Population Concerns

You also had a baker offer to pay you to make bread, bring him flour, and a few other things like that throughout the world. However, those gave you a feel for being part of the world, and they weren't grinding just for the sake of gathering exp/skills. Sort of like the wolf pack leader kill quest. Its a fetch and kill quest so you explore that zone, but it feels like its a natural part of the world (story elements, minor though they are, are crafted around that quest).

 

Yea, and another quest is we're asked to collect a certain number of iron blades for someone in Soltown. It at least helps new players get introduced to questing and combat.

 

If/when work orders are in game, or maybe they are already, this should help also. They will help give grinding a bit more meaning, for a few at least.

 

It would be really good to know how many people play SotA without Steam.
Because if you compare the steam numbers of SotA to the steam numbers of other recent Early Access games, it does look a bit grim...

SotA:
176
playing 38 min ago
216
24-hour peak
603
all-time peak

Battlerite (whatever that is):
10,284
playing 21 min ago
10,284
24-hour peak
13,160
all-time Peak

Osiris New Dawn:
449
playing 30 min ago
571
24-hour peak
4,739
all-time Peak

Paladins:
42,374
playing 26 min ago
42,374
24-hour peak
56,034
all-time peak

 

You'd also have to take into account the people that do both - anecdotally I'm aware of several people who run two clients at the same time.

You can get more complete Steam stats from SteamSpy (though you have to create an account to get a more detailed breakdown).

Two week player numbers peaked at 6692 on 3rd August but haven't been back above 5000 since 17th August. R34 peaked at 3031 on 10th October.

 

You guys do know that you can play the game without Steam, and that these players are not reflected in any Steam stats?

 

Plus a lot of us Steam users don't even run the Steam client on startup. But they forget this too.

 

Which then also applies to all of the other games on Steam, too.
So if the numbers of SotA actually are higher, the numbers of the other games would be, too...

 

Grasping at straws as usual.. continue...

 

Even if the steam users represented a third of all users, the population still is pretty insignificant in comparison with these other games. Also pretty insignificant percentage of the 180k New Brittanians that are registered for the game. Seems like around 1% of New Brittanians log into the game on any given day.

 

I'd be surprised if the vast majority of new players since SotA was released on Early Access weren't Steam users. Steam is just about the only place givingredients the game any press these days.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that New Brittanians list is people with an account, not necessarily the game? So the actual number of game owners could be (well) below that figure, as far as I'm aware.

And I do understand the gnashing of teeth from the, "Everything's fine here, situation normal..." people when these Steam stats are brought up, but they are kind of damning. SotA is a very, very small, niche game.

This is why getting the game right, rather than making the 3,483rd cloak or 2,917th emote might be a useful thing at this point in time. Lose what's left of the current players, and their wallets, and SotA goes kaboom.

 

There was also an issue of thousands of accounts being created by bots. When people started poking around the Users list to record the activity, it put a strain on the servers with the SQL queries, so Port removed the Users listing option completely. No idea if the bot accounts were ever deleted.

Boring conversation anyway and it usually ends up with a console getting blasted.

 

That's right... and that's the same with many games. When Star Citizen hit a million accounts, as much of a fan of that game as I am, there's no way in hell I'd have said then, or now, that it was a million unique people, all with a SC game pack.

It's probably in a developer's best interest to let those numbers rise and rise, and not clarify that they don't actually represent people with paid-up accounts, because it gives newcomers the impression the community's bigger than it really is.

 

This. People aren't addicted to the old ways of doing things, they're addicted to the feelings they felt. Lightning in a bottle.

 

No, but as was stated earlier in the thread, at least just after final wipe, Steam users were accounting for 60% of those logged in. At least when Berek gave out the info (July 29). So it's not as though the steam numbers are insignificant.

 

ever get one of them paint by numbers in a box, well this is how I feel, it looks really cool on the box, but when I go to try and paint it, it looks like crap. so, im will just wait till I have a reason to play, as of now, their isnt any reason. when the frames are gone, maybe I will play more.

 

I have 5 mates who have all pledged at the knight level. we all played for short periods during the releases but really increased play time at release 32.
we have discussed it and all agree that the most fun we have had so far was i think release 20 when the PvP island was introduced, we played flat out when ever we could.
since playing persistence we have dropped off as there is just flat out nothing to do and honestly its sad to say, its boring.
Monster bashing and not having the chance to find items of power is BORING
No need to do PvP is BORING
Owning a house in a scene that everyone just walks past in an overworld map is BORING
in our opinion, the game would be more fun and played more if the scenes were all linked together and forced players to navigate through them to get to their destination. Also, maybe the best stuff should be crafted but spending 20 minutes to kill a troll to get 17 gold is a joke. Anything rare or worth finding even the smallest chance would make it fun. not just crafting mats.
Plus, we want items of power so we can pown players as we can already bash the monsters just fine, so whats the point in getting better items if there is nothing to war over with other players.
In UO they had spawns with boss's that dropped scrolls that increased skill caps. this made for great pvp and items that you could obtain that were worth a lot. also peerless bosses that dropped other rares that were also fun.
untill anything like this is done my friends are not even considering playing, all they are considering is selling their accounts.

 

I'd like to be able to mount an old cherished weapon as a display piece - then break it out in the next village invasion. Or make a book about my explorations only to find out that the key to a quest is buried in a small detail within.

I'd also like to sit in a chair and have my focus regenerate at the same rate as the /sit command.

Port has been very careful not to make houses another source of game imbalance, the side effect is the creation of some artificial barriers between adventure play and homeplay.

Imho , people have it in reverse - it's the houses and their deepening gameplay that will draw people in. I know this because I know people who abhor ingame violence - the slaughter , the blood & gore. But they will get drawn in by the challenges by the spatial and resource challenges and complexity of town and home decorating. Draw in both the adventure crowd and this crowd and SOTA will have a winning combination - niche or not.

 

The game currently suffers from a severe case of being unfun. There are things to do and achieve but much of it is not very enjoyable and so many aspects of the game seem very punitive - whether it is skill decay, lot taxes, equipment degradation, whatever. I want to like this game but I don't have any fun playing it.