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Discussion Why player counts so low

Discussion in 'The Network' started by Moliya__Suwako, Dec 12, 2018.

Discussion - Why player counts so low
  1. KINGJED1 Platinum

    XP:
    13,116xp
    Haven't really been on in a year(ish) or so but It has never been this bad

  2. FadingGeneral Platinum

    XP:
    313,988xp
    Well it's finals/exam season for a good chunk of the playerbase, so that may be the reason.
  3. RisingThumb Regular Member

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    96,839xp
    [IMG]

    Statistics speak louder than words.
  4. InstantLightning Jr. Developer, Web Mod Lead

    XP:
    384,964xp
    Overall, the playercount was stable in between 1.9 and summer staying in between 800-600 player peaks each month. However, during the end of summer we started getting attacked by people using a network of bots to crash and lag servers. We had all of our developers looking for ways to combat them, and they managed to half the playercount in a few weeks. The graph is misleading in the way that for 2016 it only showed two and a half months. Where we indeed lost players at a much faster rate due to the lack of updates. The way the graph makes it look however is that its been losing players at a constant rate since before 1.9. If you had the graph just monthly back then, it would be 2000 in August of 2016, 1500 in September 2016, and getting down to a thousand by the end of November, the graph would actually look like this.(Drew it using data and paint) https://imgur.com/a/GqnRpAs As you can see, we lost a lot during the 2016 days, and I believe this is due to the lack of updates because we couldnt update any game due to each of the servers being 1.9. But between August and July, you can see that the playercount tanked. It continued to tank the next couple of months where at one month I believe we peaked at around 250, but recently with the updates and us defending against the bots, the playercount has gone back to about 450.
  5. TheBearOfJustice Marketing Team

    XP:
    42,530xp
    I feel like Shotbow is not adapting fast enough. A year or a few years it was popular because of the custom gamemodes which were promoted by the players themselves who brought friend etc. In 2018 all the gamemodes are years and years old and the interest declined so new players didn't go to Shotbow or don't even know it exists. Together with poor marketing the network decreased exponentially. About a week ago I gave some suggestions to Mistri on discord with ideas which can help the network grow. Then I just get a response that these things have been suggested before, but the fact that it has been suggested before but nothing is done with it while it takes less then a day to implement all the features I suggested and help the network MASSIVELY is worrisome to me.
    Hingey likes this.
  6. waltster Regular Member

    XP:
    133,890xp
    Hi,

    With the rate that Minecraft is changing, and the added dynamic of the rapidly changing player base, the way that the game itself it played is rapidly changing. The players who were originally playing the game as middle-schoolers, high-schoolers, and university students in the 2010-2018 have now reached an age where more is required of them or they no longer desire to play with younger aged children (for the most part). Combined with the key changes that occurred to the game itself, such as the 1.9 update that changed the entire combat system, some of the original attraction to Minecraft has been lost.

    Additionally, with the DCMA takedown of the CraftBukkit project and the "under the table" distribution of Spigot after Wesley Wolfe issued legal action against the open-source projects contributing to the Minecraft server networks, and the imposition of the new EULA by Mojang, the creative license for servers in terms of games, staffing, and funding was removed in a big way. With CraftBukkit specifically, nearly the entire community surrounding the development of games, plugins, and other network solutions was, realistically, eliminated overnight. Without the developer base to evolve the actual mechanics of the game, older community members (for all of Minecraft) lost interest and started working on other games or projects.

    Shotbow itself took this hit when the older player base in the U.S. began to fade away. I have been a long-time community member and have seen the shift from 20,000 online to the current state. I think there have been milestones on this decline, but nothing substantial enough to warrant a specific blame to one person.

    For one, the community has been largely ignored throughout the years as it shifted, which is a natural response. The staff cannot listen to 15,000 voices and make educated decisions, and for a while this worked. Second, it is important to remember that the staff base has changed over the years as well. Many of the founding members have been replaced but younger staff who were not around for the beginning of Shotbow. Austin (lazertester), HighlifeTTU, and Saunders are all great examples of this. They have moved on with their lives and, while still instrumental components of the history of the community, left.

    To be completely honest, this isn't so much an issue with Shotbow as it is with the Minecraft community itself, especially around developers. When a thriving open-source project becomes closed-source and secretive the results are catastrophic. We have seen this with Bukkit. The other servers that are thriving right now have shifted to attract a younger player base and more child-friendly, which is there choice. Shotbow has always been a server with high-quality games for players of all ages, but specifically games for older teens.


    Cheers,
    Walt
    Ktrompfl, Fluffoon and Mistri like this.
  7. Navarr Councilor

    XP:
    1,333,433xp
    Anything takes resources. Resources are time and/or money.

    If it takes just a day it probably costs a lot, if it doesn't cost a lot it probably takes time away from other things

    That's the typical problem.

    I'd be more than happy to hear your suggestions, though

    EDIT: I'm going though older and older posts and just saw you have a suggestion thread. I'll be reading that immediately

    Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

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