Seven years ago, based on my professional expertise, I said if something wasn't changed to open the doors to more new CFers we would see our numbers decline dramatically with no possibility for a bounce back. This statement was met with much argumentative hostility as were any suggestions as to how to right the course. Now, it's regarded as self evident.

Today, I'm going to make another prediction. I'm going to tell you how CF will die.

According to "Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell, in 1986 there were 80,000 fax machines sold. That number rose gradually until 1989 where it reached the point that every business figured it made good sense to have a fax machine too. Fax machines tipped, and millions of machines were sold in a very, very short amount of time.

During the 1970s in the U.S Northeast black families began moving from the cities into the suburbs. Sociologists observed that black people moved into a neighborhood gradually until 20% of the homes became occupied by black folks. At that point the neighborhood tipped, the white people left and the neighborhoods became all black in very short order.

Like these examples, CF will fall at a tipping point. Based on our numbers, there is a good chance that tipping point will come soon.

Seven years ago we had eighty people on at peak times, give or take. Today? Thirty or Forty. It won't take another seven years to lose the last forty. Numbers will gradually drop to a point where the remaining players and immortals will look around and say, "You know, it's just not worth doing this anymore." At this point, the tipping point, they will all leave as one, big group. Our little, dysfunctional fantasy family will be gone.

n/t

.. for those who are already familiar with it.

I play EST times too and it hasn't been any fun this year to the point where
I'm seriously considering packing it in. I used to play 1-2 hours every day,
more on the weekends, but now it's down to few hours a week.

Empire is crippled, Tribunal nonexistent, Outlander inconsistent/fragmented,
ppl don't raid/retrieve, interactions are few and far between, fights hard to come
by when one has 4-5 enemies in range at best. One of my chars has been stuck
at mids waiting for someone to come along and level him and the other one
has nothing to do 90% of the time.

When was the last time we saw major changes cabal-wise? More than 5 years ago.
Isn't it time we reduce and consolidate? Assuming the playerbase was still there,
I'd be bored of the same old same old.

Get rid of nexus and scion, consolidate empire/trib, hell do *something* to introduce some fresh air and I don't mean goblins.

...players now have multiple heroes in multiple cabals.

It's become so easy to rank, I can take a break from my Heroed Villager (when Nexus is beating our ass) for a week and roll up a Fortress Warrior/Shapeshifter to hero.

Then, when I get bored with both of those characters, I can totally roll up a SCION.

That's the biggest problem on CF to me (other than whole "over-rewarding" thing I banged on a while ago).

We need some ying for your yang, debbie.

It's no sense of urgency to implement them.

I recall that you were in charge of it and had immortal consent and cooperation. Also, how's the flash client CF inserted to gaming hubs doing? I think it too had immortal consent.

I think CF has some untapped marketing venues to combat the declining of playerbase. Those venues should be tapped into.

We asked the imps for a short list of things to get started, most of which they were unwilling to provided.

On the list of things that couldn't be done was:

1) A stock letter signed by the CF LLC holders giving me permission to use CF trademarks. I think I asked for a short letter okaying the collecting of marketing donations too - I was told I could have it but never actually received it.
2) A means of identifying and tracking new players.
3) Permission to build a dedicated new player site, separating forum vitriol from the new player experience. (Possibly a compromise was reached and we made that landing page, I can't remember.)

Without going to an old computer and digging through emails I can't tell you the exact dialogue that occurred. I can only recall the overwhelming sense that no one cared to do it.

EDITED: because I forgot we called it "Team Marketing" and my initial post was, "What Team Marketing?"

Carrion Fields is on the fifth page if you hit browse and the pbase stats are:

50 (30day max), 4 (30day min), 23 (30day avg)

Not sure how they get them, if I had to guess I'd say they scrape the login
screen.

kj

Oh yea because when you actually do a mean you take out the massive low times at 2-7 am where there are only 5-22 people on. You..know when most people sleep. That does not show ANY sign that the playerbase is shrinking actually it shows more or a lack of common sense.

mean 3 |mēn|
noun
1 the quotient of the sum of several quantities and their number; an average: acid output was calculated by taking the mean of all three samples. See also arithmetic mean, geometric mean.
• the term or one of the terms midway between the first and last terms of a progression.

Here is why If denny's lets say has 50 people in the resturaunt during the day and 8 during the time between 2-6 am. Does that mean their mean is around 29 and they are going out of business? No it means people aren't normally up at that time so it throws the statistic off. If you want ACCURATE idea of how many play you check on PEAK/REASONABLE TIMES FOR PEOPLE TO BE AWAKE vs when most people are asleep. (Not yelling just emphisising so I can explain my point Completely.)

Your giving me a forth grade explantion of a mean doesn't change that the statistic was misleading and logically inaccurate.

I'd assume it averages out once you consider that simple fact.
2:30pm EST here on a Sat, ~ 32 ppl logged in.

nt

Maybe there was once some crazy outlier, but uh, no. Try less than 10.

I play a good bit at that time. I'm often the only hero.

Yeah. I kinda think you're wrong. For three reasons:

1. There are players who are so into the "sitting around RPing at each other" type stuff that they'll be happy to sit in the inn and do that with the other 10 players online ad infinitum.

2. There are players who are the complete opposite and love killing and griefing people. They'll continue logging on just to frag the aforementioned group.

3. Given the above it seems much more likely that CF will end when one or two of a handful of "key" immortals decides to bail.

>1. There are players who are so into the "sitting around RPing
>at each other" type stuff that they'll be happy to sit in the
>inn and do that with the other 10 players online ad
>infinitum.
>

If you get on it right now you'll see somewhere between 3-6 people chillin. This meets my definition for dead. But I guess we agree.

>2. There are players who are the complete opposite and love
>killing and griefing people. They'll continue logging on just
>to frag the aforementioned group.

This I don't agree with. There won't be enough of the first group to make it worth this groups time. What you are describing here is not far from the state the MUD is currently in.

>
>3. Given the above it seems much more likely that CF will end
>when one or two of a handful of "key" immortals decides to
>bail.

I guess if all four implementors dropped the mic and left, yea - but as long as one of them is around we can limp along until new ones are found. In general businesses don't die because managers leave, they die because customers leave.

>If you get on it right now you'll see somewhere between 3-6
>people chillin. This meets my definition for dead. But I guess
>we agree.

My definition of dead is "you can no longer connect to the game".

>This I don't agree with. There won't be enough of the first
>group to make it worth this groups time.

You assume this type of player is reasonable and well-adjusted. Not sure that's a fair assumption.

>I guess if all four implementors dropped the mic and left, yea
>- but as long as one of them is around we can limp along until
>new ones are found.

I could buy that if they were all contributing the same amount of work and none of them had specialized skillsets. From what I can tell, Scarab doesn't code. Basically only Daevryn and Zulg seem to code. Lose them and all of a sudden it's no new features and no bug fixes period.

>In general businesses don't die because
>managers leave, they die because customers leave.

Sure, but this isn't a business. It's a volunteer effort. Businesses have a revenue stream and can backfill positions when people quit. CF can't really do that. At best it can promote from within, but the other staff in the pipeline may lack the necessary skills to do what needs to be done to keep the lights on.

But that's because of poor leadership and really really sucky players.

Incessant negativity, digging up the Cyradia thing, crazy theories, posts about declining playerbase.

Why are you like this lately?
If you don't want to play don't. But please don't encourage others to not want to play.

nt

You are the self claimed marketing guru, correct? What do you think the impact is of having a post like yours, misrepresenting the peak #s, on the main board, does to interested people checking the game out? Reading crap like this makes ME less inclined to invest time, I can't imagine how others without my investment would feel.

Here's my prediction: whether CF ends in 2 years or 7, you will be the first one in line claiming you predicted its demise. Way to go.

Nothing he said is incorrect (to my recollection, 30-40 isn't far off the mark.) He's trying to, once again, get people to notice the problem and (hopefully) work towards changing it. He's not trying to make you his enemy.

I feel that his approach, by being a doomsayer of sorts, just further worsens the situation. Instead of being all doom and gloom, how about actually offering some ways to help, or god forbid, actually do something?

He claims he's a marketing expert. He claims he wants to help CF.

It doesn't take an expert to realize that his post, in this board, does the exact opposite of making CF appealing to people coming to this site for the first time, or considering rolling up a character after some time away from the game. I was in advertising for just a couple years before becoming an attorney - and I know that. I have to assume he is not a moron or oblivious, which means he just doesn't care.

So what does he care about?

Well, in my opinion, based on his self-assessment and actions, that he cares about marketing himself, not CF.

If he really cared about marketing CF, he'd contact Whiys. He'd promote the facebook site more through shares and links. He'd make this post on the marketing forum instead of the gameplay board. He doesn't do any of that. Why? Because all he wants - and probably needs - is to draw attention to himself.

Bottom line is we all know the data points. (Although I'd like to point out that numbers have seemingly improved the last month or so since I returned (I was AWOL for a few months there), and the peak numbers since I returned seem to be more in the range of 50-60. I don't know what to attribute that to, or whether it will last, but he's low.)

>He claims he's a marketing expert. He claims he wants to
>help CF.

Ya know, like saying "claims" in this condescending fashion. Do I want to help CF? There's nothing I can do. Although, I will say my $$ has always been where my mouth is. You might thank me for my monetary contributions and past input into the betterment of CF instead of slinging mud at me. Right now? Nope, there's nothing I can do for CF - at most I want to stir the person who will.

>
>It doesn't take an expert to realize that his post, in this
>board, does the exact opposite of making CF appealing to
>people coming to this site for the first time, or considering
>rolling up a character after some time away from the game. I
>was in advertising for just a couple years before becoming an
>attorney - and I know that. I have to assume he is not a
>moron or oblivious, which means he just doesn't care.

Could possibly be why I advocated a site for new people a long time ago. What I managed to get done was a landing page, which you probably don't realize, I wrote the backbone of. (But no, I've never got anything constructive to add.)

Why not post it in Marketing? Because this isn't a marketing post. Although, since you brought it up, I'll remind you that the Marketing board started as a result of my suggestions seven years ago. (But no, I've never got anything constructive to add.)


>
>So what does he care about?
>
>Well, in my opinion, based on his self-assessment and actions,
>that he cares about marketing himself, not CF.

Marketing myself? Yea - I can't recall ever getting any business from marketing myself on a CF forum. It really wouldn't be a good way to promote yourself, which I guess isn't something you'd learn in law school. You know what I do recall though? Giving tons of free advice to anyone from CF who asked me for it. Come to think of it, all my insurance (which is considerable) is written by the family of a CFer. So yea, pretty much the opposite of what your'e saying is true.


>
>If he really cared about marketing CF, he'd contact Whiys.
>He'd promote the facebook site more through shares and links.
>He'd make this post on the marketing forum instead of the
>gameplay board. He doesn't do any of that. Why? Because all
>he wants - and probably needs - is to draw attention to
>himself.
>

Or to draw attention to gaping whole in the bottom of our ship. Why not contact Whys re: marketing? Because I'm waiting for the things I said were the right first steps seven years ago to come to fruition. It's not worth my investment. Why not post links to it on my Facebook page? Because there is no way in hell I would refer my friends to an organization that I don't stand behind.

>Bottom line is we all know the data points. (Although I'd
>like to point out that numbers have seemingly improved the
>last month or so since I returned (I was AWOL for a few months
>there), and the peak numbers since I returned seem to be more
>in the range of 50-60. I don't know what to attribute that
>to, or whether it will last, but he's low.)

You need to read the other posts I've written in this thread. I said there are 30-40 players on at peak times. Not it peaks at 30-40 players.

I'm sorry that for whatever reason the immortals of carrion fields don't like it when their players point out uncomfortable facts and ask them to do something about it. I'm sorry I didn't tip toe and sugar coat and include the now obligatory "And thanks for all you do!" to keep you from going on the attack. When one of my customers or employees emails me concerns I certainly don't attack them personally (no matter how much they deserve it) and I certainly don't ask them to find a solution for me.

You know what I know about lawyers? When the facts aren't in their favor they like to attack the persons integrity. ;)

>I'm sorry that for whatever reason the immortals of carrion fields don't like it when their players point out uncomfortable facts and ask them to do something about it. I'm sorry I didn't tip toe and sugar coat and include the now obligatory "And thanks for all you do!" to keep you from going on the attack. When one of my customers or employees emails me concerns I certainly don't attack them personally (no matter how much they deserve it) and I certainly don't ask them to find a solution for me. <

This is so very true MOST OF THE TIME. I don't know why it is, but often when you point out something that needs to be fixed to the Immortals you get a lot of "Well #### you you don't know ####" attitude (not from all Immortals, just some). It's very frustrating as someone who just wants CF to be a better place.

Though I don't agree with his negativity "the world is ending! (Dec 21st is coming btw)" attitude... I do think the underlining message has a point that we, as proponents of this one of a kind game, should address. Yes, there are noticeably smaller numbers than a decade ago, this is factually and can't really be argued with. There are also multiple reasons for this, growing up and graphic games being the two main causes (imho).

That said, there are still people out there who love older games, there are still people oit there who love to play old school D&D or Cthulhu. What needs to be discussed is not theword "ERHMUHGUUUD, DEH SKI FUHLS!" ... but the how can we draw and keep new players. CF is a very niche game that holds a very niche crowd, and one thing I can suggest is for every player to look around their group of friends (even associates) and see if each of you can identify just one whom might enjoy the draw of carrionfields. If half of us can get just one person each our player base increases by 50%. Easier said tham done, but a bit of effort may yield surprising results.

As for other methods... well, there have been a few people who have offered to help with marketing, why not follow up on the free side of that and see what kind of results a little bit of legwork can yield. If it doesn't return any results, at least we tried.

Chris

.

As a guy who does a fair amount of motivational speaking I am getting chuckled out of being referred to as "negative" though. ;)

.

I actually found 3 new people from my "cohort" in my accelerated college classes. They had never heard of us, but one of then is really excited to come over and try it out.

The point of this is that there are people out there that still want to play things like this. You just have to push the ideas out to as many people as you can find.

I predict it will end if an ill-swallowed chili hotdog isn't dislodged from Zulghinlour's windpipe by means of a clever maneuver at a baseball game one year.

(NB: I also predicted that the World Wide Web would never catch on.)

Seven years ago we had eighty people on at peak times, give or take. Today? Thirty or Forty.

Just FYI, in the last month the mean peak value was 47, with a max value of 60.

asdf

I would agree. It's just that you mentioned peak values, and I think 30 is selling us a little short.

...as a non-detect hidden class, I've logged on and seen 25 people during peak hours.

Now, the game is telling me 42 people are on...but I don't see them. Some are camo'd, some are hidden, some are WizInvis IMMs doing their things.

I think that's where you get the common disconnect with player numbers. You guys have all the info, we don't (and therefore make claims that are not factual but SEEM like they are).

I said there are 30-40 people on at peak times. Not, it peaks at forty people.

I'm certainly not faulting anyone for not having that information.

I simply don't find posts like this particularly edifying; "CF is doomed!" is more meaningful if you can point to objective data or propose a solution that has some demonstrable merit. The problem is that the only data being considered are concomitant player counts (and those from a position of, as you mention, relative ignorance). If there were actual collected data on how players found CF, why they stayed or left, how developments in technology or the game impacted those decisions, and a myriad of confounding factors, that would give us something to actually work from. As it is, a dozen people speculating on the meager data available would probably come up with a dozen different explanations. Is that really helpful? Eh.

Run a donate drive. Spend the money advertising. Adwords or something else that hits a wide audience. There are a lot of people out there on the internet. Who cares where they come from, why the stay or leave, or whatever. If you direct 100 or 1,000 new people at CF a day, enough will find something they like that it won't matter what those factors are.

If you even had 10 newbies logging into CF a day, you'd still retain 30 new players a year at 1% retention...

Update: There is also the chance to use social media (like FB/Twitter that I'm sure is helping), but you could also try stuff like Digg, or Reddit and try to get a high view post...

>I simply don't find posts like this particularly edifying; "CF
>is doomed!" is more meaningful if you can point to objective
>data

I don't really need objective data to know that when I logged on at 8:00pm EST on a Friday my character could only see 26 people on. Are there really 35 on? Does it matter? There are significantly fewer people playing now than there were five years ago, and significantly fewer played five years ago than played ten years ago.


> or propose a solution that has some demonstrable merit.

I don't think there is any lack of this. Your playerbase, myself included, has had plenty of meritorious suggestions over the years. That this post in particular doesn't contain any doesn't invalidate it.

>If there were actual
>collected data on how players found CF, why they stayed or
>left, how developments in technology or the game impacted
>those decisions, and a myriad of confounding factors, that
>would give us something to actually work from.

The irony being I identified this as a necessary addition seven years ago.

If you'd like a suggestion - find a staff member who has a track record of building great organizations, empower them with the ability to make the changes they feel necessary and don't bog them down for six months writing an area and dealing with drama. Anyone with the goods to turn around CF won't subject themselves to that.

Right now CF is the equivalent of a car company run by engineers. Yea, you guys can make a great product - but a bunch of engineers won't get that product to market without help from people of varied expertise.

I am 32 years old. I have played this wretched game for half of my life. HALF my life! Some of my best friends I met through playing CF. I haven't just played it, I've invested in it. We all have. I don't want to see CF die, sit back and say "Told ya so!" But, the writing IS on the wall. Tell me I can't see all the writing if you want but I can see enough. This MUD will tip and it will die. Were that to happen and I said nothing I would feel badly.

I'm not saying that the staff and players don't have good ideas, I'm saying that without the data I pointed to we have no objective means to predict the future playerbase size of CF or what the most significant factors in determining that size are.

I think the odds of us finding a volunteer marketing genius that happens to like CF are small. Someone has to design and implement ways to collect, analyze, and use the data we're talking about. Maybe that seems practical to you, but it doesn't to me.

>I'm not saying that the staff and players don't have good
>ideas, I'm saying that without the data I pointed to we have
>no objective means to predict the future playerbase size of CF
>or what the most significant factors in determining that size
>are.

You are right that with limited data there are limited predictions. I'm giving a very general prediction based on very general data. With better data I'll chart the trends and nail it down to what quarter of what year we'll (and I do mean we. I'm on this ship too) go down in.

This is not unlike predicting the rises and falls of local businesses in my area, which has become something of a novelty to my friends and staff. We'll eat at new restaurant and I'll look at the product, the staff, the management and the advertising and I'll say with near 100% accuracy if it will make it our not. I do this based on years of building businesses.

It's not at all unlike how you, Andy, can listen to a rock song and just know how to play it. You find the root chord. From that root you figure out the chord progression and once you know the progression you figure out the notes. Next thing you know, you can play that song. No sheet music required. Rock songs, like direct to consumer businesses, are all pretty much the same. Sometimes you don't need to hear a song but once to know it's G, Em, C, D, right? You don't need to see the music to know what it looks like. While this is a mystical power to the uninitiated, it's just something you learn based on hours and hours of playing music.*

>
>I think the odds of us finding a volunteer marketing genius
>that happens to like CF are small.

As far as I know, it's impossible. One suggestion would be to take someone smart and willing, don't bog them down with engineering and let them get a marketing education (think Good Will Hunting library card seen) and start trying stuff.

That's only 1/2 the puzzle. The other half is management and administration. There are some areas of weakness here as well. Our entire process of finding staff, managing staff and administrating the game needs an overhaul.

Someone has to design and
>implement ways to collect, analyze, and use the data we're
>talking about. Maybe that seems practical to you, but it
>doesn't to me.

To me it's so necessary that practicality doesn't even enter my mind. It's just something you have to do.


*I assume, based on listening to your music, that you possess this skill. In fact, a friend just sent me a copy of the Gratch song because I lost mine, which sent me to listening to my mp3 of "thinking about tomorrow". I think you're smart, talented and an A player on the staff, so don't take my oppositional commentary as a personal affront. Also, please don't look at my IP address and nuke my future Saraba follower. ;)

EDITED: grammar and punctuation on one cup of coffee. ouch.

7 years ago, if you had showed me Minecraft and told me it was going to become a huge sensation with a new generation of gamers, I would have thought you were nuts.

There's no telling what the future holds. You could be right, you could be wrong. All I know for sure is that long as I'm having fun in my particular sandbox, I'll continue to play in it.

Man do I hate Minecraft. Mainly because it turns my son into raving demon-child whenever I try to moderate his Minecraft time. It's like that Coke bottle in "The Gods Must Be Crazy".

I lol'ed at this. I am so happy that my kids are still to young for me to trust them to use my computer, sadly the time is coming for my oldest one to start using it.

Glad I'm not the only one having issues with the control minecraft has over the kid(s) :p