Server Health is a Game Design Issue

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, BoomBox said:

is there any way we can support NA development with funds ?

Yes please.

 

[Skully]

20 minutes ago, admin said:

Game has to bring new  users. And this is where community can make a difference and actually help.
This post had a simple question - should i get NA. 100% of initial answers were NO.   http://steamcommunity.com/app/311310/discussions/1/1471967615873119233/
If community really does not want new users to buy the game (because it is truly bad) - why does community is then upset about falling online and lack of fast progress? 

Right now I can not recommend the game to new players, because we have all neglected the new players completely. I do keep up my positive review, simply because if you go past the barriers you can get your money's worth out of the game.

For me to change my recommendation to new players it would need:

1. A safe area and a safe choice for starting players. 
2. Training exercises.
3. Optionally, free weekends. A 2 hour grace period is not enough to find enjoyment in the game and I fear it'll lead to more refunds as opposed to incoming.

But then again, who am I, but an arrogant bastard... 

[admin]

the problems will be fixed (most of them)
we took the hardcore highway but missed some important things when implementing it

first things that will be done (mentioned in the preliminary changes to conquest and regions)

• we will rework the content so it works on minimal online providing stability for new players allowing them to build out and venture to pvp when they want.
• we will rework PB and hostility in a simple way that removes alts from port battles and conquest completely (clans will be able to set friendly lists)
• we will change ship prices and streamline some crafting blueprints 
• we will remove resources from conquest goals as it is a fake feature which blocks gameplay to average players (removing them from the game)
• we will change the main focus from serving pvp players to serving average players. (previously all the features were focused on making a player a target - in fact all the features were done to make a player a target at all times). 

in parallel we will improve UI and add localization.

[shaeberle84]

15 hours ago, Slamz said:

The moment you decided to do open world, this should have become a subscription game. Or at least a "cash store" model, which I think you could still try:

Doubloons: $1 for 25,000.
When buying NPC ships from the store, you can buy with doubloons instead of gold. (Maybe players can sell ships for doubloons too, if they want...)
Forged Papers: 250,000 doubloons.
Character rename: 250,000 doubloons.
Ship paint: 25,000 doubloons per paint (goes down with the ship)
Character respec: 50 combat marks or 100,000 doubloons.
Blueprints can be bought with doubloons instead of marks.

No "pay to win" so no mods or permits for doubloons but the stuff above could be charged for.

You cannot do subscription if the economy is still a joke. You can generate millions of ingame currency with selling materials for fixed prices to NPCs. Look at how many iron ingots were created since the patch! This is all printing money.

The only problem subscription would solve is ALT accounts.

[Anolytic]

2 minutes ago, admin said:

the problems will be fixed (most of them)
we took the hardcore highway but missed some important things when implementing it

first things that will be done (mentioned in the preliminary changes to conquest and regions)

• we will rework the content so it works on minimal online providing stability for new players allowing them to build out and venture to pvp when they want.
• we will rework PB and hostility in a simple way that removes alts from port battles and conquest completely (clans will be able to set friendly lists)
• we will change ship prices and streamline some crafting blueprints 
• we will remove resources from conquest goals as it is a fake feature which blocks gameplay to average players (removing them from the game)
• we will change the main focus from serving pvp players to serving average players. (previously all the features were focused on making a player a target - in fact all the features were done to make a player a target at all times). 

in parallel we will improve UI and add localization.

This post gives me great hopes for the future of NA.

I hope that you take this opportunity to also rework/remove conquest marks/victory marks. The idea that was widespread on this forum, and which I myself hesitantly but regretfully supported, that lineships should be rare and hard to come by, has done a great disservice to the game. People buy this game primarily not for RvR or PvP, but to sail ships. By making it excessively hard to get to some of the most desired ships, players just gave up. The knowledge slot grind is a good limiter for both RvR and OW, but the marks simply inhibit players as well as RvR. If RvR was active - and one of the reasons it is not - even the winning nation getting the map win, would loose more ships every week than they could replace with the victory marks they get. And at the same time it is just demotivating that everyone in the nation gets the same reward for a map win, and there is no special reward or bonus to the people who actually worked for it. 

Players should be able to build whatever ship they want if they can gather the resources and gold. Clans that cooperate well should be able to easily and quickly replace their lost ships from their reserves.

Marks should be only for paints, blueprints, upgrades and skill books. There should be a bonus for successful RvR to the participants. It wasn't too bad what we used to have when we got random resources dropped after a PB. It helped with recouping losses financially or materially. Conquest marks pensions was also far superior to the Victory marks system, but still should have rather been just combat marks.

[shaeberle84]

15 hours ago, admin said:

You can support Legends then Jon Snow.
It will have amazing core, no ganking, somewhat balanced battles, tournaments and NO time wasting whatsoever.
And it will be free to play on PC and will also launch on Xbox and PS4. Which means it will be full with life.

Legends will also let us remove those who want all that mentioned above from the hardcore sandbox. Making OW game better as a result. 

Do we get port battles in NA Legends as well? I mean lobby-based ones.

[admin]

5 minutes ago, Anolytic said:

 

Players should be able to build whatever ship they want if they can gather the resources and gold. Clans that cooperate well should be able to easily and quickly replace their lost ships from their reserves.

 

amen

[shaeberle84]

15 hours ago, admin said:

The game will be shipped in 3 stages. 
Episode 1: Multiplayer combat. 
Episode 2: Upgradeable ships, crews, ranks, boarding
Episode 3: Sandbox open world, crafting and conquest 

I think you have very much succeeded in the first two episodes.

1.The combat itself is great, only some minor tweakings needed, balancing ships, deciding on the number and effect of repairs, balance ship knowledge and upgrades.

2. The possibilities to upgrade ships are numerous and we like it. They are, however, often not very well balanced. Think about how everyone wants Bovenwinds for OW PVP and Cartahena for Port Battles. Boarding needs an update, though.

3. The sandbox exists. It is a very large and realistic and beatiful world. It could be a more interesting, in that you should "explore" and "find" more stuff on the open world, but it is nice at itself. However, it has still some severe problems to it.

3.1 For me the most important problem is the unrealistic and basically non-functioning economy. Fixed prices are a joke for every somewhat dedicated econ player. Also, the relation between player and NPC production is not balanced at all.

3.2 OW fights need a updated rule set. We talk a lot about ROE, ganking etc. This needs to be solved in such a way that (a) fair OW combat is possible (b) newbies do no stop playing after a series of ganks

3.3. Conquest has a problem with diminishing player base. Also, most of us do not like hostility grinding and want to have RAIDs. =)

[RaimundoJoe]

27 minutes ago, admin said:

the problems will be fixed (most of them)
we took the hardcore highway but missed some important things when implementing it

first things that will be done (mentioned in the preliminary changes to conquest and regions)

• we will rework the content so it works on minimal online providing stability for new players allowing them to build out and venture to pvp when they want.
• we will rework PB and hostility in a simple way that removes alts from port battles and conquest completely (clans will be able to set friendly lists)
• we will change ship prices and streamline some crafting blueprints 
• we will remove resources from conquest goals as it is a fake feature which blocks gameplay to average players (removing them from the game)
• we will change the main focus from serving pvp players to serving average players. (previously all the features were focused on making a player a target - in fact all the features were done to make a player a target at all times). 

in parallel we will improve UI and add localization.

Omg! I love the way you think, right now!

Great! Great! Super Great!

[Thonys]

{ Players should be able to build whatever ship they want if they can gather the resources and gold. Clans that cooperate well should be able to easily and quickly replace their lost ships from their reserves.} 

i agree to give you an example a clan of 5 members can easily make a Vic every day

if they do 6 missions a day =375 cm (5x6x15)

players must join their effort in the clan warehouse (all/everything in the warehouse)

but the problem is most clans or not well organized and players are all individuals who do not trust each other  or want to corporate together and that is the big issue, not the game

it is more a clan issue then a game issue

the only thing that can be addressed to the devs is, that the possibility to do clan efforts, need to be more facilitated (clan docks and that sort of things) 

but i am sure it will come in the future somehow

24 minutes ago, admin said:

amen

Edited August 15, 2017 by Thonys

[Sir Bacon]

  6 minutes ago, Anolytic said:

 

Players should be able to build whatever ship they want if they can gather the resources and gold. Clans that cooperate well should be able to easily and quickly replace their lost ships from their reserves.

 

amen

-----

It doesn't make any sense to me that a single player can build all ships (or all cannons, or hold up to 5 resource buildings). One player with 2 accounts can pretty much have it all. To me this seems like it has a big impact on the economy and co-operation between players.

Why do ports not have shipyards and shipwrights (or foundry) that players contribute resources to that then produce ships (or cannons, or craft goods, modules etc) in an automated way?

 

New player example:

• KPR has a shipyard that can make up to 5th rate ships
• New player puts in request for a teak/teak Cerberus. Build requires x resources and y labour
• New player travels around collecting resources to contribute to build
  • Grind is reduced as I don't need to grind up to a point that I can start working on my goal, I can work on my goal by playing the game in a varied manner
    • Combat missions for gold
    • OW sailing for resources/trading
• Experienced player sees new players build in queue and contributes x or y
  • If I don't have a clan/friends I'm still not working on my own

Clan example:

• Clan owns port
• Port has shipyward upgraded to produce 1st rates, with n construction slots
• Clan officers set ship production order up to n ships
• Clan contributes x and y to shipyward, either specific builds or as general build stock 
• Shipyard outputs ships from production line over time
• Clan officers assign ships to player, or player ID can be assigned to a specific production.

Edited August 15, 2017 by Sir Bacon
thinking out loud

[Anolytic]

4 minutes ago, Thonys said:

i agree to give you an example a clan of 5 members can easily make a Vic every day

if they do 6 missions a day =375 cm (5x6x15)

join their effort in the clan warehouse (all/everything in the warehouse)

but the problem is most clans or not well organized and players are all individuals who do not trust each other  or want to corporate together and that is the big issue, not the game

6 missions a day is a lot of time spent if they also have to gather and sail the resources to where they craft. With average of about 30 minutes per mission and 30 minutes sailing to and from, as well as some time just ordering and dismissing missions to get them in a convenient spot, that's 6 hour per player. And they also want to keep some of those hard earned combat marks for buying upgrades, upgrade blueprints and perk resets. If they all five lost their 1st rates in a PB, which is a likely thing to happen if people were willing to take risks in RvR anymore, they would probably take a month before they were ready to do another PB. That is the problem. 

Those five players, after loosing their five 1st rates, should be able to just sail home, all of them extract all of their resources and sail them to their warehouse, dip a bit into their reserves of labour contracts and materials, click 5 times and have 5 new 1st rates ready to defend or attack the day after. Warfare of attrition is only good for the winners, and with the levels of attrition we have now in-game even the winners suffer. The only winning move is not to play - unfortunately.

In my clan, through the meticulous work of our officers mainly, we have reserves of everything from labour contracts through materials, to permits, that if our nation looses an entire RvR-fleet one day, our clan can click out 25 new ships within 24 hours to replace both ours and other clans' losses. Probably not many clans can do the same though, and even our reserves would only hold for so many total losses before they are depleted.

[Thonys]

2 minutes ago, Anolytic said:

6 missions a day is a lot of time spent if they also have to gather and sail the resources to where they craft. With average of about 30 minutes per mission and 30 minutes sailing to and from, as well as some time just ordering and dismissing missions to get them in a convenient spot, that's 6 hour per player. And they also want to keep some of those hard earned combat marks for buying upgrades, upgrade blueprints and perk resets. If they all five lost their 1st rates in a PB, which is a likely thing to happen if people were willing to take risks in RvR anymore, they would probably take a month before they were ready to do another PB. That is the problem. 

Those five players, after loosing their five 1st rates, should be able to just sail home, all of them extract all of their resources and sail them to their warehouse, dip a bit into their reserves of labour contracts and materials, click 5 times and have 5 new 1st rates ready to defend or attack the day after. Warfare of attrition is only good for the winners, and with the levels of attrition we have now in-game even the winners suffer. The only winning move is not to play - unfortunately.

In my clan, through the meticulous work of our officers mainly, we have reserves of everything from labour contracts through materials, to permits, that if our nation looses an entire RvR-fleet one day, our clan can click out 25 new ships within 24 hours to replace both ours and other clans' losses. Probably not many clans can do the same though, and even our reserves would only hold for so many total losses before they are depleted.

well it is a lot I agree

but the example is a vic 

but it can be other cheaper ships as well

and if the clan is 30 player it will do 6 vics so it is, of course, different for every different clan

but the point is ,it can be done if it is done in a proper way...

[Thonys]

1 hour ago, admin said:

At the peak EVE had 300k subs (which is at least 4 mln per month) - they had a good start and grew because subs helped them build it into this game today it is today. To put things in perspective - 4 mln per month can support 700 people team here in eastern europe (which with proper management can ship one GTA per year). You can't compare eve to us as our team never exceeded 10. And our total revenue is less than eve online had during their best month.

So please don't compare us to eve. We are a small indie niche game. 
Yet after 2000 hours a lot of players post - boring/nothing to do/slow development/bad devs who do nothing. 

kids dont know where they talk about 

eve-rything has his own perspective

you are doing great 

Edited August 15, 2017 by Thonys

[Fastidius]

On 8/14/2017 at 5:54 PM, admin said:

We are trying and trying hard to fix problems and experiment/experiment/experiment… 
yet when new people ask - should they get this game - they get this in response

http://steamcommunity.com/app/311310/discussions/1/1471967615873119233/

Its hard to bring new users when there is not a single positive voice on steam. How can you increase online when every answer to the question - "should i get it" - is "NO"?

because you do things to actively hurt balance.

New players can't even do missions because you don't try the content as a newb....brigs Vs Basic cutters..

more gold for cannons than the ship...and they lose it first fail.   Boarding PVE ships even at low crew levels.......no safe grounds for newbs so people gank the crap out of them...

PVP games have scrub breeding grounds that are safe and dont require a clan to start......we told you this a week after wipe.........review is fair since devs don't spend enough time talking to clan leaders....

[Fastidius]

On 8/14/2017 at 8:58 PM, Sir Texas Sir said:

This is why we have testbed.  Majority of the players never even got on testbed when they announced the changes.  They just stop playign for 3-4 months until the patch came out.  While most of us that are actuall hard core testing and giving feed back got on testbed and played things out and gave feed back.  Maybe keep it like other games do and give the key out to folks that want it and you can only see the info if you are using that key and playing on the testbed.  I honestly plan to be on it for the next two weeks or so to test out Unity 5 and any new stuff to give proper feed back.

 

Oh and don't take 5 months to drop patches. Just cause your putting them on testbed doesn't mean you patching anythings if they never go to live.

 

yes because the devs are half arsing Steam News.....thats why half of us lost our XP....look at the steam news....OUR XP IS SAFE......no mention of jumping through hoops or the fact we should read the forums for any special reason....the fact is they drove all the active players away then did a test with a bunch of players who were unable to see the glaringly large issue with stacking bandaids on bandaids and not addressing real issues and addressing symptoms...  the game crafters had mostly left the game.

I am not saying there was no one that saw any issue  but within 2 hours of reading the patch notes and playing as a scrub I and all the guys in my clan that returned said that there's no way scrubs could do this...were a super organized group and we took nearly 3 weeks to get on track AND WE HAD 20 lvl 50 crafters the first week.

 

 

[Fastidius]

23 hours ago, Demsity said:

A small suggestion, Don´t buy an early access alpha game if you cant handle change. Things change during a games development.

I´m a solo player, I´m not relying on a clan and I´m doing just fine. I dont grind much, nor have I.

The grind is what you make of it, the game does not require you to have all the best refits, books and ship knowledge. You can still do pvp successfully.

And I´m also a casual player, with a job, wife and one kid.

yes but then your not playing ALL the content are you...

[Demsity]

6 minutes ago, Fastidius said:

yes but then your not playing ALL the content are you...

 No, But what I´m saying is that its possible to play without grinding everything to max

[Wang]

17 hours ago, admin said:

You don't mention (very interested in why) that EVE required you to pay 14 dollars per month for how many years? 

So lets talk about it

• Players who spend 3000 hours (we have a lot) would have paid us 350 dollars already 
  • (if you play 4 hours per day every day this means 750 days or additional 350 dollars)
• Average hours in game are 100. This means on average players (if we would be EVE) would have paid us additional 45 dollars (so 100 dollars on average from a player.

Now what this means is very exciting.

• If we launched with EvE payment terms today we would be making approximately 300k per month (10000 active weekly players or 20,000 active monthly players). IMPORTANT: THIS IS EVEN WITH CURRENT ONLINE NUMBERS.
• This means.
  • i would be able to afford 10-15 more 3d modelers which will allow 
    • 5-7 ships per month with
      • ship interiors
      • deck views
      • stern and bow customization
      • sailplans customizations
  • I would be able to hire 10 programmers and writers who can deliver one major update (with NEW content) every month instead of one tuning and improvement or remake every 3-4 months. 
    • shallows
    • new ai
    • better missions
    • quest lines
    • manning forts
    • on deck boarding
    • multiship boarding
    • more crew on deck
  • Dedicated support and trained paid mods.
    • currently support is done by a support designer, qa and sometimes devs, which is crap as customer service must be magical. 

But its impossible as there is no subs. When haters post on steam DON'T BUY THE GAME - NONE of you you come to post something opposite there. As a result. People stop buying. Which is fine for us. People vote with the wallet and this is just business. 

You wanted to see a Grand plan - it was here all the time. We never said anything different. Its a box product with fixed content promised.
The promised grand plan is simple 
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=259130636

which is

The game will be shipped in 3 stages. 
Episode 1: Multiplayer combat. 
Episode 2: Upgradeable ships, crews, ranks, boarding
Episode 3: Sandbox open world, crafting and conquest 

Early access content 
10 ships
3 maps (weather and night or day)
These will be available after we get greenilght and get our build approved by Valve. 
PC Only. DX11 supported video card required.
 

Remember that we said - we will develop it based on your support and encouragement.

We delivered what we promised and more (3 or more unique port harbors, huge historical world, dynamic weather, day and night cycle, 10+ ships or maybe more). And the roadmap is currently just localization (promised) and user interface. 

After that we will work on NA until the sales stop. Based on reviews and community reactions to haters who deliberately try to stop new players from buying it is going to happen very soon. It will have community support and only new ships from Legends will be added to NA OW edition because the code is shared. 

This post above may sound very harsh for you, I hope it's taken as tough love.  I no longer want to hear weak excuses, or blaming developers. We delivered what we promised.  I want to hear optimism and confidence, and small steps in the right direction constantly - which means stopping raising expectations and accepting the game as is - helping players understand whats good about it, as we know there are good things otherwise you would not be here.

Another things is to start thinking for the game as a whole and for other groups of players who play the game. As too often feedback is just targeting one side of the story and make it worse for the other.

 

Firstly, how is linking to a ove 2 year old steam greenlight page any proof of a grand plan?  Yes you had basic design goals.  This is why it was pitched as early access.  Come pay us early and test our game.  With this design plan, back us, and help us.  Well we did.  I purchased the game pre steam release by a few weeks.  So i did see the difference pre steam and psot steam release.  The serves were packed evernight night.  Then you guys split the community by creating pvp2.  Due to a handful of players complaining about not being able to log on.  Anyway, i dont know about others but i have always felt that my input on these forums have never been taken seriously, I do remember hearing about the whole dev-mod echo chamber that existed on skype calls was the cause for this.  As a handful of people were patting each other on the back, with as i heard a tendency to suck up to the devs.  Not saying that one of issue or another has caused the mixed reviews on steam.  As i wrote in another post i expressed my opinion on why i felt there was a negative attitude.  

If the players are asking for a more developed game, with 10 programmers and 10 artists and attmepted to launch a subcription fee, with somethign maybe again similar to eve with their plex system.  Maybe this should of been what should be aimed at by the launch of 1.0 on steam.  I believe a lot of the mixed reviews is correct at this point in the developemnt on people's feeligns towards it.  We all love naval action but hate it as well at what it seemed it could of been.

[Sir Texas Sir]

17 minutes ago, Fastidius said:

I am not saying there was no one that saw any issue  but within 2 hours of reading the patch notes and playing as a scrub I and all the guys in my clan that returned said that there's no way scrubs could do this...were a super organized group and we took nearly 3 weeks to get on track AND WE HAD 20 lvl 50 crafters the first week

 

A lot of stuff we complained about that was going to run players off was keep in the game when it went live with the patch.  Hell I got chat ban (for a short time before INK fixed it) cause I was arguing so much about not getting anything at all for a captured ship even if you don't want to keep it.  There was a lot of feed back but seems they wanted to gear the game towards a hardcore way. 

That and a lot of stuff wasn't in testbed either and was real buggy when put into play.

[Christendom]

3 hours ago, admin said:

First
your calculation is a little incorrect. Weekly average users are around 10k Monthly average users are around 20k which means 20% retained (80% moved on). These figures are completely normal for the industry (unless your game is a mass superhit). If your game is niche 20% retention is great. By your logic civilization 2 sucks because its retention is below 1% which is not true. It was great when it had launched, then players moved on. Retention is the game's problem indeed but our numbers are no different from the industry levels. Only 50% of players reached the 3rd boss in Dark souls 3. Only 30% of players finished GTA 5 story line. There is nothing bad with players moving on to other game as you cannot read the same book over and over again.

Second. 
We never blamed the community for game's faults. Community is awesome.  You misread our statement. 
We wanted to point to the community the following.  Game has to bring new  users. And this is where community can make a difference and actually help.
This post had a simple question - should i get NA. 100% of initial answers were NO.   http://steamcommunity.com/app/311310/discussions/1/1471967615873119233/
If community really does not want new users to buy the game (because it is truly bad) - why does community is then upset about falling online and lack of fast progress? 
You know its early access - you know we try things and sometimes break things - we have to figure out the working balanced game and we need time for that.

If no-one respond to NO to questions "should i get this" giving another opinion or ignore such responses whatsoever new players won't come in. Everyone will just think - bad game - don't buy.

I'm simply eye balling based off population numbers. Care to release one of those charts that you did before the wipe?

Frankly you can't fault people for having opinions and not recommending your product.  It's not their responsibility to drive new players into the game, that's what advertising is for.  I have about 3000 hours in the game myself and the only reason I keep sticking around is the people.  

Welcome to the realm of public opinion. 

[admin]

1 hour ago, Wang said:

 

Anyway, i dont know about others but i have always felt that my input on these forums have never been taken seriously, I do remember hearing about the whole dev-mod echo chamber that existed on skype calls was the cause for this.  

Most of feedback here is taken seriously and thats the reason we run so many experiments. But the reality is players hate experiments. Imagine your chess board and figures changing every week. Many would stop playing chess then.

Majority of great things and majority of bad things were proposed by players. For example did you know that reload lock (where you can lock reload on one broadsides to conserve crew) was proposed by players and implemented. Next time when you or someone comments about us not listening - think about that feature and 1000s of other features that you already take for granted. They were all proposed by players. 

[admin]

6 minutes ago, Christendom said:

Frankly you can't fault people for having opinions and not recommending your product.  It's not their responsibility to drive new players into the game, that's what advertising is for.  I have about 3000 hours in the game myself and the only reason I keep sticking around is the people.  

Welcome to the realm of public opinion. 

We are fine with public opinion mate. Good games get developed further, bad games die. Its natural selection. 
We bring new players by form of ads, promotions and steam visibility and if everyone says "don't buy" to them we will eventually stop doing that (bringing new players) refocusing on something that is actually liked by players.  Welcome to the developer forum where your opinions matter and affect the development in good or bad way.

[Fastidius]

4 minutes ago, admin said:

Most of feedback here is taken seriously and thats the reason we run so many experiments. But the reality is players hate experiments. Imagine your chess board and figures changing every week. Many would stop playing chess then.

Majority of great things and majority of bad things were proposed by players. For example did you know that reload lock (where you can lock reload on one broadsides to conserve crew) was proposed by players and implemented. Next time when you or someone comments about us not listening - think about that feature and 1000s of other features that you already take for granted. They were all proposed by players. 

so the stuff that you made was specced up and discussed with us and the flaws were completly unexpected?

Or do you think perhaps thers a methodology issue or the people you have testing are not actually able to understand the game.......Speak to clan leaders and they will find you people to talk to about mechanics.........

 

you have very qualified people who play this game and most of them are in important roles in clans but you seem to think that the person who makes an account on the forum is equal to everyone....that is bad thinking.

Many of us have asked to be part of the testers discussions and have been ignored.....

[Christendom]

2 minutes ago, admin said:

We are fine with public opinion mate. Good games get developed further, bad games die. Its natural selection. 
We bring new players by form of ads, promotions and steam visibility and if everyone says "don't buy" to them we will eventually stop doing that (bringing new players) refocusing on something that is actually liked by players.  Welcome to the developer forum where your opinions matter and affect the development in good or bad way.

Sure sounds like your blaming the community here, either we push new players away or we steer the game development in directions you don't want to take.  This is unfortunate.

Frankly I don't think the game is done just yet, but perhaps you do.  

Merge the servers.  Ease up on the ship grind.  Bring back lord protector with a few twists and people will return.