ETHICAL OR UNETHICAL ?

The worst part of all this is that the current environment makes any new player so unlikely to stick around, the game will die more from attrition than any decision BP makes. When revenue growth drops below target and any gimmicks fail to bring in new players, the game is unsustainable. That it is a cash cow for BP, is what keeps it alive.
I have seen no other game in BP's collection that remotely interests me.

Right now my server is dominated by the "haves" who 'bot' or bought their gear or both who want to control everything. Noobs have little or no chance unless they can put up with the constant bullying while slowly building up. I keep seeing game friends leave and of the newbies I run into, many hang very briefly.

BP needs to step in and right some things, even thinking outside the box but as we've all seen, they bungle almost everything they touch. They never listen to us anyway. It's all about cash, not fairness. Player loyalty seems to mean nothing. Most companies who ignore customer satisfaction usually die a slow death.

When Dark Orbit finally bites the dust, no one will be left to do a fly-by.

What a shame to see such a cool game circle the drain.

 

Everyone has experienced this, even myself but I simply pulled through it and carried on, now I can play without hassles. It's not a noob friendly game unfortunately.

 

As much as I hate to say it. I've come to the conclusion nothing will change until wallet warriors and big spenders demand it.
Whats happening now is the old school free to low paying players are now starting to quit too. So now new players don't stick
around and old players are tired of the way the game is being handled. Pretty soon it will be only wallet warriors and cheaters
left in the game. So until the ww get tired of fighting the bug users and close their wallets and purses then maybe we will get
change. Hopefully it won't be too late

 

What I don't understand is.....when there was a LOT more bot-users back in the days, why players didn't leave as fast as they are leaving now, when there are a lot less bot-users?

 

Where has this idea that players are leaving faster now than every come from? From early 2011 to mid 2013 the game lost roughly 2/3 of its player base - when bots were popular and so was adding things such as LF-4, Havoc and Hercules with chance.

From the second half 2013 to mid 2014 the games numbers were stable, neither losing or gaining in great numbers, and sit down everyone this might be a shock, it appears in late 2014 the game became more popular and saw a significant rise in searches for the first time in about 3 years. We might never get back to pre-LF4 activity, but we certainly aren't losing players faster than ever, it appears that we are actually gaining players.

The issue is most of these players are Turkish or Latin American, so they go to Turkish and Mexico / Brazil servers by default, unless we play those servers, we don't see them.

 

Newbies wont stay if they have no chance to progress and not many of the old school players want to invest time helping them build, knowing a lot of the newbies will not make it. Most of us oldtimers are just trying to survive and play a little. For me, I have friends in the game (many who left recently) and wondering when it will be my time to give up.

BigPoint operates on the 80/20 rule...20% of your players account for 80% of the income. They gear their decisions to the 20%. But revenue growth is based on persistence and if you don't keep growing your base then as the 20% dwindles in ranks and revenue you eventually lose your stability. Then the door closes.

Keeping noobs alive helps the game, getting them to spend keeps the money flowing. Replacing the wallet warriors as they dwindle is imperative to game survival. Noobs are the future and if you ignore that, income goes into decline. Death spiral.

It's all about the money.

 

You should go to BP HQ and tell this to their CEO

 

Its not DO hunting in 2X 3x ufe and fe are a noob in a bigboy dies all the time. then rage quiets Do killed him? no players who can't find anyone to shoot in the uppers and wants to hunt or are cowards

restrain in your clan mates who hunt in x2 and maybe that noob realizes a loe would be better and then moves on to a vengi and then might spend some money

 

I don't see the issue with reducing the costs it takes to become UFE. If the old players don't like it, then that's their problem. They knews exactly what they were getting into when they made their purchases.

It's like trying to get the difference back on a game you bought 6 years ago because it dropped by £40 over that time. It's stupid.

 

Internet searches don't always translate to a player joining. I don't think it's a particularly strong indicator of membership. A better metric would be total players, less total players inactive more than 30 days, add new players active in past 30 days. track over time. Should give a utilization trend.

 

Which we don't have access to. Search terms are as good a example as we are going to get unless DO release their numbers - even then do you think players would believe them or instantly assume they made it up?

A increase in search terms for the first time in years isn't exactly a bad sign though is it.