This game could be advertised on tv during the super bowl and still would not have player retention because of the community. The lowbie experience is a toxic and harsh one. You cannot make it from your village to pick up the keys for the level 20 arc without dying in safe zones is stupid! You have toxic players that will kill lowbies and tell them, "Fck you, sand is toxic and killed me, so I killed you." That is despicable. I was running around in the DZ last night looking for bounties. I watched the leaf jump out (in a safe zone) with six people to kill two level 23s... One person was like, "wow, that was toxic." The rest just laughed. I messaged them, and it was the 2nd time they were trying to get to the mission objective through leaf's territory. I had someone following me from the mist all around the mist, harassing me, and even waiting there after logging out and back in. Finally killed him and asked wtf is wrong with him. This is not to say you cannot kill people in DZ or WZ but limit it on the lowbies. Get your kill, but do not farm them. Also, stop the whole if one leaf ninja dies, the entire village goes after them... The point is, the game has come leaps and bounds from where it was last year when I started. No matter what Rory does, this game will fail because of a toxic community that cannot leave people alone.
The 2nd part of this is the new user experience regarding quest and map layouts. The wiki and forums are exceptional. I would like to see links for them put in-game under a help tab. That would help newbies figure out where to go and what to do. For example, a few days ago, I had a leaf village ninja in the sand village asking to buy kills. I still needed a kill, so I figured we could trade. We meet by the graveyard, and he starts attacking because he thinks the kills could be anywhere. Then after his kill, he goes hurry up and kill me. I then had to explain to him that killing on BI would not work either. I want missions like this to have a better description or add this to the genin test when they talk about the DZ and WZ.
I would like to hear everyone's feedback on this. I think community engagement is the only way to make this game thrive and stand the test of time.