In early 2016, I posted a review of how our player numbers had changed from 2010-2015. Since the same amount of time has now passed, I thought I'd update it.
The methods are the same as reported in the OP, but as a summary:
Players are split into three groups:
New players (have never played before the quarter)
Returning players (have played before, but not in the previous two quarters)
Active players (have played before, and at least once in the previous two quarters)
Focussing on the post-2015 data, we can see a small recovery during 2016 that then dropped off (effectively reverting to the mean) by 2017. Nunbers remained relatively stable during 2017 and 2018, with the exception of a spike in new players caused by the Team event in 2018Q3. A clear decline (particularly in new players) occurred during 2019, in line with the announcment of MTGS being shuttered/the staff exodus to MTGNexus in May 2019. While 2020 has seen a bit of a bounceback, it is clear that our overall playerbase has shrunk to historic lows.
With Star Trek MU4 finishing at last, I have updated the data for 2016 Q1 and Q2 (i.e. games that started this year up to end of June). Full data is still available on my github.
Full data with these two quarters added on:
As can be seen, there has been a slight recovery! Total player numbers are up to where they were a year ago. This is mostly down to a large growth in new players (hooray), so if they stick around and become active players, we're in much better shape as a forum than we have been. Active players stayed reasonably stable, but this will hopefully see an uptick as new players stick around. Returning players fell slightly, which is a small concern, but they are still within reasonable historic parameters.
While this step of recovery is great news, we cannot rest on our laurels: Basics have been brought back to help new players out (and any of our newer players itching to keep playing should head over to the Player Contact List
and sign up for a Basic). Most importantly, our game queues are critically empty. We should be running an event to help repopulate them, but if anyone (ANYONE) out there has any interest at all in hosting a game they should get on it now: there's never been a better time to host!
Mmkay. And I suppose the "switch PCQ to FTQ again" after running the 2 we have queued up will also be a thing?
Also, I thought we were dropping Specialty in favor of making all games of that sort FTQ?
Yes and yes, but neither of those things can happen until we finish running through the Specialty list. We basically just need to not run more than two large games at once.
Would this post I wrote in the Family thread qualify as an article?
Sadly not, if the article is going to get accepted for the main site, it needs to be more introductory. They would quite like to see a draft/pilot to get an idea of what we want, since they're reluctant to publish non-MTG articles. Some sort of tenuous connection to MTG would probably help.
I haven't written it, and I haven't seen any volunteers, so I suspect nothing is happening. I can try and get around to it if no-one else really wants to, but it won't be for a couple of weeks at least.
Quote from Iso »
Did we ever decide on a finalized queue structure? If so, we should probably tell our Secretaries how to update the Hosting thread.
Pretty sure we just agreed to leave things as they are (Ensuring we only run one specialty and one normal at once, once Mind Screw ends) and to bring back Basics. We've yet to actually fire one, but we could do with people signing up to host them.
Well, that's a good question. Maybe it would be better to finish the Specialty queue, then run 4 Horsemen, then restart the FTQ? That would put it a long way away, but at least we get through the games. Open to ideas here, I just don't think we can handle more than 1 Normal and 1 Specialty at once.
I would want to avoid risking over-stretching the playerbase, especially with Basics coming back. While I think we can easily run Xyre's in a Mini slot (it's 12 players), I think it's pretty clear 3 large games at once is too much. I think it would be best if 4 Horsemen ran after Star Trek finishes, so it takes the Specialty slot.
When you say "once the PCQs have run", which games are you talking about? Mind Screw obviously, but are you expecting more PCQ games to fire after that?
Happy to see the PCL start up again, we need some Basic hosts if anyone has a game lying around and/or we can use Off the Grid's grid for 9 players. Also happy to leave Normals as-is right now, and we can think about larger Basics if and when we see the demand for them.
I like the idea of an FTQ-like process to make a game for MU, although we probably don't want to aim at the highest levels of mindbending that the FTQ sometimes experiences in terms of mechanics. Az, do you want to be in charge of liaising with the MU staff to make sure everything is all clear? We might need to join their hosting queue, and I don't know how long that might be.
Yet I've seen nothing but complaints about the newer Normals since Stargate, as well.
Again, I think you're taking the interpretation of "large Basics" a bit too literally, here, because you haven't answered the question: What is wrong with labeling Normals "Large Basics" and putting them in the same queue as "Small Basics" if nothing is changing about the Normals other than the name?
Would you like guess how many Normals have run since Stargate? None. Not a single one. How, then, could people be complaining about games which have not taken place?
With regards to your question, ZDS has accurately answered it. Normals are not large Basics. Normals are not intended to be large Basics. The Normal guidelines permit and encourage games which are inappropriate for a Basic-level game queue.
6. Perhaps then the FTQ sponsor needs to raise that bar. I'm not wedding to the idea mind, I'm just trying to think of ways we can have a shadowy cabal with no set process that is also transparent and driven by the people at large.
2. Difficult to say whether it would be worse or not, but the past has shown us that complexity creep does happen, and that it is a problem.
5. Sure, I'm just saying people don't need to wait for a plan, they should just go and get involved if they fancy it. A coherent plan is still a good idea.
1. Yes. I suspect the newly minted "hello new players" thread would serve, just like a similar one did for the previous PCL.
6. How about each PCQ entry has to be sponsored by someone on the FTQ committee? That way each game is certified up to standard, but the choice of what gets played is still up to the players?
3. Deadlines: I think it's just education and ensuring it becomes part of the reviewing process. Once shorter deadlines start being used and enforced, they'll become more commonplace without needing to be mandated.
2. As the person pushing for change, I feel like you ought to be bearing the burden of convincing, but since you've asked: I believe that if it's not codified complexity will only creep upwards, over time making the games less and less useful as a stepping stone, while also alienating players who do not enjoy Specialty level games (but want some more variety than what Basics can provide). It's not like the limits are particularly strict; are there any you disagree with the existence of?
5. While a properly planned program would be nice, I think exposure is the most important thing. Anyone curious should just go play on MU, make sure your origin is listed as MTGS, and make sure you represent the site well by being a decent human being.
@Eco: You realize that the reason people got bored with Normals was because of the restrictions we put on them, right? How is just calling Normals "Large Basics" any different from this? It's just putting a fresh name to an old face.
We had this exact conversation when we killed the League, and the agreement was that the League was holding Normals down and making them be lower complexity than they needed to be. The whole point of killing the League and reinstating Normals was to allow them to once again utilise their design space without being oppressed by the League. Normals are categorically not large Basics, and none of the restrictions on Normals mandate that.
1. Yes, I like it. I agree with ZDS that the tags should be clearly stated before hand, to make it easier for people looking for players to parse. I also like the idea of discarding the entire list every 3 months, it means that it's more likely to be accurate and up to date. I also recommend that we make sure to record the data so we can quantify player demand, and how it changes over time.
2. No, I do not like it. My concerns with size-based games are still not addressed, and I don't believe that Basics are in any way a substitute for Normals. Normals form part of a natural progression from Basic to Specialty, and cannot be replaced by Basics. This leads to the concept of large Basics. I do not believe they are a good idea: there is a wealth of design space between a Basic and a Specialty where Normals sit. One of the main reasons the League was killed was because the games had become large Basics which people didn't want to play (but felt forced to for League points), so I simply do not feel the demand for an entire queue of them is there. Will some Normals look like large Basics? Absolutely, and that's a good thing. But they won't all look like that, and many will explore the plentiful space that is more complex than Basic roles but significantly below the realm of additional mechanic Specialties. They act as a stepping stone between the two games: nothing to groundbreaking for a new player to wrap their head around, but sufficiently imaginative and intricate to challenge them AND keep experienced players who want non-Specialty level games engaged.
3. We could, but that's a lot of admin. I think we should instead make sure hosts know what their intended deadline length is, have it discussed during review, and enforce it more stringently. I would also suggest making games more resilient to modkills, and being harsher with chronic lurkers (but that's for the host to decide).
If we move, the community freezes at it's current size (or smaller, because not everyone will move). Any new players are not MTGS players, they're MU players who happen to like playing with us. Over time, our community erodes as people leave and our games become MU games. It might keep our community around on life support, but it also dooms us.
I think the problem is that looking at the game queues is putting the cart before the horse. If the fundamental problem is that we do not have enough players to fill games, the fix to that is not restructuring the queues again, it is getting more players. The data I have gathered shows that the forum now has significantly fewer players than ever before, and that this is very likely due to the transition to the new forum software from which we have never recovered. If this is the case, it must be fixable: the software has been improved, and MTGS as a whole has recovered.
One fundamental assumption I have made is that games follow player numbers. Talk of restructuring queues is entirely moot when we have literally 1 Normal and 2 Minis queued up. By bringing in more players, we also bring in more hosts and more demand for slots. The fundamental issue is with player numbers, and the very first thing is that we have no obvious way for new players to start a newb-friendly game. Yes, reinstating Basics will be a drain on other game signups, but if we manage that properly, the influx of players who actually have somewhere to start will, eventually, offset that. We have real live new players saying it'd have been easier if more newb-friendly games existed, how many are we losing because of this?
Reinstating Basics is not the silver bullet, but it's a start. We don't need to reform queues (again), or committees, or gambling the forum future on unsubstantiated opinions. The data says quite clearly we need more players if we are to survive as a forum. So lets focus on that. Who is going to step up and write an article for the main site? Who wants to play on MafiaUniverse and talk us up? Who wants to bring back old players they know?
The methods are the same as reported in the OP, but as a summary:
Players are split into three groups:
Full data and scripts use to parse and marshal it
Results
Focussing on the post-2015 data, we can see a small recovery during 2016 that then dropped off (effectively reverting to the mean) by 2017. Nunbers remained relatively stable during 2017 and 2018, with the exception of a spike in new players caused by the Team event in 2018Q3. A clear decline (particularly in new players) occurred during 2019, in line with the announcment of MTGS being shuttered/the staff exodus to MTGNexus in May 2019. While 2020 has seen a bit of a bounceback, it is clear that our overall playerbase has shrunk to historic lows.
Full data with these two quarters added on:
As can be seen, there has been a slight recovery! Total player numbers are up to where they were a year ago. This is mostly down to a large growth in new players (hooray), so if they stick around and become active players, we're in much better shape as a forum than we have been. Active players stayed reasonably stable, but this will hopefully see an uptick as new players stick around. Returning players fell slightly, which is a small concern, but they are still within reasonable historic parameters.
While this step of recovery is great news, we cannot rest on our laurels: Basics have been brought back to help new players out (and any of our newer players itching to keep playing should head over to the Player Contact List
and sign up for a Basic). Most importantly, our game queues are critically empty. We should be running an event to help repopulate them, but if anyone (ANYONE) out there has any interest at all in hosting a game they should get on it now: there's never been a better time to host!
Yes and yes, but neither of those things can happen until we finish running through the Specialty list. We basically just need to not run more than two large games at once.
Sadly not, if the article is going to get accepted for the main site, it needs to be more introductory. They would quite like to see a draft/pilot to get an idea of what we want, since they're reluctant to publish non-MTG articles. Some sort of tenuous connection to MTG would probably help.
A cross-site game is starting very soon on MU http://www.mafiauniverse.com/forums/threads/3139-Org-CFC-and-MTGS-inter-forum-invitational-exhibition-game
I haven't written it, and I haven't seen any volunteers, so I suspect nothing is happening. I can try and get around to it if no-one else really wants to, but it won't be for a couple of weeks at least.
Pretty sure we just agreed to leave things as they are (Ensuring we only run one specialty and one normal at once, once Mind Screw ends) and to bring back Basics. We've yet to actually fire one, but we could do with people signing up to host them.
Happy to see the PCL start up again, we need some Basic hosts if anyone has a game lying around and/or we can use Off the Grid's grid for 9 players. Also happy to leave Normals as-is right now, and we can think about larger Basics if and when we see the demand for them.
I like the idea of an FTQ-like process to make a game for MU, although we probably don't want to aim at the highest levels of mindbending that the FTQ sometimes experiences in terms of mechanics. Az, do you want to be in charge of liaising with the MU staff to make sure everything is all clear? We might need to join their hosting queue, and I don't know how long that might be.
Would you like guess how many Normals have run since Stargate? None. Not a single one. How, then, could people be complaining about games which have not taken place?
With regards to your question, ZDS has accurately answered it. Normals are not large Basics. Normals are not intended to be large Basics. The Normal guidelines permit and encourage games which are inappropriate for a Basic-level game queue.
2. Difficult to say whether it would be worse or not, but the past has shown us that complexity creep does happen, and that it is a problem.
5. Sure, I'm just saying people don't need to wait for a plan, they should just go and get involved if they fancy it. A coherent plan is still a good idea.
6. How about each PCQ entry has to be sponsored by someone on the FTQ committee? That way each game is certified up to standard, but the choice of what gets played is still up to the players?
3. Deadlines: I think it's just education and ensuring it becomes part of the reviewing process. Once shorter deadlines start being used and enforced, they'll become more commonplace without needing to be mandated.
2. As the person pushing for change, I feel like you ought to be bearing the burden of convincing, but since you've asked: I believe that if it's not codified complexity will only creep upwards, over time making the games less and less useful as a stepping stone, while also alienating players who do not enjoy Specialty level games (but want some more variety than what Basics can provide). It's not like the limits are particularly strict; are there any you disagree with the existence of?
5. While a properly planned program would be nice, I think exposure is the most important thing. Anyone curious should just go play on MU, make sure your origin is listed as MTGS, and make sure you represent the site well by being a decent human being.
We had this exact conversation when we killed the League, and the agreement was that the League was holding Normals down and making them be lower complexity than they needed to be. The whole point of killing the League and reinstating Normals was to allow them to once again utilise their design space without being oppressed by the League. Normals are categorically not large Basics, and none of the restrictions on Normals mandate that.
1. Yes, I like it. I agree with ZDS that the tags should be clearly stated before hand, to make it easier for people looking for players to parse. I also like the idea of discarding the entire list every 3 months, it means that it's more likely to be accurate and up to date. I also recommend that we make sure to record the data so we can quantify player demand, and how it changes over time.
2. No, I do not like it. My concerns with size-based games are still not addressed, and I don't believe that Basics are in any way a substitute for Normals. Normals form part of a natural progression from Basic to Specialty, and cannot be replaced by Basics. This leads to the concept of large Basics. I do not believe they are a good idea: there is a wealth of design space between a Basic and a Specialty where Normals sit. One of the main reasons the League was killed was because the games had become large Basics which people didn't want to play (but felt forced to for League points), so I simply do not feel the demand for an entire queue of them is there. Will some Normals look like large Basics? Absolutely, and that's a good thing. But they won't all look like that, and many will explore the plentiful space that is more complex than Basic roles but significantly below the realm of additional mechanic Specialties. They act as a stepping stone between the two games: nothing to groundbreaking for a new player to wrap their head around, but sufficiently imaginative and intricate to challenge them AND keep experienced players who want non-Specialty level games engaged.
3. We could, but that's a lot of admin. I think we should instead make sure hosts know what their intended deadline length is, have it discussed during review, and enforce it more stringently. I would also suggest making games more resilient to modkills, and being harsher with chronic lurkers (but that's for the host to decide).
One fundamental assumption I have made is that games follow player numbers. Talk of restructuring queues is entirely moot when we have literally 1 Normal and 2 Minis queued up. By bringing in more players, we also bring in more hosts and more demand for slots. The fundamental issue is with player numbers, and the very first thing is that we have no obvious way for new players to start a newb-friendly game. Yes, reinstating Basics will be a drain on other game signups, but if we manage that properly, the influx of players who actually have somewhere to start will, eventually, offset that. We have real live new players saying it'd have been easier if more newb-friendly games existed, how many are we losing because of this?
Reinstating Basics is not the silver bullet, but it's a start. We don't need to reform queues (again), or committees, or gambling the forum future on unsubstantiated opinions. The data says quite clearly we need more players if we are to survive as a forum. So lets focus on that. Who is going to step up and write an article for the main site? Who wants to play on MafiaUniverse and talk us up? Who wants to bring back old players they know?