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CN Player Numbers


Londo Mollari

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27,541 Nations

It was around 32,000 when I started. It goes up and down (particularly down during major wars as a lot of people delete), but it seems to be slowly shrinking over time. I heard that it was at around 40,000 in the great war era.

I have a few questions for the CN community. Perhaps discussing them will be fruitful, perhaps not, but it can't hurt to try.

1. What do you see as the ideal size for our world?

A. Smaller than it is now. 15,000 to 20,000 players, or ever fewer.

B. The current size is perfect. Around 30,000 players.

C. Great War Era size. Around 40,000 players.

D. Huge. As big as possible. Many hundreds of thousands of players, as many as we can possibly get.

There are two main parameters that influence player count - player recruitment and player retention. I come to you today, to ask how we can improve both of those factors (assuming you want to see Planet Bob grow).

Ideas

Player recruitment

Mass e-mail spamming the entire world with a well constructed recruitment e-mail to come try the game. Is this legal, lol? Seems like it would be effective

Recruiting more online communities to come play the game.

Player retention

Can simple changes be made to the game to make it better? Will adding more incentives for conflict increase appeal? Should rebuilding be made easier? Should open and direct conflict be made more damaging to both sides, but political maneuvering and subtle plays win the day? Would a reworking of the economic system adding tariffs and embargos and an actual world market etc etc make the game more appealing? Should it be made more or less difficult to keep a beaten group down? What about to build a top rate military alliance, should it be able to be done in less time?

Should it be easier for people to connect and form relationships in game, seeing as how not everyone will use IRC and some don't even like offsite forums?

Hoping the thread will generate some discussion, and hopefully even some results. :)

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I think that more players would make the game more interesting, but I'm content with how it is. An influx of players now would bring in more raids for smaller nations (which may not be as fun but you can live through it), tech deals for larger nations, and a larger overall community. I don't think it should reach a number where the GRL would ever be able to reach 1000 every war (what a nightmare D:) solely off of the newer players' nuclear proliferation, but certainly the game could use more players.

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I'd say larger is good, but not insane. Also, maybe add a poll option on, or we could make a topic with a poll.

Edit: Also, take a look here http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showtopic=59843

It's a topic that briefly discussed the same topic.

Edited by WCaesarD
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I would have no problem with having a larger CN community. If anything, we need some fresh faces in here. We've been fighting over the same old rivalries of a few old people for quite some time now. It would be interesting to see a change.

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I think the amount of players is pretty good, more would be nice though but it would depend on activity to have an impact. As far as retention well more war or more nation build options, because the political part of the game is now largely based on IRC and confined to a few controlled corners.

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How is a shrinking game better for your alliance?

I can't speak for him but one thread of logic goes that the alliances recruiting entirely from older players can't really take advantage of a new influx of players, whereas larger lower average NS alliances will be able to go on a recruiting glut and build score and farm tech.

So while it doesn't particularly hurt them in the net, they'd get some more tech deals, in relative terms they sink.

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I think that more players would make the game more interesting, but I'm content with how it is. An influx of players now would bring in more raids for smaller nations (which may not be as fun but you can live through it), tech deals for larger nations, and a larger overall community. I don't think it should reach a number where the GRL would ever be able to reach 1000 every war (what a nightmare D:) solely off of the newer players' nuclear proliferation, but certainly the game could use more players.

GRL can't go above 300. It's calculated as percentage of the world's nations who have been nuked times three.

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More isn't always better. After all, how many of those 27,000 nations are there that don't participate in anything past "collect taxes, buy infra?" The real trick is to get those inactive but playing the game players interested in alliances, OWF, role-playing, IRC, etc.

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A feature should be implemented forcing players to register on the forums within their first twenty days of forming a nation, as well as retroactively forcing older nations whom have not. I didn't even register on the forums after many months of playing until I was pointed their to POW in the UJW.

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Recruitment from other gaming communities would be great. Are there any we haven't hit yet though?

I think the more the better. People already complain about so many alliances, but we might as well add more nations to the already current system. Recruiting is difficult these days.

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I think the amount of players is pretty good, more would be nice though but it would depend on activity to have an impact. As far as retention well more war or more nation build options, because the political part of the game is now largely based on IRC and confined to a few controlled corners.

There are a few main reasons that political power is so centralized and concentrated. The first reason is OPSEC. If you really don't have it at all, you'll wind up dead in this world. The more people you have involved in your strategic planning, the greater the possibility of a leak. The other reason is that there is basically a bell curve of activity/motivation to be politically active. The most active and competent people end up running successful alliances because it takes work to make a successful alliance, and of course access to the political game is part of the reward for the effort put forth to run an alliance

We are seeing more and more alliances crop up these days. I don't know that that's necessarily a bad thing, but the problem is that most new alliances don't ever really do much. Conflict and interaction between alliances is stifled by two main things - the MDP web and the fact that entering into a conflict usually means that either you win a glorious victory, or your face gets stomped on for weeks or months as punishment for losing. Those two things are inter-related together, and ensure that conflict is slow to come, but very brutal and decisive when it does. The weeks and months leading up to a conflict are very exciting for the active few involved in alliance leadership, but not so much for the ordinary citizens of an alliance, as they aren't involved in the backroom plotting. The war itself may be exciting and fun for them, but wars themselves are becoming farther and fewer between.

One thing that might possibly help CN is the ending of the practice of protectorate treaties. On paper it looks like a good idea, but when you look at the system all it really does is keep alliance conflict down. I think alliances should stop signing protectorate treaties and sign something like an advice treaty with a smaller alliance instead. Because sure, they can protect the small alliance by locking them into their side of the MDP web, but that prevents the small alliance from exploring the world on its own and having a bit of conflict with others, because someone else is protecting those others. Of course the issue with the idea of doing away with protectorate treaties is that the smaller alliance is usually serving as a tech source for the larger alliance, which makes the smaller alliance a vital long term strategic military asset which needs to be protected. This basically means that instantaneous tech deals like 3x3's would pretty much have to become the norm, but that's not really so bad.

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I can't speak for him but one thread of logic goes that the alliances recruiting entirely from older players can't really take advantage of a new influx of players, whereas larger lower average NS alliances will be able to go on a recruiting glut and build score and farm tech.

So while it doesn't particularly hurt them in the net, they'd get some more tech deals, in relative terms they sink.

Well, the health and future of the Planet is far more important than any one alliance. I feel that in many ways this is why NPO has been so hated, because people felt they basically suppressed any real action for years, and were content to sit on top of a slowly shrinking world. Would be leaders of the world must act in the overall interests of the world, just as alliance leaders must act in the interests of their alliance. It's as simple as that. If you want to lead the world, if you are in a position to lead the world, then you must act in the interest of the world. NPO was ultimately laid low because they failed to do this - they chose to act in the interest of their alliance alone when long ago they should have considered how to act in the interest of the world. :)

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We are seeing more and more alliances crop up these days. I don't know that that's necessarily a bad thing, but the problem is that most new alliances don't ever really do much. Conflict and interaction between alliances is stifled by two main things - the MDP web and the fact that entering into a conflict usually means that either you win a glorious victory, or your face gets stomped on for weeks or months as punishment for losing. Those two things are inter-related together, and ensure that conflict is slow to come, but very brutal and decisive when it does. The weeks and months leading up to a conflict are very exciting for the active few involved in alliance leadership, but not so much for the ordinary citizens of an alliance, as they aren't involved in the backroom plotting. The war itself may be exciting and fun for them, but wars themselves are becoming farther and fewer between.

I agree with this. There is really no way for an alliance to become involved in a smaller contained "war" What this leads to is the vast majority of nations either never experiencing war, or only experiencing it when it's 3v1 or 1v3. Neither of those situations are really fun (I've been in both).

A reduction of the MDP/MADP web and the reduction of protectorates would improve this game greatly I think. However there's no way that admin could ever implement that as these things are entirely in the realm of player control. It's up to the powers that be to stop signing treaties, or it's up to those that aren't in power to become more active/involved and take power.

Overall a change in general player attitude would help as well. The vast majority of fights in CN have been started by something stupidly trivial which was multiplied 50x over by MDP/MADP webs (this war is a perfect example).

Most of this stuff is a pipe dream though. It all relies on people taking the play of this game more "serious" and this is the internet so I'm not gonna hold my breathe about that happening.

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