Some analysis of atWar's activity (or lack of)
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AtWar has a built-in analytics system to tell us how many players are online at any given time. Normally only mods and admins have access to it, although it's not really secret information. In fact, I've shared screenshots from this system myself, in previous posts. I've also shared it with people genuinely interested in knowing what's happening behind the scenes of atWar. I think it's fair to say I've been as open as I can with the community.
Despite this, certain people with axes to grind have recently been sharing screenshots from this system, as if it were some clandestine thing. I don't know what they hope to accomplish, honestly. But that's okay. Let's look at some charts together, and then everyone can make their own decisions. Sound like a good deal?
(By the way, if you read this whole post I have a nice surprise for you, so stay tuned!)
I've seen screenshots going around basically like this:
This shows the last 1 year of players online. I've added a marker at the point where I bought atWar, but otherwise it's unchanged.
What do you see in this chart? My detractors would probably say it proves I've "ruined" atWar, or some other nonsense. They're entitled to their opinions. As for me, I can only tell you what I see, and this chart tells me several things. I'll explain more in a moment, but lets start with the most obvious one: atWar has been in decline for a long time.
The 2 year chart makes this obvious:
You'll note I've drawn 2 lines. The red line marks the lowest point. The yellow line is a crude representation of the overall trend: down. (If I actually took the time to export this data into better charting software, I could do more informative things like moving average lines, but for now we'll just have to make do with my line drawings...)
The 5 year chart makes this even more obvious:
Bottom line? atWar has been in decline for a long time.
Now I've been here for what, 7 months or so? I told everyone at the outset that I thought it would take at least a year to turn things around. There's just so much work that needs to be done to reverse the trend, it can't happen overnight.
Now let's look at the first chart again, and I'll show you the other things I see:
In no particular order:
1) I see "support" around the 110-ish level. By "support" I mean there is a level of regular users who aren't affected by whatever drama of the week is going on. Over the last year, our daily average (the blue line) has never dipped below this 110 "support" number. That tells me our base is holding stable. (now, if the blue average were to drop below 110 I would be concerned, but so far that hasn't been the case, which I take as an encouraging sign....)
2) There was a boost in activity around the time of the ownership change. I think a lot of people were excited, and word got around to some people who hadn't been online for a long time. I might also call this the "honeymoon period". This seemed to gradually taper off after 2-3 months, but it was nice while it lasted.
3) From early-March to mid-May I tested out some new ad campaigns. The goal was to see what kind of traffic we would get, and what our "conversion rate" would be. In other words, for every $X dollars we spend in ads, how many new users would we gain? And how long would they stick around?
I can summarize the results of this in a few sentences. Our click through rate, or the number of people who clicked on our ads and came to the atWar website, was pretty good. Our conversion rate, or the number of people who actually stayed around and played games, was terrible. The lesson here? We need to make improvements so new users will stay around more. Otherwise the money I spend on ads is just going down the drain, and unfortunately I'm not rich enough to justify that!
4) Since then, the number of players online hasn't really changed much. In fairness, I was gone on vacation from late-May to mid-June, so nothing much happened during that time.
After I got back from vacation, I had a sit-down meeting with my marketing director, and we drew up a list of what we feel are the most important changes and improvements that need to be made, before we can justify another ad spend. I am currently working on this list. (I'll reveal what the new things are as they become completed, but if you've been paying attention to what I've publicly discussed of my plans already, what I'm doing now won't be too much of a surprise...)
So there you have it. You've seen some charts, and my analysis of them. Now it's time for the surprise I promised you. Don't take my word for it, check out the charts for yourself:
https://atwar-game.com/system/online.aspx
Enjoy!
If you have any questions, feel free to reply here and ask. Any serious questions will be considered!
Despite this, certain people with axes to grind have recently been sharing screenshots from this system, as if it were some clandestine thing. I don't know what they hope to accomplish, honestly. But that's okay. Let's look at some charts together, and then everyone can make their own decisions. Sound like a good deal?
(By the way, if you read this whole post I have a nice surprise for you, so stay tuned!)
I've seen screenshots going around basically like this:
This shows the last 1 year of players online. I've added a marker at the point where I bought atWar, but otherwise it's unchanged.
What do you see in this chart? My detractors would probably say it proves I've "ruined" atWar, or some other nonsense. They're entitled to their opinions. As for me, I can only tell you what I see, and this chart tells me several things. I'll explain more in a moment, but lets start with the most obvious one: atWar has been in decline for a long time.
The 2 year chart makes this obvious:
You'll note I've drawn 2 lines. The red line marks the lowest point. The yellow line is a crude representation of the overall trend: down. (If I actually took the time to export this data into better charting software, I could do more informative things like moving average lines, but for now we'll just have to make do with my line drawings...)
The 5 year chart makes this even more obvious:
Bottom line? atWar has been in decline for a long time.
Now I've been here for what, 7 months or so? I told everyone at the outset that I thought it would take at least a year to turn things around. There's just so much work that needs to be done to reverse the trend, it can't happen overnight.
Now let's look at the first chart again, and I'll show you the other things I see:
In no particular order:
1) I see "support" around the 110-ish level. By "support" I mean there is a level of regular users who aren't affected by whatever drama of the week is going on. Over the last year, our daily average (the blue line) has never dipped below this 110 "support" number. That tells me our base is holding stable. (now, if the blue average were to drop below 110 I would be concerned, but so far that hasn't been the case, which I take as an encouraging sign....)
2) There was a boost in activity around the time of the ownership change. I think a lot of people were excited, and word got around to some people who hadn't been online for a long time. I might also call this the "honeymoon period". This seemed to gradually taper off after 2-3 months, but it was nice while it lasted.
3) From early-March to mid-May I tested out some new ad campaigns. The goal was to see what kind of traffic we would get, and what our "conversion rate" would be. In other words, for every $X dollars we spend in ads, how many new users would we gain? And how long would they stick around?
I can summarize the results of this in a few sentences. Our click through rate, or the number of people who clicked on our ads and came to the atWar website, was pretty good. Our conversion rate, or the number of people who actually stayed around and played games, was terrible. The lesson here? We need to make improvements so new users will stay around more. Otherwise the money I spend on ads is just going down the drain, and unfortunately I'm not rich enough to justify that!
4) Since then, the number of players online hasn't really changed much. In fairness, I was gone on vacation from late-May to mid-June, so nothing much happened during that time.
After I got back from vacation, I had a sit-down meeting with my marketing director, and we drew up a list of what we feel are the most important changes and improvements that need to be made, before we can justify another ad spend. I am currently working on this list. (I'll reveal what the new things are as they become completed, but if you've been paying attention to what I've publicly discussed of my plans already, what I'm doing now won't be too much of a surprise...)
So there you have it. You've seen some charts, and my analysis of them. Now it's time for the surprise I promised you. Don't take my word for it, check out the charts for yourself:
https://atwar-game.com/system/online.aspx
Enjoy!
If you have any questions, feel free to reply here and ask. Any serious questions will be considered!
Yes, sadly there is too much rankism sometimes. It does not make the atmosphere friendly for beginners.
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I agree 100%.
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A. I would warn against letting regular users have access to the analytics, as far as I'm aware it chugs the ever loving shit out of the server and there have been problems with it in the past where ex-Moderators would secure deep period data and cause a site crawl due to it. B. I don't recall anyone sans Laochra claiming you killed them game. If anyone does say this, they're either new or ignorant to this game's history. For the failure of 2019, I would pin blame on Clovis' continued inactivity, message-dodging, and complete ignorance towards all "bug lists" we've provided to him since late 2017 when he was hired after Mauzer's strike thread. I would blame Sid and other mods (but not Sultan or Sascha) for making it a personal quest to police a small, inherently toxic community yet claiming themselves that the game has been fucked for some time, as well as suggesting (and successfully implementing) procedures and content that negatively impact the game. The sad fact is, outside of AtWar, everyone is a relatively pleasant person. I shared a lot of time chatting with Sid, Sultan, and Sascha about many things besides AtWar and it was all fine. But when it came to running this game, it's like a bipolar switch just went off. I would pin blame on the Supporters for being a group of useless wastes of time sans the following: Alois, Asylan, Erwin, Trystane, and Lelouch. Those five guys put so much goddamn effort in at times it astounded me, and if I am to be unbiased, Hellykin deserves credit for the Spot-A-Noob program, for however long it lasted. I can't say I agree with his current stances, but the man did good nonetheless. C. For the love of god just unban Swans already. I've also seen compelling evidence that xBugs didn't do anything besides toy with the game's 'open' nature, but he's a very volatile person so idgaf. Unleashed was a lost cause, sure, but he literally revived the WW2 scene until his alts were all banned. You literally had an uptick in logins and pique playercounts throughout the month of May (notably when he hosted around five back-to-back games around the third of May and again later that month) when he was playing. I suggested that he be muted from everything sans private, clan, and game chat, as well as being automatically ignored by all players to test a shadow-banning system (with notifications, of course) as a probationary measure and he even agreed to it at one point, but I never heard back from you, and the mods besides Sascha, Sultan, and Brian treated the concept and myself as wastes of time and a hindrance to their AtWar janitorial duties. I understand his history and the hoops the mods jumped through with him, but under the conditions I described I see only a sound business decision and an uptick in revenue if WW2 would be pursued further. I even begun work on a remaster of Tik-Tok's original WW2 with heavy support from Andartes, Unleashed, Tunder, Jugers, 4nic, and a load of others to make it as perfect as possible and to suggest it as a new free/default map to excite players even more and give them more content to play with. This couldn't be possible without Unleashed, and this project went nowhere and was trounced when policing the site became more important than giving players new content. D. The current "death" of AtWar is due to an issue I outlined to you over a month ago before I bowed out to pursue my own personal business ventures, and that issue has yet to be fixed. Your minimum threshold userbase- those who will give you their money for PCs and Premium- are the ones being affected negatively by the Moderator and Supporter teams. This is your game, run it however you desire, but you'll be losing most every old(er) player over time due to it. We agreed in the past that the site needed a facelift, a rebranding perhaps, and a revitalization of gameplay elements, scenes, and options. I tried my very best in this regard, spending upwards of hundreds of hours from February to May doing so, but you capitulated to censorship-happy individuals with expressive personality types rather than instrumental ones, what this platform needed. Overall, you were a nice guy Dave, I enjoyed participating in development with you and others such as Sultan, Laochra, Tunder, Unleashed, Mauzer, Trystane, 4nic, and so on, but you made it very clear to me that you respect the opinions of those who do nothing but silence any opposition to the current administration than those with experience and a drive to improve things, for free no less. I am indeed personally exhausted with this website after nearly a decade of participating in it, so excuse my pessimism if it comes off as maudlin and ornery. And to the very small minority of you cowtowing to this game's infernal nature this year and making everyone's time on this game all the more worse (Looking at SP Police and Oblivion here): Go to fuck.
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I think rankism is ok because rank, to a very limited extent defines skill and experience. You can still play on that map, just make your own game! You wouldn't want to play poker with a handful of people who don't even know how the game works or a game of competitive counter strike with new players on your team. Rankists have an expectation of skill required to make the game fun. This is true of any for-fun game, you wouldn't want to just constantly beat people or be pulled down by a noob on your team.
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On the original point of this, thanks for walking us through this, Dave. I've been a player for 4-5 years and all I've ever known is people calling this the "decline" of atwar, always remaining hopeful that they were wrong. Yes traffic has been declining, but not because of the new ownership, it looks like a natural decline from events (or the lack of) that took place way before Dave. After talking to him, it seems he is just as ambitious as when he first came aboard which keeps the fire going in me as well. Keep up the good work and know that we will always be behind you unless you really screw something up!
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You exaggerate, distort, and tell half-truths. Why don't you start a blog documenting your experience with these apparently so unfair people that you have criticised. I am sure you will find plenty of followers and the attention that you so desperately need.
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Wow. I had no idea you had so much pent up hostility towards me. Granted we haven't chatted since before my vacation, probably my fault cuz I've been afraid to open discord and the hundreds of messages I probably have built up in there by now, but I hadn't realized anything had changed between us since then. Maybe if we talked sooner we could have cleared up a lot of this already. Some things I want to say, in no particular order: - I don't know why you ever wanted to be a supporter. Don't take that the wrong way... you obviously have put a lot of thought into game development, meta, strategies, etc., but supporters have nothing to do with any of that. As I've said before, the purpose of supporters is to help out new players, host tournaments, promote social media, things like that. You didn't seem to be interested in any of those things, I think your only interest was in development. That's fine, but those kinds of decisions are not made by supporters... they're made by me after discussing it with people I trust, including that group I invited you to (which again I've been inactive with since my vacation... due to discord avoidance I already mentioned). So I think there is some confusion about what supporters are supposed to do, and perhaps you are judging supporters based on expectations that I don't have and never intended. - If you've never heard back from me about something I'm sorry, but please don't conclude that means I have "decided" to ignore you. Give me a little slack and remind me for fucks sake! For example I honestly don't know what issue it was that you outlined a month ago. Maybe it's in my discord messages, if so my fault for not reading it yet. But I haven't "decided" anything. - Also I don't know when I "capitulated" to anyone... I certainly wasn't aware I had done any such thing! As far as I know, I was still waiting on YOU to finish things like the new map presets you were working on. I think they're a very cool idea and I want to add it, I've just been waiting for you to tell me when they're ready. - As for WW2.... if I recall I was the one who spent hours fishing around backups for a un-fucked copy of it for you, then put it into your account to work with. I was trying to encourage your efforts, not stifle them! - Finally, I remember having a conversation with you at some point months ago because I was worried about you getting burned out... do you remember that? I told you that I didn't want you exhausting yourself because you felt some obligation or something... I was happy to work with you to the extent you were still having fun. But for Gods sake I didn't want you working yourself to death because of me. I wanted you to have fun, not work!
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That's a valid point. High rank players have just as much right to enjoy the game with others of their skill level, as noobs should be able to enjoy with their own skill level. But it's also true that it's almost all world map in the beginners lobby, and the interesting games are in the main room, where it's hard for noobs to get in. Maybe if the beginners side was more lively then it wouldn't be an issue.
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Lol if I ever really screw something up, I'm counting on you to call me out on it!
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Sid is an ass kisser. He is never going to call you out in anything. To him is either "You are team Dave or you are dead" "Daddy Dave"
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Sid doesn't have to agree with me. He doesn't have to like me. All that matters is we respect each other. I listen to the people I respect, whether it's good or bad. What have you done lately to earn my respect? 
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I don't know how I come off as hostile towards you, especially after defending your stance again. I stopped messaging you because I quit and didn't want to bother you. I have nothing against you Dave, I don't know how much more clear I can make that. It was my own decision to distance myself from AtWar because of actions moderators took as I described, not you. You did miles for me, and I tried my best to compensate but too many conflictions brought about my need to just stop. That is indeed true, and this is yet another reason why I quit to go work on my own projects. I was led believe going in to the gig that you needed help fixing the game, so I did my best to coordinate that. What I never heard back from you on was a PM on here actually. And the issue I brought up had already manifested by the time I could have reminded you, but what's done is done. Capitulation to the Moderation team. I guess you're unaware of what they've been up to, or you're in support of it. Either way, I don't have much interest in working on this game if I can't play it with my friends like Laochra, Swans, and Trystane. I'm sure you can understand what I'm saying. I don't recall saying you personally stifled the development, that was meant towards the moderation team. I appreciate what you did for me, and I always tried to make up for it whether it be doing PC drops for hours, having players test new content for hours, purchasing PC, etc. So I don't want to come off as disrespectful, thank you for the time you put in. Of course I remember that, but the issue was that while you were gone, the moderators in my opinion went overboard and my friends all quit because of it. What I told you in that PM was to watch out for certain moderators that might make bad decisions trying to do good, and that's exactly what happened.
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Its impossible to seperate banter from toxicity because the only diference is the participation of parties involved. If a player is unwilling to be involved they should not be liable to harrassment and that is the issue with why these individuals are banned in the first place. They take away the right of the individual to enjoy the game in the way they see fit. If you all want to fuck with each other that "should" be fine. But outside parties should have a choice in the way they enjoy content. Which means they should not be victim to rampant toxicity. If the individual can not be responsible in realizing that the other party is willing or unwilling to recieve banter/toxicity it is up to moderation to enforce guidelines, and when these individual fight the mods for doing their jobs they end up in worse trouble.
----  We are not the same- I am a Martian.
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I am a legacy customer, Is not my duty to earn your respect. What could I even do to earn such a thing without having to literally work for you for free? Lol I ain't doing that bro
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I found your PM, re-read it, and replied to it if you want to talk further there. It's my fault for failing to follow up, I didn't mean anything by it.
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I guess you've never heard of the Golden Rule? You know, treat others as you want to be treated? You're right about one thing, you have no duty to earn my respect. And I have no duty to earn yours. Just don't expect me to care the next time you need something from me.
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Imo, like Isilorien you should enforce supporters to at least try to host a minimum number of games (whatever number you'd think is sufficient) because back when I was on the team I struggled trying to keep hosting drop games each week to meet our budget alone mainly because of my work schedule conflicting with that. Honestly the supporters don't even need to play the games as long as they can get them going and at least invest 1 hour to ensure a game gets started, whether it be beginners or main I think that'll be a necessity to entice more activity on game. Also the drop games helped so much because not only did it help introduce people to new maps that players had been working on, it also gave players incentives because the SP helps lower ranks get necessary upgrades they need and it helps non-prems get PC's that they can use for whatever they want. Also the most important thing being they are fun to engage in(which is the most important thing for players is to enjoy themselves). The lack of drop games now is pretty crazy, I still float around the game to see what new shit goes on and it's crazy because I only see Hdrakon hosting drop games occasionally which is quite the deviation from how it was back when I was still supporter. If any of this proves hard to implement at the very LEAST bring back Hellykin's support a noob program. It was such a good idea for the time it had been going on and it granted some new players premium for a time to get a taste of what it was like, it sucks the idea ended up falling flat because he hadn't been hosting it again. I think the support a noob program should at least be apart of the supporter's standard to at least get one going a month That's just my constructive take on the situation, but make of that what you will. I honestly think if things were going now how they were maybe 3-4 months ago the game would be in a better place to say the least, I hope you consider my points
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My IQ just dropped 90 points after reading your message. Wtf I love Dave now. #DaddyDave #TeamSid #FuckLao.
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It's difficult to "enforce" when people are volunteering their time.... I can ask but that's about it. Or else I do what, demote them? We did recently demote a few who were clearly inactive but that alone doesn't make more activity happen. As always some supporters put in more effort than others, that's just the way it is. I do know (and appreciate) you were one of the ones who put in a lot during your time. I do agree with your points though. There's definitely a lack of drops going on. The support a noob program was a good thing and I'm not sure why it stopped... I'll encourage Helly to do it again if he has time, or if he doesn't have time maybe someone else can take it up. I also have an idea I don't want to say too much about yet, but I think there may be ways we can reward supporters for being active that might encourage them to help out more. It's something I'm thinking about anyway.
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I know it used to be like 250, so welcome back to the realm of men. As always, thank you for your support!
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I try to. I've tried to host some of these games lately but there are hardly any people who are interested because the games are barely filled. Last week, for example, I tried to play a drop game but the game was not filling and this wasn't the first time, and that is why I decided to hold a PC and SP reward tournament and after this tournament is over I plan to host another one for low ranks. In addition, sometimes it's also exhausting when there are trolls that destroy the drop game on purpose. There were few big scenarios that I've hosted that failed. We waited at least an hour in each to fill up and then when I transferred ownership towards the start it fell on trolls and they were determined not to start and there was no mod online who could help in this case. Maybe dave can allow us to choose to who we can transfer the ownership to to solve this problem? Another thing that I noticed is when brian used the news channel to promote a drop game the game filled with 20 players in less than 1 minute. That's a good way to reach out to everyone.
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No time to read all those contributions atm but I just put it here, as a reaction to hdrzkon last post : is it possible to add the option when u can transfer the game ownership to the player you want and who's in the game? The system is fucked up atm since sometimes random noob is granted with it and do whatever he likes
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I don't know, but I'll find out.
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To put it out there: no one in high rank scenarios discourages new players to join and try a side. The older players generally like helping out new ones as long as they are ready to listen to guidance on what to do and have a basic grasp of how atwar works. This is specifically r6-r8 who are developing skills but unsure to try new games. The reason rankism sometimes exists because new players complain ' never played this before' or 'dont like this i will leave early' as an excuse to play poorly. If newer players put themselves out there to a new experience generally get along fine.
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As an addition to this- the problem with lack of games is having 2 separate lobbies. A suggestion would be to merge the two lobbies and hopefully with time, in future create more advanced AI tutorial with AI games, to develop new players in basic skills before allowing them to play online once they reach a standard.
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