Just out of curiosity, what percentage of the players in the MA get on the forum here?
According to HTC, a very low percentage, which is strange considering the time and effort put into patrolling/moderating the bbs, but that's an entirely different issue.
I would suspect that the complainers do not represent the majority of the players.
If that is true, explain why the numbers are 3/5 to 1/2 or lower each night than they used to be back in the Titanic Tuesday/Blue/Orange days? Especially when other 15$ per month sub games that are nearly as old (Eve, etc), are still thriving, even increasing in numbers which are many, many times what is going on here?
That having been said, any product needs to change (evolve) as the needs of the consumer change
This is exactly what I've been saying for a year+ - that all this attrition of the player base can't be wrong, and that SOME change is needed, I don't care about which change, as I have little complaint myself about the game personally, however it's obviously a major issue to many, many other players.
I believe HTC is doing that.
How so exactly? I asked Lusche a few threads ago about this specifically, if he could chart the "Change" that HTC has brought in say the last 3 or 4 years. He found one, a very small change to how the strat system operates. If you're referring to the new version, you can't make any claim about "change to the game" coming, as HTC has remained comms dark about this, as usual, other than the obvious change to the graphics engine and such. No mention of any changes to how the game actually "plays" or works. If there is anything I will consider "complaining" about, it's not the game, it's the fact that virtually NO change has happened in this 3-4 year time perioddespite a huge migration of players elsewhere, despite obvious signs of dissatisfaction problems among many. It doesn't take a business PhD to see the following - many complaints on bbs, 3/5 to 1/2 the number of players online from recent past, no changes to game despite this - that something has gone amiss, somewhere.
Getting tired of all the whining, armchair quarterbacking, and "business experts" spouting their unsolicited 2 cents. No disrespect intended to the OP or anyone else
Fair enough, I'm no fan of reading them either, but I'm less of a fan of having 278 as a peak number at night, and after 8 or 9 pm seeing less than 200 on nearly every single night this week. Standing up to the crowd and saying "all of you whiners here suck", and then turning around a few years later, seeing the crowd is half the size, and repeating the same statement despite the fact that half the people have left....
I have hope, or I wouldn't be staying around paying for a game a barely play any longer. I'd love nothing more to see several gameplay changes at least attempted, even if only temporarily, to come along with the next big update. IMO this would give HTC a much greater chance of keeping the large influx of players that will hopefully be coming out of the woodwork, as well as coming over from WT to see what this game is all about. This in addition to large numbers having a way of sorting many of the current issues out on its own, will hopefully make this one of very few games to ever last 20 years online.