free to play needed

[Narayan]

Im gonna try this again, and hopefully we can have a constructive conversation without it turning into flaming, keeping in mind that this is a conversation for the good of the community, and therefore the common good, and not a place to grieve petty differences.

The steam charts average is below 100, and late night it gets down to 2 very unbalanced lobbies. There needs to be some way to get people into the game, the steam sale has worn off and left the game no better than where it was before, skyball has not brought people back and made them stay. There is in my mind only one option and that is free to play, for the pvp or skirmish side.

Ive seen the game with numbers at 4k and that is amazing, really it is you have so many people to play with and against it gives the game a reputability that it just doesnt have right now, when you are playing against the same people over and over again. It also makes the game feel alive, you get to see new clans and make new friends. Please if for no other reason free to play would be amazing for just that.

Muse you already have an item store in place, the infrastructure is already there, and I know youre counting on alliance to make the game happening again, but Im not 100 percent sure thats the answer. Ive meet a lot of people who are excited about a alliance, but ive meet more who arent. Even then the game really only appeals to people who already play pvp, so lets give pvp away and you can sell more copies of alliance.

The other fun part of f2p is it could give you more time to iron out alliance instead of feeling like you are rushed to get it out in order to save the game (although in all fairness i dont think anyone here would accuse you of rushing alliance lol).

To those who are worried about player quality drop due to free to play that already happened with 3 dollar guns of icarus.

I understand that you gave a way a bunch of free keys, i havent seen that reflected in the server pop. If it goes free to play the game will get the free to play tag in the steam store which is basically free advertisement.

In conclusion game population is critically low, skyball was fail, free to play is needed.

[Byron Cavendish]

F2P won't work long-term, just as any promotion or sale hasn't in the past. I'll explain why.

Both those methods will work at getting a spike in activity short term, which is great. However, after the "honeymoon phase" with the game wears off, people will leave. They will leave because this game isn't supported with new content that people want (guns, ships, maps).

From my calculations, MUSE has created 7 new ships, 7 new guns, and 7 new maps since the release of skirmish (factoring in both skirmish and alliance content). That is 1.75, or 2 (rounding up) new ships, 2 new guns, and 2 new maps a year that they have produced.

Unfortunately, that is my minimum expectation of content that should be produced and available for skirmish at this point. This is even factoring in Alliance content, which should double that. Basically, MUSE is 4 years behind in expected content, and this is a problem that others, and myself, have tried communicating to them for these past 4 years.

That is a huge problem with the game, and a reason why not only veteran players, but entire clans, and casual players from sales are not returning, and why advertising will have diminishing returns (to the point of being completely ineffective).

This game will continue to bleed players, F2P or not, until it begins to provide new (meaningful) content on a consistent basis.

Basically, they've wasted 4 good years of opportunity to add to their game and keep their community strong, and I don't see how they can bounce back from that.

[Narayan]

You know call me simple, but I like guns, and I think even at this state its a very good game. The problem you hit on is the same one i see, and that is replay ability. That can come in the form of ships, or it can come i the form of experiences you have fighting different players, or flying with new friends. I think for a lot of us we have friends in the game or in our clan that we keep coming back for and we keep playing with.

As a new player and one of the things I see them get really frustrated about is they get relegated to shit crews and shit captians and end up getting stomped. Thats just unavoidable with such a low pop, however if we had thousands of players match maker would be able to put these people into games that were down to their level of incompetence letting them get better at the game, and make friends at the same time. Because I mean lets face it most of us vets already have friends, and most clans dont invite some guy in on his first day playing the game. A large player base would allow a social experience much more similar to what I had back in the glory days of the game, and give a form of content that I think is currently missing from the game.

Thats not to say that you are wrong and new content would be great, however i dont think its coming to pvp any time soon. They tried skyball and I dont think that has worked as well as they had hoped to restore player pop. Alliance will be out in another quarter or two but that wont help with the pvp pop to the extent many hope it will in my opinion, and it certainly isnt content for pvp. Without the new content being created the only other new content available is f2p in the form of massive amounts of players.

[Daxrash]

Sadly, if it sounds too good to be true, it is.

I have been there. I have seen that happen to one of my favorite games of all times- ALTITUDE. (its free, look it up on steam)
It was the same situation like in goio- noobstomping, low population. everything was the same. Its even a heavily team-coop-based game, just like goio.

We went down to ~50-75 players at the time [in goio we are ranging from 25-200 depending on hours]

You know what happened after they made the game f2p?
We had a HUGE amount of new players coming in. As a result, most Vets quitted the game forever, as all the lobbies became a huge cluster of "scrub" loadouts, which means none of the vets actually enjoyed the game anymore.

Around 2 months later, most of those noobs, who just downloaded the game "for the lolz", quitted as well.
Looking back, it was pretty obvious they would.
the Vets? they never returned.
Because they already moved on to other games.

Since then, all attempts of reviving the game have failed.

And thus, came an end to my second favorite team-based game (after goio).
Now the population is around 7-10 players at the same time at most. you cant even fill an entire lobby most hours of the day.


Please.
If you love this game like I do, PLEASE leave the f2p idea alone, in the dark, where it belongs.
It already killed a game I loved. Please dont let it do it again. 

[Hilary Briss]

You know what happened after they made the game f2p?
We had a HUGE amount of new players coming in. As a result, most Vets quitted the game forever, as all the lobbies became a huge cluster of "scrub" loadouts, which means none of the vets actually enjoyed the game anymore.

Kind of like a lot of the games are now for veterans. Balance changes, noobs being noobs in 50% of all games. Lochnagar what's up with that. When you hear a noob giving a Veteran pilot some mouth over not wanting the tool loadout, then think this is for most matches. Teaching teaching teaching. Lots of Veterans do not want to teach every scrub as it is always a one on one, they leave after the match and the cycle starts again

Around 2 months later, most of those noobs, who just downloaded the game "for the lolz", quitted as well.
Looking back, it was pretty obvious they would.
the Vets? they never returned.

Most of the Veteran players have already left as have most of the clans. Or the clans only have a few die-hards left playing LQQks at the Dagz clan activity

I teach novice lobby's every time i log in to guns Every-time. I have consistently taught lobby's since I have been semi average at the game. The reason the scrubs leave is they have such a small game pool to draw from & very few people with their low skill-set in Novice & it is over in some 57 games. That puts the scrub on and in an experienced lobby.

SO it is in the scrubs best interest to be humble! As they have no right taking a galleon at level 3 and telling you "fuck off i can fly what i like i bought the game" Pilot looks at lobby and ally guns and already knows there will be little point in engaging with the surly scub even advice is met with fuck off & that the match will end in defeat. For every scrub that mouths off to a decent friendly Pilot it may well put them off for teaching the next surly crew. I think people seem to forget that scrubs in this game are as more a hazard than the Vets were.

Cause & effect.

[Richard LeMoon]

Free to play will not fix fundamental reasons people do not stick around. This will fix one of them.

[Daxrash]

Most of the Veteran players have already left as have most of the clans. Or the clans only have a few die-hards left playing LQQks at the Dagz clan activity

I teach novice lobby's every time i log in to guns Every-time. I have consistently taught lobby's since I have been semi average at the game. The reason the scrubs leave is they have such a small game pool to draw from & very few people with their low skill-set in Novice & it is over in some 57 games. That puts the scrub on and in an experienced lobby.

SO it is in the scrubs best interest to be humble! As they have no right taking a galleon at level 3 and telling you "fuck off i can fly what i like i bought the game" Pilot looks at lobby and ally guns and already knows there will be little point in engaging with the surly scub even advice is met with fuck off & that the match will end in defeat. For every scrub that mouths off to a decent friendly Pilot it may well put them off for teaching the next surly crew. I think people seem to forget that scrubs in this game are as more a hazard than the Vets were.

Cause & effect.

While I completely agree with you, its not something making the game f2p would solve, but rather make it worse.
Yes, it is in their interest to be humble, but we all know a lot of them WON'T be, and they will make the rest of the vets who are still here quit the game forever.
The majority, who wont be this "fun-to-teach humble lvl 2 engineer who tries his best" kind of people, will quit soon after that because they will lose interest of the game, because they had no interest in learning the high level gameplay in the first place.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Most of the Veteran players have already left as have most of the clans. Or the clans only have a few die-hards left playing LQQks at the Dagz clan activity

I teach novice lobby's every time i log in to guns Every-time. I have consistently taught lobby's since I have been semi average at the game. The reason the scrubs leave is they have such a small game pool to draw from & very few people with their low skill-set in Novice & it is over in some 57 games. That puts the scrub on and in an experienced lobby.

SO it is in the scrubs best interest to be humble! As they have no right taking a galleon at level 3 and telling you "fuck off i can fly what i like i bought the game" Pilot looks at lobby and ally guns and already knows there will be little point in engaging with the surly scub even advice is met with fuck off & that the match will end in defeat. For every scrub that mouths off to a decent friendly Pilot it may well put them off for teaching the next surly crew. I think people seem to forget that scrubs in this game are as more a hazard than the Vets were.

Cause & effect.

While I completely agree with you, its not something making the game f2p would solve, but rather make it worse.
Yes, it is in their interest to be humble, but we all know a lot of them WON'T be, and they will make the rest of the vets who are still here quit the game forever.
The majority, who wont be this "fun-to-teach humble lvl 2 engineer who tries his best" kind of people, will quit soon after that because they will lose interest of the game, because they had no interest in learning the high level gameplay in the first place.

I'm just too busy to play most of the time and when I do, I don't have the desire to put up with trolls or scrubs.

Lot of problems stem from just Muse being unable to really provide things at a fast enough pace. They just aren't big enough to do it but people expect it. Most of the current VIP and Skyball stuff was stuff that Aerodrome and SAC pioneered over a year ago. Trouble was, by the time Muse implemented it, the players had moved on.

The lack of personal server hosting and inability to kick vote has only added to resentment about GOIO. There has always been two factions in the community and when one rises, the other falls. Players leave. Then the reverse happens but the problem is, it never gains back the players it lost. Burn people once, they won't be so quick to come back. Personal hosting could have resolved this from the beginning and provided options and rulesets that would have flourished. Especially during the time GOIO launched where Chivalry was making headlines about this very ability.

Kick vote...this is the biggest feature Muse has triumphed preventing and is one I hear the most veterans or really even any player wanting. The CA system doesn't work. It never worked. I know many who won't play GOIO because it doesn't have a kick vote. They love the game and world but they won't play it because they refuse to put up with douchebags. Then others who think they'll gain that power with CA status only to find CA status means you are shoved into a monkey enclosure and forced to sit there and be treated like a toilet with no means of stopping it.

Aside from that, the reality of this community is not a cheery place. It's a gamer community full of people who are great and people who need to be castrated and never allowed to breed ever. Look at the decline in major community events. The exodus of casters out of the community.

Before I got really busy I got the storyline for Aero 4 ready but then I looked here and saw it was just dead. Attendance for events was pitiful. When I'd talk to others, there was just no interest in running or participating any event. Fellow organizers were who tried things were so put off by members of the community that they just didn't want to ever host another event again.

F2P needs to stop being brought up. It won't solve any of these problems. In fact it will only add to them. It has a terrible track record and at most all it does it benefit a game for a short time. I know about Altitude and that is not an isolated story. I've seen it over the years. It's the same routine. F2P turns games to poo and if you look at most F2P games, they aren't really free. People are just too stupid to realize they are paying more for a game in other ways than in the initial payment.

[Hoja Lateralus]