Where is everyone?

[Delirium]

Right when I started playing a lot again, too.

Me too.

Maybe I scared them all away.

[wizturbo]

Seasonality and competing games (Legion is very popular amongst my friends).

[lostinspace]

Seasonality and competing games (Legion is very popular amongst my friends).

Yup, Legion's got a strong hold on me as well.

[Malken]

Seasonality and competing games (Legion is very popular amongst my friends).

Yup, Legion's got a strong hold on me as well.

Legion's awesome, yo.

[Hauwke]

I know everyone is going to dogpile this, but wtf is Legion?

[Delirium]

The Burning Legion expansion for WoW... it swallowed Ender whole.

[Bahliker]

When I came back and noticed that not only has so much that I loved about Arm changed, but there's also a low peak turnout, I got disheartened. Knowing that the dip in player population is recent helps a bit. But I browsed the weekly report history before this thread. Has anyone else done this? I didn't find a link to a graph showing unique logins over time but semirandom samples don't paint a happy picture, even with seasonal player fluctuations taken into account. Reassure me, please.

[Case]

It's seemed like the normal ebb and flow lately. September in the stats looked like a lot was going on.

[nauta]

When I came back and noticed that not only has so much that I loved about Arm changed, but there's also a low peak turnout, I got disheartened. Knowing that the dip in player population is recent helps a bit. But I browsed the weekly report history before this thread. Has anyone else done this? I didn't find a link to a graph showing unique logins over time but semirandom samples don't paint a happy picture, even with seasonal player fluctuations taken into account. Reassure me, please.

This should be re-assuring.  Fall has a strong tradition for low numbers.



There's better charts out there too.  Last Fall things were pretty nadir.

[Armaddict]

Don't get too much into the numbers.  People like to overanalyze the 'activity charts' of Armageddon and push for changes based off of it, when there really are a lot of in-and-out players in this game.  I can go inactive for a month or two at a time, then have a huge burst of need to play, then the transition states in-between, and that's how a lot of players are.  There's emotions based off character loss or IC events or OOC communications.  There's RL time constraints.  There's shifting interests in other activities.

Right now we are indeed in a down-turn of active players online, but I wouldn't take that as anything other than yet another downswing that will go back up as situations change for different people.

[Kankman]

Stupid fall.

[650Booger]

I'm playing a veritable assload right now.  Like 10 days played in an IG month.  Shooo!  Can't stop won't stop!

[Bahliker]

I know you remember the 20 player peak nights, Armaddict. I think the numbers do matter. They're the only real part of this whole circus. You are right to suggest that making big game changes in reaction to small player trends is foolish. After all I don't think it was code or world changes that drove our player base to roughly double in the early 00's but a new advertising push. I don't want to derail this too hard, but what happened to that? To the banners?

[Lizzie]

As it's already been mentioned several times by several different players, there's this World of Warcraft thing called Legion that's captured a bunch of their attention. This happens whenever there's some new version of a popular version of a graphics game. Then the excitement wears off, or they get to the end of the game or whatever happens, and they come back to Arm.

There are currently 32 players currently in the world besides myself, and it's not quite 9pm server time yet.  I don't think 32 players is a bad thing.

[Kankman]

I don't think any changes are in order to remedy the situation, other than a few more people getting in the habit of voting.

It just seems for the past week or two a bunch of people stopped logging in. Many I play with, in fact. Too many to attribute to death, since there hasn't been an HRPT or anything.

All that needs to happen is for all you people who aren't logging in, but are still lurking on the boards, to log in.

It's way more fun with more people.

[Malken]

As it's already been mentioned several times by several different players, there's this World of Warcraft thing called Legion that's captured a bunch of their attention. This happens whenever there's some new version of a popular version of a graphics game. Then the excitement wears off, or they get to the end of the game or whatever happens, and they come back to Arm.

Patch 7.1 is coming out in less than a week, that means another month -easy- of full contents for Legion players. The amount of content right now in Legion is already maddening which is probably why people aren't returning from WoW like they used to in the past. Blizzard really went all out content-wise with Legion.

[Armaddict]

I know you remember the 20 player peak nights, Armaddict. I think the numbers do matter. They're the only real part of this whole circus.

I do indeed remember.  And I loved them.   Because they were HOPPIN.

But I think you missed what I meant by don't worry about the numbers.  I didn't mean that as in 'fuck playerbase numbers'.  I meant as in there's a thread about it every time there's a noticeable backslide...which inevitably goes away.  Not everyone plays Arm in solid blocks of time, so there are occasional phases where the number logged in noticeably shrinks for a few weeks.  And it's not something to worry about, precisely because it is an occasional thing that happens, and that we understand happens, because of reasons.

I wasn't saying we don't want more numbers.  I was saying don't fret, these slower-periods don't usually last too long.

[Bahliker]

I hear you. I know there's nothing to be done about seasonal and situational slow periods. I guess when I hear that every time the game gets slow people post about it, I think that maybe it's time for another hard recruitment push. When numbers surge noticeably, people worry less about small dips.   

Tbh I don't buy "MUDs are dying" as a legit reason why Armageddon hasn't grown steadily over the past ten years. My search-fu must be weak tonight so I'll ask again, what happened to advertising? I don't see our banner any more.

[Inks]

I really haven't noticed anything like this.

[Dar]

I barely play. Last month and a half totally kicked my ass, work wise. But in December I'll be finished and will have a loooooot more time on my hands. Can you guys flash freeze and not move until december, please?

[path]

I don't see our banner any more.

I think when Nyr was doing a huge push on this and all the analytics, he determined that the extra we were shelling out for the pip next to our name and the banner were not worth the price of admission and the real deal was just getting the vote.

That's what I remember from when I asked this.

I have some exciting and unexpected advertising ideas! This is not the thread for that, though, nor do we have a RAT.

[Hashi]

I'm here & ready to roleplay my balls off.

[Riev]

I'm here RELATIVELY consistently, just not when any of you PLEBIANS play.


em takes off his wig to show he is, in fact, a massive, crimson-braided man

[yousuff]

Dunno what the demographics of ARM are, but if they're college students like me they're probably knee deep in work. I've been gone a month-ish, and will remain gone till mid november

[650Booger]

everyone should get a good phone client.  mukluk works pretty good.