We're seeing a lot of people sign up to PaperDemon and start creating a character but don't finish their character. I'm trying to understand why this is by surveying the players who started creating a character but didn't finish but I'm not getting a lot of responses.

Some people forget so we send them an automated email after a while if they don't finish their character.

We're considering drastically simplifying the character creator to just ask for a character name and that's it and auto-approving it. The next step would be for players to complete a character development challenge. What do you think if we were to simplify character creation to just a name and jump them into a challenge?

There are implications and concerns I have that we'd need to work through if we change things:

• If a person isn't able to finish the character creator, i'm concerned they're going to have trouble finishing a challenge too
• We will end up with a lot of blank character sheets which could make it harder for community building
• players may have trouble tagging their characters (since there's more characters with the same name and no image) so we may need to make some ui updates to compensate for this.

What do you guys think? Is there too much friction to character creation? What can we do to improve it? What is your experience with the character creator? Where did you find yourself wanting to quit the creator?

Character Creator

i myself am forgetful and might forget to fill out the info form or forget to prepare an image, but im assuming most peoples issues are not being prepared to fill out the form. maybe have the option to fill it out later with some very basic info being required (ie species, age range, stuff like that)?

My experience with the character creator was fine honestly, as I found it personally pretty brief. I think having a brief idea of the character is a good thing for the concerns you listed. It's possible to maybe zero in on their personality and make any other information be more optional? This might allow players to develope the characters overtime via challenges without feeling like they need a fully fleshed out character? (Just some thoughts, not sure how much it'll stick)

I think auto-approving characters would be good as it'd get some people immediately playing, I know when I submitted my first character I was shaking in my boots to play, sadly we are in an era where people lose interest very fast due to how immediate everything can be, so needing approval does take away the eyes of short-attention-span people (nothing wrong with short attention span, but that is how things be right now)

There are a couple things that are redundant, for exampel:

No matter if you take Artwork or Writing, both will eventually lead you to the same description Window, this could be simplified by having a "write a profile" window with optional picture upload, for example.

A profile could be simple for character creation, just something quick and easy and maybe with word filters in case people decide to get rowdy and use Not Good language if you catch my drift.

Another suggestion of mine is that the process of character approval could be done with the first rank up (maybe rank up to 1?), have a little tutorial with the character development and let people explore the site as they go. Also allowing players to explore the whole mechanics is good, I remember talking with my friend that it was a little frustrating that we needed to be Rank 2 to join battles, when we already knew what we were doing, especially because finishing each apprentice step took a couple days each time because of the approval process (i LOVE the approval process, but of course, if you can't rank up, the boss is half health and you want to fight it, and have to wait up to five days, it does become a bit frustrating being unable to participate)

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I hope I was able to bring my thoughts out properly, I am a little bad at writing any sort of criticism, the only things I can see could go wrong if there's auto-approval is that people could make a bunch of characters to get the gold + battle tokens from it as an exploit, my suggestion to deal with that would be to give the tokens with the first rank up after character development, and perhaps having a limit and not letting people make a new character until they've had their first rank up, but not sure... There is a lot that would have to be balanced for sure.

TLDR; Perhaps the character creation is a little too hand-holdy, making it have too many steps, plus the waiting of approval could make people leave and forget, I do believe automating approval could also ease some mod stress.

I find I like the basic templet as it is though I would also highly enjoy the ability to back draft and save without bothering admins before I'm actually ready to have my character published. I know I'm mainly active in the discord and find the sight as a side quest personally. But I also find I haven't finished most of my charater registrations due to my desire to have eveything completed but also having to go through the process to get the information by trumbling through the character creating steps like a drunk deer looking for more fruit.. 

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I'll try to encorporate what I can and get this thing simplified. I'm sooooo hesitant to drop it down to just a name. but for sure, we can drop step 4 as you mentioned Kindynos and simplify it for writers.

we will also change the system to auto-approve and deliver rewards.

I'm still open to more feedback if people have it.

i honestly don't think there's much wrong with creating the character? like as it is now you only need 1 picture if you're an artist and just words if you're a writer right? or are we including the apprenticeship tutorial with this ? if so then that's where i think it is most difficult. if not then.... idk what could be the problem. maybe ppl are just having the wrong impression abt how to play the game. if they can't just put in 1 picture for a character or small words as a writer, they were probably nvr going to be able to complete a challenge anyway. from being on character collection sites (not that PD is one or anything) , there is a number of ppl who have characters that don't make art or write. they use generators like picrews and doll sites. bc that is not allowed on PD, the bar is a little higher for those ppl. so i think it is important to take into account the kind of ppl that is abandoning the character creation process. bc if it is ppl that don't make art OR write (or not bothered to commission ppl to do it for them). then idk if it's a good idea to change anything to accomodate that demographic. if that makes sense.

also yes as kindynos mention , we did think it was kind of frustrating that we need to be rank 2 to do battles bc i was still getting approved for the rank when the posi battle was going on and she died fast. so i was not able to get art done for it in time due to the amount of time it usually takes me to make an illustration and i didn't want to spend any time making art for a battle that i wasn't sure would still be there by the time i was approved for the rank. im not pressed abt it. but it might be a concern for others.

not sure if my thoughts are on a tangent but that is all i can rly consider abt that.

I think the character creation has really improved with the additional prompts!! (If anything, I wish they were all open prompts 😩) 

However, I think that leveling to rank 2 could be automated- as well as allowing players to delete/deactivate/"retire" their own characters. I have one OC I made as a test subject that I don't use anymore, but I don't really feel compelled to go as far as to send an email, so he sits collecting dust... IDK if the coding would allow for it, but I think it'd be nice for players to take down their unfinished characters autonomously.

Thanks for taking feedback!

Since I have been uploading characters for days ('cause my brain wants everyone to be here before I properly start hhh) there's really just two things I would like to change - One has already been mentioned, being the auto-approval.

Another one (and I don't really know if there's a specific reason that's not allowed?), but maybe offer the option of uploading commissioned art as a profile picture?

Like, obviously you should credit and have the rights to use the art (maybe one has to tick a little box for this?) but I'd personally say this differs from dolls/bases etc. since you specifically paid for it yourself and it'd be really neat! :^

EDIT: It has been pointed out to me, that it is, in fact possible to submit characters with commissioned/adopt/off-site profile-art. From first view this seems like a very inconvenient process to me personally, tho... So, my point still stands (partially) - it'd be really neat if you could just tick a box and include a link to the artist during the character creation, so one can concentrate on drawing prompts and challenges right away, instead of first redrawing profile pictures or having to jump through some extra hoops to get their characters online

Other than that, I had no issues with the process of uploading my characters so far ♥
(Sorry for spamming y'all with them tho lol)

((My OCD would also love if it'd be possible to change the element "for free" at least once HHH))

[ Cracks Knuckles. ] 
1. I didn't feel really connected to the community at first. Now that i've settled in more, I feel more people treat me as a recognizable face, but at first it defintely felt like . . . I was doing this to complete something rather than connect to my OC/the community. 
2. The Rank 5 challenge should be auto-approval. Having to send in the challenges that have already been approved one more time feels a tad tedious.
3. The battle prompt inspired me the least, I feel more variations of little first-level creatures we could fight could spark more ideas for some people.