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Igorius, on 16 November 2013 - 10:38 PM, said:
I really hate to be pessimistic, but here's the evidence as I see it.
1.) 3rd person view, while mostly irrelevant as an issue at this point, effectively angered a large portion of the community. Probably half(?) of those who were really upset about it, stopped playing.
2.) The economy changes (ie the Great Space Recession of 2013) put a hard pinch on a lot of lower to mid tier players. If we assume that a decent proportion of those players badly affected by the earning changes got really upset, then it's also fair to assume that a chunk of those who got upset also stopped playing.
3.) Launch really seemed to polarize the community's more passionate members. A small portion became super psyched, a small portion became super bummed. The rest, I can say with a mild degree of certainty, experienced mixed emotions. Those players who had been around for a long time probably saw the highest level of discontinuation with the game. Newer players were probably the least effected by the Launch, but word of mouth, metacritic, and a slew of middling review scores probably pushed out some newbies, as well as discouraging a slew of others who would've played the game otherwise.
4.) The continual pushback of features such as UI2.0, as well as the general negative reaction witnessed from the proposed redesign, most likely accounted for another portion of older players giving up, either permanently or for a few months.
5.) The injection of the Phoenix 'Mechs added all sorts of new shiny toys for Founders, testers, and new players alike. However, we are now witnessing the fall off of player numbers as people who own Phoenix packages getting, well, bored. Maps are few and far between, and with many people having effectively nullified the need to jump in and play/buy the new 'Mech of the month, this slump could last for a while.
Bottom line? The game has been surviving on new 'Mech content, the occasional new map, and the promise of future modes of play/interface changes/community warfare. To use a metaphor, the water in the trough is getting pretty stale. The game's life, or death, rests on a sense of growth and adaptability.
Sure, there will be those who see things as being just fine and dandy, and those who continue to see things full of doom and gloom. For the rest of us average players, though, the proof lies in the pudding. For more and more people every day, it appears that the pudding is starting to look like a lie.
1.) 3rd person view, while mostly irrelevant as an issue at this point, effectively angered a large portion of the community. Probably half(?) of those who were really upset about it, stopped playing.
2.) The economy changes (ie the Great Space Recession of 2013) put a hard pinch on a lot of lower to mid tier players. If we assume that a decent proportion of those players badly affected by the earning changes got really upset, then it's also fair to assume that a chunk of those who got upset also stopped playing.
3.) Launch really seemed to polarize the community's more passionate members. A small portion became super psyched, a small portion became super bummed. The rest, I can say with a mild degree of certainty, experienced mixed emotions. Those players who had been around for a long time probably saw the highest level of discontinuation with the game. Newer players were probably the least effected by the Launch, but word of mouth, metacritic, and a slew of middling review scores probably pushed out some newbies, as well as discouraging a slew of others who would've played the game otherwise.
4.) The continual pushback of features such as UI2.0, as well as the general negative reaction witnessed from the proposed redesign, most likely accounted for another portion of older players giving up, either permanently or for a few months.
5.) The injection of the Phoenix 'Mechs added all sorts of new shiny toys for Founders, testers, and new players alike. However, we are now witnessing the fall off of player numbers as people who own Phoenix packages getting, well, bored. Maps are few and far between, and with many people having effectively nullified the need to jump in and play/buy the new 'Mech of the month, this slump could last for a while.
Bottom line? The game has been surviving on new 'Mech content, the occasional new map, and the promise of future modes of play/interface changes/community warfare. To use a metaphor, the water in the trough is getting pretty stale. The game's life, or death, rests on a sense of growth and adaptability.
Sure, there will be those who see things as being just fine and dandy, and those who continue to see things full of doom and gloom. For the rest of us average players, though, the proof lies in the pudding. For more and more people every day, it appears that the pudding is starting to look like a lie.
Well put.
