Free Allegiance Forums

I know this comes up every year, and that i am a fairly recent member of the community, but as far i recall last year we were around 600 on the leaderboard, and today its just 498, non us prime time is basically non existing now. What is happening to our attendance? How can we change this trend? I know we have an advertising team who do what they can to help, is there any other way that membership numbers could be raised?

I remember a thread some time ago where there was a panic because we dropped below 700 on the leaderboard... Sigh, those were the days.

Edit: The moral is, whatever it was that we tried doing back then, it didn't work.

Snufkin brings up a good point.

Instead of moping on the forum, get off your arse and go play a game or two. Even in the busiest times I try to play on a few days each week. The numbers are so low now that each pilot that shows up makes the games better.

It's a self feeding problem as well. A new guy finds Allegiance and logs on... most of the day he/she sees a dead game with maybe 2 - 3 people logged on. Why the hell would that person ever log back on again?

Funny thing this.

I mostly play 22:00 -00:00 GMT and the quality of games I have played recently have been some of the most fun and competitive I have played in a long while.

refill wrote:QUOTE (refill @ Dec 5 2009, 05:32 PM) Funny thing this.

I mostly play 22:00 -00:00 GMT and the quality of games I have played recently have been some of the most fun and competitive I have played in a long while.

Indeed, the games are good. They really are, but there are only players in a narrow timeslot. Weekends are ok (like now) but on weekdays there is only life on the servers from SGT -1 onwards.

It's getting to that time where some people are starting to study for exams (Mine aren't til February though), and certain people's parents are being douchebags...

Its not just the time period. It is somewhat that. It contributes to the fluctuation, yes I got my exam period as well (but lets face it, the most attractive time to play is when you got to study for complex analysis exam). But its even lower than last year this time.

are there stats on players numbers and such?

No, just people memories. And we are indeed losing numbers. In my entire alleg career, I have never seen it go below 600 (until now).

So the question really is: why is this happening? People leave, that is natural. Somehow the inflow-outflow is out of balance. I can't recall a big drop in the numbers at the time of the R5 release, but could it be repelling newbies?

And what can we do about it that is more effective than the advertising? Would a website re-design be possibly more open to new members to get into the community?