Valid Concern?

[Sheba]

I have noticed that reguardless of the time there are not many folks playing NC! I would hate to think that I am about to buy a game that is on its last leggs....is this why they have not released DOY yet? I honestly hope this is norm and school etc are the reason for the decline, please tell me that there are tons more people on during weekends etc???

[gostly]

nah the game's population went down alot from the beginning of retail...lots of people left...and it's kinda stuck right now...

altho i have seen more people on pluto lately...but that's from people mostly coming from other servers...oh well...my account is canceled right now... :o

[Nvidia]

It's been like this for awhile now... I still remember the early retail days when you could glance at the server selection screen and see 400+ on every one :( Don't let it discourage you though, every MMO goes through this stage.

It'll get better. Don't listen to all those people telling you NC's dead. Actually, I think this is only the beginning... But that's just my opinion :angel:

[greploco]

it's a problem

on weekends and some weekdays you get max server population as people are getting off work / school

the bigger problem is that the company, kk, doesn't seem to be behaving like it's a problem -- if I had to guess, most of the people who are not online still have their accounts active so there is some decent cash flow

maybe it's because there is some trouble between the publisher and developer of the game -- many people have spoken about this. from what I gather it's the publishers job to get word out about a game, i do not know.

what I do know is that advertizing is not being put out, and that is really a problem

there are three aspects to marketing - product, packaging, and placement. you can fail utterly on the first two but as long as you have the last one you will succeed. in the case of neocron - product is there. packaging is nice. but placement is a failure. and with that the product will ultimatly fail -- and nothing can change that.

what would be appropriate placement? advertizing in print and other media (television, magazine, internet banner add, etc), getting the game on store shelves, other distrobution and product tie-ins. you have to have it, no ifs ands or buts. and neocron doesn't have it. as I said before --- this may be deliberate. maybe the developers want to shed the publisher before they try to expand the game.

ok it's not all doom and gloom

what are the upshots here ?

1) neocron is a great environment and many people will not leave for a long time

2) despide people bitching in the forum the game is being worked on and expanded in a positive light

3) a lot of work has been done on balancing and is still being done - it's pretty good

4) it's cool and most importantly, still fun even though less people are around

how can you improve your game play experience ? join a clan that's actually active and positive, not one that is full of people who no longer play or bitch about "the way things were" etc. roleplay, if you are TG - raid military base, and if you are CM defend it and attack TG.

[Felissa]

Yes, KK had problems with their former publisher because the placement was really bad. They are now looking for a new publisher for the expansion DoY, which will come in a bundle with NC. There were never more then 700 players on one server till now online at the same time. If you see only about 200 runners online, it may be because you are located in a timezone where not many people play.

But this game is not dieing, they only need more advertisement.

[garyu69]

If they were to get advertising it would be packed.

Join up anyway as you will have a great time. Oh and come to Pluto, Go tangent and join eXo :D

[Sheba]

Originally posted by Felissa
Yes, KK had problems with their former publisher because the placement was really bad. They are now looking for a new publisher for the expansion DoY, which will come in a bundle with NC. There were never more then 700 players on one server till now online at the same time. If you see only about 200 runners online, it may be because you are located in a timezone where not many people play.

But this game is not dieing, they only need more advertisement.

I was on early morning like 4am my time then again early afternoon till late evening....so its not the time zone. Though I wish it was!

[greploco]

hmm, of all the enlglish servers saturn has the best server loads, that's wehre I usually play. that's what I'll stick with too probably.

but people are loyal to their world, pluto and uranus have die hard fans who will not leave them. pluto in particular is interesting as it's the only single char english server.

jupiter also has strong server loads --- but it's "spikey", load peaks very quickly as people get out of school and work and then past a certain point it dies down fairly quickly.