Overall Active Player Population Down?

[Abraxus]

Is it me, or do the numbers seem to be trending downward lately? 

 

Shortly after everything broke wide open, and expanded to the current 5 server shards, we were regularly hitting around 9,000.  The other day I checked, and it was more like 5,000.  These past few days, it's been just over 3,000.  Granted, there is some fluctuation depending on day, and time.  We don't seem to be growing, but rather shrinking in number at an alarming pace.

 

Is anyone who watches these kinds of stats more closely seeing something else?

[jubakumbi]

The server runners already noted the overall population has leveled off and declined, to a lesser extent than they expected at the time.

For a personal note, I play less, just like I would in a retail game...I play as it suits me again, not out of some frantic need to make sure I get to play before it goes away again...that mood has passed and changed into a more normal MMO playstyle, for me.

 

Now CoH is just another game in the list, it gets played when I feel like it...I imagine I am not alone on this.

Edited July 31, 2019 by jubakumbi

[MechaMarshmallow]

I don't have hard numbers but I also wouldn't be surprised or alarmed. Summer is out in full force and the game has been back for a couple of months now. It's only natural that players who were chomping at the bit to get back in after 7+ years would be feeling a little less like they needed to be perpetually playing after the game had been available again long enough to get their fill. I doubt we're losing as many players as people are just logging on at a more reasonable and normal schedule for their gaming.

[justicebeliever]

I wouldn't be alarmed...the game made it 6 years with a peak population of 3K...I'm certain we can maintain a higher level than that....The HC folks were clever in moving to OVH, because they scale down their server needs on demand and reduce costs quickly...

 

Since the game has no marketing (other than viral thru MassivelyOP, Facebook, Word of Mouth), no development, and is really out of date, it's unlikely it's going to draw a much bigger crowd than it already has.  We'll keep shrinking over the next 6 months to 1 year and hopefully hit an equilibrium point...

[Nafsmar]

I am here for the long haul. I lost it once(not my choice) but now its back and better than ever.

[DoctorHugh]

Just as an aside, currently 4 of my MMOs are running summer events, the sun is shining outside, I've got friends emailing me about visits and weddings and excursions. Except for Christmas this is way busier than the typical fall/winter/spring months from a 'things to do that prevent playing MMOs' perspective.

 

The player numbers on all my other MMOs are down for the summer as well.

[Apparition]

We've definitely lost a substantial number of players over the past two months, but honestly, that was to be expected.

 

 

• There was a huge rush through May as people discovered the game was back.  Many played just out of curiosity to see what all the hub bub was about over the past seven years, and found that the game wasn't for them.
• Many people had fond memories of the game, but after coming back found it "too old" and "archaic" in comparison to modern games.  I disagree, but then again I had a friend in 2010 who refused to play the game after a couple of weeks because he thought it was too old and archaic.
• It's summertime.  Online game activity always goes down during the summer.

Personally, I am in for the long haul.  I expect the numbers to go back up some in September, but not to the extent of what they were in May.

[GM Fiddleback]

As mentioned, it's a combination of factors. Not a warning sign, just the natural flow of people in and out as lives and tastes change. The weekend peaks are what I tend to look at, not that the information means much to me or that i do anything with it, just that if I want to see how things are going population wise, that's when I tend to look at it.

[JnEricsonx]

....just let the damn game stay this time, please?

[Widower]

12 minutes ago, JnEricsonx said:

....just let the damn game stay this time, please?

That's the plan!

[Abraxus]

I suppose I let the 130,000 accounts created, and the numbers of posts I see saying things to the effect of "I just found out my favorite game was back!  I created my account, and now I'm livin' the dream!", create a false narrative in my own head.  Based on those things, I suppose I let myself enjoy the fantasy that we would just continue to grow, and that anyone watching would see just how dedicated, and unexpectedly sizeable we still are after all these years.

[JnEricsonx]

1 hour ago, GM Widower said:

That's the plan!

Good, cause if this game goes away again faster than a Taylor Swift romance...I can't go looking for the next server it pops up on .  I can't start from scratch for a 3rd time.  So, let's keep this party rolling!  My Dom needs some LOTG's dammit!

[GM Capocollo]

It's the natural ebb and flow of online games.  Past the honeymoon period where everybody wants to play all the time, some people get bored and find something else to do, and not every person who considers themselves an active player is logging in every day.

 

For the record, over the past week, we've been consistently hitting a little over 5,500 people online at US primetime.

[Shazzie]

This is my Forever Game™, my safe place, my happy place. Doesn't mean I will play all the time (though boy howdy have I been for the past month I've been here), but it does mean I'm here for the (very, very) long haul. There are only 3 games I've ever played that are so incredibly helpful to me that they might as well be a psychological boon, and I'm not about to willingly abandon that, ever, even if I have to run Granny's CoX Shard out of a nursing home. 

[yukkuri]

And yet the donations keep closing so fast I never make it in time to donate. I think it's doing ok!

[Apparition]

4 hours ago, Abraxus said:

I suppose I let the 130,000 accounts created, and the numbers of posts I see saying things to the effect of "I just found out my favorite game was back!  I created my account, and now I'm livin' the dream!", create a false narrative in my own head.  Based on those things, I suppose I let myself enjoy the fantasy that we would just continue to grow, and that anyone watching would see just how dedicated, and unexpectedly sizeable we still are after all these years.

 

That would have been nice, but extremely unrealistic.  City of Heroes is a 15 year-old video game using 20 year-old technology.  That's strike one.  Strike two is that it isn't World of Warcraft.

 

A lot of people in that category of "I'll play it to see what all the hub bub is about" crowd I mentioned in a previous post were from World of Warcraft.  They played CoH as they knew how to play WoW.  They stuck to the holy trinity, and rushed to level 50.  They played the Incarnate Trials... and then went, "That's it?"  And left.  Remember all the Empath players in late April through early June?  Yeah.  I came across more than one level 50 Empath Defender with only one attack and the full Medicine power pool... I wanted to cry.  They're mostly gone now.

[Primantis]

Not really much  I can add to what's already been said. It's to be expected. Some of the newer players left, others stayed. Some of us stick around but don't play as often anymore.

 

I play maybe a night or two a week, depending on how busy I am. I still really love the game but I just cant dedicate as much time to it as I'd like. I pretty much took my vacation time when the servers launched xD

 

Some other notes to take into consideration are "competing" servers. While AFAIK,  HC is still "The Big Kid on the Block", its no longer the sole server..  Also the looming threat of an NCSoft shutdown is becoming less-and-less worrisome in the mind of the players. Going from "OMG it might be shut down next week, better cram all the play time you can" to "Eh, its probably pretty safe now". So there's a lot less urgency in milking the game. 

 

(I'm not saying there is no threat, but its discussed a lot less and it feels many players don't worry about it as much)

 

Edited August 1, 2019 by Primantis

[XsorrowerX]

I haven't played in a while myself, mainly due to having limited time and working a lot and trying to rotate other games in. This game has always been like that for me though. I play it hard for a month or so then take a break, then after a while I find myself itching to come back and do it again.

[Myrmidon]

Less spamming fools lurking in Atlas Park can only be a good thing.

 

[ed_anger]

6 hours ago, Primantis said:

Some other notes to take into consideration are "competing" servers. While AFAIK,  HC is still "The Big Kid on the Block", its no longer the sole server..  Also the looming threat of an NCSoft shutdown is becoming less-and-less worrisome in the mind of the players. Going from "OMG it might be shut down next week, better cram all the play time you can" to "Eh, its probably pretty safe now". So there's a lot less urgency in milking the game. 

 

Other servers are much, much worse, population wise. Pleiades just merged with Rebirth, both mostly deserted. From Reddit:

 

“Pleiades never recovered from the server debacle they had a few months ago, when they had to shut down and relocate... before it was a small server, but active, more or less on par with Rebirth; after it was pretty much deserted, 1 or 2 people online, sometimes none.”

[Goblin Queen]

As long as those inactive accounts get their names released back in the wild, I'm OK with it. I'm here for the long haul (again).

[DSorrow]

For me it's mostly a combination of several factors like travelling and seeing family / friends because it's the holiday season, enjoying the weather outside while it lasts and generally just not playing quite as much as in the first month of CoX being back. In the first weeks I logged on every single day, now I'm down to "only" 3-5 days a week if I have no other obligations. But I'm here to stay for a while as CoX is one of my all-time favorite games and I can't think of another game that would offer the chance to play at the high-end (iTrials, fully decked out builds, etc.) unless I can commit to play several hours pretty much every day.

[_ancora]

12 hours ago, JnEricsonx said:

....just let the damn game stay this time, please?

I feel like most of us were so scarred from losing the game without much warning originally & that kind of trauma is lurking so hard that we are afraid a big dip in numbers will make HC unviable to run. 

 

But as long as the donations keep up and there's a dedicated base (there is), there's really no need to stress. 

[PaxArcana]

14 hours ago, jubakumbi said:

Now CoH is just another game in the list, it gets played when I feel like it...I imagine I am not alone on this.

Exactly this.  My gaming comes in spells; right now, I'm on a "Space 4X" kick; a couple weeks of StarDrive 2, and now I've gotten back into Stellaris.

[Abraxus]

You mean everyone is NOT like me, and CoH is the only game there is?  Preposterous! 😁😉