Long story. I am open to correction, as I understand it:
Website was down for a year or more. Combined with no updates during that time, other, newer, games coming out like World of Warcraft and the playerbase dwindled.
More people would play NS if more people knew about it, but it seems that 100% of dev attention is on NS2 so I doubt it will happen.
I reckon more updates would result in more return players. I know me and about 3 or 4 other people personally that started to play again once there were some updates.
Good news, I'll be hosting a server for a while, maybe a longer depending on how it works out. Very few plugins. I've been busy lately so it's not setup exactly how I want it, but it is nice. You can get the info here: <a href="http://square.clanservers.com" target="_blank">http://square.clanservers.com</a>
Not enough servers? Considering the playerbase there are too many servers!
I could go into detail why there aren't enough players to fill the servers there are (not from the typical 'flayra ruined ns', but from an actual business standpoint), but suffice it to say, there are far more important things than NS2 development itself if they want NS2 to do well, and getting the existing servers filled should be close to the top on that list or they've wasted most of their time on NS1.
Of course we can assume Charlie knows this and is going to wait until NS2 is near completion before focusing on the buildup of the NS1 playerbase in anticipation of NS2, but with a word of mouth advertising methodology things take longer and therefore needs to be done further in advance of the release than a normal marketing stratergy.
OT now (just had to):
From what I understand NS1 was made free as a means of testing and marketing a future sequel so that there would be an existing playerbase to spread the word/buy the game. The problem with that is if your initial playerbase declines, not only have you lost your 'hardcore' playerbase (the ones who play NS1 and will buy NS2), but you've also lost their word of mouth advertisement, which is actually more important without a large marketing budget.
Without a large marketing budget, word of mouth is all you have. The hardcore players only account for 1 sale each, but their word of mouth advertising is going to account for an exponential increase in sales. But with exponential increases you have to have a certain minimal amount or it's not really better than a linear trend.
In short, if you make a game as a test platform/means of cheap advertising for a future product, then your whole business relies on that initial platform in so many ways. Lose your marketing foundation (NS1 players) and your product will fail. The greatest product in the world won't sell if people don't know about it.
I think you underestimate how much people loved this game. Before the release of NS2 the old fans will know and check it out regardless of how long they've been away. This is how I see it happening anyway. I stopped playing around 2 years ago for a variety of different reasons, but I loved this game on a stratgic level, competitve level, and social level; not many games can satisfy all three. I think there was a lot of frustration around when I stopped playing because HL2 was released, the HL2 version of other mods were going to be released soon, and the NS population as a whole was well aware of the fact that it would be awhile before we would see NS2 (of course forum issues, etc. didn't help either). It's really easy to be critical of the devs but this game doesn't have the funding or support that others do, which makes it a lot harder to get things rolling regardless of how much time and effort is spent.
Anyway, there are still a lot of hardcore NS fans out there even though you don't see many people playing, and there are tons of people who play on Steam so I have high hopes for NS's future. We'll see how it goes.
Comments
Website was down for a year or more. Combined with no updates during that time, other, newer, games coming out like World of Warcraft and the playerbase dwindled.
More people would play NS if more people knew about it, but it seems that 100% of dev attention is on NS2 so I doubt it will happen.
I reckon more updates would result in more return players. I know me and about 3 or 4 other people personally that started to play again once there were some updates.
Good news, I'll be hosting a server for a while, maybe a longer depending on how it works out. Very few plugins. I've been busy lately so it's not setup exactly how I want it, but it is nice. You can get the info here:
<a href="http://square.clanservers.com" target="_blank">http://square.clanservers.com</a>
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Yes, quite a lot of servers indeed.
I could go into detail why there aren't enough players to fill the servers there are (not from the typical 'flayra ruined ns', but from an actual business standpoint), but suffice it to say, there are far more important things than NS2 development itself if they want NS2 to do well, and getting the existing servers filled should be close to the top on that list or they've wasted most of their time on NS1.
Of course we can assume Charlie knows this and is going to wait until NS2 is near completion before focusing on the buildup of the NS1 playerbase in anticipation of NS2, but with a word of mouth advertising methodology things take longer and therefore needs to be done further in advance of the release than a normal marketing stratergy.
OT now (just had to):
From what I understand NS1 was made free as a means of testing and marketing a future sequel so that there would be an existing playerbase to spread the word/buy the game. The problem with that is if your initial playerbase declines, not only have you lost your 'hardcore' playerbase (the ones who play NS1 and will buy NS2), but you've also lost their word of mouth advertisement, which is actually more important without a large marketing budget.
Without a large marketing budget, word of mouth is all you have. The hardcore players only account for 1 sale each, but their word of mouth advertising is going to account for an exponential increase in sales. But with exponential increases you have to have a certain minimal amount or it's not really better than a linear trend.
In short, if you make a game as a test platform/means of cheap advertising for a future product, then your whole business relies on that initial platform in so many ways. Lose your marketing foundation (NS1 players) and your product will fail. The greatest product in the world won't sell if people don't know about it.
Anyway, there are still a lot of hardcore NS fans out there even though you don't see many people playing, and there are tons of people who play on Steam so I have high hopes for NS's future. We'll see how it goes.