Hi- checking back in

Hello,

I wanted to stop by and see how the in game pop is doing, I took a break pre COVID I remember Chris saying on a stream they were picking up 100+ people a day because everyone is stuck at home. If it’s feeing lively again I might jump back in.

thanks, in advance for your kindly replies.

 

You might give this a quick read to see what has changed since you last played. It goes over some basic but important stuff:

Significant changes to the game for returning players

 

I started playing in Dec/2019, by then the game felt entirely dead. I very rarely stumbled upon players in adventuring scenes. I only met players consistently (few ones though) in the busier towns, such as Ardoris, and in the most popular POTs. The game never felt alive for me.
By March and April, the game got really alive for a while, mainly because of pandemic and XP bonuses I assume. But from July to this date, the game is actually feeling even emptier. Popular scenes that were populated before are now mainly empty, namely Tartarus, The Rise and Ravensmoor. Even the Universal chat is not as busy nowadays.
The player base seems to be stuck mindlessly doing ERG.
If I had one shot to suggest Chris how to make the game feel more populated, it would be by getting rid of Private and Party instances (okay now you guys can throw tomatoes at me lol). Let the players fight over good spawns and try to explore and find better places to farm when their go-to area is occupied by someone else. I think if this is an MMO, private instances don't make too much sense.

 

Better plan: Figure out why people have quit. Fix those problems.

(Pro tip, the forums were full of the reasons. Pro tip 2, devs only have to play other games and they'll see again)

Futzing with Archery isn't going to help. Making super high level scenes isn't going to help. Back to basics, fix the fundamentals that have been harped on for 4 years now.

 

The game world is way too big to feel populated, especially considering private instances. If they don't ditch the private instance thing, the game scenes will still be unpopulated no matter how good they make the game be.

 

Ditching private instances would make little difference. It was one of the main draws to the game, and why a lot of people bought in.

Plus, at this point, it's not the competition that would he an issue, as much as the lag from having thirty other avatars running around Tartarus or the Rise at the same time.

 

This for sure. I mostly play in private/party mode because I am pretty introverted and anti-social. But every once in a while I feel like grouping and if there are more than 3 or 4 people in my party I lag badly. Mostly that is due to playing on a weaker system but no matter the cause it makes group play less fun. I'm pretty sure that getting rid of private/party mode would make more people leave than it would attract new players.

 

Being able to play solo without other people spoiling my experience is is the most compelling feature of SotA.

 

I play on Open instance all the time, and man it is rare to run by a player!
The game feels just too lonely for a MMO.
Telling my own personal experience, if I didn't join a very nice guild early on the game, I would have stopped playing because it felt pointless to play a MMO in which I barely see human activity.

 

Wasn't supposed to be an MMO.

 

Part of where you're ruffling some feathers is that there's a slice of the population who have this playstyle. They exist in a wide orbit, socially, and want to be able to pick and choose when and where they interact with others.

And you're saying to do away with their playstyle, because you don't personally get it.

Maybe forcing everyone into permanent multiplayer will one demographic feel more at home, while alienating another.

 

This is beating a dead horse, again!

I just simply want to know if there are a lot of people playing currently that I can interact with or the same feeling as when I quit basically a solo player single game.

it’s ok I respect that players like the single player aspect of shroud but on the other hand I don’t feel like playing a dead or dying game, I was excited to hear that players were flocking to play just was courious if enough are sticking to feel populated.

 

No \o/ you wont see people in adventure scenes with you often, unless its a popular scene and folks play in open.

You wont ever see people in a adventure scene all the time

 

@Bioxide - good thing to check-in... my suggestion is to check-out. This ain't no Hotel California.

 

@Bioxide Where was it you heard Chris saying 100+ a day? What stream? There is obviously not 100+ new players a day.

 

Hey Bioxide, in the rare moments that I do log in, the game (to me) feels completely empty. I almost never run into another player, unless it is in one of the player market towns.

I am not trying to dissuade you from playing, merely trying to answer your original question, while not beating a dead horse.

 

it was near the begging of COVID right after the original 14 day break thing, he said a 100 new people a day and made some comment about a good stick rate.

I figured 100 people a day x 300 that’s a player base I can get behind. Even 25% of that would be great!

 

I can believe that around the time the pandemic started, but I doubt it was sustained for long.

 

As always it depends on what you're looking for. The only way to know how many people are logged on is to have every single player on your friends list. We could use a heat map or something. I actually accept all friends requests. I'm Majoria in the game.

Not everyone is on 24/7. Best thing is to friend active players or join an active guild and just enjoy the game and the world.

There really is a lot of different types of things to do. It is a choice to play a little, a lot, or not often but to check in sometimes. No one can make that decision for you.

For questions Universal chat is free now.

Two free lots are given to each player (a row size and village size) from doing the quests.

We have a mail system you can mail about anything even gold.

Mounts are in and the game is still being worked on. So the choice is yours.

Whatever you do or wherever you are just find what you personally like and enjoy it or try something new here or everywhere. *cheers*

 

It came to me as the spiritual successor to UO... wasn't meant to be that way? Maybe I'm misinformed. All the Player Owned Towns and deeds to own land for real money seems very MMO to me. Not to mention their ideas for the economy to work.