This is going to be a bit of an essay, as my posts usually are. I've stopped into the forums from time to time just to check things out since I stopped playing the game, and I think this thread could use a bit of perspective from someone that hasn't been around since the nosedive began.
Not that I expect anyone to remember me, but when I played the game I used the character name Booobs. I've posted here with my second account, in the past, as Slipfeed.
With that out of the way, I'm going to end up making some statements early on people my disagree with quite adamantly. Even to the point of not reading the rest of the post. Please do try to press on through what seems to be the valley, for I assure you the peak is just ahead, and all will become clear. Or not. Who knows. It might end up being an elaborate fart joke. I haven't decided yet.
For starters, i'll try to leave my personal opinions off to the side and state only facts.
The game picked up a lot of players when it launched on steam. It also shed a large amount of content before that steam launch. This game really doesn't have much to offer in the form of PvE. The menu is limited to your choice of the walking simulator sandwich or the twenty piece "Grind McNuggets". You can upgrade that to a combo meal with a second indy account and a coke for just thirty three dollars extra (including the coke).
What is here is brilliant from a logical game mechanic perspective(sorry, just a bit of opinion), but from a visual standpoint it does not make par or even birdie. There are no immaculate set pieces or awe inspiring vista's with which to keep your audience coming back for more in spite of the content deficit (not opinion, I state this as fact). This engine could indeed be made to run with little visual modification on a PentiumII from 1997. There is also a complete lack of story developments when it comes to the larger world. There are no "Next chapters" for us to push forward into for the purpose of finding out what happens next.
What then is left as the hook in this player fishing expedition we call the gaming industry? PvP.
Where then did the game reach it's apex of activity since the steam launch? During the Norhoop treaty. When did the game begin it's slide into inactivity?
To preface this statement it is important to note that this game's pvp is less about combat and more about economics. The corp or alliance that can continue to field assets in defense or attack of a position will hold or take that position. The combat sequence is a nice adrenaline rush, but the battle is won or lost in an epi field. Where EP points are a large force multiplier for this equation, stockpiles of combat assets are the primary set of constants.
With said resources firmly under the control of veteran corps who have huge stockpiles with which to defend them, players entering the game simply cannot compete on the field of pvp. Even after months. This was made evident during what I like to call "The Noob-pocolypse", where in Perpkill flooded for days with kill mails listing members of CIR / PHM as killers and everyone else as dead on norhoop.
Is the current state of this game then, the fault of that alliance? No. It is the fault of the game that creates a world where in entry is forbidden.
That being said, We can all agree that once the smoke cleared on norhoop the player base started to decline, and eventually stabilized somewhere between "Almost enough to fill a double-decker bus" and "Not even enough to qualify for the car pool lane".
The sad fact is, a corp of new players cannot possibly be expected to weather the tedium that is PvE with no goal, and cannot be expected to surmount the ever present PvP mountain that is the stockpiles of thousands of heavy bots sitting in the hangers of the older corps. Most new players during norhoop really had no idea what they would be up against when the *** hit the fan, resulting in a sense of false competitive hope. It was this hope that lead to higher player activity, and the realization that it was false that lead to the decline.
In short, the game was built with a set of mechanics. Those mechanics have run their life cycle. There are no desks left in the classroom of perpetuum. Standing room only.
You cannot expect people to stand around doing nothing for too long, when they have a steam library full of games that will actually allow them to play.
You also can't expect the game to be totally rewritten with player acquisition and retention in mind. It would no longer be perpetuum.
Gamma is not going to fix the game. There is nothing that can do that now. It's like darth vader with his mask off.
Have fun while it lasts gents.
Also, farts.
