Same, except, as bad as Curse is, I don't think it's a good idea to run our game elsewhere. This forum will die if all it becomes is a front for another site, either because people will go to the other site directly or because the MTGS admins will terminate us (for advertising / pulling traffic away).
If we all agree to move does this actually matter? Or even a majority?
So what day length do people think would be optimal?
Two weeks is very long yet still gives you time to do anything you need to do. We also should try and attract or even cater to active, high content players. We have a lot of regulars that spend a large part of the time V/LA. For some it's unavoidable but for most it's really not. I work 40 plus hours, go to school, write novels, take my gf out often and hang out with friends and still find tons of time to play. Even if I worked 60 hours per week it would be trivial to spend 15 minutes a day keeping up.
Except I feel that you put way more time into this game. Nothing wrong with that I actually really appreciate it. I wish more players were as active as you are. I personally wonder if because some of our games are so stagnant sometimes that is the reason what drives players away. IE it doesn't look very active. I'd like to see prods enforced slightly more, but I do agree I think 2 week days is a good time.
For anyone who saw the Ace Attorney game that just finished I thought that game overall was an excellent games in terms of speed and deadlines. I wish more games were like that.
Can we get some data on when basics were introduced and retired, and see if that indicates there is a correlation there?
It's a tad hard for me to accept that that's the cause, as the forum's most rapid and healthy periods of growth existed without the benefit of any basics, or really much in the way of classifications at all.
Come to think of it, the successful model from that period was that there were no distinguishing markings or brandings to the games whatsoever, or any rival queues, size related or otherwise. You signed up to host a game, and when your turn came, you ran what you liked. Added some nice variety and unpredictability, I suppose. The queues may make things a little too homogenized, perhaps.
EDIT: There's no doubt in my mind that Curse was to blame for the dropoff - many of the people who left around that time specifically said that was the reason.
There is a large dip of new players in 2014. I don't know if it is statically significant but I would argue that you have no new players replacing anyone who left / returned. While there were players that left there was significantly less players replacing them. I would argue that even though you did lose players from the shift, the larger problem is that you had no players replacing this core group of players. Your base to lean on was significantly cut down for what ever reason. No new players/low retention means that when a player leaves it hurts the community as a whole since we lose one and never gain it back. It may be that higher numbers attract more players and this might be impossible to combat.
I think player retention rates of new players is something we should see if we can data mine. That would lead to some of the biggest information that we could glean.
The data absolutely supports the theory that Curse is to blame for the massive drop in player numbers. However, since then, user numbers for the site as a whole has recovered to pre-curse levels. That our user base has not recovered at all alongside suggests that either MTGS users are no longer the types of person who might be interested in Mafia (which seems unlikely), these users look only at very narrow sections of the site and would miss the Mafia sub (which can be addressed via advertising both in front page articles and even sig space), or that our sub forum has become less welcoming to new players. This last point is clearly very important to investigate. It could well be related to the movement of the sticky, which has now been addressed. While we stopped running Basics in response to the fall in new players, the total absence of new-player friendly signups cannot make it easy for new players to get involved. I agree with ZDS that we should re-introduce Basics, whether they be 7, 9, or 12 players, and probably on a rolling signup (like people want Micros to be), and with Mentoring heavily encouraged. This doesn't need to be done right away since Star Trek only just fired, but it should at the very least come out alongside any article we publish.
With respect to that article, Talore says the content team are on the fence about publishing non-MTG articles, and have asked for a first draft/pilot to help them decide. Is there anyone who wants to step up and help out by writing something? I'm happy to help out/proof read/bounce ideas off, but I'm somewhat articled out right now.
Supports the theory yes, but it is a correlation at best and in my opinion there are many other factors that could be at play. Curse could have just been the catalyst that provoked many more of these reasons.
It looks though as if the number of new players a quarter has also dropped dramatically as well, this could be another reason that the player base is so much smaller.
Well, speaking as one of those new players... I'm came here for Magic information first (been lurking MTGS for years looking at primers and what not) and accidentally stumbled on to the Mafia subforum. I had some experience playing face-to-face and figured I'd give it a shot. Not sure how you'd really target the "Magic players who also play Mafia" population besides what's already been suggested like tweets from the MTGS account and articles on the main site page.
This was my experience as well. Except I had never played mafia as well just stumbled upon it and it looked like fun. I am just curious how many is like that vs other ways.
I don't know if curse is to blame 100%. The UI does seem worse though.
I think some of the questions that need to be asked is how did we all end up here in the first place. IE how did we as new players make it to this site.
We should also look at what creates higher retention rates of newer and older players.
One thing I could note is many of my games here have felt significantly less active by our player base, this could be a variable that matters. Overall I would describe this to me as feeling like I am watching the the player base die off. This might be because I come from the before curse days and so I am just used to something largely different.
One large reason we might have lost a lot of players is age and other such things. I am not certain but my assumption among the players that left is that they are of the same age categories and other new life events might have taken precedence over playing mafia. Then again it could just be curse.
But to me the most important thing to understand is where our new player base comes from. I would argue additionally that understanding how our active player base came to this site is the priority since it feels like a safe bet that if we could cater to that crowd we might obtain a higher retention rate of players.
Edit: Also I wouldn't be too concerned with the validity of the data. Player base numbers are down this is indisputable.
If we all agree to move does this actually matter? Or even a majority?
Except I feel that you put way more time into this game. Nothing wrong with that I actually really appreciate it. I wish more players were as active as you are. I personally wonder if because some of our games are so stagnant sometimes that is the reason what drives players away. IE it doesn't look very active. I'd like to see prods enforced slightly more, but I do agree I think 2 week days is a good time.
For anyone who saw the Ace Attorney game that just finished I thought that game overall was an excellent games in terms of speed and deadlines. I wish more games were like that.
There is a large dip of new players in 2014. I don't know if it is statically significant but I would argue that you have no new players replacing anyone who left / returned. While there were players that left there was significantly less players replacing them. I would argue that even though you did lose players from the shift, the larger problem is that you had no players replacing this core group of players. Your base to lean on was significantly cut down for what ever reason. No new players/low retention means that when a player leaves it hurts the community as a whole since we lose one and never gain it back. It may be that higher numbers attract more players and this might be impossible to combat.
I think player retention rates of new players is something we should see if we can data mine. That would lead to some of the biggest information that we could glean.
Supports the theory yes, but it is a correlation at best and in my opinion there are many other factors that could be at play. Curse could have just been the catalyst that provoked many more of these reasons.
It looks though as if the number of new players a quarter has also dropped dramatically as well, this could be another reason that the player base is so much smaller.
This was my experience as well. Except I had never played mafia as well just stumbled upon it and it looked like fun. I am just curious how many is like that vs other ways.
I think some of the questions that need to be asked is how did we all end up here in the first place. IE how did we as new players make it to this site.
We should also look at what creates higher retention rates of newer and older players.
One thing I could note is many of my games here have felt significantly less active by our player base, this could be a variable that matters. Overall I would describe this to me as feeling like I am watching the the player base die off. This might be because I come from the before curse days and so I am just used to something largely different.
One large reason we might have lost a lot of players is age and other such things. I am not certain but my assumption among the players that left is that they are of the same age categories and other new life events might have taken precedence over playing mafia. Then again it could just be curse.
But to me the most important thing to understand is where our new player base comes from. I would argue additionally that understanding how our active player base came to this site is the priority since it feels like a safe bet that if we could cater to that crowd we might obtain a higher retention rate of players.
Edit: Also I wouldn't be too concerned with the validity of the data. Player base numbers are down this is indisputable.