running on steam numbers we have 1/5th of the player base that we used to and will go below 100 average concurrent players by end of the year... BLS experiment has the same trend and WS api is just a bit stagnant, probably due to the permanence of its playerbase.
Returning from a long break, I experience several minutes more than usual for red star and blue star scans. Finding it harder to find people to play with, seeing less newbies on HSO and other servers and so on... and in general, I've observed shortages of activity in many parts of the community.
One of the biggest cause : social connectivity - players are less attached to the game and all but about 10% quit even after months of playing, and I think social, is the core of the game.
the only reason I, and many players alike play still is the social aspect and I will play till the second the servers are not, and I am not alone in that sentiment.
Main point: Thinking about it, a lot of functions that supported corp interactions are gone now, dont get paid for ws anymore so no reason to join for game progress beyond entertainment, corp bonus isnt relevant, rs you either make a friend to duo or just join a pub queue instead, most events are either solo or extremely encourages you to play solo (so-called "corp" rs event)
also trading/passing arts as a whole
A better future I see is
- bringing features relating to social interaction back
- cosmetic rewards for the corp itself
- increasing the importance of corp rewards
- more, more corp based events
I may add more suggestions from this thread but theres a lot more that can be done for sure
Now bottom line - Im well aware of our current stagnation, Im not expecting changes soon - if at all. However, I do want this issue to be considered and more so I want to hear what everyone else thinks.
->dead.