I've been discussing with several people and well we hit the nostalgia train were we had to ultra r*** the join button and hope someone would log off so we can get in and play.
The question is what happened and can we possibly do something to improve the quality of the server so people can be attracted of this mod again ? It felt very alive back in the day where there were 200+ players.
What does the community think ? What can we do to bring the glory days back ?
Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh, you touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding. - Sovereign
We start removing specific elements from the community that are currently treating the place as a personal sandbox to wave their appendages around. That and I should be finished with setting up the community contributor section soon, so if you want to help, chip in now already. Send material we can use.
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PSA: If you have been having stutter/FPS lag on Disco where it does not run as smoothly as other games, please look at the fix here: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2306502
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(02-27-2017, 04:26 PM)Dave.Synk Wrote: The question is what happened and can we possibly do something to improve the quality of the server so people can be attracted of this mod again ? It felt very alive back in the day where there were 200+ players.
What does the community think ? What can we do to bring the glory days back ?
It is harsh, but no, we can not. There will never be 200+ players again, those are glory days which will never return again for several reasons. Apart from others, the game is getting older and older (after all, how many games can you name which are 14 year old, still played and community around them is getting bigger?) and we can be only lucky that Star Citizen is a big fail when it comes to final release, otherwise, those with good computers and internet connection would be likely playing it instead of FL.
Not to mention that we have problems not only to entice new players and keep them in the community, we have problems to keep in the community even the returning veterans because the community changed the wrong way over last few years and they are disgusted by the current state.
What in my opinion the community currently fight for is to keep at least current population (60-80 at spikes, 100 during events) as long as possible. Because once it hits certain lower level, it will be start of dead spiral because lot of people don´t log when they see low player count. The longer current level stays, the longer will community live before reaching final stage of its life.
A simple problem is that the game is really old. The vanilla Freelancer came out in 2003. Its hard to attract attention to a game that is over 14 years old.
It's unlikely to see Disco has a whole get such a revival from Microsoft by releasing a second, newer, updated Freelancer and move our content over. However, you'd be living in a fantasy world to believe that as they would see little to no benefit for a game that has 200 users that would most likely buy.
I'm sure that it has nothing to do with the actual content. If the community can make a big push with large grouped (who we have available) screenshots showing off the best of the server, along with the help of youtube content.
Although it should be noted that if anyone has connections to Bill Gates, can they ask him reeeeeally nicely, with a pretty please.
It also wouldn't hurt if we were all a tad more mindful and considerate about what we do, it can be easy to forget that theres always someone else on the other end of our actions. Help out those who are new to the community and giving them a nudge in the right direction if they're doing something wrong.
Simple stuff like that can go a surprisingly long way.
Also keep in mind a lot of people back then had played the SP and it was still fresh in their minds when they joined multiplayer. Those people that would be now vets have moved on with their lives, either their own choice or going by the path RL takes them.
We would need a lot of people that would be interested in the game in order to get those numbers back. Keep in mind too that the quality of the server will go down since a lot of noobs will be joining (no offence) and they will have to learn from scratch. There would be a bump in the road before things got better, and the rp mentality would need to be active and healthy while noobs learn how to rp.
It isn't as simple as advertising. People feed off of each other. What we need to help this process work smoother is to make the place friendly and attractive to noobs , but also be willing to help them in their questions. The faster new players learn, the faster the get attracted and give a positive to the community.
Posts: 6,111
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Probably the biggest killer is how some people treat others badly and somehow get the "high ground" or most of all, bias and victimization - taking the game too sincerely to the heart, or making drama for the sake of it and just making it needlessly stressful.
Tried getting some people back for the sake of nostalgia but are simply disinterested due to the previously mentioned issue; bad attitude.
Prob the only thing to make it interesting is if there was more features = more fun, even if minor. Maybe add a lottery feature in flhook xd
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We need gameplay that is fun, challenging, etc. and can be played solo and cooperatively to encourage players logging in. Like trading, but with more interesting rewards than credits, and, well, more fun. Missions are a very good example - the engine offers more than enough to make fun missions that aren't just "Buy a really heavy BS, hold RMB while aiming towards swarms of enemy caps". There's something else currently in the works that is unlikely to be very challenging but it should be fun for players who enjoy the "exploration" part of the game.
As a developer, one of the big issues here however is manpower / the rate at which people work (myself included). I believe more players would play, and more players would stick around, if content was churned out an order of magnitude faster than it currently is.
I don't believe in the whole "the game is just too old" story. Yes, of course it's a huge part of a our problem (primarily, IMO, because getting the game is actually very difficult). The engine allows much more than what Discovery currently offers, however.
Also, if new content were to actually be made in the near future, fancy trailers and proper advertising would also go a long way to bring players to the game, I think.
That and as we grow older, we tend to grow out of that roleplay phase, especially if it is something we've been doing for a handful of years. I know I have.
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PSA: If you have been having stutter/FPS lag on Disco where it does not run as smoothly as other games, please look at the fix here: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2306502
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