Productive Discussion on Population

[Ephemeral]

No one has ever been misled nor has anyone ever been promised that this game would evolve. Those who control the game have never had a mission statement (or desire) stating growth is an objective. SS simply ‘is’, existing on its own original merits. Be thankful that they are willing to support its continued existence.

Unless or until this ^ changes, nothing else in this thread matters. Discussing, debating, or yapping about the state of the game is useless until/unless those who control it decide that change is somehow is desirable.

[Pressure Drop]

during the boom in popularity the game diversified into many diff sub games and arena's that ppl found fun and ultimately became the reason they logged in.

as the population declined , due to competing games both stealing new players and current ones as well as the normal retirements we reach a threshold population where there isn't enough to run these arenas and thusly ppl have even less fun and leave at a quicker rate.

i don't have any stats that just been my experience off friends etc ... that affected euro times first and now the threshold has also dropped even in american time from what i've seen.

another factor would be the strange lag that i sometimes get :/ as do other euro's where the s2c has ploss

this has never been that much of a newb friendly place, "pubbers" are looked down upon and yet thats were they will start. They are now so empty it's basically whatever the first pub is that will be their experience and it's impossibly to keep everyone happy as there is a conflict between pure pub and LT pub ... yet if we want to bring players into TWD pure pub would be best imo. It would be harder now for new players to get used to the skills and practice in as there is less squads and less competition and less activity in the sub arenas ?go base ?go javs ?go elim etc

[Xog]

Ephemeral I appreciate your approach however the SSCouncil is in full support of the community taking charge of things like this. I have the full support of several SSCouncil members, and they definitely do want the population to increase, however it's not something that they are going to be taking charge of because they have other things to do. So please give your ideas as to why people are leaving the game, unless you think we have covered all the bases in 5-7 lines.

[Dabram]

agreed with kthx, lizard fuel and turban.. for what it's worth, because i gave up long ago on expecting positive things to be done for this zone/game..

oh well i'm not helping much myself by not playing (much) anymore!

[Ephemeral]

Ephemeral I appreciate your approach however the SSCouncil is in full support of the community taking charge of things like this. I have the full support of several SSCouncil members, and they definitely do want the population to increase, however it's not something that they are going to be taking charge of because they have other things to do. So please give your ideas as to why people are leaving the game, unless you think we have covered all the bases in 5-7 lines.

Support of the SSCouncil isn't the issue, the person who owns the IP (intellectual property) and client source code is the person who controls SS. Without that, this is going nowhere. I don’t mean to piss in the Wheaties here, but this topic has been covered many, many times in the 11 years that I’ve been playing the game. Doesn’t matter if a steering committee decides to decide, doesn’t matter how many projects are started, doesn’t matter how many plans are put into place, ultimately the SS IP is going to have to be involved in the discussion. So if you are telling us that things have changed, that those who control the SS IP (like the client source code) are now interested in allowing the game to move forward, then this is a worthwhile thread and not a waste of time. Otherwise, anything short of that and my point stands.

But let’s ignore the point above say you develop a complete list of “every possible reason as to why people have been fleeing”. You still don’t have the other critical side of the equation. SS has never made legitimate attempts at controlled change. Multiple, uncontrolled changes have been made for years and due to this, it would be impossible to draw conclusions on which changes helped or hurt. Add to this the possible external influences, most of which are outside anyone’s control, and I am at a complete loss as to understand how this can be productive.

[Xog]

Support of the SSCouncil isn't the issue, the person who owns the IP (intellectual property) and client source code is the person who controls SS. Without that, this is going nowhere. I don’t mean to piss in the Wheaties here, but this topic has been covered many, many times in the 11 years that I’ve been playing the game. Doesn’t matter if a steering committee decides to decide, doesn’t matter how many projects are started, doesn’t matter how many plans are put into place, ultimately the SS IP is going to have to be involved in the discussion. So if you are telling us that things have changed, that those who control the SS IP (like the client source code) are now interested in allowing the game to move forward, then this is a worthwhile thread and not a waste of time. Otherwise, anything short of that and my point stands.

But let’s ignore the point above say you develop a complete list of “every possible reason as to why people have been fleeing”. You still don’t have the other critical side of the equation. SS has never made legitimate attempts at controlled change. Multiple, uncontrolled changes have been made for years and due to this, it would be impossible to draw conclusions on which changes helped or hurt. Add to this the possible external influences, most of which are outside anyone’s control, and I am at a complete loss as to understand how this can be productive.

I knew this thread was going to veer off-course very quickly. I understand all of your concern, however we don't need Priit or anybody for advertisements. The point of this thread is to bring out all possible causes and influences of people leaving the game. Once we have everything down we can work with what we have - which is what the subspace community has been doing on everything SS-related since VIE went capoot - and see what we can actually do to prevent whatever has been happening from continuing to happen (as much as we can). Shoot me down as much as you want, you're only hurting the subject at hand even more.

"those that control the SS IP" is ONLY Priit. He's the only person that has the client source legally. That's it. Nobody else. I'm sure you're aware of the success he has in his career and the many projects he's worked on / is working on. He's a very busy person and this game is not on his list of priorities. Currently, Electronic Arts owns the assets to subspace, but not the license itself. Either way, we are allowed to advertise for it even if we're not in control of the IP.

"SS has never made legitimate attempts at controlled change." is completely incorrect. Sure Priit hasn't done squat, but his trusted contacts within the SSCouncil have done many many things to help improve the game. Currently they're fixing the directory servers (i think they just recently finished a couple days ago) so that the default server list can be updated again. If you take a look at Hyperspace zone, that's another great example. Sure it was the players' ideas that brought it to fruition, but I really don't think it would've been possible without the help from the SSCouncil and the SSForum. Check out the Powerball zone, Hockey Zone, even Chaos Zone and Metal Gear with their cash-prized tournaments. Look at the new open-source A Small Subspace Server (ASSS) alternative to subgame2, even Drake Continuum Map Editor. Visit http://www.subspaceonline.com , http://www.subspacedownloads.com (undergoing cosmetic surgery soon), http://www.getcontinuum.com , http://forums.minegoboom.com , http://www.ssforum.net - All supported by SSCouncil and all successful.

We already have plans for advertisements and this thread isn't going to be for advertisements nor is it going to be how to improve the game, it's about finding the root causes of people quitting. When we can identify all of these problems then we can assess the situation as a whole and try to figure out ways to stop these problems from occurring or help prevent them in the future as best we can. Yes we are a community and yes we do have power. Priit hasn't touched anything except for the server ports/permissions since he updated the client on September 21, 2007 and I think this sentence alone speaks volumes considering what the community has accomplished on our own over the years.

I gotta say, I have kind of had my fill in recent weeks of everyone saying "This community is dying" "noone is doing anything" "noone works together" "the people with power don't care".

Well, that is why SSO and SSF have been made the way they are. Plain and simple. EVERYTHING on SubSpace Online is community driven, and can easily be updated with any input. I have sad/shown this from day 1, and plan to eventually make sections totally updatable by forum members.

The news is 100% community driven, as ANYONE can post news (just has to be approved to control spam, but I have yet to delete anything).
SSForum has a downloads script capable of becoming a HUGE archive that can easily be updated, added to, and accessed with the membership you have here to bitch about everything.
There is also now a Tutorials section being installed/updated that you can post FAQs, Information, and TUTORIALS for newbs on how to do the simple things and get them started. It is a live, 100% community driven FAQ/Guide for them.

There are other sites just for this yes, but you bitch that they are never updated or anything is done to them. Well here is your chance to do something without them. These scripts are all here, all open, and 9/10 just require us to quickly approve it, which I check for daily. So it is either you'd rather just be lazy and bitch about the work people who have been doing this for almost half their lifetime (sad as it is) do in their spare time. Or you take all of this that you can add to, that is totally self promotable, and help build something.

[Nycle]

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[Xog]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: you guys need to realize that nothing lasts forever. You guys have given it a good effort in the past and that deserves appreciation, but it has lead us nowhere. Any further effors will be nothing but a waste of your time.

this thread isn't going to be for advertisements nor is it going to be how to improve the game, it's about finding the root causes of people quitting.

The point of this thread is to bring out all possible causes and influences of people leaving the game.

So please give your ideas as to why people are leaving the game,

and would like to make a note right here and say that this thread is not about ideas for advertising or ideas on how to increase population. The only purpose for this thread is to come up with any type of idea about why the population is declining because it's not one simple answer.

Please keep in mind that this thread is not for ideas about how to increase the population - what we want to figure out is every possible reason as to why people have been fleeing from the servers.

fffuuuuuu

[Nycle]

Ya that's why I kind of edited it away :P

[Ephemeral]

I did not steer the thread off-course at all. You defined the thread topic as, “root causes of people quitting” which is exactly how I replied. I supplied my opinion of why the game has lost population. Perhaps you should have said instead that you only wanted input you agreed with.

'Controlled change' is not the same as 'change'. The issue is that all too often multiple changes were implemented contemporaneously. So even if you develop a list of root causes, and a potential time period that seems to be related to a specific root cause, you still cannot be sure that there is an cause/effect since that time period could have had many other changes. 'Controlled change' is about changing one thing at a time, testing it, and then recording the results. This is NOT what has happened at all.

I'll stop posting in your thread. I truly hope this thread and your ideas will be productive, unlike the many other similar ideas and threads that have failed in the past.

[Xog]

I did not steer the thread off-course at all. You defined the thread topic as, “root causes of people quitting” which is exactly how I replied. I supplied my opinion of why the game has lost population. Perhaps you should have said instead that you only wanted input you agreed with.

My apologies, I read your post as just another gripe that nobody up in power is doing anything when they are. I didn't read it as "This game isn't advancing or being improved and that is why we are losing population." I understand the argument better now. I took it in the wrong context, I hope you can see where I went wrong.

PS: Discretion [the client] is still being worked on (which will advance continuum greatly)

[DUMBRIT!]

I work in digital marketing, I've tried to help and offer some my expertise out but it's like going up against a brick wall trying to get any actual action. I gave up

-DB!

[Xog]

This isn't about marketing or advertising :| but thanks

[DUMBRIT!]

Well, it should be, that's how you get new players

[Xog]

The aim of this thread isn't about advertisements. There's much more discussion that has been going on about that in other threads, specifically SSForum (not trenchwars forum).