Author Topic: Number of Players Lost Since Glacier?  (Read 106425 times)

Blue Star

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Re: Number of Players Lost Since Glacier?
« Reply #45: April 11, 2014, 04:34:31 AM »
Get off of Anaris' back!

He's doing this voluntarily! I hate the monster thing and how it was chosen to be done concerning the vote, but it is done with! Tighten those laces on your boots shut your mouth and continue to walk through the rain and the mud with your head held high.

I personally have seen a few disappear and some come and go, not much different than before it happened. Granted I am haphazardly playing I do notice more than just Blue, Green and Red messages.


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Indirik

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Re: Number of Players Lost Since Glacier?
« Reply #47: April 11, 2014, 05:02:13 AM »
Quote
A simpler way to increase player density might have been to set minimum number of nobles to keep a region, let's say 3. Any region with fewer than 3 nobles goes rogue. As a result, you achieve smaller, more compact realms,

We had something similar with the old estate system. Players hated it. Also, this would have caused isolated realms surrounded by swathes of rogue land. That's not desirable. We want dense population. We want pressure for land. We want the struggles for elbow room. Vast swathes of low density or empty regions just makes everything feel empty and abandoned.
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Gustav Kuriga

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Re: Number of Players Lost Since Glacier?
« Reply #48: April 11, 2014, 12:14:50 PM »
We had something similar with the old estate system. Players hated it. Also, this would have caused isolated realms surrounded by swathes of rogue land. That's not desirable. We want dense population. We want pressure for land. We want the struggles for elbow room. Vast swathes of low density or empty regions just makes everything feel empty and abandoned.

You mean like Morek? I'm quite sure they would have welcomed this event more...

Gustav Kuriga

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Re: Number of Players Lost Since Glacier?
« Reply #49: April 11, 2014, 12:16:57 PM »
You seem to have missed the point.

The entire purpose of this exercise was to reduce the number of regions available, so as to increase the player density in the remaining regions.

If we gave the players a fight they had any realistic hope of winning, that simply wouldn't have happened.

Remember, the alternative to this was never "do nothing." It was closing an entire continent, without any hope of fighting or changing it.

Anaris, you're telling a new player that they're wrong. You know, the people we're trying to attract. They're telling you this is driving people away, including them. You're getting feedback and ignoring it.

Chenier

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Re: Number of Players Lost Since Glacier?
« Reply #50: April 11, 2014, 05:03:28 PM »
I haven't been keeping any kind of close track, but I've definitely noticed what appears to be an increase in new account creation in at least one of my realms over the past week or so.

Really? No mean to be rude, but the devs decided to !@#$ over a significant part of the playerbase without even bothering to monitor if it even did any good?
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Anaris

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Re: Number of Players Lost Since Glacier?
« Reply #51: April 11, 2014, 05:05:25 PM »
Really? No mean to be rude, but the devs decided to !@#$ over a significant part of the playerbase without even bothering to monitor if it even did any good?

If you'd been paying attention, you would know that the timeframe for "doing any good" is expected to be in the range of 6-12 months. Not during the event itself.
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vonGenf

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Re: Number of Players Lost Since Glacier?
« Reply #52: April 11, 2014, 05:23:58 PM »
I'll write down some info here to be able to refer to it in 6 to 12 months:

DateRegistered PlayersWeekly ActivityDaily Activity
2014 Jan. 26th (peak count)880577304
2014 March 1st (Beginning of freezing)825539288
April 10th797541293


While some inactive accounts have been lost, the level of activity has stayed level over the past 6 weeks.
After all it's a roleplaying game.

Eirikr

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Re: Number of Players Lost Since Glacier?
« Reply #53: April 11, 2014, 06:43:09 PM »
I'll write down some info here to be able to refer to it in 6 to 12 months:

DateRegistered PlayersWeekly ActivityDaily Activity
2014 Jan. 26th (peak count)880577304
2014 March 1st (Beginning of freezing)825539288
April 10th797541293


While some inactive accounts have been lost, the level of activity has stayed level over the past 6 weeks.

Activity refers to accounts that a player signed into? I'd say that's pretty good data if so. Maybe getting more regular intervals would drive home the point.

If you'd been paying attention, you would know that the timeframe for "doing any good" is expected to be in the range of 6-12 months. Not during the event itself.

To be fair, and I know how tedious it is, the data during the event is also valuable to determine short-term effects as well as a lens to examine long-term results. It won't show a meaningful trend of good or bad, but it will retrospectively help you understand the intricacies of the process.

Indirik

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Re: Number of Players Lost Since Glacier?
« Reply #54: April 11, 2014, 06:56:24 PM »
Anaris, you're telling a new player that they're wrong.
Mrh? Yasha is a new player? That's funny...
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Indirik

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Re: Number of Players Lost Since Glacier?
« Reply #55: April 11, 2014, 07:07:03 PM »
You mean like Morek?
The situation that developed around Morek, and the Lurias, too, is definitely undesirable. It was the result of a lot of bad factors, including the old estate system and the low player density. We didn't have enough people to conquer the rogue expanses of land. People struck out on their own to start new colonies far away. We ended up with isolated pockets of civilization that had essentially no hope of interacting with each other. And literally no reason to do so, even if they could. Everyone had all the land they could possibly want or use, and more. It wasn't until the old estate system was torn out, and realms could expand farther, that things started to pick up. But by then too many realms had just given up. And the major realms were so far away from each other that they still really had no hope of interacting in any major way. There weren't enough players to drive the pressure to expand. If you tried to institute a rule where you had to have X nobles assigned to a region to control it, you'd be returning to those horrible days of the old estate system, and the excruciatingly painful isolation that killed the island for so long.

The original Dwilight map would take a LOT of characters to fill. I'd estimate anywhere from 800 to 1000 noble characters, at an absolute minimum, to make it a really fun island.

It's no wonder that Tom refers to Dwilight as the biggest mistake, ever. (Except he uses a lot more profanity...)
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Anaris

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Re: Number of Players Lost Since Glacier?
« Reply #56: April 11, 2014, 07:19:47 PM »
The original Dwilight map would take a LOT of characters to fill. I'd estimate anywhere from 800 to 1000 noble characters, at an absolute minimum, to make it a really fun island.

Oh, I don't think it's quite that bad.  My earlier "optimal" level of 3.5 nobles per region—which is actually pretty high by historical average—would put Dwilight a little over 850, and 3 nobles per region would put it at a little under 750.

4 nobles per region would be very high, and that's what 1000 nobles on Dwilight would be.

However, right now, it's got about 280 nobles. This means that once the entire western subcontinent is evacuated, we'll be a little over 2 nobles per region. That's not bad for now, but I'm hoping it'll be able to create that spark again that gets people excited about the game. (At least, combined with the various other stuff I've got planned.)
Timothy Collett

"The only thing you can't trade for your heart's desire...is your heart." "You are what you do.  Choose again, and change." "One of these days, someone's gonna plug you, and you're going to die saying, 'What did I say? What did I say?'"  ~ Miles Naismith Vorkosigan

Dishman

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Re: Number of Players Lost Since Glacier?
« Reply #57: April 11, 2014, 07:24:11 PM »
DateRegistered PlayersWeekly ActivityDaily Activity
2014 Jan. 26th (peak count)880577304
2014 March 1st (Beginning of freezing)825539288
April 10th797541293
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I'm glad to see active userbase is still steady.

The situation that developed around Morek, and the Lurias, too, is definitely undesirable. It was the result of a lot of bad factors...
This. This so much. Traveling between Morek, Swordfell, Niselur, and Asylon was a joke. Most realm capitals are almost a season away from each other. So, unless you were willing to drop everything and go backpacking through Dwilight, most realms/cultures would never even meet let alone have opportunity to clash.
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Buffalkill

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Re: Number of Players Lost Since Glacier?
« Reply #58: April 11, 2014, 08:33:14 PM »
I'll write down some info here to be able to refer to it in 6 to 12 months:

DateRegistered PlayersWeekly ActivityDaily Activity
2014 Jan. 26th (peak count)880577304
2014 March 1st (Beginning of freezing)825539288
April 10th797541293


While some inactive accounts have been lost, the level of activity has stayed level over the past 6 weeks.


This is very useful. Would it be possible to drill down and see more details about the players, e.g. how long they've been playing, how often they play, what positions their chars' hold?

vonGenf

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Re: Number of Players Lost Since Glacier?
« Reply #59: April 11, 2014, 08:42:11 PM »
This is very useful. Would it be possible to drill down and see more details about the players, e.g. how long they've been playing, how often they play, what positions their chars' hold?

I simply got that info from the in-game statistics page. I don't know how I could access any of that additional information.
After all it's a roleplaying game.