HiTech,
You do understand the fact that the majority of people who play this game really dislike the caps you have implemented for one reason or another. Here's an idea, remove them and let paying subscribers "choose" which arena they would rather fly in. If one arena achieves "cess-pool" status then let those players who can't handle it "choose" to fly in another arena, the less populated one. I on the other hand will dive right in and 'ave it large like the good old days. Honest to God this game just isn't the same since caps were put in place.
Kazaa,
While I don't love the caps, I understand them as HT has quite often answered why they exist, and I don't think they are going away, unless someone can find a better way of doing what the caps do now.
A) Very high numbers in arena creates player "Cess Pool"
B) It's been proven time and time again that the player base does not police itself well, hence adding to the "Cess Pool". (Caps, ENY, and Perks are proof of this fact)
C) There is a "magic number" that HTC believes creates the best/happiest gameplay.
D) HTC's "live" subscriptions were dwindling before the caps were introduced
E) HTC's "live" supscriptions grew after they were introduced.
Just a couple of explanations from HT below :
Simple not refutable facts.
1. Before arena split AH was not longer growing.
2. After arena split AH started growing fast than it ever had.
Now there really is only 1 reason for this, more people are having fun, and thus subscribe.
As I stated , you completely miss the force of the herd mentality. We already have 3 different choices. Does it do much to spread players out?
What would happen is the 450 cap arena would fill up. And then I would have people would complaining and wanting the cap raised. We would raise the cap as you wish and end up with one big arena. Next I start loosing players because they are not having as much fun. My revenue and player counts go down because people are not having as much fun. I switch back to the system I have now.
And as I stated before, we tried this when we first made the arena splits.
And as a different question, if 1 arena is so wonderful , why is Tuesday night not the busiest night of the week?
The basic problem is all about the same thing you wish to promote, Having fun with friends.
My view is we had crossed a point where it became very difficult for a new person entering the game to make new friends.
Please do a search as for detailed reasons I think this was so. But in a nut shell it amounts to ....
When you have to many people in 1 place peer pressure no longer is a control on peoples behavior. Once peer pressure is no longer a control, people will start to exhibit hostile behavior to each other, (in essence overcrowding).
Because of the over crowding we had been forced to implement at lot of game changes (more police type force) to try to control the over crowding.
The arena became much less of a fun social place, then it had at other times.
The current change is an attempt at removing the over crowding and letting pier pressure back into the system.
With some time people will change there behavior back to a more social friendly environment.
If you understand the above, then the question becomes.
How do you spit a group of people while letting them maintain there current set of friends?
Our first attempt was as follows.
Lower arena caps,make arenas of slightly different game play (I.E EW/MW/LW) to see if people can be drawn off the old main population.
The first itteration drew some people to other arenas, but the force of wanting to go to the arena with the most players was to great. And hence to make 2 sustained 250 peek time arenas was not working, because no one wanted to be the first into the empty arena.
While we contemplated a new solution we raised the caps back to 390. This still was not large enough to handle the people still wanting to go to the big arena.
So the current implemtation is designed toward minimizing the time the 2nd arena is below critical mass.
I had hoped that also by always bumping the limit on the lower arena, people would realize that if the numbers were close to equal, the lower populated arena would be where they would next have the most people.
This at times keeps both areas in a non full state, and hence, as you wish , you could always fly with your squad.
Also understand that peoples behavior will only change over time. And in a few weeks it is well possible, that both arenas will allways have space to go play with your squad.
