I think it's a popular consensus that Royals is getting more inactive these days, probably thanks to both the MS2 release and a lot of mid-to-endgame players getting bored. Even this past Christmas event, the server rarely broke 1000 players online, which makes me think that the playerbase drop is unlikely to be a part of the usual seasonal fluctuation. So, I was wondering, why not do some kind of a recruiting or welcome back event to attract new players and call returning players back to the server? Not something big, because I can already smell the exploitability of such an event if it was profitable, but perhaps something small, personally useful to the player, and non-damaging to the economy like a 2x card, event cosmetics, or an untradeable equip for those that (re)join or recruit a new friend to the server during the event time.
A welcome back ring cosmetic that boost exp & drop rate will be interesting :O I remember they had an event like such in MapleSea which was slightly broken, but brought alot hype and fun into the player base.
I am all for this idea! I know other MMO's that have a welcome back reward available for returning players, for example, Mabinogi. I think this would actually be a good incentive for people to return as well.
I feel like your idea will only just promote more inactivity and will have no effect upon encouraging your targeted audience to keep playing. Sure what you have described would be nice upon first sight, but people will just end up only logging in for like 5 minutes or something for it. Advertisement on the other hand, is a better option. I know I didn't come across this server until I actively searched for a maplestory private server. Advertising on popular social media such as Facebook will up the player base by a lot. Of course, with a higher incoming population comes more work for the GMs...
A welcome back event is definitely something I have been thinking of recently as well, possibly for the next patch, as well as a possible big change that could bring back many players - but I can't disclose any more information about that at this moment in time.
Whatever it will be, please no exp related event. I always hate those and personally I think they do more harm to the server than anything else.
I think the "Welcome Back!" Ring is a good idea, for those characters which has been inactive for at least the past 6 months or a year and at least Level 70. The effect should be 15% EXP, and the Ring should have an expiry of say, 3 months. A mutual benefit could be partying with any character equipped with this ring will also gain the others in the party a 5% bonus EXP, or something like this.
I like this idea. I have a few additions to this suggestion: 1) make the reward criteria based off of account inactivity, not character inactivity; rings should be awarded one per account and made transferrable only within the account (cash item, maybe?) This way active accounts with inactive lv. 70+ mules would not be elegible, further reducing the chance of active players getting awarded. 2) 5% bonus party exp is not stackable if multiple players in the party have the ring. 3) I'd lean towards a MUCH shorter expiry date, say, 3 weeks, just because the 15% exp bonus and 5% party bonus from the ring would give very close to 2x exp when combined with HS in a 2-player party. Any player having 2x exp for more than a few weeks is probably not the greatest idea.
