Psychology and Stuff (Other MMO's Are Suffering Too)

Huh, I thought I could create tags, apparently not. Anyway, I thought I’d mention that the online player crunch is apparently a thing. I’m not adding the “MMO” on that, because I’m just talking about games with significant, and persistant, player bases.

So … I heard either Linus or someone else mention the other day on YT that (I think it was) World of Warcraft saw a 30% drop in playerbase over the past few months or something, apply that exponentially to a small game like boundless … I honestly think there’s parralels to be seen here. That’s before Blizzard were found being baddies.

Also, on a relatively quick search online, I’ve found that Path of Exile (a popular online Grim Dawn 'em up) has seen a drop in players, despite a new update.

Kept purely in the scope of those two games alone, that is frustrating for some of the players, perhaps. But seen together, especially with what we have seen on Boundless? It feels less coincidental, and more like a collective sigh by people that spend lots of time in-game with online games of any kind.

I’m not saying this is pervasive across everything, I’m just saying that there’s a chance that it is.

Oh … BTW … I don’t need to have some internet nerd tell me just how wrong I am about that, either. Thank you, if you’re here to do that, just … just go away. I’m well aware I could be off, here, but I just want to explore the thought process as if it is a thing. If you want to troll, just do it somewhere else, I’ll block you, happily.

So … now we’re assuming (ASSUMING! [InsertSomeoneIsWrongOnTheInternetGif] ) that it’s definitely a thing, let’s think about what that could mean.

Frankly I honestly think it’s 80% psychological (not just burn out, but that’ll be in the mix) because of just how much folks have invested in these online systems, and the societies that they create.

Think about it for a split second … if everything that one has invested so much time in is almost all one does with one’s spare time … imagine when one finds something else to do … or realise that one needs to concentrate on work a bit more … or that mum and dad’s business is nearly dead and maybe helping them a bit is on the cards.

Imagine that this someone might think about playing the game, but suddenly realise that it took an awful amount of ‘brain space’ for something that in relation to even just the few things I mentioned there … it doesn’t actually mean ■■■■, y’know?

It’s not just those examples I gave there, it’s not even just this area of mental fatigue, or even boredom that this process might apply too … think bigger, more analoguesly (?) … being wired to do this is great and all … but … taking a break is OK.

So, sure … I can imagine that one’s subconscious (especially for those that need to be literal, or have scapegoats to blame for everything) will leap to a lot of things to justify odd behaviour … but sometimes … sometimes it’s OK to just … do something else for a bit.

So, I know that I for one stopped really playing for a couple of months there (I’ve been pretty solid since last year) … and now I’m back quite regularly, and building again. But I found other stuff that I was doing that was feeding my head.

I was pouring myself into this other thing (unrelated to gaming, but might be useful on the Boundless API side of things) and quite frankly it’s all I could conceive of thinking about. This just wasn’t important to me …

I think that, quite specifically because of the pandemic, everyone is WAY more in their own head … even more so than usual … and accepting these kind of mental changes is something we have to come to peace with.

Because very often it’s the main reason why most things happen.

Anyway … this huge ramble isn’t really supposed to have a central point … more a malign of many :sweat_smile: … but I think that if there truly is a pattern of folks maybe stepping away from their online games for a bit to see if the real world has stopped being a total trash fire, then maybe … just maybe … it’s got a bit of depth to it, and could possibly be something worth thinking about.

Both of your examples have specific causes and if you look at ffxiv… Oh, okay. Sorry, I’ll leave.

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:sweat_smile: :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

The New World on day one had 2 servers with 3000 players queued up for a 6 hour wait to get in.

The starbase just launched last week and there were so many people trying to get in the game started crashing.

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