An Observation Regarding the Community Growth

[ImpousVileTerror]

I've known for a while about the Member Statistics at the bottom of the Home page for these forums.

I would occasionally scroll down there and notice "ah, another new member!  Lovely!"

 

Recently, however, I've learnt about:

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/discover/

 

and goodness gracious!  The number of new user accounts that got made in just a five hour window last night . . . 

Well, it's true that some of these may merely be automated unsad bots, or existing players creating their additional multibox accounts, but it certainly appears that our rate of growth here is pretty impressive!

 

Of course, that doesn't mean you should stop spreading the word.  Word-of-mouth is still just about the only way we've got to use to continue to grow right now.  So, I guess what I'm saying, is:

Keep it up, community!

[ImpousVileTerror]

As I composed this thread's original post, another person created an account.  Another 13 joined in the past 4 hours.

@Jimmy, @GM Miss, or @GM Widower . . . would any of you happen to have other statistics to share in regard to the rate at which new accounts have been made over X period of time?

I have trouble shutting off the part of my brain that likes to examine statistics for market analyses, and I'm in one of my 'moods.'  Lay the detailed data on me, please!  I want to chart and graph and stuff!

[Marine X]

Also to consider is that if you look at the " Online Users " tab, there are a bunch of " guest " viewers online any time you look. A lot of these may be people just curious about Homecoming from other servers or those considering creating an account. It may also be people with accounts, but they are not at their normal location ( work/mobile ) so are not logged in. Either way, lots of eyes on the forums.

[Frostbiter]

1 hour ago, Marine X said:

Also to consider is that if you look at the " Online Users " tab, there are a bunch of " guest " viewers online any time you look. A lot of these may be people just curious about Homecoming from other servers or those considering creating an account. It may also be people with accounts, but they are not at their normal location ( work/mobile ) so are not logged in. Either way, lots of eyes on the forums.

[EmmySky]

2 hours ago, Marine X said:

Also to consider is that if you look at the " Online Users " tab, there are a bunch of " guest " viewers online any time you look. A lot of these may be people just curious about Homecoming from other servers or those considering creating an account. It may also be people with accounts, but they are not at their normal location ( work/mobile ) so are not logged in. Either way, lots of eyes on the forums.

Aye.

[Techwright]

I clearly don't understand the mindset: why would bot creators have any interest in the game as it stands? It's old, it's free to play, and though I wish it was mainstream, it's very much a niche group.  What would be the draw?

[Apparition]

4 hours ago, Marine X said:

Also to consider is that if you look at the " Online Users " tab, there are a bunch of " guest " viewers online any time you look. A lot of these may be people just curious about Homecoming from other servers or those considering creating an account. It may also be people with accounts, but they are not at their normal location ( work/mobile ) so are not logged in. Either way, lots of eyes on the forums.

 

 

1 hour ago, Techwright said:

I clearly don't understand the mindset: why would bot creators have any interest in the game as it stands? It's old, it's free to play, and though I wish it was mainstream, it's very much a niche group.  What would be the draw?

 

 

As someone who admins a large web forum, I can guarantee you that most of the "guest" viewers at any time are bots.  As to why they would be interested in the game?  They wouldn't.  They do have interest in creating forum accounts to try to link to various web sites that sell you iPhones, fancy clothes, drugs, or pirated content though.

 

The web forum that I do admin... about 25,000 bots are automatically blocked per week, mostly from eastern Europe and Asia.  I would not be at all surprised if the numbers are the same or higher for Homecoming.

[MunkiLord]

6 minutes ago, Apparition said:

As someone who admins a large web forum, I can guarantee you that most of the "guest" viewers at any time are bots.  As to why they would be interested in the game?  They wouldn't.  They do have interest in creating forum accounts to try to link to various web sites that sell you iPhones, fancy clothes, drugs, or pirated content though.

 

The web forum that I do admin... about 25,000 bots are automatically blocked per week, mostly from eastern Europe and Asia.  I would not be at all surprised if the numbers are the same or higher for Homecoming.

Does the HC team keep a record of all the bots that are blocked? Because if we ever wanna throw a party then perhaps they can hook us up?

[Troo]

1 hour ago, Techwright said:

It's old, it's free to play, and though I wish it was mainstream, it's very much a niche group.  What would be the draw?

Bots don't have mindsets.

 

Try a robots mastermind.. it's similar. You can point them in a direction but then they are gonna do what they do.

[ImpousVileTerror]

I also would like to say that on a purely personal level, I always like to see new members joining the community who immediately add an "avatar" image to their profile!

Just gives me a warm fuzzy.

 

Anyway.  Carry on!

[Twisted Toon]

6 hours ago, ImpousVileTerror said:

I also would like to say that on a purely personal level, I always like to see new members joining the community who immediately add an "avatar" image to their profile!

Just gives me a warm fuzzy.

 

Anyway.  Carry on!

*looks at avatar space*

 

Looks like I might have to do something about that...eventually.

[ImpousVileTerror]

Did you want to make a request at https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/18674-lets-make-some-profile-images-for-the-needy/, @Twisted Toon?

[Twisted Toon]

I'm good. thanks anyway. 🙂

[Oginth]

Sadly more alt accounts have little impact to the visible population, as they seem to be power levelling in the AE.

[Doc_Scorpion]

11 hours ago, Apparition said:

As someone who admins a large web forum, I can guarantee you that most of the "guest" viewers at any time are bots.  As to why they would be interested in the game?  They wouldn't.  They do have interest in creating forum accounts to try to link to various web sites that sell you iPhones, fancy clothes, drugs, or pirated content though.

Yep.  I mod a closed group on Facebook...  I reject about 2-3 very obvious spammers for every real person applying for membership.  I reject about 2-3 people who don't meet the criteria outlined (a photography group that requires residence in the local area) for everyone who does that gets admission to the group.  My anime blog... thank the $DIETY for the automagic spam filters that Wordpress provides for the comment section.  20-30 bot comments a *day*, all spam/scam.  (And that's for a blog that gets maybe 10-12 legit visitors a day....)

A friend of mine who runs IT for a local water utility once told me that, on average, they get a potentially hostile visitor (port scanners, looking for unpatched vulnerabilities and the like) to their public facing website 100 times a second.  24/7/365.

It costs virtually nothing to run a bot, and a sweatshop isn't much more expensive, so there are a LOT of them.

[Marine X]

10 hours ago, Oginth said:

Sadly more alt accounts have little impact to the visible population, as they seem to be power levelling in the AE.

No, they don't, however Alt Accounts are rarely going to log into the forums, other than @MetaVileTerror, who pops up under a new name every other week ( Just Kidding ). Probably a lot are Bots, but some are Lurkers and Stalkers, and the cautiously curious and we welcome them. Anything that isn't negative that keeps growing the population is in our long term best interest. There are also a lot of players who create an account here so they can create a game account, but never visit the boards, or prefer using the Discord Channel. The population here is only part of the picture. I do enjoy seeing a newby question in the game Help Channel, new people are joining us, I'll take slow growth over negative growth. The initial rush of Players was expected to slow after a while, or the next "shiny" came along, but both old and new players are joining us at a pretty regular pace, I like seeing that.

Edited June 30, 2020 by Marine X

[Shred Monkey]

16 hours ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

A friend of mine who runs IT for a local water utility once told me that, on average, they get a potentially hostile visitor (port scanners, looking for unpatched vulnerabilities and the like) to their public facing website 100 times a second.  24/7/365.
 

I'm not enough of an expert on this subject to even know how to phrase this question appropriately... but if you extrapolate that out, doesn't that infer that there's more <name of internet resources> consumed by fake identities/bots would wide then by real people?    ....like... A LOT more?

 

Come to think of it.... I'm relatively certain that I'm real.... but how do I know *you* are real?  Because, there's good reason to suspect not.

 

Also, I've got this aunt who needs your help to move her monies to your country. 

 

Edited June 30, 2020 by Shred Monkey

[Frostbiter]

4 minutes ago, Shred Monkey said:

I'm not enough of an expert on this subject to even know how to phrase this question appropriately... but if you extrapolate that out, doesn't that infer that there's more <name internet resources> consumed by fake identities/bots wouldwide then by real people?    ....like... A LOT more?

 

Come to think of it.... I'm relatively certain that I'm real.... but how do I know *you* real?  Because, there's good reason to suspect not.

 

Also, I've got this aunt who needs your help to move her monies to your country. 

 

Whenever I get accused of being a bot on comments section I just ask the other commenter to prove they're real too. No one even tries anymore. 😆