Dyvet population - some questions for Requiel

[Gahn]

God all these stupid population whine threads are so boring, yet they keep on coming !

Its funny, if people spent as much time playing as they did whining about population, there might actually be more people logged on the server

People is playing, in other lands tho mainly ^^

 

[Esselinithia]

God all these stupid population whine threads are so boring, yet they keep on coming !

Its funny, if people spent as much time playing as they did whining about population, there might actually be more people logged on the server

Wrong.
People who had no groups, seen problems with friends leaving (then population problems...) and decided, it isn't fun to play on Dyvet and moved to others servers / US DAOC / other games, etc. still see the numbers, and see no reasons to come back.
Yes, one person leaving means: his friends have 1 less reason to stay, this is why I said sometime back, that it should be top priority to keep people in DAOC. More people leaving means: Less groups, and soon population problems.
The current population problem is a reason for many people to avoid the game, and as many said: Clustering, or any other solution, would bring many people back. People who still care for daoc, and no longer play. If things improve, they see more (potential) friends, and better handling of problems from GOA and they might come back, and it might help to improve the population problems, which in turn...
Now tell me Mr. Kagato, if these people wouldn't still care for Dyvet, that would mean more population on the server (yeah, without active subs, or while playing on other servers?) or less chance for them returning to the server? I think it is the secound.

Clustering is one option. A come back to camelot type campaign with good conditions is another. Viral (virus?) marketing is another. Trying to fix some problems and getting back the people who still care is yet another. Implementing some passport that is good for multiple France Telecom products and good for DAOC too could be another. Promising WAR - EU beta keys, etc. for some existing customers /based on some quests/ and some chance to win game boxes is another. Contacting bartels and portals (with extended trials, and some game boxes their readers can win) is another option.

Don't know what GOA can do now (its technical, contractual and legal limits), but I know, there are many ways one could try to fix the problem (some mentioned here some not), and I also know, if GOA use many options, we would see they do care for the game, and do fix problems and the game improves (and it would get some people online). If I see no real fixed, but cluster when needed and no more english language servers (so no good way for many new people) many will consider the game (in EU and english language) as dead.

 

[Nix]

Looking at the graphs there's not a huge jump in US numbers from LotM which is a shame as it's a far better expansion than Darkness Rising was.

I can't see what's so hot in LoTM. It's absolute crap for the health of NF RvR. Everyone is just running back and forth in the Laby X-Roads and lagging like hell. And it's really not like we'd need more PvE for DAoC, the drops in Laby are nice but that's it. Maulers just add more imbalance to solo scene and really add nothing to group or mass RvR. Cows look stupid.

DR was a decent expansion, but really not worth the money. It added a little instanced content and added semi-useful abilities, nothing ground-braking or imbalancing.

Don't know what EA/Mythic should do to keep DAoC alive, but LoTM was definitely not the way to go. And the new patches... sheez, over-the-top nerfs and boosts here and there aren't exactly the best way to fix a game that essentially is working quite smooth already, and is in need of small tuning (or a big RvR rework, but that obviously is beyond Mythic's capacity, judging by the strange patches they've made recently).

 

[Dakkath]

People who had no groups, seen problems with friends leaving (then population problems...) and decided, it isn't fun to play on Dyvet and moved to others servers / US DAOC / other games, etc. still see the numbers, and see no reasons to come back.
Yes, one person leaving means: his friends have 1 less reason to stay, this is why I said sometime back, that it should be top priority to keep people in DAOC. More people leaving means: Less groups, and soon population problems.

Sums the problem up nicely for me as it's exactly the reason I left in the end...

Friends and guildies got their RR10s then decided they needed a change and rerolled a different realm on US... Couldn't face rerolling on a new realm but didn't enjoy the game without many of the old friends I'd built up. DAoC for me was always strong because of the community. When that fell apart, so did my desire to play.

It's a typical house of cards effect. Pull out one of the supporting cards and the structure may survive. Start pulling too many and the whole thing crumbles :/

 

[Nightchill]

Team. Team. Team. Team. Team. Team. I even love saying the word team. You probably thing that's a picture of my family. Uh uh. It's the A Team. Body; Doyle; Tiger; The Jewellery Man. The whole lot of them.

 

[Sharkith]

God all these stupid population whine threads are so boring, yet they keep on coming !

Its funny, if people spent as much time playing as they did whining about population, there might actually be more people logged on the server

of all the posts in this thread yours was the most pointless. There are a lot of decent posts here.

 

[rampant]

Team. Team. Team. Team. Team. Team. I even love saying the word team. You probably thing that's a picture of my family. Uh uh. It's the A Team. Body; Doyle; Tiger; The Jewellery Man. The whole lot of them.

there are only 4 in that team / group - must be an over powered hib group :kissit:

 

[Esselinithia]

of all the posts in this thread yours was the most pointless. There are a lot of decent posts here.

Sadly there is a key difference between decent posts and useful posts. Decent posts raise valid points, questions, intelligent, agreeable, good for reading or anything like that. Useful post actually changes something, but for that we have to depend on GOA staff.


Kagato has a valid point: if *everyone* who played on dyvet would play on the server even now, we would have no population problem. If noone starts talking about this problem we would have no topic now, and no points now.

The question about his idea is simple: If we wouldn't post, would we go back to cluster? Would we have reasons to stay? Would we fix the population problem with that? Somehow I doubt it. If we can't help the problem by increasing the population, it wouldn't invite back people, why would a real fix solve anything?

As you see, these questions are valid and all raised by his post. The only thing one can say: The core of the problem isn't the current population, but it is a symptom of other underlying problems. Community problems, problems with the service, support, advertisement, etc.

So we should look for the individual underlying problems (like community related problems, problems with service, marketing) and look for solutions, otherwise we can't stop the problem.

Population is everyones pet problem now, but it isn't the core of a problem, but it is a symptom of some other problems. Some severe ones, some minor ones. Even minor ones have a bad effect on population (removed some players) and someone said how DAOC works like a house of cards now.

The questions:

• How GOA can fix the problems that make some people leave? (Including community problems and other issues)
• How GOA can gain back the trust of customers who left them? How to fix individual minor and major problems that caused the initiall loss of players?
• How GOA can get new players?
• Why fixing community problems by GOA would have other positive side effects? (People would see the new level of responsiveness, and would see some improvement. If they would continue this way...)
• What other problems should be fixed to make the game stronger?

 

[kiliarien]

The questions:

• How GOA can fix the problems that make some people leave? (Including community problems and other issues)
• How GOA can gain back the trust of customers who left them? How to fix individual minor and major problems that caused the initiall loss of players?
• How GOA can get new players?
• Why fixing community problems by GOA would have other positive side effects? (People would see the new level of responsiveness, and would see some improvement. If they would continue this way...)
• What other problems should be fixed to make the game stronger?

That's essentially what Kvadi was asking in his first post,though not quite as clinically - have we just come full circle?

In answer to your question to me, ToA (the brick wall) was fun but is now of little use in terms of bringing people to the game, therefore change it. Games (or any service for that matter) are meant to adapt to the needs of their customers, and they've had long enough to do so.

And I would say one bizarrely positive thing about population change and people swapping servers - I've knocked about with hundreds of people in this game now fairly regularly, and I keep meeting new little groups of people I get quite familiar with in vent etc. It's been good to keep meeting not only the old hands who have been doing it ages but people from other servers who have fancied a change.

 

[Esselinithia]

Imho TOA isn't the core of the problem, since changes to TOA wouldn't be enough to fix the game (classic servers can prove that) and if we fix the other proplems, I think TOA won't be a problem with working community.

 

[Dard]

Imho TOA isn't the core of the problem, since changes to TOA wouldn't be enough to fix the game (classic servers can prove that) and if we fix the other proplems, I think TOA won't be a problem with working community.

Imo its the community thats the problem, until everyone figures out its just a game then these problems will carry on until they pull out the plug.

 

[Raven]

yet again the friday news ignores the problem, once again more useless roleplay junk about some random crap

 

[Flimgoblin]

yet again the friday news ignores the problem, once again more useless roleplay junk about some random crap

I'm sure posting "THE DYVET CLUSTER IS DEAD, JUST EFF OFF AND GO HOME!" on the friday news would do the world of good.

 

[Raven]

why? i think you will find a hell of a lot of people would like to return, if goa actually got off their arses and did something about the problem. or even hinted that they cared.

 

[Esselinithia]

Raven: So you say, some of the problem is: GOA doesn't care for problems, people left because of it, and won't get back till it changes?

We can agree here.

BUT if it fixes the problems, they would need to contact people who no longer read daoc.goa.com, so friday news isn't the best communication tool for this.

Another week without a good answer is a problem. No answer in Fridays news? Maybe not. Unless it makes you and some more people to leave.

 

[Raven]

to resolve the problem they need to either hand excal/pryd over to mythic to cluster with a US server or cluster it with a german or french server, at the same time offer every english server account a free months sub.

obviously the first option is better as people wouldnt have to play in french or german.

they have everyones email address, not like its hard to get in contact with them to offer the free month...they have nothing to lose now.

whatever they do they need to do it now, not in a months time, it is beyond critical.

 

[Raven]

correct, so for the sake of the player base they need to hand it over to mythic.

(imo)

 

[Flimgoblin]

there were people pissed off when glastonbury got its language changed... a very small number but it's not like there were many people playing.

If they just change the language of Dyvet I expect a lot of the people playing will just quit.

 

[Raven]

it seems i have developed the time travel ability, my post above in response to flim's

(someone fix FH please )

 

[Esselinithia]

Raven: Clustering with german / french servers alone won't solve the problem anyway.

Why? The amount of english speaking players won't increase with that, and the community will be even more fragmented.

If they hand over some accounts / servers to Mythic (would be problematic) what would you do with people who have accounts on both english and german servers (would they become Mythic customers or stay GOA)? These servers have GOA content on them, Mythic servers don't have such modifications... Different versions wouldn't work with cluster.

 

[Nate]

I myself was quite annoyed to see that GOA still aren't addressing the Dyvet issue, you can see by the way they are approaching it(giving us no official information), we won't see anything happen till around half way through the year.

 

[Raven]

yeah, it will be done in typical GOA style, half arsed and six months late. WAR stands no chance in Europe with these chimps in charge

 

[IainC]

I myself was quite annoyed to see that GOA still aren't addressing the Dyvet issue, you can see by the way they are approaching it(giving us no official information), we won't see anything happen till around half way through the year.

It is being addressed, there are some things in the works that will help short term which will be announced when they are ready (within a couple of weeks) and we are actively working towards a long term solution. In the meantime I don't think it's particularly helpful for us to contribute to the perception that the cluster is dying, the population is not yet at a critical level and most people on the cluster are playing quite happily there. Most of the people concerned about population issues are the ones on FH and these people are able to read my posts here saying that we are working on it.

 

[Nate]

That's good to hear Requiel. I don't think posting "we are coming up with some solutions" to the larger recipients of the Friday News, would be viewed upon as "the cluster is dying" it all depends on the wording, this is ofcourse my point of view though..

What are these short term and long term solutions? Take off the cloak of shadows and put down the dagger of mystery please

 

[SkarIronfist]

That's good to hear Requiel. I don't think posting "we are coming up with some solutions" to the larger recipients of the Friday News, would be viewed upon as "the cluster is dying" it all depends on the wording, this is ofcourse my point of view though..

What are these short term and long term solutions? Take off the cloak of shadows and put down the dagger of mystery please

I think if the solution requires technical changes which are not yet finalised, then its not appropiate to tell anyone what they are. Until they are up and running , and working as intended, then they count for nothing.

I have been on to many projects where a small vital component has been forgotten and required either a new end date or basically meant the project was no longer viable.

 

[Nate]

If you've got time to post here, you've got time to play your Warden.

 

[SkarIronfist]

If you've got time to post here, you've got time to play your Warden.

I am work ... last time I looked I was allowed to use the interweb. Now get back to working on your bard.

PS - Anyone having any problems with missing gfx on the forums ?

 

[Tesla Monkor]

Yeh, the View Post icon is broken.

 

[Takhasis]

Yeh, the View Post icon is broken.

...and if u use the steel/blue layout, all the gfx are borked...

 

[old.Whoodoo]

...and if u use the steel/blue layout, all the gfx are borked...

Maybe thats an XML fix, you know how long they take...