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Pappy Green

Declining population

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Quick question: Are steam charts still borked because of their privacy revamp last year (think it was last year)? 

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Game released during holidays, students were home, people had vacation time, higher peak numbers. Schools are back in, and people are back to work, a drop is expected.

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1 hour ago, ave26 said:

No trees on lawless since v10, game is unplayable for some people atm

This is caused by foundations suppressing resource spawns on those islands now same as they do on all non lawless.

Not a bug just a part of the mechanics of the game that any other island has to deal with.

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So declining population on the official servers is good, right? That is what you are saying, right?

This means more people are moving to the unofficial where the game is much more fun to play. Also the overcrowding on the officials is coming to an end. Hopefully new players won't continue complaining that there is too much lag at the free ports from too many players and that they can't log in.

BTW, I stopped playing officials after there was about 100 unofficials to chose from.

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1 hour ago, Pappy Green said:

Perhaps Grabshot will start to figure it out. All time peak 58,788, last 24hours 37,734, 10 minutes ago 31,052...

https://steamcharts.com/app/834910

let me see XMAS and NEW YEAR holidays  , players have now gone back to work and have less time to play ? or did that not cross your mind

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12 minutes ago, wildbill said:

So declining population on the official servers is good, right? That is what you are saying, right?

This means more people are moving to the unofficial where the game is much more fun to play. Also the overcrowding on the officials is coming to an end. Hopefully new players won't continue complaining that there is too much lag at the free ports from too many players and that they can't log in.

BTW, I stopped playing officials after there was about 100 unofficials to chose from.

No, that's steam metrics which would include unofficial servers, since you're still playing through steam.

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10 minutes ago, UDO said:

let me see XMAS and NEW YEAR holidays  , players have now gone back to work and have less time to play ? or did that not cross your mind

Let's see. Most people have to return from winter holidays shortly after the new year (sometime last week). The drop in the chart starts on the 7th. The peak times I'm seeing are at 4-5 EST (the same peak times as during the holidays), considering it includes EU servers, that would mean that the majority of players are home from work assuming they work average working hours. So even taking work into account, they should still be playing if satisfied with the game in it's current state. But I guess you didn't think about that.

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11 minutes ago, arzosah said:

No, that's steam metrics which would include unofficial servers, since you're still playing through steam.

Ya, I was being sarcastic. Seems the OP posted just the facts because he was hoping people would react negatively and then he could berate them for over-reacting. This ups the attention he gets, increases his number of posts, apparently all win win for him.

Honestly, a drop in players is completely expected, not surprising, and probably much better for the game. An early access game doesn't need near this many players to test and provide feedback. This many just gets in the way.

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43 minutes ago, Pappy Green said:

Steam spy claims 500k-1M copies sold, just going off that. But if it's less, then that's more worrisome. 

Wow that's horrible if they sold that many copies and only 58k peak. Probably doesn't show refunds lol

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4 minutes ago, wildbill said:

Ya, I was being sarcastic. Seems the OP posted just the facts because he was hoping people would react negatively and then he could berate them for over-reacting. This ups the attention he gets, increases his number of posts, apparently all win win for him.

Honestly, a drop in players is completely expected, not surprising, and probably much better for the game. An early access game doesn't need near this many players to test and provide feedback. This many just gets in the way.

Thou shalt not question the stability of the Church. Nay, thou shalt not ever wonder. Those who fail to blindly follow shall be labeled as heretics, as non-believers. Smite them mightily with thine piousness.

Thanks for noting that I posted "just the facts" though.

It's too bad there isn't room for rational discussion here.

I am a fan of the game, bigly. I am on the side of the community. I want the game to fulfill its potential, I want it around for a long time. But hey call me a rabble rouser, I don't mind.

 

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3 minutes ago, Pappy Green said:

Thou shalt not question the stability of the Church. Nay, thou shalt not ever wonder. Those who fail to blindly follow shall be labeled as heretics, as non-believers. Smite them mightily with thine piousness.

Thanks for noting that I posted "just the facts" though.

It's too bad there isn't room for rational discussion here.

I am a fan of the game, bigly. I am on the side of the community. I want the game to fulfill its potential, I want it around for a long time. But hey call me a rabble rouser, I don't mind.

I think I was very rational. Not sure what the point of this thread even is.

Might be best to start a post about what you like or don't like about the game, how it could be improved or what ever. Just posting the numbers and saying they are declining seems pointless.

I suspect the numbers will go up when people get bored with whatever other game they are playing and Altas is past its initial growing pains. That is my forecast, only time will tell. I also predict the number of players will go down before they go back up, there, that is as far as I'm going to predict the future of this game 🙂

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21 minutes ago, wildbill said:

Ya, I was being sarcastic. Seems the OP posted just the facts because he was hoping people would react negatively and then he could berate them for over-reacting. This ups the attention he gets, increases his number of posts, apparently all win win for him.

Honestly, a drop in players is completely expected, not surprising, and probably much better for the game. An early access game doesn't need near this many players to test and provide feedback. This many just gets in the way.

I"m not at all surprised by the drop in players, especially on the official servers players are toxic and when there are exploits that allow dicks to destroy ships in PvE that would put a damper on people will to play the game.  But I don't see the drop in players since launch to be a death knell for the game or anything close.

And once they finally release the Linux binaries I'll get my server set up and get off the Official servers forever just like I did in ARK.

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Lousy patch = no resource respawn = not much point in playing if you can't build, repair, whatever.  Once the patch's patch has been patched I'll be back asap.

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The reason it dropped so much was the patch (it kicked all the AFK levelers offline) those guys have since logged back in so I expect them to get back close to 40k at peak (with 12-15 of them AFK players on different servers)

 

As for 500-1 million copies sold Bwwahaahaaahaaa yeah right, I doubt they sold 100K, and if they did they probably had to refund 25% of those. Even if you use the antiqued 20% rule 500K would be at at least 100K people peak. With a game like this with only 4 official servers it should have been even larger. And while there were quite a few unofficial servers the first few days (when the numbers were at their highest) those were not all set up or were as buggy or worse than the official ones.

 

There will be people playing it for awhile. What is going to be interesting is when the streamers stop. Moonmoon and Forsen have already left (for the ones who streamed it for more than a day or two). Some of the cling on streamers will move to RP servers and they will probably stay there for awhile ARK was very popular with RP streamers for a couple years so it wouldnt be crazy to think this one wouldnt be just as popular. The PvP and griefer types will soon get bored and leave. Theyre also the ones right now with the bigger viewer pools. So that will be the bigger test.

 

Game was basically built for streamers and theyre the way this game has been tweaked and steered with all the changes being made.

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27 minutes ago, Coggage said:

Lousy patch = no resource respawn = not much point in playing if you can't build, repair, whatever.  Once the patch's patch has been patched I'll be back asap.

Funny, havent had this issue on my islands..  If you build in the middle of a resource spawn.. it will stop spawning.. so to fix this, DONT BUILD THERE! 

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3 hours ago, ave26 said:

No trees on lawless since v10, game is unplayable for some people atm

I was just in a lawless region and made a pen and got me three bears.

Without trees I couldn't make it.the islands were full with trees rocks what have you,also alot of trash players left behind like abandon bases and foundations.still plenty to go around.Some of the islands are barren,yea that was even before,but no all of lawless region is bare,more like 90% full 10% bare.

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5 minutes ago, Hodo said:

Funny, havent had this issue on my islands..  If you build in the middle of a resource spawn.. it will stop spawning.. so to fix this, DONT BUILD THERE! 

We must be unlucky then.  The whole island is not getting resource spawns, EVERYONE on the island is suffering. It's all people are talking about, and it's been two days now. It was fine until Patch 10 messed things up.  Now people can't build ships, or anything else that uses trees, stone and metal.

Edited by Coggage

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1 minute ago, Coggage said:

Yeah, right.  The whole island is not getting resource spawns, EVERYONE on the island is suffering. It's all people are talking about, and it's been two days now. It was fine until Patch 10 messed things up.

I checked the resource spawning last night on the island I live on with about 50 other people.

I clear cut a forest near me.  Gathered over 16k wood 12k thatch, and 10k fiber.  When I finished clearing the last tree, the first trees were respawning.  It took me about 3 hours to do it.  

So I can confirm there is nothing wrong with the resource spawn rate.  

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1 minute ago, Hodo said:

...So I can confirm there is nothing wrong with the resource spawn rate.  

Where YOU are, yes.  Estimates put it that 10% of islands are not getting respawns of resources.  Jat says it might be foundation radius locking everything down "or it may be something else" and they are "investigating".

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3 hours ago, Pappy Green said:

My question is this, they have made their 12-25 million dollars and sales, with all the negative reviews, are likely stagnant. How much of that is going to go towards development and how much is going to line pockets? Once that has been decided, what is the threshold number of players required to continue development? Office space, salaries and tech don't come cheap. I have my doubts that with the current business model it will be sustainable for long. I hope I'm wrong, as I think the game has a lot of potential. But the over promise/under deliver method disappoints many. 

To be honest, after all of the refunds went through I am sure they only had about 100k copies sold. Sure there was people that stayed at the title screen so long they couldn’t get a refund.

so really at the 25 dollar price tag 100k would only be 2.5 million. Being as you said 12-25 million, it is was 25 million they would have had to sell 1 million copies which is impossible for this game. Even 12  million is unreasonable.

but just for the sake of numbers I will just double my guess and say they sold 200k after the refunds. 5 million at most they have made. Jeremy does line his pockets so I know a lot went to him.

but yeah they had to start up a whole new company which I am sure costed more than 5 million. Bet they are draining arks money to keep the game going.

expect a paid dlc soon 😂 that would be so shady as well. I mean at least ark was out for quite awhile before a paid dlc came along

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2 minutes ago, Goldfish The Builder said:

like ANY game couple weeks after launch! 😛 Still very solid in the 35-40k range!

Hasn’t been 40k in a while now.

technically the daily range is 19-37k range

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Right now (the beginning of peak time) there are 2 people on my server, about to be 1. This time Monday (before v10) there were 19-21 average. Just an observation.

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5 hours ago, Pink_Floyd said:

That’s not examining trends, that’s posting information readily available which suits your current agenda.  What that agenda is, who knows.  Oh, wait - “THE SKY IS FALLING LOL FAIL DEV”...that’s it, right?  Your agenda?  

His agenda is the same as mine.  I want an enjoyable game.  This game has many problems.  And we see, and hear nothing that indicates the Devs understand the actual issues.  They often go in the opposite direction of what will make the game more appealing to the masses.  First, while this is a survival game, EVERYTHING doesn't have to be a struggle.  Like the fiber. It's the most commonly used item.  It needs to be everywhere.  We have a bear to gather it, but will lose it if we take it to where the fiber actually is.  So many times I was tempted to take the bear with me, but was so glad I didn't because I ran into very high level Alphas on the way, while on foot.  Bear would have been killed.  But because I have max sneak, I went undetected, or was able to get away.  And that leads me into the fact that I'm not interested in every 500 interactions, in two hours, with wolves, lions and snakes being a near death experience.  I was doing OK until they nerfed the guns against these creatures.  And, with the crappy hit boxes, making it all about a head shot on one of these creatures was the wrong direction.    I really get the feeling that the Devs are so paranoid that the game will be too easy, they go over the top in the opposite direction with everything.  Humans cannot take constant stress. 

People aren't looking to have PTSD after several weeks of playing the game.  I am building a schooner specifically to go to the Freeport to collect fiber with the bear, because I am tired of going to that area on my island where the fiber is, which seems like the chow hall for all the predators on the island.  Believe it or not, we do want to be able to gather stuff without the constant fear that we are about to be jumped on by an animal that is going to kill us before we can get our three guns out that it takes to kill them.  Once in a while, OK.  Guaranteed 50 encounters while gathering 5k fiber...no.  It gets irritating.  The Devs don't seem to understand this.  They make US the reason that these animals spawn, and the spawn relentlessly, and often, and it's not why we came here.  I don't mind shooting a few wolfs, or a couple of lions, or snakes, but then it should smooth sailing for a while...not 30 seconds before something else migrates into the area.  And how about making the different types of predators fight each other.  Wolves and lions and snakes aren't going to coop in a fight against a human.  They will attack each other.  But here, I have literally had snakes, wolves AND lions all trying to get at me at the same time. 

Let me show you how ridiculous this is.
20190110014544_1.jpg

That's little ol' me, the smallest character you can build in the game.  This is the rock I get on when in trouble, while gathering fiber.  I have been on this while lions, wolves, and snakes all try to get to me, at the same time.  A lion actually jumped up there and knocked me off once.  I didn't last long as there were 3 lions, a wolf, and 3 snakes.

20190110042116_1.jpg

Know what that is?  That's my dead body, with many ship parts, all metal tools, 3 guns, 2 bows, ammo, and resources, inside that small shipyard.  INSIDE the shipyard.  How did it get there?  I was on the Large shipyard I took this pic from, shooting at a lion in the water below me.  Somehow, the lion jumped up out of the water, and had me in it's mouth, while it now stood on the large shipyard.  I got away and tried to jump in the water as it hit me one last time to kill me and my body flew into the shipyard.  Luckily the schooner was in good enough condition to launch, so I could demolish the shipyard, and get my stuff back.

This game gets so many things wrong.  My body can fly through that object and end up inside it to where I can't get my stuff back.  I killed a 42 wolf because every time I put it down to feed, the mouth was in the terrain.  Yet, I can't make a decent building because fucking foundations, walls, ceilings, etc.. won't place because it says it's blocked by terrain.  This is just the opposite of how things should work...and do I think they will ever listen?  No, because these issues were always here for ARK.  This is the frustration of the OP.  We know that Devs think we just whine to get our way.  No, we have legitimate complaints.

FYI...lions aren't actually known for their jumping ability.  In this game, you might as well throw a red cape on them, especially if they are running down a hill when they jump.
20190108093846_1.jpg

To the right of this ship is where I put that small shipyard, and twice now, I have seen lions running down the hill, and jump completely over that schooner.  And speaking of ships, why no bowsprit and jibs?  Sure, this is something that can wait, but the ships look off without them.  How about some word on where things are headed?  Do they intend to ever put them on?  Even as a cosmetic would be nice.  A weightless cosmetic, unless they want to slightly increase the weight to compensate.  But at the same time, this is another issue.  Meta gamers ruin games.  You have to always understand that they do the math.  If a bowsprit can be left off, to save 100 pounds, they will do so, and then the game just doesn't look good.  They turn all the video settings down to garbage level, not because they have to in order to run the game...they do so because they can and it gives them an advantage vs the players who want a good looking game.  Devs don't seem aware of this, or just don't care.  Have multiple servers.  Ones for those who can't run in high settings, and one for those who can, and remove the options.  On the high server, no ability to turn off stuff like ground clutter, or go with chunky graphics.   Or, a better option would be to design the game in a manner that doesn't give an advantage to the Meta gamer.  For instance, why did I make the character smaller?  Well, the belief is that it makes for a smaller, harder to hit target.  The problem is there is no penalty for going small.  The big guy can't carry more weight than the little guy.  The tall thin guy can't run further.  Etc...

Yes, this last section is just ranting, but gamers are tired of the lack of progression in game design.  Same old bugs, same bad code, same problems.

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