Server Status - peak population per day

[Angus McGregor]

Although its near impossible to get hard numbers, compare it to Star Wars: The Old Republic then. I played that A LOT back in the day and I can confirm that its player count had dropped drastically after about 6 months. Went from waiting in queues to join raids to having trouble filling raid teams. That's why publishers release new content periodically, to generate new buzz and interest and keep the active player population viable. Don't let on you've never heard of this phenomenon, it's happened with every MMO ever released. No new content, servers start shutting down until the game is history.

Edited December 16, 2016 by Angus McGregor
Honorable mention for "chimps on toilets"... that was excellent =:-)

[JollyRoger1516]

6 hours ago, admin said:

Most games player numbers fall. Even the best games 
For example. Fallout 4 player numbers fell 10x http://steamcharts.com/app/377160#1y. 

THere is an essential difference here even set apart from the mere fact that we're talking about a compeltely different kind of game - your game isn't even done yet! And I quite frankly don't believe in that magical reapperence of the lost players upon release. And even if that occurs there is no guarentee that they will stay past the first week! Also all our testing becomes somewhat worthless/weird if later on the numbers would return to normal and suddenly the statistics don't present what the situation is really like!

[Lonar]

Iam not playing because of the ship whipe wich was announced (never read something that its not coming) i have not so much time and invest it for something wich is gone in 1 month isnt worth it in my eyes ... but i will be back when there is a perspective for a longer timeframe without whipe.

 

Maybe it helps with your search for the reason

[Angus McGregor]

2 hours ago, Hodo said:

As others including myself have stated... steam charts are not an accurate sample to start with.

 

And they arent counting on returning players, but new players to buy the game.  Returning players wont buy the product again, but new ones will.  Money talks shit walks.

Not sure why you think steamcharts.com isn't accurate. No idea how they do it, but it monitors the number of players logged into Steam and what game they're currently playing. For instance... for today it's showing that there were 634 people online and playing Naval Action 30 minutes ago. Note that that count is the aggregate of all 3 servers. The all time high was 5221 online sometime in Jan 2016.

On your second point - they'd better be planning on vanity micro transactions or paid DLC to wring extra cash out of the existing players. And if their other games are any indication, they seem to believe its a valid revenue stream.

Edited December 16, 2016 by Angus McGregor

[Angus McGregor]

9 minutes ago, Hodo said:

 

This is exactly why Steamcharts are not accurate.  Because they ONLY track those that login through Steam.   

If you arent using Steam then it will not track.   I know several people who dont use Steam other than to update the game.

I'll take your word for it.  The navalaction.com site takes you to Steam for purchases, and I cannot run the NA client, even directly without logging into Steam. Kinda contradicts this thread response by admin too... Run NA Without Steam?

[JollyRoger1516]

3 hours ago, Hodo said:

As others including myself have stated... steam charts are not an accurate sample to start with.

 

And they arent counting on returning players, but new players to buy the game.  Returning players wont buy the product again, but new ones will.  Money talks shit walks.

Steamcharts is pretty damn accurate on games that require steam to play! In fact the problem becomes worse when we consider that all those palyers aren't necessarily on the same server. Even if we go by the new player idea - this is a niche game - it appeals to history fans and sailing ship enthusiasts. Most people that would fall udner that category already bought the game so you do kinda require at the very least some of the veterans to return if this game should ever pick up to its old form again!

Players are the lifeblood of multipalyer open world games. Imagine a human being ahving lost more than 80% of blood - pretty tough to come back from that!

Edited December 16, 2016 by JollyRoger1516

[Macjimm]

Amazing bulk of opinions and explanations  from a simple question.

 

[Stilgar]

The low numbers is a combination of factors, I suppose, but overall the game does not really engage at the moment. Main point of the game for me is PvP, preferably in connection to conquest, but it requires too much time and effort to get decent PvP action (PvP events kind of ok, but this is a side content to me).

The hostility generation mechanics isn't that bad (certainly better than the old flag system), but it requires numbers to be effective. I can imagine that with 3-4 times more players interested in any form of PvP, players would group up and would try to intercept the PvE hostility points grinding squadrons and that could turn to be fun. Looks like chicken and egg problem to me ...

 

[admin]

22 hours ago, sruPL said:

Do not compare this game to non-MMO games...

Let me know a somewhat popular non free to play MMO on steam with growing online, maybe we missed it. 

[admin]

13 hours ago, Hodo said:

 

This is exactly why Steamcharts are not accurate.  Because they ONLY track those that login through Steam.   

If you arent using Steam then it will not track.   I know several people who dont use Steam other than to update the game.

they are somewhat accurate because they use steam api. the error is 10-20% not more. 

[vazco]

The real issue that I see is that you had a potential to make NA  a similar success as eg. Eve, just with a smaller population. There still is a chance for this, however it's much harder to do this starting from a low population. Everyone playing NA, also guys that quit, thought NA had a huge potential. This could be a game which could keep players active for longer and which could give you proffits by in-game purchases. There's still no direct competition in this kind of game.

 

Right now the issue is in many broken mechanics that waste time and force players to do what they don't want to do. You handled this well with sea trials - you made sure battles are great, and only then moved to a new feature. I think in OW you were just spamming player ideas, without polishing them. If you fixed it and developed NA further with a vision, you could still create something great, that isn't just a mix of a single-player and multiplayer.
 

I think you've touched something huge. It's your decision what to do with it. I guess you already have a nice small financial success. You could get a much bigger one.

[dagdriver]

There are many different factors as to why people do not play NA.

I have used most of my limitied gaming time plaing NA for several months.

Currently I am down to less than 1 hour of playtime pr day, so I choose NOT to play NA - 1 hour NA is far to short to get any action.

So I go to other games where I can get a "quick-fix".

Had Naval Action been a "World of Warships" with sailing ships, I would probably still  have been able to get my quick-fix here. 

That does not mean that I will not return again when I get more available hours

 

[elite92]

3 hours ago, admin said:

Let me know a somewhat popular non free to play MMO on steam with growing online, maybe we missed it. 

go f2p then

[Pagan Pete]

On December 16, 2016 at 9:29 AM, Hodo said:

Is EVE dead because the active player base is below 10k?  

Is STO dead because its active player base is half of launch?

The answer is no, and if you believe so you are a key example of everything PT Barnum talked about.

Would EVE be considered dead, if the active player base was 800? (0.8k)

STO's base is half of launch (50%) .  Naval Action's  is currently 16% and falling. IF we could hold 50%, we would not be having this conversation.

And. PT Barnum never said what you think he said. 

[Pagan Pete]

The thing that is NOT going noticed here, is WHEN players are leaving. Often right after a major update.

What does this tell us?
* Pagan Pete waits patiently for the other seamen in the tavern to have a think.*

[Pagan Pete]

On December 16, 2016 at 7:23 AM, Pelennor said:

Guys, name one game which doesn't lose players through time ...

Even if GamesLab devs were perfect (and they certainly don't), they couldn't go against this rule.

ITs not a question of of over time. Its a question of what percentage, how fast.
Every population has a minimum level for survival before it goes extinct. Right now there are 800 of us per day… this puts us on The Endangered Species List.

Game labs MUSt accept that there have a problem… or we go extinct. That is the only outcome, Adapt or die.

[JollyRoger1516]

56 minutes ago, elite92 said:

go f2p then

Oh please for the love of everything holy, unholy or whatever bloody else in between NOOOOO!!!!!

[Pagan Pete]

4 minutes ago, JollyRoger1516 said:

Oh please for the love of everything holy, unholy or whatever bloody else in between NOOOOO!!!!!

Oh Flying Pig Cloud, the Vaporous Porcine

May we suckle at your Nourishing Teat. May we wallow in your Healing Mud.

In the name of the Salted Pork, the Ham, and the Holy Bacon;

Oinkmen!

Edited December 17, 2016 by Pagan Pete

[Pagan Pete]

25 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

There are several key features to fix or tweak that have make people quit like hostility generation, port battles, the ROE, economy, coastal defenses, alliance system, crafting... 

 

 

...Player AI fleets, The Battle circle, Roaming AI fleets making traders invulnerable...

[elite92]

2 hours ago, JollyRoger1516 said:

Oh please for the love of everything holy, unholy or whatever bloody else in between NOOOOO!!!!!

why not?

[Zoky]

I see that lots of people think that fixing PB will fix the game and bring people back. It wont! Currently judging by events numbers the biggest group are pirates and as a pirate i dont care about PB, i care for OW PvP and pirating. Only thing left are these PvP events and even they are boring me to death when 90% of players in them are pirates and i spend 3 hours searching for 1 non-pirate player. And then some pirate joins with buce and steals my kill 

[Paulus de Boskabouter]

7 minutes ago, Zoky said:

I see that lots of people think that fixing PB will fix the game and bring people back. It wont! Currently judging by events numbers the biggest group are pirates and as a pirate i dont care about PB, i care for OW PvP and pirating. Only thing left are these PvP events and even they are boring me to death when 90% of players in them are pirates and i spend 3 hours searching for 1 non-pirate player. And then some pirate joins with buce and steals my kill 

1. 90% are pirates because nations care more about PBs rather than pvp events. 
2. Arent pirates allowed to attack each other??

[jodgi]

lol, 64 posts in this topic and 32 "this will fix the game" opinions, all going in different directions. I bet most of you won't even like the "fix" needed to maintain higher online numbers.

[Anne Wildcat]

1 hour ago, Paulus de Boskabouter said:

1. 90% are pirates because nations care more about PBs rather than pvp events. 
2. Arent pirates allowed to attack each other??

#2, not anymore. Wish they would bring that back. 

[Anne Wildcat]

This really is a niche game. Population IMO will never be huge. Stop comparing NA to Eve as this is sailing & that is spaceships. The biggest issue, IMO, that keeps from brining in & keeping lots of people is battles take so long.  The battle element is very nice but casuals who just have minutes here or there cannot do anything in game. I love the battles, much better than POTBS where 1 person can take down an 8 AI fleet. But in POTBS, because of dumb AI which I do not want here, you could do PVE if you only had 5 minutes to spend. I wish they would add something else to the game, other than crafting, to give players something to do if they only have 10 minutes. What, I dont know.