Steam Results

[Crescent Seal]

so now the zone is run by 2 idiots that make poid and oooo or whoever else you people hate look like saints by comparison

is that seriously even possible? LOL holy fuk cant even imagine it wow.

[forwards]

^ heheheheh

[Kings]

At any rate its definitely helped. First day there was 100 people in TW pub. No joke. I've noticed the peak every night is aslo around 180 now and before steam it was about 140. On weekends I'm guessing it will pass 200 easy.

not happening so far... and new players count keeps dropping.

[roxxkatt]

https://steamdb.info/app/352700/graphs/

[Leland]

Can't possibly think of a worse time for the bots to be down after steam launch
Can't possibly think of a worse time for the bots to be down after steam launch
Can't possibly think of a worse time for the bots to be down after steam launch
Can't possibly think of a worse time for the bots to be down after steam launch
Can't possibly think of a worse time for the bots to be down after steam launch
Can't possibly think of a worse time for the bots to be down after steam launch
Can't possibly think of a worse time for the bots to be down after steam launch
Can't possibly think of a worse time for the bots to be down after steam launch

[Kings]

https://steamdb.info/app/352700/graphs/

Awesome. thx for the link!

[evil Broccoli]

Looking at the weekly graph here http://sshq.net/zone/6/SSCU_Trench_Wars

Its pretty obvious that we had a nice push
but we lost all momentum and are back where we were 2 weeks ago.
Its pretty clear that we arent atracting and/or retaining any players, we need action cause other zones did revive and got a lot of players DSB, EG, HS, Chaos.

[Fork]

Looking at the weekly graph here http://sshq.net/zone/6/SSCU_Trench_Wars

Its pretty obvious that we had a nice push
but we lost all momentum and are back where we were 2 weeks ago.
Its pretty clear that we arent atracting and/or retaining any players, we need action cause other zones did revive and got a lot of players DSB, EG, HS, Chaos.

Pub will always be the same because tradition gets in the way. We knew 90% of the players were gonna leave anyway because there's not alot to do in pub\ gets boring fast... No goals for a newb to think 'wow I'm gonna try hard to achieve this'. Noone in staff thinks pub lacks incentive so you can't expect any change to retain new players.

Get them to twd asap where the real competition and fun is and stop kidding yourself that you'd think pub could be fun for these new players.

[LF]

Has anyone had the bright idea of making things how they were when the zone didn't suck? If you're going to be sending out these emails to attract the old players back in addition to the new players that steam brings wouldn't it be wise to make the settings as they were when the game was actually desirable to play?

I know I havent been gone that long but I can imagine that if I was gone for 5+ years and came back to see this crippled pub with its retarded settings I wouldn't want to stick around either. This is not the zone that they left so many years ago so what incentive do they have to stay a while.

Also lol @ every zone getting a boost except trench wars. Really puts things into perspective huh?

[Crescent Seal]

i know that we have set up a way to see new player steam downloads per day and all (http://www.trenchwars.org/dezmond/st...layergraph.php), but it would be more helpful to gauge retention rates, average play time, etc.

questions to answer/consider:

- how many existing and veteran (comeback) players make up the total new steam download number? would help us understand how many actual new players downloaded the game.

- how many of those total steam player downloads actually logged on to play? (can factor in how many mac users got shafted + the bums who just downloaded it to add to their library)

- what is the average initial play time for a newbie? (maybe the tutorial wasnt effective? maybe the pub scene was overwhelming and there should be a separate pub just for the steam newbs.)

- how many of the steam newbies log on frequently? how many infrequently? how many havent logged on since they downloaded?

- how many have just flat out uninstalled the game from their steam library?

it seems like staff is satisfied with these sub par results and we are back in a mode of stagnation. keep the momentum going you faggots and focus on making a plan of action to tackle down these issues instead of instilling false hope into the community and being content. unless ofcourse, this was a half-assed attempt like usual...then carry on.

[Demonic]

i know that we have set up a way to see new player steam downloads per day and all (http://www.trenchwars.org/dezmond/st...layergraph.php), but it would be more helpful to gauge retention rates, average play time, etc.

questions to answer/consider:

- how many existing and veteran (comeback) players make up the total new steam download number? would help us understand how many actual new players downloaded the game.
Difficult to gage as it would require actually remembering them, but from what I saw there were quite a few, but I doubt even 10% of the downloads were returning players.

- how many of those total steam player downloads actually logged on to play? (can factor in how many mac users got shafted + the bums who just downloaded it to add to their library)
Assume we are talking TW? again impossible to say although we could probably look at it from the new player alerts which hit over 2k in 3 days. Very few of those would be old players

- what is the average initial play time for a newbie? (maybe the tutorial wasnt effective? maybe the pub scene was overwhelming and there should be a separate pub just for the steam newbs.)
Turban completed a new tutorial, why this wasn't put up is beyond me, a lot of people were seen typing !tutorial in pub so I guess the old worked worked a bit, but I doubt the tutorial is the issue personally. Pub is boring as hell, out of a total of 8 ships we are the only zone who are happy to marginalise 2 of them (weasel, lanc (although inadvertently I altered lanc so actually its become popular). Trouble is the vets/ppl in charge think basing is the way to go and forget that when people log in they just want to blow things up. Sure basing will come with time, but in no way should it be prioritised like it is now in pub, again we are the only zone to do this and again we have the worst, from what I can see anyways, retention levels. IMO pub needs a rework and we need to look at it from an outsiders point of view and forget about flag games from the offset, that's not to say we shouldn't keep what we have but we shouldn't make it the be all and end all of what pub is about. 2 pubs make sense to a degree, one where flagging is priority, but should not be the default pub arena.

- how many of the steam newbies log on frequently? how many infrequently? how many havent logged on since they downloaded?
Possible to check with a database comparison of new player alerts to # of logins I would assume, although not currently a feature so would need to be added in which case would require DEV so probably not completed until steam effort is pretty much dead.

- how many have just flat out uninstalled the game from their steam library?
Don't know if we can check that unfortunately.

it seems like staff is satisfied with these sub par results and we are back in a mode of stagnation. keep the momentum going you faggots and focus on making a plan of action to tackle down these issues instead of instilling false hope into the community and being content. unless ofcourse, this was a half-assed attempt like usual...then carry on.

No i'm not happy with the results, but at the same token they are on par with what I expected from the outset. I'm not one to go out and slate other staff members, nor will I pretend to be as active as some of them (although I am on daily now), but it was obvious from the outset that pub was quite toxic, if it wasn't we wouldn't have haemorrhaged players in the first place. Look at the zones that have taken off, DSB/HS they all have something to their pubs beyond what feels like a repetitive cycle. Staff have made a huge effort to contact new players, try to get them involved and that has been admirable, vet players for the first week or so did the same including some unexpected ones, which again personally took me by surprise in a good way. Obviously the game is archaic now, so that will be part of the reason but IMO we needed to have done 2 things, firstly - not catered to just the people who like to play with the flag (screw over levi, weasel etc..) but looked at the wider picture and made pub enjoyable for all. If they stick around they will learn what pub is about, but this zone isn't just about flags - our biggest elements are TWD/TWL without a doubt and no where in pub is this duelling element really featured (a few people in the spawn area perhaps). Secondly - make all ships unique and useful, Javs/spider/Terr obviously/shark all have their place in pub and are obvious in their function - levi does what the hell it wants, lanc/wb I guess could feature in the basing side but are pretty outmatched without their ability to manoeuvre and weasel is a waste of space so balancing should have been looked at along time ago. Guess people are just set in their ways. Lastly Bots, bots should add to the experience not be the be all and end all, we went 5-7 years without a bot controlling pub, pretty much until purebase was utilised for the first time. Now it seems the be all and end all, bots crash and pub dies..something not quite right there.

[Crescent Seal]

Thanks for the replies but I'm sure plenty of people out there would like concrete statistics for the things I mentioned. So turban's tutorial was never even used? l0000l

[Ephemeral]

No i'm not happy with the results, but at the same token they are on par with what I expected from the outset. I'm not one to go out and slate other staff members, nor will I pretend to be as active as some of them (although I am on daily now), but it was obvious from the outset that pub was quite toxic, if it wasn't we wouldn't have haemorrhaged players in the first place. Look at the zones that have taken off, DSB/HS they all have something to their pubs beyond what feels like a repetitive cycle. Staff have made a huge effort to contact new players, try to get them involved and that has been admirable, vet players for the first week or so did the same including some unexpected ones, which again personally took me by surprise in a good way. Obviously the game is archaic now, so that will be part of the reason but IMO we needed to have done 2 things, firstly - not catered to just the people who like to play with the flag (screw over levi, weasel etc..) but looked at the wider picture and made pub enjoyable for all. If they stick around they will learn what pub is about, but this zone isn't just about flags - our biggest elements are TWD/TWL without a doubt and no where in pub is this duelling element really featured (a few people in the spawn area perhaps). Secondly - make all ships unique and useful, Javs/spider/Terr obviously/shark all have their place in pub and are obvious in their function - levi does what the hell it wants, lanc/wb I guess could feature in the basing side but are pretty outmatched without their ability to manoeuvre and weasel is a waste of space so balancing should have been looked at along time ago. Guess people are just set in their ways. Lastly Bots, bots should add to the experience not be the be all and end all, we went 5-7 years without a bot controlling pub, pretty much until purebase was utilised for the first time. Now it seems the be all and end all, bots crash and pub dies..something not quite right there.

Demonic,
No offense Demonic but you aren’t exactly ultra active in Pub and I think your opinion is far off base (pun intended). To diminish the importance of the teamwork required in a Pub game is incorrect. While I certainly agree with the premise that ‘blowing things up’ is attractive to new players this gets old after ‘blowing up’ some ships; I think that newer players quickly seek further attributes to the zone beyond blowing up a few ships.

The advantage of TW Pub is that you can join a ‘pick up’ game, pull together as a disparate group of players, and be able to take over and control flag room. A common goal/objective that benefits from using the various ship attributes is what ‘shows off’ the best part of TW and SS is quite significant.

Dueling suffers from ‘skill gap’. It is much harder to become skillful in these areas when you have such a skill delta between new and experienced players. Additionally these arenas do not demonstrate the entire capabilities of the game, they are a small subset of what SS can offer. Yes, they are fairly popular and nothing wrong with supporting them but to move the zone towards being dueling specific would be a bad decision for the health of the zone.

The flexibility this game affords is a double edge sword. On the one hand it affords some tremendous opportunities for customization but this also means incorrect decisions can be made. Frankly I am more concerned that we have had decades of evolution and changes but no one has ever properly recorded the changes and their impact. So here we are now, debating endless changes in a vacuum instead of being able to go back and do a decent analysis of previous changes. Will this ever change or will be continue to be subject to decisions which are made based upon ‘gut feelings’ and various opinions? TW appears to be a perfect example of strong personalities being able to exercise their will based upon nothing more than their opinion and desires. It has been an interesting ride at times but it isn’t best for the zone.

I concur with your opinion about the bots and bot development. But truth is that development changes should be planned, changes organized into logical groups and releases, and testing should be done properly before cutting the revision in. Before release, a method for understanding the impact (good or bad) should be defined. After release, someone should follow up by measuring the impact and then publish the resulting metrics. Imagine if we currently had a few decades of this kind of data at hand. We wouldn’t be in the dark and trying to support a million ideas for ‘fixing’ the zone. We would be able to quickly determine which changes helped or hurt the zone. Huge amounts of time would have been saved, not to mention the frustration and staff burn out, and player retention would be much higher. Instead we can write a book on ‘How Not To Run A SS Zone’.
Eph

[Demonic]

Demonic,
No offense Demonic but you aren’t exactly ultra active in Pub and I think your opinion is far off base (pun intended). To diminish the importance of the teamwork required in a Pub game is incorrect. While I certainly agree with the premise that ‘blowing things up’ is attractive to new players this gets old after ‘blowing up’ some ships; I think that newer players quickly seek further attributes to the zone beyond blowing up a few ships.

The advantage of TW Pub is that you can join a ‘pick up’ game, pull together as a disparate group of players, and be able to take over and control flag room. A common goal/objective that benefits from using the various ship attributes is what ‘shows off’ the best part of TW and SS is quite significant.

Dueling suffers from ‘skill gap’. It is much harder to become skillful in these areas when you have such a skill delta between new and experienced players. Additionally these arenas do not demonstrate the entire capabilities of the game, they are a small subset of what SS can offer. Yes, they are fairly popular and nothing wrong with supporting them but to move the zone towards being dueling specific would be a bad decision for the health of the zone.

The flexibility this game affords is a double edge sword. On the one hand it affords some tremendous opportunities for customization but this also means incorrect decisions can be made. Frankly I am more concerned that we have had decades of evolution and changes but no one has ever properly recorded the changes and their impact. So here we are now, debating endless changes in a vacuum instead of being able to go back and do a decent analysis of previous changes. Will this ever change or will be continue to be subject to decisions which are made based upon ‘gut feelings’ and various opinions? TW appears to be a perfect example of strong personalities being able to exercise their will based upon nothing more than their opinion and desires. It has been an interesting ride at times but it isn’t best for the zone.

I concur with your opinion about the bots and bot development. But truth is that development changes should be planned, changes organized into logical groups and releases, and testing should be done properly before cutting the revision in. Before release, a method for understanding the impact (good or bad) should be defined. After release, someone should follow up by measuring the impact and then publish the resulting metrics. Imagine if we currently had a few decades of this kind of data at hand. We wouldn’t be in the dark and trying to support a million ideas for ‘fixing’ the zone. We would be able to quickly determine which changes helped or hurt the zone. Huge amounts of time would have been saved, not to mention the frustration and staff burn out, and player retention would be much higher. Instead we can write a book on ‘How Not To Run A SS Zone’.
Eph

The beauty of opinions is generally they do differ, I agree I don't play pub that much but then I guess you have to question why that is - Just because you enjoy it, doesn't mean everyone will. It's one of those things which will always cause debate, but I am more interested from a numbers perspective, you yourself in many threads have said pub numbers are dropping, I believe you quoted down to 5 players playing quite recently in a thread? Wouldn't that suggest something potentially is wrong?

I guess in terms of leagues I am not much of a twlb player either, which is why I try not to get too involved in pub overall, and maybe that's where it's wrong. Everything is designed from a twlb perspective, not from a twdd/twjd one which with all due respect is probably the most popular of the three leagues and always has been. I still think IF the main focus remains flag basing then the weasel needs to be impacted to be useful to the basing scene and not wasted, but based on the above we kinda need to take your opinions on board but look outside of it too as your just one person eph, and therefore all you put may also be far off base as you put it.

[Ephemeral]

My opinion was based upon my recollections from when TW zone was retaining more players than it was losing; not what simply is my preference. You know me well enough to know that I do not put my personal preferences ahead of what I think is best for the zone or an arena.

Again, if we had a history of data that we could fall back upon, we won’t be wasting time on this stuff now. Instead we continue to burn time, waste effort, stress staffers and turn them over more than McDonalds, stress development resources, and suffer from a horrid player retention rate. We have tried making ‘changes’ and allowing ‘improvements’ (mostly based upon input from players) to Pub for literally decades. And none if it documented, controlled, well tested, or other way to really be able to see if the changes worked or didn’t work.

What other than an ‘opinion fest’ would one expect from a situation like this? Years ago Moot worked towards making sure the Zone had mission stamen and objective to follow. The idea was that future zone leaders would actually use them as the vision and ensure the zone was on that path. Yet I have seen leaders since then actually follow this, and often make decisions that go counter to this important document (i.e whomever was responsible for allowing pub to become so one sided in favor of experienced players).

Read the mission stamen and show me how it is aligned with your opinion regarding TW being more dueling-centric, or in any way discusses anything about ‘blowing up stuff’. Now, if you want, you certainly can suggest changes to this document. Perhaps times have changed and diverse teamwork, competitive base play, and demonstrating all of the ship configurations is not a key aspect of TW Pub.
Eph