Release it was 300, now it is 150. I know I can't expect to get 300 since that the release hype, but we kind of dropping down a bit, no? What's up with that?
It's natural. People see a new mod, they play it, then they get bored and play something else. They'll still play the mod once in a while, though.
and when the hell did empires have 150 players at one time on hl² ? (despite technical restrictions i.a. one server )
hmmm...but then the player count will go down and down until it gets semi-deserted. And when that happens it will be 1.071 all over again as new people to the mod will see the unpopulated-ness. Or is it my parnoia?
Hopefully by that time version 3.0 (a.k.a. "lol plains") will be released and the next surge of noobs will commence.
After the hype cool down, the player base should grow steadily. Lets face it though, its a game that requires a bit of learning so I doubt it will ever be massively popular. Being in PC Gamer magazine should help though.
There are still lots of people downloading - when I don't need my Inet for gaming, I seed the empires torrent. There are always at least twenty or thirty peers downloading and sometimes the number reaches over 150...and that is just the torrent.
wtf are you talking about... look at the stats: ......................................................................................................Players.........Servers.............Player Minutes/ Month
More than Insurgency? Wow! Thats really cool. I can't actually believe that many people are playing ESF. Maybe it's because it just got featured on Planet Half-Life? I've been babbling incoherently about Empires to any gamers I know in RL who'll listen. In between my rantings about heroic tank rushes and epic last stand defenses and least two have promised to check it out. They'd better. I know where they live....
I've tried introducing empires to six of my friends with no luck. They get it, play it, get sick of it and quit. The learning curve is non-trivial and there's very little in game help. For those who say RTFM, sadly very few players will do more than skim it, and the "Getting started" sections don't do nearly enough. I'm a strong advocate for in game tips to help new players out. Also, it's easy for a noob to screw your team over and get flamed mercilessly in game, which I doubt helps encourage them to stay. Think getting chosen as comm and not realizing it (happens every other game i play), buying a tank on escort, blocking the vehicle factory, buying jeeps on classic, getting into vehicles and driving them the wrong way (APCs especially), building walls in terrible places... Support from other players in game is -decent-, but let's be serious- experienced people get on to play, not to walk others through the game. It's tough and exhausting to both play and help others.
yeah, empires needs idiot-proofing, but as for the original comment I'm worried about that myself; as is, it's still the most popular hl2 mod afaik but i'd hate to see things die off like before.
Mitties banning people left and right for absolutely no reason surely doesn't help the community or growth of the game out at all.
As for idiot-proofing: I've always supported a required tutorial level you play before being allowed online. Seriously, Dystopia has one. And in Dystopia you can fuck around and kill people and have fun. Empires is more like "fuck around, get killed, cry, and wonder why you lost". We need something.
I don't ban people left and right. I only have 12 people perminantly banned from my server, mostly from pm's . I have banned people temporarily for being asshats, calling me names, breaking my server rules, being loud on the mic. I also ban people for 24 hours who have been AFK on my server in non-assigned for 9 hours.
Have to say it's nice to actually have a server admin explaining their actions on the forums - it's so easy for people to get the wrong idea from a couple of people posting. Anyway, what I was going to say is that the people who will stay and have been staying are the ones that, like us testers, can actually be bothered to learn the game. We might lose the rest on the way to 3.0 but I think we'll still have a core of 50 people always on. This is much better from 1.071 as there would be many days without an active server - even if we just end up with mitties or clan KM alongside the 3 Empires houses (CW, BSID & JPL) we'll still always have some people on aside from the testers.
I would so love to have another account, go on to mitties server, call him names. I love it when peeps have admin their like "omg I have the powerz!!!" Reminds me of this Csource server that had like 5k people banned then they wondered why the server sat empty all the time... At least theirs other servers they can go to.
I don't think Empires has to worry about losing their player base as long as they keep coming out with fairly frequent updates. I mean, that's partially what kept me testing. It was exciting to come on and be able to test out the weeks new RC (not that I think the devs necessarily have to put out every weekend). They could also have custom map contests, and if they get anything really brilliant they might include it as an official map in the next release? A contest might help foster some growth of content. I played rat's Sinking map the other night, and while it was still a little rough around the edges (i.e. some stretched textures, some seams not quite meeting), it was a pretty good map and it was a breath of fresh air. But for the most part I don't think Empires' numbers are dropping. Maybe we lost a few frustrated nubs, but most people will stick around me thinks. Oh, and also; it is finals week for a lot of colleges here on the east coast of the United States, so people might not currently have a lot of time to play games. The truth will probably come out over this winter break.
