Number of players
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OtaconPliskin
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Fri Apr 21, 2006 10:28 am
Number of players
Is this game even worth downloading? How many people still play?
Hey,
I just stumbled upon this site/game.
Would anyone care to explain exactly why this free game which seems absolutely unique and full of potential, from what I could gather, lacks a decent amount of people being online?
I am downloading the game now, but I was really expecting to be playing with hundreds of you guys before I noticed this thread..?
I just stumbled upon this site/game.
Would anyone care to explain exactly why this free game which seems absolutely unique and full of potential, from what I could gather, lacks a decent amount of people being online?
I am downloading the game now, but I was really expecting to be playing with hundreds of you guys before I noticed this thread..?
Welcome to the game. When I first joined the game I was also surprised and concerned as to how little the community was. It seems most people on this planet would rather play a 'shoot em up' game or raise a unicorn online then play an economy game. Sure the game would be more entertaining with more people and such with a larger playerbase but the small community does make the game unique.
Mornin. As we've discussed a few times on the boards, it's something we're aware of, but it isn't necessarily a problem...
1. It's a quiet-ish time at the moment, being summer and all, but generally we have about 4000 active players. That's an easy number to increase: last time we did some publicity we quadrupled the playerbase in about two weeks, but doing so revealed quite a few issues with stability, lag and so on, which we've been working to address over the last 12-18 months. Basically, a whole load of new people joined the game - taking the total to about 11,000 at that time - but not that many people stayed.
2. We've sorted out the player volume problems, as far as we can tell... and, with the space game now working in basic form, there's another reason for people to stick around. What's needed now, before the next round of publicity, is a good number of different worlds. Something the staff are working on (as well as players, of course) but it all takes time, and most of us are busy with RL things like marriage and moving house and having kids and that ;)
3. It's also worth mentioning that the style of play on a lot of worlds - which are mostly economy-focused at the moment - tends to encourage people to pop in, do a bit of trading or building or what have you, then disappear again. So while we have a few thousand players connecting over the course of a few weeks, you might only find 25 or so online at any one time. Again... something that will improve as we add more permament/stable/interesting places to play.
4. Next round of publicity is scheduled for... er... last Xmas. Didn't happen because development time was impeded by actual paid work. Since then mit's decided to finish a bunch of stuff to take us to v0.5 before we make another announcement. This is likely to happen towards the end of the year.
5. Finally... we currently have one chief developer monkey, one assistant developer monkey, and one total monkey of an artist (er, that's me). That's it - that's the dev team. I think we've fulfilled quite a lot of the potential already, but yeh... it'd all get a lot easier if we had a few more people skilled at coding/world building/modelling/texturing... this is also part of the idea behind the game, to get people involved in making it. However as a free game our playerbase tends to be quite young, and less interested in learning how to do stuff than in playing QuakeLife Of Warcraft 19, or whatever it is kids do these days :)
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1. It's a quiet-ish time at the moment, being summer and all, but generally we have about 4000 active players. That's an easy number to increase: last time we did some publicity we quadrupled the playerbase in about two weeks, but doing so revealed quite a few issues with stability, lag and so on, which we've been working to address over the last 12-18 months. Basically, a whole load of new people joined the game - taking the total to about 11,000 at that time - but not that many people stayed.
2. We've sorted out the player volume problems, as far as we can tell... and, with the space game now working in basic form, there's another reason for people to stick around. What's needed now, before the next round of publicity, is a good number of different worlds. Something the staff are working on (as well as players, of course) but it all takes time, and most of us are busy with RL things like marriage and moving house and having kids and that ;)
3. It's also worth mentioning that the style of play on a lot of worlds - which are mostly economy-focused at the moment - tends to encourage people to pop in, do a bit of trading or building or what have you, then disappear again. So while we have a few thousand players connecting over the course of a few weeks, you might only find 25 or so online at any one time. Again... something that will improve as we add more permament/stable/interesting places to play.
4. Next round of publicity is scheduled for... er... last Xmas. Didn't happen because development time was impeded by actual paid work. Since then mit's decided to finish a bunch of stuff to take us to v0.5 before we make another announcement. This is likely to happen towards the end of the year.
5. Finally... we currently have one chief developer monkey, one assistant developer monkey, and one total monkey of an artist (er, that's me). That's it - that's the dev team. I think we've fulfilled quite a lot of the potential already, but yeh... it'd all get a lot easier if we had a few more people skilled at coding/world building/modelling/texturing... this is also part of the idea behind the game, to get people involved in making it. However as a free game our playerbase tends to be quite young, and less interested in learning how to do stuff than in playing QuakeLife Of Warcraft 19, or whatever it is kids do these days :)
f