forsaken shores and how it might affect the population of the game

Small community? Are you sure? There are 1 million (approximately) players playing the game. And yes, FS will obviously affect the population. If CS did it, FS will.

Edit:
Also the game reached more than 5 million copies sold.

I keep hearing that about the game dying and the community getting smaller. While I agree some people have left the game, which can be expected with any game out there. Some people don't like the direction a game is taking. Some people just get bored quickly. Lack of content once you hit PL with A10. Things like this. So some of the names we are used to seeing are not longer around. But honestly, every server I have been on in the past several weeks have been full. 6 ships sailing around. Just last night I was doing a solo Athena on a brig, got sunk by a sloop while on an island (my fault for not seeing them coming as I got to distracted with the OoS). So I had to go back and sink them to get my crates back. But after a while the server felt empty. Then all the sudden, as I am nearing the end, I see a galleon off in the distance, another brig at an outpost and two other sloops somewhat close to me. So I really am not so sure I buy into the game is dying thing. I run into new players all the time. So I think what you are really seeing is the natural cycle of a game. You get new people that heard about the game through a friend or off the net/advertising. You get the old timers that have run their course in the game. But all in all I believe that the game itself is healthy.

But the only way to know that is if Rare and Microsoft would give us some real, current numbers as was asked for in another thread. Tell us, how many people are playing the game on a regular basis. Tell us, how many people play occasionally. Telling us how many people installed the game is not a real litmus test for a games health. Because we all know there were probably quite a few people that installed the game, played once or twice, decided the game just wasn't for them and moved on to something else.

As for the question of how it will affect the population. I think you will see some of those old timers come back to play for a bit. See if the new area adds enough to the game to make it fun for them again. You will also see people that see the trailers for it and decide to give it a try because that one trailer is actually pretty epic. So I think overall you will see some increase. But again, will that mean longer term that people stick around. I guess we shall see. I have loved the ideas behind the last several DLC, just not the side affects that came with them in the form of the many glitches we still have in game.

I personally don't think the game is that close to being dead, but I do feel like the player base has been shrinking recently. It felt like a ton of people were playing during Cursed Sails (at least for the first week). The biggest thing that would bring in a lot of players is content like Forsaken Shores. One of the biggest concerns for those on the edge of buying the game is what is there to do, and a huge update like Forsaken Shores is bound to add variety. However, one thing I think Rare could do better is introducing content to the game after the event is over. Not many people even touch skeleton ships based off of the loot and time required for supplies. Mastering the ability to implement created content would do leaps and bounds for gameplay in Sea of Thieves. All in all, Forsaken Shores may not be the entire revival of the game, but it is a step in the right direction.

I too wonder where people get the idea that the game is losing players. Your experience in game is no guide. Servers would be spun up or merged to meet demand, to keep their population more or less stable.

But: if each server population is kept the same as now, clearly the old regions will be less crowded as everyone rushes to explore the Devil’s Roar. It might just be a PvE paradise. :-)

Some people only play the game occasionally, not everyone gets on and plays nearly every day like us.

Forsaken Shores and other DLC like it entices players to keep coming back regularly and trying the new content, but they will have other games to play also. The player base is there, some are just casual players.

With Forsaken shores there may be a bit of an uptake, but the majority will be returning players.

Dunno where you got that the game is dead/dying, besides some forum-lurking naysayer. People said the game was dead well before launch even. So I wouldn't take their word for it.

As for how it will affect population, I would say not much. If you didn't like the existing gameplay loop before, you're still not going to like it now.

Though, I could be wrong. We still haven't yet seen the full extent of additions and changes. The only confirmed features are the Devil's Roar, Devil's voyages and treasure, Cargo Runs, NPCs on the other islands and in the small sea-posts, and Rowboats. Which is a lot in and of itself, but there are a few rumors that there are a few more features that are still a secret.

@writtencurse on the forums, there are those who love the game, and those who want to love the game. We are a passionate bunch.

As one of those you are questioning. Yes, I'll be back for the update. I have played once in the past few weeks. Currently the game has too many bugs. I'll be back for Forsaken Shores, but time is scarce and other games don't have as many bugs. I miss the seas which is why I haven't left the forum.
I assume others are like me and will return.

@nfected-spartan said in forsaken shores and how it might affect the population of the game:

Not a number but the games sits in between 30 and 40 on the Microsoft store most played, which isn't real good.

That's not really too accurate, since it includes PC ports of mobile apps.

@admiral-rrrsole I am sorry you haven’t had much luck finding ships. But honestly every server I am on lately is full. Today a friend asked me to join him and help with riddles for gold hoarders. He was stuck. So I stayed on. Along our voyage we came across 3 other sloops. With 2 of the three seeking PvP. We didn’t even sail half the map so there were most likely more.

I've been on a break, had a bunch of RL stuff going on and the commendations thing was really the only thing I was still working towards so when they hit the EZ-mode button I kinda lost interest.

Would have come back this week for FS. Definitely coming back next week, but I feel the urge for high seas shenanigans.

That's healthy, I see myself continuing to play SoT for the forseeable future, but I probably won't be playing multiple hours every night of the week, more logging in and having a laugh when I'm in the mood. FS looks good for getting me in the mood to play. I was jaded after the skeleton crews and have been skipping the reapers mark bilge rat adventure, but maybe I'll give some of those commendations a whirl while I wait for next week.

The last update drove away a lot of players ( myself and most of the people I play with included). I haven't seen more than 3 of my friends playing SoT at any one time since the update.

Releasing FS without fixing everything or even anything for that matter that the last update broke is a mistake. More people will get fed up and leave, a few will come back, see how messed up it is and leave.

Stop kidding yourselves. The game is dying.

@trickrtreat01 WoW is dying since 2006. No Man's Sky was said to be dead in 2017.

@nfected-spartan said in forsaken shores and how it might affect the population of the game:

Not a number but the games sits in between 30 and 40 on the Microsoft store most played, which isn't real good.

You're right, 'cause apparently there are only 100 games in the Microsoft store.

@crimsonraziel said in forsaken shores and how it might affect the population of the game:

@trickrtreat01 WoW is dying since 2006. No Man's Sky was said to be dead in 2017.

Compared to the hype of NMS - yes, the game is pretty much dead. Of course there are still people playing it. But there are also people playing Battlefield 2. There will always be a die-hard-fanbase, but I don't think that this is what you would want for SoT...

@writtencurse Its true, game is dieing. All discord servers are nearly empty, Xbox posts are few and far between, the ones that are up there don't seem to fill up for quite some time, very few friends are ever touching this game, there is nothing meaningful to do, its same old few things over and over.
No wonder theres barely any desire to come back. Its sad how all major updates so far left no long term impact in the game:

• Meg? With or without Meg game is still the same
• Skeleton ships? With or without them game's still the same
• Kraken? lol

Forsaken Shores seems to be the only update that actually expands quests, ads new kind of unique grinding to do, even if there weren't new lands added just the new quests variety would've been enough to spark interest. All previous updates should've been made with this in mind.
Forsaken Shores will definitely help bring more players, hopefully they'll revisit the older expansions and bring them to life so they don't feel as dull as they currently are.

@l4chsfps said in forsaken shores and how it might affect the population of the game:

@crimsonraziel said in forsaken shores and how it might affect the population of the game:

@trickrtreat01 WoW is dying since 2006. No Man's Sky was said to be dead in 2017.

Compared to the hype of NMS - yes, the game is pretty much dead. Of course there are still people playing it. But there are also people playing Battlefield 2. There will always be a die-hard-fanbase, but I don't think that this is what you would want for SoT...

So you chose to ignore half of my post and relativize the other half to score a point. Well played.

Well, to be fair to Rare, while I've been taking a break I've been playing Elite Dangerous again. People have been declaring that game dead since 2014, still plenty of people playing it though.

I remember plenty of "We're doomed!" threads on this here forum from 6 months ago and yet the game is still up and running.

I think realistically FS has a lot riding on it, but I doubt MS is going to be dropping support if it flops. We might see a NMS style change of development pace if it flops. At this stage that's still a big IF though, delay notwithstanding I'm still pretty excited for FS.

Taking away the commendations people were working towards, without adding anything to replace them, was a pretty big misstep though. I understand the reasoning, but I think it was poorly handled, would have been better to leave the commendations as they were until they had more stuff ready to hold the interest of their most invested players.

Whats done is done though, we'll see how FS is next week

much like @Admiral-RRRSole post, I saw the seas were empty except I saw it before cursed sails. I would login fight a skeleton fort uncontested. Sail around with no one in sight. If I stayed on long enough, we could do a second skeleton fort without ever seeing another ship. The servers I got on were usually empty.

Don't know if that means the game is dying, but at a time of day when there used to be many, it became the few. There was definitely more interaction during the cursed sails event. I cant speak about the seas today, but I think it would have settled down again. It seems to be the pattern.

@d-jaguar While I have experienced some sailing where I felt the server was empty, I think many of those times it was more a tail of people grinding and avoiding other ships. I am sure some of the time there were empty servers, but if you end up on a server where all other ships want to do PvE, then they most likely aren't coming for the fort and most likely will try to avoid you and even avoid being seen by you. Just a thought. I know when I was still in my chicken phase as described by someone as the three stages of growth in this game (chicken, pig then snake - with chicken avoiding pvp for pve, pig doing pve without avoiding pvp but not really seeking it out and snake looking more for pvp than pve) I would avoid other boats at all costs. Even try to stay out of their line of sight if I could help it.

@boxcar-squidy The threads about being doomed 6 months ago were from people coming on here after being sunk one time and complaining and saying the game would die if it didn't make PVE servers.

The people saying it now have actually left or at least cut their playing time way down, have seen most or all of their friends leave. The people leaving now are the one's who embraced the original design of the game and can't handle where it's at now.

@trickrtreat01 said in forsaken shores and how it might affect the population of the game:

The last update drove away a lot of players ( myself and most of the people I play with included). I haven't seen more than 3 of my friends playing SoT at any one time since the update.

Releasing FS without fixing everything or even anything for that matter that the last update broke is a mistake. More people will get fed up and leave, a few will come back, see how messed up it is and leave.

Stop kidding yourselves. The game is dying.

Im surprised you haven’t been banned yet. It’s what happened to the last guy who forum-lurked doing nothing by spout nasty things about the game.