Topic: Low population and vets, an incoherent rambling by stranger
So ive been thinking about the ballpark figure on vet accounts that the devs said qualified for free play prior to steam. It was somewhere in the range of 7000 accounts.
Ive been watching a lot of returning players since steam early access pop in. Many have stated not enough were playing or that theres no significant content since they last played.
So ive been sort of thinking about this, watching the steamcharts as the game progressed through early access and steam launch.
When the game dropped the subscription and hit steam, I believe general chat peaked somewhere around the lines of 500 people, steamcharts peaked at nearly 250 accounts on at the same time. I have to assume the vast majority of accounts via steam are brand new players, granted many got one on steam just to do it.
From the official steam launch, after leaving early access, I believe general chat peaked at around 200 with 157 on steam charts as steam accounts.
I started to think since about half of the accounts on during the absolute peak of general chat/steam charts seemed to be roughly 50% vets and 50% steamlings, with the current non early access peak being overwhelmingly steamlings.
What would happen if say 20% of the available veteran accounts who qualify to log in free of charge played? Were talking 1400 accounts active and playing.
Do you think that level of activity, which exceeds (theoretically) what this game peaked at, would liven the game up enough for those who cant have fun without an extremely active server to come back?
Granted of the 7000 im sure real life obligations and other things would bite a large chunk out of people who could return...and people with multiple accounts and or not being in general chat, along with the concurrent player multipliers (more will own the game than will log in at the same time always) skews things. Also I heard that most of the emails that went out to these accounts were undeliverable, a sign that the email accounts used haven't been used in a long time...so how to reach out to these people?
This made me kind of think that it was perhaps on the veteran players to sort of lift this game out of the cycles of inactivity/activity it goes through. I mean this game has some deep emotionally charged competition....if loggin in to smack syndic or ville around isn't motive enough...I don't think some new content could get you back.
I think the key to reaching this games population critical mass, a point where popularity snowballs and people leaving or taking a break is negated by new blood, might be in the hands of all the people who would rather play when/if this game reaches some arbitrary popularity mark. Im not sure what it would take to get some percentage above 5% of existing veteran accounts to return. I know many say its content and lack of focused development, but I don't really buy a lack of content being a thing in a game where you create your own content.
Game politics aside, a lot of us want to see this game do better, its a fun game when theres people playing. New blood tends to follow the old blood out however, for whatever the reason. Nothing keeps new players quite like being a part of a big, active, corporations with vets, as it makes them feel a part of the game, something that is kinda missing from the upstart corporations.
Just curious on what people think could be done, should be done, or if its even possible to get something like 20% or 30% of the veteran accounts to come back and breathe life into a game that isn't the best, but certainly better than a game with a hundred or so active players.
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