172 replies to this topic

[justcallme A S H]

Well the April stats are out. There was 24,525 players in April that played more than 10 games.

Given Feb 2020 had 10,000 and is is now at 24,525... Wowzers.


MAY PATCH - Mobilty
JUNE PATCH - Quirks

JULY - Cauldron secret ingredient soup??? Who knows!!!

There are of course map improvements and changes coming. Matt, Daeron, Mark, Francois and whoever else in the team on MWO - Hell. Yes.

Lets keep the hype going. Tell you friends, you old unit mates. I'm seeing many, many old player from 2017 return. This is a great thing for the game.

Discuss!

Edited by justcallme A S H, 01 May 2021 - 10:36 PM.

[RickySpanish]

Those are all Sir_Wreckless alts.

[-P U R E-]

Deez_Altz

[SCRAPMETAL99]

wonder how many oif those are alt accounts like the one i played with earlier piloted by yourself there ash

[Brauer]

SCRAPMETAL99, on 01 May 2021 - 12:43 PM, said:

wonder how many oif those are alt accounts like the one i played with earlier piloted by yourself there ash

Ash had an alt? What's the name?

[w0qj]

There are lots of players returning, if you play in Level 4/5 (like I do--leveling up unskilled mechs), you regularly see mechs like TBR-Prime(I), BLR-1G(P), HBK-IIC(O), WHK-Prime(I), etc.

Before Daeron was hired onboard MWO/PGI in Sept 2020, there was almost *none* of above mechs.

This is very strong anecdotal evidence that older players are returning to play MWO !!

[justcallme A S H]

SCRAPMETAL99, on 01 May 2021 - 12:43 PM, said:

wonder how many oif those are alt accounts like the one i played with earlier piloted by yourself there ash

1 account. I even streamed all my games on it in April. About 30-40 games.

People playing on alt accounts is nothing new and people do it month in, month out for events so there is little inconsistency there.

I would not think for a second that "ever man and his dog" suddenly resumed playing on 20 alt-accounts.

So lets just focus on the positive here rather than sensationalist nonsense.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 01 May 2021 - 12:54 PM.

[Znoop]

Good to see that this game is getting some love again, good changes in the April patch. Good work from Daeron, Matt, the Cauldron and all involved devs.
The Stryker pack is also nice.

[The Clappalacian]

Returning player here. Couldn't find any enjoyment in the game for a long time, weapon rebalance has the game feeling fresh and fun again. Cauldron knows what they're doing. Keep listening.

[SirEpicPwner]

the weapon rebalance made builds feel better to play, now mobility/quirks will make mechs themselves feel better to play. expect those number to keep rising!

[XX Sulla XX]

Because of these changes this is the most I have played in probably 1.5 years or more.

[Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie]

[Kurosh]

So awesome to see more people playing!!!! Keep up the changes and keep listening to the players

[cougurt]

you love to see it

[Ash Rose]

I know me and a lot of other WOL oldbirds crawled out of the woodwork to play after losing interest for over a year.

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

When Daeron announced that he was going to be working with the community to make positive changes, that was the most excited I had been about MWO in years ... possibly since working with Jay Z to form the 2016 Wild Ones.

In March I was disappointed. Yes, there were changes, but none of them were discussed in the least with the community, and few of them actually helped make the game more fun. It seemed that PGI was up to their old tricks again. I played the absolute minimum required to earn that month's free 'mech.

When Daeron and Matt took responsibility for that debacle and said that they would lean on the Gulag Cauldron for weapon and chassis balance, I was cautiously optimistic. The news and noise coming from Navid, Kras, Ash, Jay, and the rest all seemed like Daeron and Matt were sincere.

They delivered exactly what they promised (a refreshing move from PGI). My excitement is slowly returning.

I'm seriously looking forward to seeing what will come in the next couple of months.

Edit: added Navid to my by-name call-outs ... he deserves credit for the immense amount of work he has put into this effort.

Edited by Kageru Ikazuchi, 01 May 2021 - 07:59 PM.

[Anomalocaris]

To put it another way, we just surpassed where we were in May 2019 when Russ announced the end of any new development on MWO. We are now sitting at the equivalent population averages for the latter half of 2018.

Not to put too fine a point on it, from Feb to September of 2020 we netted fewer than 4000 additional people, mostly from the pandemic lockdowns. In fact we dropped population in June, August and September. But since PGI hired Daeron and announced new development we gained 10,000 people. It just goes to show that people want a game that is being actively managed and moved forward, even if there are some setbacks along the way (cough - march patch - cough). Merging the queues didn't do it. PSR reset didn't do it. Simply announcing development and then following through - that did it. And I'll be the first to state I wrote off Daeron's hiring as a ploy to boost interest for the company acquisition. So far, it has been far more. Let's hope it continues (and we get a solo queue back )

[Absaint]

Great work guy´s,

the game now has lots of variety while people try to find what works best for them, cant wait for the changes from the next few months.

The game is....more fun!

[katoult]

justcallme A S H, on 01 May 2021 - 12:13 PM, said:

Given Feb 2020 had 10,000 and is is now at 24,525... Wowzers.

To be fair we have to look at those numbers a bit more encompassingly. And in absolute numbers.

The 10,497 low point for MWO was factually a result of the release of MW5, and a temporary affair which bounced back once people had finished playing their single-player campaign. If we look at the wider picture then between September 2019 and September 2020 the population was relatively stable at around 15,000. There was a temporary small uptick from the 15,000 level in May to July due to group mergers, PSR reset, and people testing around on these accounts.

Before that 15,000 low period the previous level was around 24,000 with +-10% fluctuation, the drop between these two was basically due to ceasing development of MWO. Not quite sure what caused the drop to the 24,000 level beforehand (from pre-2018), since the only thing that comes to mind for that particular point in time really is the GDPR patch.

The new gain factually started in October 2020, when PGI hired a new community manager, consistently regained about 5,000 players in this process over the next two months, i.e. nearly half the people it had lost from the pre-Summer-2019 level.

Roadmap announcement and free mech programme gave the game another 2,000 accounts, and the first patch in ages brought in another 2,000. I would assume that due to the publicity campaign the goulash patch will bring in at least another 2,000. But yeah, overall - back at the 24,000 level.

[justcallme A S H]

katoult, on 01 May 2021 - 03:01 PM, said:

The new gain factually started in October 2020

Notice how I said - since Feb 2020?

That is, actually, a fact. Given you want to state facts in some misguided effort to dismiss what I said - which is in no way, untrue. I am absolutely correct in what I said.

End of the day - the 6-10 highly negative users can get onboard with the changes or they won't. The player base is climbing month on month so the negative few are unlikely to be missed.

That said I do enjoy that there is always a contrarian (or two) to every post.

All I will say is if you are going to be that contrarian - at least use something more than a wonky peg leg to stand on (or your 10+ alt accounts that are used to farm Tier 5s )

Bring on May and June Patches. I am excited!

Edited by justcallme A S H, 01 May 2021 - 03:20 PM.