embers of the Genesis Community,
Exactly six months have passed since I posted the following goal on the
Common Board:
-**- To double the playerbase in one year's time. -**-
Typing those words today feels no less portentious than it did back in
October of 2007. Given that we are at the halfway-mark in terms of our time
frame for this goal, a bit of a progress report is in order.
To allow us to work with meaningful and accurate data, I spent the weeks
before becoming a Keeper creating a tool that I call the "Genesis Census."
This tool takes a snapshot of the active playerbase once per hour, and
has been doing so since October of 2007. The "active playerbase" is defined
as those people logged on who are not a wizard and not linkdead. Therefore,
if these numbers look pretty small, remember that a lot of people who are
logged on are either wizards or linkdead a lot of the time! Also, remember
that there are natural peaks and valleys to the daily player activity which
get leveled out in the average. For example, the active playerbase for
peak hours is often above 30.
As the data below indicate, the average number of active players logged
on at any given time during the week 6 months ago was 13.7. So, if we are
to be considered on track to make our goal, we would hope to have increased
the average by 6.85. Lets see how we've done ...
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Mid October 2007
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DATE X = 1 active player # of players
====================================================
20071014 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (15)
20071015 XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
20071016 XXXXXXXXXXXXXX (14)
20071017 XXXXXXXXXXXXXX (14)
20071018 XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)
20071019 XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)
20071020 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (15)
13.7 weekly average per day
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Mid April 2008
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20080419 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (19)
20080420 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (21)
20080421 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (20)
20080422 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (19)
20080423 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (19)
20080424 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (19)
20080425 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (19)
19.4 weekly average per day
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The increase since October has been an average of 5.7 people actively logged
in at any given time. If we assume that we continue on this course, then
by October of 2008 we will have an average of 25.1 players logged on at
any given time. To double our playerbase would mean that we reach 27.4
players logged on at any given time, which would mean that we had achieved
a 91% increase rather than a 100% increase.
So ... right now, I give us an A-. (91%, after all!)
However ... the visible changes that players can actually feel have only
recently begun to happen. Most of the last 6 months have been spent laying the
ground work and putting forces in place to achieve the changes that we need.
In this last month, the first of these changes have become reality, and
the response has been very positive. The above data for April 2008 represent
a week in which there is no event taking place, and there is no (known)
holiday or other oddity corrupting the picture.
My prediction is that as new features and improvements continue to be added,
including many important aspects of combat, balance, and guild improvement,
that we can expect the increase in player activity to exceed its current
rate of growth. Keep in mind, also, that we have not yet begun any sort of
focused, organized promotional capaign (at which point, I feel the REAL
numbers will start appearing.)
I, therefore, am happy to report to you that I feel we are very much on track
to making our goal a reality. The positive energy is flowing, and the Genesis
Community is buzzing with its influence. Way to go! Keep it up!
G.
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