New Player Counts

[duncathan]

Today in coderbus, MSO kindly linked some data on new player counts since they've begun to be tallied. I decided to take the time to chart these values out.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 1124540833

Spoiler:

Draw your own conclusions. Feel free to look at the values tab, too.

Our best day for new players: February 3rd, 2013, with 72 new members. This is discounting the outlying values from the initial implementation of the tallying.
Our worst day for new players: Tie between June 27, 2013 and June 28, 2013.

[Ricotez]

what is up with august man

do people get collectively bored or something

[lumipharon]

>near record low new player counts

And peopple were worried about some magic torrent of new players flooding the server why exactly?
Without new blood, communities die out.

[Ikarrus]

I think it's more that SS13 as a whole has grown larger, and opened more servers with a wider variation of environments.

We're not dying out, we just need find ways to stand out. Fortunately for us, we're already well-established.

[onleavedontatme]

I think it's more that SS13 as a whole has grown larger, and opened more servers with a wider variation of environments.

We're not dying out, we just need find ways to stand out. Fortunately for us, we're already well-established.

By stripping all the fun out to become "vanilla," clearly

[Amelius]

Clearly 2013 was the best year, hence the most daily new players (good reputation and so forth), then everything has been going downhill since.

I kinda agree with that, just the sense of gameplay and level of 'fun' offered by /tg/ peaked, at least, for me around then. Been a slow fall since, and I hardly play any more at this point, besides those rare weeks that I feel like reliving the /tg/ of the past, only to be immensely disappointed by the reality. It feels like much of the flavor and colour has been sapped from the game in lieu of some mystical objective of 'balance' in a game built on inbalance, or mere sheer arrogance that they must pursue some vision that *they* have of the game, ignoring the community's will (Pap's and some of Cheri's changes especially reek of this - for the latter, look no further than the nuke op implant thread where he had no argument, barely anyone agreed with him, he tried to have the thread deleted, and yet, because one coder decided that it was 'for the better', the situation has only been slightly improved, and not properly or rationally).

That said, some recent changes have made things better (readdition of survivor wiz, etc.), and the community has clearly pointed that they want the older times back with that 'lethality' poll, but then the newer folks who came here recently especially argue against everything that's even marginally dangerous or chaos-inducing, which is subsequently nerfed or removed and so forth, when this entire game is about antagonists terrorizing a space station 99% of the time, who are no longer intimidating. I mean fuck, we're even talking about removing transformation sting just because 'it's not funny'. Of course, there's a difference between, say, morphine blob where you're down for 30 minutes because you stood in smoke for 3 seconds, which is just ludicrous, and, say, an ebow being spammable again, instead of a shotgun.

Still, people are treating antags like you should be able to 1v1 combat an antag 100% of the time with equal footing no matter who you are, so long as they aren't a solo antag, or at least be able to shout for help with your location and position, which is just insanity if you want any level of fun or paranoia on a station of 60 people and only 8~ traitors in the midst.

[specyalic]

the million dollar question: how to attract new players without looking like tryhards

[Amelius]

the million dollar question: how to attract new players without looking like tryhards

Improve the server. Roll back to 2013 code. I dunno, be creative, but I can tell you more hugboxing is just gonna alienate all the old guard even more than it already has.

[duncathan]

Have some more data.
Best day: February 3rd, 2013, with 72 new players. This is excluding the large influx of new players that occured when the tallying system was implemented.
Worst days: October 29th, 2012, and June 27th and 28th, 2013. I'm curious to see how consistent 2013 was in terms of new players. I'll make up a couple new charts.

[duncathan]

More data; new chart.
Best month: April 2013, with 1172 new players
Worst month: October 2012, with 315 new players.


Feel free to take a closer look.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... teractive"

Clearly 2013 was the best year, hence the most daily new players (good reputation and so forth), then everything has been going downhill since.

I'd advise against jumping to conclusions so quickly. While 2013 clearly had the most new players, what really matters is how many of them stuck around, and when those that didn't left. MSO is working on getting me more data so I can chart out even more. Once we get some of that, things'll be a little more clear. Note that nothing is cut and dry, however.

[callanrockslol]

2013 was a big year for new players getting in the community, /tg/station13 was basically the default for a lot of these and I think when we got the second server.

[Malkevin]

I never realised how much of a surge in new fags we got in 2013.