What Can Be Done to Recruit Players?

[ForeverLaxx]

Someone mentioned it before in an earlier post, but MMOs as a genre could very well be dying out (or at least on a downward trend). With many more modern games taking the "live service" path, there's more competition than ever regarding games that seemingly demand you play ONE to the exclusion of all others. CoH has always been unique in the MMO world, even ignoring the superhero aesthetic, in that it always felt like an MMO you could pick up, play for 2 hours, put it down, and feel like you got something done. Perhaps players don't believe they have the time for an MMO, a genre generally noted as one where you're expected to spend a lot of time in each day/week, and their favorite current Live Service Game. Since they don't know CoH plays more like a casual log in/log out experience, they just avoid it entirely. But there's another problem, too.

 

There's something else to consider as well that's been driven by the influx of Live Service Games and that's "frequent" updates/seasons/battlepasses. As more and more games take this approach, modern players have come to expect that a game they spend an extended amount of time on is going to have new things to do every 2-3 months. Even if those things to do only take a week/month to finish, those updates still keep coming. MMOs, on the other hand, tend to function more as one large "update" that's meant to last an entire year, mostly filled in with buffs/nerfs to existing systems rather than adding entirely new avenues to play the game or things to grind for. It's just not how many players unfamiliar with the "old ways" would think is acceptable and they'd jump off quickly, even if CoH had a full, paid dev team that could output content like back in the day.

 

When you combine the idea that MMOs expect a lot of time investment with a game that doesn't provide frequent updates, you're just not going to get many modern players to stick it out. They have to really like the idea of playing a "build your own superhero" simulator that has outdated graphics and archaic systems. We're here because many of us grew up with the game, and even if you haven't logged in for months (and I haven't, except to refresh my character names to prevent losing them), we'll keep coming back because what drives our enjoyment is almost entirely built upon the nostalgia; both for the game itself and our memories of that time in our lives.

 

I'm not sure you really could get any sizable increase to the playerbase of this game. It just does not fit what modern gamers expect anymore.

[Ruin Mage]

5 hours ago, Excraft said:

And what?  People are stupid and can't learn how to work with them?

Not what I said or implied.

Teaching people takes time, especially to get them up to speed with their plans & their work mindset.

[Nemu]

7 hours ago, Excraft said:

you want to nerf AE because it offends your precious sense of how the game is meant to be played

Did you miss the part where I said I PL from time to time? It's literally in what you quoted. I never said anything about nerfing AE, I literally also said that in what you quoted.

 

I'm not going to rehash this. Internet arguments go nowhere, but at least now I have a few more dense people to add to my list.

[Excraft]

5 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Some would quit from any AE nerf.

Some would move on to other farming methods. DA at max diff with +3 lvl shifts is slower but can still pull in tolerable levels of inf and sidekick leveling.

Some wouldn't notice at all as they never step foot in AE.

Some would take such heavy handed idiocy as a sign to move on to one of the other CoH groups just on principle, affected or not.

Some would gloat about finally stickin it to the dirty farmers.

 

We're a diverse group so reactions would be just as diverse.

 

Personally, I think AE has been nerfed plenty already and it should be left alone for those that want 1000 lvl 50 characters. I used it the other day to get a new bio/rad/soul tank from 1 to 33 and will probably just farm him up to 50. Or maybe 40. Still annoyed I have to go bother with the patron arc to get soul mastery so maybe he'll just get deleted. Who knows?

 

Right, so we can agree, nerfing AE would cause even more players to leave just as I said.

 

1 hour ago, Shadeknight said:

Teaching people takes time, especially to get them up to speed with their plans & their work mindset.

 

Ok and?  You're making it sound like this is some kind of deterrent to bringing people on board who can help.

 

26 minutes ago, Nemu said:

Did you miss the part where I said I PL from time to time? It's literally in what you quoted. I never said anything about nerfing AE, I literally also said that in what you quoted.

 

Nope, didn't miss it at all.  I know thinly veiled AE nerfherding trying to hide behind virtuous intentions (aka BS) when I see it. 

 

 

 

 

[Shred Monkey]

The most effective way to attract new players is with videos on social media and live streaming.  Releasing the restrictions there was step 1.  Now you need to actively work with streamers to give them tools and benefits to help them promote your game.  Not saying Homecoming needs to do that, but that's the next step in the process.  Since Homecoming isn't a money making enterprise, it's not really worth spending resources (money) for recruiting.  In that respect there's limits on what's practical here.  But I do think, at a minimum they should create a forum dedicated to streaming and content creators so their ideas can be captured and considered.  Actively recruiting and partnering with content creators is something most successful games now have in their business model.

 

 

 

[Nemu]

Streamers and boob physics

 

Mommy mayhem just got real.

 

Watch Excelsior and Everlasting go red for DAYS!

[Ukase]

On 4/22/2022 at 9:00 AM, biostem said:

The hardest part, IMO, is getting people past the hurdle of this being an MMO that doesn't have some of the QoL features that they may expect from more modern games.  Don't get me wrong - I love CoH, but as I'm sure is the case for many players here, our ability to work around or see past those lacking features is second nature at this point.  Simple things, like being able to rotate our character model on the costume creator with just a click and drag of the mouse, or being able to zoom in and out of said character freely with the mouse wheel, simply aren't present.  As for which server to play on - I say just try whichever you like - character transfers are free, anyway...

I am no clothes horse, nor a coh fashion plate. But I must be mis-reading something. I can zoom in on my character in the costume creator. I can rotate the character, too. All with a click of my mouse. 

 

[actiontvstar]

On 4/24/2022 at 2:28 AM, Rokkeb said:

 

Slow lvling of alts in an MMO, especially one as end-game lite, and as alt-heavy as this one is a way to lose retention though. People get sick of grinding the same shit over and over slowly to level a new alt. So killing power leveling IMO does much more harm to the game, than those noobs that just sit around spamming LFG and Broadcast looking for power lvling.

 

I honestly feel like 1 or 2 DFB's should take you to 15, then give shit exp after that (like when the server first launched) then DIB to take you to 22 or so. 1-20 is boring as shit on all characters, and the missions are lame. By 20 you finally start to feel like your character. Then maybe bump up posi 1 and 2 to high teens low 20's as the max lvl for those missions instead of what is it, 14, and 16?

 

Unless they could make it so you can't get exp in an AE until you have a lvl 50 on the server, I don't see nerfing AE farming as a solution to anything as far as population retention goes. Lvling up new alts fast is a huge part of the game to many people who play.

 

I would say reseed the AH and set caps on all the IO sets might help too though. Feeling like you have to firefarm to afford IO sets seems to turn a lot of people away. As it is you have 2 choices play the AH for hours or farm AE for hours, because running TF's , story lines, and radios does not get you anywhere close to enough cash to kit out a character. That also could potentially lower the amount of fire farmers just hanging out willing to plvl random noobs in atlas as well.

 

AE farming killed my interest in the original game back in 2008-9ish. I'd been playing two characters that had gotten to level 15-16ish when AE was introduced and suddenly nobody was doing missions and everyone was just farming and I and my other friends just stopped playing.

 

Meanwhile for the past two weeks I've had a lot of fun getting two characters up to about 12 and 16 so far. Never once did I think it was a slog.

 

I think a lot of people here are making a lot of assumptions about what new players want when they haven't been a new player in a long time and they probably played the original much longer than I did.

 

At no point in the past two weeks have I thought, man this is a slog, this sucks, I wish I could power level this guy to 50 real quick.

 

What kept me from signing up was that I didn't know about it. Then when I learned it existed, I was hesitant because of my bad experiences with AE farming being like the whole game. But I decided to give it a try. Getting your travel power early made the game way more fun.

 

So yeah, there are a lot of assumptions from everyone on this thread about what new players want, but nobody seems to be asking new players.

 

I'm sure once I get a character to 50, yeah, I'll probably want to power level a character at some point, but the first 20 levels actually are fun if you've never done them before or if you haven't done them in 14 years.

 

I think simply letting people know it exists and it's free is a huge step in the right direction, making the sign up less confusing (I had friends I invited to join who didn't get the need to make a forum account and a game account and they gave up) would help, and also the amount of jargon in the chat can be confusing and make a new player not want to join a group. Just my two cents as someone who has been playing about two weeks. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Nemu]

4 minutes ago, actiontvstar said:

nobody seems to be asking new players

Extremely good point! I think that is something I omitted from my posts. I implied it, but I should have explicitly stated it.

 

I'm all for giving players a choice. If they understand what's all out there they can make their own decisions about how they want to play the game, and that gives them more opportunities to latch on to something that can keep them coming back.

[ShardWarrior]

7 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Some would quit from any AE nerf.

Some would move on to other farming methods. DA at max diff with +3 lvl shifts is slower but can still pull in tolerable levels of inf and sidekick leveling.

Some wouldn't notice at all as they never step foot in AE.

Some would take such heavy handed idiocy as a sign to move on to one of the other CoH groups just on principle, affected or not.

Some would gloat about finally stickin it to the dirty farmers.

 

We're a diverse group so reactions would be just as diverse.

 

Personally, I think AE has been nerfed plenty already and it should be left alone for those that want 1000 lvl 50 characters. I used it the other day to get a new bio/rad/soul tank from 1 to 33 and will probably just farm him up to 50. Or maybe 40. Still annoyed I have to go bother with the patron arc to get soul mastery so maybe he'll just get deleted. Who knows?

 

I do not disagree with you in that removing AE would have varied reactions, however I think it naive to believe overall it would not have a negative impact overall on player population.  It certainly would be more a negative change than a positive one in my opinion. 

 

AE is not the problem with player numbers.  It is the age of the game in a very saturated market and that CoH does not now nor will it ever offer any of the modern bells and whistles newer games do.  Those who keep pressing on story content seem to forget CoH does just does not have that wide of a variety of mission types.  Your basic missions are defeat all, defeat boss and crew, click glowies, rescue or escort hostage, hunt X villains etc.  It gets repetitive very, very quickly regardless of how good the story is.

 

1 hour ago, Shred Monkey said:

The most effective way to attract new players is with videos on social media and live streaming.  Releasing the restrictions there was step 1.  Now you need to actively work with streamers to give them tools and benefits to help them promote your game.  Not saying Homecoming needs to do that, but that's the next step in the process.  Since Homecoming isn't a money making enterprise, it's not really worth spending resources (money) for recruiting.  In that respect there's limits on what's practical here.  But I do think, at a minimum they should create a forum dedicated to streaming and content creators so their ideas can be captured and considered.  Actively recruiting and partnering with content creators is something most successful games now have in their business model.

 

Personally, I do not see streaming being any help here.  The streaming restriction here has been lifted for a while now and there is no new influx of players.  I would think streamers with any sizable subscriber base are going to stick to reviewing more modern titles where there is a lot more interest to draw in viewers and there is also potential for advertising money or other perks for them. 

 

36 minutes ago, actiontvstar said:

AE farming killed my interest in the original game back in 2008-9ish. I'd been playing two characters that had gotten to level 15-16ish when AE was introduced and suddenly nobody was doing missions and everyone was just farming and I and my other friends just stopped playing.

 

I know of quite a lot of people who stuck with and in many cases came back to the game because they could PL their characters in AE when it was introduced.  They had gotten very bored with having to grind out new characters through story content.  Everyone has a different experience and different perspective.  What you are saying here is not a universal truth for everyone.  There is no right or wrong here.

Edited April 25, 2022 by ShardWarrior

[Neiska]

As others have mentioned elsewhere in the thread, a good way to attract new players would be various forms of advertisement or communication. Advertisement often requires money however, so I think most people would agree that isn't a viable option, at least right now. Streaming might do some good to bring attention now that people can do that, or simple word of mouth to friends. Also bare in mind that our already grey legal status gets murkier whenever money is involved, so that is a thing that I presume the HC staff would prefer to avoid, at least at this current state with an active community, even if its shrunk in the past two years. But I wouldn't be surprised if that was expected either.

 

But with this keep in mind the competition - newer games, with paid advertisement and promoters. Their staff are also paid positions where this is a volunteer one, likely worked on when they can or desire to. I don't mean to sound as a naysayer here, but, I do think we should keep realistic expectations along with our (both the HC staff and our community) capabilities.

 

Also, I imagine that threads such as these (not the topic itself, but the back and forth between members of different camps/opinions) do little to encourage newer players either.

 

Food for thought.

[Ukase]

On 4/22/2022 at 9:23 AM, Nemu said:

It's as much about retention as it is recruitment.

 

Unpopular opinion but stop enabling newcomers to shortcut the game straight to 50. Sitting in a fire farm with 2xp doesn't give these players any appreciation of the game and when they hit 50 incarnates trivialize the game and they think that's all there is to it. Skipping to 50 in 2 hours doesn't give you anytime to create bonds with the characters you make and that's a powerful emotion that draws people back. At that point there's nothing that makes this game sticky because in their mind COH is about fire farming and wrecking everything endgame with incarnates. Wouldn't you move on if that's all you think this game offers?

 

There are good kinds of enablement and bad kinds of enablement in this regard. Giving newcomers influence so they can get a head start on their COH journey is good. Giving them advice on how to play/build/make inf is good. But carrying them straight to 50 and beyond and depriving them of the real game experience is terrible. I know people think they are being helpful doing this and this is what constitutes a good community in their opinion but choices have consequences. And I believe we are reaping what we sow right now. This may or may not be the biggest culprit that contributes to the declining population but I believe it is an important one that should be recognized.

I reluctantly agree.

I'm really going to try and be concise - which is a struggle. But, here's the situation as I see it. 
It's hard to add anything of quality to what's already been said, but I'll try. 

 

Because our current cadre of developers are themselves unpaid volunteers, it's too much to ask for them to grind out new stuff every 3 months, even if it's small stuff, like a new story arc for an old contact, or a new arc for a new contact. (compared to a Page 3 type issue) 

So, it seems simple to me. Enjoy what we have. Stop sweating the server load or lack of it. Can't find a team? Be the teammate you want to find. (I am stealing that, sort of from someone else, I forget who.)

 

There are still people who meet routinely and tackle whatever task/strike force or story arc that catches their fancy. The shard that's played on is irrelevant. It's all the same game.  

Now, if you want to read everything - you can read below, otherwise, skip it. 

***************************************************
Aging player base - we're mostly older adults, I figure between 35 and 50, some younger and some older. Still, in this demographic, with the restrictions from the pandemic easing off, there are more demands on our time. If we were still 15-25, not so much. What's more, and I could be sorely off base  - as older adults, well, we're smarter. We know what's under the hood now. Folks like Bopper have taken that mystery and revealed things that we simply didn't know before, essentially making things a bit easier when it comes to building for dps and survivability. 

League/Team size requirements - these have been lifted for Task forces, but for incarnate trials and zone events like a hamidon raid, there's still a minimum. With Hamidon, the minimum isn't set by the game, but by the players' abilities and time to commit. Hamidon has been defeated with less than 8 if I'm not mistaken. And even if the lowest number he's been defeated with was 8, those 8 were specific ATs and powersets with specific builds and temp powers for that set purpose. In Underground and Magisterium - it's my understanding if the league size is less than 24, the HP of the AVs scale down to correlate with the league size. Doesn't make it easier, as you have fewer buffs and debuffs to go around, but there is some sort of system compromise for lower numbers. But for hamidon and msr - missing those dozen or so extra buffs/debuffs make things a little harder in the case of MSR, and a lot longer, in the case of Hamidon. A solution is possible, but if it were implemented, then you might have folks on the more populated shards able to take further advantage. (depending on the solution, of course)

Fire farms, or more broadly, farms in general have become more of a norm than a treat. Farm is now pretty much a verb, rather than a place to produce livestock and/or produce. 
I can only imagine what the end result is for most players, if there even is an end.  

Massive piles of influence can and are obtained by farming. With HC's generous 3 accounts to a shard rule, there's nothing, other than your system's resources to stop you from making a total of 15 accounts and having an afk farmer on a map. Even with minimal outcomes, that's a chunk of inf. Bear in mind, you'd have to find the inf to build 15 farmers, but it only takes one farmer to do that. I remember making my first farmer. It was a fire/fire brute. I wasn't even aware of spines/fire at the time. And it sure wasn't afk. I had tried it, but I had to have healing flames on auto, not burn. Granted, it was July, just about 2 months after the servers opened, and folks were still figuring things out. I leaned more towards marketing for influence. But I didn't want to spend time sifting through the AH looking for bargains. I figured I could just use what dropped in the farm, and that has worked very well for me. 

Unfortunately, or not - I now have options. Because of the inf I have stored up, I don't feel this need to run Apex/Tin Mage over and over with a different alt just to get those tasty merits. I will on occasion for the fun of it - but it's not really about merits for me anymore. I'll use them, of course, but there are no "carrots" dangling by a string and stick over this donkey's gaping maw. So what motivates me to play? And is it really accurate to call it play? I "play" to try out different powersets and ATs to see if they are suitable to my playstyle. On occasion I'll play something completely out of my comfort zone - like an MM - to learn more about what it's like to team with MMs. I tend to only see things from my characters' perspectives. It's time I figured out the reasons why scrappers get PO'd when rain of fire scatters the few mobs they had in their AoE damage patch. It's time I figured out how to make a controller more useful. And, it's time I figured out if the MM pets are stupid, or the player behind the MM. (I suspect in some cases it's the pets, and other cases it's both, and in a few cases, it's me. ) 

But, because of my success, I now pretty much don't team up anymore with pugs. I'll do the odd tf or iTrial, but nothing like when I was struggling to fund a build. 

I can't tell you how many times I made the mistake of accepting a recruiting call for a free farm only to delete the character later because I simply didn't understand how to play it, or what the powers really did. A lot of that is my own fault, of course. But who doesn't want free XP? With the ease of making characters on the test server now, there's really no need to PL anything anymore, unless it's just the sub-50 content you're tired of. But, even so, after all these years, there's still content I'm not tired of. 

I am weary of the Hollows. Not yet weary of Faultline. Croatoa continues to interest me, but I do hate the initial hunt missions. Good excuse to get fold space, though. I port them into the very neighborhood I'm supposed to remove them from. The contact system, at least on blue side, needs major work. 
The idea of having origin contacts is outdated, and what's more - any contact that doesn't give a story arc should just disappear from the game, or be clear from the top that all they'll do is give random one-off missions. 

The only reason I play now is pretty much out of habit. Things are just too easy in this flavor of CoH. Even the master runs, without set bonuses, WHEN you're on a team of other competent players make things trivial; no sweat. Mind you - when I say that, I need to make it clear - we're not doing master runs at +4/8. The only reason they're being done is for the badges, and who would want to make the effort as difficult as possible? Certainly not me. I just want the shiny. Not complaining about it being too easy. I like easy. But many folks savor the challenge. Easy is dull and boring for them.

There's something to be said for making things "as difficult as possible".  I remember on live  - The Really Hard Way. Accomplishing that was truly a big deal. Some of us even transferred servers to help other servers accomplish it. Here on HC - it's trivial. The ease of acquiring super inspirations certainly doesn't hurt the process. 

Farmers would always have trouble getting a donkey to work. So, they had a choice. Use a carrot, or a stick. I'm not real clear on the origins of the idea, but someone eventually tied the carrot to the stick, and hung the carrot in front of the donkey to get the donkey to move forward. If the donkey gets the carrot, he stops moving. 
A PL is pretty much giving the donkey the carrot. 

The problem is simply that with veteran players, they've run the early content into the ground. It's like Monopoly now. We all know that Oriental Avenue costs $100, rents for $6 unimproved and charges $550 with a hotel. And who doesn't know that Boardwalk will cost $2k with a hotel? Humans in this day and age require novelty from time to time. CoH simply doesn't have it. 
When Aeon came out, for 2-3 weeks, and a little bit more than that - Aeon was being run night and day, all day. Now...not so much. Still get some folks doing it on occasion, but even for new content, for most folks, it's every bit as stale as Flambeaux & Fusionette running off at the mouth. 

I understand that many of you simply want a larger, more vibrant community. It could happen, but that's highly unlikely. For one, now that we're all older, who's going to tell their friends that they play a video game in their spare time? Certainly not me. I'm an adult. I know my father would be rolling over in his grave if he knew that at 55, I've even spent time typing on a forum instead of taking out the trash or some other mundane household chore that can wait until the sun comes up. And I know my friends would have their palms out waiting on that gift of influence, and then quit playing due to real life being more challenging. 

This game was designed initially to get players to subscribe and follow the lore. But then they got smart and learned the free to play model would get them more money. But that meant new content coming out, routinely and regularly, as well as the "loot box", or super packs that you'd literally pay real world cash for.

Our players want new powersets, new ATs and new content. But most of all, they want quick forming teams and leagues. More players. But it's not going to happen until we determine a proper method for player retention, if there is such a thing. 
 

[Ukase]

On 4/22/2022 at 9:39 AM, Neiska said:

5. I know this is a long shot but here goes - what if CoH was linked to our RL phones somehow, like being able to check to see whose online, manage auctions, send ingame emails and so on? Some other games have this feature. And I do admit, it might be opening a can of worms with account security and the like. But I am wondering if this is even possible?

So, I'm older. But if CoH required a link to my phone, my first question would be "Why?". There's nothing to be gained by this. Absolutely nothing. I mean, you want access to the AH from your phone? Why? Your phone would be way too small to do much of anything, I wouldn't think. And even if it could - what would be the point? To avoid logging in? Seems like a lot of code work to avoid logging in. I don't see the reason for this. Again, I'm older. Nothing says the way I think is the way anyone else should think, other than my over-inflated narcissistic ego. 

But, now Discord...that opens up some of what you're looking for. I know in a number of Discord (channels?) I belong to, I can see what game certain people are playing. So, I can send DMs to these players from there. I think Discord would help you do the communication side of things you're suggesting, but everything I know about the AH says the code is way too scrambled to implement something like this without building it from scratch - which would be a massive undertaking. 

[Ukase]

On 4/22/2022 at 3:15 PM, cranebump said:

Just to correct something mentioned unthread, but you CAN create your own AE story contacts, missions, etc, even arcs spread out over multiple contacts. There’s many authors who do that sort of thing. It just gets buried in the farms.

I think the best thing the HC devs could do would be to take the better story arcs made by players OUT of the AE system and implement them in game. The reason these arcs don't get noticed more is that they are in AE and they give no useful rewards. Tickets are only good for salvage or recipes. (and I guess threads now) - but I can buy salvage easily. Same with recipes, and they're recipes I'd actually want, instead of random. AE is good for PL, that's about it. Unless you're in it just for the story - and most are in it for the loot - there's no real purpose to go in there.  

These "dev choice" awards should be moved out into Paragon City or the Rogue Isles, or Praetoria. 

[biostem]

3 hours ago, Ukase said:

I am no clothes horse, nor a coh fashion plate. But I must be mis-reading something. I can zoom in on my character in the costume creator. I can rotate the character, too. All with a click of my mouse. 

You must click the little arrows or the +/- buttons - you cannot freely zoom in about out with just a click and drag or roll of the mouse wheel.  While I much prefer CoH's aesthetics, if you compare the costume editor between the 2, CO's allows you to much more freely rotate and zoom, as well as doing things like saving your last few color selections for easy application to other pieces...

[Neiska]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

So, I'm older. But if CoH required a link to my phone, my first question would be "Why?". There's nothing to be gained by this. Absolutely nothing. I mean, you want access to the AH from your phone? Why? Your phone would be way too small to do much of anything, I wouldn't think. And even if it could - what would be the point? To avoid logging in? Seems like a lot of code work to avoid logging in. I don't see the reason for this. Again, I'm older. Nothing says the way I think is the way anyone else should think, other than my over-inflated narcissistic ego. 

But, now Discord...that opens up some of what you're looking for. I know in a number of Discord (channels?) I belong to, I can see what game certain people are playing. So, I can send DMs to these players from there. I think Discord would help you do the communication side of things you're suggesting, but everything I know about the AH says the code is way too scrambled to implement something like this without building it from scratch - which would be a massive undertaking. 

 

 

I agree that the "why" may vary person to person. Some may value remote trading, others may not. Other games have this feature, I only mention it as an idea. I have little knowledge of coding and what would be required, and yes, it is of questionable merit, but I was under the impression we were brainstorming ideas and suggestions. It might be noteworthy to remotely check to see if anyone from your global or friends list are on as well.

 

Discord falls in the same vein to my mind. Some may value it, others my not. As with anything, your mileage might vary according to values and preferences.

[actiontvstar]

4 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

 

 

Everyone has a different experience and different perspective.  What you are saying here is not a universal truth for everyone.  There is no right or wrong here.

Totally agree - that was my point in sharing my perspective, not to say he's wrong I'm right, but you know, there are many viewpoints and a wide variety of tastes and interests

[actiontvstar]

Also just going to throw it out there that a game being repetitive isn't going to stop people from playing it. I spent probably 6 or 8 months logging at least an hour or two a day on Animal Crossing in 2020.

 

However, as a new player, I do want it to be easy to find a group, find a super group, and play in groups of 4-8 to run missions.

 

I don't know how possible this would be, or how much it would fuck stuff up for players, but if it's about finding groups, what if there were a way to reach out to the active players on the two least used shards and try to gauge their interest in merging the two to make one with twice as many players?

 

Additionally, what if next month during the donation drive to pay for the servers - or for the next few months - there were also a donation drive to pay for some advertising? People can't play if they don't know it exists.

[Apparition]

IMO, Torchbearer and Indomitable need to merge with Everlasting.  That would have two shards that peak at around 1,100 players each during American prime time on the weekends, and Reunion for a shard in Europe.

 

 I don’t think that it will ever happen though as, IIRC, it was stated a couple of years ago that no shard would ever be closed.

[Ravenprince]

I want to go back to before Enhancement Diversification, perhaps all the way back to original release.  Just have TO's, DO's, and SO's and stack them however you'd like.  No set bonuses, you just maximized the powers that your primary and secondary had.  No AE missions.  Game was more fun in it's simplest form.

[Ukase]

7 minutes ago, Apparition said:

IMO, Torchbearer and Indomitable need to merge with Everlasting.  That would have two shards that peak at around 1,100 players each during American prime time on the weekends, and Reunion for a shard in Europe.

 

 I don’t think that it will ever happen though as, IIRC, it was stated a couple of years ago that no shard would ever be closed.

The shards don't need to merge. Just the players. Personally, I think Everlasting has its own flavor, as does excelsior. I think Indom and Torch are fairly similar - at least in my limited experience on both shards. Just have Saturday be Indom day and Sunday be Torch day, or vice versa, see how it pans out. 

[Ironblade]

4 hours ago, Ukase said:

For one, now that we're all older, who's going to tell their friends that they play a video game in their spare time? Certainly not me. I'm an adult. I know my father would be rolling over in his grave if he knew that at 55, I've even spent time typing on a forum instead of taking out the trash or some other mundane household chore that can wait until the sun comes up.

What?  You're 55 and you care what other people think?!?!?  😛

 

Seriously, though, I'm going to answer this two ways: from general and personal viewpoints.

 

General Viewpoint

Video games are big business nowadays.  Many many adults make their living playing, streaming and/or writing about video games.  These professionals are supported by massive numbers of fans.  Pro football and pro baseball generate around $10 billion a year each.  The video game industry brings in over $150 billion.

 

Personal Viewpoint

I tell anyone who will listen that I play video games in my free time.  Hell, I met my girlfriend in City of Heroes back in 2009 and our family and friends have all heard about it.  On Saturday, we were at the PAX East gaming convention, followed by a meet-up at a bar with people we know from another game.  I started gaming with Dungeons and Dragons - FORTY-THREE YEARS AGO.  I've been a gamer all of my adult life.

[wjrasmussen]

How about another covid lockdown?

[Bionic_Flea]

2 minutes ago, wjrasmussen said:

How about another covid lockdown?

That's crazy talk!

 

[ShardWarrior]

1 hour ago, Ravenprince said:

I want to go back to before Enhancement Diversification, perhaps all the way back to original release.  Just have TO's, DO's, and SO's and stack them however you'd like.  No set bonuses, you just maximized the powers that your primary and secondary had.  No AE missions.  Game was more fun in it's simplest form.

 

 

Hard pass on that.  No thank you.