but Privateers are more nimble. Same for nationality, it'd be helpful to know it actually makes no difference, it's a "team" choice which puts you with others but you can even change nationality occasionally.

There's a lot more to it, I'm sure, but the point is, I have no idea and nowhere easy-to-find for the answers. If the answer is complex, then use a table to draw distinctions between careers: at L1-10, L11-30, L30-50, in war, in trade, etc.

How do you find someone in a society?

You can't search for officers online in a society. There's no 'whois' equivalent. I had to ask on Nation. That works, but it's time-bound. It'd be nice to see who is online with rank, so I could talk to them, and/or find all those even offline, so I could write to them.

[Grutte Pier]

good points, keep em coming!
new player experience of this game is important to know
i wouldve post mine, but my memory is to clouded:P

[sdliger23]

I like this..