Playerbase shrinking?

[SwordSaintMusashi]

ALFA has never been the only thing in the world and there has always been alot of players who are just as happy to play other games or do other things than log into ALFA every day.

These things happen.

Sure, other games and RL happen, but so do other things. If you think people don't stop playing ALFA because of stupid sh*t the admins and players do, you're ignoring the stumps in the forest

I never said people don't stop playing for those reasons, I just prefer not to immediately jump to those reasons whenever I think the player base is shrinking because unlike some here, I actually trust the Admins to steer this ship on the course that seems the best.

I have seen and heard directly from players who have left have said some of the stuff the admins here have done made them leave.

So I'm not talking out my ass. That is fact.

It is fact that it is their opinion of the admin or what the admin did made them leave.

People never seem to have a problem complaining or bringing up what's been done wrong, so what's different here that it wasn't?

If you're citing LC, who took out aggressions by killing other players or cheating, then sure. I will bet she had a problem with the administration that banned her for breaking the rules.

But her opinion that she was wronged by the admins doesn't make it fact that the admins did anything wrong.

[t-ice]

I have seen and heard directly from players who have left have said some of the stuff the admins here have done made them leave.

It is simply impossible to always please everyone. The argument you'd need to make with this line of reasoning is that the decisions that have been made caused more people to leave than would have been the case if those decisions would have been the opposite. And in the long run, too, since the people who would ragequit tend fortunately to be outnumbered by those who would wither away when their interest wanes.

Like if a case of repeatedly and blatantly breaking fellow players RP immersion gets passed with a sigh and a pat on the head, odds are more than one roleplayer will eventually read the signs and give up on us.

[rorax]

I was hoping an admin could come up with verified numbers, perhaps show some statistics, like in the main page.

A while ago, when i got woke up to work(around late US time) i always saw around 15-20 people logged in different servers. Now, i wake up and i see around 5-7 players...perhaps people from US timezone can provide some feedback what's happening during peak hours?

[Zelknolf]

It's seasonal, and late summer is always slow for ALFA. It might be because we tend to see some game titles come out around this time of year. This particular dip is lasting a little longer than they usually do, but it also isn't as deep of a trough as it usually is.

People always claim that they're leaving because of some admin or some DM or some player, and everybody's a rotten person operating only out of a cynical desire to destroy everything when described by their rivals. It's actually a rather common thing in all settings. In the wide wide field of psychology, we call this the fundamental attribution error: even when making a conscious effort to not do it, we tend to oversimplify people. There are no policy changes that will change that, and trying would probably be more chaotic than not.

[Swift]

I have seen and heard directly from players who have left have said some of the stuff the admins here have done made them leave.

So I'm not talking out my ass. That is fact.

Errrr...did you even bother to read my post or did you simply reply to continue being augmentative and to lay blame soley at the feet of the Admin? Since you missed it the first time:

I never said people don't stop playing for those reasons

Nobody claimed you were talking out of your ass, but your habit of immediately laying blame at those we charge with running this community is wearing thin.

[Veilan]

For all the "stupid shit" the Administration supposedly does,

I cannot say I have received many constructive suggestions for improvement, or even thoughtful criticism, of late. My inbox is always open, and I'm more than happy to chat in IRC or even skype where appropriate, and if there's good ideas for improvement I'm more than willing to put them before the respective Admins. I do suppose it's time to get another Mood Gauge in to prod for more active input to help steer the ship - but claims of shadow owl whispering and representing some substantial amount of anonymous people usually doesn't make for a good basis on which to inform policy.

Anyway, looking at the last Admin decisions, I cannot say the majority of them looks overly oppressive - easing up on unretirement restrictions, creating a PA advisory board, granting live status to WHL.

There is more grating stuff, such as disputes and their resolution, which usually can't make both parties happy at once. If this really is about the banishment of LC, then I must say I cannot understand any outrage - I had the displeasure of having to review the case in detail, thanks to veto / appeal requests, and Regas' conduct of it was laudable. He tried his best to find an amicable solution, but in the end had no choice left - the sheer number of transgressions as well as their magnitude, as came to light during the investigation, left him little leeway. I believe he did the right thing, both in accordance with our rules as well as our spirit. None of us, least of all Regas, enjoys having to come to such a drastic conclusion, but at the end of the day, sympathy towards one person who choose to knowingly violate our rules cannot supercede the interest of our honest and rule-abiding players who more or less directly got injured by the displayed behaviour.

In order for "don't be restrictive, just deal with the bad apples" to not be entirely farcical, sometimes the bad apples have to be dealt with. It admittedly is a dampener to all our morale since this is a hobby community where we expect to be able to cooperate and enjoy the game - but once that feeling of disappointment that not everybody feels beholden to our shared vision is overcome, I hope we can appreciate that our rules function in a fairly for clear-cut violations such as this, and thus guarantee the defense of that shared vision.

Cheers,

[Adanu]

Yes when admin ban you for cheating you usualy leave... sad, but a true story.

You don't know why her situation made me head scratch, so please don't assume it's because of cheating.

The reason why I mentioned her is because everyone has off days and can get pissed off. From what I saw from the official post about her ban and from what I've heard she got pissed off and wasn't given time to cool down, but instead was perm banned. At least that is my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong. The notion that you must be totally calm regardless of what you might or might not do doesn't sit well with me, which is why I had a problem with it, and I still have a problem with that notion.

As for stupid shit, I'm not talking about recently, I'm talking about since I started playing here.

Personally, I think ALFA is decent, but I've never liked the leveling rate or most DMs fear of giving loot in their stuff. kid, Jayde, paazin, and bogart are the only DMs I've seen who do both well (though paazincan be stingy too :p), though CNS was getting there. But everyone has their gripes in this regard.

As for you swift, I'm not immediately laying blame on anyone. I said player and admins, you might want to, you know, READ THAT, before you talk about 'laying blame'. Your constant dismissal of what I say and tendency to put words in my mouth is wearing thin.

[Zelknolf]

Rumors are a terrible thing, to be sure. LC's two strikes were for cheating, and that's clearly documented in the Player Admin decisions thread. Veilan calls Regas' actions laudible because he still looked for a way to salvage the player, offering an informal resolution with the DM teams and counseling in exchange for a sentence lighter than banning (with at least a week to cool down), and was bluntly refused. I'm not sure what options Regas had there, and am confident that he felt the same way-- he rather clearly didn't want to ban anyone, but didn't have any other fair options.

[Heero]

Yeah, people will play when they have time.

[Castano]

To answer Rorax: School is happening for both parents of students and students. Also it's no longer August, when many EU companies and many US companies experience work slow downs due to bosses being on vacation. This happens every year in ALFA and invariably someone picks on the administration of the project.

As for the whine about admin decisions, I haven't seen many that were not warranted, care to illuminate us??

LC was banned not for cheating (she was offered a remake to prevent the abuse she had visited upon ALFA via farming spawns with walk unseen, after being warned by an HDM not to do it ever again) she then decided to get very angry and yell at EVERYONE in ALFA other than players whom she probably sweet talked about how nice of a person she was and how we're a bunch of meanies. Then she was banned. PA bent over backwards to save this player as I can attest to. So did DMs on our server, who were of course used and abused and lied to by LC.

If anything there's been a fall off in DMing due to DMs not wanting to put up with the whines and complaints of certain players. How about we start a thread on that?

[Magile]

Playerbase shrinking: Short answer, no. Long answer, no... but it is slow this month.

Topic has been answer. Now individuals are being stupid. Lock this thread.

[t-ice]

It's clearly slower right now. Would be interesting to see some stats. If most of slowage is less people playing that would mean the base is indeed shrinking. If we have roughly the same amount of players, but they are playing less each, then it's likely other things getting to people's ways.

[Zelknolf]

For actual warm bodies logging in, we're down about 20% from earlier in the year and at about the same level we were at this time last year, but I don't have that with very high precision right now as all of our previous recorded milestones went from the first to the last of the month. I'll be harvesting stats again on the first of the month for a better comparison that includes man-hours of play (which were double the previous year last month, but not being at a comparable milestone right now means that if I tried for the first of this month until right now, there'd be a skew that would make the comparison slightly less valid)

[t-ice]

Thanks Zelk!

[Stormbring3r]

I was hoping an admin could come up with verified numbers, perhaps show some statistics, like in the main page.

A while ago, when i got woke up to work(around late US time) i always saw around 15-20 people logged in different servers. Now, i wake up and i see around 5-7 players...perhaps people from US timezone can provide some feedback what's happening during peak hours?

Well as a US GMT-6 player.. It is fall and Fire Department Classes are back in full swing.. So my playtime has dwindled.. Where for 2 months I was averaging 10 hours or so a day now I get like 3-4 on most and then a rare 5-6 hour day. The new games coming out have slowed us down as well as the constant bickering IMHO on the forums has left a few with a bad taste in their mouth. As far as USA Players.. I see alot of them and very few Euro/Oz anymore. Can't count Rumple.. cause he is an alien